Fußball Kommt Nach Hause


Day 24 in the Why Bother House and Mike is in the diary room…

The most extraordinary news to come out of South Africa is not that we lost, not that we were given a lesson in football, not even that the world now accepts that Sepp Blatter is a git, no more qualified to run FIFA than I am to run The Smaritans. No, what is quite extraordinary is that there were no reported acts of mindless hooliganism after the match. Whether the Foreign Office and Officer Smellie successfully stopped the English Formation Garden Chair Throwing Team from traveling to the World Cup, or the Nazis of St George were simply priced out of the market is unclear.

Some have suggested the preposterous theory that our footy fans have learned to accept defeat and to respect Johnny Foreigner. Whatever the reason, it does seem rather ironic that on the night that England go down to the biggest defeat and humiliation in their World Cup history, their fans have finally stopped rearranging the furniture of the world’s bars and bistros and have started to get themselves a reputation as “true sports fans”. Who’d a thunk it? I wonder if they mastered the tune to “No Surrender to the IRA” on the Vuvuzela?

So now we enter that traditional period of mourning when the only noise to be heard is the scraping of knife sharpeners all over Fleet Street and the jingle jangle of coins in sporrans as the jocks giggle themselves silly while they revel in the Auld Enemy’s demise. And it’s a fair cop. Who but the most one-eyed of Englishmen could fail to see the humour, inevitability and justice of last night’s debacle? One Caledonian chum with understandable glee sent me this “newsflash” this morning:

“The England players’ plane home is being diverted from Heathrow to Glasgow, where they are expected to receive a heroes’ welcome”

I expect the bars of Glasgae and Embra were rammed-out last night, packed with revellers with Gorbals accents and fake German replica shirts. Inspector Smellie had seized a shedload of dodgy shirts bound for “Up the Road”, but one must assume a few got through. There’s nothing our brother fitba fans enjoy more than see the English bastards take a good shoeing (on or off the field).

Talking of shoeings, the Groinstrain Correspondents of the British press sure are giving the once great Fabio a severe pounding in the knackers this morning. How things change? Just a few months ago the back pages were gushing about this Italian genius, lauding his tactical nous and giving thanks for his not being Sven. True to form, they’ve dropped him like ‘Arry Redknapp drops ‘is aitches and will, in all probability, hound him out of office.
Fabio Capello and England’s timeline of failure. Countdown to meltdown: how it all went wrong for Capello and Co.” offers The Telegraph. “Should Fabio Capello have resigned as England manager after their defeat?” asks the Guardian.”On Your Bike, You Greasy Wop” orders the Daily Mail (I may have made one of those up). You get the picture. The bandwagon has been kick started and its springs are heaving under the weight of the Groins, itching to say “we told you so” when, in fact, they said exactly the opposite.

Why Appy Arry or Woy of the Wovers would even consider taking on the job is beyond me, but the Fourth Estate’s finest seem set on the fact that it should be one or the other. I shall send my commiserations to them now, poor sods. The first task for whoever gets the job is to send out that search party for John Terry. He went missing in the English penalty area last night and hasn’t been seen since. Whatever Fabio could be blamed for, we surely can’t take him to task for the Keystone Cops defence last night. Cole and Johnson had all the speed and acceleration of Glacial Erosion, while Terry looked like he was wearing callipers. It’s a pity Matthew Upson didn’t show up, he would have loved it. Has Gareth Barry actually lost a leg?

Once Fabio has been dealt with, the journalists will doubtless turn their attention to the team. Our Wayne, Frank, Steven etc will suddenly be dubbed “useless wankers” having been feted as Gods for years. Perhaps Theo Walcott will actually have a chance of making the squad next time ? (unless he’s burnt out by then, of course), but whatever happens, the headlines will be vicious and hurtful to several young men who only months before were, apparently, world-class.

The Colonial press, of course, take a different view. It’s not the manager’s (sorry, coach’s) fault they went out, nor do they blame the team. No, it’s the game itself which is to blame.

I guess that means the American population will retreat to the ball parks and the basketball courts, to watching The Lakers and The Cowboys, The Yankees and The Blackhawks. They can give up pretending they either understand or care about ‘soccer’ for another four years. I wish I could. Charlton Athletic are due to lose to AFC Bournemouth on August 7th. If the New York Post think it’s a stupid game, they should come down to the Valley one weekend.

