DUFF & NONSENSE!

For goodness sake, Spain, I was depending on you!

I think I must blame my e-pal, Ortega, for the last two disastrous nights.  Well, someone is to blame and he's the only Spaniard I know!    Whatever, the prospect is appalling.  Following the 4-0 destruction of Barcelona last night by Bayern Munich, and the almost equal catastrophe tonight in which Dortmund crushed Real Madrid 4-1, it is beyond hope that the situation can be reversed in the second legs.  Thus, we face the prospect of hordes of Huns invading Wembley later this year for the European title!  It's bad enough suffering the dreadful sight of tens of thousands of big beer bellies from 'ooop north' as they descend on us posh southerners to settle this or that footie competition, but the thought of even bigger bratworst and beer bellies from both north and south Germany is simply too much!  No one would have minded an all-Spanish final at Wembley because after all Spain is more or less our second home these days, and even the most fanatical fan would admit that Barcelona and Real Madrid are the greatest teams in the world - or at least, they were up until the last two nights!  The memory of the great Real Madrid team of yesteryear, packed with unforgettable stars, er, whose names I seem to have forgotten (except 'Becks', of course), remains with me but today's team were whatever the Spanish is for rubbish.  Anyway, I don't know when the final is but I can only urge 'Dave' to give us all a holiday so that we can abandon London to the Hunnish hordes and all go off to Spain!

 

'Blankety-Blank'

When I went into business on my own I had my first meeting with a bank manager.  It was at a  Lloyds branch and I was expecting a hard time with close questioning of my means (nil), my guarantees (zilch) and my prospects (Panglossian).  But not a bit of it, instead, all I heard was a litany of moans and groans from him to the effect that he had been with Lloyds for 30 years during which he had been trained to say 'no' to virtually everything in several different ways, but now, in this new, er, golden age he had been instructed to say 'yes' to absolutely everything.  Well, his 'bad', my 'good'!  Even so, Lloyds remained a fairly old-fashioned bank, rooted in the High Streets of the land and in comparison with others it was reluctant to become too involved in the lunacies of international investment activity.  Thus, when the brown, smelly stuff hit the fan, Lloyds was one of the best placed to cope with the shock waves.  Well, they were, until 'Brown & Balls, the Brokers Men' leaned on the Chairman, Victor Blank, and helped to persuade him to swallow  the head-on train smash that was Royal Bank of Scotland (*oops, wrong bank, I meant the other Jock joke) the Halifax Bank of Scotland.  This he duly did and in time duly, and no doubt graciously, accepted his Knighthood.  Needless to say, Lloyds shares which had hitherto been exceedingly healthy ended up looking like survivors from the Titanic splashing about in very deep water crying for help.  A great many of them are now pursuing Sir Victor either for recompense on lost dividends or as part of a campaign to strip him of his Knighthood.

I am reminded of all this by a small item in today's Telegraph reporting that Lloyds has decided to sell its stake in the F1 racing team Marussia.  Yes, indeed, as you can guess from the name, Marussia is a less than well-known oxymoron being a Russian sports car company!  Rumours that they produce their cars in the same factory Stalin manufactured his tractors (and his economic statistics) are entirely wrong.  Of course, suspicions linger given that the Marussia team regularly finish last or next to last or there-abouts in every Grand Prix they attend and they have yet to score a point at any race.  To be (slightly) fair to Sir Victor, the investment in this company took place shortly after he had graciously stepped down as leader of the festering pile of poo which Lloyds resembled after his stewardship but obviously his spirit, or his business acumen, lived on:

In 2011, LDC gave the team a loan of £38.4m, taking its total debt to £77.7m and leaving it with a shareholders’ deficit of £81.2m.

Now, dear reader, be honest, would you invest the loose change that falls out of your trouser pockets as you make swaying attempts to hang them up after a Saturday night down the pub into a Russian anything let alone a Russian Formula One team?  Take that as a 'no', shall I?

(*)  See comments below

 

Humbuggery is alive and well in the NUM

I mentioned in an earlier post that Sunderland Football Club have appointed some Italian lout as their new manager.  So far so normal but this particular lout is, apparently, a fascist lout as this photo courtesy of The Telegraph indicates:

Anyway, this item of less than earth-shaking importance has produced one result.  The old guard of the Durham Miners Association has lumbered forth and demanded the return of a banner they gave to the Club when the new stadium was built on the site of one of the oldest coal mines in England.  I heard one of these 'worthies' on the radio last night thundering on about 'ow it were an insult to the lads who fought 'n' died fighting fascism'.  True up to a point but it is worth remembering that coal mining was a reserved occupation during WWII so very few miners went to the front.  And needless to say, those who stayed behind had very little compunction in going on strike whenever they felt like it - 'and boogger the lads oop the front!'  As the LabourNet site reports:

[T]he miners won the highest minimum wage in Britain. Their average earnings ranked 81st in 1938, but rose to 14th after the strikes. [My emphasis]

Needless to say, if Paolo di Canio, the lout concerned, had boasted of his communist affiliations, the dinasours from the NUM would probably have sent him a case of champagne, that being the drink of choice for your average Left-wing union leader!

The Telegraph article by Dan Hodges, linked above, is worth a read.  He reminds us of that embarrassing moment 75 years ago next month when the England football team under the urgings of the British ambassador, Sir Neville Henderson, gave Hitler a fascist salute in Berlin prior to a match against Germany.  There was a near riot in the dressing-room when the order came down but they did it.  Thankfully they went on to beat Germany 6-3 which salvaged a little honour.

 

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The Bank Holiday Rumble: 1.4.13

Bank Holiday Mondays always feel like Sundays so I am continuing the Sunday Rumble format in which I will, from time to time during the day, ejaculate - look, I do the jokes round here! - sundry thoughts as and when they stumble into my mind.  That means they will not be the usual beautifully crafted, highly intelligent, literate posts you expect on a normal day - and I won't tell you lot again! 

  

The car washer test:  There seems to be a great deal of fuss being made about Ian Duncan-Smith's so-called welfare 'reforms'.  He has admitted publicly that they will not save a penny which, given that most politicians are lying liars by definition, gives me some small hope.  However, what Duncan-Smith does claim is that his 'reforms' will manage the money more sensibly.  I will offer you all, free of charge 'cos I'm generous like that, a simple test as to the efficacy of these 'reforms'.  I make regular use of one of those car valeting services you see everywhere around these days, and yes, it is because I'm a lazy git who doesn't like getting his hands wet!  I very much admire the boys and girls who work there, and do so with incredible energy in all weathers.  I always make a point of asking where they come from.  The answers cover just about every country in Eastern Europe.  The only country never, not ever, mentioned is England!  And how many Brit 'youfs' and 'youfettes' are in receipt of unemployment benefit, I wonder?  When I see Brits working at these places I shall know that the 'reforms' have worked.

 

I told you, didn't I?  A few days ago I provided you all with an audio link to a very shrewd American businessman who, apart from wanting to sell you his services, also spelled out exactly and precisely why the USA is well on its way to the knacker's yard.  The Americans will owe around $20 trillion by the time Obama ends his reign and they will be utterly dependent on being able to borrow at the cheap rates they enjoy today because their dollar is still the reserve currency for much of the world's trade.  Alas, that is already ending as more and more countries agree to drop the dollar and use their own currencies.  I remind you of this because today the excellent Zero Hedge site is reporting that China and Australia have just agreed to ditch the dollar as the currency for their trade.  This is all part of a Sino-Russian plan, already well on its way to completion, to form a trade bloc based on energy supplies with the sole aim of excluding the USA and, come to that, any of its usual glove puppets, ie, us!  "The times they are a -changin'."

 

Footie fans: the truly brain dead:  From the comfort of my own armchair with a constant supply of hot tea (courtesy of the 'Memsahib' whose hip is coming along nicely, thank you for asking, she no longer has to drag herself along on the floor which slowed up delivery recently) I have just watched Chelsea beat Man United on a freezing cold day.  I suppose, just, that there is some justification to leave the comfort and warmth of your home, to travel sometimes hundreds of miles at vast expense and to pay ticket prices that will keep sundry "muddy-mettled rascals" in the millionaire styles to which they have grown accustomed, but surely having arrived there must be better things to do than just stand there chanting imbecilic slogans over and over and over again.  Or is it their way of trying to prove to themselves that were they to submit to a brain scan the needle would move - just!

 

So farewell then, David Miliband, and good riddance!  So 'Big' Dave slinks off to America to run a charity for a million quid a year because his sneaky little bro' nicked what he considered to be his political entitlement.  Fair enough, I suppose, but today he also resigned as a director of the 'footie' club in his constituency because they have just appointed an Italian lout as manager who once expressed his liking for fascism.  Well, David was shocked, I tell you, shocked and instantly made his feelings clear by resigning - whilst probably thanking the Lord he would never have to visit Sunderland again.  Of course, had the Italian oaf expressed his support for communism, David would not have turned one of his well-groomed hairs despite the fact that communism has murdered roughly twenty or is it thirty times more millions of people than that dilletante Hitler.  Perhaps the fact that his dear old dad had been a lifetime supporter of Stalin, a proper mass-murderer, had something to do with it.

 

Even The Economist puts global warming in the deep freeze:  Thanks to Roger Simon at PJ Media I learn that the mighty Economist mag has dumped global warming:

OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat
while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly
100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is
about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as
James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes,
“the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”

And someone must have opened the windows at their London offices because now they are quoting some Russian eye-ball swiveller predicting the freezing end of the world:

Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, of the St Petersburg Pulkovo
Astronomical Observatory, painted the Doomsday scenario saying the recent
inclement weather [in Europe] simply proved we were heading towards a frozen
planet. 

Dr Abdussamatov believes Earth was on an “unavoidable advance towards
a deep temperature drop”. The last big freeze, known as the Little Ice Age, was
between 1650 and 1850.

I may be crap at predicting American elections but I did warn all of you to 'go long' on Long Johns!

 

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The Sunday Rumble 24.03.13

A Grand Prix grumble:  Having just watched the Malaysian Grand Prix I am now going into full 'grumpy-old-man-it-was-all-much-better-back-in-my-day' mode.  You may be surprised that a man such as myself who has never, not even in my youth, taken the slightest interest in motor cars, should actually be somewhat taken with Grand Prix motor racing.  But once, back in a previous life - I have several of those indicating a less than straightforward career path! - I attended several Grand Prix in my capacity as the boss of a Transit van towing a trailer on which sat a BRM racing car once driven by Jackie Stewart.  Yardley, the fragrances company, had decided to move into the men's market with aftershaves and all that other ghastly, smelly stuff blokes splash on all over, and our job was to visit nearby cities in Europe and dish out leaflets and free samples before going to the track on Sunday.  Of course, there have been huge changes in Formula One racing since those days -the ancient name of BRM will give you a clue as to how long ago it was - but one change stands far and away above all others - these days no-one is killed!  Obviously this is 'A Good Thing' but the fact is that in some indefinable way it has taken an essential element out of the sport - a bit like drinking a dry martini without any gin.  I tried to remember all the names of the drivers who died during the few years when I was a dedicated fan of the sport but I simply can't recall them all, well over a dozen, anyway.  I'm glad they don't die any more but today it has become all too controlled and managed with pit-line bosses telling drivers how to drive.  I'd like to have seen them trying to tell Graham Hill that!

  

I'm shocked Shocked is shocked!  Even by my convoluted standards that heading is a corker of elliptical complexity, particularly if, like me, you have never heard of Ms. Michelle Shocked.  This lady is, or was, the doyen of Left-wing idols 'over there' whose career was helped enormously by photos of her being arrested at various, er, 'right on' demos beloved of the American Left.  But alas, Ms. Shocked opened her mouth and instead of squawking one of her tedious songs (no, I've never heard her sing but I just know these things, trust me!) she provided her audience with her opinion of gay marriage ending her mini-rant, according to The American Spectator, thus:

The folk-rock singer then joked, “If someone would be so gracious as to please tweet out ‘Michelle Shocked just said from stage: God hates faggots.’”

Cue the instant cancellation of the remainder of her tour.  I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

 

Oil on troubled American waters:  This brief report via Bloomberg contains some seriously good news:

U.S. crude oil production in the fourth quarter will exceed imports for the first time since 1995, as booming fields in North Dakota and Texas put the nation on track to surpass a quarter-century output record.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, the research arm of the Energy
Department, said domestic crude production will be 2 million barrels a day
higher than imports at the end of 2014, as oil from outside the U.S. is forecast
to drop late in that year.

