You Can Never Hold Back Spring

I have dozens of recipe books but rarely actually follow a recipe..........I use them to get ideas or for advice to cook a particular ingredient properly and also for just a bit of light reading. It seems to get on peoples nerves when they ask where the recipe for something I cooked is and I can't tell them or when they ask how much garlic or ginger or somesuch is required and I say, "I don't know, just about enough". This is not because I am a culinary genius, but because I am a lazy bugger and can't be bothered to do things properly, which marks me out from Mark Booth, who has also turned up his nose at recipe books but has learned to do things properly.

He has written a good, lengthy article in the Independent on how he learned to cook after throwing all his recipe books away. There is also the small matter of spending a year at a cookery school in Paris, an option that isn't open to most of us, but, generally, I like the cut of his jib. My advice, which you can have for free, is this: look in the fridge, see what you have and make it nice, with whatever you have to hand. If a recipe calls for a strange ingredient that you don't have, omit it, you probably won't notice the difference. There are a thousand and one things you can do with a potato.

If you read the article, which is good, don't follow the link to his website, which is crap and literally, has nothing on it, other than the opportunity to buy his book. If you buy his book, do it via Amazon and go there via this blog; that will net me about 0.001p towards the camping trip to France fund. There is a link, on the left!

Talking of cutting corners, my eldest likes to cook, a bit, it's not a passion......... but he likes it, so he was looking forward to cooking lessons at his new school. His Pizza consisted of a Pitta Bread, topped with a generic, bought sauce and some grated cheese, which then went under the grill. Several corners cut too far there, I think.

Easy spud recipe of the day
Easy Dauphinoise
Take about 5 biggish spuds. Peel and slice, really thin, stick in a saucepan which contains about a pint and a quarter of a mixture of milk and cream, with a sliced clove of garlic and salt. Cook for ten minutes, chuck it all in an oven proof dish and bake for about 40 minutes at about 180. Voila.

The Blues beloved chairman, David Gold is in the news again, having described Gary Cahill as selfish for joining Bolton, rather than us. Who is Gary Cahill? You might well ask. Apparently we offered him a better deal than Bolton, but he chose to go there, only Chairman Dave can explain how taking less money can be construed as selfish, because it is beyond me. Yes this Dave, is the same Dave who has been all over the media loudly supporting the notion of the 39th game. He supports it for purely selfless, altruistic reasons, obviously, because he is not a selfish man.

The new(ish) Camilleri is brilliant, but is a lot darker in tone than we are used to, concerning as it does illegal immigration and the hardship and cruelty that is endured; he also has some harsh things to say regarding the government of the day. The overall feel though is as you would expect, Caterella, the best literary idiot since Schweik, is prominent and the wit is lacerating.

I am also reading "Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson, another book which I can recommend without reservation. Not much happens, but it is one of those books that you sink into, become immersed in. The writing, or the translation, is beautiful and I suppose it is a bit of an existential meditation on life..........who we are, what we are, and how we come to be who we are. It has some fairly profound thoughts on the way in which we see ourselves and the way in which others see us, and how none of it really matters. It won't raise many belly laughs, mind.

Also, I am reading Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey. I picked it up to flick through, get a flavour, and found myself 80 pages in. Carey's 12 year old nipper develops an interest in manga, so th old man takes him off to Japan, (as you do), where he meets several masters of their various crafts (as you do)ponders upon Japanese culture and enjoys a classic, slightly fraught relationship with his son. It rang many bells with me.

Believe it or not, I am also dipping in and out of a big biography of Joe Strummer. The jury is very much out on this.........the author seems a bit too fond of telling us how much Joe loved him, for my liking.

So Round So Firm So Fully Packed

Iraq seems to have fallen off the news radar a bit, unless we are being told how the surge has worked and everyday life is returning to something like normality; then, buried somewhere deep inside our daily paper, way after all the pages and pages devoted to the minutiae of an election in a far away country, we will see that 40 Iraqis have died in a suicide attack in a market, or a roadside bomb has killed dozens of innocent civilians. The slaughter continues, but so long as it is Iraqis being mutilated, we don't much care.

There is a good article relating to this in the Independent. As is pointed out there, Blair not only walks away scot free, he continues to better himself. He should be thankful he didn't take drugs to win a race, then he would know what opprobrium is. It still baffles me how Blair and Bush can reconcile their Christian beliefs with their actions, I still wonder how they ever manage to sleep at night; surely they can't be so self righteous that they never have a troubling thought, a moment of doubt, the odd night lying awake, staring at the ceiling, contemplating what they have done. Do they ever wonder how history will judge them...........and despair?

Meanwhile, a top Taliban bloke who was rumoured to have turned and had gotten into bed with the good guys (that's us) has been nabbed by the Pakistan secret police, who don't seem to be very good at being the good guys. It's a murky old world.

Bloggers thrive on fragmented attention and dole it out too—one-liners, samples of songs, summary news, and summary judgments. Sometimes they don't even stop to punctuate.

 

Row Fisherman Row

Happiness is a new Camilleri

I don't watch England much but when I have done is has always been painfully similar to watching the Blues, with all the frustration and disappointment which that entails and the sinilairty continues. We have a new man who professes to like a passing game and so do England, and I think both men are going to find it very difficult to realise their lofty ambitions; although old Fabio will have the easier task.

Fabios mate Baldini has said that as a nation we are obsessed with hoofing the ball skywards after one or two passes and either he or Fabio has said that it is easier to play with the ball on the ground, the key is to practice, practice, practice. So they made the poor wee dabs train twice each day before the game the other night. I have read that some of the prem managers have objected to this criminal overworking of their little darlings.

Mr Eck should follow Fabios lead and have the Blues in twice each day. It is obvious that probably only two of our highly accomplished and highly paid professional footballers can actually pass a ball with any accuracy. His assistant has said that we will persist with a passing game because that is the best way to win games.........well not if we keep passing it to the opposition it isn't, so they should have 'em in, and make them practice until the bloody pips squeak; with the money they now earn surely they can't object to putting in a full days labour?

The money men have come up with the bright idea of inflicting the likes of the Blues and Blackburn on unsuspecting populations the whole world over. Our chairman has predictably come out in favour of it, the bottom line being, as ever, the only line.

Can we now have a prolonged period of silence concerning the Munich air crash? Is that possible? Unless someone wants to tell me how much money Manchester Utd have banked from the city's nations worlds mourning.

"How good was that", has joined my list of cack phrases, a phrase which has caused Billy Bragg Harry Pearson to write a piece which made me piss myself, at least once.

Man, do I empathise with this bloke! Blues message boards are full of people who use the word "of" when they mean "have" As in, "he would of scored if he hadn't been a useless great berk". I made that up, obviusly, because Blues have never employed a useless great berk and even if they had, we wouldn't mention it, because, well, he is Blues and it is compulsory to love him. Anyway, it has become so ubiquitous that I no longer know if this is a mass attempt at irony, or a mass attempt to lend the message boards some local authenticity, or, Blues fans, in large numbers, really do believe that they are using the word in its correct context. There, I wouldn't of dared mention it before reading that piece.

The life cycle of a blog post.

Why we kiss

There are some natural phenomena whose wonder only deepens upon scientific investigation. Take the orgasm............

Songerize will play you song if you know the name of it and who sung it, and it has it..........it seems to have plenty though, so long as you don't get too obscure.

Trouble Been Hard

You will have read about Shelby Lynnes album of Dusty covers, because you can't escape the bloody thing and everyone seems to love it. As do I. Love might be putting it a bit strong, but it's a damn fine piece of work. the best thing about it is, as you will know, because you will already have read about it, is the fact that it isn't a straight copy.............she stamps her own personality on it, and there are no horns. At times, it seems a bit too understated, a bit Eva Cassidy, but it is always redeemed by the glorious, soulful, unutterably saucy sensuality of Lynnes voice. She made a great album a few years back, which is possibly the sauciest record I have heard, and she can still do sauce.

