..she forgot to mention her love of Greece and in particular its money.

Lots of good comments about my girlfriend’s chest, though. (I hope it was just the design of the shirt the boys were looking at.)

The T-shirts are working ! (Not to mention the chest.)

(How you getting on with Seb Coe‘s  third ballot ticketing arrangement, then?)

The reason for my drive was to visit one of the few hospitals in the South East I hadn’t been to in the past  6 months. This one was in High Wycombe in …er…Oxfordshire, I guess and the Incumbent and I drove there this morning with all speed. To cut a long story short we ended up in a car park of the ironically entitled Eden shopping centre which was near to the hospital, but closer to a coffee bar which, after 90 minutes on the M25 at Warp Factor 7, you need the services of. I’m no theologian (no, I’m not, honestly) but I suspect when Adam and Eve were in their Eden it didn’t resemble the half-finished set of the Blade Runner remake, nor were they sat on a bench, sipping on their lattes watching the local hooker sort out her diary appointments in between flicking lumps of yet-to-be indentified remnants from her “mink” (probably cat) coat.

As an aside, on the drive up we were surprised to hear an advert in the radio for the Radio 2 Young Brass Award 2012. I didn’t realise they held competition for Brasses nowadays, especially on Her Majesty’s BBC. How things have progressed ! Our girl in the coffee bar was not in the final line-up, but with hard work I’m sure …etc…etc

Not seen in High Wycombe today. Not by us, anyway.

But that’s by-the-by. As we gingerly made our way through the Droogs of Wycombe to the hospital, we wondered if we’d ever see our car again. At least in one piece, complete with glass surround and the traditional tyre in each corner. I really didn’t fancy leaving it all alone for very long here, in this homage d’Homs. I wouldn’t do it in downtown Dartford, and I didn’t wanna do it here. I wouldn’t send my ex wife in there.

For better or worse, the appointment with the doc lasted 1 minute, 17 secs. If I knew then what I know now – that I’d spend over 5 hours on the road for less than two minutes consultation, I might have lost my typically jolly demeanour.

So, as they say in all great holiday itineraries, we had the rest of the day to ourselves. Well, to ourselves along with the multitude of motor vehicles running the gauntlet of the M40, the Marylebone Road and all routes South East. There were only about a million of us. None of us managed a speed about 5 mph. Talk about Falling Down.

The radio was our only escape from this misery. Or so I had hoped. You can probably and rightly surmise that I don’t listen to what da kids are calling popular jazz combos, daddy-o very often, but I am not as out of touch, nor tune, as you might think. That big lass from Tottenham certainly can knock out a tune, no mistake – I just wish she’d keep her embarrassing North London quips to herself (I still shudder when I think of her outburst at The Grammys). But that aside, I had no hesitation to believe she was well worth all the gongs she’s been picking up recently. I just hadn’t understood what a shoe-in she really was.

Hour upon hours of music was played , and a lot of it was sung by Adele, but every so often there was another announced “Brit Nominee” or “Grammy runner up” and what a load of old tosh it was. That young ginger bloke with the guitar (it’ll come to me in a minute) is ok, but that’s my point: he’s OK, nothing memorable.  (yes yes yes, I do sound like my dad). Then there’s Rihanna, a warbless who is perfectly fine, even if she does sound like any other artist of her gender from wither side of the pond for the last 25 years. It puts it into perspective how good, strong, special Adele really is. In-the-land-of-the-blind-the-one-eyed-man-is-king sorta thing.

Ed Sheeran. There ! I knew I’d get there in the end. Ed Sheeran’s the ginger bloke !

A lot of this was lost on me last week in the noise surrounding the death of Whitney Houston. I’m not in the habit of speaking ill of the dead for the sake of speaking ill of the dead. No I’m not. However, as sad as I’m sure here demise is and was, I was never a big fan. I’d go so far to say that her brutal treatment of George Benson’s The Greatest Love of All and Dolly’s I will Always Love You needed some serious scrutinizing by someone in the Hague, but that’s just my opinion. I suspect she was as popular as she was because she was a one off (no argument with me there) which is more than you can say about some of the woeful talent picking up the silverware this and last week.

