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.

Melting Pot

So, according to the "cohesion" minister for the new, modernised, outward looking Tories, there are too many darkies in the country. The party is populated by buffoons.

The Sunday Herald on the crackdown in Burma. The same paper on the business of oppression, or, how some British companies help prop up the Junta. The Guardian believes that there is still hope.

There is a good article in Observer Sports Monthly on the football team that Robbie Williams has created in L.A.

The war on terror: The Big Lie

All That Whitman Stuff

God Gave Rock And Roll To You

Those Burmese monks..............what dignity...................what selflessness. They are, or should be, an inspiration to us all.

A slightly snotty article on Manu Chao.

A pint and a molotov cocktail

A long unmechanized moment, sex provides one of our remaining
freedoms to move outside of time. What sort of thing is this to say?
Why would we want to move outside of time? Well, it smells in here, for
one thing. It’s horrible in here. And everything we love is going to die.

25 skills every proper bloke should have at his disposal.

I have had to postpone reading Runt, because my Mrs snaffled it, that's how good it is, she has taste. She wondered off to bed clutching it at about 7 O Clock tonight, so she will probably have finished it by now. It won't be to everyones taste, but have a look, use your judgment, and if you feel like it, give it a go; it is a small but major piece of work. I only wish I had a stepdad, so I could call him Notdad. I have plenty of relatives who could answer to Drunkle.

Meanwhile, I have got stuck into the new Camilleri, which is everything that you would expect of my favourite Sicilian Marxist.

I spewed out a lot of anti management verbiage the other day, and as well as putting it on here, I sent an edited version as a letter to our trade magazine, "Community Care". A nice lady e mailed back today to say they wouldn't publish it as a letter but will publish it as an article. I have to admit I am a bit chuffed with that.

Blues have been in the news a bit this week. Sullivan has again been a bit immoderate in his comments and has explained to the world why he despises us and has also, more or less, accused Carson Yeung of being a chuffin chancer. Meanwhile some Aston Vanilla director has stirred up a load of trouble by telling lies about the cost of our tickets for the game with them and, also, has hilariously compared David Gold to a pig. Meanwhile, a bloke we got on loan at great cost knackered his knee within 20 minutes against Liverpool and one of our goalies, on his debut against Blackburn, brained himself. Spark out. Twerp.

Of course it was outrageous of the Villa guy to suggest that we would we charge 55 quid when everyone knows it is an entirely reasonable 45. As the world now knows, our David is intent on lowering prices and getting the plebs back in. So, as well as a bargain 45 quid to see the Villa, you can get a restricted view seat for tomorrows game against Manchester Utd for just 30 quid. You may not be able to see anything, but you will only have to shell out 30 quid. I bet you all wished your own clubs were as generous. We are lucky, us Blues fans.

Not as lucky as players or agents though. Two million for a player no one has ever heard of and who has a penchant for knackering himself, plus 200 grand on top for his agent. Why don't he pay his chuffin agents fee himself? Sully said that he has paid that money, but he hasn't, gullible Blues fans will be paying it for years, every time they fork out a fortune for some useless piece of tat.

Or, every time they buy a new shirt. The Blues, the favourite club of impoverished football fans the length and breadth of the land, have a tendency to release three new shirts every year, and have put out a new shirt every year since 1983, I think. I know that was before Golds time, but bugger me, his protests on behalf of the impoverished ring hollower and hollower the nore I ponder them. Sully has one thing right, the love affair is over and we are going through a prolonged and painful divorce.

May I be free from anger and hatred.

May I be free from greed and selfishness.
May I be free from fears and anxiety.
May I be free from all pain and suffering.
May I be free from ignorance and delusion.
May I be free from all negative states of mind.
May I be happy and peaceful.
May I be liberated from bondages.
May I experience Nibbanic peace within.

Then practice Mettá towards all beings sharing peace and happiness:-
May all beings free from anger and hatred.
May all beings free from greed and selfishness.
May all beings free from fears and anxiety.
May all beings free from all pain and suffering.
May all beings free from ignorance and delusion.
May all beings free from all negative states of mind.
May all beings be happy and peaceful.
May all beings liberated from bondages.
May all beings live in Peace and Harmony.
May all beings experience the Nibbanic peace within.

Burma Shave

Flowers In The Rain

There is no doubt that the Burmese monks are heroic but I thought Buddhists were supposed to pretty much accept their lot................... accept their karma and meditate all day. I thought it was striving and yearning for something better that condemned us to a life of suffering. It just goes to show what I know. I suppose they are acting out of compassion for others. They are very brave though; let's hope it doesn't end in tears.

Orwell: Shooting an elephant

Talking of heroism, Blues defended heroically to earn a point at Anfield. Not very heroic really, is it, set in context. We should all be rejoicing apparently, but as you might expect, I'm not particularly joyful. After we played Chelsea in our first game, Bruce congratulated himself on his bravery in not setting out simply to defend. That philosophy didn't last long.

He quite openly admits our sole purpose on Saturday was to stifle Liverpool and the tactic worked well. Mind you, Bruce has shown over the years that he can set up a team to defend; it's the other bit, at the other end of the field that he struggles with. We needed a point, we set out to get a point and we got one. Great. I am happy with that, a good job, well done and a point that I suppose we can regard as a bonus.