The transfer window has closed. Boo. Blues signed 3 new players, Mcfadden, who has some talent, Zarate who looks to have some serious talent (the new Jose) and Murphy, a left back from a faraway country of whom we know little. So we are better off than we were 4 weeks ago, yet many Blues fans are in despair, because we didn't sign all sorts of mediocre centre halves. Mind you, after our performance in the week, maybe we should be in despair. At least we aren't Newcastle fans.


A mulitalented man.

 

Waterspider

Takeaway shows is great, whoever runs it gets various bands, generally good bands, to a sort of impromptu busk as they pass through Paris.

And if that isn't good enough, there is always daytrotter.

Ain't life strange, ain't life grand. While I was having a search around for the brilliant, peerless Felice Brothers, I thought about The Pernice Brothers who put out a brilliant album, oooh, years ago, and at the time, the main Pernice wrote a brilliant blog, so I looked. The blog is still there, but not much cop, really, but if you click on the audio link you can listen to streams of a few albums. I had forgotten how good those buggers are.

Watina

The world doesn't mourn for Andy Palacio, and nor should it, I don't suppose, but Belize does and it is bloody sad that he has gone.

Poor old Ken Livingstone seems to be getting hammered left right and centre. I would not normally be bothered, not having any interest in what goes on in Londinium and generally believing that the pampered bleeders deserve everything they get. The national media though, have decided that this little local difficulty is vexing the people of Britain from Pontypool to Paisley so we can’t really escape it. Ken is big enough and ugly enough to look after himself - but the way in which he is being demonized while the Boris gets away scot free troubles me. Has the media lost all sense of reason because Boris cultivates the image of an oafish buffoon, or is this a perfect case of hegemony at work? Whatever, it is a poor imitation of democracy.

Mind you, this little contretemps in the South East could benefit us all if Boris wins. I am no fan of New Labour, but by Christ the alternative is terrifying; as much as I despise the placemen, careerists and empty suits that seem to populate the labour party these days, the thought of a bunch of multi millionaire hooray henrys and chinless wonders running the country for the benefit of their cronies is too much to bear. So, let Boris win (it’s only London, after all) and let the whole nation be reminded of what useless bunch of small minded, self serving twats the Tories really are. Then, when new labour get back in, we can despair all over again and mourn for the innocence we lost on a hot May night in May 1997.

How did Cameron earn his millions anyway? What has he produced?

A French bank gets stung for 30 odd billion and still manages to turn a profit, who says capitalism doesn't work?

I should probably pay a bit of attention to this writing blog.

Play a word game, feed some people.


More babies

 

Radio Radio

My car aerial has snapped off, leaving just the bit that threads in, with nothing protruding so I am more less without a radio, and given that the cd player is also kaput, I am growing used to the sound of silence, or, more accurately, the sound of the endless stream of nonsense that flits in and out of my brain. I can get 5 live until I get to the other side of Pontypool, deep in the valley, then nothing. So from Pontypool, to Abertillery, I have been omming, as in chanting om, or aaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I let the sound start deep in my belly and travel up and resonate through my chest and throat until the mmmmmmmm vibrates behind my eyes and cheekbones.

It's marvelous, and, safely cocooned in the vehicle I have no fear of looking a berk, at least, not until the spring, when I will forget I have the windows rolled down and will notice fellow road users at traffic lights regarding me with suspicion and alarm. I don't know if it's connecting me with the universe but it certainly isn't connecting me with the patron saint of traffic lights, as I hit every set on red, every day. Maybe it's working at a deeper, more subtle level. Maybe it does nothing at all, but it keeps me occupied.

I do have some coverage; I get a crackly 5 live between Cwmbran and Pontypool, but once I go deeper into the valley, all is lost. My ten minutes of 5 live every morning really irritate, me, but it’s like an itch and I have to tune in, not least in the hope of hearing that the Blues have signed somebody, anybody. 5 live has decided that we, the audience, want to listen to press conferences; the whole thing, not just the juicy bits. So, the parents of a murdered child are holding a press conference; lets go and hear the whole thing; a man has been convicted of an appalling crime, the head of the local CID is holding a press conference; lets hear the whole thing, a man who cannot speak English but who knows a thing or three about football is holding a press conference, lets go and hear the the whole thing, and on it goes.

They are invariably shambolic and chaotic. We can never hear the questions, just the answers, and, when it is all over, a reporter repeats to us what we have all just heard. There will then be a discussion before the presenter goes back to the previous discussion, which will probably involve some bloke moaning about how the NHS treated his swollen nuts, or somesuch. This morning as I switched on for my ten minute fix, they went over to a press conference to announce the nominations for the baftas. I don’t know if they listed each nominee for each category, because I switched off, and started my omming early.

I may be wrong, but does the BBC not have a small army of well trained, well paid staff to go to press conferences, sit through them sift out all the boring bits and then present us, the people of Great Britain, with the salient points?

The five live entertainment reporter has said that these could be the most important Baftas ever, because due to the writers strike in America, these awards will have more stars present than any other. No mention of quality, or profundity, or art. No, these will be good, in this breathlessly idiotic reporters opinion, because a load of stars might turn up. I should stop listening to 5 live, it is detrimental to my emotional well being.

Christ, there isn’t any romance left in football is there? Shortly after Luton drew with Liverpool in the cup they sold two of their better players for peanuts, so one of their only two chances of getting anything out the reply, Slim, left town, leaving only his mate, None. Luton duly got stuffed whereupon their manager, who hadn’t been paid for 4 months, got the boot. Five live sports news led on news of the “dead man walking, Benitez and his relief at the victory. I know which story was of more interest to the true aficionado.

Sex And Drugs And Double Chins

Who needs Wilson Palacios when you can have the rather special Andy Palacio:


I used to have a great deal of interest in the American elections, but no longer. I really can't get very excited about who will be the latest son or daughter of privilege to be granted the succession. Having said that, I am glad that it has become interesting, not least because the BBC has decided we are actually part of the union and has sent half its bloody staff there to provide us with non stop coverage, across all mediums and channels. The other half has decamped to Liverpool. What was that about having to tighten the belt following the licence fee settlement?

Never mind, at least we have the excitement of the transfer window and Blues have done us proud by signing.............................no one, yet. Pull yer bloody finger out Eck, give us something to talk about.

Big Sam says he isn't filled with bitterness and bile following his sacking from Newcastle: while I appreciate that 6 million quid compensation can be an effective pain killer, I don't believe him, I think that his whole essence is bitterness and bile, it makes him the man that he is.

I had a look at the Wychwood festival site the other day to see who they had booked so far. My heart didn't exactly skip with the joy when I saw that The Blockheads and Phil Jupitus had been booked. I don't buy into the myth of the Blockheads; they were an above average pub band, who got lucky and enjoyed their 15 minutes. If they were turning up to warm the crowd up early on Saturday afternoon (as Chris Difford did, brilliantly, a couple of years ago) I would be happy, but it looks as if they will be near the top of the bill. As for Jupitus, isn't he supposed to be a comedian? Aren't comedians supposed to be funny?

I did a search to see if maybe I was being a bit uncharitable, though not with any expectation of having my prejudices confirmed, not with Dury having been deified since his death. The best thing I came across was this piece by the peerless Wreckless Eric on his more than decent blog.

Her Eyes Dart Around

A treat:

Down In The Hole

There is a brilliant thread about The Wire on Metafilter, containing superb links a really good, really intelligent discussion and here and there, memorable quotes; it could keep you busy for hours. The heads of both organizations, official and criminal, wrestle with similar management and personnel issues, and resolve them with similarly cold self-interest. In both the department and the gang, the powerful exploit the weak, and within the ranks those who exhibit dedication, talent, and loyalty are usually punished for their efforts. is phrase that could equally apply to any social work department I have worked for as well as Baltimore drug gangs.