We don’t know the meaning of stupid.

Hate Mail


A letter published in The Daily Mail

“Wouldn’t it be great if TV coverage of the World Cup was limited to England’s games, those of hosts South Africa and of the tournament’s ‘big guns’. Then we would be spared the ordeal of having to sit through a match between Bongo Bongoland and the Former Soviet Republic of Bulimia and other meaningless events.”
Mike Phelps
Yeovil, Somerset

Here’s hoping this was a spoof letter, but seeing how The Mail added their own little headline, one suspects someone in Northcliffe House agreed with every word of it.

We’re Putting the Band Back Together


Some Bands Should Never Reform

Do you remember Madstock ? Were you there in Finsbury Park in 1992 when those Nutty Boys took north London by storm with their reunion concert? I was. Bloody marvellous it was too. Madness were supported by Ian Dury who went through the card with hit after hit after hit. The crowd went mad, and I had a little drinky in celebration of my luck.

Morissey, who was also on the card, nearly went through the back of the stage as the Madness fans at the front booed him off, aided and abetted by (mainly) plastic pint pots of lager which they threw at the singer before he made a tactical retreat and exited stage left. I could never work out why anyone would put Madness and Morrissey on the same bill. Perhaps the Smith mistook the skinheads who followed the Magnificent Seven to hold the same long-alleged racist views as he ? I suspect it took him about four seconds to realise draping yourself in the Union flag, and using neo-fascist imagary as a backdrop probably wasn’t the way to endear him to this crowd. He was lucky to get out alive. And we were lucky the set was cut short.

(Morrissey, in his defence, would say he was as racist as the next man. Especially if the next man was Eric Clapton.)

However, when Suggs and co finally took to the stage this drunken, sun-blushed crowd really went beserk. I’d like to report that the band had lost nothing of their lustre, their fun and their sharpness. The fact that I can’t is due to the fact I could here nothing whatsoever over the screaming of the fans around me. I’ve never been in a crowd which exploded in quite such a magnificent, if violent manner, as this news item from the time tells us:

According to the UK’s Health Protection Agency: “One of the most bizarre investigations conducted by British Geological Survey using its seismic network, was in connection with an earthquake reported to be felt strongly in North London in August 1992 when three blocks of flats (8-9-storeys) were evacuated following minor damage that included cracked windows and a cracked balcony. Our seismic network showed that there had not been an earthquake or an explosion, and we were able to deduce that the cause was resonance set up by dancers at a Madness rock concert in nearby Finsbury Park.

There’s something about reunion concerts. Led Zepplin‘s 2007 reunion bash was hailed as something akin to the Second Coming (though not in my house). When The Eagles took to the stage once more in 1994, they sold out huge venues all over the world (that tour is still going on I think). Elvis’s 1968 Comeback Special is rightly lauded as something of a TV milestone. A studio filled with transfixed teenagers, squeal with delight as The King sweats his way through set after set, with big dance numbers, a fantastic unplugged session, and a hit list to die for.

Francis Albert Sinatra, of course, liked a comeback or two.

However, not all comebacks are eagerly awaited, or even successful, come to that. I have reported on these pages (see Because William Shatner) that bands such as Duran Duran who want to relive their youth really should gen up on the words to their hits before going on the road again.

Every few months or so you see a news item that such-and-such are reforming. There are perennial rumours that The Jam are getting back together, and I hear a terrifying account that Mick Hucknall is to lead a re-constituted Faces, Ronnie Wood-and-all.

But among all these rumours and speculation, one piece of news is sure to warm the cockles of any true music fan. After what seems like months out of the picture, Chas and Dave are reforming! Yes, I know, great isn’t it? Anyone who witnessed C&D’s gig at The Blackheath Halls 18 months ago will know that it was like watching Jean Michel Jarre in a vest, such was its enormity. If songsters such as Bono and Jagger only took the time in between numbers to discuss with the audience the growing of beetroot and radishes in their allotment then perhaps their careers may well take off.