I am worried though, that this is now the template. Sit back, defend, stifle the opposition. If it's a top team, settle for the point, if not, try and hit them on the break. Battle, fight for the shirt ("not fit to wear the shirt" is another on my list of cack phrases) sweat blood. Oh dear. I know there are lots of Blues fans who will settle for that, who think we should only aspire to be whole hearted and tireless, but I can't agree. The problem is, I forecast, that Bruce will now view this style of play as our best option.

Well, I won't be forking out 45 quid too often to watch that shit. Let the defenders defend heroically by all means, but also let the midfielders and forwards play a bit too. I have stated repeatedly that if the limit of our ambition is to avoid defeat and to stay up by the skin of our teeth, there is no point being in the divison.

I was filled with hope after the Chelsea game and almost started to believe that Bruce had discovered some joy in the beautiful game; that he had seen the benefits of being positive, and that may still be the case, but I doubt it. He is (rightly) proud of his teams achievement on Saturday and history shows us that he suspicious of flair, fearful of wit, perplexed by imagination. It's going to be long, grim winter.

Nafti knows what I am on about, he said as much after the game, so that will be him dropped then.

Bruce keeps banging on about loyalty. Whenever we get a decent result he uses it to have a go at the fans who complained that we had been relegated and then complained at our style of play. He can't let it go, it's as if he wants to win to spite us. The complaints people made then were valid, and they remain valid; it would be nice if Bruce acknowledged that and moved on, but no, he wants us to be grateful for what we have had to endure. A more cynical type might ask him what kind of loyalty he has shown to Clemence and DJ Campbell and Oji and Kilkenny and Sadler. The bugger wants jam on it.

Cincinnati Fatback

One of the Alabama 3 has expressed his lack of gruntle at one of his mates being chucked out of a hippy festival. Apparently, the A3 are invited to such do's because they have a bit of an edge............the article is quite funny, but the chap does come across as a bit of a pillock. I like the A3 but they aren't really much more than a bunch of pub rockers who got lucky; he should be grateful that they haven't gone the way of Roogalator yet. Who are Roogalator? Exactly. I loved Roogalator, by the way.

Blues away to Liverpool tomorrow and I confidently predict a 1-0 win to us. Nuff said.

Yesterday, I killed a big bloody bird and no, it wasn't my Mrs. I was required to drive all the way up the A470 to Dolgellau, and back, with a service users parent in the car. The A470 is a beautiful road, but man, it was gruelling. Anyway, somewhere up north, I caught a glimpse of a large brown beast coming out of a hedgerow, strutting its funky stuff like Larry from the A3. I was just about to remark upon the beauty of the beast, when it eyeballed me, and then just legged it, not away from the traffic, but into it. More precisely, into me. There was a sickening thud and I observed its last few proud twitches in the rearview mirror.

It was quite distressing. I have probably killed millions of small insects every time I get into a car, but this was a big, proud looking thing, and there was a horrific noise and feathers flew and there was blood and distress. I wondered if we are all destined to kill something as we make our speedy and clumsy way through life and concluded that it is probably a miracle that we don't create individual carnage every day. When I got up north, one of the strange people with the strange Ian Rush accents told me how much he likes to go out shooting wildlife.

If you find yourself heading north on the A470, try the Dolwen garage caff, a real old fashioned kind of a place, with food cooked on the premises, amazingly pleasant staff, an outside toilet, and incredible value for money. You might think it was 1970. We used to spend all our school holidays with relatives in Devon and if we got the boat across from Shaldon to Teignmouth there was a little caff in a wood hut that used to do the most wonderful cottage pie; it's the best caff I have ever been in. The Dolwen caff reminds me of it.



There was Freds caff in Acocks Green too, but that is a completely different story. Then there was the Italian caff in Acocks Green village, forget the name, but where the only words ever spoken by the proprietor (Mario?) were "cup of tea, 3p, fuck off"
If you know where you are looking, you can see which of those shops was the Italian caff in the pic, which might to be of interest to about, oooooooohhh 3 people.

I hesitate to mention the Sopranos for fear of some clot thinking it would be a jolly jape to post a spoiler, but this last series is brilliant, up there with the first one for drama, tension, and laughs. I caught a black look from the Mrs when I pissed myself at Uncle Juniors fishmonger joke.

Talking of pub rock, it doesn't get much better than this................

The Weight

Maybe I don't get out enough, but until last week I had never been referred to as a mushroom before (as in kept in the dark and fed shit), now I seem to be hearing it every day. In less than a week, it has joined my list of cack phrases, along with gems such as, "tactically naive" and "position has become untenable". Where did it spring from, how did it become so ubiquitous and why does everyone who uses it think they are being terribly witty and clever?

Our glorious chairman used it the other day to describe football fans. He meant well, but coming from the biggest shoveller of shit in the game, it was a bit rich. He wants all other premiership clubs to follow Blues lead in cutting prices to enable poor saps like me to fill the ground. He didn't mention that Blues only reduce prices to prevent embarrassment when it becomes clear that no chuffer is going to turn up; he didn't mention the high cost and low quality of all the merchandise at Blues and he didn't mention that if you want to see our next game you will have to fork out 45 quid. I love the bloke.