Also found on mefi, an interesting article on the banality (or otherwise) of evil, funny how I found myself thinking of my various managers again.

Talking of work, I was so fed up yesterday, I had to book the rest of the week off; I will come to regret that when the spring arrives.

Mr Eck has been talking the talk again regarding the type of player he wants for the Blues. Despite a slightly disappointing start in terms of results, I am genuinely excited about our prospects with this bloke in charge. The contrast between him and Bruce couldn't be more stark. OK we never really looked like doing much against Manchester Utd but for those of us used to Bruce, to see us patiently knocking the ball about to one another rather than just booting it straight back to the other buggers is to have our faith in the game restored (even if we aren't very good at it). My God, if we manage to score a few goals along the way as well, I might just come over all unnecessary.

I saw a review for No Country For Old Men the other day, don't know what it's like, but the novel is one of the best, as well as one of the bleakest that I read last year.

Who's Gonna Build The Wall

Track of the year:


Ghostwriting Gabo, a brilliant account of a young mans encounter with Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I seem to get fairly regular visits from someone in Emmetsburg, Iowa, which looks like a nice place; whoever you are, have a happy new year!

If you don't believe me when I tell you how good The Wire is, have a listen to Charlie Brooker:


The poignancy of piers

A talk on happiness, with some very nice pics too:

I Don't Want To Go Home

Is that Dimitar Berbatov, singing?

I hesitated before buying an Observer this morning, knowing it would be full of rehashed shit and predictions regarding who the movers and shakers in all sorts of wanky endeavours will be during the coming year, and I was right. There were two articles worth sharing though, first a very good, very enlightening profile of Benazir Bhutto ; second a bloody hilarious interview with darts commentator Sid Waddell.

A pretty miserable but predictable 1-1 draw for us yesterday against a Fulham side who otherwise cannot score in a barrel of fannies, but I'm not downhearted, despite our next three fixtures being Manchester Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal. None of the teams around us will pick up many points and by the time that games that actually mean something to us come around again, Mr Eck will have stamped his personality on the team and we will move smoothly away from the drop zone.

Gary Mcsheffrey is coming in for some awful stick but I think he has improved a lot since Mr Eck arrived; he still isn't very good, but he's better than he was and could get better still if he regains a bit of confidence. I wish Blues fans had a bit more patience, because he is getting merciless stick, which can't be helping.

Smoking Again

Radio Scotland has given us a little Christmas pressie with a highlights programme from Dean Friedman's Real American Folk, trust me, it's a winner. I generally hate this time of the year, with every radio programme, newspaper and magazine doing little more than rehashing yesterday news, but we can be thankful for small mercies.

Another irritating feature of the season is lists, every paper and every blogger has to tell us what they believe are best books etc of the year. I'm no good at this, because I can't remember what I had for dinner half the time, never mind what I read in February. This year though I came acrtoiss some brilliant writers, who were new to me: Ray Banks; Peter Temple, Don Winslow, Ken Bruen, Willy Vlautin, Niall Griffiths. Vlautin gets the nod for book of the year, as it has left me salivating for his next one, which comes out in April, I think.

Record of the year is Elvis Perkins Ash Wednesday, there are no other contenders.

Telly of the year was the Wire, with the last, searing, heartbreaking episode of The Sopranos being the best single hour and a half.

Radio of the year: Count Arthur Strong.

Soap opera of the year: Birmingham City FC

Comedy of the year: Birmingham City FC

Useless, dissembling twat of the year: Steve Bruce.

Best list I have come across, Ray Banks.

Iraq: The Hidden Human Cost

Lots and lots of good stuff at Barcelona Review

Find yourself some radio goodness.

 

 

Mother and Child Reunion

Is it too late to wish everyone a happy Christmas? Probably.

I found myself in Cardiff on Christmas Eve and had two nice surprises: Spillers was still open, so I could browse their superb roots selection and get the Mrs something half decent and half obscure for her stocking, and, out of nowhere, a Borders bookshop has appeared. I had never been in a Borders before, and given that it incorporates a Starbucks, I suppose someone will tell me it is unethical to shop there but we are talking Cardiff here, a literary desert. And it is good, I got a brilliant music magazine imported from America with an ace CD attached and a load of books that were not available in Waterstones, just up the street. And the staff were cheery, a small but not insignificant point.

When I first moved to Cardiff it was well served for bookshops with at at least two good independents in the town centre, then Waterstones came along and swallowed everything up. For a while it wasn't too bad. There were two Waterstones within about a hundred yards of each other, but they were quite distinct. Now there is just the one, and it is awful. I remember when Waterstones first appeared and it was a real breath of fresh air, with a good selection of books, not just a load of bestsellers or Richard and Judy recommendations, and staff who seemed as if they had probably read a book themselves, at least once. Now it is the devil.

Three points for the Blues today with a 3-0 win and the fans are bickering, with some saying the result is all that matters and others wishing for a bit more. Personally, I would have wished for a bit more. As was the case with our defeat to Bolton last week, 3-0 flattered us. Middlesbrough were very poor, but we weren't much better, we created very little and all our goals were very lucky.

I think I still like Mr Eck, I like the things he said about a passing game when he arrived, I like the way he talks about us needing to have more belief in our ability and I like the fact that he has won us some points. I like the fact that, regardless of formation, we seem to have a more positive intent about us. I find it strange though, that for all the talk, he leaves our most innately talented players out. Fair enough, I suppose, if he doesn't trust them and generally, the cut of his jib sits well with me, he is still learning about the players he has, and he seems willing to make changes when he deems them necessary.

There was an interesting move today with him putting Larrsson on the left and Mcsheffrey on the right, a move which worked quite well, although I think we waste Larrsson when we don't play him in the middle. Teams have been killing us down the left all season, so with the introduction of Quedrue at left back and Larrsson ahead of him, we looked a bit more solid. Mcsheffrey had his best game of the season and seemed to put himself about a bit more than usual, plus it was a move that the opposition would not have anticipated.

Having said that, it was poor, all huff, puff and endeavour with very little subtlety or finesse. We rely on set pieces or mistakes by the opposition for our chances, we don't really create anything, and when we do, we look more like rabbits caught in the headlights than cold blooded assassins. Which reminds me. Cameron Jerome is not good enough, it as simple as that. I don't care how young he is, I don't care how hard he tries....he has no touch, he has no awareness and he lacks finesse.

We have a new Villain, O Connor. Every one has decided he is crap and not worth his place on the bench and when he comes on, the grumbles start. I am astonished. He has hardly started, but the minds have been made up and every misplaced pass is greeted with loud groans of disapproval. I think he is a good player, and given a run, and some love and patience he will prove it, but our benign and tolerant fans have taken against him.

The crowd was low, again. Well, some of us said years ago that if you want to be blase and price the working class diehards out, you do so at your peril; there will come a time when you want them back and they will say, sorry old chap, we have found better ways of spending our Saturday afternoons. We attracted a bunch of dilettantes when we went up last time, the kind of people who would post on message boards that no price was too high for the privilege of watching Man Utd and Arsenal and who would argue that everyone can afford it if they want it bad enough, Christ have we never heard of credit cards?

Well, thankfully, most of the dilettantes have fucked off, but the price remains too high for the old guard and they will take some persuading to make the financial sacrifice to come back. Lets hope Mr Eck makes us all believe that the price is worth paying. I think he will.

Just One Victory

The Tin Roof Blowdown is brilliant. All my usual caveats about Lee Burkes overblown prose apply, but still, it is brilliant.

There was a good article in the Guardian earlier in the week by a bloke recently returned to these shores; he commented upon changes in the language, or in other words, cack phrases, and wrote wittily on the concept of menus for coffee. Talking of cack phrases, when did "final episode" become "seasons finale"?

