It was a shock to wake up this morning (no changes there, then). No, I mean to say it was a shock to wake up this morning and discover Vlad the Putin had swept to an election victory in Russia, and once again the great man sits on the throne of the third biggest power in the world, after USA and FIFA. If only Barack Obama could be so sure of victory in this year’s election, but I guess there is no Jeb Obama resident in Florida who could steal the vote for him, so he’ll just have to trust Minty Metro, the Republican Tool-of-Choice, to win it for him. Which he surely will ?
FIFA, of course have long-since had elections far more corrupt than that of either the Soviet Union or The Russian Federation, so we can expect Herr Blatter to remain in his position til he has accrued enough cash to be able to retire and hand over the reins to the Crook-in-Waiting, Michel Platini. Then, of course, we can all sit back and wait for Mad Michel to launch a series of decrees even more self-serving and dictatorial than his predecessor, Sepp the Swiss Soccer Swindler.
Who do I let these people get to me ?
Anyway, just to show that it’s not what you take out of life, it’s what you Putin, take a look on another on a theme. It’s quite fun, and includes a guest appearance from my old employer TIME, formerly of this parish.
My thanks go to Mrs V.F. of Paris for alerting me to this banned Paddy Power TV Advert. It’s a fair bet that, whether or not Kauto Star is fit and well enough to run this year, the Cheltenham Festival will definitely be able to welcome this lot to the losers enclosure.
I trust that Mrs F will be spending placing her shilling each-way bets as sensibly as is her usual ?
The England Team to face Wales at Twickenham tomorrow.
15. Can’t tackle
14. Overrated
13. Samoan
12. South African
11. Boy band member
10. First receiver
9. Who cares
8 Welsh reject
7. Warbuton’s breakfast
6. Wishes he was welsh
5. Also South African
4. ask Xavier rush
3. Overweight
2. Kiwi
1. Never heard of him
It’s difficult sometimes to know who to shout for, isn’t it ? I mean if you were watching a Rugby match and Wales were playing, well, anyone really you know you’ll be cheering for whoever that anybody is. No contest there, no flipping of a coin. A cricket match between Australia and er…. well, you know you’ll vocally support “and er…”, don’t you ? Equally true if you don’t happen to hail from Blighty and England are playing Football/Cricket/Anything against Anyone Else. The Anyone Else XI will be the bookies favourites outside these shores.
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.
The image inside the Liverpool FC fanzine which caused Police to confiscate them before the Man Utd match today.
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.
You can’t please all of the people all of the time. I’m fully aware that when I rant on about all things political, fair and socialist, many of you retreat to your panic rooms, put the duvet over your head and hope I’ll go away. On the other hand, when I put finger to keyboard and opine on the wonders of organised sport, the crumpet people among you flee to the safety of your pinafores and Strictly Come Dancing. Bless you’re little hearts.
Well, as I think we’ve all had our fill of RBS for one week, the Chris Huhne story has been and gone (I’m Chris Huhne and so is my wife), we have time to catch our breath before the crook David Laws (who Clegg thinks we’ve all forgotten about) is given his job back, and still months before I am arrested by the Thought Police for my views on the London Olympic Games, let’s get a round-up of this weekend’s sport. Sorry girls.
So let us indeed start with the Olympics. It won’t have been lost on you that there was an initial hiccup at the first meeting of Olympic volunteers – sorry Games Makers – when they started their training yesterday. These induction sessions are crucial if the maximum amount of cash is to be gleaned by as many corporate sponsors allowable by using as much free labour as is permitted by international regulations, orchestrated by the biggest corporate carve-up since RBS handed out taxpayers money as bonuses (oops! see what I did there? naughty boy). These poor sods even have to pay their fares there. And most will be stuck in a car park, pointing out the direction to the nearest McDonalds. You’ll see more athletic action if you’re stuck in a basement, cowering for your life in downtown Damascus.
Anyway, not everything went swimmingly for Seb’s Little Helpers. As the BBC put it:
But there were reports of train delays and local traffic congestion and some Games Makers reported they had problems getting to the venue.
Colin Foster, 43, from Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire said it took him two hours to drive the eight miles to the Arena. When he got there he then had to pay £22 to park nearby.
“I think it’s a bit steep when people are volunteering. We’re doing our bit giving up time and energy so to be charged is rather excessive”
Congestion in London ???? Train delays ???? Exorbitant prices ???? Well I never did. Whodathunk it ???? Not that, of course Seb’s mob admitted anything was wrong. The Goebbelesque method of propaganda which Locog (that’s what they call themselves) reacts to reported or forseeable problems with the games has only been surpassed in recent times by the crew of the Costa Concordia telling passengers to relax and go back to their cabins. And the band played on. For the record, Locog said it was surprised to hear of any problems, again according to the BBC.