You may not want a recipe for muesli, but the methodology for it is one of the funniest things I've read in ages. I made a huge pot of it and it's ok if you like that sort of thing, takes a bit of getting through though.

Why is it, that when I am sitting at my desk, thinking up new ways to avoid work, that when the little e mail noise whistlers its little whistle, I get all excited and happy at the though of some interesting and amusing missive to brighten up the monochrome monotony? The reality is that it is always some chump with a grievance being all arsey and impolite and discourteous. Is this the same for everyone, or just me? While we are at it, when did downright incivility become an acceptable method of social discourse?

I work in a profession with an image problem and a recruitment crisis. No one wants to do the job and those that do get themselves trained seem to have more sense than me and naff off out of it very quickly. Different authorities try different schemes to encourage recruitment and retention and reports are written and hands are wrung because it is a very complex issue. But aside form all the retention payments and promises of annual appraisals and development days there is one thing that would go a long way to help (apart from overtime payments) and that is if we were treated with a bit of respect and courtesy by our managers.

Most social workers I know have broad backs and thick skins and will happily take abuse all day long from service users and carers, we will listen politely as colleagues in other disciplines comment rudely on our collective shortcomings but what really rankles is the airy, dismissive, intolerant and downright discourteous manner of middle managers. They are almost caricatures of management types one might have hoped were extinct:." don't bring me problems, bring me solutions". I think this is common place, and not just in the authority I happen to find myself in, pals in other authorities say more or less the same.

I have been in this game since 1993 and have seen many, many middle managers come and go, like butterflies, flitting from one place to another, and they have all shared the same characteristics of egomania and intolerance of dissent. They all seem to have been educated in the Pol Pot Year Zero school of management. For them, there is no history, there is only now; for them, there is no dialogue worth having, only instructions to follow. Dissent cannot and will not be tolerated. This places us in a difficult position; we are trained to challenge and to enquire and to look beyond the superficial., we are expected to dig deep, but we aren't allowed to do that in our offices.

This isn't a trifling point, it is a very serious issue, which goes to the heart of the daily social work experience. The power imbalance is such that you dare not question these men and women in suits, these power dressers extraordinaire. They remind me of Blair's Babes......... confident, supremely sure of themselves but, ultimately, vacuous: able to learn key phrases but unwilling to understand the actual meaning of words or the consequences of actions. Social workers who question what quickly becomes the prevailing orthodoxy get labelled as awkward, as fearful of change, as dinosaurs. The brave carry on and get sidelined, the meek keep quiet and keep their heads down.

It all makes for an unhappy work experience. I don't think I know one social worker who would describe themselves as truly content, but most of them would concede that they actually like the nuts and bolts of the job; it's the politics and the poisonous personalities within their own departments that they can't stand. It's quite shaming really. Shaming on people like me, who put up with it while quietly seething, and shaming on the managers themselves, who surely, to be so fearful of an alternative opinion must be, deep down, completely lacking in self respect and dignity.

My advice to those within departments charged with addressing recruitment and retention problems is simple, ask the middle managers, the professional bureaucrats, to be a bit nicer, a bit more compassionate and a bit more tolerant. It would work wonders.

Just One Victory

Bugger me, a calamity has befallen us, they have remade the Dandy. Some genius has decided it needs to be a witless girls magazine, only for boys. My little lad is distraught, and so am I.

What a week of sport, thank God it's over and we can get back to the real and proper business of supporting our teams.

Jim White is one of the better sports journalists; he switches employer as often as Craig Bellamy so I don't know who he currently writes for, but no matter, because we have a book he has written about coaching a nippers football team. It has had good reviews, but I haven't read it yet, I have heard it though.

I love Cwmbran Library. I picked up ten previously untouched books today, including the new William McIlvanny, Allan Guthrie, Camilleri, Don de Lillo, Blake Morrison and best of all, Niall Griffiths. Should keep me busy for a few weeks. If you haven't come across McIllvanny before, I can't recommend him highly enough. Start at the beginning.

Soul Sister

The Mrs said knock off work early and get home before the kids get out of school and I shall indulge you in an exotic treat. Well, what would you do? So I booked 5 hours toil and headed home late this morning, and she did indulge me in an exotic treat; she took me to Newport, to a slightly bizarre Korean restaurant. I don't know what the hell we ate but it was all delicious. Actually, I do know what we ate because another diner, who had the same as us asked, and he was told "starter!"then later when he asked again, "main course!". So that's what we had, a variety of starters and a main course.

The place is called Seoul House, ( thank god it isn't Seoul Food) and if you are anywhere within striking distance you should give it a try. Each dish, each mouthful, was bloody a delight, with light, subtle, refreshing flavours. Something that may or may not have been mooli was covered with a delicate, but pungent dressing and exploded a symphony of flavours on the palate. There was depth and length to the flavours, and the spicy stuff was just right, enough to make you know it was there, not so much that was intrusive or offensive.

I don't watch much telly but I confess to enjoying Hells Kitchen. Sort of enjoying anyway, the one with Gordon Ramsey was great, last years with Gary Rhodes was poor. Watch any of Rhodes other programmes and he likes to come across as a bloke who is really interested in food and really keen on sharing his enthusiasm and knowledge, but on Hells Kitchen he just came across as a berk. I expect the producers told him to be hard and nasty, but it wasn't convincing.

