Fat Man In The Bathtub

Hold On

2011-10-28T21:15:00.000Z

I arsed about with the layout and that, one night while I was somewhat worse for wear. Christ knows what I've done.

I'm going to talk a bit about Blues and a bit about me. I've tended not to talk about me on this blog, but I've not been very fucking well, and I'm told that, in trying to introduce a bit of change, it's good to keep a bit of a journal. So, I will use a highly public forum to shame my bastard self.

Perversely, it's a good time to be a Blues fan. No pot in which to piss, a team made up of players who have been tossed out of the bargain bin into the skip outside, and I am enjoying watching them more than at any time since the Jim Smith years, and so is every other rational Blues fan. Even those who were not born in the Jim Smith years. Our neighbours, as I said at the time, did us a massive favour taking Eck off our hands, and while I am not grateful to them for much, I am grateful to them for that. We may have lost a manager and practically a whole premiership squad, (not to mention an owner) but we have gained a soul. Football can be fun, and it can be exhilarating. Who'd have thunk it?

Right. I have an ego, but I'm not a vain man. I don't worry over much about my appearance, and never have, so, as I got older, and fatter, it didn't bother me; there was always another size of waist band to aspire to. But I get migraines, I always feel like shit, I don't tend to sleep well, I am a snoring bastard, and I keep getting fucking gout, painful, disabling gout.

My employer sent me to occ health, because, when I can't stand, walk or drive, I don't go into work, although I do turn up when I can hobble, however painfully. Last time, I got a lift in, could barely weight bear, but got there. Not good enough, I had taken 2 days off, which work found intolerable. The occ health was a bit of a curates egg. She agreed that I couldn't help it, told my employer that they shouldn't be harsh on me and should do all they could to help, said I was covered by disability discrimination act (result!), but also gave me an almighty and lengthy bollocking about my lifestyle.

I could have been dishonest about my lifestyle, but it would have been pointless; you don't need me to tell you about it, you just have to look at me, and the story is there, in glorious technicolour. She wasn't the only one to issue a lengthy finger wagging, the GP did too, a couple of weeks ago. Went in for some gout tablets, she took my BP, it was really, really fucking high, So. I am fed up of getting bollocked by women who I don't happen to be wedded too, and I'm a bit fed up of being a physical wreck, so, I'm having a go.

Not much of a go, to be honest. I'm getting stuck into the vino as I type, but great oaks from little acorns and all that.

A go is a go though. Last Thursday I made a huge salad. A raw veg salad. Dunno what was in it altogether, but it included cauliflower, peppers, chicory, fennel and fuck knows what else (I can feel a recipe book coming on) all chopped up small and put in a box, ready for dinner at work, with a simple sumac dressing that I took along. It was delicious, but took some munching, it took about an hour to get through it, but it filled me up, and I didn't feel all bloated and lethargic. I've done a similar thing twice this week. It's not much, but it's a start. I've even bought a groovy little lunch box, with 3 compartments and an integral little pot so you can take your dressing with you, rather than let your leaves go all soggy and revolting.

I'm not revolutionising my diet: fuck that for a game of tin soldiers, it's too hard. It's much harder to prepare a load of raw veg and make it nice than knock out a bacon and egg sarnie, and I'm a busy man, but I will make some effort, a bit more than a token effort. Today I had a bacon sarnie for breakfast, a load of raw veg followed by loads of fruit for dinner and a huge, fuck off bag of Doritos for my tea. With wine for pudding. And supper. Believe it or not, this is progress, by my standards.

I should exercise too, but at the moment that seems like a scary step too far. The truth is, when I eat all this raw shit, I feel better, and energised, but I just love all the shit stuff too much. I can't see me ever giving it up………. but I do intend to balance it with good food, proper good food, food that feeds, and nourishes, rather than fills, and I will try a bit of exercise too. I've tried before, but it's always been my guilty secret. This time I've gone public, and I shall share and I shall be brutally honest with myself.

Should be fun.

Now, does anyone know where I put that hair shirt?

Gentle Spirit

2011-09-30T21:28:00.002Z

I have recently read Scream If You Want To Faster, by Russ Litten, in one of my periodic ambles away from the crime genre. I really, really fucking dug it. It's an account of the lives of various people in Hull, with Hull Fair and the big flood taking centre stage. It reminded me a bit of the film Crash, not too much though, as I suspect you would be staring at Hull for some time before the city of Los Angeles entered into your consciousness.

There's no real story or plot to it; it is an episodic ramble among the denizens of a run down city and an exploration of the ways in which the bastard universe can always find a way to blow a bit of sand into a sandwich. It focuses on those at the bottom of the social scale, those earning an honest but poor living, or not earning a living at all, and finding ways to get through the working week, so that they can piss it all up the wall at the weekend. It's a bit like one of those Jimmy Mcgovern dramas but without the piety and sanctimony. I'd love to see it on the telly, actually, it would make several great "Plays For Today". They don't do that sort of thing any more though.

Iv'e been sat here in the back yard, drinking a nice bottle of white, surfing the net and listening to the brilliant Jonathan Wilson, with his summery yet dark vibe. And it's about time too.............bastard weather.

We need to talk about Blues. Some Blues fans are taking this whole, lets pretend we don't care that we are shit shtick a bit far. It's becoming a cliche, like singing we want seven when the opposition have stuck 6 past you.

I had high hopes of Chris Hughton, still do, I like the cut of his jib, and unlike his predecessor, the hilarious Scot, he puts his money where his mouth is, but we are a very tattered and ravaged sows ear, no silk purse will be made from the players we have at our disposal. It is ironic, nay, it is fucking tragic that after the cold porridge served up be Eck, Hughton is trying to give us more sophisticated fare, but we still couldn't score in a barrel of fannies. We have a few nice salad leaves, livened up here and there wwith the odd caper or spring onion, but it all lacks a bit of zing and a bit of punch.

I can see why people are pretending to be happy, but they are letting their determination to be seen to be true to the cause cloud their judgement. For all the talk on message boards that players like Spector and Caldwell and Elliot are good enough, the sad fact is, they ain't. And neither are the scrag ends that couldn't be offloaded in the summer. The chumps that got us relegated would have been good enough, just about, cast offs from the Scottish league and 19 year old Kiwis won't be.

Fair enough, it is fun. Fair enough, it is better to watch. Fair enough, some awfully boring cunts no longer seem to want to watch us, but we are deeply fucking wounded and are sleepwalking into catastrophe. The Yeung situation is diabolical. The less credulous among us wondered about him before his arrest, but since, well, what a bleeding embarrassment. We clearly have no pot to piss in, not even a pot with holes, and we have no idea if we ever will again, while we have theses owners. Other teams get relegated and don't find themselves in this pickle; they keep some players, they manage to sign some players, for a fee.

This is a scratch team and it is difficult to know what to make of them, difficult to understand why they are here. It is difficult to believe that any of them would want to be with us if they had better offers. Marlon King evidently saw us as more attractive than Coventry, but that was before Yeungs arrest. This is the thing. Before the arrest, we seemed to be doing aright, getting players in early and talking of not giving the failures away for fuck all. As soon as Yeung was arrested though, that was it. Taps turned off.

I'm enjoying the moment, the Maribor win was a brilliant sideshow, and we might even flatter to deceive until Christmas, but I would not be surprised to see the rest of last years failures, plus Burke and any other player who shows a bit of form depart, come January

Coast to Coast

2011-08-19T21:04:00.006Z

DUCKS DELUXE - Coast To Coast (OGWT, 1974) by newcanadian

I’ve been reading Pete Dexter’s Spooner. I knew Dexter was a brilliant writer……….Deadwood is brilliant (and, if David Milch didn’t read that before making his telly programme, I will eat my hat), Paris Trout is brilliant, and Train is the second best sports book I have ever read. I have read a lot of sports books, but only one about golf; I can’t stand golf, so for a book about a golfer to be my second favourite sport book gives you a hint about how magnificent it is. So it didn’t come as a surprise that I should like Spooner.

What did come as a surprise was the sheer enormity and brilliance of it. I had to spend a few moments alone once I’d finished it, just to gather my thoughts, and, once I had gathered my thoughts, I was pissed off that I had finished it.

I got into Dexter years ago, probably before the internet was invented, certainly before the likes of me had access to it, but, as you do when you really like an author, you find out what you can. What I could find was all a bit bitty and scrappy, but it was clear that he had lived a very interesting life, and is quite a character. What makes Spooner particularly interesting is that it puts substantial meat on the bones of the bits and pieces that you already know. What makes it special is the writing, which is typically deadpan and matter of fact, but which is capable of making you piss yourself laughing and force you to suppress the odd unmanly tear.

I kid you not about the humour. One bit had me reflecting back throughout the day last Friday, and, every time I reflected back, I had a giggling fit………in work twice, and standing in the queue at Sainsburys, once. And again now, typing this. If you buy it, or borrow it, and you would be mad not to, don’t pass over the acknowledgements at the end, they are masterful.

Usually, once I finish a book as good as Spooner, I struggle to get into another one, but this time I had the good luck to pick up Gene Kerrigans “Rage”. This is a compeletely different kind of book, being an Irish thriller, but it is fucking cracking, as Kerrigans books tend to be. I haven’t finished it yet, but is keeping me up nights, with the familiar mantra………”just one more page”. If a Martian descends and want to know about life at is experienced they will gain more insight from seemingly slight thrillers like this than any number of middle class mediations by the likes of Julian Barnes.

The main thing that Kerrigan does well in this book is write a brilliant, page turning thriller. What he also does well is take a long, hard gaze at Ireland in the aftermath of the great crash. The best writers recognise that there are no moral absolutes, and the best writers, write in the genre of crime. In this book, Kerrigan spares the people who milked Ireland dry no mercy, but recognises that they were greedy, flawed human beings, not all bad, not all good. He extends the same sympathy to the more brutal, common or garden, villains, who are given a history and a hinterland and are mot portrayed simple as evil monsters (take note James Lee Burke) and the good guy, the extremely likeable good cop, also exists in a dubious moral universe.

Kerrigan, incidentally, wrote one of the better pieces I read on the riots last week.

Most of my favourite writers at the moment are from, or write about, the margins; the bits that the mainstream either ignores, or demonises. Thank god for the internet, because it doesn’t matter how brilliantly these people write, you are unlikely to see their work reviewed in the weekend supplements.

There is Kerrigan, obviously, and the peerless Ken Bruen as well as others, like Stuart Neville and Brian McGilloway from Ireland, There is Niall Giffiths, who is not from Wales but may as well be and Robert Lewis who is. There is Ray Banks, Tony Black Alan Guthrie and fucking loads of others from Scotland, and there are people like Ron Rash, Daniell Woodrell, Philipp Mayer, and William Gay. There is not a bad writer among that lot, and there are plenty more where they come from. Unfortunately for them, they write uncomfortable truths, from the heartlands and the hinterlands, from the broken towns and valleys that few people wish to hear about, so will remain as marginalised as the people and the towns they write about.

Blues played in Europe last night. Yes. Blues. In Europe. I emphasise it only because it seems to have become compulsory. The great Bluenose Diaspora is beside itself because we played Nacional, in Madeira, in a competition that no one gives a shit about, with a team that, in the main, contributed nothing to us qualifying for the competition. Don’t get me wrong, I am chuffed about it, and it was good to watch, on a slightly dodgy internet feed, but fuck me, lets have a bit of perspective. Every time Blues achieve something our fans lose all sense of reason. First cup final since……….highest finish since……….first European game since…………….on and on it goes. We have been in Europe before, playing and getting good results against serious opposition, I really don’t think there is any need to come over all unnecessary on account of a glorified friendly.

Someone mentioned on a message board that a Portuguese report described us as quality opposition. Interesting word that: quality. Even the most diehard Blues fan would be staring at last nights team sheet for a long time before the word quality sprang to mind. Few of the starters last night, or in any other game so far this season, would even have made the bench last year. Let’s not forget, last year we were shit. Last years lot were frequently excused on the grounds that if they were any good, they wouldn’t be playing for Birmingham City.

So, in terms of the league we find ourselves in, and the league from which we recently and so indecorously departed, our players, with the best of all wills, cannot be described as quality. But, there is a fucking BUT to consider. Despite the lack of innate quality in the individuals, our new manger seems to be intent on getting them to play quality football, and, incredibly, seems to be succeeding. Forget all the lachrymose bollocks about the great European adventure, this seems like a bright new morning for another reason………we are passing the ball………….to each other!

I’m not daft, these players have been offloaded by teams as mediocre as us, so they will make mistakes, miss easy chances, and give away silly goals, but I don’t care. I accept that we are in the shit, but, playing the game with a bit of élan and purpose, even if it doesn’t always produce the desired result, makes our predicament a hell of a lot easier to bear.

A good man, nay, a great man, asked what I had been listening too lately, and I nevr need a second invite, so here goes, if they are on spotify I will provide a spotify link, but most of these berks aren't millionaires, so it would be courteous to buy a track or three.

Low Anthem: Smart Flesh. Can't really say much about it,more of the same good shit that went before. Not particularly recommended if you need cheering up on a Friday night, not that they are imelancholy, it just sounds like it sometimes

The Felice Brothers: Celebration Florida. Mixed reviews, but there are some fucking classic Felice tracks on there

Gillian Welch: The Harrow and the Harvest: the more you listen, the better it gets

Doug Paisley: constant Companion. Mellow Americana, you have to be in the mood, really.

Mickey Newberry: American Trilogy. Genius at work. Loads of Newberry on spotify, but not this album. Go to his website and you will be able to download 4 tracks, for free.

Danny and the Champions of the World: Hearts and Arrows. A bit of a change of pace and outlook for the Champ. He's gone all pub rock on us, but it's ace. Fucking nothing wrong with a bit of pub rock

Israel Nash Gripka: Barn Doors and Concrete Floors. Ace Americana. Not glum.

http://open.spotify.com/album/1jizPwt9toWCBXUmqetJ48

Musikanto: Sky of Dresses. Brilliant, low key, quirky Americana

http://open.spotify.com/album/1dad0lKC1HEnbh4ynr7CZK

Aiden Moffat and Bill Wells: Everythings Getting Older. Morose but humorous brilliance. Best record I've heard in ages. Not for the delicate.

http://open.spotify.com/album/3GMuRdRY13Ui3jUE1oWG2f

Robyn G Shiels: The Great Depression. God knows where this bloke has been hiding. Some kind of maverick genius

Mick Terry: The Grown Ups. Found via twitter. Lovely, er cockney troubador stuff, more than worth a listen.

http://open.spotify.com/album/2Tz7dOFGnYvnp9XnmMtw20

Where Only The Graves Are Real

2011-08-08T10:50:00.002Z

I recently read “Slipping Into Darkness” by Peter Blauner. I think I paid a pound for it from an Amazon seller. It’s a great book, as all of his are. He recognises that life is generally lived in a grey moral area, he acknowledges that when faced with difficult choices, sometimes wrong choices are made, he recognises that sometimes, we are faced with impossible choices, and he does not shirk from exploring the consequences of them. He recognises that people may do bad things for good reasons, but does not then excuse them from the consequences of their actions. Most of all though, he writes brilliant prose. I’m surprised he is not better known. His writings at his website are well worth a look

I mention it because the first book of his that I read, many years ago, was “Slow Motion Riot”, and, certain parts of our capital city have been subject to some rioting over the weekend. The point Blauner makes in his book, is that when the actuall riot occurs, it is the culmination of series of much smaller events.The particular community had been enduring a slow motion riot, that had gone unnoticed, because no one cared. A community had been steadily brutalised by the indifference of big government, by the actions of the police and by the actions of some of its own members. No one noticed, no one cared, until the headline event.

Like a fool, I listen to 5live and I read football message boards and I see and hear the debate that goes on. It seems that there can only be two viewpoints, either: big government demonstrates a cruel indifference to those on the lower rungs of the ladder and the police are nothing more than oppressors, or, every rioter is nothing more than a thug and a thief, just out enjoying himself. I don’t think it as simple or as black and white as that. I do think that if the people that rioted felt that they had a chance in life they would be less inclined to burn the place down, but I’m not daft, I realise that there are people who love a good tear up..........you will see ‘em at football matches every week.

What is lacking in this piecemeal national debate is any recognition that all these different acts, by all these different actors, are perpetrated by individuals, with different moral and economic viewpoints, different standards. These riots didn’t just happen, they evolved, over time, as result of all those small actions, good and bad that have happened over time. Injustices visited upon the yoof, real or percieved, economic or otherwise, have, over time, contributed to the explosion of anger that occurred over the weekend. This shit needs to be dealt with. Big government and little government should pay more attention to what the fuck is going on outside its own rarified atmosphere, and someone, somewhere, needs to penetrate the skulls of the seriously disaffected and teach them that, however downtrodden they are, they can make their own choices, and they need to exercise some responsibility for themselves.

The good news is that the football season has started. Blues lost, but the important thing is not the result, the important thing is that the bastard close season is over. Football is back.

There’s little point worrying about Blues. I don’t trust our owners to tell us the truth, but then, what’s new? It is now obvious that we cannot afford to buy anyone to replace all the ~~stars~~ journeymen that have left and will leave, and we are back to giving trials to jobbing Brazilians who seem to make a good living travelling around Europe, making no impression at all. The fact that neither the parachute payment, nor the fees and savings accruing from sales is helping, indicates that we are in some deep shit.

It’s a bit of a shame because Chris Hughton seems to be a manager who isn’t afraid of getting the ball and men forward, and, if he had been in a position to get some quality in, we might have been looking forward to a good season, full of goals and entertainment. It will still be fun, and, by the look of it we will still at least try to create chances, but it looks like it could be a bit of slog.

Judgement, is of course reserved. I remember Eck coming in with fine talk of changing our style to a passing game, and then, after his first game saying,"they passed it too much". Early indications are that Hughton has a commitment to passing and getting players forward in practice, as well as theory though. He seems to be inclined to change things around early enough to give the subs a chance to make a difference. I have accepted that we aren’t likely to make much of an impression this season, and, on that basis, I’m really looking forward to it

That video up there, it's worth a look, Otis Gibbs is a serious talent. He is touring the UK soon and you would be mad not to go see him. I urge a visit to his website too, it's full of good stuff, including a free stream of his latest, wonderful album.

Tree By A River

2011-07-28T17:19:00.003Z

Iron and Wine | Tree by the river | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Well. It’s been a rum old world since I could last be arsed to blog. The Arab Spring hasn’t developed into a summer, there is drought in Somalia, The Mad Hatters and their Tea party are intent upon visiting ruination upon the U.S, our dear coalition has been seen to be in the pocket of News International, a right wing nutter has massacred children in Norway and Christ knows what else has been going on. Far too much to mention.

Given all that, it is quite understandable that events down the Blues have been dominating my thinking. I’ll come to that later.

First, the wonder of the internet. I feel a bit sorry for my kids, who don’t realise what a miracle it is. All they know is that if they want something, it is instantly available, by fair means or foul. I was telling my youngest about dial a disc the other day, which we all thought was brilliant at the time, as it gave us instant expensive access to a menu of about 6 songs. I didn’t bother telling him how we listen to the chart show of a Sunday night, attempting to tape songs we liked from a tinny little transistor.

Now we have artists streaming full versions albums prior to release, we have artists tweeting that tracks or videos are being streamed for free, we have youtube, we have spotify. Best of all we have access to like minded individuals all over the world, who will point us in the direction of good shit, who will point us in the direction of radio shows, which we would not otherwise know about or have access to.

The same applies to books. I was searching for something the other week, dunno what, when I ended up on the US Amazon site, where a Peter Blauner was being recommended.

I like Peter Blauner, have done ever since Slow Motion Riot came out many years ago, but I was unaware of this particular book. I took myself off to Amazon UK and ordered the thing, I think it cost a quid. It arrived very quickly and I read it very quickly. It’s brilliant. Blauner is brilliant, if you don’t know him you should seek him out. As far as I know, this book hasn’t been released in the UK, but there you go, I haerd about it, ordered it and it was delivered within days. My poor nippers canot understand what a privilege this is. 15 years ago, I would never have known this book had even been written, never mind had more or less instant, and very cheap access to it access to it

Modern life is bostin’, unless, of course, one is a Blues fan, in which case, bostin’ may not be the first word that comes to mind. Where does one start? Not at the beginning, it’s difficult to know anymore where the beginning is, so I will start at the latest news and drop in a few random thoughts.

Since we won that bastard cup, apart from Ecks defection to the neighbours, we Blues fans have had only bad news. Day by day, drip by drip. Bad news follows bad news, yet the fans still turn up in large numbers to watch Blues away from home in meaningless friendlies, and still have fun. Hereford last Saturday was the most fun I’ve had watching the Blues for years. I fear we may have more fun filled days like that ahead, because the future is not looking too bright.

Firing up the PC this morning the first news I read was that Ben Foster had turned up late for training, objected to being to task by our new coach, delivered a volley of abuse at said coach, and then drove away. It may be true, it may not. It probably is.

This seemingly trivial matter is a huge disappointment. I have a few issues with Foster anyway and this has just about put the tin lid on it. First off, before the League Cup Final he spoke of how at Man Utd they would win a trophy, then carry on as if it was just another game. They didn’t spend days on the lash. Now, I don’t mind players having a bit of a piss up, but this demonstrates a gulf in approach, between those who achieve a lot, and those who achieve very little. You don’t want your players to be joyless automatons, but you do want them to behave like highly paid professional athletes, not a pub team.

I don’t know how Blues celebrated that win, nor for how long, but this is a bullshit blog, not a journal of record, and I do recall at the time many fans talking of benders that carried on into the next week. It might be wrong, but I don’t recall anyone rushing to deny it. What I do know is that following that win, our form dropped alarmingly, and large numbers of players were unavailable or playing whilst not fully fit. It is hardly a secret that players are advised on lifestyle and diet, and it is hardly a secret that those who pay attention to lifestyle and diet endure a bit longer than those who don’t. I can’t shake the feeling that once the cup had been won, some of our players decided that it was holiday time. It smacks of a piss poor attitude towards the club and the fans. Of course, I might be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time, and may not be the last!

If what the Daily Mail has written about Foster and Trollope is true, this also smacks of a piss poor attitude. I don’t know what time training commences, but I doubt if any of them has to rise at 5.30 a.m in order to catch 3 buses for a 7.30 start. I very much doubt that they have to worry much about getting home in time for their tea either. If Foster was late he was late, if it was only 10 minutes it was only 10 minutes, these things happen. But a quiet little apology wouldn’t have hurt.

What we don’t know is how Trollope approached it. He may well have decided that as the new sheriff in town he needed to assert his authority, but there are ways of doing this too. A quiet word away from the gaze of others would suffice: if he decided to make Foster look like a twat in front of his mates, well, it’s poor management.

Whatever the ins, whatever the outs, it’s piss poor. Despite the daily drip of bad news, despite the fact that the club isn’t really telling us anything, despite the fact that our owner might well end up in chokie, despite the fact that we cannot hold on to board members or administrators, despite the fact the we seem to be selling players at below market value (it will be buy one get one free next) and despite the fact that the failures that have jumped ship are being replaced by free transfers from fucking Scotland, the fans are turning up; the fans are turning in large enough numbers to pre season friendlies that hundreds are getting locked out.

The fans deserve better. The one constant that this bastard club has is the fans, we have been going 120 odd years, and, when this is all over we will still be going, as long as there is a club to support. It is obvious that the club is in deep shit. This is not the fault of the fans. It is the fault of the board, it is the fault of Eck, and it is the fault of players like Foster who, against the odds, managed to get us relegated. Frankly, I am pissed off with Foster. He should be full of contrition, not arrogance. He failed us last year, and with his recent behaviour he is failing us again.

I am not a child. Nor am I a cry baby. I don’t mind that we got relegated, I won’t mind, in the circumstances, if we get relegated again, but I do mind that Foster, who, ultimately, failed us so badly last year, displays such arrogance, such a lack of commitment to the cause, such an inability to stick together with his mates, and such a cavalier disregard for us fucking mugs who pay his wages.

All Men Are Liars

2011-06-17T20:36:00.000Z

Not much of interest has happened in the last week. Villa managed to get themselves a new manager, but it was all a bit low key and uncontroversial, so you probably never heard about it.

Enough has been said already (most of it idiotic, to be honest), so there's no need for me to dwell on it, but, as you might expect, there are a couple of points I would like to share.

Villa fans; I have always felt sorry for them, and I still do, the poor, deluded, arrogant fools. We Blues fans have always tolerated their irrational, grandiose sense of self worth and superiority with a wry smile, and thanked the good lord above that he allowed us to be born on the right side of the tracks. Now the rest of the footballing nation has seen them for the planks they are. They won't be as tolerant as us. This is the best close season ever. I can't remember laughing so much.

Morals; This doesn't reflect on Eck or Villa so much. Although they are the actors in this case, it reflects on the dubious ethics of every fucker involved in football, because they are all the same, in the end.

Eck should have been down on his knees thanking the Blues for not sacking him, after what we endured last season, and half the season before, and the season before that, and most fucking definitely the half season before that. I don't buy into all this lachrymose bollocks about him giving us the best day of our lives, I have had loads of fantastic days with the Blues; that cup game was just another one, of many. OK. Not many.

Eck was not grateful though. Not only was he not grateful, he was fucking impertinent! That's all I'm saying on it.

Mark Hughes left Fulham, with everyone believing that he was going to Villa. Villa said, no he ain't, and didn't contradict all the national media that said it was because they didn't like the way he did it, because it was all a bit underhand. Then, after many rejections and humiliations, Villa approached Mclaren, only to unapproach him when the fans expressed a distaste for his obsession with combing his hair. Then they go for Eck, a man who showed a distinct lack of moral fibre in the way he resigned and whom the fans clearly hate. Go. Fucking. Figure.

It's obvious Eck was tapped up. God knows why. Apart from all the caterwauling, the best news is that Eck will take them down. Ask any psychologist. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

Now, I'm not a child and I'm not stupid. I don't actually care that Eck was tapped up. It amuses me though, that Villa can come over all high and mighty and perch themselves on top of the highest horse, whilst acting like the sneakiest of opportunist pilferers. They have always been a bunch of hypocritical cunts though, so it come as no great surprise.

We Blues fans don't get off scot free though. Until last Sunday it was virtual sacrilege to criticise Eck, now, everyone is saying good riddance to the clueless, negative fucker. We had a good spell last season, a record breaking spell, and everyone was beside themselves with our brilliant team and our genius manager. There were very few dissenting voices, as the result, apparently, was all that mattered. Look back far enough on this blog and you will see I was a dissenter, a ranter, a leveller (I should have been born in the 17th century). Then, this season, he became our most revered manager because of the cup win. Anything was forgivable, including relegation and the purchase of Carlos Costly. Now he is the devil. I can't forgive the piss poor football he served up and which got us relegated twice, I can forgive him leaving us, and, can actually love him for going to the Villa.