So, having courted and been rejected by one defensive bugger, the FA go and sign Capello, who was sacked by Real Madrid, having bored everyone half to death. Oh Joy. The papers tell us that above all, he is a pragmatist and will play to the strengths of the players he has available, lets hope we have a couple of fast and witty strikers coming through.

I am not xenophobic in these things but the appointment is a real condemnation of English football. There is no English manager who is remotely good enough, or innovative enough for the job, and there hasn't been for years. How many thousands of individuals have been through the English coaching system over the last 20 years? How many professionals have played and learned under English coaches? Yet. not one of them has come through and shone.

This compares badly with almost all of our neighbors, who produce players who become successful coaches seamlessly, and they do it as a matter of course. Cruyff, Koemann, , various Germans, Tigana and may others seem to finish playing, take high profile jobs and enjoy immediate success. Maybe English players are just thick. The old truism about Gerrard and Lampard being unable to play together has raised it's head again, well, if they had any intelligence it wouldn't be an issue; ask Tevez and Rooney.

Mr Ecks first home game tomorrow and the Blue hordes are beside themselves with anticipation, having forgotten the immutable law that the bastards will always let you down. It would be nice to be proved wrong.

Peace Train

I was about to start this post by saying that it feels a bit daft sitting here typing garbage in the certain knowledge that no one will read it, but having just checked my stats I see that I have still been getting visits during this hiatus, so now I feel guilty, which doesn't mean that any of this tripe will be worth reading.

As readers of my various blogs will have noted over the years, I am in the wrong profession and my working life is, well, dismal really and a few years ago I became a bit of a spiritual seeker; not in any profound way, but I would read a bit here, meditate a bit there, albeit without any consistency. Over the last twelve months my working life became worse than ever and the harder I try to find an alternative, the more entrenched I seem to become.

However, I decided not to moan about it, as I did in the past, nor swear revenge on those who were mistreating me and I determined to just try to keep my head down, be civil and polite to everybody, never lose my rag, accept my own part in my circumstances and just try and get on with it. The stuff that has gone on hasn't just affected me, it has affected others, in a much more profound way and one poor bugger has probably lost his position and his pension after many years of selfless service.
He and I were, are, victims of a nasty little coterie of gossip mongers and trouble makers, who seem to delight in causing trouble for others, whether it is justified or not.

Well, things have turned around a bit. The complexity of the work that I do is now recognised and I have been assured that senior managers are now aware that I have been most unfairly treated, which is gratifying. The point of all this is that without the spiritual shit I have read and the meditations that I have done, I would have been raging against the world for the last twelve months and demanding that not only is justice done, but that it is seen to be done.................and my position would have got worse. In a very small way, I have been trying to tread the eightfold path, and, in my case, there seems to have been some benefit in it.

Not that I have rendered myself incapable of righteous rage, far from it. I have been raging of late about the coverage of the dodgy donations to Labour. I am neither an an apologist for, nor a supporter of Labour, but this whole business is making me mad. The Tories accepting the moral high ground on these issues is laughable and the fact that no one challenges them is sickening. We don't have to do a historical trawl either, we just have to look at Michael Ashcroft, who is intent on buying a win for the Tories. A high ranking tory and a peer of the realm , who cannot tell us where his home is, not that he is trying to avoid paying tax in this country or anything as morally dubious as that.

The media, the pack animals have sniffed Gordon Browns blood and will not rest until they have satisfied their blood lust; it is the perfect illustration of power without responsibility. Meanwhile the Tories get away with murder; the sole focus of political reporting has become the haplessness of Gordon Brown. Cameron is praised to the high heavens on account of his his patrician ability to pour scornful abuse on someones head without advancing the debate or engaging in any kind of philosophising at all.

The soap opera at the Blues continues and Steve Bruce has departed for Wigan, where his style of play has already drawn comment from one of his new players. Wigan are going down, as sure as eggs is eggs. Dave Whelan must have lost his marbles. Meanwhile, the takeover of the club seems less likely and we have snaffled Scotlands manager.

The first signs are very encouraging, not least because we won our first game under the new regime, not that many buggers in the media seem willing to give us any credit for it. Two things struck me in Big Ecks first week: one was the way in which he spoke about the game and the way it should be played, with an emphasis on passing the ball. He noted that every player at the club should be able to pass the ball. The second thing was comments made by the new assistant relating to the club and the fans. He said something along the lines of it being a proper club with proper, passionate fans. I know that it was all PR, but it made a change from seeing the fans slagged off by the board and the manager.

The game against Spurs was interesting. Some Blues fans pointed out that Mcleish chose a similar formation to Bruce, which is true enough, but there were significant differences. The most noticeable change was that already, after only two days in charge, the team were actually passing to one another; even trying to pass it out from the back. They weren't actually very good at it, to be honest, but Rome wasn't built in a day and they will surely improve. Another pleasing factor was his willingness to go for the points, which in this case worked a treat; it may not always come off, but when it does, by Christ it is sweet.

We Shall Not Be Moved

A lovely quote from Ricky Hattons dad: And if Ricky wins, what then? Might it go to his head? "Don't worry about that," Ray responds firmly. "The people around him will make sure of that. If myself or his brother Matthew don't tell him he's becoming a Billy Big Bollocks then, take it from me, his mother certainly will."

On Wednesday, my gaffer snuck in after hours, like a thief in the night, and emptied his desk of all his personal belongings. Another good man gone, for no good reason. This is a piss poor game I find myself in. I could go on, again, about the wicked managers, but sod it, we all know about that now. I had the misfortune to spend the entire morning with a load of them, and in the end, you can't help but pity them, with their determination to have the last word, even though several others have already uttered it.

Driving across to Abertillery this morning I saw the most stunning, vivid rainbow I think I have ever seen and it just stayed there, for miles; then, the colours of the trees on the main road down to Ebbw Vale were something to behold, following which, gazing out of the window, mid morning, the colours on some bush against a dark sky, were brilliant and jaw dropping.Later still, driving through the Wye Valley, there were stunning shafts of brilliant white light piercing the distant gloom. I'm not even going to start on the splendour of the Severn. As good as it was, and as much I appreciate nature and beauty, I'm still skint, but the beauty has gone, just like my old gaffer.

Have a read of a young, hip, Kelmanesque Muslim. Seriously, it's good, and it's free, but you might want to buy it.

Blues play Villa on Sunday and I try not to care, but I do. I hate these games, really, really hate them. I will have a knot in my stomach from now until Wednesday, whatever the result. I won't be going, but watching on the box is probably worse than being there. No one that I will see on Monday will give a monkeys; I don't have to worry about endless, merciless piss taking if we lose, but there is something primeval at work here and a loss will leave me feeling utterly trampled. I think the family has learned that it is probably best not speak to me for several hours after these games.

A Message To You Rudy

I thinks it time for one my periodic moans about 5 live. Hardly any mention was made of Calzaghes momentous win yesterday, but Paula Radcliffe winning a race was treated with as much reverence as a royal wedding. I watched the start of that race, because I liked the look of the bridge and as the camera panned across the faces of the elite runners, it struck me, uncharitably, that they were all extremely ugly, maybe it's because they are so cadaverous.

Anyway, the point. As ever the sports news bulletins were dominated by the contents of the mornings sports chat show, rather than actual news. So, the headline story was about Jimmy Greaves thoughts regarding the Spurs board. Excuse me, but this is not news. If the thoughts of ex pros constituted news, Goals on Sunday would be setting the news agenda. Gary Richardson had also interviewed Lawrence Dallaglio, and the news bulletins through the day were dominated by the fact that he had phoned Brian Ashton. Well, the Saturday papers were full of this, as were the Sunday papers, so how was it worthy of such prominence?

It wasn't worthy of such prominence, neither of those two things were worthy of being mentioned at all, but the BBC has come to believe that it presenters are so important that any old drivel becomes the main news of the day. It happens every Sunday, have a listen next week, you will see that I am right. I like Gary Richardson, he's like a slightly less irritating version of Nicky Campbell, but they share the same fault; they are both determined to make the news, rather than report it and they see it as part of their job to trip people up..................pressure them into saying something they will regret. It has all become very predictable and very tiresome and it is hardly any wonder that no one ever says anything interesting on the radio anymore.