March next year sees the comeback gig at the O2, (ok Indigo at the O2), and I for one will be there (I’ll be the fat bloke standing next to Howard). People of south east London are advised to keep their animals indoors, give granny her pills and nail down any breakables: There’s an earthquake a-coming.

The Official Weedkiller of The England Football Team


Am I the only one not to have one ?

Driving around South-East London yesterday I became aware that I was sitting in the only car in a ten-mile radius not to have an English flag sticking out of it. World Cup fever has taken hold of the country, and in my little bit of it, there’s an epidemic of England soccer team-related merchandise threatening to turn every car,pub and terraced-house window into something which resembles BNP Headquarters.

As The Incumbent and I wandered around the supermarket yesterday it became more and more evident that, not only was the World Cup but two weeks away, but that we would be shirking our responsibilities by not purchasing some tacky item adorned with Cross of St George and therefore damaging our team’s chances of winning the whole bang shoot.

England Mars Bars, England CocaCola, England lager, England deckchairs, England flags, England cups, England mugs, England spoons, England dishwasher salt, England loft-lagging. I think it’s getting a little much, don’t you?

I like to think of myself as a patriot (though actually typing that feels strange) and proud of my country. Back in the 80s and early 90s I used to envy the Dutch, Scotch, Irish and the like who felt no embarrassment wearing their colours, donning the badge or flying the flag for their homeland. Us English had a problem with all that (at least us decent English did). Our flag had been stolen by the nazis.

The National Front, a collection of neo nazis, dullards and skinheads, had during the 70s somehow stolen our flag and national emblems. Back then, flying the English flag was tantamount to shouting Seig Heil and goosestepping down the high street. Euro 96 changed all that for good, thank goodness and since then English Football fans, the Barmy Army cricket followers and Shake ‘n’ Vac producers have been able to wear the colours with renewed pride and bandwagonjumpiness.

But why can’t we show a little class or decorum? There’s something rather elegant about the way a lone Stars n Stripes flutters outside American schoolhouses or government buildings. There’s nothing classy about two flags sticking out of your car, one plastered onto the bonnet, and your ugly fat missus having the Cross of St George plastered over her white, flabby back. Very sexy, I’m sure, love.

So we resisted the temptation to buy England flags, England shovels or England house insurance, much to the disappointment of the official check-out girl to the England Football Team. Money’s getting a little tight in Railway Cuttings and if I do have to sell up or rent out the place, I think I might improve my chances of getting a fair price by not putting a flashing “Come on Ingerland” sign in the window.

During the election I didn’t place a VOTE LABOUR poster in my widow either, for similar reasons but I kinda now wish I had. I take no great pleasure in seeing the fledgling QuisCon Coalition beginning to unravel….no, no who am I kidding? Of course I take great pleasure in it. Uncle Vince is looking as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile of poo, and he has the face of someone who deep inside is screaming “What have I done? What have I done?”. Suddenly all that Liberal support has disappeared like Saddam’s Republican Guard. Where did they bugger off too? There was Storming Gordon bracing himself for the mother of all fights, and when it came to it, it was all a mirage. Still, scheisters that they are, they ‘shocked’ everyone by getting into bed with the other lot, promising ‘new politics’ and a ‘new style of government’.

Well stone me ! You’ll never guess what ? One of our brave new leaders has been a naughty boy. David Laws has been up to the old tricks of paying loved ones for accommodation, and then claiming for it. No, no, no, Mr laws, that’s not right. That’s the sort of underhand behaviour which you and Nick the Rat (The London Olympic’s 3rd Mascot) were forever accusing the ‘old’ political parties of dealing in.

Take Him Down

What’s that? You were trying to keep your private life private? Oh ok: all in favour of that. I know it must be tough to be an MP and gay, or gay in any profession in this homophobic, bigoted country of ours. But, sorry, what’s that got to do with nicking £40,000 from the British taxpayer: to wit: me. Give me my money back and fuck off out of it. This has nothing to do with your sexual preferences, but everything to do with you being as bent as a nine-bob note, where the word ‘bent’ means crooked. You’ve been caught out having an extra-marital affair, and funding it with my cash. There are MPs on trial at the moment for their part in the expenses scandal (though we can’t read about them until the court orders are lifted) and YOU, Mr Outside-the-Laws can bleeding well line up behind them.