It all leaves Blues in a bit of limbo, not enough of a limbo to stop us signing random nonentities though. I can't be arsed with the speculation about who the new man will be. We will get who we get and he will do what he will do. We will still have a team to go and see, and bicker about, and we will still have the Villa to laugh at. We will always have the Villa to laugh at.

I have had a haircut, which is an unremarkable event, but it is a rare occurrence, for me, and, even rarer is the occasion when I have a huge fucking shearing. It has caused comment. Lots of comment. People have felt free to make merry with the comments. The commenting motherfuckers. Most people like it, and say it's nice that I no longer look like a dirty stinking tramp. I was feeling good. I was feeling handsome. Then someone said, talking about a case: "what they did to that girls hair was abuse never mind anything else" and someone said, "what did it look like"? She replied, "like that"…….. pointing at my head. You either have it or you don't.

We have a person who works with us, rather sensitive. Lovely, but sensitive. She did a cat ridden visit this morning and came back worrying that she stank of cat. She worried all the day long, and everyone reassured her that there was absolutely no odour of pussy about her person. Our assurances may not have been true. But we are sensitive souls. About 4 oclock, a Merthyr boy who had been out all day, came back, and, walking past her said, "what's that smell?" and the lady said, "oh no, it's not me smelling of cat is it?" and he said, "it's not so much cat, as cat piss".

Cue hilarity. I've never been so proud of the boy.

Drag Queens in Limousines

2011-06-10T20:49:00.001Z

I'm listening to Ralph Macleans classic albums as I type. Just started, so don't how good it will be, but it is usually brilliant. He is pleasingly loose with his definition of classic.

I mentioned Swedish author Hakan Nesser the other week. I am nearing the end of another one. I like Scandinavian crime. I know it's become a bit uncool, but if you look beyond the obvious, there is some brilliant stuff, and most of the obvious stuff is alright too. Nesser is ace, light but dark, playful but serious and Van Veeteren has become my favourite fictional copper.

Blues have been shopping for soiled goods again. Welcome Marlon King, a gentleman and a scholar.

Meanwhile, Villa are compiling the longest shortlist in history. No one wants anything to do with them. I can't say I'm surprised, what with their extremely fickle and violent fans. Who would want to be associated with that shower of shit?

It's a bit after the event, but I came across a brilliant appreciation of Messi the other day. It seems to be a bit uncool all of a sudden to profess a liking for either Messi or Barcelona, but those of us with eyes to see and hearts to swell know how to appreciate art when we see it. Anyway, the only reason I am blogging tonight is so that I can link to it.

Addendum: so far, this Maclean show is a bit shit. Don't let that put you off though, we are all allowed an off day! His country programme consistently brillant.

Miss You Now

2011-06-04T11:49:00.001Z

There is an appreciation in the Guardian today of the film Cutters Way. It's nice to see it lauded, because it is a good film, but it is not a patch on the book. Few films are, but I mention this, because the book Cutter and Bone is a masterpiece. I don't understand how it is not recognised as a classic. I love this book so much that I regularly buy it for people, and I have yet to come across anyone who has not been moved by it, and who hasn't fallen in love with it. If you haven't read it, read it, I urge you: buy the damn book. Buy it twice! You can get it on Amazon for 1 single penny. How ridiculous is that?

I'm cooking like a maniac again on this sunny Saturday. There is a highly spiced shoulder of lamb cooking very, very slowly in the oven………it will be in there for seven hours. The aroma coming off it is something else. I had a glance through an old Marcella Hazan book while enjoying a coffee in the garden, and came across a recipe for spaghetti salad, with a roasted aubergine and pepper dressing, so had to make that too, and then it struck me that the kids needed a bit of dinner before they all disappear, so I knocked up, in 20 minutes flat, some pasta with a tuna sauce. It's so simple, and so fucking delicious, I'm blogging the recipe. This is for my own benefit, because by 5 o'clock I will have no idea how I made it. I should blog my recipes more often, as I can never remember the fuckers.

Here we go, what I used:

1 tin of Tuna
I shallot
I clove garlic
2 rashers pancetta
Zest of half a lemon
A bit of chilli
Sherry vinegar, but any will do
big spoon of sugar
big squirt of tomato puree
tin of tomatoes
half a pint of chicken stock

Until I did this, I could never stand a tuna sauce, but by God, I've cracked it. First thing, obviously is to get a big pan of salted water on the go.

Get the pancetta and shallot going in some olive oil, then drain the tuna, really drain it, squeeze all that bastard brine or water or oil or whatever out, then break it up, almost shred it, into your pan with the pancetta and immediately add some chopped garlic. You can add the garlic first if you like, I don't care.

Let that fry up a bit on a highish heat, you want the shredded tuna sizzling. When it's really hot, chuck in a spoon of vinegar and the sugar, and give it a quick stir, keep on high until the burning sensation the vinegar puts in your nostrils has gone……….add the lemon zest and chilli, give it a good old stir, add the tomato puree, give it a stir, add the tomatoes, maybe chuck in a slug of worcester sauce too, it won't hurt, season the bleeder, and add the chicken stock. Get it all bubbling and reduce to a fairly vigorous simmer.

Whilst that's doing put your pasta on, when that done, mix it all together. Give it a squirt of lemon juice and add a load of chopped basil, and Fannie's yer aunt. Done in no time and the kids love it. All the kids love it, which is a very rare occurrence.

That ain't the end of my cooking though…………I'll be doing a tabouleh, a raw veg salad, some marinated aubergine, and a differently marinated and bloody spicy broccoli. I hope the weather stays nice, because all of the above are designed to be eaten at room temperature; I can prepare it all and then just sit back, relax. and enjoy the afternoon and evening reading in the garden, with a few drinks, some mellow music and a nibble or 3 as the fancy takes me.

Bon bleeding appetit!

Set Guitars To Kill

2011-06-03T21:19:00.001Z

It's a day that usually I would be very excited about, the first ay of the Wychwood Festival, but I'm not there, I'm here, for a variety of reasons, although, with the weather, if I found several hundred quid tucked down the back of a settee I would be on my way. The main reason we aren't going is the line up, which has a few gems, but is a bit, well, retro as it has increasingly become. It's a shame, because the kids love it (and so do the adults) and it is a better festival for kids than EOTR, but it's got to be about the music, and it just doesn't compare with EOTR, so EOTR it has to be.

I mention it because there was an article in the paper today, all about the rise of nostalgia……a phenomenon that has been getting on my nerves for several years. The article is very harsh, actually, far harsher than I would be, but I liked it anyway. He dismisses Dexy Midnight Runnners as nostalgists, but I think he does them a disservice; they brought a freshness and energy to their tunes and quickly moved on from the Stax type stuff……….and they created one of the best albums ever made, by anyone, anywhere, in any genre……the bizarrely neglected, not to mention criminally unavailable, "Don't Stand Me Down".

I'm not against nostalgia. It's OK, in it's place. A couple of years ago I saw the Beat at Wychwood. I used to like the Beat, I saw 'em plenty of times at The Barrel Organ before anyone had ever heard of 'em and considered myself a fan, but I was not enthused prior to this festival performance. Needn't have been so glum, they were ace, even though Ranking Roger was the only original member, and they had the place jumping, singing and grinning from ear to ear……. it's just high class karaoke though really, innit? The Men They Couldn't Hang also performed at the festival that weekend and they were brilliant, I loved 'em, again, but they played on the Saturday afternoon, waking up a slightly elderly, slightly hungover crowd.

So, nostalgia has its place, and that place is a working mans club, or the end of the pier, or a cruise ship. as part of a package. What irks me is the prominence that nostalgia now gets. The Specials reform to play some festivals and the world goes fucking mad, broadsheets have big articles on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday; meanwhile, Jerry Dammers, who continues to make new and interesting music is ignored. God help us if the Smiths ever reform, half the population will spontaneously combust.

The whole world seems to have bought into it, proper music magazines do it, proper writers do it, intelligent, as well as idiotic d.j's do it. It's baffling, We live in an era where there is so much good new stuff about, and is easily available, that it's enough to make your head spin; but the mainstream can think of nothing but the past. We should not forget the past, and there is nothing wrong with revering it, but we are all becoming slaves to it.

Roger Daltrey is playing in Newport later in the year. Newport and environs is excited. Big star coming to play. I think the cheapest ticket is 45 quid. Lets face it, he is an old man, who will be backed by a bunch of session musicians. Imagine if you had seen Daltrey as a young man, in all his energetic and fiery pomp, before anyone else had heard of him, or when the Who hadn't quite broke through and you could still see them in small venues, ripping it up. Just imagine that.

Well, you don't really have to imagine it, because there are brilliant bands playing in most towns every night. Some town have several brilliant bands playing every night. I would rather spend a fiver or a tenner taking a chance on some unknown or little known band and seeing 5 or 6 of them than seeing an ancient Roger Daltrey creak his way through his greatest hits just the once, for the same money. You don't even have to take a chance, the internet will give you more than a flavour of what to expect before you part with your cash, and you might just be seeing someone who in a years time will be the talk of Later With Jools Holland. It has to make more sense.

Kiss Me Again

2011-05-30T12:17:00.008Z

Sorry. I'm going to bang on about Eck again. There are those, myself occasionally included, who will defend Eck's negativity on the basis of horses for courses. We don't have the players to play a flowing, expansive game, so we have to make the best of the talents that the players do possess (Whether Eck achived this is a bit of a moot point). This is fair enough, but then I recall the year he took us up (not forgetting that it was him who took us down in the first place). We probably had the best squad in the division and we were certainly better resourced than most other club in the divison, but we still played negatively. So much so that there were howls of protest and calls for his head.

This coming season will be interesting. Assuming he is still with us. Forget all the talk of losing the telly money and losing players. Most of the departed were either not good enough or past it anyway, and we should be able to replace them easily enough; of those that are left, well, they were part of a team that won a cup, and, so their apologists tell us, were unlucky to go down, so they should be more than good enough. We get a 16 milion quid head start on most of the others, plus substantial sums for the likes of Johnson, Dann and Foster, at least 2 of whom will go. In the context of the division, we will be in a very privileged position, so we will see what Eck is made of. If we don't have a team that can compete, and play with a bit of elan (it's all relative!), it will put me in a very fucking bad mood.

Swansea play Reading today in what is hyped as the richest game in the world, given the prize. I'm looking forward to it. Both teams play attractive football and have nice kits. I like the cut of the jib of both managers.

I mentioned the other day, that to an extent, Eck seems to settle for the mediocre in his players, and can be overly loyal to them, if he likes them. I saw an interesting article with Brian McDermott the other day, in which he talked of his team settling for draws too easily. To make a run for the play offs, they had to rise above the mediocre. He held brain storming sessions with his coaching staff, and got the players to hold their own session, they then met to discuss the outcomes and came up with a plan to get into the play offs. Clearly, it worked. I know David Moyes did a similar thing a few years ago, when Everton were rooted to the bottom after about 12 games, and it worked then too. Obviously, it wouldn't do any good if everyone came up with shit ideas!

The point is, I suppose, to recognise when players and the people around them are settling for the mediocre and to do something positive about it. One of McDermott's inspirations was Mathew Syed's book, "Bounce". I haven't read it, but I have heard Syed talk a lot about it, as he seems to be a permanent fixture on Radio 4. He says that it is no good constantly telling people they are the best, because how can you then expect them to improve? He and McDermott talk about putting in the hours, doing a hell of a lot more than the bare minimum, and they refer to Alex Ferguson who would remark upon the astonishing amount of extra training that Cantona would put in. Blues best recent striker was known for it, even practising on his own in a local park.

For all I know, Eck does all this, but keeps it quiet. I am a bit of an adherent of positive psychology, and, believe it or not, I do tend to accentuate the positive, but that doesn't mean that you should ignore the negative. If something isn't working, you have to look at why it isn't working, and change or get rid of the negative aspects, Sometimes a situation looks disastrous, but only needs a bit of fine tuning to improve things, which doesn't mean that a drastic overhaul isn't sometimes required. There is a famous quote by a famous golfer "the harder I work, the luckier I get", I'm sure our players adhere to that philosophy.

I keep reading Eck extol the virtues of Cameron Jerome. This is good, it is necessary, but, as well as praising him, I hope he is also gently pointing out his faults, and helping him to work out ways in which he can improve. I hope that he does it with all of them, as individuals and as a collective. I hope that,despite appearance, he isn't willing to settle for mediocrity.

According to the recently departed chain smoker and philospher César Luis Menotti, there is a right wing and a left wing way to play the game. Eck is a right winger. Menooti has said, "Right-wing football wants to suggest that life is struggle. It demands sacrifices. We have to become of steel and win by any method … obey and function, that's what those with power want from the players". That is Eck, in a nutshell.

Menotti, who reminds me of Gary Megson, a bit, also said, "I maintain that a team is above all an idea, and more than an idea it is a commitment, and more than a commitment it is the clear convictions that a coach must transmit to his players to defend that idea. So my concern is that we coaches don't arrogate to ourselves the right to remove from the spectacle the synonym of festival, in favour of a philosophical reading that cannot be sustained, which is to avoid taking risks. And in football there are risks because the only way you can avoid taking risks in any game is by not playing: and to those who say that all that matters is winning, I want to warn them that someone always wins. Therefore, in a 30-team championship, there are 29 who must ask themselves: what did I leave at this club, what did I bring to my players, what possibility of growth did I give to my footballers? I start from the premise that football is efficacy. I play to win, as much or more than any egoist who thinks he's going to win by other means. I want to win the match. But I don't give in to tactical reasoning as the only way to win, rather I believe that efficacy is not divorced from beauty"

This a man who won the world cup. He knows shit.

When The Stars Go Blue

2011-05-27T20:52:00.001Z

I've been banging on about Israel Nash Gripka in various places, and I shall continue to bang on about him, because his new album, is rather fucking good. If you liked Ryan Adams earlier work, you might like it, not that you should think he is anything like Adams, he isn't; he has a similar voice, but is very distinct. Actually, he is also similar in that he has no fear of changing tone and pace. It's magnificent, anyway. Don't tell anyone about him until I've had a chance to see him live. I don't want a bunch of lightweights turning up to harsh my mellow.

A couple of years ago, me and the Mrs and the kids and some pals and their kids stumbled drunkenly (only me and my mate were drunk, actually) into a tent late at night. It was a Friday night, and it had been a very long day, driving, putting tents up, drinking, watching ace bands. We only popped into the tent on a whim: we found that everyone in there was dancing and smiling and looking glad to be alive, and, soon enough, so were we, because Herman Dune were on, and lighting the place up. I mention it, because they have a new album out, and the Guardian is streaming it, for free, and it is currently lighting my kitchen up.

I passed a test today. It was an online test. It was ridiculous. I didn't read anything, didn't put any effort in, skipped every section until I got to the actual test part. Oo er, I thought, I need 80% to pass, maybe I should have read at least a couple of the modules. Didn't matter. Passed with 98%. Would have been a hundred if I hadn't inadvertently clicked the wrong answer on one of them. It wasn't a lark, it was a proper, work related test, which now puts me in a position of some distinction, and I tell you, it is a worthless test. Passing it signifies nothing. Don't tell anyone though, it might just drop me in the shit.

I mentioned the other day the dour Swedish thriller I started. It was Minds Eye by Hakan Nesser. It wasn't dour, it was ace, and it was great fun. I started at about 8 o'clock Wednesday night and had finished by 8 yesterday. I very rarely zip through books that quick, which shows how good it is; it shows that Scandinavian crime doesn't have to be bloated and in need of a good edit. It is a bit gloomy, but it is genuinely funny, in parts, and the hero and his subordinates are wonderfully droll characters. Written years ago, hopefully there is a whole back catalogue in translation. I put Nesser on a par with Camilleri, that's how much I enjoyed The Minds Eye.

I was going to say I won't post about the Blues again until August, but that would be ridiculous, especially as the European games probably start in July. I'm looking forward to an exotic trip to Neath, Besides that, I can't stop thinking about the fuckers anyway. I don't like Nick Hornby. I thought football was managing perfectly well before he stuck his middle class beak in. I can't begin to tell you the myriad ways in which his appalling book aggravated me. There is a moment in the even more wretched film of the book, when his lady asks him what is he thinking about, and he spouts some bullshit about poetry or philosophy. He then admits that he was thinking about Arsenal. That bit resonated. I empathised with it

Wide Open Plain

2011-05-25T20:56:00.001Z

I said, the other week, something along the lines that the internet still fills me full of wonder, and an example comes along straight away. Months ago, I was browsing Amazon; my guess is that I was looking for something similar to Daniel Woodrell, and I find the alternative suggestions that Amazon offer up pretty much on the mark, which is good news for Amazon and bad news for my bank account. Anyway, whatever I was searching for, one of the alternatives offered was "The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart" by M Glen Taylor. I bought it, on a whim, and it has sat there, unread for months, but it has been read now and it is for this that I thank the internet, as without it, I would have remained unaware of this brilliant book

From time time, you come across a book or an author that just knocks your socks off, Ken Bruen, Daniel Woodrell, Joe R Lansdale, Fred Willard, and in particular, Newton Thornburg spring to mind. Taylor is up there with that lot, I'm a bit pissed off that he has nothing else out that I can afford yet. I discovered Lansdale and Bruen late, and then had months of gleeful catching up to do.

It's a bit ironic that I wanted something to restore my good humour and faith in literature after my mood had been soured by John Irvin. I had ploughed through his massive, epic, tale of simple but brilliant, backwoods folk, always having to stay one step ahead of the law. So, what is this Trenchmouth about? Well, it's about a simple, but brilliant backwoods character who has to spend his life one step ahead of the law.

The two books couldn't be more different though (although the blurb recommends it to fans of Irvin). Trenchmouth is written with pace, vim and verve, his use of language is brilliant, and I kept finding myself re reading sentences, just to savour them. All the characters, apart from the scoundrels, are sympathetic, and you root for even minor players. It reads like an epic yarn, but it is funny in parts, it is profoundly poignant in parts, and it never hesitates to stick it to the motherfucking man. I loved this book, I read it too quickly, and now I'm trying to get stuck into another dour Swedish thriller, which, frankly, is putting me in another bad mood.

The football season may be over but the bickering and the endless analysing isn't, in fact, it has only just begun. Message board aficionados seem to have forgotten that Blues were relegated. We can't afford to lose Eck, the chief scout has been sacked and he was alright, according to some. We can't afford to lose Foster, we can't afford to lose Johnson , we can't afford to lose Ferguson, we can't afford to lose any 'em by the sound of it. It seems that to a lot of people, this bunch of chumps that we have managing us, coaching us, scouting for us, and playing for us are all blameless. They have become heroes. I'm fucking baffled by it, actually.

I've read a couple of things today that have reminded me of Ecks stubbornness, or, if you like, loyalty. I'm thinking here of Jerome and Ridgewell. I really like Ridgewell, I think he has really improved as a player, I think we missed him when he was out, I think he tries really fucking hard but I don't think he will ever be a quality full back. Same with Jerome, runs fast, but will never be a top class footballer. But they have been first choice for us in their positions for a season and half in Ridgewells case, and longer than that in Jeromes.

Some might say that this shows admirable loyalty, and it probably does. Some might say that he has tried to buy or play different strikers, and he has, but they don't get the same number of chances to settle into the side as Jerome. The left back situation is really baffling though; it seems that he would rather play anyone there than the one bloke he actually bought as a left back, when he first arrived, 3 years ago. I dunno, maybe I'm being harsh, but to me it looks a little bit like complacency; like a willingness to settle for second best, to tolerate the mediocre, and it has got me a bit worried.

Dead And Gone

2011-05-23T09:25:00.001Z

I finally finished the John Irvin. God, what a slog. I wouldn’t recommend it. It all got a bit tedious and for large chunks of it, Irvin was just showing off. I find Martin Amis and Will Self do this a lot. They dazzle us with their skill and expertise as wordsmiths, and you spend half the book admiring their craft, as opposed to being engrossed by it.

The football season was a bit of a tedious slog as well, for Blues fans anyway. Not all Blues fans; some Blues fans will recall only the victory in the Carling Cup and will forget the sheer misery and drudgery of the long journey from August. That’s fine, I wouldn’t blame ‘em for that. It’s not as if our history is laden with trophies, and for most fans, a victory at Wembley in a major (OK, a little bit major, a little bit minor) final could well be the absolute highlight of their Blues supporting career.

I’m a bit less forgiving. There are fans out there who are more tolerant than me, who point out that the injuries we have had endured, the signings that didn’t quite come off, and the untimely bans, have all hit us hard. I say that apart from one purple patch last season, we have been awful to watch, and we weren't exactly pretty in the purple patch. Even yesterday, fighting for our lives, we were ultra cautious. It is our lack of goals that got us into this mess, so what did we do in the deciding game of the season? We tried to avoid defeat. We put all our efforts into not conceding. Even when we equalised, Eck was about to bring Murphy on, even though it was extremely likely we would need another goal. In the end he realised we did need another goal, and sent men forward, but the last 5 minutes of an away game, in the last game of the season isn’t really the time to start swashing yer buckle.......it’s a bit late in the day.

Being a Blues fan, I’m used to disappointment. I’m well acquainted with the Immutable Law that the bastards will always let you down, and, having been gutted for about half an hour after the final whistle, I adjusted. We Blues fans aren’t in it for the glory. I don’t really care who we play, so long as we are playing. I enjoy supporting the Blues, I enjoy going to the Blues, I enjoy the matchday experience, I really don’t care who we are playing. So it’s OK.

Except it might not be OK. It might be, but it might not, no one really knows. Our owners seem to be a bit secretive when it comes to finance. There have been reports that they don’t have a pot in which to piss, and they really haven’t done or said much to persuade me that these reports are inaccurate. Blues fans with bigger brains than me have analysed whatever financial information is out there, and have declared that these reports are nonsense, and that big London media is simply engaging in a witch hunt against little old us. I’m not convinced, and I would like the board to now tell us what their plans are for the coming season. It would be nice to know what’s coming. Good or bad.

The position of Eck also concerns me. The press has been muttering over the last week that he will be on his bike whatever the outcome of yesterdays game. I won’t shed any tears, either way. Bad luck hasn’t got us relegated, our ultra cautious style of play has and Eck is responsible for that. Someone pointed out that we scored less goals last season in finishing 9th than we did this season. That is not a stat I feel particularly proud of. So, if he goes, he goes, but I wouldn’t urge it. If he stays, I hope he realises that we need to be a bit more potent, but I can’t see it happening; he seems a bit stubborn.

I mentioned the other day that when Eck arrived I like his honesty and his dignity, but he said a couple of things this season that have baffled me. Sometime around January, he had a little moan about the strikers, and said that we create enough chances, we just don’t take them often enough. This is just plain wrong, and, if he really believes what he said, it is worrying, because our problem has been creating chances. I’m not a huge admirer of Cameron Jerome, but sympathy has to be extended to him, as every chance he misses is magnified, because it means more than it would for other clubs, because it might be 3 fucking weeks before another chance comes his way. Then, yesterday, he said relegation “is not a fail” Well, that’s just barking. I’m getting a bit worried about his mind set.

Whether he stays or goes, I hope a decision is made very quickly. This is no time to fuck about. We need to get on, and plan for the coming season. Those that are going should go, quickly, those that are arriving should arrive, quickly. We need a cohesive squad and we need them all together from day one of pre season training. We don’t want a bunch of strangers lining up with each other on the first day of the new season.

Some fans are worried that we might lose our stars, which begs the question, what stars? I genuinely believe that our biggest problem will be getting shot of them, not keeping them. Foster and Johnson apart, which of these players, who have barely created a chance, never mind a goal, for two seasons, will be in demand? Which of them have enhanced their reputation? Gardner, possibly, but I couldn’t see him being more than a squad player in any other team.

You could almost have an intermediate league, between the prem and the championship, made up of about 10 to 15 teams like us, made up of players who aren’t quite good enough for the top half of the prem. Most of our current players fit that bill, so, if we keep most of ‘em, as I suspect we will, we should be really strong next year, but who know what will happen? Yesterday is over, today is a new day, and a new beginning, I have no idea what is around the corner, but fuck me, I’m looking forward to it.

Onwards, boys, if not necessarily upwards!

The Country Blues

2011-05-20T20:32:00.001Z

Last year, I think it was last year anyway, (my whole existence is a bit vague, to be honest), I saw the Canadian band, Elliot Brood at the End of the Road festival. They were the first band I saw, at about 5 o'clockish, having spent the afternoon sitting by the tent, in the sunshine, gently pickling the liver. Blown away is a much overused, not to mention retro, phrase and I don't like it, but I was blown away. They were as good a band as I have ever seen and they had the couple of hundred who witnessed it absolutely bouncing. Bouncing like crazy. At fucking 5 o'clock in the afternoon! As far as I know, it was their only UK gig so far, the bastards; but, I can forgive them their absenteeism, because they are allowing us to download their new single, for free. I recommend you give it a whirl. It only gives you a flavour, but it is some flavour.

As I type I am listening to the new album by 17 Hippies, and to coin another retro phrase, I am really digging it. It is great stuff. If you remember Edward 11 and the Red Hot Polkas, or if you like Manu Chao, it will be right up your street. Obviously, none of the 3 sound remotely like each other, but it is that crazy mixing up of genres, and lovely vibe, a vibe born of love for what they do, that they share. Very highly recommended.

The Felice Brothers are geniuses, as everyone knows and Simone is already one of the all time greats. Not just a brilliant songwriter and seriously enigmatic performer though, he is also a very good writer. If you don't believe me have a listen to this story, which was commissioned by the BBC as part of it's Bob Dylan massive fucking overkill. Only available until next Wednesday though.

We need to talk about Eck. When Sully went after Eck, I thought he was aiming a bit high, but doing so deliberately (I think he's doing it now, vis a vis West Ham). I don't think he believed that a national team manager would actually join us, but it was good publicity for him and an indication to the fans that he was aiming high. I think Eck surprised him when he bit Sully's fucking hand off. I was dismayed. I don't know if it's my catholic upbringing, but I didn't like the fucker. I knew nothing about him, the proddy bastard, but I didn't like him anyway. Mostly, I believed he played negative football and also thought that he got a bit lucky with Scotland. (please note there is a jocular remark in the above, and nothing to get upset about)

When he arrived, I decided I liked him after all. I liked the cut of his jib. He presented himself very well and seemed honest and dignified. He didn't regard the fans as idiots (he may have changed his mind since) and unlike the previous manager, didn't label his critics on the terraces (if only) as disgraceful. He also looked like a dapper gent, again, unlike the previous manager, who tended to look like a pantomime dame, after a particularly rough night in some house of scrumpy.