If you are still wondering what the ending of the Sopranos was all about, there is a very good, convincing explanation here. It's worth reading even if you don't need it explaining.

The Guardian has laid into Rudy Guiliani; it's good article with a very entertaining comment thread.

An interview with David Lynch

A load of photos that will make you go oooohh!

Thanks to Bob Piper for the following clip of Jeff Stelling, having a rant against poncy southerners. All sports presenters should be as knowledgeable and witty as Jeff.

Sunday Papers

I am getting a bit fed up of the preponderance of women in the BBC sports department, if they were any good, I wouldn't mind, but, by and large, they aren't, and I simply can't listen to Jackie Oatley. She shrieks and I have yet to hear her say anything insightful, I appreciate that the same could be said of Alan Green, but there you go. There also seems to be a preponderance of yanks discussing the football on 5 Live, or maybe it's the same one, putting himself about a bit. Why is he there? He adds little, he has no great insights, he doesn't make jokes, what is the point of him?

I'm not against women per se, or even yanks, but unless they are really adding something, why not use blokes, with a history in and a deep seated understanding of the nuances of the game, (not just any bloke, obviously, that way we end up with David Mellor) The Argentine woman on the Guardian podcast is superb, and at least one of the women on Sky sports is better than anyone on the BBC. In fact, why not employ everyone involved in the Guardian podcast, everyone of them is witty and knowledgeable about the game.

The podcast shows that is not difficult to find people who can talk easily about the game, but the BBC seems intent on diversity for diversity's sake, regardless of quality. Here's an idea, why don't they show how brave and forward looking they are by giving a microphone to a much under utilised group........the bloody working class?

The Guardian today has an article on some lost classics from the sixties that have been reissued. I used to fall for this shit once, I would read glowing reviews of someone I had never heard of and go out and buy it. I now realise that the reason these things are lost is not because they are cruelly neglected, but because they are shit; they were shit then and they are shit now. It's just the record companies milking a gullible public, with the connivance of the press. Don't fall for it.

The Boxer

I was about to have an early night last night, then I came across Gravity Golf and ended up having a late night, don't say I didn't warn you.

Does the world need me to weigh in with my opinion on the sheer effrontery of the Saudis? No, it doesn't, not when we have Robert Fisk, who does righteous indignation> better than anyone this side of John Pilger:

The sad, awful truth is that we fete these people, we fawn on them, we supply them with fighter jets, whisky and whores.

Talking of righteous indignation, Seville are hugely and impressively pissed off with Tottenham:

"I can assure you that we at Sevilla will pour all of our energy and all of our force into making sure that Tottenham pay the consequences of this situation, a situation that they have illegitimately provoked," said Del Nido. "We will do everything in our power and use all the means at our disposal to make sure of that. Here in Spain, we're not used to treachery existing between clubs. Nowhere in European football has something like this happened before with the season under way. I will leave it for Spurs and their fans to take a look at themselves and define their behaviour."

Of Alves and Kanouté, Del Nido added: "I doubt very much that Tottenham have the money to buy them. Tottenham will get the response from Sevilla that they deserve. And that response will be to channel all our energy into getting what we deserve after they have behaved the way they have behaved."

The pay slip of a Liverpool player has been doing the e mail rounds, and he gets a lot. Who would have thought it? Does he deserve it? Probably not, but at least he's paying tax in this country rather than bogging off to Switzerland. At least I think he's paying tax, I didn't pay much attention to it, not being overly bothered. I only mention it to contrast it with a couple of genuine sporting heroes, who also earn bucketloads but who undoubtedly earn every penny.

Yes. I am going to go on about boxing again. No other sports compares for genuine sportsmanship, for dignity, humility, respect and reverence, and our brave Brits are the cream of the crop. I have said before that there is no sportsman on the earth like Ricky Hatton. He is soon to take on Floyd Mayweather, a bone fide genius of the fistic arts, but not in Hattons class when it comes to the common decencies. I fear for Hatton, I can't see him doing it at the weight, but his technical ability, his fearsome punching, and the sheer indominitability of his spirit might see him through it. In which case, he will be the sportsman of this and every other year, before or since.

We are lucky; as well as good boxers we have good boxing writers, the best of whom is Kevin Mitchell, who has written a beautiful piece on Hatton. If you didn't like him before, you will after reading this.

Before that though, Joe Calzaghe fights in Cardiff on Saturday night, in a fight he could well lose; the pair of them have fought something like 80 fights between them, both of them remaining undefeated. Someones heart is going to be broken in the early hours of a Cardiff Sunday. Calzaghe is probably the best fighter we have had for years, even better than Hatton, and while he is no shrinking violet, he is possessed of some humility and he always gives due respect to his opponents. It's going to be great night of boxing on Saturday and Calzaghes stablemate Maccarone is also fighting: believe me, Maccarone is one hell of a fighter, and, funnily enough, a likeable and humble guy.

Frank Keating has reminisced about great Welsh boxers. I met one of them, who rarely gets mentiond, but Keating gives him a namecheck. He was a former heavyweight champ of Great Britain who became punch drunk and ended his fighting days fighting in unlicenced bouts in the US. I met him through my work, when he was more or less gone, not really knowing if he was having a shit, shave or haircut. The size of his mitts were something to behold, but, even as I gave him news he did not want to hear, he treated me with respect and comported himself with great humour and dignity. Boxing had forsaken him, he was in a state. The fighters are heroic, the sport itself is not.

I have read god knows how many interviews with fighters over the years and over the last few weeks and they all say the same...............you cannot hide in the ring (Hatton has always given great quotes on this theme, but I can't remember any!) You can't pretend and you can't get away with talking about it, what I like about boxers is that they always know when they have been beaten fair and square and always give credit to the other bloke, unlike failed rugby players and cricket coaches, who can't rush into print soon enough to explain how their failings had nothing to do with them, it was always someone elses fault.

Gangsters

So The Sopranos has gone, never to return, and we are left hanging, as well as bereft. I thought it was a brilliant ending, once I had worked out that it had actually ended and my telly hadn't gone on the blink. David Chase has said that for those who have followed the series closely, the ending is obvious, but it isn't to me. On the one hand, I think the family just carried on; just a normal family, doing normal things; on the other hand, the series was full of references to mob films and I am telling you that the guy who went into the bogs came back out and whacked Tony.

There is a blog out there called Secular Backlash, and I recommend it without reservation.

A funny thing has happened. After the daily bleating in the media, Steve Bruce has finally met Carson Yeung and the bugger has gone all shy, we have heard nothing. Hopefully we won't be hearing any more.

A good game and a good win for us on Saturday and we should cherish Daniel de Ridder while we can, he looks to be a bit special. Despite scoring 3, I remain unconvinced by our goal scoring potential, although we do look much better in our approach play. Maybe it's a work in progress and the players haven't quite got it yet. The theory seem to be that the tireless,energetic and ever willing Cameron Jerome will cause a bit of havoc, leaving big holes for the midfielders to exploit........ and it works, up to a point, but we don't actually create that many chances, which means we need a striker who will score more often than he misses. Cameron Jerome is not that stiker.

The opening paragraph of the West Brom report in the Guardian raised a smirk:
If the Championship table was decided by position on the moral high ground, West Bromwich Albion would have been promoted already. They are the purists of the lower divisions, who will not under any circumstances compromise their belief that football is played by passing and moving rather than kicking and chasing. They do not think they are better than the rest; they know they are.

Sadly the table is decided by more traditional means, and is being led at a canter by Watford's pragmatists..............