“This projected change is primarily because of rising domestic crude oil production, particularly from shale and other tight rock formations in North Dakota and Texas,” the agency said in a “Today in Energy” note posted on its website.

Two thoughts occur: First, will Obama in his blunderingly stupid, anti-oil way contrive to turn the spigots off; and second, when will 'Dim Dave'  drop his green trousers, bend over and take his punishment for spending zillions on utterly useless windmills instead of driving ahead with shale oil exploitation in the UK?  Jest askin'!

 

Kerry is a Klot:  Sorry, can't avoid corny alliteration, I mean 'clot', of course, and a potentially dangerous one at that.  According to Jonathan S. Tobin at Commentary, Obama seems to have aquired some slight understanding of 'the bleedin' obvious' when it comes to the absolutely non-existent chance of an Israeli/Palestinian peace deal anytime in what looks like the next millenium!  However, John Kerry, the new Secretary of State, is hell bent on writing his name in the history books for something other than telling 'porkies' about his service in Vietnam.  The man sounds deluded and, given the nature of his 'jarb', downright dangerous, too! 

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'Churnalism', and then there's outright lying

As exemplified by 'The Graun' - so no surprise there, then!  And, as per my previous post, it takes The Spectator in the form of its editor writing in The Coffee House to explain the truth behind a lying liar's headline:

 

However, if you are a masochist of the Max Mosley Tendency and of your own volition you read further into the story you will see that it actually states: " Johnson did not directly challenge the Chancellor."  So the headline is good (or bad) old-fashioned agit-prop, or, lying, as I call it.

As Fraser Nelson explains, what Boris was complaining about was the language used by the Chancellor - and the Prime Minister - in which they both seem to relish the self-inflicted lash of austerity talk.  Whenever politicians constantly repeat a mantra all of one's suspicions should be aroused!  In this case, of course, there is no austerity - never has been and will not be until the money markets turn on the tossers in the Treasury to teach them a lesson.  The imminent loss of our AAA-rating will be the very least of our woes when real-life lashes are administered to our economy and ministers are forced to speak the truth.

For example, as a reader of this blog you are by definition shrewd and thus will understand that our Posh Boys may not be cutting the national debt, as such, but at least they are cutting our over-spending and thus reducing our deficit.  Wrong!  In fact, Big Wrong!  One might say Mega Big Wrong!

As Nelson puts it in his article:

Can you see the cuts? Neither can the City — and it judges people like Osborne by what they do, not what they say. It also notices his habit of shunting the pain past the election with every budget.

Even I realised some time ago that Cameron and Osborne had missed their chance in the first half of this administration, when people were still bleeding from the crash of 2008 and blaming it on the Labour party, to administer the nasty medicine needed to help us to recovery.  Now they are in the second half it's all too late as they stare down the barrel of a forthcoming election.  What's their answer?  Simple, just keep spending and borrowing and put off the pain until after the next election when who knows who will be sitting in the Chancellor's chair? 

Incidentally, and apropos the photo above of that ugly, mumbling, charmless, Jock tennis player, isn't it wonderful that nature plays its part and so at least his mum loves him even if no-one else does!

 

"Cheats never prosper", er, well, not always!

To be fair, not too many of us are forced to make serious moral choices in our lives. Well, of course, except in the field of sexual temptation which, happily at the age of 73, I personally am now well past.  Actually, now I understand the immense relief in the tone of the late Malcolm Muggeridge (a noted swordsman in his day) when, as an older man, he admitted that lack of a sexual drive was like having a weight lifted from his shoulders - or perhaps he said 'elbows', I don't recall!  Anyway, that aside, most of us are not often forced into moral decisions - except perhaps, sportsmen.

The world and his uncle are waiting to lay into Mr. Lance Armstrong, the well-known 'pedalist', once his mea culpa is broadcast by that contemporary High Priestess of Public Morals Mores, Ms. Oprah Winfrey.  There is something particularly reprehensible in cheating in that sort of sport which is, mostly, an individual competition between individuals.  I am still sickened by the loss of (relative) purity in the Olympic Games track events whose winners were heroes to me in my innocent boyhood.  But they at least only enjoyed a brief hour in the sunlight of adulation but Mr. Armstrong has had half of his life basking in the praise for his apparent 'achievements'.  What, I wonder, was he thinking during those years as he accepted honours and kudos for his incredible - literally incredible as we now learn -  series of victory after victory after victory?  Was he ashamed, I wonder, or did he simply gaze out at the sea of adoring fans and think to himself, "Suckers!"

The interesting post-script to this bounder's life of lies will come, for me, during the subsequent court hearings if and when all those giant American corporations who once poured money over him in the form of endorsements now sue to get it back.  Were I the judge I would show them little mercy.  For the last thirty years (at least) no individual sport has been above suspicion of drug cheating and, as these self-same corporations, or their lawyers, would quickly point out to any wronged punter who sued them - caveat emptor!  So, what goes for 'Joe Doe' goes for the likes of Nike et al!

Another brand of cheating is more nuanced.  Just recently - well, almost every week these days - some footballer either surreptitiously uses his hand to guide the ball into the net, or, in the penalty area a defender passes within six inches at which point the attacker falls over - and over - and over - as though he had been hit by a truck and lies crying on the ground holding his leg which appears from his performance to have been broken in several places.  However, having been given a penalty by a ref who should have gone to SpecSavers he makes a remarkable recovery and within seconds is racing up and down the field once again.  There are motives for this type of cheating - a desire to help your team win and, perhaps a certain amount of money in the form of a win bonus.  However, given the eye-wateringly huge salaries paid as a norm, the win bonus is relatively small beer.  Perhaps part of the motivation to cheat lies exactly in those huge salaries such that the player feels it is only fair - delicious irony - to do whatever it takes to make sure his employers get the result they are paying him for.

Happily, never having taken part in 'games' since I was sixteen, my sporting morals have never been tested.  However, if any multi-zillionaire footie-player requires coaching in the art of acting, of course, darling, I am available at a very modest fee - well, modest compared to you, you big, useless, over-paid, cheating, waste of space!  (Jealous?  Moi?  Certainly not!)

 

I never realised the Poles had a sense of humour!

I mean, if you were to ask me about the Poles I would instantly think of that lady's description of Lord Byron as "mad, bad and dangerous to know", also, crazy, incredible courage would spring to mind; but clowning - prat falls, custard pies in the face, buckets of water down the pants, that sort of clowning - never!  Well, yet again I have been proven wrong.  Last night at their brand new, multi-zillion, state-of-the-art 'footie' stadium they put on the funniest show since Morcombe and Wise last performed.

I expect that, like me, you were all settled down comfortably in your favourite armchair or sofa with your feet resting up on several packs of lager, the missus either safely tucked away in the kitchen with orders for bacon butties at half-time, or, tucked up in bed, warming herself up on Fifty Shades of Filth (or whatever that book is called) so as to be ready for her conquering hero as he dances up the stairs, triumphant after thrashing the Poles at least 5-0.  Instead, we had rain.  And I mean RAIN!  It didn't just rain, nor did it just pour, it positively cascaded and it did so for hour after hour after hour. 

And, of course, in this new high-tech stadium - someone forgot to shut the roof!  As a lover of TCCs (Truly Colossal Cock-ups) I was emitting high-pitched whinnies of pleasure which were almost louder than the Memsahib's upstairs with her dirty book!  On the screen there appeared one typically British fan with a finely-tuned sense of irony who stood on the terraces soaked to the skin, trying to avoid being swept away by the torrents of rain water - with a knotted handkerchief on his head!  By now my carpet, upon which I had landed several minutes before, was beginning to feel rather damp because of my tears of laughter.  Then, with exquisite timing, known only to the very finest comedians in the world, the Poles sent out the referee wearing, goggles, flippers and a 'Mae West' - if you don't know what a 'Mae West' is - grow up or get old, one or the other!  Just for a moment I thought that I was the victim of a time warp and that somehow I had been sent back in time to the summer Olympics when various nutters athletes seemed to be trying to paddle their canoes upstream instead of down, for reasons I never did quite fathom.

Anyway, our brave and funny ref started with a slow breast-stroke as he crossed the pitch to the centre.  As a bit of an expert on swimming - er, have I told you that ... oh, right - anyway, I admired his style which was somewhat hampered by him carrying a football.  I thought he was going to entertain the crowd with a few tricks, you know, like those dolphins that balance balls on their noses so that the keepers throw them fish as a reward - although I dread to think what the average fan would throw at any ref!  Anyway, what he actually did was to throw the ball around in the vain hope that it might bounce - well, at that point my carpet was as soaked as the pitch and the neighbours were banging on the walls because my howls of laughter had become exceedingly high-pitched.  Of course, I had realised that what he was actually doing was testing to see whether it was possible to play footie on that pitch at which I became well and truly hysterical. I was then sent into extra convulsions when a Polish lady official explained with precise, patient English - and a dead straight face - that they could not close the stadium roof because it was raining!    Oh, how I howled!  Then, when I didn't think I could take any more, they announced that they would re-check the pitch in an hour!  By this time the water was so deep it was subject tidal forces!  The Memsahib insisted I go to bed because she didn't think my heart could take the strain of so much laughing, and anyway, the cat was threatening to leave home (so not all bad, then, I thought!)

Well, the match is going to be replayed this afternoon but I just know those crazy Poles will have thought of something else - ten foot of snow, perhaps?

 

Dammit, we can't let the Frogs out art us!

I am grateful, I think, to 'SoD' (Son of Duff) for bringing this to my attention.  It is a statue of Zinedine Zidane, the former captain of the French footie team who, in a famous, or infamous, if you like, incident in the 2006 World Cup Final nutted an Italian defender and was sent off.  The French went on to lose the match on penalties.

The statue has been placed in the grounds of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, a sort of post-modernist depositary for artistic rubbish, much like the Tate Modern in London.  'SoD' has proposed that we should out do the Frogs by erecting a statue of John Terry, a man who has succeeded in being sacked as the England captain not once but twice due to his inability, despite his millions, to rise above the behaviour of a council estate yob.

As a refinement, if that is quite the word, the statue would have an in-built sound system which would broadcast a shortened version of Mr. Terry's latest outburst but leave you, the onlooker, to fill in the blank at the end:

Oi, you! Why don't you fuck off, you black ****

The only question is, where should it be placed?  Outside the Race Relations Board, perhaps?  Nothing like inter-active art - such fun!

 

I am going to write on a subject about which I know nothing - so no change there, then!

Hillsborough!  Dread word and I mean 'dread' in all its senses.  For the benefit of my foreign readers I have provided a Wiki link to the subject which I have not read but, given the notorious controversy over this slaughter and the way in which Wiki reports are produced, I would urge caution.  However, I would strongly urge everyone to read Anna Racoon's commentary on the subject which, whatever you think about her conclusions, does provide a superb insight, from an insider, of the deeply peculiar 'Scouse' mentality.

As a soppy-soft Southerner, myself, whose knowledge of football and football crowds is limited to what I hear on 'TOOORKSPOOORT' every morning and the 'telly' on an occasional basis, I have avoided this emotional minefield.  But enough is enough!  In the umpteenth  investigation and report into this catastrophe, a committee led by the Bishop of Liverpool, and I know you will find this hard to believe, found the Liverpool fans totally innocent, and the South Yorkshire Police, the Emergency Services, the coroner, Sheffield Wednesday football club, The Sun newspaper, Kelvin McKenzie, some deadbeat Tory ex-MP and everyone else in the whole wide world, including me, er, and you, I guess, guilty!  I have only one thing to say to this - BOLLOCKS!