His first result was a good one, a very unlikely win away at fucking Tottenham. YES! A WIN! AWAY! AT TOTTENHAM! It can be done………….come on all you merchants of doom. you masters of misery, show some fucking belief……….anything is possible and it ain't fucking over yet.

Sorry. Got a bit sidetracked there. In the end, Eck took us down. We forgave him. The team was in freefall when he arrived, and he was dapper, and he gave good interview. Already though, there were worrying signs of his negativity. When he arrived he said he wanted to see the team pass the ball, then after the Totenham game, he said he was happy to see 'em pass the ball but he didn't want to see 'em pass it that much! We had Zarate at the time, a very exciting player who caused panic in every defence he played against; trouble is, not too many defences were required to panic, as Eck barely played him

There were those who said he was an idiot on account of this, others said that this was no time for inexperienced dilettantes . No one knows the answer, but it was a sign of his mind set. The following season was interesting. Eck got us up, but it was possibly the most miserable promotion campaign in history, with many calling for Eck's head half way through the season. The problem was negativity. We played very negative football, but managed to grind out enough results to get automatic promotion, by the tiniest of gnats cocks.

Nevertheless, everybody loved Eck again. We started the season, and progressed through the new season, playing very negative football. But, in the middle of it, we set a record for avoiding defeat. Eck was now a heroic figure. Everybody revered him. One might have been tempted to point out that, as impressive as the achievement was, we had hardly been slaughtering teams. It was not Real Madrid circa 1963. It was catenaccio writ large. It would have been foolhardy to point this out though. One cannot argue with success, and, to have had a little whinge would have led to one being strung from the nearest lamppost by ones own innards.

Once the good run was over, the season petered out, annoyingly. We barely won another point. Still Eck is revered. He is revered for that run and he is revered for winning the league cup. He is sort of revered for getting us promotion too, most people seem to have forgotten that he took us down in the first place and ignore the misery he inflicted upon us, even in winning promotion. Now, he looks like taking us down again, and, even if he doesn't, our league form has been utter shit and our style of play has been embarrassing.

I don't think many would agree with my analysis, and I am happy to concede that I might be wrong, but, there is a question that is as persistent a beggar as any homeless dude with a scrawny dog and a bit of string. How does a bloke who has only had half a decent season get away with it? Even the half good season was fucking tedious, if we are being honest. No other fan but a Blues fan could possibly have gained any pleasure from that run. I doubt that there was a run on replica shirts in downtown Shanghai.

I don't count the promotion season as a good season, because in all honesty we really should have been getting promoted with the money we had available to us, compared to others, and I have not forgotten the howls of outrage at some of the piss poor performances we had to endure. I don't count the cup run either, because we played against type in those games and actually had a bit of a go (is there fucking lesson there?)

So. Half a good season, and, possibly, another relegation. I never advocate sacking managers and I don't advocate sacking Eck, but, whether we survive or not, you would have to wonder if he can keep his job. He can stay or he can go for all I care. Blues don't even flatter to deceive all that often; we will always be also rans, and, to some extent, it doesn't matter which chump in the game of managerial musical chairs ends up in the seat with our name on it. They are all much of a muchness. It may as well be Eck as anyone else, but, to be honest I would prefer someone with a bit less dignity and a bit more imagination.

Old Tom Cat

2011-05-19T21:13:00.000Z

I've been reading John Irvin's "Last Night in Twisted River". Bloody hell, what an absolute monster of a book. I don't seem to be able to finish it, and it's not for the want of trying. For the last 4 nights I have been convinced that there is only about 20 minutes worth left, but it just goes on and on: like driving down the M50 at midnight, after a Blues defeat, the this trip doesn't seem to have an end. Frankly, I am getting a bit pissed off with.

It's actually a good book, and it comes as no surprise that an Irving book is lengthy, but maybe his reputation is so great that no editor will touch it. Maybe it is a masterpiece and I am too dull to get it. If you like Irvin, you might like this. I hadn't read any of his for years and this came as a pleasant surprise. Until I lost patience it was immensely readable, populated with pretty recognisable, oddball, if not particularly likeable Irvin characters. It covers a huge sweep of history as it follows a father and son across states and decades, as they attempt to escape the murderous intentions of a crooked cop, and it has quite a lot of fairly profound stuff to say about the nature of families, and relationships, and love, and minor mistakes, and huge errors of judgement. Maybe it is the great American novel. There is no danger of me giving the end away, as I doubt I'll ever get to it.

For light relief, I have been dipping in and out of Shotgun Honey, and I recommend you do to.

Neither long, rambling novels, nor short sharp pulp is quite taking my mind off the Blues though. Now that I've calmed my mind, I'm really enjoying it. What a fantastic end to the season. We could have something riding on it until the last kick of the season. If we stay up it will be brilliant, if we go down, well, we've all got used to the idea by now. Last year everything just petered pointlessly out, Mcleish didn't even enliven proceedings by giving youngsters or fringe players a bit of experience. I'd much rather be enduring all this uncertainty. The close season is long enough, without it starting early because there is nothing to play for. Roll on Sunday.

There is actually a really positive side effect to the uncertainty; it has put a stop to all the endless posts on message boards advising that we should sign some lower league nonentity because he has just managed to pass a ball accurately in a play off game.

I've been hearing, and reading, rather a lot about David Brooks this week. I had never heard of him before but he turns out to be a celebrated right wing commentator at the New York Times, and he has written a book called "The Social Animal" which, apparently, is much beloved by tory brainboxes like Michael Gove. It has had a fairly uncritical reaction so far (although it gets a right good kicking in the article I linked), it will be interesting to see how, or if, reaction changes as more people read it.

Just noting the blurb about Brooks book, it reminds me a bit of Martin Seligman, godfather of positive psychology. His new book seems to be getting panned left right and centre, but I find the book that made his name "Authentic Happiness" is invaluable, although it is much mocked. Reading the book won't make you happy, but I genuinely found that utilising just some of the techniques he advises changed peoples perception of me completely and some aspects of my life improved dramatically. It all looks like quackery, but, even though Brooks appears to be a right wing nutter, I won't dismiss him yet.

Restless Feet

2011-05-16T13:39:00.002Z

Bugger me. It was a bit of a let down yesterday. Many Blues fans are in despair over it, which shows a bit of a lack of historical perspective. I was really, really pissed off yesterday and the more I drank the more pissed off I got, which, if nothing else, shows that alcohol is never the answer. I’m not so pissed off today, I have come to accept that, well, it’s the fucking Blues innit?

Some people are saying that this relegation (many have already resigned themselves to it) has taken them completely by surprise and that is what is so upsetting, but it hasn’t taken me by surprise. Even before we started losing with alarming regularity, I was saying that we are drawing too may home games, and I recalled the season that Saunders took us down, when we drew game after game after game and slipped into the bottom 3 on the very last day of the season. Draws and goal difference did for us.

Since our record breaking run ended last season, we have been shit, and supporting Blues has been a pretty miserable experience: not because of the results, but because of the style of play. Fuck me, I support the Blues, I don’t expect glory, but I do expect us to show some spirit. I accept that at the moment panache is too much to expect, but it is the lack of this very quality that has been pissing me off.

There are those who are bemoaning the lack of fight and bite we showed yesterday and some are complaining that the players lacked courage. It’s true, we seemed utterly bewildered by events yesterday, right from the kick off and had no idea how to respond, and we certainly didn’t get snarlingly into Fulham faces, but I think we have lacked courage all season. Not courage in the sense of aggressive harrying and forceful tackling, but courage in the sense of being brave with the ball, and being brave in making attacking runs into the opposition half. We are not brave enough to take a chance, and to get on the front foot and anticipate half chances.

It was evident yesterday that when we had the ball, we had no idea what to do with it. Tiki taki it was not. We constantly passed the ball sideways, or backwards or straight into an opposition midriff. We really needed to get at them, but we didn’t know how, and this has to be a legacy of our style of play, and the consequence of playing percentage football, looking to win free kicks, corners and throw ins. Jerome was out, so the usual tactic of booting it into the channels, in the hope that his muscular presence will gain us a set piece opportunity, wasn’t available, and we were demonstrably bereft of alternative ideas.

Some people are blaming the strikers, with the theme being that Phillips is too old and Derbyshire too shit, which is a bit unkind. Maybe their runs were not intelligent enough, maybe they didn’t have the wit to find space, but, maybe, the midfield just were not up to the job of adapting their style, and offering either enough guile or support to the front two. A front two who have barely started a game all season, a front two who we couldn’t really expect to be match sharp, or attuned to the nuances of each others play, or the play of the midfield.

We aren’t where we are because the cup run took it out of us, or because Derbyshire and Phillips found themselves in the team yesterday, or because of injuries, or because of bad luck, or because other teams have put together unlikely runs of results. We are where we are because, for at least a season and a half, we have been poor. We have not created enough chances; and, when we have taken a lead, we have lost all ambition and sat back and invited teams to find a way around or through us, which, with depressing predictability, they have usually managed to do. I don’t say we have played with fear, because at times we have been indomitable, but I do say that we have played without courage.

So it all comes down to the final game next week. Football is perverse enough, and Blues are certainly perverse enough for the outcome to be far from certain. I wouldn’t put it past Blues to win, and still get relegated, and I would not be at all surprised if we lost and still managed to stay up. If we do manage to survive, I hope the euphoria of an unlikely escape doesn’t blind either fans or staff to our deficiencies. We need a complete change of approach. Some fans will tolerate boring draws and narrow victories if it means premiership survival, but our style is not only unedifying, it is fucking undignified, and many people won’t be prepared to keep forking out to watch it.

America

2011-05-14T00:00:00.001Z

I bumped into a man, a very, very good man, earlier, and he said, why aren't you blogging anymore, and I said something like, "dunno, too exhausted, half the time, and between message boards and social networking sites, I haven't got much else to say, and, why take 140 words to spout shit when you can utter it in 140 characters". He said, and then his Mrs said, "no one is pissing you off anymore, you aren't angry anymore," and I said, "actually, I never was angry, I just enjoyed a bit of a rant, it meant nothing." They scoffed.

Every now and then, not often, people will ask me why I don't blog anymore, and they will indicate that they miss my nonsense. Not many people, admittedly, very few people, in fact, but some. And my buddies from Sainsburys have a point. When I blogged a lot, every single day, in fact, I was full of bile, and I was full of wonder. I have learned, the hard way, not to post a load of old bile, but I am still full of wonder.

I started blogging pretty much when blogging was invented, and I started blogging mainly because I was driving everyone on various Birmingham City boards mental. Everything I came across on the web amazed me, even photos of cute cats, and, every time I came across anything new, I would post it on a message board. In my defence, I would come across some seriously good shit, but, nevertheless, it got on everyones nerves, and people would tell me, rather rudely, I thought, to fuck off.

Then blogging was invented, and here was a place for me to enthuse, and to vent. I would post daft link after daft link, and I would post my opinions on everything, and some of my opinions verged on the intemperate.

Some people liked this stuff. I got an honourable mention as a top British blogger in the Guardian (bear in mind, there were only about 3 British bloggers at the time) and I got lots and lots of hits, over 100, every day. And if I posted on mefi, bless my soul, hundreds would visit. It might not seem like much to you, but it seemed like a hell of a lot to me.

I moved from Blogger to Typepad and for a while, the shit I typed was really popular, and I had several hundred a day visit, and I was chuffed; then, after about 2 years I moved back to Blogger. Typepad just deletes your account when you stop paying. I would get emails from people saying why are you selling chairs? and, where's yer blog? There was no blog, not on Typepad, and if you looked for my blog, you were redirected to a chair seller,

Back on Blogger, visitor numbers dropped, not that I cared overmuch, I wasn't really after visitors and I have never tried to make cash from the blog; I still had visitors, but several things had changed. First, every man and his dog had gotten access to the internet. Second, no one needed me or anyone else to post them in the direction of good stuff, interesting stuff, quirky stuff…………it was all becoming part of the mainstream web experience.

And, crucially, I became less overtly angry. The fact is, the boastful fact is, that I wrote some good stuff at that time, but the good stuff I wrote was nasty, and it was aimed at people. People would say," I can't wait for the next instalment," and I would think, there are no instalments. It wasn't nice and it wasn't fair.

It was well written, and, often, hilarious (even if I say so myself) But it was nasty. I took a very conscious decision to knock all that stuff on the head, and not to be a cunt anymore. And this is the result. I can't think of a single thing to fucking write! It's not that I am not pissed off at the world and everyone in that stops me writing, it's that if I am not being nasty, I may as well be fucking mute, I can't think of anything to say.

And, unsurprisingly, no fucker comes looking anymore, plus, I really am too old and tired to try and build a following.

So. Lets have a go at not being nasty. The web still fills me with wonder. I find so many books and so many authors that I just never would have heard of, I should get on my knees and thank the universe for its munificence every day. It gets better though, twitter will point you in the direction of an author, and authors might even tweet and say hello, and point you in the direction of good stuff that they have heard of, which will never hit the mainstream. Then you can buy it, really cheap.

It's the same with music. People think I am wilfully weird in my taste. I think others are wilfully weird in settling for what the BBC or the student union tells them is hip. A few months ago a Blues fan satrted following me on twitter, and I followed him back. Probably 30 years between us. He lives in Derby, I live in Cwmbran. did we talk about Blues? No. We talked about obscure country music. The dude has disappeared, but in our short acquaintance, he directed me to some seriously good stuff. 2 people, disconnected, years apart, who would never meet or connect in real life, found some mutual benefit in a brief online acquaintance, and enriched each other lives. Possibly!

There are loads of other reasons to love the web and to love life, but it's all too easy to focus on what is shit, and, as a pretend writer, to just rant. The task is, if I want to keep on with this, is to be as sharp and witty in celebrating life, as I was denigrating it. I'm going to give it a motherfucking go. Mind you, I wouldn't hold my breath!

Heres a very good reason to love life and to celebrate the web………….Robyn G Shiels. This man is some kind of a genius. He writes wonderful songs and sings them in an very, very distinct and impressive voice. I don't think he is a young man, I suspect he has been around for a while. I think I know shit, but I didn't know this shit. I heard him on Radio Ulster, then sought him out on spotify and tweeted regarding his brilliance. he has since tweeted me a link to a new song of his.

The angry me says, how come the radio, even the so called intelligent radio, is full of shit when guys like this (thousands of the fuckers) are about. The new me, the tolerant me, says, aint life fucking grand, all this good shit, all this availability of radios stations, and spotify, and social networks, are enriching my life in ways that would have been unimaginable at the Wednesday night discos with the Greboes and the townies at the Speedwell in 1974.

That video at the top is a bit special too. It wasn't Jules Holland that alerted me to him. It was the interweb.

Goodbye Ghost

2011-04-09T22:00:00.002Z

It's getting that I am too scared to get out of bed in the morning, I have never known a time of such turmoil. People killing each other by the thousand left right and centre, uprisings being suppressed, successful uprisings turning out to have been unsuccessful, natural disasters and fuck knows what else. It might seem trite, but thank God for books, music and football.

I have had a bit of a bad run with books, and have read some proper shit, but I have discovered Mark Billingham. I'm a bit snobby about English thriller writers and don't rate many of 'em, Billingham is brilliant though, or the book I read is. Just bought another one, but saving it for later. Currently got the latest Gene Kerrigan on the go, very good, and has helped me get over the bad mood that the appalling James Sheehan put me in.

I've been listening a lot to Another Country on Radio Scotland, which is presented by the singer from Deacon Blue, but don't let that put you off, it's ace. Not as ace as McLeans Country on radio Ulster which is brilliant every week. Mcleans classic albums is also well worth a listen. It's already been a great year, with amazingly good stuff coming from the Low Anthem and Josh T Pearson, among others and The Felice Brothers have a new one out in May. It's looking like a classic year. Thank the good lord above for the mercy of Spotify.

McLean had The Believers on this week, the utterly brilliant Believers. It's on radioplayer for another week and is definitely worth a listen. Pleasingly Maclean has a little spat with the extremely cool Craig Aspen about his uncool taste in music. They played a new track. Utterly fucking lovely. The two complement each other so beautifully it almost makes you believe that there is actually a heaven, where the match was surely made.

A good away point for Blues today at Blackburn. Difficult to make out what the consensus is, some seem angry about it, some seem delighted, and others seem utterly indifferent. I fit all of those camps. A point today was OK given the way other results went, but I was, again, a bit pissed off with our style of play. We will have to fuck up spectacularly, or the teams below will have to display title winning form if we are to go down, and I can't see it, so I'm quite sanguine about it all.

It's a truism that an away point is a good point, but that really only applies if you also win your home games, and we haven't done that very often, and we have lost to poor teams, so we need to be winning the odd away game to compensate, which we haven't really looked like doing. I think Eck plays the percentages, and will always take the safest option, and settle for slightly less than could be achieved with a riskier approach.

I have come to believe that Eck fears flair and panache. He gets good players in, like Chucho, Bentley and Hleb, not sure if he bought Zarate or not, but the song remains the same, he either won't play them at all, won't allow them a decent run in the side, or will only allow them cameos. I think an argument can be made that his cautious approach did for us the last time we went down, and if we go down again, it will be the caution that does for us this time.

Allowing for the fact that we were away, the context is that Blackburn are in free fall; there for the taking. We have drawn too many home games and we have lost too many games, so we have to make those points up. We have to view teams on appalling runs of form as opportunities to make up a bit of difference. We weren't as bad as we have been at times this season, in that we were not ultra cautious, but we didn't exactly go at them with pace, power and purpose either. Blackburn showed why they are currently just about the worst team in the division, but, picking the players we picked, we showed no commitment to just go out and moida da bums.

I know Bowyer scored and I know Gardner is the closest to a goal machine we have got, apart from Ridgemill, but our entire midfield today was defensive minded. Workhorses. People who will run through brick walls. But, as the old cliche goes, you need piano players, as well as piano shifters. If we are only going to pick piano shifters, there is no point in having a fucking piano!

All season, all last season, and the season before, we have struggled to create chances, yet Eck will not pick, not consistently pick anyway, players who might be capable of unlocking the door and surprising the opposition, or baffling the bastards with wit, or guile, or stealth. He will continue to pick the extremely limited Cameron Jerome, because of his whole hearted, but, let's face it, largely pointless running, yet players such as Chucho, Zarate and Bentley get very little time to make a difference. They are not afforded the same level of indulgence and patience. Frankly, it gets on my nerves.

Having had a moan, let's not forget that we have played nearly the whole season without McFadden and our defence has been seriously fucking disrupted. It's as though the George Graham version of Arsenal had lost Adams, Bould and Keown all at the same time, and while you wouldn't compare Faddy with the likes of Nani or Nasri, his loss to us is as hurtful as a loss of say, Bale is to Tottenham, as he is clearly the only bloke with more than basic football ability that Eck trusts.

Parnaby has been having a go at left back. he is derided by many, but I have always liked him, he has been unfortunate with injury and unfortunate in coming in at the same as the miracle of Stephen Carr occurred. I don't think he's ever let us down though, and he usually looks OK going forward. Not when he is on the left though. It absolutely baffles me that professional footballers, blokes who earn a good living, can't use both feet. Baffles and outrages. I have always been comfortable using both feet, my youngest is always practising with his left and when he joined his current team the coach couldn't work out which was his stronger foot. It's not innate, but all takes is a bit of practice. You would think that the motherfucking pros would find some time to have a go, if only for the sake of their own pride and dignity.

Sailortown

2011-03-09T19:16:00.006Z

The first thing I have to do is thank Bob Piper for furnishing me with a copy of Don Winslows “Savages”. Initially, I thought it was going to be unreadable, seeing as how it starts by introducing us to 3 very cool, very beautiful, very brilliant hepcats, and is written in a strange disjointed style. It didn’t take long though, no more than a couple of pages, to get drawn in. It is very sharp, very witty, very pointed and the quirky style works beautifully. It builds up to an insistent, unstoppable rhythm, not dissimilar to some of the work of the genius Ken Bruen or early Pelecanos, before his brow became furrowed. Recommended without reservation, not to the ma in law though, parts of it are a bit rude.

Driving through these historic valleys on a beautiful, but freezing cold morning yesterday, I heard a report on Obamas decision to reopen trials for Guantanamo. My flabber was gasted, not because of the U turn, but because of the rationale behind it. It seems that Obama was worried that the American public would not be able to stomach normal trials, on American soil, because it would increase the risk of a not guilty verdict. A cynic might suggest that the fear is that it might increase the risk of a fair trial.

The next time anyone discusses a golden age of television, refer them to February 20011. There is so much high quality telly on at the moment I’m struggling to see it all. First, The Killing, on BBC 4 is absolutely riveting and is as good a series as have ever been on the box. And it’s bleeding Danish.

Next is Broadwalk Empire, which just about lives up to the hype, and even if it didn’t quite live up to the hype, it would still be telly of the highest class. It’s all a little bit caricatured, but it is chock full of really interesting major and minor characters and has a genuinely sharp and funny script. I have had to stop watching it with my 16 year old though, as, at time it is downright fucking saucy.

Then there is Treme. I didn’t have high hopes for this, despite the pedigree of all involved; I thought it would be a bit of a worthy indulgence. There is a bit of that, but it doesn’t overwhelm the thing, and once again,we have interesting, multi layered, flawed characters, sharp and witty dialogue, and nudity. The cherry on the top is an absolutely ace soundtrack

Not to mention, Raising Hope, The Middle and Modern Family, all of which have genuinely laugh out loud, piss yer pants moments in every episode.

Anyway, enough of all that shit, I have football on my mind. I won’t go on about our cup win, enough has been blogged, tweeted, and liked about that already, but I will point out that our midfield was much readier than usual to take a chance on running forward as the ball was played up to Zigic, than they ever are when Jerome is up front. There could be several reasons for that, but it was good to see nevertheless. Normal service, or lack of, was resumed on Saturday though, as West Brom, in a most uneighbourly fashion, pissed on our parade. Actually, I don’t want to talk about parades. It might cause me to blush a little.

Curtis Davies made his debut for us, and he made a mistake, and West Brom scored. A lot of Blues fans have become very intolerant of him as a result, which is a bit disappointing, but that isn’t what concerns me. What concerns me is the disparity in tolerance levels between forwards and defenders. If a defender demonstrates a decent enough basic technique throughout a game, but makes one error, he is invariable slaughtered, and the same is true of goalies. One error, and it is the end of the world. Forwards can make bad decisions and show appalling technique all game and are subject to little more than a bit of disgruntled muttering.

The obvious reason for that is that if a defender makes a mistake and it leads to a goal, there is tangible evidence, cruel evidence of the error, right there on the scoreboard, for all to see. If a forward makes an error, well, no harm done, just keep plugging away. You don’t know what might have happened if the eejit had been able to control the ball. Or hold on to the ball, or had the awareness to spot a pass, or the ability to pass the ball in the right direction, with a decent weight.

The fact is though, that poor technique and awareness by forwards probably costs more points than poor technique by defenders. It is likely, if not inevitable, that once the poor forward loses control, the attacking team loses impetus, and the defending team regains impetus, putting more pressure on beleaguered defenders and increasingly the likelihood of a costly mistake.

We cannot know how many more goals would be scored if attackers didn’t make simple cock ups so regularly, but it would probably be significantly more over a season, and I firmly believe that the defence would concede fewer too. All of which is a cack handed plea for Blues fans to show a bit more tolerance to the likes of ahypothetical defender (let’s call him Curtis), making his debut, and a bit less tolerance to forward, a hypothetical forward (lets call him Cam) who makes basic errors all through the game, week after week, season after season The sort of errors that would not be tolerated if he was playing in defence. A bad defender is never excused on the grounds that he tries hard and is really, really fast.

Shall I mention Arsenal? I must. I don’t like Arsenal. I don’t like the one eyedness of their manager, and I don’t like the cocky arrogance of their players, and I especially don’t like the way that they think that the rest of the world is conspiring against them to commit crimes against beauty. For every challenge that they complain about being made against them, some bright spark can come up with an example of them doing the same, but they don’t believe that others inhabit the same moral plane as them, which makes their misdemeanours more acceptable than others.

I was delighted to see them get beat last night, except they weren’t beat, they were murdered, absolutely mullered. Their response was to turn into a poor mans Stoke. They were dirty and sneaky throughout and displayed an appetite for gamesmanship that’s was shocking to behold in such beautiful, ethical athletes: athletes who would have us believe that the most important thing is playing the game in the correct way. The Corinthian way.

They were getting outplayed and they lost their heads. They became an ill disciplined, incoherent rabble. John Beck would have been proud of them. They should have had a penalty given against them after Messi was clattered in the first half, and their centre half, who seems to live a charmed life, should have been sent off for two bookables. But all they can bleat on about is how unjust van Persie's second booking was. I don’t believe that to be the case, but even so, if he had not behaved like an overgrown child in getting his first booking, it would not have mattered.

Arsenal though, won’t look at the their own part in events, and will simply rail against the injustice of it all (not worrying about the injustices which benefited them, in both legs). It is this petulance that marks them out as failures. Barcelona did not whinge and moan and become emotionally unhinged at the denial of a pen, or at Arsenals persistent fouling, or at their anti football tactics, they simply got on with the job and let their football do the talking. Just like Blues did.

It's a Shame

2011-02-25T21:56:00.002Z

I'm like a number 11 bus. Wait all month for a post then 2 turn up at once. Used to be a good way to wag school, sitting on the number 11, bored shitless all day. Christ knows what children who didn't enjoy such privileges got up to. Doesn't bear thinking about.

I have added the Reducer to my meagre blogroll. The chap hasn't done much yet, but what he has done is rather good, and he is a Blues fan, and, if memory serves correct, an aficionado of Americana, so he's alright by me. Also, over there, there is link to Occupied Country, a brilliant blog, by an admirable mind, I thought the the blog was dead, but it has been resurrected. In the age of 140 character erudition, it's good to know that there is still room for the wordy dinosaur.

