UW-Whitewater reports that Madison is the fourth most literate city in the United States. This only goes to show that with enough data to select from, you can use statistics to prove anything. Madison is indeed a very "literate" city -- if you take that to mean the relatively high concentration of bookshops, coffee shops and number of cab drivers with post-doctoral experience. Nevertheless, I would have enjoyed this more if the UW-Whitewater people had cooked the numbers so that Albuquerque came in first.

They could have collapsed after the horrible draw against Fulham last week, but West Ham came out with all guns blazing away at Newcastle on Saturday. A wonderful goal by Marlon Harewood showed that the strong striker still has the capability to sting. Not long later Carlton Cole scored on a great corner kick to being the game to 2-0. Newcastle seemed to recover but only threatened when individual ran on to long balls. A horrible but accidental elbow to the head took Quashie off the field for five minutes with a huge gash to the head that bled spectacularly. Newcastle did nothing with the man advantage and once he came back on, Quashie was immediately bringing the back four of Newcastle under pressure. West Ham still look incredibly uncertain when they are forced to defend quickly, but only a few times in the first half was there any pressure from Newcastle. Roy Carroll had to save a great ball from Nicky Butt and Butt also had a good chance on a free kick right before the end of the first half. Then, on an obvious offside, Newcastle got a goal back. The argument was that Carroll was impeded by a screen who did not play the ball. The new offside rule once again costs West Ham a goal right before the half.

Coming back from the unfortunate set of goals that seem to happen right at the end of a half is a test for West Ham. It happened with Fulham and cost them two points. It happened with Fulham and now it happened again in the first half against Newcastle. For the first ten minutes of the second half, West Ham ws purely in defensive mode -- only occasionally being able to counterattack. Then, Boa Morte puts his hand on a ball in the box. Solano scores the penalty easily. The decision just before halftime clearly changed the game and they gave up a 2-0 lead. Newcastle's Martens threatened often and Ferdinand had trouble keeping him marked. At 65 minutes after a dangerous corner kick, Davenport put the ball into the net but was called for pushing off the much smaller Solono. Long balls from Newcastle continued to put West Ham in trouble. The attacks came most often on the righthand side with Milner running down long balls to that side or being fed balls that he could turn back into the box. One could say that West Ham simply held on for the remainder of the game.

So, instead of 3 points against Fulham and 3 points against Newcastle, West Ham gets a total of two points. That might be the four points they needed to stay up. If you were willing to be encouraged you might point to the fact that they are scoring goals -- three last week and two this week. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is that they have given up 11 goals in three games. It would have been more without Roy Carroll.

There's still a chance for West Ham this year, but the chances are fewer and the hopes are increasingly desparate.