What I have never understood about this entire farrago is that the families of the deceased have been waging a campaign to clear the names of their loved ones!  But surely no-one ever supposed that they were guilty in any way at all.  As a commenter at Anna Raccoon's writes:

“Those that died were not drunken thugs but those that caused their deaths were Drunken Liverpudlians that arrived en mass without tickets & stormed the entrances as kick off approached. I was there I came in from the Liverpool end, I was pestered for tickets from Liverpudlians pouring out of the pubs asking for spares. Of course the culprits then scarperred after the carnage & were not breathalysed. Quite why the dead would have their blood tested for Alcohol is pointless, they were there on time with their tickets. (My emphasis)

It seems to me to be a classic example of that old philosophical problem expressed in the analogy of a peanut resting on an anvil: is it the hammer that is the cause of the crushing of the peanut or the anvil?  Whatever, the peanut is obviously completely innocent.  In this case, the anvil was supplied by the Sheffield club and the local council, both of whom knew for months ahead that the ground was unsafe and that no safety certificate had been issued.  The hammer was the late arrival of, shall we say, 'boisterous' Liverpool fans many of whom did not have tickets.  Did they file in to their places in a normal civilised manner?  Obviously not because there are 96 dead bodies to testify to the very opposite.  Now, it wasn't the Sheffield authorities who pushed the crowds forwards, nor was it the South Yorkshire Police, and whilst The Sun and its editor are large public figures they didn't do any of the shoving either, and the well-behaved fans at the front who had arrived early with tickets certainly didn't misbehave.  Nor did I, er, did you?  No, I thought not.  The stupid, senseless, irresponsible and - I choose the word with care - uncivilised shoving was from one source only - a mob of Liverpool football fans at the back of the crowd.  It's interesting that none of those fans, or their families, seem to have come forward to proclaim their innocence.  Why would they when all the attention has been centred on the dead who were then and always have been palpably innocent?

Needless to say, the behaviour of the 'authorities', using that word in its widest sense, after the event was as despicable as it was inevitable.  Lack of a moral code is not confined to bankers!

 

Hold on to your hats - I'm going to be gracious - and to a Jock, too!

Look, I'm sorry but there's no getting around it, when it comes to charmless, awkward, gaucheness no-one does it better than Andy Murray, plus, he is an incomprehensible Jock, as well.  I have lost count of the number of times I have scrambled for the 'do-flicker-thingie' in order to switch over to 'Today in Parliament', or anything, really, just so long as I didn't have to watch this mumbling, shifty-eyed Caledonian with his pathetic 'beard' try for the umpteenth time to explain why he had failed to live up to the expectations of the Canary Wharf hacks, an expectation never shared by the rest of the country who rather like a good British loser, I mean, it's sort of a tradition now, isn't it?  His foot-shuffling, darty-eyed awkwardness when faced with interviewers I can only put down to his childhood and those numerous occasions when, I suppose, he had to face that maniacal mother of his and explain why he came second - again!  Well, I wouldn't want to face her and I have a hide like a rhino!

All of the above, of course, you will recognise as pure, unadulterated bile from Mr. Grumpy still suffering major dyspepsia having been forced to spend six weeks taking evasion action against non-stop incoming Olympics.  So, on this happy, I repeat 'happy' (and that's a smile not a grimace!), occasion following Mr. Murray's win in New York I am going to try to shrug off my prejudice and tell it as it is.  Anyone who plays tennis at the top level is, by definition, a great athlete, using that word in its widest sense as meaning a person with strength, agility, superb hand-eye co-ordination and the ability to think under severe pressure.  I almost forgot the other usually unsung part of the requirement, the possession of grim determination to practice, practice, practice and then practice some more.  All of those virtues Mr. Murray possesses in full.  The fact that it has taken him so long to win a major championship and that on the journey he has suffered so many disappointments adds even greater lustre to his achievement today.  I take back the sneers and the jibes of yesteryear and instead offer up not just my congratulations but my very genuine admiration.

As a small token of my new feelings I have resisted the urge to find a photo of him looking like a total plonker and instead found one which is rather charming.  Well done, Andy, I always knew you could do it - yes, yes, I know, sheer humbuggery, but no-one does it better than me!

 

 

"It's over"!

Golden days before they end,
Whisper secrets to the wind
Your ['lympics] won't be near you anymore.

It's over
It's over
It's over

All the rainbows in the sky
Start to weep and say goodbye
You won't be seeing ['lympics'] anymore.

Good old Roy Orbison, he could belt out a great number with the best of them.  I have taken liberties with his lyric but I just wanted to express my 'joy unconfined' that the whole wretched, over-blown, over-here, huff 'n' puff has finally ended.  Well, except for today's superfluous parade upon which I trust the gods to pour their scorn, and their rain, as a sign of their displeasure at all those ridiculous bread and circuses.  The entire fandango has cost us all a fortune for absolutely nil return but happily the 'onlie begetter', Mr. Tony Blair, will not feel the pinch.  That doyen of the utterly useless millenium dome has just earned himself £1 million an hour for arranging a 3-hour meeting between the warring boards of two mining conglomorates wrangling over a merger.  Instead of a parade of athletes today they should drag that wretched man through the streets in a tumbril!

Sorry (well, not really!) to be such a grump but I have loathed and despised the entire thing.  I don't trust any of the so-called athletes and as for those jumped-up, pampered panjandrums who run the circus, in my opinion if Londoners had any gumption they should have lined the routes of those 'Zil lanes' and hurled rotten veg at them as they swept past.  Anyway, now we can all return with a sigh of relief to a nice, honest, sporting contest in which the participants are young men of the finest character imbued with all that's best in honourable sportsmanship, I mean, of course - footie's back!  Sorry, did you say something . . . ?

 

Thank God, synchronised nose-picking is out, and 'footie' is back!

Well, I mean, there is only so much interest to be had from watching synchronised nose-picking, or the ladies topless underwater marbles contest, or haggis-hurling, or whatever else the Grand Panjandrums of the Olympic movement dream up for us every four years.  None of them provide quite that feeling one gets from watching Messrs. Rooney, Ferdinand, Terry et al living down to their well-earned reputations as 'fick, foul-moufed' oafs.  Their behaviour gives you that extra warm glow of self-righteous superiority derived from the knowledge that, despite their zillions, they are still the yobs you always suspected they were.  On the other hand, the likes of Mo Farah, who arrived on these shores at the age of eight having swapped the hell-hole of Somalia for the hell-hole of 'sarf Lon'on', and who by dint of sheer determination and guts grew up to win gold at both the 5k and 10k races, leaves one feeling pathetic and inadequate.  Frankly, the fewer reminders I receive of that sad truth the better!  So today begins the next season of 'footie' in which we can sneer once again at the millionaire grunt-snufflers.  And the poor old presenters on 'TOOOOORK-SPOOOORT' will once again have something to talk about because, frankly, their efforts to try and sound interested in the Olympics and the cricket were embarrassing as well as boring.

 

An Olympic rumble

The last gasp show:  I went to bed about half past ten last night unable to take any more of the so-called tribute to British music.  It all seemed to be summed up by the somewhat sad, raddled, over-weight, over-age and over here figure of George Michael.  If he's amongst the best that British pop-music talent has to offer then it confirms my belief that the whole industry is following HMV down the toilet.  Perhaps it cheered up later but the first few songs were dirge-like, tuneless and seemingly endless.  The fact that they saw fit to air a recording of John Lennon moaning the words of the soppiest lyric ever written, Imagine, indicated to me that the organisers were scraping the barrel.  Pity because I rather enjoyed the opening show.

A suggestion to improve the games: First, no more sports which require the services of 'judges' to decide the outcome.  I exclude fighting games in which judges decide if a hit or a throw has taken place, but no more equivalents of "9.5 for artistic interpretation" and all that sort of thing.  Of course, I realise that means excluding gymnastics which I consider to be a true test of courage and skill but it's a price worth paying if we never see synchronised yawning diving or swimming ever again.  Second, get rid of handball!  I thought basketball was the most boring game ever invented but handball takes takes tedium to torture levels.  Gitmo detainees should be forced to watch handball for the remainder of their prison terms.

Personality athlete of the games:  For a change I will join the crowd and pick Mo Farah, winner of both the 10k and 5k races, and the new face of New Britannia!

He is Somali by birth and spent the first eight years of his life in Djibouti.  I suppose, if fate had twisted the cards differently, he could have ended up crewing a pirate ship off the Somali coast!  Instead he came to join his British-born father in London.  Sent to his local state school with poor English he struggled but his athletic talents were spotted by his PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, who took him under his wing and encouraged his early efforts.  (Let's give that man a Knighthood!)  The rest, as they say, is history.

Another suggestion to improve the games:  I should charge for all this free advice!  In future, beach volleyball should be confined to the Brazilian ladies only.  At my first viewing, which featured ladies from 'Godwotaland' playing against the ladies of 'Getmeouttahere', I was, I confess, mildly excited but as time went on it was apparent that in this world there are ladies from Brazil and, er, the rest.  They just have the knack, those Brazilian gels, of filling their bikinis to the very brim and one watches with sustained excitement for the first sign of, shall we say, spillage! 

(Yes, it may seem sad to you but an old man must take his pleasures where he finds them - and I bet it cheered up your Monday morning, too!)

The biggest winner of the games:  No need to name him, really, but for my foreign readers please meet Mr. Boris 'Bonker' Johnson.  Currently he is the Mayor of London but shortly he will be taking over the leadership of the Tory party from 'Dim Dave'.  I have no idea whether he will be a

good leader but it will be a laugh finding out!  Apart from any other consideration, it will be a hoot watching sundry po-faced foreign leaders coming to London and trying to make out if Boris is prime minister or court jester whilst simultaneously trying to keep an eye on their wives and/or daughters.

Final thought:  Thank God, the 'footie' season starts next Sunday.  More lunacy, I know, but at least it's lunacy I'm familiar with.

 

Some Olympic sniggers

"'E a proper pronker", they might be saying in Beijing for poor Liu Xiang who settled himself carefully into his starting blocks for his heat of the 110m hurdles, then, on the start, sprinted off at high speed - straight into the first hurdle!  No, no, Liu, old lad, you're supposed to jump the bloody thing not knock it over.  Still, he did better than the last Olympics when he only managed two paces before his hamstring parted with a crack that sounded like false-start signal from the pistol.  To be fair, at the games before that he actually won the gold medal.  Just think, all that training, all that dedication and, no doubt, all that non-stop bullying from the Party's sport commissars - and all for absolutely nothing.

China's Liu Xiang falls onto the track during his men's 110m hurdles round 1 heat at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium August 7, 2012.
(EDDIE KEOGH/REUTERS)  The Globe and Mail

Really, I suppose, that was tragedy rather than comedy but this is definitely giggle-snigger ammo and it is well and truly aimed at those big-mouth Aussies who swaggered about at past Olympics letting us all know that Poms were pathetic at sports, little better than a bunch of 'Sheilas', they kept telling us.  Where are they now? 12th, with only four golds, 12 silvers and 9 bronze - oh dear, what a pity, never mind!  Where are we?  Modesty forbids but only the Yanks and the Chinks are in front of us and if you take it on a population comparison basis we are ahead of both of them.

[...]

Sorry for that short pause but overcome with emotion, or stunned with disbelief, I felt moved to sing "God Save the Queen" but not for too long, thank goodness, because I had forgotten most of the words.

 

Something up with which I will not put!

Yes, I admitted the other day that I was slowly warming to all those 'hearties' and their Amazonian 'heartiettes' running, jumping, throwing, paddling, pedaling and all that but I do draw the line at ladies boxing.  They can wrestle, preferably (in my opinion) in mud dressed in topless bikinis, or, if they insist, they can judo each other in baggy sexless suits, or, they can attempt to pierce or slash each other with swords whilst dressed in those rather fetching, dead sexy, white suits, but boxing is OUT!  There is something truly repellant about the sight of two women punching each other with their fists.  I have no particular knowledge and certainly no experience to prove my belief that punching a woman in the breasts is almost as painful for her as it is for a man to be punched in the groin.  Hence, I suppose, the reason why they aim their punches mainly at their opponent's face.  This, of course, avoiding as it does the skill of a steady battery of body shots, makes for a lousy boxing experience for the viewer quite apart from any finer feelings.  To an old romantic like me a woman's face, especially a young woman's face,  is "a thing of beauty" even if, alas, not necessarily "a joy for ever". Thus, for me, the sight of two girls slugging each other in the face is abhorent to the point of sickening.

 

Help! Heeeeelp! Someone please HEEEEELP!

