Gentle Spirit

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