October 14th, mark my words: go down to Mr Coral and get yer money on the date for the next general election. This shower of shite will show themselves up to be what we all knew, as reliable as the England back four, as straight as a welsh put-in to the scrum, as trustworthy as Billy Bowden‘s light meter. Stay tuned for Cameron and Clegg poncing about in England shirts, playing keepy-uppy during PMQ’s. Meanwhile, I’m gonna start producing “BRING BACK GORDON” t-shirts.

Great Touch for a Big Man


Paul Collingwood, having just captained the English cricket team to its first ever victory in a world final (albeit in pyjamas), is reported to have been given a few months of to recoup. He says he feels mentally drained and physically exhausted. It’s been a long season and he’s picked up a ‘couple of niggles’ along the way which ‘aren’t getting any better’. With the Ashes coming up in the winter, the English cricket authorities have begun a rotation system, having rested Andrew Strauss and Jimmy Anderson last winter, Collingwood along with Stuart Broad looks set to recharge his batteries before the main business begins in Australia in November. Broad would certainly need to rest his jaw, given the amount of bleating and whingeing he does on the playing field.

The rotation system of course is a favourite of soccer managers, and Fabio Capello is not different. He may well have to do a bit of it while shepherding his 23 young men through to what he hopes is an appearance in the World Cup Final. He’s not against rotating his opinion as well as his team. He’s already picked unfit players (something he said he wouldn’t) picked players out of position (which he’d previously ruled out) and those out-of form (ditto). Still, so far he’s not budging on the WAG question. The players will only get to see their loved ones once-a-week during the tournament, thus preserving their natural bodily fluids to sweat on the pitches of South Africa rather than in the bedroom/the balcony/the back of a limo. Colleen’s had the first result of the Cup, I reckon, and at least John Terry will be close enough for his team mates to keep an eye on him.

Capello is running a tight ship at the team’s high-altitude training camp in Austria: Peter Crouch has to sleep in the same size bed as everyone else this time round, and has been bollocked for wearing slippers around the camp. Capello likes his boys smartly dressed. It must be some relief to all that King David isn’t in the squad as Christ knows what the boss would have made of him swanning around in a sarong, Victoria’s drawers and slingbacks. The games room is off-limits for most of the side, so Wayne, Rio and company will be barred from playing as themselves on the PS3. Diets will be monitored at all times.

Austria was chosen as the venue for the pre-tour training camp as Capello wanted to replicate as near as damn it the conditions in the High Veldt where the English will be playing their matches. This is where we see the Italians genius: Not only is the atmosphere similarly thin to that in South Africa, but there are almost as many neo Nazis in Austria as they’ll encounter among the farming communities when they arrive down south. Once the competition begins England will make their base in Rustenburg, SA, not to be confused with Rastenburg, Poland where A. Hitler‘s Third Reich XI set up camp during their own quest for world domination.

Historians point out that Hitler’s men may well have succeeded but for the fact that, although they possessed a devastating attack, they were a team packed with right-wingers, and were vulnerable in the air – which an RAF Select XI exploited in the quarter-final played at Biggin Hill.

Hitler's back three discuss zonal defence during summer training at Rastenburg

But I digress.

So taking a leaf out of the books of the great minds from cricket and football, I have decided to rest myself, to recharge my batteries, to get my mind straight. I’ve picked up ‘a couple of niggles’ over the season (which, let’s face it, has lasted since 1983) and they’ve shown no signs of getting any better. In fact I get more niggly as the years pass. My week’s low-altitude training in Amsterdam didn’t pay the dividends I’d hoped for, but I can’t blame the fact my WAG came along with me. No, a strict rotation policy is what I need. I know you think rotating a squad of one is gonna be difficult, but I have a carefully planned strategy to get me through the closed-work season. Playing in a solid 0-0-1 formation, I shall alternate between The Crown, O’Neills and, when I really want to punish myself, The Railway.

In the games room (my couch) I shall play no more than three hours per day, switching from Tiger Woods Golf , FIFA 10, and Red Dead Redemption, which I’ve just had a couple of hours on and is quite superb. Tiger might get squeezed out (not for the first time).