Blues fans are besides themselves, quite rightly at the forthcoming event, but, sad to report, no one else gives a shit, apart from the odd Arsenal fan. I recall when I first moved away from Brum, and described myself as a Blues fan, people would be bewildered. The last time we got to the league cup final, my present gaffer was a newly qualified colleague, who shared my desk, above which hung a Blues calendar. I went on about it, she wasn't interested. It was a bit of a weekend in Cardiff, with some notable and hugely enjoyable rowdiness between Blues and Cardiff fans, all over the town. She noticed that on her skimpily dressed night out, when most of the pubs had been closed early. On Monday, she said, I didn't realise Birmingham were, like, a proper team.

That was 10 years ago. Our last league cup final appearance, so I don't buy this bollocks about it being our biggest game for 50 odd years, it's hype. Our Leyland Daf and Autowindscreen games were just as big, bigger probably, given the context of the time, and our play off win was definitely bigger, as, arguably, was our win against Reading a couple of years ago; not to mention Orient away in 1972. Anyway, if this the only one of that lot to be classed as a major final, our last major final was ten years ago, not 50 odd. The league cup is the league cup.

At this time of a Friday night I would usually be listening to the reliably brilliant Ralph Maclean, but at times like this, exhilarating times like this, I prefer to listen to stuff I am comfortable with, stuff I can howl along to. I have had Todd Rundgren's One Victory playing a fair bit, and the Lovin Spoonful; it won't be long before I start lending my vocal finesse to the likes of "I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes" and "Pinball". "This Is Pop" is a good yellalong song too. Then there is anything by Nick Lowe or Dave Edmunds. I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax. I think there might be a song there, if only I could figure it out.

Wolves

2011-02-24T20:52:00.007Z

Bloody hell. You turn your back for 5 minutes and people start rising up against murderous dictators all over the place. I have long believed that you can't beat the motherfucking man, but, it seems, you can. It's all a bit inspiring and a bit scary. The courage of the people rising up against their oppressors is hard to fathom. I might even be inspired to go on a fight the cuts march in Cardiff on Saturday, so long as the nippers game is called off. There's revolutionary zeal for you.

I experienced coach travel for the first time in about 30 years last week. I considered the cost of petrol up to Brum, and parking, and aggravation, and decided that the coach would be a much more relaxing and economical way to travel, so long as I bought a family coach card. I would say never again, but I have to go at least once more to make the coach card pay it's way, I'm stubborn like that.

I had thought that I might take the opportunity of having some nice scoff after the game in Brum, as we had 2 hours to kill. Normally, we drive in, see game and drive out, home for about 7 with a fair wind. So this was a rare opportunity to tarry a bit in the old home town. I hadn't counted on the sheer hungriness of Brummies, the poor, starving bastards. Every noshery had queues down the street, apart from one, which should have told us something. For canteen food it was alright, but unfortunately the clueless chumps did not charge canteen prices. Never again.

The Brummie hordes will travelling en masse to see Blues beat Arsenal in the League Cup final on Sunday. For one year only, this is not a Micky Mouse competition. Unless we lose, which simply won't happen.

I am on a decent run with the reading. I enjoyed James Lee Burkes last one, which was a return to form, despite having some familiar flaws, and would just about recommend. I read Mission Flats by Willam Landay a few years ago, really liked it, then forgot about him. I just read his "The Strangler" which is a hell of a book. Set in Boston in 1963, it is a bit of an epic, a family saga, a crime drama and a political expose. It has all the best bits of the latter-day Pelecanos, without the preaching, and contains the moral ambiguity of Richard Price. It's punch and pacy and contains some brilliant dialogue; it's also witty and erudite. What more could a chump want? I whizzed through it and was pissed off when I finished it.

I'm currently reading The Extermination Club by Jeffrey Moore, and it is a book I am struggling to keep away from. A drug addled rich kid has legged it to a remote part of Canada and saved the life of a strange, precocious and mistrustful teenager. The bad guys are animal hunters. It is a strange, but very readable book, with two immensely engaging, wise cracking main characters, and it is very, very funny. Very moving too. I suspect that by the end I will also have to add the word heartbreaking, but I hope not.

I might recommend William Landay's website while I am it, it is much better than the usual glorified merchandise stand.

Money Shuffle

2011-02-04T22:41:00.005Z

I wish I could fall out of love with football. Actually, I think I did fall out of love with football years ago, but it’s a habit I can’t quite give up; it’s a relationship I can’t quite walk away from. I am like a beaten dog that runs up to his master every time the door goes, only to once again suffer the disappointment and indignity of a boot up the arse.

Liverpool fans did not want Torres to go, because they love him so, but, go he did, and there was weeping and wailing and burning of shirts. He is a traitor, the worst kind of traitor a dirty foreign bastard traitor. Andy Carroll, who seems like such a lovely young man, left Newcastle to go to Liverpool. The Liverpool fans will never take to him because, clearly, he is a traitor, not as bad as Torres, obviously, because he is English, but a traitor, nonetheless. Similarly, Suaraez is a traitor, Charlie Adam is a failed traitor.

The fans, and some of the managers, show a very warped moral compass, and it is this that irks, rather than the daft fees. We are all entitled to be disappointed when a favourite player leaves………….I was gutted when Jimmy Greenhoff left Blues all those years ago, but it was a lesson learned………….they are all mercenary, they don’t love our club like we do, and even if they do, the club will get rid of them anyway. It was an early, salutary lesson; don’t cry over spilt milk, or you will spend the rest of your miserable life weeping huge buckets.

Fans no longer seem able to accept that players inevitably move on, and they feel the need to parade their grief like so many Diana morons. They go to the ground, for fucks sake. To the ground! Why? Why do they go the ground? We know why they go to the ground; they go to the ground because Sky parks itself at the ground We then have the unedifying spectacle of seeing some berk of a Sky presenter, no doubt on secondment from an estate agents, talk utter drivel while a load of people with learning difficulties gurn behind him. Of all the crimes that Sky has committed against football, this is surely the greatest…….allowing the unemployable license to cavort all day and all night on our TV screens.

Which brings me on to Nicky Campbell. I rarely listen to him, but some times, if I have been listening to the football the night before, I hear him by accident. I have a problem with 5live generally, it seems to be dumbing down at a rate of knots and with it’s endless trails for its own programmes and the moronic beats which accompany them, it is like listening to a commercial station,

Anyway, at some early morning hour yesterday he was interviewing a protester from Tahrir square. This would have been soon after a day and night of violence, during which peaceful protesters were attacked consistently by a small army of thugs, no doubt assembled form the desperate and decaying state apparatus. Shots had been fired. People had been killed. The people in the square have shown remarkable courage. Campbell goaded the woman. He was desperately trying to get her to admit to a liking for extreme Islamism.

Now, I know nothing about Egypt, apart from what I have read this week. All that I have read indicates that Egypt is fairly secular and that the religious elements in the country don’t tend to be of the extreme variety. No doubt there are extremists, but in the circumstances, that hardly seem to be the point. Campbell was being a prize prick and doing what he is best at, petty, childish, point scoring. The story in Egypt is the scale of the uprising, the peaceful uprising, not militant Islam.

What happens next in Egypt is an important issue, and it is legitimate to discuss it. It is even legitimate for Campbell to discuss it, but not with a woman who was clearly distressed and frightened, having endured a night of extreme terror and violence. Imagine being in that square, all night, in the dark, no home comforts, no toilet, no food, no possibility of sleep; rocks and petrol bombs raining down for hour after hour, shots having been fired. Imagine experiencing that, and imagine that the BBC asks you to come on the air and tell your story, and you have to put up with the idiot Campbell giving a masterclass in how to be a snide wanker.

The new James Lee Burke. I am persisting, and I think it is better than some of his recent efforts, and, as ever, by God, he keeps you turning the pages, but, Jesus, I am having an increasingly hard time tolerating his overblown prose. He seems to be knocking out a book every year; I think he should take a couple of years off, recharge his batteries, then come back and knock us all out.

Blues have West Ham again on Sunday. Should be a laugh. I predict that we will moida da bums.

Don't Take No Notice

2011-01-31T21:42:00.005Z

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for the Blues, and I am delighted to point out that I said, after the Villa game, that we were showing signs of improvement. I was right, everyone else was wrong. A pulsating night against West Ham saw us through to the Carling cup and a somewhat soporific afternoon saw us safely through to the next round of the FA Cup, where we will play Sheffield Wednesday. It's all been a pleasant diversion, but the proper business starts again on Wednesday and I am intrigued.

There were people who were thrilled when Eck named a 4-4-2 for West Ham but I wasn't, because I couldn't see where the midfield creativity was. I predicted lots of aimless chasing and I was right, and we conceded, which meant we had to score 3. Gulp. When do we ever score 2, never mind 3? (yes, I know, Millwall, but that doesn't count). I doubt if I was alone in believing that the game was up. But the game wasn't up.

Eck changed it at half time bringing Zigic on for Derbyshire. I continued to disapprove, still believing that we needed more creativity in midfield but the change worked. There are some who say Zigic changed the game and there is truth in that, but he didn't change it on his own. The midfield were much more involved and involved higher up the pitch. In short, we took the game to them, and we won. The crowd roared. You don't get much roaring down the Blues, and, even allowing for the fact it was a semi final, it was the committed, attacking performance that got the crowd going. We need more of it. I hope and pray that Eck doesn't go back in his shell, but I suspect he will.

It's been a good window for Blues, with Bentley and Martins joining. I have no thoughts either way on Curtis Davies. Zigic has shown that despite all the opprobrium heaped upon his head, he is a class act . Bentley has already shown what a truly exciting player he is, and in turn he seems to have invigorated the much maligned Hleb. Martins we don't know about yet. He clearly had something a bit different and special once, hopefully he still has it. If Eck picks all 4 of these, we will stay up comfortably, but I am convinced that he will remain more concerned with what the opposition might do to us, rather than what we can do to them. It's all good though, never a dull moment.

I started the new James Lee Burke earlier, he had put me in a bad mood before I got to the end of page 2. Why can he not give his characters normal names? I have had a bit of a bad run with books, and ended up reading a Grisham and a Turow for the first time. Last time too. Those blokes just don't know when to shut up. I have the new Nesbo, but I can't bring myself to read it, I want to save it and savour it. Mind you, it has had some duff reviews. It would be nice to be on the sick for a few days. Too sick to work but not too sick to get stuck into a book. The house to myself. Peace. Quiet. Whatever that is.

There are redundancies at my old place of work, announced in a very uncaring and unprofessional way, apparently. It's a shocker anyway, but the bigger shock is that they seem to be getting rid of the more experienced social workers. Another area, not unadjacent to here has cut pay. None of us are safe. We are little more than paper tissues, to be tossed aside, at the whim of some fat faced berk in a shiny arsed suit. Already, we are told that we should think ourselves lucky, we have no cause to complain, just think, we could end up down the road, like the others. The subtext being, obviously, "shut the fuck up".

As usual, Unison has played a motherfucking blinder. I was being facetious there.

Twitter, a repository of the instant and inane thoughts of chumps like me, who think that the world is desperate to hear their half arsed opinions, but it comes into its own at momentous times like this when the heroic people of Egypt are rising up and helping us put the goings on down St Andrews into a bit of perspective.

Make Me Smile

2011-01-17T18:40:00.002Z

It’s been an eventful few weeks for the Blues. We had a good result against Blackpool, in which we played fast attacking football, until we took the lead, at which point we took our collective feet off their collective throat, and allowed them back in. Still, we won and we played well. The players demonstrated that they can attack, if given licence to do so.

I thought at the time, this will never catch on, because we were a bit leaky. I surmised that Eck would be more alarmed by the chances that Blackpool created than thrilled by the chances we created. And I might have been right.

We went to Milwall for the cup and bugger me scored 4 goals, something I never thought possible with our current manager. I didn’t see any of this game, but apparently we were not all that good, but, job done, and Derbyshire, who looked impressive against Blackpool scored two, surely a good sign, especially as we seem to be having a bit of trouble getting even mediocre strikers to sign for us.

West Ham next and all was woe. Back to the cautious, ultra defensive style that has served us so poorly all season. Eck even joked about it beforehand. We lost 2-1, which was lucky, because it could have been worse; they created thousands of chances. We did actually improve at the start of the second half and had them shitting themselves. Same players, but they played further up the pitch, with a bit more urgency. As I have been saying forever, these players can do it, if allowed to do it.

We had the Villa yesterday. It’s a shame we didn’t win, but I seem to be in a bit of a minority in thinking that it was hugely encouraging performance. We started with Hleb and Bentley in midfield. Only one striker, Derbyshire, who I prefer to Jerome, but Bentley and Hleb in midfield. That is 2 skilful, attacking players in our midfield.

Bentley made a difference. He looked like he was enjoying himself for a start and always looked to move it forward. He also seemed to bring out something in Hleb, who looked up for it. The truth is, we still didn’t create much, certainly not in terms of clear cut chances, but Hleb and Bentley were brilliant at relieving pressure. It was great to see Blues players take delivery of the ball calmly and assess their options calmly; it was great to see Blues players looking comfortable on the ball and passing it to someone wearing the same coloured shirt, rather than just shifting it on, straight to an opponent.

So long as they stay fit, they should improve. Their own fitness levels should improve and their awareness of each other and the rest of the team should improve. With a fair wind and good coaching, the whole team will develop a rhythm, with Bently as conductor and Ferguson as orchestra leader and Hleb as chief violinist.

If Eck persists with Derbyshire up front (which I very much doubt) he will improve too. Already he has shown greater awareness and touch than Jerome. He doesn’t have the same muscular presence or speed, but that is irrelevant. For all his pace, power and work ethic, Jerome neither scores many, nor creates many. We have piano players in the team now, as well as piano shifters, Derbyshire is better equipped to apply the coup de grace than Jerome, and it would be a betrayal of the talent of Hleb and Bentley to persist with the willing, but limited Jerome.

There are those who are willing to forgive Jerome his limitations, and will point out that he still young, still learning and the team is not set up to make the best of his assets. They will point out that Derbyshire has missed at least two good chances in recent weeks, but I think they are missing the point. Derbyshire is also young, the same age as Jerome in fact, but hasn’t benefited from an extending run in a settles team in the same way that Jerome has, and I am convinced that he has more awareness and footballing nous than Jerome ever will.

He has missed chances, yes, but all strikers miss chances, and the salient point is that he has been in a position to miss ‘em, and overall, he is a much more comforting presence as a footballer. The goals he has scored have been good goals, the goals of an instinctive scorer, and he has also been aware enough to provide chances for Jerome to miss. Jerome will chase lost causes down to the corner flag………..all well and good, but, ultimately pointless. Jerome has demonstrated over a long period of time that he can’t quite cut the mustard; Derbyshire has shown in a short period of time that he has something about him, and he deserves an extended run to show what he can do

Apothecary

2011-01-01T22:42:00.000Z

The Low Anthem - Apothecary - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

At the risk of sounding a bit shrill, Blues were horrible tonight. There will be those who will say we competed quite well in the first half and that if we hadn't been victims of some very bad refereeing, the whole dynamic of the game may have been different, and they would probably be right, but we would still have been horrible, because, lets face it, we are horrible. To an extent, being horrible is OK, and it can be hilarious when you are beating Chelsea, but I have had enough of it.

Regardless of the ref, we would never have won that game. As Steve Forbert sings, you cannot win, if you do not play, and we do not play. We attempt to stop the opposition playing, but we don't really play ourselves. This is not just about today, this is us. Every week, whoever the opponent is. For me, our style is barely tolerable even when we don't lose, but finding ourselves in the drop zone, has put me in a bad mood. This shitty style clearly isn't working, so why persist with it?

Eck said something the other day about Barcelona and Arsenal and the way they pass and retain possession and alluded to the fact that we cannot expect to emulate that style with the players we have. It is obvious that he does not trust our players to do anything other than fight like dogs. We only ever commit men forward after we have conceded. We play a percentage game of harrying and pressing the opposition into mistakes or fouls, we play for territory. It's like watching fucking rugby. Punt it upfield and try and win the second phase

As Steve Forbert also sang, it doesn't have to be this way. Other teams with limited players show this on a weekly basis. Blackpool take the game to the opposition, and, my oh my, they score goals. Bolton have been transformed by Owen Coyle and are much more pleasing on the eye than they once were. Both teams are comfortably ahead of us in the table. Mainz are a team of extremely hard working artisans, but are very direct when they have the ball and are doing brilliantly in Germany. I refuse to believe that our players are incapable of attacking with a bit more purpose.

We are in a situation where we are playing unlovely football, losing games and have been travelling with Plummet Airlines to the foot of the table. Eck speaks highly of the team spirit and the work ethic, but it takes more than that. He has to have more confidence in them, he has to let the off the leash a bit. Playing 5 defensive midfielders is humiliating. If he doesn't trust the regulars, he should try others. Hleb isn't getting a start, Michel had disappeared off the face of the earth, Zigic can't get a start, Derbyshire may as well turn up in pyjamas, because he sure as shit isn't going to get anywhere near the pitch, Phillips is only ever allowed 10 minutes or less.

The sad fact is that the players are failing, the defence isn't as good as it is cracked up to be (look at the stats for goals conceded from set pieces if you don't believe me) the midfield cannot create chances, nor hang on to the ball to relieve pressure and our main striker couldn't score in a barrel of fannies. Yet players that Eck has bought, presumably having done his famous due diligence, can't get a game. It is baffling.

The window is open, we need to bring some talent in, but, if Eck doesn't play the new guys, or if he doesn't change our mind set, it won't matter who he brings in, because we will be fucked.

Slippin and Slidin

2010-12-30T22:53:00.000Z

How chuffed I am to see England retain the ashes, on Australian soil, with 1 game still go. Magnificent. But the media are at it again. James Lawton in the Independent has said that the performance was close to perfection, not just cricket perfection, but sporting perfection. Old Lawton is paid to write about sport, and he does it well, he sees loads, it's his job to see loads, but, come on, perfection? It was a brilliant performance, against a demoralised team made up of fragile prima donnas (1 or 2 apart). A brilliant performance, but not a perfect performance. Cricket is too subtle and beguiling a game anyway to be perfect.

I hope the media calms down a bit, we don't want these players being eaten up by their own hype. It wasn't long ago that we could not imagine an England team without Flintoff and Jones (Simon, not Geraint). Well, now we have a better team, let's just let the team be. Much has been made of the stout, no nonsense virtues of Breslan. The day he turns up with a fake tan, an elaborate tattoo, and a remodelled haircut, is the day that the decline starts. It is not insignificant that the form of Bell has improved since he lost the boy band haircut.

That video up there, it's Steve Earles nipper and he is touring next month. Small venues, cheap tickets.

Spare Me

2010-12-29T20:18:00.000Z

Blues returned after the midwinter break to earn a point against Manchester Utd and upset Alex Ferguson. The game showed the best and worst of Blues. The best was our obduracy and fighting spirit, the innate bloody mindedness of players who will not accept that they are beaten until the final whistle goes. The worst, 2 distinct spells apart, was our complete disinterest in threatening the oppositions goal.

We started pretty well, very solid, very tough, without showing any inclination to make acquaintance with van der Saar, then had a period where we took the game to them a bit more but without offering any real threat. Manchester dominated the second half, probably because we allowed them to and it wasn't until they scored that we started attacking with any intent.

McLeish has a bit of a blind spot here. He says that we create chances but don't put them away. Sorry, Eck, but we create very few chances and we are expecting Jerome to have a strike rate comparable to Gerd Muller or Paolo Rossi if we are expecting him to knock in many of the very few chances that fall his way, our problem is that we don't create enough chances. Our midfield is not quick enough to support the front one, or, frequently, the front 0, as we tend to have every single player back to defend set pieces. This tendency does not discourage the defenders from booting the ball up the pitch though, to no one.

The fact is, we are capable of passing it, we are capable of putting the opposition under pressure and we are capable of creating chances. We show it every time we go behind. Eck should stop blaming the strikers for their poor conversion rate and instruct the team to play with a more positive intent. We slipped into the bottom 2 yesterday before hauling ourselves out; snatching last minute equalisers will not get us up the table.

There is a huge rumour that Robbie Keane will be coming to us when the transfer window opens. This is good news. However if he has to feed on the kind of scraps that the current strikers have to sustain themselves with, he will be looking very skinny by the seasons end. I think Eck has seem the light though, and we will all be enjoying a goal feast in the coming months.

Country Dumb

2010-12-23T11:40:00.001Z

By Christ it's been snowy. I don't like it, 2 days is OK but then it just becomes irritating. Played havoc with the sporting weekend too, although rugby clubs didn't seem to have the same trouble as football clubs in getting games on. I watched a bit of the Leicester v Ipswich match, which was played in a white out, it was hilarious. I'm sure that in the 60's and 70's far more games would have been played in the conditions. It's not political correctness gone mad that has caused the change, it is a culture of litigious freeloaders gone mad. Councils and clubs are scared that some dope will fall and break his arse bone and sue 'em.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the Ashes. It was the end of the first day and England were struggling and I made some disparaging comments. England then decided to make me look stupid by dominating the rest of that game and the next game. I read articles seriously asking if this was the best England team ever or the worst Australian team ever. This England team is not even English, so it s a moot point anyway. Besides, I don't look so foolish now, after the worst bowler in the world destroyed the best batting line up in the world. Once upon a time, I am sure, people would reflect before making stupid statements. I blame 24 hour news channels and bloggers.

Talking of stupid, I came across this splendid correspondence between a disgruntled fan and the board of the Cleveland Browns. I hope it is true, because it is brilliant.

There is a piece on Blues in this mornings Guardian which is depressingly accurate. It doesn't say much more than I have been saying for months, but reading it, it just sort of hits home how fucking awful we are. There are those who will say that so long as we stay with the elite none of it matters, but I beg to differ. Epic ~~defensive~~ goalkeeping displays like the one against Chelsea are all well and good, but I don't want to see that every week and I don't want to spend 120ish quid every fortnight to watch a team that is proud to finish a match having had no shots on target. There is a balance and we are extremely out of whack.

I remember many years ago going to a match between Crewe and Reading. Reading were flying high at the time but playing shit football, Crewe had a reputation for playing the beautiful game. Reading won. I remember in the boozer afterwards that Reading and Crewe fans were having a furious debate, with Crewe fans saying that they didn't care where they were in the league, they would not want to watch that shit week in, week out. The Reading fans just gloated. I'm with the Crewe fans. I don't go to watch the likes of Gerrard and Fabregas display their silky skills; that is not what I pay for, I pay to go and support the Blues, and supporting the Blues has become a very unappealing pastime.

So Saint Vince has had his comeuppance. From Francis of Assisi to Rasputin in one easy stride. I still keep reading and hearing that he is an accomplished political operator and is the conscience of the coalition. I don't believe it. He didn't have much of a conscience when he was employed by Shell, he hasn't shown much of a conscience in the coalition and it wasn't very accomplished to blurt out all that shit to 2 women he didn't know. I think he fell victim to his own vanity. A lot of these lib dems look a bit out of their depth: being responsible for making tough decisions is very different to sitting on the fence, trying to be all things to all men.

Metafiletr still come up with good stuff, like this fantastic photo essay on Hells Angels

Sweet Talk Sweet Talk

2010-12-16T22:13:00.001Z

I am a bit disgruntled with modern life. Whenever a comic has gifts with it, always cheap, nasty tat, they put the price up. That's not my idea of a gift. Here you are, have a gift, now you owe me 3 quid, for the gift. Shysters. It never happened with Whizzer and Chips.

I keep hearing about the Arsenal game at the weekend. The big news is that it will be Ryan Shawcross' first game against the charmless bastards since THAT tackle. Fuck me, what has the world come to? A player was tackled in a rough, tough, mans sport and got injured, it happens all the time, always has, always will, yet when it happens to an Arsenal player, we have to keep hearing about it for years and years after………if you don't believe me, ask Martin Taylor. The media, and Arsenal, are killing the fucking game; as Ricky Hatton was fond of saying……."it ain't a tickling contest".

There is a threat of snow, which means that there will be no bread or bananas to be had for days to come. Big society, my arse. I was foiled in my attempts to panic buy yesterday and I was foiled again today. If the snow comes, we will starve. Mind you, I managed to get hold of 2 sledges today, so the snow will undoubtedly pass us by. I was a very popular man as I walked through Ebbw Vale with my sledges, practically the whole population approached to ask where I had nabbed them from. If I liked the look of 'em I told 'em. I was a bit worried I might get mugged.

I don't really like Julie Burchill all that much, she's a bit too shouty and a bit too knee jerky for my liking, like a female Richard Littlejohn, but she can write like a bastard and stick the boot in like a Richard Allen character, and both qualities are evident as she tears into posh bufoon Charlie Gilmour and his oafish ilk.

Whenever I see David Cameron at Prime Ministers Question time, I think, well, he's insouciant, then I think, fuck me Dave, this is no time for insouciance.

Set 'Em Free

2010-12-14T21:18:00.003Z

Wolverhampton Wanderers 0 Birmingham City Woeful. That’s all I have to say on the matter, except that I hope the players have been instructed to go to their rooms for a long, hard think.

The kettling debate continues. It tickles me to see people on football message boards vigorously defending the actions the police took against the great unwashed. Many of them would be the same people who rage against the machine when the rights of football fans are infringed, or when kick off time are changed in the name of good public order, or potentially difficult matches are designated bubble matches

I recognise that it is difficult for the police. I am a man of peace and have no sympathy at all for those protesters who wish to engage in violence, but I wonder how many of them actually wish to be violent. I don’t know, but I suspect that it is a small group, and I suspect that they have a bit of previous, some of them may not even be in education at all, but attach to themselves to any demonstration in order to pursue their hobby of acting like complete pricks. The police are pretty adept at isolating troublemakers at the football these days, I am sure that the skills utilised by officers in football intelligence are transferable, why not get some of those brainiacs involved to try and limit the potential that the worst among us have to act the goat.

This is a huge dilemma for democracy. We all have the right to air our views and we have the right to dissent. We should be allowed to gather in our thousands, if enough of us feel strongly enough, but we should also be responsible enough to gather in our thousands peacefully.

No one voted for this poxy coalition, but this poxy coalition is what we have. This is what our electoral system has served us up, and we have to live with it, which doesn’t mean that we should sit back meekly and accept everything that is thrown at us. We have a right make those who are increasing hardship for millions of people feel uncomfortable.

The current presenting issue is tuition fees, but over the coming years there will be many others. The problem is, that many people will look at police tactics, and wonder if they really want to run the risk of being whacked about the head, or charged by a horse, and whacked about the head, or corralled somewhere he doesn't want to be for hours, unable to even enjoy a shit, and many people will choose to stay at home. Kettling is an awful tactic. It imprisons people against their will and most of those ketteld will be innocent of any crime and will not be offering any threat to public order or the stability of the nation. Democracy loses

Those who wish to take to the streets, probably thousands upon thousands of people, should do so in a benign and good humoured way, otherwise the message they are trying to get across will be diluted and all protesters will be lumped in with the great unwashed. Our hegemonic media will gleefully focus on the bad shit. Organisers of marches and protests should work intelligently with the police to stop protests becoming hijacked, but the police also have to work intelligently with protest organisers to ensure that measures put in place are not too draconian.