Just what the world has been waiting for, the garbage I typed about England the other week:

The English football team has ballsed up its chances of qualifying for the Euro 2008 and it’s all the refs fault, apparently. I disagree with this view and I even have some sympathy for Steve Mclaren, who always seems to have the air of a slightly pissed uncle at a wedding to me. I blame Steven Gerrard, who has come to think of himself as the soul of the nation: The Peoples Frowner.


There were some statistics the other year that showed that Liverpool won more often with him out of the team than it. This statistic probably no longer applies but still it makes me chuckle. While Benitez put him out on the left he had probably his best ever season, but he moaned he wanted to be in his best position, through the middle. He has now got what he wanted and Liverpool’s form has dipped. Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.


A couple of years ago, with this golden generation seemingly at its peak, old Sven (I bet he is pissing himself) tried to accommodate both Gerrard, Lampard and Beckham, with Beckham playing a withdrawn role. The press mocked this idea before it was tried and delighted in its failure, but why did it fail? Because of Gerrard. At the time Lampard could not stop scoring and I think the idea was that Beckham would play his precision passes out to the wings and meanwhile either Gerrard or Lampard would belt through the middle and cause havoc as quality crosses came over. It didn’t happen.


This might be because the plan was flawed. It might also have been because Gerrard is either too selfish to actually try and put his teams needs above those of his own ego, or maybe because he is just too thick to understand instructions. We have heard over the years that Gerrard and Lampard cannot play together, which is a stupid notion. The reality is that the pair of them should be able to complement one another, it’s not that they cannot do this, it’s that they won’t, and I believe Lampard is less at fault than Gerrard; he doesn’t seem to have had too much trouble adapting to different partners, with different styles at Chelsea.


So, put Gerrard in the middle for Liverpool and their form dips, put him in the middle for England and we fail, consistently. It is probably only the genius of Sven that enabled England to qualify for the last few tournaments. We need someone in charge who is not worried about egos and will tell the buggers what to do, someone like, and I am not joking here, John Toshack.


It’s not just Gerrard, of course, he just happens to be the one that irritates me the most. John Terry insisted that he would be fit to play the other night when it was pretty obvious he wouldn’t be. What arrogance to put his own desire to play over the need of the national team like that; to want to play when not match fit when there are perfectly adequate replacements available. That is the mark of this England team, this golden generation. They have believed their own hype and believe themselves to be special talents, despite enough evidence to the contrary to persuade even the dullest of patriots.


We might as well give up with Mclaren now, he is a goner anyway and while we are at it we should dispose of all those players who have consistently been found wanting, we should look for a manger with the strength of character to have several coherent strategies and the strength of will to put his ideas into practice, regardless of fragile egos. We should then allow that manger the time to experiment, the space to fail, and to get things right. We should say to those players who have failed so miserably, again and again, that now that they will have a free summer they should attend a training camp, where they will the time to refine their skills, learn familiarise themselves with their colleagues and how to adapt to the needs of the collective. You would think they would jump at the chance. Those who plead that they are otherwise engaged should be banned from playing for England. There is not one of them that we would miss.


The worst thing of all is that we had to miss a weekend of supporting our teams for this shit. If this is the best we can serve up, we may as well go back to the old days when they would meet up after their club game, play the game, then go immediately back to their clubs. We may have been shit in those days, but at least we weren’t denied our weekly fix.


Which reminds me of another cack phrase which has been much in evidence this week: “ he/ they didn’t play for the shirt” ………. or………. “isn’t fit to wear the shirt”. I’m not sure what this means. Actually, I do know what it means, it means there was a lack of passion and a lack of desire, a lack of will to bleed for the cause. The problem is, we have had plenty of players who have demonstrated such an ability over the years, and we still haven’t won anything. It is meaningless anyway and is a cack phrase, parroted by cack people, people with small brains who cannot accept that their team can be beaten, fair and square.


We will all have read how competitive sport is character forming and teaches people to lose well as well as win with dignity. Theses traits don’t seem to be much in evidence among football fans or phone in participants. Maybe it is the difference between those who participate, or who did participate and those who never have, who get their pleasure from watching, not doing and do not tolerate defeat well because they have never had to courage to risk experiencing a taste of it themselves.


The rugby has thrown up a cack phrase as well: “career defining”, although we are not hearing it as much now as we did earlier in the tournament. Any game of any significance was accompanied by that phrase and again it is nonsensical. Is the game on Saturday career defining for Johnny Wilkinson, or the game 4 years ago, or the game that he first played that led him on his path. Mind you, it’s not the essential cackness of these phrases that gets on my nerves, it’s the laziness. Some wordsmith will come up with a phrase, then the whole world will pick it up and use it as if they have just made up. I swear I read “career defining” in 5 different articles before England played Samoa. Bone idle some of these highly paid spinners of wisdom, surely they could make up their own cack phrases?

Crocodile Cryer

The good news..............Martin Stephenson and the Daintees have a new album out, I have only heard one track, which to be honest is OK, but, you know, that band should have been as huge as the soft spot I have for them and I will bet that the album is as good as anything else you will hear this month. If you look at Stephensons blog he mentions Micheal Mara who is brilliant as you will see if you search for him on you tube. Why do brilliant songwriters and musicians like these two (and many, many others) exist only on the margins ? Their music isn't difficult, it is very accessible, but we need a degree in research methods if we want to hear it. It's a crime.

The last ok album to be overpraised was Bob Dylan and you will recall that much was made of his band sounding like a really good, tight band, as in, a proper band, not a bunch of jobbing session musicians. One of the many delights of the Plant album is the beautiful playing of the band which is much better that the Dylan lot, and they probably are jobbing Joes.

Megson has gone to Bolton and the poor bugger was booed before he even got through the door. Those Boltonians probably don't realise what a good songwriter he is!

I came across both of the above in the magazine Rock and Reel. I have become fed up with Uncuts obsession with the sixties and rock and roll behemoths, so I thought I wold give this magazine a try. It's pretty good and you get a cover CD, which has a Martin Stephenson track on it, but is pretty crap otherwise, with a strange DJ thing going on between tracks. The best thing about the magazine is that it smells exactly like a football programme. Dunno why, but I had a hot dog and bovril for tea, followed by a wagon wheel, washed down with a pint of weak piss.

Blues V Wigan tomorrow, probably a six pointer, but who cares......... when is poor old Bruce going to get his new contract?

If you're proud to be a Brummie clap your hands: Most music lovers are aware that Birmingham has a world-renowned concert hall; what's less widely known is that it has two. Symphony Hall may have the greater profile now, but when the Town Hall opened in 1834, Birmingham gained one of the first and finest symphonic halls in Europe.

A month or so back, I kept hearing a track by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on the radio, and everyone kept raving about it. The track was no better than all right and I thought, here we go, an album that doesn't happen to be utter shite gets over praised because it is made by some wrinkly old rocker. Having heard the album a few times, I was wrong, it deserves most of the praise it is receiving, it is not, as one berk said, as good as Gene Clark and Emmylou Harris though, nothing could be. Does anyone know if they were actually on the same continent when they recorded it? I hope it was a warm and intimate studio experience, it sounds like it was, but I am old and have become cynical.

I drove over 400 miles today, accompanied by the rudest, most ungrateful pair of miserable bastards that it has ever been my misfortune to do a favour for. Just thought I'd mention it.

Take Me To The River

So poor old Martin Jol has gone. I shall miss the droll old bugger, mind you I suppose he could still end up at Blues. Maybe the trigger happy chairman at Bolton will sack his new manager and offer Jol a job; I'm sure the fans would be distraught.

These Tottenham blokes are a bit ruthless and have ideas above their station. When have Tottenham ever been any good? (I know, 1960). Two top five finishes and they forget their history, including the history of the board in choosing shit managers. They stumbled upon Jol and now they've let him go, I fully expect them to revert to their traditional hapless and clueless ways.

Look at the news feeds for Blues and you will see that they are dominated by Bruce and his bloody contract again. It's all becoming a bit undignified.

