Ain't that the truth, Ruth

When I was a lad, a very long time ago, I read about and subsequently admired The Ranters.....a 17th century sect much given to drunkenness, casual sex and pamphleteering. It was something to do with the invention of the printing press making it easier to share ideas, even dangerous ideas, and the power of the written word being taken away from the church. Summat like that, anyway. I had hoped that the internet would bring in a new era of citizen journalists and ranters but soon realised that the internet was invented for the dissemination of cat pictures.

Jeremy Corbyn may have changed all that. Big media has been so transparent in trying to sabotage his leadership that everyone has seen through it. It has become very obvious that big media is not interested in reporting the news, never mind the truth. Whether owned by Murdoch or some other billionaire or a board of trustees, the 4th estate cannot be trusted. It used to be that only media studies types and conspiracy theorists knew that, but now everyone knows it, and keyboards up and down the land are being worn out by furious fingers.

The big beasts of the commentariat are incandescent with rage that the great unwashed public are ignoring their words, are checking facts and tweeting and facebooking and blogging about what they see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears. The tweeters of the world are gleefully pointing out logical inconsistencies and contradictions by the elite.

The football season starts at the weekend and it looks like it could be a cracking season, with loads of imponderables to ponder, nevertheless. Blues will finish 10th again, we may flirt provocatively with the play offs, but we don't have enough quality to maintain a sustained challenge and looking at the players we are being linked with, they are just more of the same. It's a bit boring, not good enough to go up, probably bad enough to go down, but we have a manager who knows how to organise 'em well enough to keep picking up points.

The interest lies elsewhere. Villa, obviously are of interest and I expect them to be mediocre. They will have problems with ego and by the time they realise that they aren't as good as they think they are all the spirit will be gone. Let's face it, there's not a lot of spirit there to start with. Newcastle could be similar, despite the experts assuring us all that they will piss it. They have made lots of signings, there seems to be a feel good factor there, and so long as things are going well, they have the support to drive them on. If they get a good start they could be unstoppable, a bad run though and it could all go tits up quite quickly.

The interest, for me, isn't so much about how well teams will do: apart from Blues I don't care how well any team does, but there are some personalities worth keeping an eye on, and an ear out for.

I have no idea how good a manager Alan Stubbs will be at Rotherham, but he's a top class wind up merchant, and the same goes for Nigel Pearson at Derby. Gary Monk was being hyped as a bright young thing before it all went tits up at Swansea, and seeing how long he lasts at Leeds will be fun.

Hasselbaink is in his first full season at QPR and could surprise us all......his Burton team played with vim and verve. Jap Staam is in at Reading and we'll see how much he has learned from the big beasts he has played under.

Wolves have become a basket case, and it will be fun watching their inflated hopes and dreams fizzle and die. The biggest basket case of the lot is Cardiff, and we have them first. I confidently predict that we shall Moida Da Bums.

A very good article on big meeja.

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