It's getting to me.  Inch by centimetre it's creeping over me.  I fought it and fought it but still, inexorably, it is engulfing me.  I am still struggling but only just . . . so please help.  Oh, hell, I give up.  I'll just spend the next nine days watching the Olympics like everyone else.  A man has only so much disdain for all those 'hearties' and 'heartiettes' running, jumping, throwing things, pedaling and paddling, it is all so . . . damn silly!  And yet . . . and yet . . . it's getting to me.  That little Brit girlie will be granted the right to bear my babies if she wins the Heptathlon!  And those two handsome lasses in their rowboat were simply splendid.  I'm not quite so keen on the swimmers because they are in danger of showing up my own, ahem, swimming prowess.  (By the way, have I mentioned I go swimming six mornings a week? Alright, alright, no need to be like that!)  Anyway, suffice to say that they cover 800 metres in the time it takes me to reach the other end of the pool - at which point I usually have to ask one of the elderly ladies to help me out!  However, there is one sport to which I am utterly resistant - judo.  Not just because that nasty little thug, Putin, was in the crowd watching but because for the observer it is utterly tedious.  Two opponents, pull, push, tug, kick, twist, turn, grapple and absolutely nothing happens.  Then, one of them stumbles and falls and the other falls on top and they both wriggle around until the game is stopped and the commentator declares "Nippon Number One", or "All Blitiss Officers Will Work" or "Tora, Tora Tora", or something equally incomprehensible.  It's a pity because I remember years ago taking 'SoD' (Son of Duff) to judo lessons every weekend and because they were learning I could see the skill in it.  Unfortunately, at this level they are all as good as each other and every move is countered.  Even so, alas, I think next week I will surrender to this particular bit of bread and circus tossed to me by my Dear Leader, not least because all the other TV channels have surrendered and are running nothing but repeats of repeats.

 

So, darlings, did the earth move for you last night?

No, no, not that; I mean the Olympic opening 'jamboree', for lack of a better word because 'ceremony', apart from the  absolute essentials insisted on by the megalomaniacs who rule Olympia and the world, was kicked into touch by this zany, irreverent, Left-leaning, 'flash-party'.  Danny Boyle, the creator and director, faced an immense problem given the decision he took to try and encapsulate all that has gone before and all that exists now in that great 'mess of pottage' we now call Great Britain.  That is clearly impossible and so it became an exercise in picking and choosing.  So out went the Romans who first civilised us; away went the medieval period and perhaps the most significant item in our entire history, Magna Carta;  no mention of the Rennaissance and the Reformation; dear old Will was given a few brief lines totally out of context; and so we really didn't get the story going until we were given a brief nod in the direction of rural England before the industrial revolution.  (It is worth recording that the agricultural revolution which ran alongside its better known 'cousin' was equally important but, dammit, this was show business not a history lesson.)

Anyway, with neat, if not entirely accurate symbolism, the country bumpkins and their rural idyll were literally and metaphorically torn up and swept away in an intricate dance spectacular by Isambard Brunel and his cohorts and great factory chimneys arose with alm0st viagra-inspired erectness in the middle of the arena  I'm not sure if the very Lefty Danny Boyle approved or disapproved but his next, er, 'Great Leap Forward' was to that demi-God of Socialism, the National Health Service.  This occasioned a telephone call from 'SoD' (Son of Duff) who is somewhere to the Right of Ghenghis Khan and who then went into a minor rant sounding like the personification of 'Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells'.  I had to remind him that as the old man of the family it was my job to be Mr. Grumpy!  I am tempted to delve further into the pros and cons of the NHS but that could take several hours which I do not have to spare.  Mr. Boyle then took us into a phantasia based on children's books but with his historical blindness he concentrated on J. K. Rowling's output and, unless I missed it, not a mention of poor little Alice and her Mad Hatter, or Ratty and Mole, or the Famous Five, because they, of course, were written before Mr. Boyle was born and therefor were not part of his, um 'world view'!  After that it all degenerated into an overlong paean of praise to sundry pop groups.  I tried - no, really I did - to remind myself that this may not resonate with old fossils like me but that it was possibly deeply moving to the younger generation - yeeeees, quite!

However, Mr. Boyle and his one-eyed view of the world was saved by one huge, incredible, unbelievable and utterly unexpected ingredient to his extravaganza - humour!  Truly, the very last thing I expected to do last night was - laugh!  But I did, several times.  The James Bond pastiche with the Queen was witty, sharp and sophisticated.  Even better was Mr. Bean attempting to play the keyboard in a performance by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle , no less, of the theme from Chariots of Fire.  The film and the music are almost Holy Writ for Olympians and for Boyle to have the nerve to poke gentle fun at it was delicious.  Both those elements were genuine examples of a trait, not celebrated often enough in this country, our sense of humour, the best of which always borders dangerously on the anarchic.  (I did wonder how Mr. Bean would appear to, say, millions of Chinese but this morning on Sky News a Chinese sportsman told us that he is huge in China and that his films are played constantly - who da thunk it?)  I must confess that when the entry of the gladiators the national teams began I went to bed.  As these no doubt splendid young men and women strolled in to the stadium smiling, smiling, smiling, it seemed like a short course in death before they even reached Azerbaijan, and the thought of waiting around to see Zambia was too much.

Anyway, Mr. Boyle was always going to be on a loser in trying to encapsulate all of Britain in one extravanganza, despite the eye-wateringly extravagant expense of it all.  At least he avoided  the ghastliness of the militarised manouvres of the Chinese parades four years ago in which human beings were reduced to disciplined, ant-like status in the finest traditions of totalitarian governments everywhere.  Boyle's production was free-flowing, humorous, iconoclastic, individualistic and, above all else - and here I must apologise for using an f-word that normally never passes my lips or keyboard - fun!

 

Should we throw rotten veg at the 'Zils'?

I am tempted to encourage it now that the 'Zil' lanes are open for the putrid circus that is the Olympics.  Back in the day, when I was a wage slave, my main entry into London was along the M4 and then onto the Cromwell Road.  I can remember spitting imprecations when they set aside one lane of the M4 for buses and taxis only.  Today however, we have the 'Zil' lanes reserved for the various international dope fiends pretending they are better athletes than the great Sir Roger Bannister than which etc, etc., and also the stinking rich, greasy-fingered 'Zillionaires' who believe themselves to be above mere mortals because they run this ridiculous, overblown charade we call the Olympics.  So, whilst we, the proles and the plebs, queue in the simmering heat, these charlatans sweep past us as though by divine right.  Well, I suggest we all take some rotten veg with us in our cars - tomatoes are very useful at this time of the year because they quickly go squidgy.  Then, as you see these poltroons cruising by let 'em have it with a constant bombardment of anything soft and preferably smelly!  Of course, I will not be taking part myself because I'm not an activist.  Indeed, the Memsahib will confirm that she has never met anyone less active than me - or so she keeps telling me.  Consider me an agent provocateur!

 

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

Look, I like stereotypes, OK?  I'm comfortable with people behaving, almost always badly, in the manner which I have prescribed for them based on the deep well of my prejudices.  For example, I am enormously grateful to Messrs. Terry and Ferdinand, frère et frère, for confirming my profound conviction that most 'footie' players are a bunch of knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers with IQs in the minus level.  I was even glad, in a weird, masochistic way, to see Andy 'grunt-snuffle' Murray 'Blubbing for Britain', well, the Scottish bit of Britain, anyway, in front of the world's media.  The pre-fight brou-ha-ha that precedes every boxing match is, of course, in the finest tradition of the old fairground, 'roll up, roll up' way of getting the punters in.  (I believe in these more refined(?) days they call it 'marketing' - yeeees, quite!)  But the problem is that one cannot help but suspect that the numbskulls huffin' and puffin' at each other actually believe their own hype.  I could run through most professional sports and find further examples of stupidity and greed coupling but it is all too depressing.

Thus, to repeat my title, 'I was shocked, I tell you, shocked' to read yesterday of the outrageous behaviour of Mr. Barry Wiggins.  For those of you ill-educated in the farther reaches of the sporting world, let me tell you that Mr. Wiggins is a pedaler.  No, no, not a pedlar, he doesn't go around flogging things, well, except subscriptions to SKY TV who sponsor him (well done, Rupe!)  No, he's a cyclist and a pretty good one from all accounts.  And unlike some of his less than distinguished predecessors he doesn't keep hopping off his bike in order to go and 'shoot up' behind a hedge!  No, Mr. Wiggins is clean, he's a winner and, dammit, he's British!  So yesterday, during that interminable tour of France that these pedalers insist on doing every year for reasons quite beyond my ken, some unutterable rascals threw tin-tacks on the road and about thirty of the riders had to stop to fix punctures. (LOOK!  You are allowed a slight snigger but falling about helpless with laughter is not allowed - this is serious!)  Anyway, Mr. Wiggins (I am tempted to refer to him as the Right Honourable Wiggins but that title has been more than somewhat sullied recently), who was leading the race but was being pursued by the current champion who suffered from this sabotage, deliberately slowed down so that his rival could catch up!  

I am now in a state of shock.  You cannot believe how distressing it is when certain fixed poles in your existence are suddenly moved.  Suddenly, you begin to understand that uncertainty principle.  For a professional sportsman to actually behave in a sportsmanlike way is an enormous shock.  I mean, you can't rely on anyone these days.  Truly, the earth moved for me!

 

So John Terry is NOT a foul-mouthed, pig-ignorant, grunt-snuffling, RACIST yob ...

He's only a pig-ignorant, foul-mouthed, grunt-snuffling yob - so that's alright then!  Consideration of, and comparison to, his 'footie' and legal opponent, Mr. Anton Ferdinand, leads one back inexorably to the unanswerable conundrum of the precedency between a louse and a flea.  To delve further into this murky tale will only provoke one into consideration of the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing retards who introduced this ridiculous law in the first place so it is best left undisturbed.

I apologise to both the ladies and my foreign readers for what will appear to them to be an even more totally incomprehensible post than usual.  Suffice to say that it is concerned with a particularly ripe example of 'footie' foolishness, than which, etc, etc.  In the unlikely event that you are actually interested in finding out more, try this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18827915

 

Don't cry for me, Andy Murray!

Look, along with, I guess, most of the population, with the exception of his mother, I don't like Andy Murray.  (I don't like his mother much, either, but that's another story.)  Not that I know him, of course, all I know is his public personna and, to be fair, were he a reader of this blog I doubt that he would like me very much in return.  Even so, I am happy to agree that he is a 'nearly-great' sportsman and that puts him in a rather large pantheon of 'nearly-great' British sportsmen.  I mean, nobody does 'nearly-great' as well as we do!  We are the greatest nation on earth for 'almosts', 'nearlys' and 'not quites'.  When we do actually produce a truly world-class champion in, I would argue the hardest sport of all, the decathlon, we don't really like him too much.  Poor old Daley Thompson, yes, we applauded; yes, we were amazed (gob-smacked, more like); but somehow we never really took to him.  We're traditionalists here, you see, and we can only really warm to losers.

But I digress - again.  In his public personna, Andy Murray comes across as an archetypal 'grunt-snuffler'.  It's not just his almost impenetrable Jock accent, it's the obvious fact that he has trouble summoning up a complex thought worthy of more than three words, a grunt and a snuffle.  Wayne Rooney has similar difficulties. But we (I mean I) can forgive him all of that provided he loses in the proper British manner.  Tim Henman, another world-class loser, knew exactly how to behave.  Clenched jaw, lips barely moving, proper words of congratulation to his vanquisher, a promise to do better next time and off he went to prepare to lose the next match.  I suspect he learned his behaviour from his father who, from the occasional TV shots of him watching his son in action, never cracked a smile or even applauded!

Yesterday, alas, 'ur wee Andy' blew it.  In the British field of sport you can deck your opponent, or, better still, the umpire, and no-one will mind particularly, but you must never, ever - blub!  Blubbing is the sort of thing indulged in by second-rate actresses receiving an Oscar, not by stern, upright, British losers.  Apart from the wider implications, it upsets me (as in 'me, ME, ME') enormously!  As soon as he started crying yesterday I felt that ridiculous rush of embarrassment hit me - ridiculous because why should I be embarrassed? - and, as always in such moments of desperation, I couldn't find the bloody, sodding 'do-flicker-thingie' to zap Murray out of my site and sound!  The 'Memsahib' threw a wobbly and stomped out to the kitchen to watch Murray booing on the other TV whilst I wrecked our living-room trying to find the device that would obliterate him.

Oh well, roll on the World Cup, then I can watch eleven of our regular losers do what they do so well - lose!

 

 

'Grazie, Italia!'

I don't have to translate my title because even you lot can understand it, especially if you're English.  Last night, Italy brought an end to the national embarrassment that is the England 'footie' team.  My only complaint is that they took so long to do it.  Why am I so grateful?  "Let me count the ways".

First, because throughout the entire tournament England played the most execrable, eye-stabbingly tedious football I have ever watched.  I don't entirely blame the manager because it seemed obvious to me that he recognised that most of our players can't pass wind let alone a football.  Consequently, he told them that in the unlikely event of them ever actually finding the ball at their feet they should immediately pass it to an opposition player.  This they proceded to do although occasionally, and I guess entirely by accident, they did sometimes manage to pass it to a team-mate.