It certainly came as a real shock to the rest of us too.
Meanwhile, away from snowy Blighty, the English Cricket team are being pummeled into submission by Pakistan. It’s painful to watch, but like rail disruption in the capital, not totally surprising. As reported here many times before, this current bunch of show ponies look overpaid, uncooked, over thier heads, and are under-performing over there. They can’t even blame a betting syndicate cheats on this disaster. What no-one seems to have foreseen was the the Pakistan team would have included several good spin bowlers, one of whom turns the balls both ways.
Wait a minute !!! Isn’t that cheating?? Can’t we imprison Sajeed Ajmal for being able to bowl better than we can ?? It’s a bloody disgrace, I say.
Closer to home, I feel lucky to have survived the Rugby match between Scotland and England yesterday. Not since the display by the London PR Team at the end of the Beijing Olympics has there been a more inept, toe-curlingly awful display in a major stadium, all captured in stunning HD for the world to watch in stunned silence. The phrase “looking like two drunk bald men fighting over a comb” can never have been used more aptly than to describe this truly awful spectacle. In a match which had already been marred by the sight of 22 child mascots dragged into the frozen wastes of Muyrryfield wearing little more than a pair of shorts, saw 44 huge men run around aimlessly to the strains of a whimpered “Swing Low” here, a choked “Flower of Scotland” there.
No-one-one does parochial pettiness better than the jocks, and if Alex Salmond had marched onto the pitch and demanded to hold a referendum on Scottish devolution there and then, it would have been more interesting than what was taking place on this pitch. After the match, the Scots knew they had missed a golden opportunity to beat a woeful English team. Jock Fly half Dan Parks (who’s about as Scottish as I am) was kicking himself in the changing room, only to miss with two kicks and have a third charged down.
So today we have more rugby when Ireland play Wales, which always promises great things and sees me don my traditional impartial kit of a green shirt and a pint of Guinness. On the world of OnMeEadSon we have Man Utd playing Chelsea. A lot of the gloss has been taken off this one by the fact that, through injury, we are to be denied the spectacle of Rio Ferdinand waking from his usual 40 winks half way through the second half and ploughing into former England Racist John Terry for abousing Rio’s little brother. Sorry that was a typo. Did I say England Racist ? I meant to say cvnt. And for former read present and big.
Over in the Middle East, Pakistan will doubtless move closer to wrapping up a 3-0 victory over the ever-popular English Cricket team, which will be a relief to all, especially the four blokes and the jack russell terrier who’ve actually paid money to sit in the stand and watch this rubbish.
Across the pond, the weekend ends with what passes for sport in the US – The Super Bowl. The New Improved Recipes play the New Lamps for Old in an encounter that proves to be the first Super Bowl since the last one. There was a time, back in the 80s when I’d have been all excited about this. I even attended a few Super Bowl parties, cheering on the Cowboys vrs the Redskins or the Packers, drinking beer til the early hours until it was time to fall asleep on someone’s floor. Thankfully I’ve grown older, fatter and tireder since then and this old body can barely make it past the Ten O’clock news, let alone keep awake to watch this, surely the most cynical of all advertising opportunities. I’ll watch a selection of the funny ads on Youtube tomorrow, just don’t pretend this is a sporting event. Coupled with the fact that the old cockney Madonna is serenading the crowd at half time makes this the most missable event since Diana Ross took a penalty at the world cup (an event which sums up all you need to know about the US corporate world’s relationship with sport).
Anyway, before I go to practise my rendition of Fields of Athenry I shall leave you with this, another old git ranting on about football, soccer and America. It was sent to me by another sports fan, this time a Jock who was keeping strangely quiet through yesterday’s festivities in Edinburgh. He’s like that when Scotland play. Anything.
During past rants, I may or may not have been discourteous or downright rude about the Welsh-speaking peoples of the world. I would like to make it clear that I do not hold all Welshmen in such low regard – just the boring, long-winded, opinionated, chippy ones (that should cover most of em). However, I would like to make it clear that referee Nigel Owens is not included in this group. For now at least.
Owens comes in for a lot of criticism, often from me, but you will not find The Sharp Single in anything but total agreement with how he handled the situation during this match. Thank you, Mr Owens. Let’s hope someone from FIFA, UEFA or the FA is reading this.
Well said, Nigel. And long may it remain not soccer.
The Sharp Single 