The Sharp Single

The Ed — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:43:10 +0000

Following in Daddy’s Footsteps

The Ed — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:48:27 +0000

Pastor killed in rattlesnake attack during church service

Yahoo! News – 19 hours ago

A Pentecostal pastor famed for handling snakes during church sermons has died after being bitten by a rattlesnake.

Mark “Mack” Wolford, 44, was well-known across the US state of Virginia for his lively church services, which included handling dangerous snakes in a ‘test of faith’. But the pastor died after being bitten by a rattlesnake he had owned for years, mirroring the death of his own father in 1983.

You don’t need to read any more.

A British All-Conners Record

The Ed — Thu, 31 May 2012 09:16:55 +0000

The Daily Telegraph writes:

Olympic beer to cost £7.23 a pint

By Tim Ross, Daily Telegraph Political Correspondent

Bars at the official Games venues will charge £4.80 for a small serving of London 2012 red wine. For visitors with an appetite for traditional British fare, a portion of cod and chips will set them back at least £8.

The London 2012 organisers, who published sample menus yesterday, claimed the prices were “more than comparable” to catering costs at other sporting events. An estimated 14 million meals will be served to spectators across 40 locations during the Games.

Paul Deighton, chief executive of London 2012, said the organisers had “gone to great lengths” to find “high quality, tasty food that celebrates the best of Britain”.

A 330ml bottle of Heineken lager at the Games will cost £4.20, making the equivalent price of a pint £7.23. This is more than double the national average price of £3.17 for a pint of beer.

Spectators will pay £2.10 for a toasted teacake, £2.30 for a 500ml bottle of Coca-Cola and £2 for a cup of tea. A family of four should be able to buy food and drinks for under £40, according to London 2012. “

They say this last bit without a hint of irony. That’ll be 40 quid on top of the four £450 tickets to watch 20 minutes of the 1m synchronized ping pong. But who the fuck cares any more? We let these robbers get away with it, as we string up our flags and bunting, wave our Union Jacks and remark “ooh hasn’t that nice Mr Coe got old since he took over the games ?”. Of course he looks old. So would you if you had to lug great wads of cash home every night, under the cover of darkness.

Let’s not worry about it. Let’s light up the barbies, sing God Save the Queen for the Jubilee and give thanks that in these harsh times of mass unemployment, crime and poverty, when more and more are driven to stealing to feed themselves and their families, when the southern half of continental Europe is about to go under, we still have a time and the tact to celebrate and wave at a woman who drives around in a solid gold coach.

Let’s shout “C’mon Ingerlund” as the Ukrainian and Polish Nazi Parties beat the shite out of football fans from ethnic backgrounds (well, anyone who isn’t Ukrainian or Polish really), and all this because Michel Platini and his Uefa mafia turn a blind eye to racism and violence within football culture, just as long as he gets his big bucks (or small Euros at the time of going to press). I do not have the data on the price of Heineken beer in Kiev.

Then when a football match breaks out on the pitch and our team loses we can slaughter Roy Hodgson for picking completely wrong 11 idiots, as there were 11 other idiots waiting at home in bed with their friend’s wives, trying to take their minds off of not being selected.

Lets sit back and enjoy the liars of the world: Blair, Cameron, Murdoch (+1), Hunt, Wade, Coulson and the rest of them squirm their way around the questions which would and should bring down the lot of them. But they won’t. You know they won’t. Come the end of Leveson, and save for a couple of minor-ish victims and sacrifices like Brooks and Coulson, the Murdoch Empire, the Fleet St rags and the British Government will still be in place and will still operate in exactly the same way.

Some people moan about it and sites like the one you are reading make a fuss about all this shit now and then, but it doesn’t really do anything or matter in any way shape or form, does it? If it mattered, more than 32% of the country would get out and vote these crooks, thieves and tramps out of office. If it mattered there would be a day of action against arseholes like Andrew Lansley, Michael Gove and Nick Clegg EVERY WEEK, not just once every winter equinox.