And second, because if God had struck down half the Italian team last night with 'Ukranian belly' thus providing our lumpen lads with a slight chance of winning, then we would all be facing the dread prospect of watching yet another humiliating blitzkrieg next Thursday when we would have had to face the Germans.  My dears, simply too, too ghastly to even contemplate!

In the 'great theatre' that is 'footie', we must now all admit that England, at their best, might just manage the part of third messenger!

 

This, that and the other

It's 8.45 as I write this and I am grimly aware of a long list of outstanding jobs to be done - beginning with my strip of grass in the Churchyard which, because of all that 'global warming' coming down as solid rain, I have not cut for over a month!  It is now "as high as an elephant's eye" and I just know it's going to be a long and tiring job .  Then there is the post-holiday car to be cleaned, followed by the garage to be cleared out and rubbish taken to the tip, and the garden, titchy though it be, has produced some of the most exotic weeds I have ever seen.  I may never go away again!

In my preceding post I moaned about the murder of language at the hands of politicians who say 'black' when they mean 'white' and vice versa.  This morning I heard extracts from various pols at the NATO meeting explaining how and why they had achieved absolute agreement on future planning for Afghanistan, no doubt about it, not a single dissenting voice, honestly, cross my heart and wish to die, no, really  . . . !  It was ever thus but how one longs for, say, the 18th century where you didn't have to watch and listen to the lying liars.  I found myself muttering , "Peace in our time, then, is it?"

My Spanish e-pal, Ortega, responded to the poke in the ribs I gave him during my piece on white asparagus.  He came up with a novel suggestion for cooking the stuff.  You peel it and then seal it in a bag which you place in  boiling water.  Apparently, that conserves the flavour but the drawback is that the water is of no use for making soup afterwards.  I have spoken to the 'Memsahib' about cooking details.  Apparently you must peel from about an inch down from the base of the 'flower' to the end of the stalk.  Boil the water and add some salt, then chuck the peeled asparagus in for about ten minutes.  I could not pin her down to an exact time, she just said, in that irritating way that women have, 'until it's cooked'!  My favourite way to eat it is with new potatoes and pork schnitzels plus, of course, a large dollop of hollandaise sauce.

Sometimes sport reaches the parts other entertainments cannot.  I am not a dedicated 'footie' fan, in fact, I am the very worst sort of fan, the dilletante type who only bothers to watch if it is, so to speak, a 'celebrity' match.  Thus, I did watch Chelsea play Bayern Munich on Saturday and like all the very best sporting events the team that 'deserved' to win - lost!  I write 'deserved' because Bayern had far more chances during their almost non-stop attacks than Chelsea but the aim of the game, so to speak, is to put the ball in the net and that they failed to do despite several opportunities, so it went to the lottery of penalties.  Mind you, there was some delicious Schadenfreude to be enjoyed at the expense of the German goalkeeper who had the sort of tall, blonde, arrogant look of the sort of German one normally expects to see sticking out of the turret of a Mk. III Panzer demanding to know the way to Warsaw! 

Very unfair, I know, because he's probably a very nice chap.  Still, it was good to see him picking the ball out of the back of his own net, particularly as it was situated at the Bayern end of the stadium right in front of the massed ranks of their fans.  Shame!

Well, I can't put it off any longer - the Churchyard calls!

 

Bloody, +@@#ing, #~^+ing footie!

Like millions of other morons I settled down last  night to watch the return match between Barcelona and Chelsea  Within five minutes one of the Chelsea defenders had to be substituted because of injury, then 'Barca' scored a goal, then John Terry, the captain, behaved like an inbred thug and was sent off, and then 'Barca' scored again and we were only 30 minutes into the game!  At this point I thought to myself, this is going to be a massacre from which any one of even minimal sensitivity should avert their gaze - and so I switched channels.  A couple of hours later I checked the news and heard that Mesi, currently the greatest footballer in the world, had missed a penalty and that Chelsea, with only 10 men, had evened the score to 2-all and thereby earned their place in the final!  In other words, I had missed perhaps one of the greatest footie matches of all time.  I then did a fair imitation of John Terry until the 'Memsahib' gave me a red card and sent me to bed!

As a consolation I did watch another recorded episode of Justified, a new, well, new to me, series on the somewhat obscure Channel 5 USA.  I have watched several episodes and I still haven't a clue what's going on but - it is brilliant!  Mostly it is brilliant for the language.  It is set in Kentucky and they all speak the way my regular commenter, JK, writes!  However, they do it in the most rich and elegant English I have ever heard on an American series.  I remember the great Shakespearean scholar, John Barton, once saying that American-English was closer to Shakespeare's than current modern Anglo-English.  Whatever, the characters in this story, mostly either cops or robbers, deliver long, complex and beautifully composed sentences that are a pleasure to listen to, er, even if the obscenity count is fairly high.  I cannot discover who writes the scripts but he or she deserves a prize.  Part of the unexpected pleasure is that these elegant sentences flow from the mouths of some truly hideous-looking hillbillies and the actors are good enough to relish the words without losing their characters.  Finally, the series has a superb villain, Robert Quarles, played by Neil MacDonough who manages to scare me even through a TV screen!  If I tell you that it is based on stories by Elmore Leonard then fellow afficianados of 'pulp fiction' will know to expect quality.  Try it - it doesn't matter if you join it halfway through, I've watched four episodes and I still don't understand the plot - but I love it!

 

The Sunday Rumble 15:4:12

I haven't indulged in a Sunday rumble for some time.  For newcomers, what happens is that instead of droning on and on, and then on for a bit more, on one subject, I sit here scratching myself and emitting short burps in different directions on different subjects.

Titanic RIP:  And, boy oh boy, do I mean REST in peace!  I don't know about you but I am sick to death of all this Titanic stuff, there seems to be no end to it.  Of course, there are no really decent wars or famines going on at the moment and so the MSM, bless their smelly socks, have nothing else to waste their ink or their running time on.  Of course, it's worth a pause and a quick thought or three but not his constant ghoulish obsession.

Darlings, I was wonderful!  I know you have all been on tenterhooks wanting to know how my rehearsals went for the important, nay, critical, role of Abhorson in Shakespeare's wonderful play Ye Olde Mysterie of Abhorson, ooops, Measure for Measure.  I think I can say with all modesty that I was a tremendous success.  The rest of the cast, including my understudy, who have been rehearsing the play for some time now were left in stunned silence at the end of my two scenes and one was heard to mutter, "Darling, wonderful isn't the word!"  Of course, it remains a mystery to me as to why the Bard in all his wisdom chose to give quite so many scenes to that bloody nun and Duke but that's the problem with writers, they never listen to actors!

China again - but no politics:  I missed the first half of the Chinese Grand Prix because I was swimming - oh, by the way, have I mentioned that I - oh, right - I have - fine, move on then, shall I? - anyway, I caught the last half and it was the best F1 race I hace seen for some time.  Many moons ago, in part of my rickety-rackety life, I was involved with one of the F1 teams and spent some time following 'the circus' round Europe.  As a man whose interest in cars has always rested somewhere on the minus scale I was surprised to find myself rather hooked on it.  However, like a lot of sports, you really do need to be there.  The sheer brute power of those machines can only be appreciated up close and personal, as it were.  Even so, today's race was terrific.  I think only one driver fell out and the remainder were really racing - at one stage there were three cars side by side hurtling towards a corner - exciting stuff and the fact that no-one was shunted off is a magnificent tribute to the skill of the drivers.  If you can catch a late recording of the race, watch it!  One oddity, I noticed, was the very low turnout of spectators.  I can't believe the Chinese are not interested.  Perhaps the organisers priced it too high, or perhaps times are beginning to get hard in China.

Prize-winning humbuggery:  I am grateful to my e-pal, Dom, who responded to my post on just one of the reasons why Obama and his wrecking crew need to go.  I reported, with glee, the tale of that intrepid investigator, James O'Keefe, who managed to waltz in to a voting office and obtain Attorney-General John Holder's voting ballot because, in line with government policy, no ID was required. All American Left-wing opinion and organisations are resolutely opposed to making voter ID a requirement and you do not need to be Brain of America to guess why.  Anyway, Dom sent me a film from the admirable PJTV who despatched reporters to various bastions of liberal organisations including, of course, John Holder's department and none were permitted to enter without proof of identity.  Watch the film - but have a sick-bucket to hand!

Will 'Dim Dave' make it to the next election?  All prime ministers go through a period of squalls and showers but usually they are confined to the perceived differences between them and their electorate.  The difference today is that Cameron is losing, at an accelerating rate, the support of his own backbenchers and his party workers.  They are catching up with what this erudite blog has been telling them for the last two years, that Cameron simply isn't very bright.  He's an Old Etonian twit with absolutely no political philosophy - and not only do I doubt he would understand what that meant, I doubt he could even spell it!  According to various reports, which began as whispers but are now being spoken out loud, he disdains the so-called 'worker bees' who keep the Tory party running in the country and surrounds himself with ex-public schoolboys of his own ilk.  He has never run anything in his life - and it's beginning to show.  So I ask, will he make it to the next election?  And if he's knifed in the back, who will play Brutus? 

A deadly beauty:  In the history of warfare was there ever a more beautiful but deadly weapon designed than the Vickers Supermarine Spitfire?  Even to today it still looks lethal. 

I am thrilled that we have cut a deal with the Burmese government to extract the twenty Spitfires which were buried there at the end of WWII.  If they can be restored they will be worth a fortune and what I hope is that the government will sell off some of them to provide a trust fund to keep, say, three of them in Britain as a heritage project.  If 'Dim Dave' does that I will forgive him his many sins!

 

The view from the dugout

As you all know, this blog spares no effort to keep you bang up to date with all the news even, or especially, 'footie' news.  Hence, I can report today from the dugout at Manchester United, which I am sharing with a rather bad-tempered old Scotch git, that there is tremendously bad news for fans of the 'reds'.  As I reported some time ago, Mr. Wayne Rooney, the star of the team, spent several zillion pounds in a vain effort (pun intended!) to hide his premature baldness.  However, today, as I sit here at the edge of the pitch - oh alright then, on the edge of my favourite armchair in my living room - I can report that there are new signs of further baldness appearing.  Emergency applications of 'Growmore' are obviously required.  This sad development could have traumatic effects on both the team as well as Mr. Rooney - and the gum-chewing old Scotsman looks even more ferociously bad-tempered than usual!

What was that?  What about the match, did you ask?  I don't know!  After 20 minutes the ref gave someone a red card so the whole thing was ruined.  And anyway, I'm off out for a late lunch at my favourite pub restaurant which serves the best beef - ever!  And, no, I am not prepared to disclose the name of it even under water-boarding - although a few crisp 'readies' in the usual brown envelope might change my mind.

'Arry: 7 (lucky for some!); Inland Revenue: nil (as usual!)

My title will be even more incomprehensible to my foreign readers than usual and I apologise.  This blog prides itself on its international flavour but occasionally parochial village-pump matters loom large.  For the benefit of the uninitiated, "'Arry" is Harry Redknapp, currently the manager of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, a 'right gor blimey' East Ender, beloved by the nation irrespective of whether or not they be 'footie' fans. 

Five years ago it was brought to the attention of our less-than-beloved tax authorities, Her Majesty's Inland Revenue and Customs (HMRIC), that our 'Arry 'ad (oooops, sorry, it's difficult to avoid using 'Arry's, I mean Harry's, estuary English) . . . our Harry had over a hundred grand in a bank account in Monaco, well, as you do!  Anyway, these pecksniffs and upstarts (and probable Arsenal fans, too!) from HMIRC reckoned 'Arry was trying to dodge paying his tax - I know, I know, such impudence!  Anyway, this case, which in actual lost tax terms was worth about £60k went on and on and on for five years costing, I guess, several million quid.  Eventually, it ended up in court and today, as anyone could have told them years ago, a jury cleared our 'Arry of all wrong doing.  Quite apart from the fact that our 'Arry is beyond all doubt a man of utmost honesty and rectitude, even if theoretically you caught him in broad daylight robbing his local newsagent, no jury in England would ever find him guilty of anything!  Everyone in England, with the exception of the brain-dead morons in HMIRC who probably play rugby, hence their brain damage, loves our 'Arry.

 

An historical sporting fragment

I love some of the minutae of history, particularly when it concerns an event which you think you know about but, jogged into looking a little harder, you realise you had it wrong all the time.  Thus, I am obliged to Der Spiegel for raising the subject of Jesse Owens and the 'Hitler Olympics'.