This year, Marco Pierre White has been a revelation, and has completely flummoxed the increasingly pointless Angus Deayton. He is charming, inspiring, caring. He wants these "celebrities" to do well and he really helps them along. He accepts their limitation with grace and humour and defends them against the varied nonentities who see fit to complain at receiving free food and wine. Deayton has been completely wrong footed, he still keeps going on about Whites fearsome temper, although it hasn't been much in evidence and he keeps going on about diners not being fed, although every one of them has been. I don't vote in such things, but if there was a vote to remove Angus, I might be tempted.

There is no denying that White is arrogant, but then I suppose he has plenty to be arrogant about. Take away the head band and the curly locks and the attitude and just look at his face and his facial expressions, and I would lay money on him being the bastard son of his fellow Yorkie, Jimmy Saville.

I just walked past our telly and the opening ceremony of the Rugby World Cup is on. Has there ever been anyone in the world, at any event, who has looked forward to and enjoyed an opening ceremony?

No Blues game this weekend, we have England to look forward to instead. Christ, I have come to despise the national team and I have no interest in how they do (not much interest anyway) I can't quite figure out why, although I have never given much of a stuff, even as nipper. It could be that as I get older, I believe more and more that we are all one, I don't so much believe that national boundaries don't matter, but that we are all actually connected, one way or another, we all love the same, all suffer the same, whatever our apparent cultural differences ( I exclude Villa fans from that, obviously, they have no Seoul)

I don't think it has much to do within that however, I think it is a combination of two things, the first being the arrogance, xenophobia and sheer stupidity of the national media and the the increasingly silly participants in phone ins. There is rarely any insight or balance, just a blind acceptance that we are the best, and if we fail it is because some hapless coach has royally screwed up. Or some cheating foreigner has exposed us colluded with the ref to cheat us of our destiny. No reflection, just knee jerk jingoism.

Then we have the players, and, at the current time, the manager. The players, I have said enough about in the past. They are a very uninspiring bunch. Whenever I hear Terry or Gerrard speak I cringe. Again, there is little self reflection, little analysis and there is never, ever, any wit ( as opposed to puerile attempts at humour) As for the manager, his is a textbook case of a media makeover gone horribly wrong. Wear a permanent, rictus grin, say nothing, give nothing away, regard your audience as imbeciles and then, close your eyes and hope, by Christ, that no one notices that you are a vacuous fool.

As readers of the other blog won't remember, I have been a bit sniffy about"world music" in the past, describing it as all a bit samey. I bought Uncut today for the first time in months, mainly because it has a 20 years of world music cd with it, and it is a marvelous cd. Dunno what the magazine is like, but the cd is worth the price of admission alone.

Down Down Deeper And Down

We purchased an enormous great tent on the Mayday bank holiday; it then proceeded to piss it down just about every day for the next three months. Finally, last week the weather turned and, like rats up a drainpipe, we shot off to Cardigan Bay, where the seals and the dolphins play. We have had a couple of short camping trips in a borrowed tent before but this was our first trip in our own tent and our first attempt at putting the thing up without the aid of an online instructional video, so it was an opportunity to learn and to exercise our tired old brains. And boy, did we learn.

I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say that the farmer upon whose we field we camped pointed out to us after our first night that our tent appeared to be falling down. He was exaggerating, but the thing did require endless tweaks for about the first 24 hours. Once we got it right though, it was the mutts nuts of tents, rigid, immoveable and despite the howling gales whipping in off the sea (I said the weather had improved, but it’s all relative) silent.

We were about two hours and a whole other world away from home. It never ceases to amaze me how close we are to such beauty and tranquility. The pace of life genuinely seems to be gentler, and slower. I am sure the area has its share of problems but I think you would have to actually search them out if you wanted to find them.

I shall resist the temptation to get all lyrical, but I will recommend that if the weather stays nice and you want to truly, truly get the sense that you are away from it all, and you want to see dolphins, and seals and all manner of sea bird, and you want to be surrounded by unutterable beauty every way you turn, and travel on near empty roads, and eat fish and chips on enormous beaches, or relax in perfect bays, or walk for miles along what must be the finest coastal path in Europe, you should get yourself over to West Wales. Don’t tell any other bugger about it though.

We stayed at Nant Y Croi farm, which is something else really. Very rural, very rustic, a bit rough around the edges, but just about the perfect place to camp, whatever your age. Our our three nippers were just about in paradise. The farmer is not exactly effusive in his welcome, but what he is, is genuinely friendly and genuinely helpful; he even hosed me down when I fell into an enormous pile of cowshit, much to the amusement of the family.

It is very remote. I couldn’t get radio 5 and I couldn’t get a mobile signal, so the transfer window closed with me not realising that Fuckin Luccin had led us up the garden path and we had instead signed some other genius of whom none of us had previously heard. I also missed all reports of our performance against Middlesboro, which, apparently, was abject even by our standards.