So enjoy the next few months. Don’t trip over the maypole or the bunting this weekend; when the football arrives, cheer and clap and the local police, the UEFA officials and the TV cameras ignore the Zeig Heil chants and the Nazi Salutes; smirk and laugh as one-by-one cabinet minister after cabinet minister lies his way out of court; stand and salute and sympathize with the judge trying to get to the bottom of this really sordid scandal, only to be left with the head of the odd PM spin doctor, or Eton old boy to show for it;

Wash that MacDonald’s Olympic burger down with your pint of Heineken. That’ll be well worth fifteen quid of anyone’s money. But not mine. I shall be spending the odd £2.60 on a pint in The Shovel then nip across the road to the chip shop, or maybe the kebab house where I can pick up a large meal for the price of a 330ml bottle of imported Olympic lager. Then I’ll nip home to see if there’s any cricket on to watch. There’s no telly in The Shovel, so it’ll be cans of Guinness on the sofa, in front of the box for me. So keep your over-priced games, your over-hyped jubilee, and your über-alles Championship.
I’ll keep my kebab and a pint. You have your Red-White-and-Blue season. I’ll be happy with my Doner Summer.

Have You Come Far ?

The Ed — Sun, 27 May 2012 08:13:25 +0000

Just the Ticket

The Ed — Sat, 26 May 2012 15:19:11 +0000

Because I am a wonderful son to a doting mother and father, a couple of years ago I purchased 2 tickets to the ATP tennis finals, which is held each year at the millennium bivouac. Being in the lower order of the 2nd and last innings of their lives, they are unlikely to make the trip across London to Wimbledon, and The Tent is only up the road I thought I’d buy them the chance to watch Federer, Nadal, Sour Faced Jock and the rest. They’d love it, thought I. My mum was especially looking forward to it. Being a woman she doesn’t follow real sport so it’s good to get her something she does understand and enjoy. The hairdressers and Bluewater were shut.

So I forked out the considerable sum (I told you it was a while ago) one pays for such event and secured two tickets for the opening night. On the menu was a men’s doubles game, the Scotch geezer vrs Soderling, then a mixed doubles match and lastly Rafa Nadal vrs everyone’s favourite cheating Serb, Novak Djokovic. I’d present to them the tickets, and shortly after receiving my “Son of the Year” award, I would drop mum and dad off as close to the Greenwich landmark (I was living but a couple of miles away then) go home, have a meal, watch a movie, maybe even grab a couple of zeds before it’d be time to pick up the parents again.

All went well at first. Yes, they loved the gift, and were thrilled that they were to see both Djoko and Jocko. On the day, I delivered them to as close to the gate as I could, I then drove home, shoes off and mused about what The Incumbent and I were gonna have for dinner. I suppose it would have been around 4pm. At about 6.10 my phone went. It was mum.

“We’re ready to come home now, Mike” she said.
“What ??” says I. “They can’t have finished four matches in two hours ?”
“No, we’ve been thrown out” she replied, as if that would answer all my questions.
“Thrown out ?” I couldn’t believe it. I started wondering who dad had had a row with for them to be ejected. He can be a bolshie bastard at times. Thanks god I take after mother.

Further investigation and interrogation revealed that the tickets I had bought (a snip at £80 each) were for only the first two matches of the day. “The afternoon session”. I felt such a fool. I should have known from the cheap cost of the seats that one couldn’t expect to pay a mere £160 and see a whole day’s play.

I was fuming. I cannot relay to you effectively just how angry I was. Letters and emails were sent (mum likes writing a shitty letter too) and we all vowed there and then never to darken the Dome’s door again. (I have since broken this vow about 6 times, but at the time I meant it.)

I’ve calmed down now. Really I have. I only bring up the whole sordid story as I was sent just now an email by my old pal Philip who is, shall we say a tad miffed about similar money-grabbing schemes of the water in Olympic Park (“never!” I don’t hear you cry). I’ll let Phil tell the story :

“…[there's] the shocking revelation that we have failed to buy all the tickets made available in the latest release. Apparently we have passed up on 300,000 and are no longer the greatest sports lovers on the planet. The real shock is how they are getting away with chopping up the sporting day into tiny little parcels are thereby selling the same seat 6 or 7 times a day. You can spend £450 to watch an hour and 5 minutes of moistened bints falling from the high board in the Aquatic centre.

Tuesday
31 July 2012
15:00-16:05
Diving Women’s Synchronised 10m Platform Final
Women’s Synchronised 10m Platform Victory Ceremony

Session Code: DV003 Aquatics Centre
£450.00 – AA
£295.00 – A
£185.00 – B
£95.00 – C
£50.00 – D

Or if you fancy a bit of Robin Hood at Lords you could pay £65 for a team elimination session that starts at 9 finishes at 10.40 in the morning. You’ll be back out on the pavement before the boozers have even opened.
Saturday
28 July 2012
09:00-10:40 Archery Men’s Team 1/8 Eliminations

Session Code: AR003 Lord’s Cricket Ground £65.00 – A

£45.00 – B
£30.00 – C
£20.00 – D

Un-fucking believable. Athletics is even worse – not that there are any tickets to be had for that. But if you did somehow get that Willy Wonka magic ticket you could easily get lost inside the stadium and get to your seat just in time to meet the bloke who had next use of it settling in.”