In the post I lost last week, about England, I blamed Steven Gerard for all our ills and I certainly can't be bothered to go through all that again, but I am pleased that the generally charmless Benitez has shown himself to be unafraid of his reputation. It's not the first time either..........I recall Benitez telling Gerrard that his best position, for the team, (as opposed to himself) was on the left, with Cissoko in the middle, and he stuck to his guns, despite all the bleating by Gerrard and his media lackeys. It will end in ears for Benitez mind, players have all the power, ask Sammy Lee, or Jol, or any poor bugger who ever tangled with Alan Shearer at Newcastle. Maybe even Mourinho was a victim of it.

Although I find it hard to like Benitez, as well as standing up to the giant ego, he should be applauded for reasoning that a bit of brain is preferable to the old British standby of whole hearted but brainless commitment and endeavour.

I suppose I should applaud this unusual reversal of roles, with the workers having power over the bosses, I have difficulty seeing these buggers as representative of the proletariat though.

Talking of Liverpool, and the proletariat, there was a good article in the Guardian the other day on a weekend of excess in the town, and it is not as snotty as you might imagine.

There is also a good article in todays Independent on the founding fathers of some of our best and worst football clubs.

Oh, nearly forgot, happy birthday, football.

Waltzing Matilda

Dunno why, I've been thinking about Jolly Swagmen.

Reading some of Johnny Wilkinsons comments over the last few weeks I thought the bugger had, by accident or design, stumbled upon Buddhism, and bless my cotton socks he has.

The England team are being very stoic about the try that wasn't, all very noble and gentlemanly, but I wouldn't mind hearing one of them point out that the purpose of the video ref is too avoid costly mistakes. England may still have lost, but who knows?
I suppose the country will move on now and leave rugby to the middle classes for the next four years, when we will all become instant experts again.

Steve Bruce is no gentleman and will happily berate match officials, as he did yesterday, when blaming the ref and the linesman for our defeat against Manchester City. It's always someone else's fault in Steves book: a person, or persons, or the universe conspires against us. I heard Gus Hiddink on the radio this morning and he made the point that it is no good blaming external factors for defeats, you have to look at what you did wrong and where you can improve; you have to look at weaknesses in the opposition and work out how to exploit them. Steve doesn't seem to be very good at that.

I also heard Brian Ashton, and many, many others, during far too much post match navel gazing on 5 live, answer the query "did the best team win", with the comment, "the best team always wins". There is a lot of truth in that, so with Blues sat just one point above the relegation zone and having lost the last 4 games while scoring only one goal, I ask again, what has Steve Bruce done to deserve an extension on his contract almost two years before his current one runs out?

And it ain't just Bruce, Mclaren is as bad, as this fantastic article illustrates.

When did the F.A appoint Steven Gerrard to be official on pitch advisor to referees?

Have you seen Catflap? It's all about football, and some of it ain't bad.

George Bush, alone and isolated in his bunker.

Going Back Home

Some chump has done something unnecessary to a cable somewhere in Abertillery and we have had no email or internet access at work for a couple of days, we haven't been able to access our recording system either. This doesn't exactly render us impotent (no more than usual, anyway), but it is a pain in the arse. I decided that the best way I could spend a couple of hours yesterday was in composing a blog post, so I did, a long one, all about the England football team, with a few bits and pieces about Turkey and Blues added on. It was a masterpiece. My intention was to send it to myself then post the bugger, but, two days later, the BT engineers are still looking for Abertillery, so I couldn't.

I didn't want the effort to go to waste, so I thought I would print it out and then post a heavily edited version. So, I pressed print and then went for a slash. When I came back someone was holding the thing up and saying, in a bewildered tone, who has printed all this nonsense about the Turkish parliament and the England football team? I said nowt.

Talking of the internet, two people in Neath have been sacked for overusing it in works time. Neath council have now agreed with the union that internet access will only be permitted before and after work and during breaks. Lucky buggers, my employer doesn't allow access for non work purposes at all, at any time.

Talking of work, I have never suffered such anti English abuse as I have today, quite vicious stuff too, with no leavening of humour. A lot has been to my face, but I have also noticed people talking quite pointedly in an anti English fashion just loud enough so I could hear. I was shocked, never having experienced it before in twenty odd years.

Seasons In The Sun

I haven't read Anne Enrights booker winner, nor am I likely to, but I have enjoyed the critics getting all arsy about Howard Davies comments that they generally aren't much bothered whether a book is readable or not. Call me old fashioned, call me thick if you like, but I do like a book to be readable. Someone in the Independent today said that they were glad Ian McEwan hadn't won because she had bought "Saturday" on the basis of glowing reviews but had found it mediocre. This happens all the time and I would cite the last Will Self effort as a case in point. Glowing reviews all round and the massive bloody thing is unreadable. The problem is, the media consists of a self serving hegemonic coterie of the upper middle classes who make a good living praising each others work.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was reading a Guardian thread about Brooklyn writers (prompted by the article I linked to oooohhh, yonks ago) Some people on the thread mentioned the fact that like the newish Brooklyn writers, who we must allnow disparage, our own fiction is dominated by a type, a middle class type, an angsty middle class type. It is not often that voices outside of the elite are heard and when they are, well they had better not speak too loudly. Remember the fuss when James Kelman won the Booker? The metropolitan elite were beside themselves. Call me an inverted snob, but I can never get very far into novels by the likes of Ian McEwan or the rest of our established literary elite without tossing them contemptuously aside.

Where are the Brummie writers? The authentic voice of working class middle England? They don't exist, why is that, are the people of Birmingham fit only for engineering, or service industries? There is Jonathan Coe, but, well the milieu of his Birmingham is a place I simply don't recognise, which doesn't make him a bad writer or a bad person, obviously. We also have Malcolm Bradbury and David Lodge, writing from the heart of Selly Oak.

The working class voice simply isn't heard. There is David Peace, I suppose, and the superb Niall Griffiths, but you have to search very hard for anything else. The last books by both of those writers are superb, and are full of literary merit. They are as brave as they are brilliant, and while they do get reviewed, it is without fanfare.

Scotland is full of great writers. The crime writers get their share of kudos and then there is professional bad boy Irvine Welsh but there are loads more beside, going back at least into the seventies, with Kelman remaining the capo. Some of these authors are writing brilliant prose, albeit in a particular vernacular, but just as our middle class writers apparently do, they are addressing universal themes; the difference being that they do it with verve and energy: the writing is much better, much more vivid than the established writers who fill up all the review pages, yet you have to search them out. You have to wait for someone like Bob Piper to tell you about them.

So sod the Booker and sod the arts pages. If you haven't read any of these buggers, do so as soon as you can and then search more out: James Kelman, William Mcillivany, Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks, David Peace, Niall Grifiths. There are loads more and that's without even starting on Irish and American writers but it's getting late and dredging my memory is giving me a headache, plus, I have to finish Ake Edwardsons Frozen Tracks.

Edwardson is new to me and as usual I have started with the last one in a series, rather than the first, but what the hell. This is not exactly an enjoyable book but I have enjoyed reading it as much as any I have read for ages. It is slow, almost ponderous, but that is part of its charm, you sink into it over time, it is a book to relax with. It bills itself as a "Winter" novel but it doesn't concentrate on this one character; it pays as much attention to the hinterlands of an entire squad of detectives plus a large cast of supporting victims and perpetrators. It is complex, intelligent, bleak, despairing and powerful. There aren't many laughs in it, but there are some wry moments. I think I can recommend it.

Old Gordon should get Chavez to help him with policy making; I guarantee that cutting the working day to 6 hours would be a winner. It would be in our house anyway.

Blues have refused Bolton permission to speak to Steve Bruce about their managerial vacancy. Jesus, have Bolton got no sense? Anyway, I confidently predict that should Bolton genuinely be crazy enough to want him, they will get him, mainly because I no longer believe a word that ever comes out of my club. If they say he ain't available, he is.