Provoked by their article I went to Wiki to brush up my knowledge of this amazing athlete.  I had not realised that he won four gold medals at the 1936 games, the 100m and 200m sprints, the long jump and the 400m relay.  It was the long jump that caused the controversy because in that his closest rival was Luz Long (at right in the photo), an archetypal Aryan and exactly the sort of man Hitler expected to easily beat a 'subhuman black'.  To Hitler's intense irritation Owens won on the very last jump and to his eternal credit, Luz Long immediately approached him, offered his congratulations and embraced him - an act which earned him a reprimand from Rudolph Hess.  Subsequent talk of an eternal friendship between the two men is probably exaggerated and in any event Long was later killed whilst fighting in Sicily.

Needless to say, there is an irony of the most bitter and sardonic sort in the life story of Jesse Owens.  In Berlin he was free to eat and drink and stay in hotels with whites but back in America it was altogether different.  According to Wiki:

After a New York City ticker-tape parade of Fifth Avenue in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator at the Waldorf-Astoria to reach the reception honoring him.^[4

And there is an even greater irony to be chewed upon and enjoyed - sort of - in the fact that whilst Owens received a commemorative signed photograph from Hitler, he didn't even get a 'kiss my arse' from that leading 'brotherhood of man', democrat socialist of his day, President Roosevelt, or his successor, Harry Truman.  It was only in 1955 that President Eisenhower, a Republican, bestowed the first national honour on Owens.  (To be fair to the 'Great Republic', I do think the way it gradually divested itself of its public colour prejudice is one of its very greatest achievements.)

Owens's subsequent life was one of several ups followed by several downs including bankruptcy and a conviction for tax evasion.  However, late in life the US government appointed him as a Goodwill Ambassador and he ended his life in reasonable financial comfort.  Perhaps the most bitter of all the ironies in his life is that after being a smoker for 35 years he finally died at the age of 66 of lung cancer!

 

Sports report from a Hot Air Fanatic

Courtesy of m' Lord Bishop Hill comes this 'headline' from a HAF sports reporter referring to yesterday's Shlock-Horror result in which, for once, 'Fergie' did not look as though he had swallowed a wasp but an entire nest of them:

Newcastle did not beat Manchester United today, because the long term trend is for Manchester United to beat Newcastle.

Exactly, and in football as in climate who could argue with that?!

Whatever happened to restraint?

Sometime during the night as I lay listening to the radio there was a report on a current fracas in the world of snooker.  I should make clear immediately that snooker barely impinges on my consciousness but even so this had wider implications.  Apparently, there is a rift between some of the traditionalists and the new, modern, 'with it whizzeroo' who runs the game these days.  He, apparently, wants to 'jazz' the whole thing up with quicker games and much more audience participation (dread words!)   Actually, I do have fond memories of years ago when snooker first made it on to television and I must say it was highlyenjoyable.  The working-class lads who rose from the smokey billiard halls of their local towns always dressed and behaved like gentlemen.  The audience maintained a reverential silence between shots and then applauded enthusiastically as a particularly tricky shot was successful.  It was quiet, it was restrained, it was at times intensely exciting, and I enjoyed it immensely.  Now, apparently, we are to have audiences whooping and hollering, American style, with time-limited games, or something of that nature.

It reminded me of other games which have succumbed to the drunks, the out-of-season 'footie' fans, the screeching 'wimmin' and the general 'X-Factor' crowd.  Cricket, for example.  I remember years ago a joke on The Goon Show (I think) when the announcer came on with his BBC voice and said "Now we take you over to Lords for news of the cricket" and all you could hear were some gentle snores.  I also remember the occasional County match at Guildford where four men and a dog was considered a big turnout for a 4-day County match.  Since moving down here to the south west I have been tempted to try Taunton for a County match but the baying mob I have seen on the 'telly' at the one-day 'rounders' match they seem to play these days has quite put me off.

In a different field, I recall the awards ceremonies that were held every year in the south west edge of London where my theatre group was located.  When they first began it was all very 'black tie', polite, pleasant and restrained.  The last one I went to a few years back was ghastly as supporters of this or that nominee or prize winner stood up and started whistling and screeching and whooping and hollering.  I never went to another one!

Oh dear, yes, I know, I know, I'm sounding like a boring old fart but the fact is that I yearn for that old British, or to be precise, English, restraint.  Where the hell did it go?

 

Talking of 'grunt-snufflers' brings me to 'the hearties'

This post will be even more incomprehensible than usual to my non-Brit readers and frankly I am too grumpy this morning to explain the finer points of 'rugger-buggery' and 'footie' so you you will just have to do your best. 

What is it about 'hearties', or sportsmen and their fanatical followers, that they all appear to possess a low brain-cell count?  Is it, perhaps, in-breeding, for example, 'rugger-buggers' tend to hit it off with former hockey team gals, or, netball captains just love 'footie' players?  I don't know but my regular morning briefings provided, mostly, by 'TOOOOORKSPOOOOORT' have convinced me that all 'hearties' are of the same intelligence level as the 'nose-pickers' demonstrating outside the Stock Exchange.

Take for example, the brainless Welsh oaf who picked up a French 'rugger-bugger' and dumped him head down in front of the referee.  For those unfamiliar with the rules of rugby let me inform you that picking up an opponent and dumping him head first into the ground is frowned upon in the rules on account of the possibility, verging on probability, that it will result in a paraplegic rugby player.  I have seen countless re-runs of the film showing this incident and it is beyond argument that the Welsh thickoe picked the Frenchman up and then dropped him head down and only the fact that the equally thick Frenchman had just enough wit to tuck his head in averted what could have been a personal and lifetime tragedy.  Ever since, I have lost count of the number of 'hearties', not all of them Welsh, who have 'grunt-snuffled' something along the lines of 'it should only have been a yellow card not a red card and a sending off'.  The miscreant has now been given a three week ban!  He should have been thrown out of the game of rugby for life! 

And talking of red cards brings me to Neanderthal man, himself, the ineffably thick, Wayne Rooney.  According to all the 'footie' experts his genius at kicking a ball is England's only hope of progressing in the forthcoming European championship.  So what does this head-banging mouth-breather do in the last match before the tournament begins?  Hustled off the ball by a quicker thinking, quicker moving opponent who runs past him, he deliberately kicks the back of the man's legs.  Instant red card and, before you can say "nous détestons les Anglais" the Euro-footie crooks authorities slap a three-match ban on poor little Wayne, who, according to all the experts, was only showing a bit of frustration!  These same experts all moaned and groaned to the effect that it was far too harsh and that such a long ban on Rooney's presence in the England team would probably doom the English team to an early departure from the contest.  No-one asked whether, given Rooney's obviously low intelligence level - he has previous in this regard - the manager should not have given him a personal talking-to prior to the match warning him that the Euro-footie apparatchiks would be all over him if he made one mistake.  Of course, that might not have been possible given that the the Football Association, a group of such incredible stupidity that they make Parliament look intelligent, actually chose an Italian who cannot speak English to be the manager.  Well, to be honest he has a few words but given that Rooney only speaks 'Scouse' which is mostly indecipherable to other Englishmen let alone Italians, the chances of either comunicating with the other are vanishingly tiny.

Now the expert 'hearties' are all in a tizz as to whether or not 'our Wayne' should be taken to the competition if he is unable to play in the first three matches.  With the blythe optimism of the first wave out of the trenches to cross the mud at the Somme, they assume that England will actually get past the opening three matches to reach the quarter finals.  Hello, hello, Earth to Moonship, remember South Africa when we were sent packing early - and that was with 'our Wayne' actually playing! 

You may wonder why I am wasting my time - and yours - bitching on about sport in such a bad-tempered way?  Am I not in danger of taking it all too seriously when anyone with more than three brain cells knows it is entirely frivolous?  Well, of course, you are right but both my shoulders and my groin are hurting today and this post should be looked upon as displacement therapy.

 

Honestly, it couldn't happen to a nicer Russian zillionaire!

Am I jealous of Roman Abramovich?  Of course not.  Do I begrudge him his gazillions?  Certainly not, most of it was nicked earned off the Russians and people have been stealing earning from them for centuries so why should I care?  Do I lust after the various gorgeous wives and girlfriends he has enjoyed?  Absolutely not, apart from anything else the 'Memsahib' would kill me if I did.  Am I irritated everytime he buys an even bigger more luxurious yacht for the sort of money that would replace the two carriers 'Dave' gave away?  I deny it absolutely.  So why, this afternoon, did I enjoy one of the most delirious bouts of utterly delicious schadenfreude that I have had since Gordon Brown was drummed out of office? 

I will tell you but first, for the sake of my foreign e-pals, I should explain that Abramovich is one of those Russian oligarchs who seems to have partly based himself in the UK.  I am delighted with that for the very reasons I explained in my previous post but, on the other hand, I would advise Her Maj to count the spoons fairly regularly!  Anyway, despite being an obviously clever and dead crafty operator, 'Comrade' Abramovich is also a total prat because he is consumed with a passion for 'footie'.  Now, you only have to watch the pictures from the slowly moving camera that trails along the terraces filming the crowd at any 'footie' match to see that the average brain cell count for 'footie' fanatics is probably somewhere between plankton and amoebas.  Well, Abramovich is one of those, except that instead of standing on the terraces eating a third-rate gristle pie, he is swilling 'Dom Pom' in the biggest, most luxurious box in the entire stadium  - because he owns the bloody thing - outright!  The club is called Chelsea and, to be fair, it has done better than it has ever done since he owned it, winning the English championship three times in the last six years.  But, and here's the rub, or perhaps, here's the itch and poor little Roman can't stop scratching it, he knows that the only thing that really counts is winning the European championship, and that, Chelsea consistently fail to do which is why a steady stream of managers come and go - usually before they have unpacked their bags!

I gather that like most tycoons, 'Roman the Terrible' is surrounded by various creepy-crawlies who do his bidding, or what they think will be his bidding.  Hence, the first skill required by any manager is best described as 'running interference' as they try to fend off sundry suits from sticking their ignorant noses into what is not their concern.  However, when it comes to interference, Roman is definitely a hands-on boss.  Consequently, last year, when Chelsea were floundering somewhat, he stepped in and, over the head of his manager, bought a centre forward called Fernando Torres from Liverpool whose two American owners were only too pleased to take the money, suffering as they were, no doubt, with a severe case of Obamanomics!  Now all the experts (honesty rather than modesty forbids that I include myself in that term but I listen to experts constantly on ''TOOORKSPOOOORT' radio) had noticed a sharp drop in form from the unfortunate Torres probably due to a series of hamstring operations he had suffered.  However, with the courage of his convictions, which far exceeded his knowledge of the game, our lad Roman steamed in and made the Yanks an offer they could not refuse. 

From then until today, Torres has scored only one goal!

Today, I watched a crucial match between Chelsea and the legendary Manchester United, run by their wily but wasp-chewing manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.  Chelsea lost 3-1.  It is true that today Torres succeeded in doubling his total scoring record for Chelsea with a rather nifty goal.  However, later in the match when a second goal would have lifted his team and given them a chance for at least a score draw, he received a perfect pass through the centre.  He skipped past a defender and there was no-one between him and the goal except the keeper and with a neat piece of footwork he side-stepped him and now there was an empty goal in front of him.  He missed!

Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you.  'Roman the Imbecile' paid the Yanks £50 million for him.  That's £50,000,000, or, if you prefer, £25m per goal.

Oh, my God, I wept, honestly I did, I wept . . . er, with laughter, of course.

 

Rooney's ropy rug restrains him!

In keeping with the old-established tradition of this blog I give you yet another incomprehensible title to a post complete with the sort of first rate alliteration you have grown to appreciate here at D&N - er, you do appreciate it, don't you?  Good!  Perhaps some of my English readers will pick up my allusion but happily it will be quite beyond my foreign readers who, and one feels their pain, are unable to watch English Premier League 'footie'. 

Today, I watched (thanks, 'Rupe'!) the Charity Shield match (or whatever they call it these days) which is normally classed as a 'friendly' but on this occasion, given that it was between the two Manchester teams, United and City, it was anything but friendly.  For those who consider ignorance of all 'footie' matters to be bliss, let me tell you that United are the old warriors of our national game.  Led by the redoubtable Sir Alex 'the red-nosed, wasp-chewing' Ferguson, this team seems to go on and on and on under his canny leadership. 

 Photo from TalkSport

Last year's team was considered by the experts to be short of top rate and certainly not up at the level of the supreme teams of yesteryear - and yet they still won the Premiership!  It's true that they lost the European championship to Barcelona but even so, they still made it to the final.