Mikey Delgado puts it better.

Enough of that bollocks. I finished the Alan Warner, and, while it was a bit of a struggle, I would actually recommend it. The blurb talks of his brilliant imagination, and he surely does have a brilliant imagination, although he does have the posh English girl slipping into a Scottish brogue from time to time. It is impossible not to warm to all of his characters in the end, even the grotesque, vulnerable Manda. This is not my usual crime fiction, this is literary fiction which focuses on working class women, and does so with a dispassionate, yet warm and humorous eye. It doesn't romanticise and it doesn't demonise, and in British fiction, it is a hugely refreshing change not to be reading about the existential crisis of some upper middle class berk.

So, I dived into Nesbo's Snowman. God, it was a comfort. I have barely started but I feel right at home in it and I know I am going to be pissed off when I finish it. I shall have to ration myself. Have I mentioned KO Dahl on here? He is another brilliant Scandinavian, as good as Nesbo, but he only seems to have had two books translated. This is a crime against the genre loving British public, and needs to be adressed.

Annie, Lets Not Wait

2010-12-12T01:19:00.000Z

As a general rule, I support the police. I work with some chaps who do terrible things and the police frequently get involved and they are always quite sensible about it. They are a bit like us, I suppose, they have seen, and know about shit that really doesn't bear contemplating, so they are not given to over reacting. Also, I see 'em at the Blues, and, less frequently at demo's, and they show fucking remarkable restraint. The public ain't nice. The public at football matches ain't nice at all. They will spit at, kick at and verbally abuse the police, and yet the constables stand there, stoic. I admire them, hugely.

But. By God, they really are agents of the state. They will take any provocation from football fans and Saturday night drunks, but gather in large numbers for a political cause, and it will be whack a mole time. Talking of drunks, I am drunk now, and one should not blog drunk. I have loads of really erudite observations on all this shit though. Won't post 'em tomorrow, local derby on……..too emotive. Come back around Wednesday. It will be brilliant.

2010-12-08T21:06:00.001Z

I'm still struggling to find a book that agrees with me. I'm persevering with Alan Warners "The Stars in the Bright Sky", but it's a struggle. I've had Jo Nesbo's Snowman sitting by the bed since the summer, but I've been saving it for desperate times. I think desperate times are upon us. The Mrs thinks I'm a nutter for saving up books like that, she just gets stuck in and devours 'em, straight away. I'm a bit fed up with the marketing of Nesbo. Having been reading him for a couple of years I don't want people thinking I've only picked him up because, apparently, he is the new Larsson. He is miles better than Larsson for a start.

This whole Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Operation Payback episode is starting to read like a Larsson novel. I can't help but have an image of some huge, fat, hairy bastard with no social skills, sitting in some basement manipulating everything. 3 massive cheers for whoever is behind Operation Payback.

Johan Hari's article on wikileaks in this mornings Independent was brilliant, and is well worth reading, and sharing.

There was also a very good article by the reliably indignant Robert Fisk on the influence of Qatar,

I was listening to some tory berk on the radio this morning, going on about Big Society and how we should all be out in the snow, being neighbourly, helping each other out, and gritting the roads ourselves. He said, helpfully, that he believed that some councils even provide boxes of grit, so that we could do just that. Something struck me. I wondered what kind of community he lives in, and if he has a neighbour within a hundred yards, because around here, big society kicks in and everyone is out, shovelling, being jovial, and we are not a neighbourly bunch. I don't include the git who helps himself to barrow loads of grit from the only grit box. I just assume he is a tory.

There is reason to assume he is a tory, as, it turns out that the rich are unempathetic and selfish: the poorest 3rd donate more of their cash as a proportion of income than the richest third. It comes as no surprise to me. All this talk of Big Society smells to me of people who do not really participate in society, people who are pretty much excluded from society, by reason of wealth. They don't realise that the little people go around helping each other out and empathising with each other all the time. If your view of the world is filtered by the scaremongering prism of the Daily Mail, you might not realise that.

It looks as if Alan Pardew will be the new Newcastle manager. He must be mad if he takes it; the fans have made it clear that they don't want him and it can only end in tears. Look what happened to Gary Megson at Bolton and Sam Allarydyce and Ruud Gullitt at Newcsatle. Pardew will not be allowed a single error of judgement before the fans turn against him, and then the press will all pile on. I predict that the reign of Pardew will be nasty, brutish and short.

Driving home a bit earlier, the starlit sky was stunningly beautiful, and the crescent moon, which was hanging as low as teenagers trousers, seemed to be smirking, cheekily. I decided that I would blip it. Can't find it. It's there somewhere, because it is still a beautiful starlit night, but I can't see the moon anywhere, it must be so low that it has dipped below a house or a hill. Is it a bleeding portent of something?

The government has been wheeling its big guns out all day to talk about tuition fees. I can stomach it from the tories, but not from Nick Clegg. Even the odious Nick Robinson had him wriggling about in an interview somewhere or other. He is like a whirling dervish with his vaccilations. He says that it isn't fair that those who don't go to university should subsidise those who do, but those who do go pay back plenty and we all benefit in many ways. I wonder how much we all subsidised Cleggs education and when he is going to pay us back?

Where Dreams Go To Die

2010-12-06T15:49:00.001Z

John Grant | Where Dreams Go To Die | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.
">John Grant | Where Dreams Go To Die | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Well. That was a dainty dish to set before the swine last Wednesday, wasn't it? Enough has been said now, the world doesn't need my contribution, but I will point out, because few others seem able to do so, that as far as hooliganism went, Blues fans were innocent: it was evil Villa fans who threw flares, broke up and hurled seats, smashed up toilets so that they could enjoy the perverse pleasure of wading about ankle deep in each others piss, and who broke through a door separating the fans in the Railway End (it will always be the Railway End to me) so that could attack Blues fans. Sore losers.

It was a relief and a pleasure to see us go a goal down early on against Spurs, it meant we had to play a bit, and we did play a bit, at times, and played well. Some Blues fans are now eulogising Zigic because he had a half decent game. It is a typically bi polar response. He wasn't as bad as everyone said last week and he wasn't as good as everyone is saying this week. He looks OK and if he continues to learn how to handle himself in what must be a pretty alien environment, he could turn out to be a bit of a bargain. I have high hopes for Beausejour as well, another player who isn't as bad as everyone has made out; I think it is pointless asking him to be a warrior though, just give him the ball and encourage him to take the others buggers on, see what happens.

Not a bad week then, for the Blues, with points gained against good teams and knocking Villa out of the cup, and a definite improvement has been shown over the last 5 or 6 games, but we need some wins, we need daylight between us and the rest, we need to be a bit more pro active and a bit less reactive. Once we decided to have a go against Spurs we caused them plenty of problems; Eck has to find a way of balancing our defensive solidity with a bit of wit and elan.

There was a good piece the other day on the Zonal Marking site, all about wingers who play centrally. If Eck really doesn't want to play 4-4-2, we have the players who can play in that sort of hybrid winger / inside forward role……Helb, for one, but I also think Fahey and Gardner could have some potential there, and it would go some way to solving the problem of linking up between the defence and the attack.

There was a bit of a brouhaha over the world cup vote last week. I can't say I was bothered, one way or the other, but the outraged responses of the media and many of the fans has been amusing, and it now appears that Boris Johnson has withdrawn an offer of hospitality to genial old Sepp. Very classy that, very dignified, very stiff upper lip.

John Pilger has written a brilliant piece in the New Statesman on Vietnam

Get Your War On is back, in rude health.

Sea of Tears

2010-11-27T19:01:00.001Z

If the connoisseurs had been salivating at the prospect of Fulham V Birmingham City, they would now be disappointed. It wasn't a bad game, but the game was not characterised by the silky skills of the participants (Hleb apart).Blues looked quite lively in the first half, as did Fulham, actually, but, Fulham looked very vulnerable every time Blues attacked with malign intent……. and there's the rub; Blues were not malign enough, often enough.

Blues took the lead after some fucking superb, high class work by Hleb who put Larrsson in to score. YES!!!! was my first thought. My second thought was, shit, we are going to close up the shop now, and invite them to try and burgle us. The obduracy of our defence is rightly lauded, maybe I'm a philistine, but I prefer to watch the beautiful game. This was an occasion when Blues could have given us a treat, Fulham were there for the taking, but no, onto the back foot we went. The mantra seems to be "what we have, we hold"

Fulham looked much livelier in the second half, but only because we allowed them to. Whereas we were passing the ball forward in the first half, we resorted to lumping it aimlessly up the field, or in the general direction of Cameron Jerome, which has the same effect as an aimless punt up the field, as the ball immediately comes back. And there we were: a practice game, attack v defence. Until we got burgled.

From there on we huffed, they puffed, but no one blew the house down. It was a fair result in the end and a point for us, away from home, is not to be sniffed at. I am convinced though, that with a bit more ambition, a bit more heart and effort in going forward, we would have scored more. Mind you, we were much more adventurous than last week, doubling the number of shots we had on target. Still, we have gone above the Villa, and that will do nicely. Very nicely.

The England cricket team sailed off to the antipodes with the expectation that they would murder an Australian team which is in disarray. The players were full of it, ex coaches were full of it, the media was full of it, social media was full of it. Even the Aussies waded in. 3 days in, Australia are, predictably, murdering us.

I shouldn't like boxing, but I do and I will be searching for a stream of the Froch fight later on (I don't like it enough to actually pay for it!) Meanwhile, here is a brilliant report of the Pacquiao v Margarito ruckus

God: a divine North Korea

Transcript of the Blair / Hitchens ding dong.

I'm struggling to find a decent book to read. I've tried the new Jonathan Coe and couldn't get on with it, A John Connolly which had promise but failed to keep the promise and not one, but two Alan Fursts, which were both horrible. I have just started Haileys War, but have no great hopes for it. It is freezing cold out there; one of life's pleasures is to be in the warm, snug as a bug, immersed in a book. I am fed up. It seems like a waste of a beautiful winter.

Hungover

2010-11-22T18:42:00.000Z

Blues 1 Chelsea 0. I know Chelsea had screwed up at home to Sunderland the week before so there isn’t quite the shock there that there might have been, but this is still a hell of a result for Blues. It is also a hilarious result. Throughout the game, Chelsea had more shots than any other team have managed in any prem game this season. Blues had one shot on target. And won. We did what we do well, defended for our lives without ever really looking to add to our lead, and, due to a combination of utter brilliance by Ben Foster and good luck, we prevailed.

I’ve said before that we are capable of defending stoutly against even the best teams. We don’t find it so easy to score goals against the lesser teams though, which could become a problem. I read that we are creating chances this season but are not putting them away. I don’t really buy that, our mindset is a cautious one, and we don’t go for it until we have too. We do create chances then, but panic has set in, I wonder if our strikers (I’m looking at you Cameron) would have calmer heads if we played on the front foot a bit more consistently.

Ed Milliband returned to work today after his paternity leave. Finally, the opposition will have some consistent leadership. Given the free ride that this bastard coalition has had since the election, I would have quite liked Ed to have taken a shorter break. It is as if he starting all over again now. Of course, it could be that he is a zen socialist. I like the sound of that. I don’t know what it is, but I like the sound of it.

Being slightly less than svelte myself, I was interested in an article by Johan Hari this morning, all about how he lost some weight, with the help of a personal trainer, which isn’t an option available to all of us. It tells us nothing new, except that Hari is surprisingly funny, and he makes some pertinent points about physical education in schools at the end of it, points that I have made myself in the past, so I obviously agree with them.

My youngest came home from school the other day clutching some kind of mission statement, which stated the schools commitment to an overtly Christian value base. I suppose that’s preferable to an overtly fascist value base, but it dismays me, all the same. We have a school at the end of our road which has the reputation of being the best primary in town, but it is a church school. We didn’t want the nippers to have an overtly Christian education so sent them to an ordinary LEA school, further away, and with no reputation at all. The oldest two have now moved on but youngest is still there. I’m sure they have had God shoved down their throats much more than would have been the case at the church school. Mind you, it seems to be compulsory to own a huge four wheel drive vehicle at the church school, so we wouldn’t have fulfilled the eligibility criteria anyway.

Farewell Sorrow

2010-11-13T17:27:00.002Z

It was a bit of a non event at Eastlands today. Blues put on a performance reminiscent of last years invincibles and held Manchester City at bay for a valuable point. Not that they took much holding off. I said yesterday that Manchester City are profoundly unimpressive and their performance today has done nothing to change that view.

The cognoscenti, typically, are hailing one of the great defensive performances of all time. It was a good, solid defensive performance, against a poor team, who offered little attacking threat, so I wouldn't go overboard, just yet. We are very capable of nullifying the threat of even very good teams, that's what we did last year. The test is at the other end, where we create little and put away hardly any of the few chances we do create. Defending well is all well and good, an away point is all well and good, and I am very happy with it, but the flaws which have left us at the wrong end of the table are still there. We need some wins.

Also, we should not let the euphoria of a well earned point blind us to the fact that, once again, Cameron Jerome, made completely the wrong decision and even then screwed up his execution, when we were very well placed to score. It would be irrational to pretend that a 0-0 has transformed our season. But I'm happy!

2010-11-12T22:45:00.005Z

A grim Tuesday night for Blues saw them play like half wits and go 2 down to Stoke before coming back to 2-2 and finally lose 3-2. The cognoscenti are unhappy, they think we are too negative and lack pace. No shit, Sherlock. Some of us have been saying that for the last two and a bit seasons. Not that I would be so crass as to say "I told you so".

We have the profoundly unimpressive Manchester City tomorrow. A comfortable 3 points for us, I think.

I'm as prone to hype as the next man. When the Haye v Harrison fight was announced I was filled with a massive indifference. Now I can hardly wait.

Johan Hari on blistering form, laying into young Nick Clegg: the man who cleared a space in his swanky new ministerial offices and staged a bonfire of his principles. Remember when Portillo was beaten? Remember that elation? Imagine that times 100. That's how I will feel when the good citizens of Sheffield deliver their verdict on him at the next election. All assuming that the outcome is the one I want, of course!

A man on Twitter, a man I wouldn't know if he walked up and punched me on the nose, keeps recommending that I listen to music he likes, and I'm glad he does, because he likes some brilliant stuff. I doubt that I would ever have heard of Hayes Carll or Kendel Carson without his recommendations and they are both, fucking ace. It does beg the question though, what are American parents on when they name their children? If you like Caitlin Rose you will definitely like Kendel, and if you don't know Caitlin Rose, you are depriving yourself.

Hayes Carll

Kendel Carson

Caitlin Rose

I'm reading Serpentine, by Tom Morton. I've seen it in the library loads of times without being tempted, mainly because he is best known as an afternoon DJ on Radio Scotland. I couldn't see how a DJ could be any good and assumed it was just some vanity project. I was wrong. The book is utter nonsense and is as implausible as they come, but by God, it's a page turner. Funny in parts too. Bit risky as well. And cheeky. I think he is probably a bit of a card.

Watching the nipper train tonight, another Dad said, I didn't know Charlie was left footed, I said he isn't. The man was gobsmacked as Charlie is more comfortable with his left than most of the others are with their right. That's my boy. Genuinely two footed players are as rare as rocking horse shit………I hope he remembers his old dad when he is raking in the millions. You never know, if he keeps it up he might even be as good as me, one day.

Dixie Chicken

2010-11-07T00:39:00.003Z

My prediction was awry. The immutable law did not kick in, although it threatened to, We were pretty shit though. Of course, seeing your team come back from 2 goals down makes your heart swell with pride; then you remember that you were playing the team who are bottom of the league, and that you looked second best for most of the game, and the heart becomes a little less swollen. The game showed up the beauty and absurdity of it all though, with 2 very poor teams somehow managing to contrive an excellent finish.

Following yesterdays mumbling about art and protest, Bob Piper has alerted us all to this.

Danny Baker is poorly. His mate has written a rather beautiful appreciation. Remember, without Baker, we would never have been able to enjoy the unique wit, wisdom and insight of David Mellor of a Saturday tea time. We have a lot to be grateful for.

Beasley Street

2010-11-05T21:53:00.003Z

Blues play West Ham tomorrow. Their owners used to be our owners. It would have been nice to welcome them back with all the hospitality for whichthye St Andrews crowd is justly famed for, but it won't happen, not to David Gold. He has been banned. This is hilarious. He and Sully disrespected Yeung et al, all through the changeover process, and probably also stitched them up like kippers. Having trousered the money, Gold wanted to stay on, but he was told to go forth and multiply. He made some rather rude comments in one of the papers this week and has now been banned from the ground. We are a class act and no mistake.

As for the game, everyone is confidently expecting us to win comfortably, on the grounds that West Ham are even worse than the Villa. They are ignoring the immutable law……." The Bastards Will Always Let You Down". Get your money on a West Ham victory.

There was a decent article in the Guardian this morning on the best football documentaries. The Graham Taylor one gets a mention, as it should because it is brilliant. I was pleased to see a mention for 'Six Days to Saturday" a 1963 documentary all about Swindon Town. It is really good in itself, but is an absolutely fascinating piece of history. Players walk to the ground, they live in terraced houses, and Ernie Hunt supplements his income cutting his team mates hair. Yes. That Ernie Hunt. If you get a chance to see it, you should.

There was also an article by John Harris, bemoaning the lack of a counter to the coalition in the arts. Hang on John, son, it's only been 6 fucking months. Give the artists time to sharpen their pencils. I'm sure there is plenty of stuff out there, in the pubs and the little places, he should probably get out a bit more. A more pertinent point is that protest music is usually shit. Billy Bragg is shit. I prefer Charles Bragg. Crass were shit. John Cooper Clarke was brilliant, but he looked at desolation rather than politics. The best political band we have had is Gang of Four, and they were hardly a laugh a minute.

In literature, the best protest writer this nation has seen in many a year is James Kelman, and look what happened when he won the Booker. The poor fucker was lucky he didn't get strung from a lamp post for his working class temerity. Crime is the best source of radical literature, and crime emanating from Glasgow, and Edinburg, and, to a lesser extent Dublin, is the best of a very good bunch. It does not call for revolution, but it examines the minutiae of wrecked communities and people and psyches in way that you won't see in the mainstream. It's there though, if you care to look for it.

Never mind all that. I am listening to Elliot Brood, again. What a band. Even listening in a warm kitchen on a miserable, black winters night, as soon as I hear the first chord, I am back in a tent, in a field, in Dorset, going apeshit, with a few hundred other old bastards, all grinning from ear to ear.

One of Those Days in England

2010-11-04T21:37:00.004Z

Not a bad result, in the end, against the Villa and the ref. If Cameron Jerome was a footballer, rather than an athlete, we might have won it, but at least we stopped the rot. Steven Carr is more gracious than me, praising the ref for having a good game and handling things well; I thought he was mediocre, could have given us at least one pen and should have sent the hot headed and unstable Reo Coker off. The good news is that we are showing signs of finding some form, all we have to do now is find some goals and we will be laughing.

I read yesterday that Danny Alexander was horrified at what was left for him by Labour. Christ, Dan, knock it on the head willya? It is tiresome. I also heard Vince Cable defending some outrageous policy or other. In a coalition we have to compromise, in the national interest, he said, again. I'm fed up of it. At the risk of being a bit repetitive myself, how come all these compromises end up with the poor getting the shitty end of the stick? Mind you, they are being brave these liberals. A poll has said that the public has turned against PR and it seems pretty clear that the public has turned against the libs. May I be the first to mention turkeys and Christmas?

Some photos of Liverpool in 1975 by Paul Trevor. I am very impressed with these and I envy the photographer his chutzpah. I can be a bit snap happy myself, but I don't have the courage to approach strangers, I don't even have the courage to snap people I don't know from the safety of a long lens. Can't remember who it was, but someone took a load of pictures of people in Merthyr Tydfil in the seventies and had them published a year or two ago. Brilliant stuff.

I missed a train in Cardiff yesterday and decided to just walk around taking random snaps, without framing or focussing. The results were predictably shit, but one or two were quite pleasing. I might adopt it is an approach.

Hah. I remembered. Some pics.

How times change, not so long ago, if I had missed a train, I would have headed straight for the nearest boozer, and I wouldn't have been in any hurry to leave it.

Our trade journal, which, truth be told, is only scanned for the jobs, used to have pages and pages and pages of vacancies. Hundreds of vacancies. Last week there were 4. Not pages, adverts. This week there are 10, but only 4 for actual social work. Bear in mind that there is a recruitment and retention crisis in social work. The bite is on.

Eligibility criteria has been tightened in our department. I had to compose a letter to someone I had assessed but who wouldn't be getting a service. There must be a standard letter, I thought, but there wasn't, so I e mailed colleagues in other authorities asking for a copy of their standard letters. None of 'em had one. They don't exist, but, everyone agreed that we need one, because eligibility criteria is becoming so tight that soon the only buggers with an IQ low enough to qualify for a service will be Villa fans. I invented one in the end, a nice personal one, much better. If anyone wants to buy a copy, I'm happy to negotiate a fair price!

I've been reading "The Rising" by Brian McGilloway. His stylistic resemblance to James Lee Burke is stark and it puts me off a bit. It's not just the familiarity of the characters, it's the sentence construction. It is incredibly readable but there are bits and pieces that grate with me. Like Lee Burke, his hero will piss his wife or someone (always female) that he admires off, and, rather than explaining, the hero will say something like: "I saw David O'Leary today". The hapless partner will be expected to understand why this represents a terrible event. The wife / comrade will then go off in a huff and the hero will feel guilty. The good news is that unlike Lee Burke, he does not present the women as angels………..long suffering, but not angels. In fact the Devlin wife comes across a bit of a harridan.

As with Lee Burke, the hero is flawed but sensitive, more flawed than sensitive. We are expected to sympathise with a hero with few redeeming characteristics, but, to give the author credit, we do sympathise. As with Lee Burke the major villain is a devil, as cunning as a fox, as amoral as a gold buyer in a shopping mall, and as duplicitous as Gideon. The hero and villain enjoy a strange relationship, reverse side of the same coin. Yin. Yang. In short all of McGilloways books get on my nerves, all of Lee Burkes books get on my nerves. But I can't put 'em down.

Wonder

2010-10-30T23:41:00.002Z

I'm sitting here, contemplating tomorrows game and listening to Mickey Newbury. He is brilliant, how come I had never heard of him before?

Nick Clegg was outraged the other day, when a labour MP talked of London being socially cleansed as a result of the housing benefit cuts. He got himself into quite a lather, and did that thing that Cameron does and pretended to be really angry. A simple phrase, that's all it was, and, despite his rather funny protests, an apposite phrase. It's a pity that he can't get a bit more worked up about the damage that he and Dave and Gideon are wreaking upon us all. It's strange, isn't it, that every time this cabal of clowns sees unfairness, they put it right by kicking the poor in the teeth.

We have the Villa tomorrow, at Krap Alliv. We owe them a doing, and tomorrow we will pay that debt, in spades. I am sure of it. Villa are a bit shit to start with, but they are missing a few tomorrow, and we will win, at a chuffin canter!

I went see The Duke and The King again last night at The Fleece and Firkin, in Bristol. I hadn't been there for a good 16 years and it was not as I remembered it. I'm sure it used to have an upstairs. I mentioned a few weeks ago that the new album wasn't much good. I was too hasty, and have revised my opinion……….it is superb, it just takes a few listens. They put on a brilliant, and intense show last night, and played with just some red lights in the background, so they were just about in darkness. Turns out Simones dad had died a day or two before, which probably explains it. It would also explain the lack of playfulness that you usually get with this lot and the frequent group hugs that went on through the set.

Whatever, it was probably the best I have seen them, and the packed crowd lapped it up. There was a bloke behind me, who had come on a whim, who just kept repeating, over and over; " this band is amazing" I hope they get their due and sell loads of records and make loads of cash, they are seriously talented, as individuals and as a collective but I will miss seeing them in small, intimate venues.

I have also had a listen to the new Giant Sand, "Blurry Blue Mountain". It's beautiful.

Last year, the twelve men of Villa were very fortunate to beat us, in fact it was unjust. Stephen Carr endeared himself to Blues fans by strolling off the pitch giving the wanker sign to the Villa fans. He has further endeared himself this week by saying that he does not regret his gestures; he only regrets being treated like a child by the disciplinary committee. If only Harriet Harman and Boris Johnson had the same backbone, both of them made salient points this week and both of them have backtracked, shamefully. Tossers!

While I am on about Boris, what has happened to his hair? He used to be liked because he was a Bunterish buffoon, scruffy, with unkempt hair, now the hair is very artfully scruffy………..slightly distressed, probably. It is clear that some stylist is carefully arranging his hair to make it look like he has just give it a quick rub with a towel and left the house. This is uncool. By all means tidy yourself up, but, c'mon, be natural.

Bur Oak

2010-10-23T21:10:00.002Z

#90.1 - BOWERBIRDS - Bur Oak
Uploaded by lablogotheque. - Watch the latest news videos.

I predicted that Blackpool would stuff us. I was so confident of this that I dropped Foster and Dann from my fantasy team; a decision which cost me many points; it didn't matter though, because my ability at fantasy football is as good as my ability at predicting football results: shit.

What I did get right was that it would be a good game. Blackpool came to attack, and, surprisingly, we set out with attacking intent ourselves, with both O'Connor and Zigic picked, as well as Hleb. It was, as the sages say, end to end, and both teams created, and missed chances with pleasing regularity.

The good news is that we scored 2, the less good news is that they were from set pieces. I would love to see us score from open play, it hardly ever happens. Zigic showed his quality with both goals, winning a good header and putting the ball against the bar from an acute angle, with ace goal poacher Ridgemill following up. The two combined again for the second, with Ridgemill doing very well to keep a wayward attempt from Johnson in play, which allowed Zigic to show a true strikers instinct to pounce on a clumsy bit of control by a Blackpool man. I would bet one English shilling that Jerome would not have been alert enough to score that one.

It would be nice to say that we then went on to hammer a poor defensive team who were committed to reckless attack, but we didn't. As ever, we settled for what we had and shut up shop, or tried to, Blackpool continued to create chances, although the result was never really in doubt. Replacing a striker with a left back showed our ambition. Not many Blues fans would agree with me, but this gets on my tits, a bit. It costs a bleeding fortune to go to a match, and it would be nice to see us really go for it and show no mercy. Still, it was a good and much needed win, and we played really well, so I shouldn't complain.