No one else seems to worried but I am, we have to win some games and we don’t seem capable of doing it, even though we have only played one of the top teams. History tells us that you cannot give the others a head start and expect to catch them up; history also tells us that we are incapable of stringing a run of wins together, we are going down, mark my words.

It is all a bit glum and gloomy at the moment being a Blues fan; there is no joie de vivre and very little hope. Everyone seems a bit hangdog and there is no spark. There is a torpor about the place and the board no longer seem bothered about us and cannot wait to offload us; unfortunately, Yeung sees to be as skint as me. I think we are in for some desperate times; it’s a good job that we have all become inured to it.

We Don't Need That Fascist Groove (Thang)

There is a short story in the Independent today by Roddy Doyle. It's worth a read because it is a good story, there is an added piquancy for Blues fans though.

Again in the Independent, from a couple of days ago, Robert Fisk wonders about the unanswered questions relating to the attack on America. He makes clear that he is no conspiracy theorist, but points out there are several fundamental and fairly simple questions that remain unanswered.

Roy Keane has told his players that they must not argue with the ref, which has to be the biggest laugh of the season so far, apart from Steve Bruce's shirt and Martin O'Neill's attempts to communicate with his staff via the miracle of modern technology. Also, Steve Bruce and O'Neill have both apologised to refs this week for comments that they made about them or to them. Bruce hasn't apologised for his shirt yet though.

This all makes perfect sense, ref's don't change their minds, there is no point arguing and to get booked for arguing is the height of stupidity. As for being nice to refs, well, keep calling refs nasty names and it is hardly likely that they will be any more kindly disposed to you next time you meet. Still, it's unusual and I wonder if managers have had their cards marked.

A good win for Blues on Saturday, however, given that every one else will also beat Derby I don't know how significant it will be at the end of the season. I think we look alright though and Bruce has publicly stated that he intends to attack, so I am hopeful of a good season. I think we have already scored more goals than we did in the whole of our relegation season.

Apparently, we are in for Peter Luccin, as in, who the devil is this fuckin' Luccin? You might well ask. We may or may not be in for some other bloke with an unpronounceable name as well, who may or may not be any good. I have said before that I don't know how this season will go for Blues, none of us do, because if we are honest we know hardly anything, if anything at all, about our new players. In the case of De Ridder, we may never know, given his career history of about 1.5 games per season. Of those we have seen so far, they look good, admittedly most of them being British.

Which sort of brings me to Man City. Who would have thunk it? I don't think I should be too embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of most of their signings, after all, the press had a field day ripping the piss out of Sven for buying blokes he had only seen on video (do they still make videos?). As early as it is, it is evident that these Carlos Kickaballs, generally, kick a ball very deftly indeed, whether we had previously heard of them or not. The prem is littered with people of whom we had little or no previous knowledge, but who are comfortable on the ball, confident, happy in the knowledge that they possess the ability to do their job, be it pass, run, tackle or all three.

So back to Blues. Of our new signings, the one likely to cause most excitement is Kapo. I had never heard of him before he arrived and even after the first game, struggled to remember his name. The pundits and experts in the pre season supplements told us that we had not bought wisely, and that Kapo had never settled anywhere, because he isn't very good. I don't think those highly paid experts knew what they were talking about, I don't think they ever know what they are talking about.

They saw an unfamiliar name sign for Blues and did a quick scan of his history via google and made assumptions, the lazy, lazy gets; the same can be said of their attitudes to Man City and others, notably Portsmouth, going back over several seasons. Kapo, is a pleasure to watch. He has style, grace and panache. He looks head and shoulders a better player than anyone else on our books, yet, none of us who are honest enough to admit, it had heard of him before. The experts considered him a journeyman, and maybe, in other leagues he is, but not this one.

Every season we see players come here and surpass our expectations. Take Dugarry. I could never work out how he got picked for France, whenever I saw him he looked hopeless, pathologically unable to score, and, when he signed for us the world mocked. Some wee Scottish bastard whose name escapes me for the moment, but who made his name playing for Ireland, because Scotland didn't want him, as well as turning out for our neighbours, told the world that he was a waste of space.

I am as thick and as stupid as Ray Houghton, (I remembered) because I also thought he was a waste of space, but he wasn't a waste of space; he was a genius at using space, and creating space, but he wasn't a waste of space. In 40 odd years of suffering the Blues, I can only think of Willie Johnstone (briefly) and Frank Worthington who can compare when it comes to taking ones breath away.

So where does the widely held notion that we have the best league in the world come from? I watch a fair bit of foreign football on the box and have done for years; I am not a narrow minded xenophobe, but I have never heard of half the players who turn up here; they are not exactly setting their leagues alight in Italy or France or Spain, yet they come here and show us all up. I have said it before and I will continue to say it: our arrogance and insularity is killing us, we need to wise up.

Meanwhile you could be listening to one of the best shows on the radio.

Talking of radio, more people are listening than ever, apparently, and awhat good thing that is; the interweb is a wonderful thing.

Recipe
Soften an onion, add garlic , some chopped carrot and a chilli, followed a bit later by some tomato puree, throw in two tins of different beans, like chick peas or borlotti, add a couple of handfuls of small pasta bits, cover with about two pints of decent stock, simmer for about half hour. Delicious. Even deliciouser if left for a day.