A strict diet from the Sun Bo chinese takeaway (chilli beef me-up), Khans curry house (mismas every time) and the imaginatively dubbed Blackheath Fish and Chips (all major credit cards accepted, and at these prices highly recommended) will keep my girth at the diameter to which it’s accustomed.

I have promised myself the bathroom will be painted, the banisters sanded and the bushes and hedges in the garden kept neat and trim. If I can’t find a source of income soonish, I may have to rent (or even sell) Railway Cuttings, so a month off is a great opportunity to get the house in top shape to impress any potential buyers.

But with 3 World Cup matches every day and villains and varmints to shoot on a video game, I may have to break a promise or two. Now where are my slippers ?

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Gord Luv A Duck, The Noo !


In another of an occasional series of time-saving tips, I’d like to let you in on a little secret : 44″ Chest is a dreadful movie. Shocking. Awful. Nasty. Possibly the most disappointing film I’ve seen for some time.

Being a huge Ray Winston and John Hurt fan I was really looking forward to it, only to be left open-mouthed at the pointlessness, nastiness and worthlessness of it all. What a real shame. Sexy Beast II it ain’t. I can’t remember what I paid for it, but if you hang on for a little while you’ll be able to buy a ‘nearly new’ version on Amazon for next to nothing. (I’ve already posted my customer review). It’s a shocker.

Sexy Beast gave us the great Don Logan, possibly the best British gangster ever portrayed on film, played by Sir Ben Kingsley. His performance never ceases to amaze and enthrall me, especially the perfection and precision with which Kinglsey manages to pull off a cockney accent, right from his opening, immortal line “I’ve gotta change my shirt, I’m sweating like a cahnt”. Bloody well done for a Yorkshireman. I’m afraid the great John Hurt, (again from Yorkshire), fails to hit the mockney-mark in this lame follow-up, and he’s not alone. The ususally brilliant Tom Wilkinson from, er, Yorkshire borders on a Meery Puppins cockney performance all the way through. Stephen Dillane sounds ok as a Londoner, but then again he was born there. No, don’t waste your money on this movie, it’s horrid through and through, and the accents don’t help either.

But why should we expect Yorkshiremen to be able mimic the accent of The Old Kent Road, or Whitechapel? Accents are bloody hard to pull off. Just ask Russell Crowe. Well actually don’t, cos the big Aussie doesn’t like talking about it. DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL, MATE. He got very pissy with a radio interviewer who thought he sounded Irish when playing Robin Hood, the eponymous hero in Ridley Scott’s new blockbuster. What a load of old tosh ! He sounds Scottish. Or Lancastrian. Or Yorkish (perhaps Tom Wilkinson was his speech coach?).

Now given that we have no idea which accent or dialect Robin of Loxley actually had, we cannot say for sure that he didn’t sound like Groundskeeper Willie or Geoffrey Boycott or Roy Walker, but it’s safe to say he probably didn’t change his accent four times-a-day, depending on who he was talking to (as cunning as he was). What does a Lincolnshire accent sound like anyway? Buggered if I know.

Dodgy dialects have long been a source of amusement. Dick Van Dyke, of course, is the main culprit to whom everyone refers, but he is by no means alone when it comes to comedy accents. For starters, Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker’s Dracula takes some beating for a crap Englishmen, James Coburn’s Australian in The Great Escape is one of my favourites (“what ye doin wiv me coat, mate?”), while Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of the Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s borders on the downright racist. The least said about Tom Cruise’s Oirishman in Far and Away, the better.

Why do they bother? Take a leaf out of Sean Connery’s book and just be yourself. Who can ever forget the Scottish/Russian submarine commander in The Hunt for Red October ? “Forty yearsh I’ve been at shea. A war at shea. A war with no battlesh, no monumensh… only casualtiesh.” Spoken like a native.
And how about his brilliant Portuguese-Jocko Warrior in Highlander ? (acting opposite a Frenchman playing a Scotsman) “With heart, faith and shteel. In the end there can be only one, Msh Moneypenny”. His Irish accent in “The Untouchables” is a thing of wonder and mystery. I defy any budding Henry Higgins to put a location to it, but I suspect it was born somewhere just outside Edinburgh.