Maybe I shouldn’t be listening to this Radio show ? Maybe I should stick to talk radio where there’s always a good argument taking place. But I hate phone-ins. I hate the public, you see. I always end up veering off the road as I sink my teeth into the steering wheel while listening to Jon Gaunt or Vanessa Feltz opine about some subject close to their hearts (it’s normally ‘chuck the immigrants out’ or ‘scrounging single mums’). How do these people get a job? Vanessa Feltz as a Radio Host ?? Ludicrous.

Why stop there ? We could have former pro boxer , current amateur pugilist and now fugitive from police David Haye presenting Antiques Roadshow; Toby Young as the Political Editor of the Sunday Sun (it would need to be a Murdoch paper, of course); or former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe given her own quiz show on some Murdoch tv station?

Too late, I’m afraid. The last two suggestions are now a reality. Honest. Only Haye is not working somewhere he shouldn’t be, waiting as he is for Fiona Bruce to throw a 7 and let him in. Toby Young is indeed going to be the News of The Sunday Sun Political guru and Widdecombe hosts “Cleverdicks” on Sky . You couldn’t make it up.

Well I couldn’t : I’m far too tired. Good Night.

But what if one of the most evil and vile of all football teams goes into administration? What if a side disappear which has harboured and promoted sectarianism, (along with the other lot), succoured and supported everything that is nasty and abhorrent in football and in British society ? How do we feel if they go to the wall ? Happy ? Perhaps. Good bloody riddance to them ? Maybe.

But , in truth, they won’t be going anywhere. They will immediately be docked 10 points for going into administration which will take the club from 2nd place in the league down to …er…2nd place in the league. That’s how far the top 2 are ahead of the chasing pack. (if you take 10 points off them right now, they’ll still be 9 points ahead of third place, such is the joke of the pointless Scottish Football set up).

So they won’t win the league this year, but they probably wasn’t going to anyway. That bunch of bigots from the other side of the tracks are 4 points clear anyway and look set fair to win it. Again. Rampant sectarianism and bigotry aside, (and, no it hasn’t or ever will go away from the Auld Firm) can you be forgiven for feeling sorry for Rangers getting themselves into so much trouble ? Spending more than they could justify in the never-ending effort to beat rivals Glasgow Celtic and win at least one match against European oppo each year ? Shouldn’t we say “oh fuck ‘em” and be done with it ?

But what about all the little people behind the scenes who make the club tick, who rely on the club for their wages, the income from the fans on a Saturday, the club shop and the local Union Jack supplier ? They can’t all be Unionist Nutters, can they ? Then again, without Rangers, what’s the point of Celtic ? If Alec Salmond gets his way, there’ll be no hopping over the border for a kick about in the English Premier League so the Bhoys will be left with a dull Saturday at ForfarfiveFifefour Academicals, or a wet Wednesday night playing Partick Thistlenil. That’s no existance for anyone.

But doubtless the Gers will return next season, just with cheaper flags and one or two fewer bowler hats. The two teams will spend the next millenia hurling abuse at each other, punctuated only by a football match breaking out occasionally (well, 4 times a year, if you don’t mind, excluding cup matches) because if this isn’t allowed to happen, scottish football will go the same way its rugby went – bereft of fans or supporters, with the authorities having to give away tickets to primary schools to foster the illusion that people actually want to turn up to watch this shite. So we have to hope the industry that is Rangers FC survives. I know, I can’t believe I’m writing it either.

Meanwhile, another bunch of hard-nosed bastards face extinction and extermination. The poor old tabloid journalist is under the cosh and he does not like it. Trevor Kavanagh, Associate editor of The Sun attacked the arrests of his colleagues by police as “heavy handed” and a “witch hunt” and “disproportionate”. And he would know. If there was ever a witch hunt which could be described as heavy handed and disproportionate look no further than the Joanna Yeates murder investigation, when the paper (among others) hounded and publicly hung Christopher Jefferies for the woman’s killing. According to the paper this was an open-and-shut case of a beardy-wierdy attacking and killing a young blonde luvverly. (And thank fuck she was blonde and luvverly or we’d have never read a word of it).

The paper (manfully aided and abetted by the Mirror and the Mail) were judge, jury and executioner on this case, just one of the many, many occasions where a private individual was hounded out of house and home because a hack didn’t like the cut of his jib. Will anybody shed a tear for these reptiles who have made so many lives a misery ? Probably not. I dunno why these blokes are worrying about anyway. If they’d read their own copy over the years they’d realise that prison is like a holiday camp and that it’s better on the inside than it is out.