Big Girls Don't Cry

I know there are very many important things going on in the world but the question of Steve Bruce's contract is vexing me. I can't figure out why he is making such a fuss; it can only be that Sully is provoking mischief.

Bruce has 20 months to go on his existing contract, in a business notorious for its volatility. He wants an extension to it, which I suppose is fair enough, but you wonder why he thinks he actually deserves it. He might say because he got us promoted and we have a wonderful 8 points from 9 games, which is one point above the drop zone.

There are Blues fans who are extremely grateful to Bruce for getting us back up, but I'm not one of them, for the simple reason that we shouldn't have gone down in the to start with. He did well to get us up in the first place, then, apart from half a season, we trod water, before our truly embarrassing relegation season, which included a 7-0 home defeat(albeit in the cup). I don't know how many times he has talked of a "horrible night" since, but it has been too often.

So, over the last 4 season, Bruce has done just about enough, before failing miserably, and then doing no more than could reasonably be expected of him. The jury is still out as far as this season is concerned. Hardly glorious, yet he has been hugely well rewarded. Still he wants more. He has done the bare minimum of what we could have expected but wants to be rewarded with extra years on his contract.

Maybe it's because he loves the club and the city and the fans so much, but I doubt it; I have never got the sense from him that he has any fellow feeling with the local citizenry. He has spent about 8 years of his life employed in the city but I can't recall him ever talking about it with any warmth; if anything, he openly regrets not leaving us for Newcastle. When he talks about the fans it is usually to slag us off and to remind us that we can never expect our club to be anything more than mediocre.

It's not for the love that he wants to stay then, so it must be the money, nothing wrong with that, we all want to the best for ourselves that we can. The trouble is, Bruce hasn't done anything to earn it yet. A new and improved contract should be offered on the basis of extraordinary achievement, on the basis of doing more than we could reasonably have expected. This clearly isn't the case. Let him stay, by all means, but only offer the bugger a new contract if and when he has done something to deserve it, when we have progressed and developed as a club and as a team.

The whole business leaves me feeling a little bit bitter. Both Sully and Bruce have demonstrated a lack of regard and respect for the club. Sully is playing silly buggers and trying to cause trouble for Carson Yeung and Bruce is being selfish. He says that lack of progress regarding his contract risks destabilising the club, but no one really needed to know anything about it; it's only his whining that has brought the issue to the fore and I doubt if the players give much of a monkeys anyway, certainly not when he has almost two years left on his existing contract.

Tubthumping

I have never been a big rugby fan, having tended to view it in class terms. We never played it at school and the first game I actually played was when I was about 21, when I started turning out for Witton 3rds. I only did it because my mate Len would ask me at about half ten of Friday night and, being more idiotic than usual at that time of night, and more than usually full of camaraderie and love for my buddies, I would agree to turn out. Plus, there was no all day drinking in those days but after the game you would get straight in the bar, which not only opened early, it was heavily subsidised.

It was OK. I was surprised that I enjoyed it, surprised by the fellow feeling and togetherness, but never exactly enthused and once I moved to Cardiff I never played again. I always found it a bit of a myth about violence on the field being followed by friendship off it; I always found that nasty buggers were just as nasty on or off the field. Maybe it was an anti Brum bias as we tended to play in strange places in Staffordshire like Cannock.

In one of my first games, when I barely understood the basics of the game some clown hit me with a horrible late tackle. Some bloke who happened to be walking around the pitch, with his dog, said, "oooh, that was late ref". He had nothing to do with either side, he just happened to be passing. The ref told him that he was in charge and ordered him from the stadium. Those were his words "I order you from the stadium ", he then gave a penalty against me because of the outsiders intervention, and no one gave a murmour. The "stadium" was a patch of shit, glass and brick laden greenery on some hellish estate, and this is why I have never really fallen in love with the game, for all the camaraderie and fellow feeling, it is pompous and servile.

Having said all that, the England Rugby team over the last week have been heroic and I am as proud as I can be to be an Englishman. I am proud of those sporting giants and all of us should be humbled by what they have achieved and the manner in which they have done it. They have proved that, no matter how bleak a situation seems, there is always another day, always a chance to put things right. Plus, Johnny Wilkinson must be the most self effacing, dignified man in any sport.

A bonus is, of course, that my Welsh family, friends and acquaintances can stick their anti English opinions up their collective arses. Never mind their own humiliation they have been telling me for the last two weeks how we are going to be hammered and how much they are going to enjoy it. I wonder if the buggers know how to spell hubris?

Not only that, I am now a published writer. My article for Community Care is in this weeks edition, heavily edited and anonymised, but what the hell............it ain't bad for a snotnosed kid from Balsall Heath who left school without even a CSE and who was advised, aged 16, by a man called Sparks, who I believe went on to lead the council, to knock any high faluting thoughts of journalism on the head and to seek work as a lorry drivers mate.

On a lighter not, Eyebrowy is superb, if you are disillusioned with the posh ghetto that is the British music industry, there is every chance that you might like it.

Oh What A Night

I have been encouraging the tired, stressed and distressed among my circle of acquaintances to try meditation for years, to much mockery, I might add. Well, don't just take my word for it!

So New Labour has stolen some Tory policies and has run scared of an election because they thought they might lose. Well. Shock. Horror.Hold the front page. All Labour has done is demonstrated what we have all known, all along, that they exist to be in power and they will shift their position accordingly. They don't have the courage of their convictions because they possess neither courage nor conviction, but I am no longer bothered by that; it would be like being bothered by the wind or the rain....pointless.

What I am bothered about is the sheer ruddy cheeked Hooray Henryness of David Cameron. I can't stand the bloke and if I was aggressively inclined would suggest he has the kind of face it would be nice to take a cricket bat to. I am a passive and gentle soul, however, so I shall go and meditate instead.

Steve Bruce wants a new contract, which is fair enough but I wish he would stop squealing like a stuck pig about it; it's becoming embarrassing, he has nearly two years left on the present one for Gods sake. The bloke wants jam on it. Mind you I bet Sully, the rodent, got many gold stars for mischief making when he was a nipper.

There is tragedy on an almost hourly basis across the world, much of it caused by us, yet so little of it gets reported; there has to be disaster of epic proportions in Asia or Africa of the Middle East before our press notices. A bunch of people get shot in some place we have never heard of in Bumfuck USA though, and the rolling news channels swing into action. I just this second saw a headline on the BBC about some shootings in Cleveland and genuinely thought something bad had happened in Middlesbrough, but no, it's Cleveland Ohio. I'm sure it's very bad and sad news for the citizens of that state, but bad things are happening elsewhere too, and we rarely get to hear of it.

Put a load of pasta in a pan of boiling water and while that's doing fry up some chopped bacon, then chuck in a big handful of broken walnuts followed by a load of spinach. Drain the pasta, add some creme freche to the bacon watnot and mix it all up together. A beautiful tea, in ten minutes flat. Who needs Nigella?

I Got Me Parka!

Was it the Sussed who did "I got me Parka", which contains one of the great lyrics..........."I used to be a punk, but now punks sunk, I got me parka!" One of them has reminisced about the Brummy punk scene and it's pretty accurate, apart from the comments about Dansette Damage, who were just as awful as their name suggests they were.

Talking of which, sort of, the poet Simon Armitage has written a very good, witty article on his middle aged attempts to become a rock and roll star.

Somehow, this blog has been named 65th best leftie blog in the land. Mystifying.

"I became a monk because of my love for peace and my love for Buddha. My heart is so full of sadness."

Seymour Hersh on U.S Plans for Iran.

I had just started The Brooklyn Follies, (I don't just read crime and thuggery, you know) when I came upon this. It's a brilliant piece, but it's put me off Brooklyn, a bit. Mind you he does speak very highly of Motherless Brooklyn, which is one of the best novels I have read in years.