It's been a bit of a depressing week in politics, although none of it came as a surprise. It is highly amusing to hear Cameron and Osborne talk of the shit they have inherited, with absolutely no sense of irony. It was almost as funny as reading about how Clegg, the bastard, lectured people in Nottingham on life in the "real world" It is true, that the world he inhabits is real to him, but to most of us, it is the stuff of fantasy.

Nick Robinson was funny too, calmly taking a placard of a protester and demolishing it. I can no longer decide why I hate the twerp: I don't know if it is because he is a motherfucking Tory bastard, or if it is because he such an oafish little twerp. Still, it's nice to live in a democracy, where you are free to opine, although, to avoid potential embarrassment, it might be worth asking Robinson if it is OK before you open your trap. I loved the way another placard popped up; it was like whack a mole.

Genuinely funny is this Guardian piece about a bloke who replied to spam e mails and gave the spammers a bit of a runaround.

I have, just this very day, discovered Netsayi. She is bloody fantastic, and she has plenty of stuff available on Spotify. Do yourself a favour and check some of it out

I have been working my way through the Jamie Oliver 30 minute book. It's a misnomer, it should be titled "30 minutes if you have an army of helpers, don't include the washing up and can afford very expensive ingredients". Most of it is actually superb, I did his rogan josh tonight though and it is garbage. He recommended a curry paste and as I suspected, it was no good. You can't shortcut a curry! The lemon pickle was profoundly disgusting. Don't let that put you off though, it's a good book!

Small Town Saturday Night

2010-10-16T22:35:00.001Z

After yesterdays little Shearer rant, it was interesting to read James Lawtons obituary of Malcolm Allison. It is a shame that we have more Shearers in the game than we do Allisons. Allison was forward thinking long before it was fashionable, and was a bit of a card to boot.

It would be stretching a point to say that Blues were unlucky against the Arses today, as we were thoroughly outplayed, but we did OK. It is no disgrace to be out passed and outmanoeuvred by Arsenal, but I thought we played with a lot of courage, if not much finesse. Plenty of teams go there and get hammered; we avoided that, despite having to play against 12 men. What has Martin Atkinson got against us? I'm sure he must be a Villa fan.

I watched on the PC (yay for the interweb) and amused myself by tweeting throughout the game. Early on I said that we needed to be braver or we would get stuffed. Just before we scored. My original comment was justified, I think, because we had got ourselves in a good position, but were too scared to get on the front foot, and as result lost the ball and were lucky not to go behind following a swift counter attack.

Our goal was a good one, a good cross from the unfairly maligned Fahey was met by a good header from the criminally maligned Zigic. Zigic was a plus point. He is a much better footballer than Jerome, if not quite in the same league as an athlete, and should keep his place. He does not offer the same power and athleticism, but he does offer touch and awareness. If I wanted to see a big black bloke running fast with a sulky look on his face, I would go to Birchfield Harriers. I have no interest in seeing such a chap at St Andrews. If we have to rejig the team to suit Zigic, so be it; it will pay dividends.

We played well (ish) throughout. We didn't create much, we never do, so could hardly expect any different at the Emirates, and there were times when the Arses cut through us as effortlessly as Jamie Oliver slices a garlic clove, but we not only held firm, we tried to pass our way out of defence. I cannot stress enough how happy this made me. We have a tendency to hoof it away when we are under pressure, gifting the ball back, but, today, we made the buggers win the ball back. I like that.

We must bear in mind we were missing Gardner and Faddy. This will not mean much to non Blues fans, and may not mean much more to a few actual Blues fans, but they were our most influential players early in the season. We did alright.

Having said that, Carr seems to have become a bit accident prone and Bowyer is not as effective or dynamic as he was……..everything seems to be an effort for him: he still gives his all though. There won't be much point buying replacements in January, as Eck has a baffling tendency to not trust the players he signs. It makes a bit of a mockery of his "due diligence" mantra.

Aesthetically, the Arses were a disgrace today. If they had been Wolves or Stoke they might have had three sent off. One of them, possibly Arshavin, stuck his knee into Ridgemill, not once, but twice. The first may have been forgivable in the heat of the moment, the second was dealt after he had time to cool down. An innocuous slap about the face would have seen him sent off, so how does he, or anyone else, get away with sticking the boot in?

This was typical of the Arses performance throughout. Spiteful, petulant, and sneaky. Lets not forget the blatant dive by Chamak for the pen either. Not to mention the outrageously dangerous, dirty tackle by Wilshere on Zigic. While we are at it, Song could have been booked at least 3 times. At the risk of sounding like a pathetic victim, our players got booked for very innocuous challenges while the likes of Song and Arshavin got away with murder. I wonder what Wenger would have to say about his team if he had watched as a neutral.

Should be a good game next week at Stans. Cheap tickets for a game against unfashionable Blackpool should draw a crowd, and Blackpool will come to score goals, and may well stuff us, as we never set out to score goals. I would much rather see us play the likes of a very decent Blackpool side, with both sides going for the win, and with us having a realistic chance of a win, than pay scary prices to see us put 11 men behind the ball against the likes of Chelsea.

Chain of Fools

2010-10-15T22:10:00.001Z

There is an interview with Alan Shearer in the Telegraph this morning. It is interesting. He says that he has all his badges and would like to manage England, and goes on to explain why he should never be allowed near the job.

According to Al, tackles of the kind that Danny Murphy so deplores, should, in fact, be tolerated…..nay……encouraged…….nay………..applauded. The De Jong tackle was ok, because he went for the ball: that he also intended to take the man is irrelevant; he was always taught to “take everything”. He extols the virtues of hardness and toughness; he likes players who are nasty. Talking about Arsenal he speaks more admiringly of the team of 10 years ago than he does the present one; the reason being the old lot “was an absolute nightmare because of Bould, Adams, Keown, Winterburn and Dixon. You knew in the first 10 minutes you’d get battered.”

He says he admires the great managers, but he also relishes the tale of himself giving a sheeps heart as a present to one of Newcastle’s foreigners who was deemed to lack courage. Great man management, that. He talks, probably correctly, of the fans loving the harder, more physical side of the game and says that a hard tackle generates a louder cheer than a great pass.

He is dismissive of those who say he is not very good on Match of the Day. The only people who are complaining are critics and punters. It’s strange that he values the opinion of the punter when he is applauding a robust challenge, but considers it worthless when it comes to a general appreciation of football, or the art of criticism. He says “I’ve actually played the game and can pick something out that the people watching can’t see like why Fernando Torres is struggling.’’ Well, Al, that’s all well and good, but the problem is, you don’t say anything. You may understand it, but you don’t articulate it, that’s why you are shit.

The bigger, and more important issue though, is his philosophy on the game. It is rooted in the past, deep in the past. The inglorious past. The past that is characterised by failure after failure after failure. Humiliation after humiliation. How does Al explain this? He doesn’t. This is why he should never be let near the England team. He refuses to see that the game has progressed, and has left England in it's wake. Has he noticed how Barcelona and Spain play the game, how Germany have evolved? He probably has, but doesn't see that it has any relevance to us. The man who doles out sheeps hearts as gifts and who was famously ignorant of the existence of Hatam Ben Arfa , probably doesn't spend much time trying to broaden his horizons.

Shearer out!

Rogan Taylor was entertaining this morning on the subject of Liverpool, unfortunately, the clip begins with Robert Peston.

Blues go to the Arse tomorrow and it is as plain as the nose on yer face that we will moida da bums!

Love Hurts

2010-10-12T15:05:00.001Z

The Tories seem to have taken a liking to the word fairness. Jeremy Hunt was very keen on it on newsnight last week. "Snot fair"! he squeaked. Hard working families have to limit the number of children they have and so should the scrounging classes. No one ever mentions working families who don’t work hard, don’t know why. "Fair" comes up over and over again, like a neocon mantra. Everything the government does, it does in the interests of fairness……………it is only fair that……………it is not fair that. I don’t like it. I think it is crude and simplistic and leads to a crude and simplistic analysis. I would much prefer them to use the word just, mind you I would like them to consider what the word actually means before trotting it out.

There were good articles in the yesterdays papers on this. The best was in the Sunday Herald, by the reliably cogent Ian Bell and I recommend it with big brass knobs on, the other was by Will Hutton, who makes the rarely heard point that there are plenty of undeserving rich knocking about, and that, as well as being undeserving, they actively seek to undermine the system, to which I say, "Snot Fair"!

I wrote this the other day, but have only just got around to posting it, and since writing it the use of the word fair seems to have developed into something of a national crisis, every time I open a paper, or a web page or turn on the radio, someone is debating what the word actually means. If it carries on, the word will become utterly meaningless, if it hasn't already. I heard Nick Clegg describe the new proposals for tuition fees as fair. Er, beg pardon? This is the same Nick Clegg who only a few short months ago pledged, along with every other lib dem, to resist any rise in tuition fees. Already, the word fair, when uttered by liberals and conservatives, seems to mean the exact opposite of its original meaning.

Similarly, to "Clegg", will come to mean: "to abandon all ones principles and dignity"

Our Spanish Love Song

2010-10-09T23:51:00.003Z

There is an article in todays Independent all about the street food of Britain, and it helpfully provides recipes, so we can all make our own street food, at home. We may even sell it up and down our streets. The recipes include: Scallops with celeriac, bacon and seashore vegetables; Black pudding Scotch duck eggs, and, Lemon granita. I don't know what street the bloke lives on, but I very much doubt it is the same street as me. Around here, street food consists of very dodgy burgers, sometime with a strange, sticky, yellow substance, and bacon baps, bought from heavily tattooed women in vans, and very fucking delicious they are too. Mind you, for all I know they all do scallops with sea vegetables, but I have never thought to ask.

As a lad I used to love the exotic street food of dear old Brummagem. You had the blokes all over town with their carts (think cover of Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic !) of hot dogs and burgers, sitting in hot water, and boiled onions. They hit the spot, every time. Best of all was the caravan thingy, that mysteriously appeared in the night by the pigeon park. You could get a proper cheese cob………a crusty cob and a slice of cheese cut half an inch thick. That was it, no mustard mayo or sea veg required. Invariably though, at 4 in the morning, waiting for the night bus, I would go for a pie and a bovril, and, invariably, I would suffer, because, then, as now, I had a chronic inability to learn from my mistakes.

They had a tendency to stick a wooden fork in the middle of the pie, which was always very hot, before sticking it in a paper bag and handing it to you. Week after week, I would order a pie and a bovril, bite into the pie, fork and all, burn the roof of my mouth, yelp in surprise and drop piping hot bovril down my leg. It was embarrassing and it was painful. I always used to fall over the same garden wall when I was completing the two mile yomp from the bus stop too. Exhaustion, probably.

It's been a good week for the coalition, innit?. Gideon and Dave make up policy on the hoof and make themselves look like complete tits, Michael Heseltine turns into his own spitting image puppet and gets bested by some genial old duffer on newsnight and Jeremy Hunt turns out to be a bit of a silly hunt. And the Mail on Sunday turns on Nick Clegg. I would be pissing myself if it wasn't all so depressing.

No football today, it's the international break. I hate the international break; it's bad enough when England are playing but they haven't had a game this weekend. Bloody hell, Tony Currie and Gerry Francis managed to play at the weekend having had an international in the week, surely these athletes with there scientific training methods and diets could manage as well as those podgy old buggers.

Still it allows time to reflect on the Blues. The jury is out. It's like 12 Angry Men. Brother is against brother, families are being split, blood feuds are commonplace, it's like being in the Camorra.

Eck is either an idiot or a genius. Jerome is either a misused player of the highest class, or a donkey (he is a donkey) Zigic has hardly played, but, apparently, he is shit. Michel has hardly played, but, apparently, he is shit. Redmond is 16 years old, he played 10 minutes against fucking Wimbledon. He should start every game, apparently. It seems that he is a sort of hybrid of Stanley Mathews, Pele, and Phil Summerhill. It's the same old same old with Blues fans. We are either the best in the world or the worst in the world. There is no in-between.

Having said that, I'm not happy, but I wasn't happy last year either. We are defensive minded. For all our pretty passing, which is exaggerated anyway, we don't pass it that much, we offer no poke. I have gone on about it long enough before, there is no need to repeat myself, but I will say that as long as we have Jerome in the team, and as long as the midfield refuse to support him, for whatever reason, we will struggle to score goals, and, therefore, we will struggle.

There is a worrying new trend though. We don't appear to like it up us. In two games this season, West Brom, and, I forget the other, possibly Wigan, or Sunderland, we were cruising in the first half, looking very comfortable. In both games though, the opposition came out in the second half with a much more purposeful intent and we caved in. We didn't have courage on the ball, we didn't pass it, we got rid of it, shifted it on, usually to an opponent and we invited pressure. It does not augur well, it augurs ill.

Life would be shit though, wouldn't it, if we didn't have a football team to worry or bicker about. I raise a glass to shit football teams and fickle fans up and down the land.

I have had a bit of a lucky streak with books. The last Don Winslow is better than the previous one, The last Walter Mosley is superb, and the most recent Brian McGilloway, while all too reminiscent of James Lee Burke, is as readable as his others. I have just, this very day, discovered Denise Mina, and I like her a lot, a hell of a lot. Best of all Ryan David Jahn "Acts of Violence" It is brilliant. The first 60 pages got on my nerves and I thought, this isn't a novel, it is series of vignettes………..very clever, but not really a novel. But then, out of the blue, it gripped me, and it didn't let go, and it is still gripping me now.

Extract

Nearly forgot, Henry Winter, the brother of England's most influential Muslim, has written a very warm article about Joe Hart and Ben Foster. Common denominator: Us!

Fortune Teller

2010-09-15T21:27:00.001Z

Forest Fire - Fortune Teller from Johan Hesselgren on Vimeo.

I have just ~~endured~~ enjoyed an exciting weekend. Myself and my mate were allowed out without adult supervision and we went to the End of the Road festival, which, as everyone knows, is the best festival there is. Without wives to control us, nor children to be cared for, we set off like a pair of decrepit teenagers, and, I am profoundly embarrassed and humiliated to report, we acted like a pair of decrepit teenagers too.

We arrived about midday on Friday and were a bit surprised to find that there were loads more people than were there at the same time last year, so we had to walk further from the car park and base ourselves at the far end of the field, which was OK by me, especially as, compared to previous festivals, we had hardly anything to carry.

We got ourselves established and had a bit of scoff and some drink and, as always happens, became extremely chilled and comfortable; so much so, that it was a bit of wrench to leave the bucolic bliss of the field and take ourselves off to the actual festival.

The first band we saw was Eliott Brood, who blew me, and the rest of the tent away. I was dimly aware of them before, but they took me completely by surprise. Just 3 of them, one on banjo and occasionally ukele, the guitarist remaining seated. The racket that these 3 made was glorious and as much as they blew the crowd away, it seemed that the crowd response also blew them away, they were clearly having a brilliant time themselves. This rates as one of the best and most enjoyable gigs I have seen. Ever. And I have been to a lot of gigs.

Nothing else quite matched up to that on Friday, not that I am complaining, it was still a beautiful place to be. I have seen EOTR described elsewhere (can’t remember where) as like crossing over into Narnia, before it all went tits up, and it is as good a description as I have seen. Everywhere you turn there is something just a bit different, just a bit lovely, just a bit wonderful, and despite all the noise and the hubbub and the bacchanalia, there is always a quiet spot, for those occasions when only a quiet spot will do.

I had been looking forward to Trembling Bells, as I really like their new album and I think Baby Lay Your Burden Down is the song of the year so far. I love it. They were disappointing. Don’t know why, maybe it was me, but there seemed to be something lacking and I soon got distracted by the guitarists stout brogues and the comings and goings of other bands hauling their equipment in. The poor sound quality didn’t help. They were alright, but they didn’t quite do it for me.

We followed that by having a peek at Jessica Lee Mayfield……………the winsome and wonderful Jessica Lee Mayfield. She played her sad songs in the Tipi tent, to an appreciative, but seated and, in some cases, unconscious audience and seemed to win most people over, although she couldn’t quite wake everybody up. She put me in mind of the female characters in books by the likes of William Gay or Daniel Woodrell……fragile, damaged, mistreated, fatalistic, but sparky and spirited. Like Elliot Brood, she seemed to be enjoying herself hugely, which is always a great help and it was evident that she was hanging out in the Tipi hours after she had finished her set.

After this, we somehow got all our timings mixed up, so, going into the Big Top to see….er…… can’t remember who, I was surprised to find Edwyn Collins halfway through his set. Dunno what the first half was like but the second half was wonderful and I am fairly sure that he will have been chuffed with the warmth and enthusiasm of his reception, but he has probably grown used to that. We got a bit distracted by the physiology of the human brain during this set. Although his speech was OK, he was much clearer when he was singing. Why the hell is that? I am assuming here that everyone who reads this blog is aware that Ed suffered a massive stroke a couple of years ago.

We only caught the end of Modest Mouse, but what we saw made us wish we had seen more, but then we would have missed something else. We peeked at the New Pornographers, but the tent was so packed we couldn’t be arsed with it, so retired to the tipi, where we found a hay bale to rest our weary arses on and continued drinking and congratulating ourselves for being so wise as to find ourselves at such a great festival. A couple of young Americans appeared on the stage at some point, I have no idea who they were and, frankly, was past caring, but they were alright.

Winding our happy way back to the tents, at time far too late for people of my age and shape, my pal suddenly disappeared. He had tripped over a guy rope and went down with alarming speed, and was lying face down on the ground, imitating a starfish, while trying to pretend that nothing untoward had happened. Rather gallantly, I tried to assist him, but he believed that me efforts were insincere and responded to my good graces with extreme profanity and petulance, which left me helpless with laughter.

Saturday

A few years ago, we bought a huge polycotton Bear Lake tent and alongside it we bought a cheap pop up tent to use as an extra sleeping pod for the eldest nipper. Rather unwisely, this is what I took to the festival with me. It had rained in the night, and it was wetter in the tent than it was outside it. I had put the sleeping mat on top of a yoga mat and a picnic blanket, so apart from the water dripping down from the roof of the thing, I was quite dry, but everything that hadn’t been so protected was sodden, wet through. The water had got through my trousers, through my wallet and and out the other side, it was as though they had come out of a washing machine that had failed to spin. The universe had paid me back for my hilarity at my pals misfortune. Another punishment was having to listen to a grown man whinge and whine about his bruises and swellings for the rest of the weekend!

Aside from that, I felt pretty rough, and the dope I had chosen to spend the weekend with had been kind enough to bringer a cooker, but……………..no gas. It was grey and drizzly, but warm, and little by little I summoned up the energy to drag myself to my favourite spot on the whole site, Café Dish, where I turned my nose up at the herbal brews on offer in favour of two cups of coffee. They did not revive me.

What did revive me was Forest Fires, the first band up on the main stage. This festival has a genius for putting bands on very early, of whom few have heard, who turn out to be brilliant. To be honest, I can’t remember too much anymore, too much else happened, but I do remember that they didn’t play a duff tune, that the singer is a very cool dude and that the strange guitarist is a genuine axe hero. I would see them again without any hesitation whatsoever.

Saturday just got better and better, one of the highlights of which was the wonderfully spiced goat curry from the Caribbean stall, which both lifted the spirits and provided a bit of ballast. Phosphoresence was one of the way up there highlights of the weekend. The singer looked a bit like Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas, and there was yet another genuine axe hero on stage, not that band were heavy. The chaps songs are wonderful stories, a bit like Richmond Fontaine, and, like Vlautin, I’m sure the bloke could write a novel. Anyway, it was mid afternoon and they hit the spot.

Moddi were on just after and I missed them (or is it him) which is a pity, because later on I saw him (or is it they) put on a rather lovely set in the woods. I have since spotified them (or him) and they would been worth seeing.

In complete contrast, we did see Voice of the Seven Thunders. Strange lot, this lot. The main chap seemed to be in a bad, or at least a sarky mood. Maybe it is just part of his schtick, and, not being an aficionado, I didn’t get it, but he seemed like a right moody fucker. It didn’t help that he is a dead ringer for Tim Lovejoy, a man who is probably hated by his own mother. To begin with, they seemed to be enjoying themselves, amongst themselves, but they did not seem to appreciate their surroundings, then, when one of his pedals started playing up, even the good humour that they had shown between themselves went. Whatever, it was brilliant, thunderous music.

It may be beer related, but our sense of time went askew then. We headed back to the tents to get our night time attire on, namely, a fleece, and enjoy a drink sitting down and headed back over, by which time we had missed most of the Unthanks. We enjoyed what we did see, good, warm and fun.

I’m not a huge fan of Iron and Wine, but I don’t dislike him. We watched the first bit of his set and it was obvious that he is held in some reverence but we soon wandered off. I have since read on blogs and message boards and in the papers that he put on a warm and beautiful set. In fact, a peerless set, and I missed it, or most of it. It didn’t matter though because while he was being warm, beautiful and peerless, Caitlin Rose was being warm, impish and brilliant. She is virtually a child, but by God, she has a fine pair of classic country and western pipes with which to sing her literate and edgy country songs. She is going to be absolutely massive.

We popped in to see Black Mountain but they were not cutting it for either of us, so we headed back to the main stage for Yo La Tengo. I can pretty much take or leave this lot and hadn’t really planned on seeing them, but, and this seems to be a matter of some debate, they were superb. They played some of their quiet songs, which I generally prefer, but the last half hour or so was serious wig out shit, and was spellbinding. The drummer has some stamina, in her little arms to keep that beat going. They were another band who seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely and it really does make a difference.

The Tipi tent last year was a bit of a pain in the arse so I hadn’t really planned on seeing anyone in there this year, but they had added another huge tent to it and it was much improved; in fact, the bands were not really in the tipi, they were in the adjoining tent, which left the actual tip itself as very rustic drinking joint. So long as you got a bale of hay to sit on it was great. You could sit down, drink, enjoy the ambience and then when something started up, just stroll around and enjoy it. So we repaired to the Tipi tent.

It was something else, another way up there highlight. The Low Anthem and Christ knows who else were on stage, all dressed like loons, behaving like loons and playing raucous stompalongs like loons. Everyone, band included had huge smiles on their faces and the place was jumping. Just one more brilliant and unexpected surprise.

Sunday.

Sunday dawned and I felt like shit. There had been no rain but still water was dripping onto my head. On the plus side, the weather was looking superb. We roused ourselves and trudged like refugees to the Café Dish for more coffee, which we enjoyed in some little garden effort while the peacocks pecked around for food. Then we had a wonderful breakfast of pie, mash, peas and gravy, which was just about the job and set us up nicely.

Dylan Le Blanc kicked things off and his exquisite country tinged soft rock was just what was needed at this early hour. It was noticeable that the main stage area was much fuller than at the same time last year, so we made the decision to get there very early for all the bands we wanted to see there in order secure a good spot. We hadn’t bothered all that much with the main stage up until now, but today was different. Today promised to be special. Timing was crucial. Timing is not our strong point.

We had a general wander around all the loveliness and relaxed with a cider (over rated) sitting on a stone and watched the world go by. We saw a bit of Kath Bloom, but were too knackered and out of sorts to really appreciate her and got back over to the main stage for Daniel Lefkowitz. Fuck me. How can this man not be a huge star? Just on his own, with a guitar, a voice and a very wry look on his face he held the by now packed Garden Stage spellbound. He can’t be too much of a secret, because there were plenty of other artists at the back of the stage watching him. EOTR had done it again…………taken my breath clean away.

Dunno what we did then, mainly dossed about, keeping our beer intake up and taking in little bits and pieces here and there. The timing. The crucial timing. It still wasn’t our strong point. One of the bands I was most looking forward to was The Felice Brothers. We managed to miss the start. Only just though and we did manage to get a good spot. The Felice Brothers were superb. As mad as shithouse rats, every one of them, but superb. I don’t know what was going on behind me, but around me and in front of me everyone was going apeshit. I could go apeshit now, 3 days later, just thinking about it.

We stayed put for The Low Anthem who had possibly been the highlight last year and didn’t disappoint this time either. They seemed a bit warmer and looser if anything, and, once again, seemed to be really enjoying the spirit of the place and having fun, which, I feel the need to repeat, makes a huge difference; it seemed to be a very short set though.

Wilco were the band I was most looking forward to; I think Tweedy is one of the all time great songwriters and it is hard to think of anyone else who has written so consistently over such a long period…..it must be at least 20 years he's been at it. I was a bit wary, as this was the first time I have seen them and I was prepared to be disappointed, but I needn't have worried. They were magnificent, from start to finish. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, brilliant song after brilliant song, Tweedy invited the audience to shut the hell up towards the end so keen was he to just get on with it and bang out as many songs as possible. The garden was packed and everyone was going for it, in their own ways, whoops, roars, headbanging, footstamping, bloody air guitar, silent, rapt attention. In my not so humble opinion, it was a classic.

That was the end of the garden stage and it would have been a brilliant way to end a brilliant day. But the day was not over. Dengue Fever were supposed to be playing last in the Big Top, but they pulled out, to be replaced by Steve Mason, which was fine by me, as I love his new album. Walking over, it occurred that the music didn't sound familiar, or rather, it did sound familiar, it sounded like Caitlin Rose. God knows what happened to the other feller, but I don't care, because once again, Rose was ace.

The goodness still wasn't over. While James Felice was exuding bonhomie at the merchandise stall after his set, I asked if they were doing any other sets, and he said they would be in the Tipi at half twelve. Once Rose finished I wasted no time getting there. Someone else was on, don't know who but their audience evidently thought they were good because they were getting a brilliant reception. They finished and as their crowd headed away, another crowd was heading straight for the stage. It was clear that the Felice set was no secret.

After a longish wait, they ambled on, and tore the place down. It was utterly brilliant, and I am now more convinced than ever that they are all insane. The place was rocking and the goodness was added to by the presence of sundry Low Anthems and Deer Ticks on the stage, joining in. The set ended with a good natured stage invasion (started by James Felice) which left security looking extremely nervous. All that was left to do was to hang around and drink and talk shit with any passing kindred spirit until far too late.

The festival surpassed all my expectations, and once again I discovered plenty that I wouldn't otherwise have done, and missed loads that was probably just as good as the stuff I saw. Apart from the bands, the whole ambience, the vibe, is just special, and it is great to be around like minded souls, who do not think I am a posing obscurantist for liking bands hardly anyone else has heard of.

As a final thought I tip my hat to the bar staff who remained cheerful and patient to the very end of what was clearly a weekend of epic drinking for at least half the crowd.