And you thought it was just me. Thanks Phil. I know somewhere you can buy a great T-shirt to make your feelings known.

In my mum and dad’s case, dad had just returned to his seat carrying two £7.50 sandwiches, where an overall-dressed worker was cleaning up and clearing away the discarded cups and wrappers from the first session.

“You might as well leave that, mate, we’re still sitting there” pater informed the cleaner.
“No, sir, you have to go now”

Oddly, an argument ensued, ending with dad attempting to insert a subway baguette into an o2 official.

I can’t understand why people get so upset.

Wallop, It’s Gone Down

The Ed — Tue, 22 May 2012 23:53:37 +0000

They don’t (or can’t) make ads like these any more

Charles and Davis at their best.

Who Dat ?

The Ed — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:53:21 +0000

You’re Going Home in a Flipping Ambulance

The Ed — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:20:34 +0000

Our Special Correspondent writes…

It can’t only be me who wondered what David Cameron was punching (or was it paunching) the air about in his dress down Turnbull & Asser alongside a young,smiling Morgan Freeman and several glum Eurocrats.

Upon further inspection,it seems the Acropolis Co-op cheque conference came to a halt as Dave’s beloved Chelsea won on Saturday. Now,of course our Dave could hardly support any other team,could he? What with his old mate the cossack yachtsman at the helm.

Apparently it was during one of the time out’s that coach Obama had called that Dave, not being able to watch,even through his caviar smeared fingers,was summoned swiftly back to the lounge bar where the footie was on.

Yessssss!! Come on you blues. Back of ones net my son!

Now,I know he’s down with the people and not a toff at all really,so he – also apparently – says “we don’t normally win a penalty shoot out against the Germans at home” What!!? Who’s he talking about. In one smooth manouevre he’s slipped into jingoese. It’s now a matter of national pride.How Blighty has given Fritz some of his own medicine. Don’t mess with us.

Light up another lardy and stroll enigmatically round the rose garden at Chartwell.Dictate another page of the memoirs. Angela was heard to splutter a “scheissen” that didn’t need trouble the translator. Damn those pesky Tommies.That Dunkirk spirit has done it again.

Hold on though. This wasn’t the bloody England team.This was a ridiculously overpaid collection of disparate foreigners,who got a win bonus bigger than my (and your) pension.

You prat Dave.

David Rapley,

The Saloon Bar

The Old Mill Hotel & Lodge

Bath

Back to you in the studio

The 92m Hurdles

The Ed — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:04:05 +0000

David Cameron‘s ~~austerity~~ ~~measures~~ savings have surely gone too far now ? According to t’BBC this morning, organisers at an Olympic warm-up event clearly decided to cut back on the amount of obstacles an athlete has to negotiate during a race:

Jessica Ennis was denied a personal best in the 100m hurdles at the Great CityGames in Manchester because only nine of the necessary 10 barriers were laid out by the organisers. The Team GB heptathlete clocked 12.75 seconds but her time does not stand.

Ennis said: “I am so annoyed. I still had a good competitive race, but I’ve just not got the result I wanted.”

Dwain Chambers finished second in the 150m, his first race since learning he can compete at London 2012 .
Ennis was delighted with her performance, but said she “can’t believe” the “massive, massive mess-up” with the number of hurdles.” (BBC ont’line)

Now I’m no great fan of Seb Coe (I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that before) but even the most one-eyed London 2012 supporter would agree with me that upsetting the golden girl of Team GB is possibly not the publicity the sport needs. Especially when all the other preparations are going so well and been received so readily and happily by the public. Apart from the ticketing fiascos. And the announcements of travel disruption. And the £1 surcharge on postage during the games. And the £95 fee for a boat trip. And…. oh you know.

So I’m looking forward to other cost-cutting measures and reduced events. I hear we stand pretty decent chances of gold in the 4×35 yards relay, the 1m Catapult, the Uniathlon (centred around the kiddies boating pond in Greenwich Park) and, of course, the 2 Day event.

And when I say Gold medals, they’ll be last year’s left over Christmas tree decorations.

Manhandled for Running near the Torch…

The Ed — Sun, 20 May 2012 12:03:42 +0000

…yet they’re gonna allow Dwain Chambers to do similar in a few weeks.