But Kavanagh does point out that an example seems to being made of the Sun. Well, that’s as may be. It does help, of course, that my former employers over at News International (d’you know ? I miss them more than ever at the moment) seem hell bent on shopping anyone and everyone that’s come within a gnat’s chuff of this story, just as long as Rupe, James and Rebekah are spared the ignominy of a 4 o’clock wakey wakey call. But all this certainly seems to be buying Trinity Mirror and Associated Newspapers enough time to nip down to Staples and order another half dozen shredders before the rozzers arrive. Trevor is right that, at the moment, it seems like the only crooks in town are Sun journos.

But what of the arresting officers ? Have we forgotten that the coppers waking up shagging Sun journos in the early hours are working for the force which is the other half of the same mucky coin. There are far more bent coppers being questioned and suspended on Operation Fuck They’ve Caught Us Out than anyone imagined – an early indication of the Met Police’s  “Buy One Get One Free” policy, available to all good news outlets up until very recently.

So we have bent coppers arresting bent journos. Now it depends on which side of the fence you sit, but corrupt state law enforcers against privately paid operators carrying out the orders of their superiors ? It’s a tough one, innit ? Rangers or Celtic ?

In a final oddity, Sean Penn has come out on the side or Argentina in the Falklands row. Now then, that’s a teaser. If you were judging Sean on Shanghai Surprise I may be shouting GOTCHA! from the rooftops. As it is, his role as Harvey Milk has saved him in my eyes, so Viva Las Malvinas it is. And if settling a major political military crisis by judging a man’s filmography isn’t the way forward, then I don’t know what is.

Related articles

• Glasgow Rangers FC Goes Into Administration (news.sky.com)
• Rangers’ demise might not be such a bad thing | Mike Small (guardian.co.uk)

This may be the coolest man with the coolest dogs in the world.

It’s not been football’s, or indeed sport’s, finest few weeks.  On the down-side, England lost another manager; there was more racism in football, more spear tackling in rugby; England’s cricketers get slaughtered by a team who’ve decided to quit throwing matches. In something called Tennis, GB take on the might of Slovakia. SLOVAKIA. Oh and there has been two dreadful performances by the English Rugby team. They throw Dwarves better than they throw a rugby ball.

On the up-side, Fabian Capellard’s resignation distracts us from the one question which everyone would have, wants to but now can’t ask: “How the fuck did Harry get off those charges ???” As Hugh Lawrie might have put it: “He’s as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile of poo!” No matter, let’s have blanket coverage on how we can persuade the former ‘Appy ‘Ammer to take on the England Job.

Which brings us to the down-est side of all: Garth Crooks is gonna have to be on telly again. A lot. The former Spurs player and now BBC Pundit is always rolled out when a topic is deemed serious-enough to fit Garth’s very very worthy and intense questioning style (“This was…clearly… the result you wanted,… wasn’t it?”- he once asked a Dutch manager after his side had beaten Denmark)

Yes, as you can see above, Garth really does think that the world hangs on his every word. The BBC certainly do because he’s been using that supercilious tone all week while talking about and to ‘Arry about the England post. The tv bosses clearly hang on his every word cos he’s on every bloody minute, every sports magazine program that feels it needs some gravitas added to the discussion.

For those lucky sods who can’t quite imagine just how self-important Garth is, envisage a combination of Dianne Abbot, Colin Montgomery, Deborah Meaden (apologies if the last two turn out to be one-and-the-same-person), Derek Hatton, Claire Balding, Tony Pulis, Chris Eubank, Cherie Blair, Pauyl Boateng, Simon Hughes and Johnny (Rotten) Lydon. All of the aforementioned function under the mistaken belief that we’re all on tenterhooks,awaiting their next verbal gem. Garth Crooks encapsulates them all. I’d rather listen to Former King Kenny’s blinkered opinions on Urugyuan fascists. Or watch the England Rugby Team. Er…

So we’re stuck with Garth, as he’s paid squillions to spout shite. Unlike me, who isn’t paid anything to do similar. I just do.

Tells you all you need to know about a bunch who shout “foul” if anything goes against them, on or off the pitch.  The scouser portrays himself as the put-upon underdog, and as a champion of the little guy.

Just as long as the little guy is white, I guess.