Too Much Too Young

I finished Donkey Punch the other day and haven't actually reflected on it that much, as I immediately got stuck into the New Bruen, which, as you might expect, is bloody magnificent and has kept kept me up way past my bedtime these last two nights. Bruen is masterful, most definitely the capo of crime writers, either British or American. The highest praise I can give Ray Banks is that he is up there with Bruen............he bears comparison: the trick will be keeping it up.

Derby v Blues on Saturday. I can't even bring myself to think about it, by 5 o clock on Saturday our season could be over, said the drama queen.

A child of 11 got shot in Liverpool. This is horrific and is something I genuinely cannot bring myself to think about, the slaughter of the innocents can bring a tear to the hardest of hearts. Listening, as ever, to the phone ins all day as I drive around there seems to be a consensus developing that we have to hit the bandits hard, make them suffer and squirm, and while we are at it we should make their families suffer and squirm a bit too.

I can't really go along with this. Living in an area which has more than it's fair share of petty crime and vandalism and more than it's fair share of 'orrible little gits, who have no fear of any adult, I find my liberal conscience troubling me, as I become less tolerant, and wish harsh punishment upon those who daily aggravate me, but, then, when I calm down, I try to rationalise it and I can't go along with the idea that it is being soft on crime that has led us to the state we apparently find ourselves in.

I do wonder, often, just what the fuck has happened. It wasn't that long ago that I was a nipper and I was right peeky blinder too, as were all my mates. Christ, the things we got up to. However, I think most of us and those like us, were mischievous and stupid rather than just plain bad. We didn't necessarily fear adulthood or authority, nor respect it, but we paid attention. We wouldn't trespass or damage property if an adult was about, and if were indulging in some wanton vandalism and an adult turned up we would leg it.

If we got caught and suffered a boot up the arse or a punch in the ear, we wouldn't complain, we would just hope the old man wouldn't find out, and he rarely did. Where we live, we get grief regularly from gangs of teenagers and also gangs of much younger nippers; their language and behaviour is.....................educational. They couldn't give a stuff who hears them and they couldn't give a stuff who sees them, there is no consequence of which they are afraid. They know that no adult will actually physically assault them, and they laugh in our faces.

How did it come to this? Well, I can tell you how it came to this, I can tell you how we arrived here...........it was an uncomfortable journey, but we got here in the end, via Thatcherism and the bloody equality gap. It's time to stop blaming the poor and the oppressed and the excluded. It's time to stop blaming teenage mothers and it's time to look at a bit of economic and social history. We are paying the price for Thatchers horrific experiment and Labours fear of the right wing press.

Thatcherism is one of the greatest evils ever visited upon this country. Whole sections of society were abandoned, in some cases entire communities were abandoned to their fate and invited to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Thousands and thousands of people, were just tossed aside, there being no such thing as society, only a collection of self interested individuals. There will always be smart arses, like myself, who escape the daily horror of having no education, no job, no confidence and no hope, but there will be many who don't; some of whom will just sink into a sort of social catatonia, some of whom will become cheerful scallywags and get by as best they can and many of whom will get by with the help of drink, drugs, casual sex and crime.

There will be procreation, lots of it, in and out of wedlock; fathers may be known, they may not. The daily grind of poverty will continue, hopeless lives will stretch out into a blank horizon; there will be no positive role models, peoples lives will be shit and they will seek solace where they can and more babies will arrive and the cycle will continue endlessly on, because communities have been destroyed, industry has gone and respect for the working or non working man eroded.

Children will be born into a world characterised by a moral emptiness, where pleasure is taken whenever and wherever it is available, however short term it may be and regardless of the long term cost. They will have no stake in society, they will not care about society, they will not care about their neighbour and they will be a bunch of aggravating, scary bastards, but, really, whose fault is it? Would any of those people choose their lives, if they had any kind of a choice, I think not. They are abandoned, and they were first abandoned by people with a narrow political agenda who should have known better.

Our society is fucked up, but it's not the people on the estates who fucked it up, they are the victims of the fucking up; we are all the victims of the fucking up. We are the fuckees, not the fuckers. The damage Thatcher inflicted is immense and it will take more than a lily livered Labour regime to put it right. Meanwhile, as I keep saying, the fucking equality gap keeps getting wider, and as I keep saying, where this happens, social cohesion breaks down and life is, for many, nasty, brutish and short.

Tax the rich, squeeze them until their pips squeak and pump all the money into our destroyed and desolate estates. Abandon the olympics, use all that money to provide facilities and coaching in all towns and cities up and down the land. Lets just spend the money. Don't audit it, don't account for it, just spend it; lets give these anti social murderous bastards a reason to believe that they actually belong to this shitty world and have something to gain from engaging with it.

Cryin'

I told you Sunderland aren't very good, then again, neither are we and it could well be that the three that came up will all go back down, together. Many Blues fans regard today's result as unfortunate and blame the ref for giving a poor decision for the pen, or Doyle, for his naivety. They might be right, but I think they are wrong, I think we are poorly managed, and that is why we lost today. Again, we just kick the ball back to the opposition, again the midfield is too far away from the front two, so they look isolated, and the midfield support arrives too late, every time. This has been going on for years, it is not an accident.

