"For to be a football fan is to be doomed to a life of frustration. It is Waiting for Godot . A waiting, hopeful waiting, for a beautiful piece of play, for an individual to do something thrillingly out of the ordinary, for a team to string together three or four one-touch passes culminating in something close to a goal. It happens so rarely. You have to be so long-suffering, so madly optimistic. Usually we are obliged to feed on crumbs. All the fuss about Wayne Rooney's performance against Turkey 10 days ago offers a typical case in point. He made a couple of exciting runs, neither of which culminated in a goal, and a whole nation drooled. Which is not to disparage either Rooney or the nation. That is the way things are with football."

I lifted the above from a superb John Carlin article in the Observer on Real Madrid's performance the other night. It is nice to see the reality of being a football fan so eloquently expounded upon. It beats the shit out of anything Hornby has ever written. Imagine, this guy recognises the fact and his job is to watch the worlds best teams on a weekly basis. Imagine being a Birmingham fan, believe me, moments of sublime beauty come along once in a generation, which is why small victories mean so much more to us than large victories do to the likes of Man Utd (their ersatz supporters anyway). It is also why we should revere artists such as Dugarry and Lazaridis. Without their like the spectacle, and the point, is lost.

Sunderland were relegated after being defeated by us. We didn't get them relegated though, they managed it all by themselves by being crap all season, and their supporters deserve it for being fickle. What all the tears were about on Saturday God only knows. Crying at football is unnacceptable anyway, when you knew relegation was certain months ago it becomes embarrassing as well. It didn't happen before they did away with terraces and encouraged the spoilt brat middle classes in.



I used to quite like the abrasive qualities of Neil Warnock. His comment that if he was manager of Sheffield Wednesday he would fuck them up beyond repair and then retire to Cornwall where he would spend the rest of his life "laughing my fucking head off" is an all time classic. His lack of grace over yesterdays defeat was a bit grating though. There is no way on this earth that the game should have been stopped; he is exhibiting the sourest of grapes. Moreover, Peschisolido should have buried that chance, Seaman should have been given no opportunity to save it.
More grating than Warnocks comments is the news just announced that the FA are to investigate them. Why? Christ the bloke was only expressing an honest opinion, daft as it was.
The Senegal FA have just announced that Cisse will be staying with Blues next season, which begs the question, what the chuff has it to with them?

10 questions from the weekends football.

Little Eva will do the locomotion no more, she has kicked the bucket.

Reconstructing Iraq, the U.S way.

Don Bartletti has won the feature photography Pullitzer prize for his images of people trekking north from Central America.
The Rocky Mountain News won the breaking news prize.

The image of Saddams statue being pulled down achieved iconic staus as it happened, but all may not have been as it seemed. There may have been a bit of media manipulation going on.

The puzzle of Leni Reifenstahl
The website of Leni Reifenstahl.

I really don't know what to make of this assassination job on Bukowski, apart from I don't like the smell of it.