Some snaps what I took, rather a lot, actually.

Guardian review

Independent review

Mind you………….I felt a bit sorry for myself on Monday. And Tuesday. Today as well, actually.

The Valley Town

2010-09-01T20:58:00.000Z

ELLIOTT BROOD - The Valley Town (FD Session)
Uploaded by faitsdiversshow. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Football fans are mad, completely irrational. A week ago Blues fans were in despair at our lack of signings, and then we had the Nzogbia debacle and we were all suicidal, then, on deadline day, three hats, three rabbits. Unconfined joy. We have the best manager and the best board in the world. The small matter of never having heard of two of them is beside the point. In the end it doesn't matter who we sign, as long as we sign someone. We would have been just as delighted if we had signed the players Stoke nabbed. The signing of Hleb is genuinely exciting though, and I am very interested to see what our formation will be.

I thought the 5 man midfield worked well against Bolton, until they had a man sent off and then somehow managed to over run us. It was nice (while it lasted) to see Blues players knocking the ball around and always having an option. With the added quality of Hleb, as well as, who knows, the Chile guy and Derbyshire, I think this could be the way forward, which, obviously, means we will be 4-4-2 against Liverpool. I know nothing, I am happy to admit it, but I do know that it feels as if the season is starting anew, only this time, with that old, familiar glow of happy anticipation.

As usual Harry Redknapp insisted he wouldn't be doing any business, which could only signify one thing………a new player for Tottenham. He said that he had to go for the chap because at 8 million it was too good a bargain. 8 million would represent a huge gamble for the likes of us, for Tottenham it is chump change. Good job we have the best manager in the world and don't need money to succeed!

For all the hatred and scorn that gets poured onto Gordon Browns poor head, he seems to be the only one out of the whole sorry cabal who is capable of maintaining some dignity.

I don't much care wether or not William Hague has been slipping his special ~~friend~~ advisor one, but since his tales of epic drinking, and his heroic dissembling over Michael Ashcroft, the more he proclaims that he is telling the truth, the less inclined I am to believe him.

Shaky

2010-08-25T22:31:00.007Z

Christina Patterson has a good piece in today Independent, gently mocking Cameron and Osborne. We could do with more of that.

I’m not sure what to make of the labour candidates, they all seem a bit anodyne and lacking in character; lacking hinterland. I confess, I haven’t studied their policies and I base my views solely on my perception of their characters.

Ed Balls knee jerk response to the Baby P case and his appalling jumping on to any passing media bandwagon disgusts me and I could never warm to him. I’m sure Andy Burnham is a magnificently intelligent chap, but he comes across as bit dull and he seems to struggle when it comes to spontaneous repartee. Minds like Cameron, Clegg and Osborne, finely honed in the debating societies of our finest schools and universities, will make mincemeat of him.

All through the life of New Labour, I have disliked the Millibands. They are both distinctly odd looking, for a start. David looks as if you dipped his head in a pot of paint, you could do the garden fence with it, Ed just looks strange. Sounds strange too. But I am hardly an oil painting myself, so I shouldn’t judge them on looks. So I will judge them on background. They represent an element of politics that I really dislike; the apparatchiks. It seems as if they have been groomed for high office since birth; lots of front, but little bottom.

It doesn’t really matter what I think, because I am not a member of the party, so won’t be voting, but for what it’s worth, I am edging towards Ed. He seems to have the intellectual capacity and sharpness of mind to be able to deal with the pantomime of Prime Ministers Questions, and he could make Cameron or Clegg uncomfortable in the pointless exchanges over the despatch box, as well as deal with the hostile interrogations of the likes of John Humphreys . His brother could do that too, but Ed seems to me to be a bit less rigid in his thinking, a bit more open to ideas, and he has said that Labour must re-engage with the working class ………….bloody radical for a Labour man!

I went to see Simone Felice again last night, this time in Bristol. It was a very different experience to last week in Cardiff. Last week he came on quite late, the all standing crowd being pretty well oiled, and up for it, having seen two excellent support acts. They responded to Felice enthusiastically and immediately. I have noticed before that Cardiff crowds, particulary in smaller venues, can be a bit raucous. Felice evidently fed off this energy and played a long and excellent set, involving the crowd at every opportunity. As far as you can tell, he seemed to be really enjoying himself.

Last night was different. The gig was in a social club, for a start, (albeit serving a very nice pint of Doom Bar, or whatever the hell it was called), there was no support act, so he came on early and everyone was sitting down. It was a much more subdued, respectful audience, it felt like being in a folk club, which is OK, I like folk clubs.

As in Cardiff, he started with “Scarecrow”, which some might argue is his best song, he followed that with “The Morning I Get to Hell” “One More American Song” and “If You Ever Get Famous” Possibly his four best songs, certainly four of his best songs, and you wondered, where is he going to go now? Surely, he should be saving songs as good as that for later on. Well, he played some covers, including a brilliant version of Tom Waits “Old 55” and he played more of his own stuff, such as “Mercy” and “Union Street”, which are as good as any of his other songs, and you realised that this man just writes brilliant song after brilliant song. It is pointless having a favourite, because they are all favourites. He did a couple of new ones, “New York Times” and “ Shaky” ,presumably, off the fortchcoming Duke and the King album and they showed that if anything, he is improving.

The night ended early and fairly abruptly, he left out another of my favourites, “Radio Song” which had been a boisterous and enjoyable singalong in Cardiff. He had tried, manfully, to get the Bristol crowd singing, reminding us at one point that we were in a social club, not a library, and to be fair to the audience, they did respond, but it lacked a bit of oomph . Felice was superb, but he seemed a bit out of sorts; he didn’t really seem to be getting into it. The night was great while it lasted, but the shortness of it was a bit disappointing. Typically, he hung around for ages afterwards, happy to talk with anyone who approached, happy to pose for pics.

The transfer window is near it's end, and day by day, we are told or there are rumours, encouraged by the local press, that Blues are in for this one, or that one, or we are near to deals with 2 or 3, and, day by groundhog day, nothing happens. We went in for Nzogbia, were knocked back, then went in again this week. Apparently we have been knocked back again. No news of other, unnamed players that we were supposed to be close to doing deals with. It was the same in January. I don't mind that much if we don't sign marquee players, I don't mind if we refuse to pay inflated prices, but I am becoming bored shitless by the endless hype and the endless dithering. Eck, either shit, or get off the pot, but don't tell us about it until the deed is done. Bobo Bleeding Balde, Babel, Pavluchenko, Chris Bloody Boyd, now Nzogbia, what do they all have in common?

Roberto Martinez has complained about the window and the unsettling effect it has on players. He has a point, Nzogbia and Mascherano have both missed games because, in the vernacular, their heads weren't right, and Stoke's reserve keeper appears to have gone on strike.My preference would be for them to do away with the window altogether, but, if we must have it, it should close before the start of the season.

I have blipped

Happy birthday, "Deliverance" I confess, I haven't read the book, I must put that right. I hear that like "Cutters Way" (Cutter and Bone) the book is a lot better than the film.

Crying Time

2010-08-23T11:06:00.004Z

Well, that was quite a hilarious weekend of football. As much as we are all supposed to love plucky little Blackpool, the clubs owners have always seemed a bit dubious to me, what with Owen being a convicted rapist and all that. At the end of last week, we heard that the chairman had resigned because he is fed up with the avarice of agents: they forgot to mention that he is about to be made bankrupt and would not be allowed to carry on as chairman anyway. He jumped, just before he was pushed, Having said that, I have nothing against the team or the town, and didn't take any pleasure from their hammering; I did take some pleasure from Ian Holloway's post match thoughts though.

Poor old Wigan, once again, looked hapless, which is a real pity because I really like Martinez; we shall see how genial the Wigan owner is over the coming weeks. West Ham continue to embarrass themselves, which is always fine by me and Sunderland and their marvellously loyal fans are finding out just how good Steve Bruce is.

Blues showed resilience once again, coming from behind to beat a frankly terrifying Blackburn side. Big Sam gets some stick for his Neanderthal ways, but they are much more than hoofball merchants. They certainly do not take any prisoners, but they have some pace and skill in that team, and those 3 points on Saturday will turn out to have been very good points indeed. Blackburn will finish in the top half, no question.

Eck made 3 changes on Saturday, the most telling being Gardner for Bowyer. Bowyer was very good when he first came to us and still hasn't really let anyone down, so it was quite brave of Mcleish to drop him, but it worked. I hope Gardner now gets a run in the team in central midfield, because he will only improve. Bowyer must accept the impermanence of shit and learn to enjoy sitting on the bench, coming on late in the game to help protect a lead.

I saw Newcastle on the box last week. Even allowing for the fact that they were playing Manchester Utd and that, as one or two commentators may have mentioned in passing, Paul Scholes is in a rich vein of form, they looked bloody hopeless, certain candidates for a quick return to the chumpionship, So it was easily the funniest and most unexpected delight of the weekend when they put 6 past our much loved and revered neighbours. It would not be seemly to dwell on it though.

I haven't really listened to 606 for years, I might listen to a bit here and there but it is never long before I am driven away by the inane banality of it, but I listened to it yesterday on the I player and was pleasantly surprised. Mark Chapman and Robbie Savage are very good, and Savage, in particular is happy to tell the callers that they are talking shit. As professional talking heads go, Savage is refreshingly honest and will also concede the point occasionally. Have a listen before it gets hyped to the heavens and becomes a parody of itself.

I went to see Simone Felice last week. It was a very good venue, the Buffalo Bar in Cardiff, which is not only a very cool place, but also serves a very good range of very well kept beer, which is a rare treat indeed. Felice recently underwent open heart surgery and this was, I think, only his second gig since his recovery, and it was brilliant. The man is probably the best, the most honest and the most poetic songwriter around at the moment, but he is also a showman into the very core of his being. He is either going to be huge, or he is going to go prematurely to his maker, so go and see him while you have the chance. He is touring Britain now, and will be back withThe Duke and the King later in the year, unmissable, either way. He made some solo, very stripped down versions of some of his songs when he first got out of hospital………it is a beautiful CD, only seems to be available at his gigs.

He was supported by Jeb Loy Nichols, who really, really surprised me. I had seen him before, supporting Richard Thomspon, and his music just drifted by; but in this more intimate venue, he was astonishing, he has a beautiful, rich, warm singing voice and writes songs of humour and poignancy. Having researched him a bit, he seems to be something of a renaissance man and his output is very eclectic. Well worth checking out.

While I was my holiday, I read Truth, by Peter Temple, and I have a mate, who also read the book on his holiday. We both agree that it is brilliant. Temple has an ability to evoke time, place and atmosphere using little more than dialogue which borders on genius. Don't read his very early books though, they are shit.

Anyone who may have glanced at this blog over the years will know that I have long banged on about inequality and the harm that it causes to everyone in society, those who gain from the iniquity as well as those who lose. There is a good piece here discussing the work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Even David Cameron has praised The Spirit Level, so it is really pissing me off that the Condems are intent on pursuing policies that will make the poor poorer and increase inequality. There is a brilliant piece in todays FT (sorry, you have to register, but it is free) which explains pretty cogently why the policies of this government are not progressive and will hit the poor very hard.

I recall saying, maybe even on here, that as much as New Labour may have disappointed some of us, we should never forget what a bunch of bastards the Tories are; what I had failed to realise is that the liberals are as bad!

When You See Me In The Pouring Rain

2010-08-14T23:05:00.000Z

Don't read that, read this.

So, it has begun. West Brom hammered, West Ham hammered. Joe Hart showing his class for Man City, bet he misses having Johnson and Dann in front of him, I doubt he was ever required to be that busy for us, Blackpool win 4-0, away, mental. Refs making the news. Meet the new season, pretty much the same as any other season.

We managed a draw at Sunderland. The team was a bit of a surprise with O Connor starting ahead of Zigic and Fahey starting ahead of McFadden, and we took our first strides into the new campaign, with a faltering gait. In short, we were shit, Sunderland looked very sharp from the off and we really struggled to get into the game; for all that, Sunderland did not really look like scoring. They took the lead from a penalty, which should not have been awarded. The ref has taken a bit of a metaphorical kicking, but I think the linesman was more at fault.

Sunderland then had Cattermole sent off, quite rightly, because he really shouldn't be on the pitch in the first place. This was the signal for Blues to carry on exactly as they did before: haplessly. They looked no better against 10 than they did against 11.

The second half and Blues improved, and were very unlucky to go a further goal behind. We had a decent break on, McFadden payed a beautiful ball through to Jerome, who fucking gave it away, Sunderland attacked at speed, some northern chump crossed it, Carr got his head to it and it looped over Foster into the goal. It was one of those strange ones, where there is a little delay before the crowd celebrates,as they are not quite sure what happened.

Zigic came on soon after and Blues improved somewhat. We put Sunderland under significant and sustained pressure and we got our rewards, with two goals coming from good crosses. We were the more likely winners by the end, but, given that we had been two down and playing, poor, poor, mediocre football, a point away against one of our main rivals to win the little league of mid table mediocrity is not to be sniffed at.

Overall, I am not happy. The late rally (against 10 knackered men) should not be allowed to disguise how poor we were. Jerome is no good and we badly need someone else up there. We do not play a fluid game, our midfield is detached from the attack; this would be OK if we had someone who could hold the ball up and let the midfield get up there, but Jerome is not that man, he proves it week after week. We tailed off badly at the end of last year, and while our resilience and bouncebackability is nothing short of astonishing, we must remember two things, Sunderland are shit and they only had 10 men for most of the match. Better, teams, with better discipline will take us to the cleaners.

Sunderland supporters left by the thousand in the last few minutes. The game was anyones, but they were streaming out………..what the fuck is that all about? I thought they were supposed to be the best and most loyal supporters in the history of football.

Steve Bruce does not think that Cattermole should have been sent off. Steve Bruce is barking mad. Cattermole was a menace, and should have been sent off for his assault on O Connor. Bruce doesn't see that though, he thinks that Cattermoles first booking was harsh. Even if it was, he got away with the challenge on O Connor. It is a skewed moral universe that is inhabited by football managers, where discretions that go unpunished are OK, but discretions which are punished too harshly are mortal sins. Eck, as ever was dignity personified

Something I learned today. Robbie Savage does not know what the word "monosyllabic"means, and gets the right hump with anyone who uses it.

If Time Was For Wasting

2010-08-10T13:07:00.002Z

Cameron is targeting welfare cheats………..thank Christ for that, for a horrible moment I thought he was going to go after tax evaders, what with us all being in together.

Go get 'em, Floyd

There was a very good article in the Guardian the other day on Jimi Hendrix.

Good article on the role of the modern number 10

The world cup, as viewed by Magnum photographers. There are some incredibly striking and beautiful images in there

The football season is nearly upon us and the first manager has already bitten the dust; fortunately, it affects our much loved and revered neighbours, so it has been the source of much mirth in the fraternity of Small Heathens. I only hope we are still chuckling, come May 2011.

The bi polar nature of the average Blues fan has been in evidence over the summer, and at the moment, with 4 days to go until the start of the season, we are in a down phase. This is not good news. Traditionally, the pre season is when all reason disappears and we ignore the evidence of history and we all convince ourselves, that this season, it is going to be different; this is the year things start to happen. This will be the year we really start to achieve, when we manage to score more than one goal in a game or progress to the latter stages of a cup competition. Not this year though. The pre season euphoria is missing.

At the end of last season, there was good deal of optimism about, although I didn't share it. People seemed to feel that we had arrived and that we will push on and were salivating at the prospect of all our new signings. It has become a bit of a cliche to say that we overachieved last year, and we did, but our overachievement was due in part to the underachievement of others. We played solidly, without really playing all that well, (although we did play well in patches, usually when chasing the game) and, to an extent, we got away with having little or no creativity and no consistent goalscorer. It was great, but it ain't sustainable. The end of the season was poor, either because we had been sussed out or because we were knackered. The amazing run in the middle of the season covered up a poor start and a poor finish.

As the summer has progressed, the mood amongst some fans has shifted from hope to well, not despair, but frustration and unease. We signed Foster and Zigic, then, nothing (yes, I know, Valles) and, days away from the start of the season, we look to be very short handed, and now Phillips has knackered himself. There is still time to get some players in and we are supposed to be in for 3 internationals, but as ever, there is a lot of pissing about going on. The frustrating thing is that if we had signed players before we got back for pre season, they would be bedded in, as it is, they will be learning the ropes in actual meaningful games. Not ideal.

Having said that, I still think we will be OK. By all accounts we have played some decent stuff pre season and have played a patient, passing game despite the presence of the huge Zigic. They can only have grown in confidence after last year and players like Johnson, Dann and Fahey will have learned and improved from their first extended appearances in the top flight. Zigic could be crucial. If he is better than Jerome at receiving the ball and holding on to it, and more thoughtful and accurate with his passes, the midfield might develop the confidence to get forward a bit quicker, and we might actually score a few goals. I predict another top half finish.

The Guardian has described us as a team full of Brits up for a fight supported by a smattering of Irishmen and Spaniards, just like Magaluf of a Saturday night. It made me chuckle, anyway.

The last 15 minutes of the 1982 world cup final, re enacted. Rather brilliant;

Refait from Pied La Biche on Vimeo.

Fisherman

2010-08-07T23:32:00.002Z

Wait all month for a post and then a massive bleeder arrives all at once. This is an account of my holiday, I typed it at the end of several days, tired and pissed, on a tiny tablet that kept running out of battery, so it is very disjointed and clumsy. I won’t edit, now, not much anyway, so as to give an accurate feel of the holiday experience.

Happy Birthday to me, I am 53. Not really, I am much younger than that, by at least two years, but, you know, I feel playful, and 3 rhymes. It’s not my birthday either, not today, but it was when I wrote it, in a field, in France, when I was too tight to pay the outrageous wifi fee.

I didn’t expect to be in France today, I expected to be en route. I knew I was travelling on my birthday, but for some reason, I believed I was traveling across on the 21^st, not traveling down. What a palaver. Nearly missed the damned holiday. I was happily sitting there on the 20^th, having ordered some stuff from Amazon, that day, which I was confident would arrive the following day, to take with us. I checked the ticket at about half five in the afternoon. And then I checked it again, and then again, because I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. Our ferry was today, the fucking 20^th, not tomorrow, the fucking 21st. From Plymouth. We had 3 hours to get there, we hadn’t packed, and I had no idea where my Mrs was. And I hadn’t had my goddamn tea!

Not to put too fine a point on it, I had the screaming ab dabs. I will elucidate, but this battery is about to die, and I wish to record several things, which I promise myself I will not edit, when I am less tired, more sober, more rational. My kids are the most wonderful kids in the world and I am a very lucky man to be married to my Mrs. This has been an absolute shocker of a 20 hours……………..no sleep, little food: a genuine possibility of a holiday ruined, our first in years, and which has been very difficult to finance…….. and there have been no tears, no tantrums, few sulks. They are all sleeping the sleep of the just, I am sat out in the dark, typing this bollocks and listening to the absolutely wonderful Steve Mason, while drinking the fabled cheap, but good plonk. Happy Birthday to me. Despite everything, life is good, which is not a statement that I ever thought I would utter at about 4.30 yesterday a.m.

Mind you, after traveling 600 odd difficult miles, it was a bit of a pisser that the first person I saw was some chump in a Villa shirt.

It,s not midnight. You cannot hear a peep on this campsite and all is in darkness It is pitch back apart from the starry , starry night, Vincent, and it seems like I have had the place to myself, for at least an hour. My younger self would have hated this, but the older me is in paradise.

Day two. I said I would elucidate, but I won’t, yesterday has gone and having just re read, I think the general impression is made. I fucked up. I panicked. Nuff said.

I am typing this in the tent, having been driven inside by a spectacular downpour. The rest of my tribe is already in the land of nod, as is the rest of the campsite, by the sound of it. Again, it is not yet midnight. I am enjoying the best disco in town, any town, which is the sound of the rain drumming off the roof of the tent, but apart from that, you couldn’t hear a pin drop. There must be at least a couple of thousand people on here, and it is incredibly peaceful, apart from my sausage fingers abusing the keyboard.

It has been a bit of eventful day, but a good day, and between the five of us we have done a fair bit. It’s amazing to think that we haven\t been here for two full days yet, but we have done more than we would do in 6 months at home. I am chuffed that out of everyone I was the first to “make a friend” as everyone thinks I am completely anti social……………..tis a pity my new friend is a Villa fan, and not even the one I saw yesterday. The motherlovers get everywhere.

I’m afraid I have to tell you that this morning I had a row, a big, huge, lengthy row, with the Eurocamp reps. (yep, our huge and wonderful Bear Lake is at home, forlorn and unloved, as we took the easy option of Eurocamp) We have not been impressed by Eurocamp from the moment we booked, and there were quite a few things wrong when we arrived, but we let all that go, being desirous of going with the flow. But that is another story, for another day.

This row though, concerned my youngest nipper and his soccer school: the soccer school being one of the deciding factors in choosing this site. There was an early warning yesterday, when the two fat birds who run it cycled down to our tent soon after we arrived, trying to sell us the idea of the soccer camp, which would cost us 6 euros per session. We explained that we were already sold on their camp, and that we had pre booked and paid for an unlimited pass to it, so they could expect to see him every day, twice a day if it turned out so hot we couldn’t contemplate moving from the campsite.

The fine specimens of the nations athletic young females looked at each other, mumbled, and said, “paying up front for an unlimited pass doesn’t guarantee him a place”. I let it go, thinking that theses words were just a catch all to be used on rare occasions, but thinking, if there is ever a day he can’t get in, I will have a bit of moan. He was in this morning and when it finished I said leg it to the tent, make sure you get booked in tomorrow.

I shall digress here for just a little bit, because there are pertinent points. As I signed him in this morning, a girl who was wearing sunglasses even though there was no sun (hiding her eyes?) told him to just go down to the field. Being his first time I had to fill in a consent form, but there was huge queue waiting to sign in and only one pen, so I rather gallantly waited for them all to sign in before filling in the form, then wandered over to the field. Of the 4 named coaches, none of them were there, and the kids were having a bit of free for all, and enjoying it, but, I thought, it would be polite to have some chump there welcoming the kids and easing them in. A nervous kid would not have enjoyed it…………we are talking about half an hour here, not a couple of minutes.

Anyway, it all kicked off in a fairly ad hoc and haphazard fashion and I wandered back to our tent. There is a huge lake here…………….very peaceful, very romantic and me and the Mrs wondered around it, romantically, before strolling over to the soccer camp, where, immediately, I had an issue, and had to have a word with myself to chill the fuck out. The issue was that the coaches had organised two games and then just sat down, paying no attention, and chatting among themselves; there was some good play, but I was the only idiot commenting upon it…………..the coaches were completely unaware of it.

My nipper, aged 9 took a ball at some force and from close range full in the face. A coach was aware, only because the session was coming to an end, and he was collecting up cones and was stood next to him. The nippers nose was pissing blood and he was obviously upset…………..the guy didn’t know what to do and his mates hadn’t noticed. All the other kids had, because they formed an orderly queue to view the carnage of his face! It was the first time that the little perishers had managed to organize themselves all day. The coaches realised that the nippers parents were there and offloaded him (reasonably enough) The Mrs. asked if there was any kind of first aid kit……………the chap shit himself, run off and came back a while later with a bit of kitchen towel.

But that is by the by and is not the issue.

The issue is this. At the end, I said, leg it to the tent Charlie, get yourself booked in for tomorrow, which he did. Only to find it fully booked. Battery gone again. Will continue tomorrow. I bet you can’t wait.

Day 3

Just to finish yesterday’s moan. He couldn’t get in for the next day. I resaonably pointed out that we had paid up front and was met with the utter disdain of three bored students........which set me off on one. I can’t be bothered with the details now, but the more obtuse they became, the more I was able to point out the absurd inconsistencies of their logic, and in the end several other parents joined in. It became a bit of a bear pit, and I ended up with a bit of an audience.

Despite that mega whinge…………………….we are having a brilliant time…………….honest!

It seems a bit daft typing all this when I can’t or won’t post immediately, but I will not edit anything I post……………..it will be an accurate reflection of how I feel or felt , at the time. There should be a government warning on all holidays sold……………”Remember, holidays can be STRESSFUL!”

It’s strange not having the internet. I fire this scoundrel up and then think………….what the hell am I supposed to do now? Who invented this useless gadget? Maybe I should just pretend to tweet ........... I never seem to have any trouble posting inconsequential nonsense on that. Here we go……….slightly pissed a tweet:

Couldn’t find my sandals without incurring wrath of Mrs, so strolled to piss corner barefoot. Feet ripped to shreds. Was that more than 140 characters, do you think?

Day 5

Did I miss a bit? I did.

It’s one of the beauties of campsite life that your world changes every day. People come, people go, day after day after day. Thinking of the butterfly’s wing, imagine the difference several daily changes to the neighborhood will have ……………not to mention a huge population shift every Friday and Saturday. The ambience has changed, and not for the better. I can feel another whinge coming on.

But first things first. We are having a beautiful and a brilliant time, and it is hot, Goddamn hot. Trying to keep 3 kids of different ages and genders happy is difficult , so we haven’t really bothered trying, and although initially nervous of the unaccustomed freedom, they soon found their wings and learned how to fly. The daughter is having a sleepover as I type. Which brings me to a whinge. The daughter and her new friend came legging it down from wherever to ask if she could sleepover. The Mrs is a child care social worker; she ain’t letting her little darling sleep with any Tom Dick or Harry on a campsite, so she went off to check their bona fides.

We had been out for a bit of mooch and arrived back on site at 8.36 ( I know this because I marvelled at the accuracy of the sat nav) The young un’s disappeared straight off the bat, and the young ladies turned up at about 10 30. The Mrs and the other mother were bollocked by security at about 10.45 for making too much noise as they discussed, how safe our child would be with them. Meanwhile, we were enduring the drunken and banal raucousness of 3 huge multi family groups who had recently arrived. Last nights raucousness , lets face it, selfishness was understandable……………….they had arrived late, tired, hot, bothered and excited. Huge pause here. Damn tablet gave up on me.

It is now 1 a.m on day 8 and for the 4^th night running I an sat out, drinking, because there is no point being abed, because others are enjoying their holiday in a loud and unthinking way. There was nearly a scrap the other night when some poor bloke reached the end of his tether and asked one group to pipe down. It only made things worse and the other loud group didn’t even notice the fracas, so wrapped up in their own entertainment were they, We feel a bit unlucky. The rest of the campsite is dead quiet; I know because I tour it each night to and from the bogs, several times……………we have just been unlucky enough to be wedged between two tribes of utter bastards. One of the group aren\t bastards actually, I really don.t think they meant offense when they arrived and have tried to keep it down since………………the other lot are bastards though,

I like a whinge, as is obvious, but the fact remains that we are having a splendid holiday. The Vendee is supposed to be drab and featureless, but we find this corner of it lovely and the cycling is nothing short of idyllic: the campsite is fantastic, apart from the neighbours.

