John fucking Carver, the self-described best manager in the Premier League, would've been our most successful manager of all time in terms of stats had he not been given the position after Pardew left in January 2015.
Back in 2004, John Carver was made caretaker manager after the sacking of Sir Bobby Robson, and managed a single game against Blackburn; we won that game 3-0, with Carver dedicating the victory to Sir Bobby. However, he was never meant to stay at the helm, and Graeme Souness was hired immediately afterwards, while Carver left the club and joined Leeds United's coaching staff.
He remained the only Newcastle United manager with a 100% win rate for the next 10 years, and returned to the club in late 2011 as Alan Pardew's assistant. In January 2015 he was promoted to caretaker manager for the second time and took us from comfortably mid-table to a relegation dogfight with a sensational 8-game losing streak, and we managed to stay up after beating West Ham on the last day of the season (with that legendary goal from Jonas Gutierrez that will be forever etched into my memory). Carver was sacked right after the game, went on to coach Omonia Nicosia and was shite. We got treated to a Steve McClaren right next season.
John Carver's two tenures combined, the 1W-0D-0L in 2004 and the 3W-4D-13L in 2015 unfortunately dropped his historical win rate from 100% to a somewhat weaker 19%.
I’ve been writing short stories throughout 2020 and wanted to get some tips on different styles. The last 3 weeks I’ve been tackling as many short stories as I possible can. Some of which are quite good. After this little experiment I have come to some conclusions.
John Cheever is the best short story author I have found. I just love his way of writing. “The Swimmer” “Goodbye, my Brother” “The Enormous Radio” we’re clear highlights.
Raymond Carver is nearly as good. “Fat” “Cathedral” and “They’re not your Husband” are some of my favorites.
Hemingway is good but I honestly prefer his novels.
Other great short stories that I really enjoyed were “The Dead” “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Willows.”
Any other short story fanatics n here?
I just finished my first play through of DS3, and thought it was a good game overall, but the solo campaign felt kind of broken with the way they locked content behind the co-op wall. If you play the solo campaign there really is no attempt to tell Carver’s story or build his friendship with Isaac. It literally jumps from “we’re not friends” at the beginning to “you’re a good man we’re best friends” at the end with no in between to establish the friendship unless you play co-op. John either just stands there doing nothing or it’s “we’re cut off I’ll catch up to you later”, and then he just appears next to Isaac in the cut scene like he was always there which is so broken, especially when you hear him talking to you when fighting the snow beast and the nexus as though he’s fighting with you when he’s not. Anyway it makes solo a bit of a mess.
A better way would have been to make John into an NPC companion (and not lock his content behind co-op, geezus EA...). That way he would have actually been there with Isaac fighting, helping, gradually building their alliance and friendship. It would have made John seem like a real character. And the devs could have doubled the necro hoards to offset the extra help which would have created more awesome encounters.
Nothing would change with co-op. A friend could jump right in and take control of John like before. But the story should be available in solo as well to prevent the distorted jump from frienemies to besties if you skip the co-op. Don’t break the solo campaign to create co-op. Dumb EA