I always thought Cary Elwes in the brilliant Princess Bride never got the credit he deserved, and as I’ve never seen (or unlikely ever to see) Bridget Jone’s Diary I can’t pass comment on Renee Zellweger’s version of the Queen’s Own. Is Hugh Laurie any good as an American in House? or did Domonic West sound authentic in The Wire? I can’t tell. Gotta be better than Bob Hoskins was in either Who Framed Roger Rabbit ? or The Cotton Club.

So in this world when there are rows about white men playing Othello, when the chinese community in Australia are up in arms over who’s portraying their War Hero, or uproar when Nick Cage is cast in a role which could have quite easily been given to a proper actor, why don’t we all agree to let anyone play anyone on stage or screen? Let’s just forget the blacking-up, or the crap makeup just as long as the role is a convincing one and acted well (and that’s Jude Law fucked on all counts.) And let’s rid ourselves of this obsession with the right accent for the right part. For example, I would like to play Rick Blaine in Casablanca with a South London lilt.

“Louis, I fink this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Nah, put the kettle on, you cahnt”

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The Man Who Fell to Earth


Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage
Is a man I can’t but help disparage
He’s the leading Nazi,
For the UK Independence Party

Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage
“Send the Polish back through Dover and Harwich”
That’s his manifesto
Deporting Nige would be the best, though.

Try, try, try assassinate him
(Him and Nick Griffin)
Shoot down planes and lacerate him,
Dead: No-one would miss him

Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage
Don’t believe in gay or lesbian marriage
Flew in a two-seater
To try to be a Labour-beater

Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage,
Got embedded in his undercarriage
Crashed, the Eurosceptic,
And lets just hope his wounds go septic

 

cameronradvert

Why, why, why can’t we deport him?
Him we should banish
Strip, bind, gag and just export him
And hand him over to Spanish

Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage
It’s quite obvious that he’s a cabbage
UKIP’s vote got littler
Now fuck off, Nige, you pseudo-Hitler.

Nigel Farage, Nigel Farage
Is a man we really should disparage
He really is quite nasty
Fuck the UK Independence Party

pic by
http://idontwanttoberude.com/
http://www.kosmopolito.org/

Words © The Sharp Single, with apologies to Sammy Cahn, (but none at all to N.Farage)

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Heidi Unlikely


Well what to make of all that then? Certainly a lot better than when I retired to my bed last night. Quite, quite amazing. After 13 years and all the disasters that have befallen the Labour Party, the Tories STILL didn’t run away with it. And where did that Liberal surge disappear to??? Gives you some faith in your fellow citizen’s judgment- if indeed your fellow citizen actually managed to get a vote at all. What a fiasco that was. Sorry, I don’t mean fiasco, I mean heinous crime. I think I can imagine my reaction to being turned away at the ballot box. May have had a little word, as I know many did. Legal challenges to come, no doubt. Whatever way it takes the actual result, this surely hasn’t been a triumph for democracy and something has to be done.

Maybe we’ll get a re-run anyway because, as I write at 08.32, it’s still very unclear which way it’ll go. Personally, I think we’ve had a result. If in October/November last year you’d have given Gordon a whiff of a chance of a coalition he’s have bitten your arm off. And if it does go the other way, and Tory government being reigned in by the Liberals is surely more palatable than a huge Conservative majority as was looking to be the case just a few months ago.

Whether or not we have another election to either the polling station scandal, or to decide once-and-for-all who runs the country again, I suspect that Gordon Brown (texture like sun) has had his chips, with or without curry sauce. What prince Alan Johnson for next leader ?

News just in: Heidi Alexander has just held Lewisham East for Labour, so our little village of Blackheath sends another Labour MP to the commons (for now anyway). In the words of Joan Collins “WhooHoo”.

But let us not get too happy with ourselves. Let us spend a moment to think of all those who sadly will not be with us anymore, at least as far as this round of political shenanigans goes:

Peter Robinson DUP. (East Belfast)

Jaqui Smith, LAB (Blockbuster Video, North)

Charles Clarke, LAB (Backstabbers Union)

Limpet Optic, LIB (TV Studio Anywhere, South)

Nick Giffen, Waffen SS (Berchtesgaden, West)

Esther Rantzen, IND (Lala Land North)

As the sun goes down. We won’t remember them.

Good Riddance.