My littlest doesn’t know he has been born and we don’t see him from early morning until late night, unless he is after some euros for something from the takeaway. He has developed the art of mooching around, looking for pals, and usually ends up getting a huge game of football started,. The daughter, as is her wont, has made friends and they walk around all day chattering nonsense. I don’t know about the oldest, it’s probably not the best kind of thing for him, but he seems chilled enough. As for me and the Mrs, we don’t really matter, our job is to keep everyone else happy.

That’s it. For some damn reason, this tablet is only giving me about half hour of life, despite being on charge all day, and I want to listen to some Felice Brothers and tune.tune all the other buggers out.

Day whatever………….I have lost track, and I have to be quick……………..I leave this damn thing charging all day and all the battery time I get is about half hour. The neighbours are still being absolute arses…….it’s a beautiful starlit night, the like of which I rarely see and they are enjoying the spectacle, juts like me, but loudly. The only buggers on the campsite making noise. 1 am and a couple of corks have popped and more logs have gone on the fire…..and Wend has just turned up. It may be another late night. Wend is a right fat, thick sounding tart by the way, just in case any of ‘em should happen upon this blog…………..and her husband is clearly retarded.

But enough of that shit………….I only dwell upon upon it because it is going on while I am typing…………………our enjoyment levels continue to increase. Little Charlie is playing football with other kids for at leat 8 hours a day………….heaven. The daughter spends all day with horses or in the pool or talking girl talk…………..heaven for her…………Louis has just chilled out………………..cycling around the miles and miles of dirt tracks and farm tracksthrough the woods next to the site, or fishing in one of the lakes, or just arsing about around the tent…………..I have managed to injure myself and spend the week hobbling around in pain (as tradition dictates)……………the Mrs has discovered cycling heaven and even been in the pool and enjoyed it and we have come across some wonderfully good and generous people

Having taken couple of days the kids have tuned in to the rhythm of site and found their own niches. The Mrs is a bit fed up that we haven’t found the perfect beach, nor been to a little hidden away auberge for the plat de jour, but has also attuned to the beat of the drum and I have become like a child again…………….even to the extent of falling off my motherfucking bike! It was ace, I only wish I was more badly injured, just to impress the kids. I can’t believe we used to do all this off road shit on racers, It really is like an old fashioned, long hot summer, except that in Tyseley we were not surrounded by huge fields of sunflowers and corn and the ground was not necessarily baked so hard

The campsite is abuzz. The two lady soccer coaches did a moonlight flit, presumably fed up with all the flak they were getting. Numbers allowed on each session now further reduced.

Her we are again, another late, starry night, another ambience shift. Hundreds left today to be replaced by hundreds of others. We enjoyed a largely bucolic day………….the kids did what the kids did; football, fishing, cycling, chilling , arsing about with horses, making friends, having an old fashioned childhood. I dossed, I watched a bit of the nippers football, , I cooked, I fished, I cycled, I knackered myself.

We went off to a nearby resort town………….very French in feel, had tea in a little caff by a harbour with a couple of guitarists doing Django tunes, while crazy French traffic did it’s crazy French thing. So the kids have had at least a taste of what is like to be in actual France, as opposed to a taste of a bit of Britain Ireland and Holland, at rest/

We got back about half nine and immediately noticed the new ambience shift. The place was much noisier. It was alright. Hundreds of new families had been arriving, most of them knackered………………hundreds of new kids had arrived, knackered and excited, and had set about enjoying themselves. Our first noisy neighbours were well into the swing of it and being as noisy as they had been all through the week, but it was still early, so that was OK.

The other buggers though, were just getting into it as the rest of the site calmed down and closed down. It is now 1 am. It is quiet, except for our neighbours. I have noticed that they all arrive back at their three tents with their hundreds of kids at about half ten and while they settle their kids down they light their fire and mutter away in a civilized fashion……………….once their kids have nodded off, and the women come out, the volume goes up and keeps going up. The intelligence level of their late night chat falls some way short of banal. They all met at college, 17 years ago and they are still getting drunk and acting like kids on their first trip to the beer garden now. Their words. Not mine: 1.30 am. I am typing this shit, listening to Low Anthem on I pod. I can hear them over it.

The I Pod is another sore point. I had read good reviews of Cherry Ghost and the Coral, neither of whom are my particular cup of tea, but downloaded them and stuck them on, in the mean time deleting nearly everything else. I am left with the aforementioned albums both of which I have already tired of, a Low Anthen live doodah a Beach Boys for the kids in and a Beatles. Oh, and some awful, wailing Pink Floyd live effort. This holiday, on the whole is great and all the kids want to come back, but, fuck me, I have committed some schoolboy errors.

Had tablet charging all day and it says I have 30 mins battery life, so I shall be brief

The bad neighbors are on form again. My Mrs reckons that while I was in the bog at half 1ish this morning, someone, at the end of his tether, had a word. She was pissed off with me because she thought it was me, I don't know why she would think I go around seeking confrontation with groups of drunk men.

Next night, it’s about half ten, the Mrs said that the other bloke must have had an effect, because they were much quieter. I said that they are always quiet at that time, because they hadn’t even started at that point………………sure enough, the sound of the first corks popping went at about 11, at about the time everyone was settling down. And it is getting louder. They are not people who have respect or consideration for others.

We had some new neighbours arrive earler……………..very loud, very full of bonhomie with their friends. It seems that they have all been coming for 7 or 8 years, and between them they seem to have dozens of kids,.............at about half ten, they shut it, like switching off a light. Nice people, considerate people.

But. What a day we have had. The daughter spent it with the horses, scuppering our chances of having a beach day, so the rest of us went off, found a wonderful little town, had a wonderful meal, in a wonderful restaurant, followed by a wonderful ride up the river in a pedalo, powered by the nippersand finished that little trip off with some wonderful cakes.

Cut off in my prime again. That last post was about 2 days ago. It is now the last night and once again, all is calm, all is peace and it is another beautiful night. A magnificent night. The good noisy crowd have gone, and while they were no trouble, the environment has become much calmer. The bad noisy crowd are still here, but reduced by one family unit. Also, someone complained and I heard them being told by the night man that there is a 10.30 noise curfew. They were not happy and they muttered, but,fair play to them, they have been quiet ever since.

It’s our last night and despite all my moans this holiday has been wonderful, never mind the kids having had a an idyllic 60’s style two weeks and carrying the bums, bruises, cuts and scratches to prove it, I have enjoyed an idyllic two week return to childhood myself. And I have the bumps, bruises, cuts and scratches to prove it too. The two youngest look like they have spent two weeks cage fighting, not camping, and you have never seen a pair so proud of their wounds..

As last days go, this will take some beating. . I fished with daughter. I swam in a fairly empty pool, I relaxed by pool, with good book, I watched youngest play football, I went to a leclerc and stocked up on vino and bought the most incredible boxes of hot grub, for pennies, I cycled around deserted country roads,and dirt tracks, I went to a very good caff for scallops and what not and I cycled some more dirt tracks; I had a right laugh with the kids, I polished off a very good and very cheap bubbly and I am now finishing off a very good and cheap local white.. I have some very good memories to take home

That’s it, it is midnight, it is warm, I am enjoying a glass of local wine and the night is beautiful. And I appear to be the last person awake on the whole campsite, and I am very aware of my noisy tapping, so, see you back in blighty!

2010-07-11T12:03:00.000Z

Pieces

2010-07-10T20:59:00.000Z

So, with Germany having just beaten Uruguay in an entertaining 3rd place game, we are down to the last two. I don't normally like to run with the crowd, but as far as this world cup goes, I am with the crowd………it has been mediocre. There has been no outstanding player, no one who has you on the edge of your seat with anticipation; no Pele, or Cruyff, or Kempes or Maradona and there has been no outstanding team. Germany have played with some vibrancy and Spains ability to pick teams apart with the utmost delicacy is a delight, but, as with individual players, we have not seen masters at work, but, you know, it's been alright. Any football through the long, long summer is better than no football.

As the World Cup enters its final game on Sunday, be sure to admire the poetic and sometimes melancholic Total Football of the Netherlands and Spain—and compare it to the prosaic, rather efficient style of Germany in Saturday's third-place match

There is a certain puritanism about Spain's approach, a kind of "talibanismo de tiki-taka" -- as if scoring a goal from distance is a bit crass, as if bundling one in or scoring from a corner is rather grubby, as if hitting a team on the break or with a long ball is vulgar

This is a brilliant article on Englishness.

Can You Tell

2010-07-05T21:47:00.000Z

Watching Argentina the other night was difficult and I felt a bit like a voyeur. Germany murdered ‘em. It was sad to see players as talented as Argentina first look baffled and bewildered, and then lose all hope. It was heartbreaking to observe Maradonas increasing despair as the game reached its conclusion. Maradona will probab;y be gone now, which is a shame, because he provides genuine entertainment on the touchline, and his press conferences are legendary.

So that was Argentina and Brazil both gone, both of them with a whimper and Brazil bid goodbye to their manager. Some very good, or at least well though of teams have now left earlier than expected, which I hope puts Englands performance into some perspective. 32 of the worlds best teams started in South Africa and it was inevitable that well fancied teams would go out. Someone has to lose, sometimes (often, in fact) it will be your team that loses, so be it. It’s not just England, but, it seems every other nation that overreacts to sporting disappointment; I’m not sure if that makes me happy or not.

For once, the FA have behaved reasonably, in not sacking Capello, which would have represented the most violent of knee jerks. I maintain that given the respective records of the manager and the players, you have to conclude that it is the players that failed, not the manager. This leaves us with a huge problem. There has been loads written and said about Englands failings over the last week, but the harshest condemnation of the game lies in the figures for the number of qualified coaches we have in comparison to other countries.

The Observer reported yesterday that England has only 2,769 coaches holding Uefa's B, A and Pro badges, its top qualifications. Spain has produced 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,588.

This is shocking, truly shocking. The Lewis report, which someone must have paid for, seems to have been ignored, because of bickering at the disjointed top levels. I manage to keep a calm, rational head when it comes to the teams performance; I am, despite my advanced age, quite naïve, and I firmly believe that every player tries his absolute best in every game, so I can forgive defeat. This structural disgrace though is something else, and is unforgivable. Who holds these chumps to account?

Should I mention the national football centre? Er, no, perhaps not, I might pop a vessel.

When You See Me in the Pouring Rain

2010-07-03T13:42:00.002Z

I have to confess that once England go out of a competition, I lose a bit of interest. I continue watching, but the frisson has gone, and unless it is a really, really good game, I remain aloof, dispassionate. Luckily, yesterday was a day of high drama, and the denouement of the Ghana game was almost unbearable to watch.

I am glad Brazil have gone out, not because I have a dislike for Brazil, but because I have a dislike of the commentators undue reverence towards them. Every pass is exquisite, every nonchalant flick is the work of some innately gifted God of football. Towards the end yesterday, I kept hearing stuff like "time for the best team in the world to perform" and "time for the best player (Kaka) in the world to perform". I beg your chuffing pardon, but there is no recent evidence for this kind of horse shit, and I am glad that we will no longer be subject to it. Until Messi turns up this afternoon.

Suarez seems rather pleased with himself, which I find unfortunate. I wouldn't jump on the moral bandwagon which is currently rolling along at great pace, but I would prefer to see him at least pretend to be a bit shame faced. Apparently FIFA are considering extending his ban so that he misses the final, if Uruguay get there; bloody nonsense. They might just as well ban the German goalie. He knew he had cheated against England, and boasted and joked about it afterwards. I wish the buggers played with more of the Corinthian spirit about them, but they don't, and singling out Suarez for harsh treatment would be unjust. The free kick which led to the incident was a bit of a dodgy decision anyway, was it not?

Peter Singer on cheating in football

The two best teams so far meet this afternoon, and I can't wait for it, which probably means it will be a shit game. There will be strife in our house. The Mrs seems to have fallen in love with Maradona. I really don't know what she sees in short fat chaps who struggle to control their appetites! Youngest idolises Messi. I have been banished to the smaller, less comfy settee. It will be noisy. She can be quite excitable. Hopefully, the marriage will survive.

This world cup has been enlivened by the Mrs discovering a previously hidden love of the game. Actually, that's putting it a bit strong, but she has been watching it, and enjoying it. I have been enjoying her enjoying it, because she provides a non stop narrative on the action that she is observing, and asks constant questions. I wish I had been keeping notes. Here is some of the stuff, up with which, I have had to put:

"OOOHHH, THAT'S NOT NICE, HE SHOULD BE SENT OFF FOR THAT!" (After the most innocuous of pushes)

"IS THAT MARADONA, I CAN'T BELIEVE HE IS SO TINY………..AAWW, LOVE HIM" (Every time Maradona appears on screen)

"IS THAT THE SPANISH MANAGER? I LIKE HIS FACE, I'M GOING FOR SPAIN NOW!) (Every time Del Bosque appears on screen)

"IT WOULD BE NICE IF THEY COULD SCORE NOW" (Every time a team goes behind)

"WHY DON'T THE PLAYERS JUST STOP PLAYING WHEN THEY KNOW THEY ARE OFFSIDE, YOU CAN'T EXPECT THE REF TO SEE EVERYTHING"

'I WISH THEY WOULD STOP SPITTING……WHY DO THEY KEEP SPITTING???!!!)

'WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FOULS? THERE WEREN'T SO MANY FOULS IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES)

" THEIR BODIES TAKE A RIGHT BATTERING, THEY MUST BE BLACK AND BLUE BY THE TIME THEY HAVE FINISHED; I THOUGHT THEY COULD ONLY USE THEIR FEET"

"WHY ARE THEY ALL GOING TOWARDS THE SAME GOAL" (when a corner has been awarded)

It's been hilarious.

One Day

2010-07-02T23:05:00.001Z

Well, that was one hell of a dramatic day. Unfortunately, it has been a long day, a day characterised by drinking, plenty. I have many thoughts, but at this stage, it would be unwise to share them.

Tomorrow!

What is Life

2010-06-29T21:59:00.001Z

So. people aren't calming down very much. Nicky Campbell, in particular seems intent on starting a witch hunt against Capello. He will ask blatantly loaded questions then innocently say………."just asking the question", and he is just cheerleader in chief.

Let us try and remember, Capello's record is astounding, his history is one of almost relentless success. This England team, on the other hand, has a record of abject failure. We did not even qualify for the European Championship 2 years ago. Capello took over a team tarred by humiliation, a team that even when it does qualify for major championships, usually does it the hard way. What happened? We sailed through qualification……..strolled it. I cannot remember the last time that happened. Then, at the competition itself, we got through the group stage, achieving more than the finalists last time around managed, before losing to a team with far superior record to ours and who may well end up in the final again.

If we are unhappy,who should we be unhappy with? A manager with a proven record of winning, wherever he has been, or the players, with a proven record of……..er, let's be kind, underachievement?
Capello's record is a huge improvement on the previous managers, these players, failed, again, despite having a manager who clearly knows what he is about; this lot are the just about the only lot he has failed to inspire to glory, so is it his fault, or theirs?

96 Degrees in the Shade

2010-06-28T19:35:00.003Z

The world does not seem to be lacking an opinion or two on the state of English football, and there is certainly no need for me to add my tuppence worth, but, you know, when did that ever stop me?

I don’t think we should get carried away with the injustice of the “goal”, but nor should we become too hysterical about the manner of the defeat. The non goal changed everything. Had it been allowed to stand, the force and the momentum would most certainly have been with England and we would have gone in at half time full of confidence. We would have gone out for the second half with a different game plan and a different attitude. We may well still have lost, but we may have won, we don’t know what impact the quick reversal of fortune would have had on Germany.

Leaving that aside, it was not a good performance. Until the third goal went in, we appeared to be playing quite well. We were pressing and putting Germany under pressure, but, as soon became apparent, our eagerness to redress the balance left huge gaps at the back. On a day when 3 of the back 4, plus their midfield protector were having an off day, we were inviting trouble. There is a time to go gung ho and we went for it too early, a bit more patience was required. We needed a cool head, but there wasn’t one in the vicinity. We still need a cool head, actually, but such items seem to be in short supply.

There is a truth that is finally being universally acknowledged…………..England are not very good, and we haven’t been very good for a long time. We very rarely do well and even when we do, it seems to be in spite of ourselves. We got to the semi final in 1990, but, you may recall, we were dismal during the group stages and only got through the subsequent knockout games by the smallest of gnats cocks.

Actually, this truth isn’t being universally acknowledged. We continue to be told that individually, these England players are great, and that it is only when they come together to represent England that they become mediocre. We were told before the game that, man for man, England were better, from 1 to 11, and I have even heard people state that this is still the case. This is myopic beyond belief. On what rational basis is this belief formed? It seems to be based on nothing more scientific than that we have heard of our players, but we are only dimly aware, if we are aware at all, of the Germans.

Much was made of the relative youth and inexperience of the German team, but they seem to have adapted to playing with the big boys well enough. I saw them in their first game and was surprised at how well they played; they looked like a really dangerous team, and then they lost their next game and it was all too tempting to think that the outstanding performance was the aberration. They are in fine, devastating form and I would be happy to see them go on and win it now.

The interesting thing is that quite a few of the team were in the Under 21 squad that won their version of the European cup last year, and, I believe, they have been winning major competitions through all the age groups. It looks like the buggers are going to be ahead of the likes of us for year to come.

I had thought it is probably time to get rid of most of the current squad; they have had their chances and they have screwed up, every time, it's time to make way for a younger generation, but who do we replace them with? If we possess a Muller, or an Ozil, or Khadeira, they are keeping themselves well hidden. This world cup condemns not just the current squad, but the whole system. We are not producing good enough players. At the risk of sounding like Chris Waddle, you have to wonder how our system, with all its riches, consistently fails to produce top class players, players who are able to play with a bit of wit and invention.

I have two male nippers. The eldest was never a fanatic, but he liked football well enough and joined a local team when he was 6, and hated it. The training was boring, regimented and mundane. The blokes running it, who I applaud for giving up their time for free, were all registered coaches, and they were all well meaning enough, but they stripped the game of all joy. You would have 30 – 40 kids on a pitch on the side of a mountain, on freezing cold November nights, more or less just hanging around. In 90 minutes of training, they might touch the ball 10 or 12 times. The session would end with a free for all game, with the coaches taking part. Big kids and fast kids prospered, those who were not innately gifted, or big, or aggressive were more or less ignored.

That was about 9 years ago, but I went through the same thing last season with my youngest, with two different clubs. This chap is an absolute football fanatic. He loves the game and he is constantly kicking a ball, and when he isn’t kicking a ball he is reading about kicking a ball, yet two different teams managed to strip away all his enthusiasm. The training was the same as before, and there was little emphasis on practising ball skills, and no emphasis at all on just going out and enjoying yourself and loving the game. He drifted away, just like thousands and thousand of others probably drift away.

Through his hysterical rant ( if you haven’t heard it, consider yourself lucky) Chris Waddle did make some salient points, one of them being that skill is being coached out of young players. He says that the emphasis in academies is all about one and two touch football………….pass and move, pass and move, pass and move. Individual skill, idiosyncrasy is discouraged. We might see this in the case of Joe Cole, who was slagged off by Mourinho for being too much of an individual, and even though he has reined himself in somewhat, he still struggles to get a regular start for either Chelsea or England.

You might think that Waddles doth protest too much, as he represents failed England teams just as much as the current lot but there is truth in what he says. Thinking back to when I was nipper, the English game, if not the English team, always had players with flair, skill and a bit of the devil about them.

Thinking just off the top of my head, I think of players like Stan Bowles, Tony Currie, Keith Weller, Charlie George, Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson, Rodney Marsh, Trevor Francis (minus the devil) Frank Worthington…………er…………..I’m struggling a bit now, until we get to Paul Gascoigne. There will be many others, who I can’t quite remember and more still who didn’t quite touch greatness in the way those I mentioned did. So, England can produce talented players; there is not an innate defect that renders Englishmen incapable of producing football which has the crowd off its feet in anticipation of something wonderful happening.

When I was a nipper, there was a small park on Fox Hollies Road, and, just as would have been the case on countless patches of grass all over the country, there would be dozens of games going on. Straight after school, everyone would head to the park, until it got dark and at weekends the whole day would be spent there. There would be dozens of games going on, usually 15-20 a side, with the proverbial jumpers for goalposts. These are the environments which bred the talents of the mavericks, but you don’t see it anymore.

For whatever reason, kids are not spending all day playing unorganised, but brilliantly exhilarating football. They are joining neighbourhood clubs, where they are learning drills, and where they are learning that the greatest asset a British footballer can possess is strength, closely followed by an ability to shout loudly and lose ones temper, and an ability to follow instructions. You can’t expect these junior coaches to provide in an hour or 90 minutes what kids used to provide for themselves all through the week, but they can be less regimented in their thinking; they can be more tolerant of mistakes; they could encourage kids to love the game.

I shall offer the FA this advice, absolutely free. Tell the junior coaches to throw away their coaching manuals. Tell them to spend their training sessions doing nothing more than organising their players into six a side teams, then throw them a ball and let them play. Just let them play.

Predictably, large section of the media are calling for Capello's head, and the phone in experts are being given all the time and space they need to articulate their brilliantly sophisticated views. Sometimes, (mostly when I listen to 5 live) it feels like I live in a bi polar nation. We seem capable of only two emotions: irrational hope and expectation, or absolute despair. If you express a rational view that history suggests that we aren't very good, you are a traitor: if, once your hypothesis has been proved correct, you suggest that we need not neccessarily open a collective vein, you are complacent. Journalists, phone in nutters, message boarders and bloggers all queue up and vie with each other to out despair one another. Cool heads are in very short supply. No good will come of it. Mark my words.

It’s not all about England though, but I am still waiting for this competition to catch fire. Yesterdays game was one of the better ones, and there’s a thought………..until the 4th went in, I was really enjoying the game; people seem to forget this is a competition, with two highly motivated sets of players, the best in the world, in fact, trying to outdo each other. For all the disappointment, for 70ish minutes I was fully engaged, rapt, and is this not what we want?

The most entertaining bit so far remains the French meltdown. It amused me to see that even after they were eliminated, they still tried to entertain us, with David Ginola threatening to sue Gerard Houllier for comments he made years ago. Thank God we have Maradonna and his touchline operatics to keep us entertained.

Besides which, we have been blessed with the most fantastic weather. Christ, what a halcyon summer this is turning out to be. My world cup vigil has not been as intense as it might have been, because the garden keeps calling me, and I habitually find myself with a cold beer in one hand and a barbecue implement in the other. You can’t be outside, gently melting, getting slowly, blissfully and gently pissed without having a bit of music on, and my preference at such times is for lovely, gentle music, and if you are of a like mind, I recommend the following:

Richard James, formerly of Gorkys Zygotic Mynci has a newish album out “We Went Riding” and it is wonderful, although there are one or two discordant moments on it.

Euros Childs, also formerly a Gorky, put an album called Cheer Gone out a couple of years ago, and it suits the bucolic bliss of a long, sunny afternoon in the garden beautifully.

Gorky’s Barafundle also hits the spot, magnificently, as doe the newish Hindi Zahra. Then there is John Grant, not exactly gentle, but wonderful nonetheless. Once the beer kicks in, I default to a bit of reggae.

Have a spotify playlist: Summer

Khawuleza

2010-06-21T22:50:00.001Z

Finally, the world cup is showing signs of life, and there have even been a couple of half decent football matches. The Denmark game the other night was entertaining enough, largely because both teams were shambolic, Brazil were OK last night but not nearly as thrilling as the pundits would have you believe. Spain played some good stuff tonight. I missed the Portugal game, being a wage slave.

The more interesting happenings have taken place off the field, with the lunatic French taking star billing. It's not just the well publicised rows between Domenech and Malouda and Domenech and Anelka and Evra and the fitness guy, apparently the team is, and has been, very divided, and contains a number of players who have a penchant for bullying younger members of the team. What a bunch of dickheads.

David Pleat was on the radio this morning and he said that he thought that players earn so much now, the game really isn't that important to them. I struggled to believe it, but when you see the self destructive way the French are behaving, there might be something in it, and he knows more about players than I do. Anelka has missed previous world cups, and has managed to get himself turfed out of this one, and his barmy mates have withdrawn their labour………..in the middle of the world cup! Billy Wright would never have done that.

England are trying to match France for idiocy. David James has been sulking publicly, and, yesterday, John Terry let his ego do the talking. Reaction to Terry in the media was mixed; some thought he was a stout hearted Englishman defending the cause, others (not many) thought that he had overstepped the mark. I predict a lucrative book deal and serialisation rights ahead for the ex captain. Hilariously, Fabio has not engaged in mealy mouthed, anodyne spin. He has said that Terry has made a big mistake and went on to more or less tell him to shut his cockney face before he gets it filled in. I demand a knighthood for Fabio.

There is a good article in The Globe and Mail on diving, which, naturally enough, brings me to diving. Last night, a big, athletic player from the Ivory Coast, bumped into the much less imposing figure of Kaka and went down like a ton of bricks; bizarrely, clutching his face, which I can only assume was an attempt to hide his shame. It goes on, it's blatant, every player does it, and there is no point bleating about it.

But bleat I must. When I was a lad, and when I was a young man, it was a point of principle to show the other fucker, no matter how hairy arsed and fierce he was, that he couldn't hurt you. No matter how crunching the tackle, how blatant the assault, you did not show fear, and you did not show pain. It was not manly. Obviously, if you had broken a limb, or lost some teeth, it was acceptable to wince a little bit. Now, a player only has to feel the gentlest breeze and he tumbles over. No one really minds this, players are expected to go down at the merest hint of a touch; it is only the most blatant cheating that is condemned, but the sight of big, strapping athletes falling flamboyantly to the ground, every time they feel a faint tickle makes me feel sick, frankly.

We finally seem to be getting a bit of opposition to this bastard coalition, not from Labour though, who continue to engage in a staring contest with the fraternal navel. Will Hutton was eloquent in yesterdays Observer, and the brilliantly named DD Guttenplan has provided Gideon with a free history lesson. Charles Kennedy has taken the Nicholas Anelka role in the new government and has apparently said to David Cameron: "Don't expect me to fucking support you." Bravo!