West Ham at least looked like a half decent team today, but I still think if we had midfielders possessed of a bit more thrust and attacking intent, they wouldn't have looked so threatening. Bruce has to stop playing two purely defensive midfielders in the middle of the pitch. It's not as if our two wide men are constantly putting the opposition on the back foot to compensate. West Ham had Noble in the middle today and he was a genuinely class act, caused us problems all afternoon and they still managed to accommodate Etherington and Dyer, two players whose instinct is to attack. And West Ham were away. I can't think of any decent teams whose emphasis is on defence to the extent that Blues are.

Bruce isn't going to change, history proves this. Thousands of people spent a great deal of money to watch Blues today. The great Brummie diaspora will have travelled from many miles away, incurring petrol and catering costs on top of the price of admission. And they have all gone home, near and far, disappointed. Again.

It doesn't have to be like this, there are other ways. Bruce either can't or won't see the error of his ways, he either can't or won't see that his style of football is depressing, as well as ineffective. I think we have suffered enough and I think Bruce should go. Watching Blues should brighten the bloody week for us working class heroes, not darken it. We deserve more, we deserve better, not because we are noble, not because we are different, but because we bloody well pay for it. The Blues aren't delivering, the sums don't add up, we ain't getting enough bangs for the buck. It is time for a change, before it is too late.

Through the summer there was anticipation, there was excitement as we signed players that the more honest among us admitted we had never heard of. The general consensus was that the future was bright, because of all this new talent we would have at our disposal. The less credulous among us pointed out that we didn't actually know if any of our signings were any good, moreover, some of us pointed out, it would make no difference unless there was a radical change of thinking and intent on the part of the manager. It looks like we doom mongers had it about right. 1 point out of a possible 6 against teams who could be genuine contenders for a bottom three spot is just plain suicidal.

Still, it's only bloody football. The wonderful Iain Anderson played some Oysterband the other night and they seemed to have ditched the pub rock and returned to their roots, which can only be a good thing. Also a reason to be cheerful, one of the few things that can stop me thinking about the bloody Blues, I have in my possession a copy of the new Ken Bruen. I cannot stress enough how much I want you to click that link.

The new Rilo Kiley is getting good reviews and you can decide for yourself because they streaming it on their myspace site. Bloody hell, something of quality and class, available for free. Karren Brady please take note. The New Pornographers are also getting good reviews. The two sauciest broads in pop release albums in the same week, that cannot be a bad thing, can it?

Classic Northern Diversions

This is good: Jackie Leven

The Dusty Foot Philosopher

The Guardian gets on my nerves when it comes to its coverage of the Blues; I don't mind them being dismissive of us, it's the tired and inaccurate way that they do it which grates. I am afraid that I have become a bit of a one man rapid rebuttal unit, firing off e mails to point out the laziness of the jokes and inaccuracy of the statements, but I have come to forgive them, I have become magnanimous, because the best article of the season has already been written.

To offer a clue as to what it is about, the very long comment thread which accompanies the article contains this gem: It's a good job that so few Villa fans read The Guardian or you'd have the local historical society bombarding you with their views on the latest Messiah.

Mind you, I'm no apologist for the Blues and I don't share the evident joy that some are showing at our collecting of 1 point from a possible 6. We bleat about the unfairness of Sunderlands last minute winner the other night, but once again, we hardly played with gay abandon. The fact is, we invited Sunderland to attack us and they snatched a point. Whisper it, but Sunderland aren't actually very good and we have to view this as two points dropped. If we play in similar fashion against more talented teams we are asking for trouble.

We did play some fantastic stuff at times though and it is endlessly frustrating that our first instinct is always to defend, because if we really went for it we could do some damage. I'm not holding my breath though, because on a very loquacious day for Steve Bruce he commented along the lines that we need to concentrate on not giving anything away.

According to Bruce, football academies aren't working. The nation produces no more footballers now than it did 20 years ago. He has said that over the last 6 years Blues have spent over a million quid each year on the academy, yet no one has come through. So 6 million quid and we haven't produced anyone fit to lace the boots of Steve Bryant. Bruce should be ashamed of himself and resign now, as this is the saddest of all indictments of his reign.

If he has seen that our youth coaches are so useless, why has he not done something about it. With whom does the buck stop? I can think of three Brummies in the premier league outside the Villa. Carsley, Richards and someone else whose name escapes me. What a great scouting and coaching system we must have in a city of about a million people and a conurbation of about 3 million.

I don't get what Bruce is saying. Does he mean we just don't have the talent in the country? That the coaching is shit? or that the coaching is pointless? My guess is that he doesn't believe that theorising about the game has any value; you either have it you don't and the cream will always rise to the top. I might be wrong and I hope I am, because if I am right I might just have to open a vein.

Ajax don't seem to have done too badly with their numerous and varied academies, nor with the barmy idea that, up to to the age of twelve, results don't matter, learning new skills does. Barcelona don't seem to have too much trouble unearthing gems, I believe Fabregas went to Arsenal when he was nipper because he was some way down the pecking order at Barcelona. And on it goes, even in the Côte d'Ivoire, where the academy in Abidjan has noticeably more success at turning out players than Blues, with all our millions. Nearer home, Southampton seem to have a conveyor belt of talent.