 The other half of Manchester is comprised of the City team, for years the poor relations, looked on with pitying contempt by the United fans.  But two or three years ago they found a fairy godmother in the form of some Arab sheik with 'gazillions' of oil money and, like so many rich, shrewd men, totally besotted with 'footie'.  He bought the team and has poured money into it as fast as the oil revenues have poured into his coffers.  In terms of money spent on players, City is far and away the richest team on the planet.  But of course, having a dressing-room full of the most brilliant players money can buy does not a championship team make!  The proof of that was demonstrated today when, in the first half, United had the run of the game but went in a surprising two-nil down at half-time.  In the second half, however, United inexorably turned the screw, scoring once, twice and then, finally, a third time to win the game.  And this is with a team which had a judicious mixture of old, tried and tested United players laced with a bubbling mix of youngsters - many of them British (hoorah!) - all of whom cost a fraction of City's priceless jewels.

I really do think that the old 'wasp-chewer' has done it again.  I think this new, young United side has the makings of becoming one of the great Manchester United sides of all time.  (And, coming from me with my microscopic knowledge of the game, if that doesn't see them relegated next year, nothing will!)  Of course, and to explain my heading (no pun intended), all eyes were on Wayne Rooney's new 'rug'.  As all true 'footie' fans do know, Wayne's hair is, shall we say, thin - no, not thin, let's face it, he was well on his way to being a slap head!  But, no doubt under the instructions of dear Coleen, his wife, he has undergone a 'stitch-up' in which, apparently, they actually weave a new rug onto your bald bonce!  Courtesy of The Mail I can show you this photo. 

I'm sure the weavers did a good job, after all, wasn't weaving one of the mainstay industries of Manchester back in the 19th century?  But alas, when you are born as ugly as 'our Wayne' you could slap some mink fur on his napper and he still isn't going to give George Clooney any sleepless nights!  Actually, today his rug had grown a bit and it did look better than this photo of a few months ago.  Even so, he didn't play particularly well today and one wonders if perhaps the growth of new hair has sapped his strength.

Anyway, next week the season starts again, and once again the 'Memsahib' and I will inhabit separate rooms several evenings a week.

 

Very 'Worthy Oriental Gentlemen', all of them!

I refer to the Indian cricket team who yesterday reminded all of us English that the spirit of cricket is alive and well even if nowadays it lives only in India.  Of course, I risk censure from the 'sillies' who will pounce upon the oft-used acronym in my title, WOG, and accuse me of racism.  There's no helping such bigots but just let me stress that I use the term 'Worthy Oriental Gentlemen' in its exact and precise meaning with emphasis as indicated by my italics.

For the benfit of my foreign readers let me explain that in yesterday's Test match, one of our English batsmen made a silly but easily committed mistake.  Off the last ball before tea, his partner hit the ball towards the boundary and to all intents and purposes it crossed the line.  Only later TV footage showed that a diving Indian fielder had accidentally blocked it with his flailing leg in his effort to stop the ball.  He, himself, thought the ball had crossed the line and tossed it back casually to his team-mates at the wicket.  Meanwhile, one of the English batsman, thinking the ball was dead, simply shouldered his bat, left his crease and strolled off with his partner for tea.  But the ball was not dead and one of the Indian cricketers tapped the bails off and appealed for an 'out'.  Much huffin' and puffin' from the umpires who, after examination of the TV record, upheld the appeal and the batsman was given 'out'.  Cue massive booing from the crowd as the Indians left the field.  During the interval a polite request from the English coach and captain was considered by the whole Indian team and they decided to withdraw their appeal so that the batsman could continue to play.  The boos which greeted the Indian team as they returned to the field withered into embarrassed silence when the original batsmen was seen to return to the wicket.

The chances of an English team, consisting as it appears to do of mostly 'yobs' and 'grunts', behaving with a similar spirit of sportsmanship are vanishingly tiny.  As for the Australians, they would bust a gut laughing at the very idea!  Personally, I cannot remember the last time I heard such excellently good news on the sporting front for years.  So well done the WOGs who might lose the match but will have won the spirit of the game.

Now, there is only one way to finish this post, with a nice dollop of Sir Henry John Newbolt, 6 June 1862 – 19 April 1938:

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night

Ten to make and the match to win

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play, and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat.

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,

But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red -

Red with the wreck of a square that broke

The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed its banks,

And England's far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks -

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the school is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind -

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

I shall be cheering for India during the remainder of this Test series!

 

And another thing, 'Dave', about my Happiness Index . . .

On this, the first day of a twelve month countdown to the £9bn (and counting) Olympics could you and your minions please - STFU!  Every time I am reminded of that £9bn my Happiness Index sinks faster than the Titanic.  In fact, if you really want to know, it reaches the 'I Hate Those Sodding Politicians Trying To Bribe Me With Bread And Circuses With My Own Money And I'll Never Vote For Any Of Them Ever Again' level.  In fact, the next step in my spiralling un-Happiness Index is a resort to direct action.  I will personally lead tens of thousands of people up to Stonehenge where I will organise a mass rain dance which will result next year in the wettest August since records began.  We will be praying in aid of huge winds which, if there is a God, will blow out that wretched Olympic torch.  I will be making a personal appeal to my very dear friend Bob Crow (sorry, what did you say?) of the RMT Union and I feel sure that he will look kindly on my suggestion that he brings London transport to a complete halt, and in return I will never be rude about him earning gazzillions whilst living in a council house and ignoring the queue of poor people on the waiting list - it's the least he deserves!  I had planned to infiltrate my man into the drug testing organisation to spike all the test samples but I have it on very good authority that such a task is unnecessary these days, there being so many weird substances floating around those samples that the operators have to wear bio-nuclear suits!  My other good mate, 'Arfur' Daly, is poised to flood the country with phoney tickets which, with a bit of luck, will cause riots at the turnstiles.

Still, 'Dave', on the up-side, and I know you care deeply, I can tell you that if all that comes off according to plan, my Happiness Index will go through the roof.  In the meantime, remember this from another 'Grumpy Old Man':

I will do such things,

What they are yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth.      

                                                                         

The 'Torpor de France'

Is there any sport more utterly, completely, eye-stabbingly tedious than the Tour de France?  Swimming comes close because, although it is a race, you can't really see the racers only their flailing arms.  Darts is utterly yawn-inducing, but then, I don't really think of it as a sport.  American football appears to be 95% stop and only 5% start - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!  Basketball is rather like one of those post-modernist plays during which you could enter or leave and then re-enter at any point in the production and find exactly the same thing going on.  Also, any sport that can have mutual 'goal' scores in the hundreds is obviously both too easy and too boring. 

But returning, reluctantly, to the Tour de France I have to ask if there is anyone who understands it?  All those different coloured jerseys they dish out for totally obscure reasons, does anyone know why and does anyone care?  Well, my e-pal e-aquaintance, Bryan (a hopeless old Leftie and I don't think he likes me very much, can't think why) over at Why Now, provides constant reports on the race but alas, I never quite finish reading them before my eyelids flutter shut.  Mind you, he is equally fascinated with sleigh races across Canada using huskies.  I mean, I would pay good money never, ever, to attend one of those!  Don't misunderstand, I do recognise and admire the physical and mental stamina those cyclists require but even so, one is entitled to ask, when they have finished huffing and puffing their way round France, what is the point?

Now, if you want a really exciting sport there's always beach volleyball which, in my list of favourite sports spectating, ranks next to ladies wrestling in mud.  And no, I don't understand the rules of either and who the hell cares anyway?!

 

On golf: don't worry I'm not going to bore you rigid with how I missed the putt on the 13th!

Anyway, I couldn't bore you about my golf game even if I wanted to because my 'golf career', for want of a better expression, lasted, from beginning to ignominious end, exactly seven holes!  Even so, today I will, so to speak, 'carry the bag' for Bernie Reeves who in an essay in The American Thinker offers a fascinating side-glance at one particular aspect of the game.  I don't know about you but I rather like that big, bluff Ulsterman, Darren Clark, who won The Open last week.  (Note to to the uninitiated: it is not called the 'British' Open because we invented the game and were the first to have an open championship and so, unlike the late-comers to the game, we do not have to designate it, so yah-boo-sucks to all you Yanks who think you invented everything!)  Where was I?  Oh yes, Darren Clark who celebrated his win in true Ulster-style by staying up all night drinking pints of Guinness with his mates and then appeared on morning media interviews sounding, shall we say, slightly bemused!

What I didn't know, but Mr. Reeves tells us in his excellent article , is that as a young man of 18, Clark was offered a scholorship to Wake Forest University in North Carolina and invited to be a member of their very prestigious golf team which received the very best in detailed coaching.  Clark left after a month!  Missed his mum and dad, think you?  Wrong!  He couldn't stand the draconian, verging on totalitarian, American drinking laws which bring down severe penalties on the heads of youngsters under the age of 21 who are caught drinking by police forces all over 'The Land of the Free' who see this, much as our equivalents 'over here' see the speeding laws, as an easy way to throw their weight around and fool everyone into thinking they're doing a good job.

The other factor that drove Clark back to Britain was the anti-smoking regime at Wake Forest University which, had he been caught taking a crafty drag (as he did throughout his winning rounds at The Open) he would have suffered immediate dismissal from the golf team.  Needless to say I wouldn't be 'Boring for Britain' on this abstruse subject if there wasn't a truly delicious, mouth-watering dollop of irony on offer.  You see, Wake Forest University only exists in its present splendour due to the generosity of the Reynolds family - yes, that's right, R. J. Reynolds, perhaps the biggest tobacco company in the world!  Now, if that isn't worth a triple Whaa-Whaa-Whaa of a whinny, then nothing is.

Never mind the circus, give me some bread!

I just heard a snippet of news.  That grossly over-hyped, over-budget and over here circus otherwise known as the Olympic Games is going to open with - wait for it - women's football!  That just about sums up the utter futility of the whole ridiculous exercise in which our druggies will attempt to beat their druggies whilst we will pay, and keep on paying for years, for the pleasure of it, that is, if anyone can find a single grain of pleasure anywhere.  Well, I suppose, grudgingly, there might be a snigger or two to be had from watching synchronized swimming, arguably the daftest 'sport' ever invented.  And to be fair, there might be Brazilian-style ladies' volley-ball in the programme somewhere and that will keep me up - if you'll excuse the expression!  Come on, Boris, do us all a favour and cancel the bloody thing!

Their Djok beat our Jock - thank God!

I'm not good at moral dilemmas, they confuse me, I become all cack-handed, you know, on the one hand but there again on the other hand and when you think about it - and at that point I need another hand and so I end up giving a hopeless shrug.  All of which leads me to expelling an almighty sigh of relief that Djokovich beat Murray in the final of the Australian tennis championship.  After all, just consider if Murray had won!  How would I pin - and hold - the false smile of congratulation on my face?  I mean, dammit, he's a Brit and I jolly well know that I should be cheering him on because it has been nearly 75 years since a Brit won a Grand Slam.  But unfortunately he is also, and here I must be honest, a totally miserable, monosyllabic, Jock grunt of the sort one would make considerable efforts not to sit next to on a long-haul flight, or even a 10p bus-ride.  Well, I suppose his Mum loves him - actually, now I think of it, having seen her antics at various tennis matches it might be that she loves him too much.  The normally sensible Matthew Norman went awry yesterday in The Telegraph:

Everyone will realise that the courtside passion of Andy's mum Judy is a refreshing change from the glacial aloofness of the Henman Parents.

No it's jolly well not!  In her enthusiasm she resembles a Celtic/Rangers (you choose) footie fan screeching her side on to a win.  I always enjoyed and admired Henman, père et mère, as, on those odd occasions when 'Timmy' actually managed to beat some ghastly foreigner they applauded to a strict ration, four claps from him and three from her.  Proper English reserve, that!

Anyway, Andrew, old chap, ooops, sorry, I mean, 'Andy', what can I say?  Except possibly that you deserve congratulations for dutifully upholding a very fine, old, revered, British tradition - losing!  Ouch!  Sorry, Mrs. Murray, did I say say something  . . . ?

 

I WANT to be offended, it's my right, innit?

And so the tiniest, micro-story of the last 10 years - oh, alright then, the last 20 years - rumbles and bumbles its way on and on through the headlines.  A pair of TV commentators said rude, disparaging things about girlies in football. Cue all-round 'Shlock-Horror', fainting feminists and outraged girlie-men hitting their TVs with their handbags, I'm just amazed it didn't come up at Question Time given that it is, according to the language commissars, a matter likely to shake the pillars of society.