Sometimes, old Bruce just makes me feel sad.

Did I mention that tomorrows game is a vital six pointer. Two games in and we are in a relegation dogfight! Win tomorrow and the future is rosy................. lose, and it is going to be a long, hard, dark, and depressing winter.

Pick Up The Pieces

As I have been saying about inequality:

The increasing concentration of income and wealth in the hands of a tiny elite isn't only a gross affront to social justice and any sense of equal worth in a single community. The evidence is clear that greater inequality fuels crime, corrodes democracy, divides our cities, prices people out of housing, skews the economy, is an engine of social apartheid, heightens ethnic tensions, is a barrier to opportunity and stifles social mobility - it's no coincidence that Britain and the US are at the bottom of the industrialised states' social mobility league and the more egalitarian Scandinavian countries at the top.

Another day another slaughter. In my usual naive and simplistic way I cannot see how this is allowed to continue. Forget about the Americans, surely the people of Iraq, those of the who are left, who haven't already died or left for pastures new have had enough? This is what I don't understand. The perpetrators of this mayhem cannot number all that many, so how come those with more goodness in their hearts don't denounce them, don't drive them out, don't betray them?

I appreciate that this is easier said than done and it would be a very brave man who stuck his head over the parapet, still, no rational person can imagine that these atrocities are in any way just or can be condoned. The horror of it is beyond imagining, surely, there are enough sane people left in Iraq who could just turn their backs on the crazed zealots, who could refuse to give them shelter or succour; the place is awash with weaponry, even the good guys must have guns with which to defend themselves, why don't they just turn their backs on the nutters?

There is always football to take our minds off the savagery:

The atmosphere will not resemble carnival celebrations characteristic of sports around the world, but something completely different. The special circumstances are noticeable kilometres away from the stadium itself. There will be special police forces in full riot gear at each big crossing, main streets shimmering blue with police uniforms and police vehicles, and citizens removing their vehicles and avoiding passing by the stadium with their families.

Ken Bruen: To Have And To Hold

We want to control other people and make them what we want them to be. Meanwhile, we are complaining that they do not accept us the way we are. Sometimes the biggest gift we can give to other people is just to let them be. Of course we try and help others, but helping others is very different from controlling them. We help others because we care about them; we control them because we care about ourselves.
- Ven. Chodron

Who Put The Bomp (In The Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)

For one week only, I am supporting Sarajevo, who might just qualify for the Champions League. Recent history in Germany, France, Spain and Italy shows that clubs can surpass expectations and thrive amongst their so called betters, a lesson to us all. We don't have to settle for seventeenth and survival, somebody does, but it doesn't have to be us!

A good start to the season for the Blues. OK , we lost, but we didn't embarrass ourselves and even surprised a few people, including every single one of us. Grave tending duties called me away on Sunday afternoon so I haven't seen much of the game, only about the first ten minutes and I can't say I was impressed, as we just endlessly kicked the ball back to Chelsea. Here we go, I though, same old same old, but it seems that we actually took the game too them and might well have won; I'm still not getting carried away though.

Looking around the superb Saturday Boy to find out what the term Donkey Punch means, I discovered more than I actually wanted to know! I haven't read the novel yet, having only picked it up from the library yesterday, but I suspect it won't leave me disappointed; I just wonder if I should read Saturdays Child first. If the author is anywhere near as good as the authors he likes, well, we will be alright.

I finished The Winter of Frankie Machine. I found it a bit strange reading it, after the Scent of Blood. The latter basically subverts and takes the piss out of the language used in crime books, and then subverts it some more. The Frankie book is full of such dialogue. It doesn't matter though because it is brilliant, and quite different from the also brilliant Power Of The Dog and is full of likeable psychopaths with a fine line in witty repartee.

I read or heard somewhere the other week that the ending toThe Shawshank Redemption isn't the original ending; it was tacked on because the studio didn't want the film to finish on too bleak a note and I wonder if something similar happened here, not that I would want to give the ending away, which would be a crime worthy of a donkey punch in anyones book.

Book recommender in chief, Bob Piper, thinks the book should be filmed and while I see his point, I disagree. The only bloke who could play Frankie Machine is Ben Gazzarra, and he's has to be dead by now.

The time has come to renew my Typepad subscription and I have to consider whether it is worth the money, and, in my case, it isn't. I no longer post enough and I don't get anything like enough visitors to justify it. While I have been gone, Blogger has improved enormously and many of the benefits that I associated with Typepad are now available here, for free, so this is where I shall be doing my blogging, for now, anyway.

You will have to excuse it being a bit crap and messy for a while; it requires a bit of maintenance and housekeeping, and I'm not good at that stuff. Also. I don't think I can be bothered with setting up another blog for the more discursive, personal stuff so you might find a bit more of that on here, if you can stomach it!

I just had a look at the Wychwood Festival site to see if any acts had been announced yet and saw that Country Joe McDonald will be performing. Now I am aware of the man, from the sixties and Woodstock and all that, but I have no knowledge of his music, but there is no reason to remain in ignorance as his website has dozens of songs available to listen to, for free.

Bloody ell. I sign up for Typepad, and now they give Blogger Pro away for free!