Look, I want to be offended!  It would help me to believe that we do actually live in a society that values free speech.  It is now clear beyond any doubt that we do not.  These days, if anyone is offended, or to be precise, if anyone considered to be under the patronage of, say, The Guardian, The BBC, Sami Chakrabarti, and their ilk, is offended then you can expect a ton of smelly stuff to hit the fan.  If, however, you are a Christian, a Jew, a Tory or, my dear don't even look, a footie-man, then you can expect no defence whatsoever.  For example, has The Guardian begun a campaign against the Metropolitan Police for their failure to investigate the, presumably, illegal taping of people's private conversations? You will have to tell me because I cannot bring myself to look at the wretched rag.  I may well drop dead with shock if they have - so there's an inducement for you to find out!

I suppose I should make clear my own opinion on the particular matter.  I think the two men concerned are a pair of right pillocks who deserve some criticism but neither of them deserves to lose his livelihood over it.  Equally, I believe that if most footie fans would prefer women to be kept out of any active part in their game they should be free to arrange matters to their own choice.

It would not do to end a post on giving offence without offending somebody, so let me say, loud and clear, that all the 'wimmin' on Labour's front bench are stupid, ugly, old cows!  Mind you, to be fair, so are most of the men on the Tory frontbench!

 

Sexism in footie! Who'da thunk it?

Look at that twatish linesman, I muttered to myself yesterday, as I watched the match of the day, fancy wearing a long pony-tail like that, makes him look a proper cissy!  Then I looked again, and in an instant, yet another tiny part of my world shrivelled, was consumed and then deposited in the memory-bin of history - he, er, she was a woman - a woman officiating at a footie match!

Photo courtesy of The Mail

Needless to say, in what I can only describe as a typically sly, underhand, feminine way, when faced with a tricky off-side ruling - she got it right, dammit!  That's the trouble with women, they do have this irritating knack of being right, blast them!  Even so, what on earth was she doing there in the first place?  I mean (and, yes, you can hear the whine in my words), women have their own footie teams and jolly boring they are, too, from the little I have seen, so why must we have female officials at men's matches?  To paraphrase an old saying, rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen, and footie is a gentleman's game played by ruffians - think Wayne Rooney - yes, quite so!  It is one of the minor pleasures of footie to see Mr. Rooney berate an official for giving what Mr. Rooney thinks is a wrong decision.  His ugly, brutish, whiskery face is placed approximately 1.3 inches from the tip of the official's nose and a stream of consciousness, of which the late Mr. James Joyce would have been proud, is emitted at full volume.  The essence of Mr. Rooney's message could be said in seconds but it tends to run to minutes because every other word is an expletive.  The pleasure to the viewer, well, this viewer at any rate, is the warm feeling of condescension which follows, so that we can say to ourselves, yes, he might earn three times my annual income every week but the fella's obviously a yob and an oaf and that makes me feel better about myself.  Pitiful, I know, but there it is.  Now, if we have lady officials even yobs like Rooney will be forced to mind their manners and that will be one more minor pleasure removed from my dismal life.

Please don't misunderstand, I've got nothing against women but would you want your sister to marry one - ooops, that doesn't quite work - what I meant was that I really like women, in fact, I prefer the company of women to that of men, which is why I loathe stag nights.  Even so, there is a time and a place, and a footie field is not the place at any time . . . hang on a minute . . . what was that? . . .  oh, yes dear, I've nearly finished . . . no dear, you don't want to read it . . .  yes, dear, I'm just coming . . . sorry, must go . . .  my own particular ref has just blown the whistle and there's definitely no arguing with her!

 

Has Wenger finally given up wanking?

Oh dear, my titles are beginning to sink to new levels of witless crudity and soon my intelligent readers will depart leaving only the grunt-snufflers who, like me, cannot resist a snigger at any example of rudery however impoverished.  On top of that, of course, is the fact that the name of Arsene Wenger will mean nothing to the ladies or to my foreign readers.  In fact, now that I come to consider it I am beginning to realise that this entire post is a complete waste of time.  I blame those kids from the Trot-lot creche who invaded these hallowed halls last month for the rapid deterioration of the usually high-minded posts you have grown to expect here at D&N - er, you do expect them, don't you?

Anyway, I've started so I had better finish.  For the benefit of non-footie fans everywhere, Arsene Wenger is the manager of Arsenal Football Club known colloquially, as you would expect from their name, as 'The Gunners'.  He is a long, tall streak of Gallic vinegar with a perpetual frown and is renowned throughout these Isles for his inability to see his players execute a foul immediately in front of him but can spot one done by the opposition at the far end of the pitch on a foggy night - at which point, like an old diesel Citroen trying to climb a hill he goes into a long-drawn-out whine in heavily accented 'Franglais'.  Well, football managers are all blessedly eccentric and sometimes it is useful because one becomes desperate for some amusement because the 'footie' is frequently eye-ball-stabbingly tedious.  Even so, it must be admitted that 'our Arsene' has taught his lads to play some very pretty football and for that we should be grateful.  However, they do have tendency to show off their clever and delightful inter-passing abilities to such an extent that they forget that the aim of the game is to score a goal!  Other 'footie' managers, usually the brutes emanating from the Celtic fringe who lack Arsene's French sophistication, not least because they couldn't even spell it let alone understand it, have come up with 'a cunning plan'.  They tell their players to forget about all that kicking the ball stuff and instead to just concentrate on kicking the Arsenal players!  Because the other teams are usually nowhere near as skillful as 'The Gunners', and because an opposition footballer is a much bigger target than that silly, little ball, they actually manage to hit quite a few of them where it hurts.  This sends Wenger off into another Gallic whine that sounds like the start of the Monaco Grand Prix.

All of that tedious junk is by way of introducing the fact that I have just finished watching Wenger's little lads play Manchester City.  Again, for the benefit of the unpersons who do not care for 'footie', this is, or rather, was, the poor team of Manchester; the famous one being 'United', of course, known the world over for players who dominate the world of after-shave lotion advertising which adds yet more millions to their millionaire salaries.  However, 'City' have just been bought by a rich Arab - I use the phrase 'a rich Arab' in an amusingly, ironic and deprecating way that you would expect from a cool dude like me because what I ought to write is that this particular Arab is so stinking, filthy rich he could fill all the swimming pools in Hollywood with gold bars and still be the richest man since Croesus!  Anyway, City played Arsenal tonight and for the first time Wenger was, so to speak, out-wanked.  This is because the City manager is an Italian, Mantovani, oops, sorry, Mancini.  As such, he follows in the Italian 'footie' tradition of wanking which is somewhat different from Wenger's French habit.  Mancini simply stacks his defence like a platoon of Guardsmen and dares the other side to try and get through.  Watching his team play is like watching the grass grow except that Premier League pitches are mostly artificial grass and it never grows!  Even so, this provoked 'Prof.' Wenger to emulate Gen. Joffre and urge his troops to attack, and attack, and attack again.  I have never seen such sustained aggression from his pretty lads, they really went for it.  Of course, they didn't actually score, any more than 'City' did, but still, it was a superb display of excellent football and only the drab Mr. 'Mancunini' and his grunts spoiled it.

Mind you, with this huge influx of European, and mainly Mediterranean European, football players that we have seen over recent years, there is a new sub-competition to enjoy.  In tonight's game there was a 'handbags-at-dawn' confrontation between two of them which ended with both of them leaning their foreheads against each other rather like the stags in Windsor Great Park when the rutting season is upon them. That was Act I of the Opera Buffa which was about to unfold.  Act II involved the ref showing them both a red card and sending them off.  The finale and the highlight of the evening was the sight of the ref being surrounded by a motley collection of 'mediterranies' all shrugging with huge class and versatility.  Shrugging is a habit Brit 'footie' practitioners have not yet mastered, they confine their communications to enormous gobbets of spit which they can eject at high speed and which is deadly accurate up to 10 yards.  But these gallant Euro chappies can shrug like maestros, their shoulders coming up higher than the top of their heads, their hands, palms facing upwards, coming level with their ears, and their expressions of utterly innocent bewilderment at this cruel and unusual punishment is deeply touching and you would need a heart of stone not to cry with laughter!

Well, that's the end of this particularly silly post.  Wish I 'd never started it now.  Oh well . . . I'm off to bed now - because I go swimming every morning - oh yes I do - and I go really, really early - even through this freezing weather  - God I'm good!

 

In which I express all of my sympathy to the Aussie cricket team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Heh-heh-heh!)

 

I bring you tidings of comfort and joy . . .

. . . Australia all out for 98 . . . (YEEES!) . . . and England 157 for no wickets!  In line with our strictly neutral approach to news and, of course, our innate good manners this blog will refrain from remarks aimed at our Australian 'cousins' like, 'why not try American rounders?' or 'good job you hand-picked a pitch favouring the home side' or 'the only ashes you're likely to see are the ashes of Ricky Ponting's career', and similar jibes and jests which are entirely against the spirit of the game.  Also it should be stated clearly, lest past remarks by this blog are taken out of context and twisted against us, that we here at D&N never doubted for a moment that our brave South African English lads would come good and that the description of them as 'a bunch of tossers' was a reference to an obscure cricketing term.

Now, is there any champagne left over from yesterday  . . . ?

 

Aussies thrash England by 267 runs

This blog has now suffered a complete nervous collapse requiring bed rest and a constant intake of fluids beginning with tea but ending with Scottish 'water'.  According to the experts, the English batsmen are incapapble of batting on anything that fails to resemble a billiards table.  The word is that the Aussies are planning on moving the wicket at the next ground to an area that has not been so well prepared allowing the ball to bounce around as though it were on a trampoline.  This is precisely the sort of dastardly, under-handed trickery we have come to expect from those ex-convicts.  Choosing a wicket to suit your own home team is frightfully un-English and rumours to the effect that we use pile-drivers to flatten our pitches is simply scurrilous gossip put about by Aussie malcontents.  I understand Ponting has broken his finger, pity it wasn't his arm!  Bad loser?  Moi?

(More tea, nursy, quick!)

England bowled out for 187 - useless tossers!

 

This blog has officially thrown a tantrum and returned to bed in a near terminal sulk!

Additional:  But Ponting's out for 1, so this blog, with tremendous bravery is fighting off its depression and has now risen from its bed.

Do the Qatari Muslims know what's coming?

Look, don't blame me for printing pictures of all these half-naked, beautiful, lady 'footie' fans, blame those rascals at I Hate The Media.  I had intended to write one of my usual, highly intellectual posts on the coming clash of civilisations when 'footie' fans in their hundreds of thousands arrive in strictly Muslim Qatar.  Of course, being an old-fashioned British gentleman I had intended to illustrate it with some suitable examples photographed at places like the Kop End, you know, big hairy men covered in tattoos with XXXL bellies bulging through their string vests looking for someone to punch as they sink their tenth can of lager and England, in their usual finest tradition,  go out in the first round.  However, because of all that global warming it's freezing cold today, as it has been for the last 14 days and is forecast to be for the next 14 days, and these young 'gals' give me a rather nice warm feeling.  I apologise to my lady readers for not producing a picture of a nice hunky-looking male 'footie' fan but be fair, when have you ever seen one?

 

Well done, ladies, I'm sure the immams of Qatar can hardly wait to see you all!

 

An absolutely gloat free post - no, honestly . . .

"England thrash Australia by an innings and 71 runs to win the second Test in Adelaide and take a 1-0 lead in the Ashes."

I feel your pain, Australia, no, really I do.

If only we had Donald Bell of Bradford Park Avenue Football Club

He was the sort of footballing chap you need when you're 20-2 down, as we were yesterday, and only ten minutes to go!  Faced with similar odds against him during the Battle of the Somme and in the face of an obdurate enemy, Lt. Donald Bell of the Green Howards and a former professional 'footie' player, charged across no-man's-land pausing only to throw a hand-grenade from 20 yards (his throw-ins, I suspect, were legendary) with such accuracy that he destroyed a machine-gun post, he then went on, single-handedly, to kill 50 of the enemy, capture the trench and take 143 prisoners!

He wrote to his mother two days later: ‘I must confess it was the biggest fluke alive and I did nothing. I only chucked one bomb but it did the trick... my athletics came in handy this trip.’

He was awarded the Victoria Cross but within 5 days he was killed in action.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333094/Victoria-Cross-medal-awarded-football-hero.html#ixzz172u4Dvun