I realised that I've put photography as one of my interests but not actually put any photos up.
So here we are - scattered views from around the world - see if you can guess where. I'll give you a clue - Spalding is not an option...
Sunday 31 August 2008
X rated viewing
I spent some of last night cursing Clair Breen.
Any idea who she is? Thought not.
She is the producer of X Factor. I have no idea if this is the first time Ms Breen has taken on the task, and to research this would be a waste of valuable internet time which could be better spent gambling or looking for cheap holidays or women.
About three or so years ago I thought X Factor was one of the best programmes on TV, mainly because of the total destruction of wannabes that it engendered. The sight of seeing bright orange 20-somethings who've "always wanted to be a singer" yet never remotely entertained the idea of learning an instrument bought bile rising into my throat. The sight of Cowell taking those dreams and wiping his arse with them made me feel better.
But even with a multi-million pound brand like X Factor growth is needed, otherwise it becomes jaded. Yes, the singers are the stars and their faded brakepad voices are still funny, Cowell's putdowns are still funny, even Walsh's camp banter and hair that looks like a piece of toast can still be good, but in terms of production the whole thing is now very predictable.
To give you an example; Student Laura (20). Pretty, good figure, vacuous as the Wash. Comes in in garish outfit fished out of the drains near Primark. Gets excuse in early. Been training for two months but has bad throat. This is her dream. Goes in. Roars like a lion taking down a Zebra. Suspense. Cue sad music. Cowell says she is through "one million percent", after pausing interminably with his finger metaphorically floating over the "nuke dreams" button. Sad music changes to happy - "for a moment like this". She goes through. Leaves crying, just as I did the last time a job letter confirmed I was through to the last 5,000 applicants. As predictable as flying turds after a Jalfrezi sandwich.
It's as lazy as a retired old major in bed with his 30-something wife. A later example; three bints called "Dolly Mix" singing "I love Rock and Roll". At that moment I loved the idea of seeing their corpses being rolled above red hot rocks on a giant ironic spit, which can only be worked by putting another dime into an operating meter shaped like a jukebox. But as ever the producers didn't exploit their true awfulness. It was just singing, slagged off, complain about judges, bye bye. To give an idea of what they could have done (and bearing in mind these prgrammes are recorded months ago, so they would have had plenty of time to put this together) in American Idol last year there was a brilliant montage of no-hopers singing that very song, six of them howling together on one screen, blended by the producers into a choral arrangement that would make you want to bomb the church. Innovative, and really funny.
There's so much else that's wrong. Dermot is just an identikit Kate Thornton - the same old stuff. After a good act there's always the ..." and Jade wasn't the only act to thrill the judges in Manchester" followed by a procession of other tramps, camps, and scamps all battering out Hit me baby One more time. Cheryl Cole - face of a model, voice like a model car. And the porceleine doll sat next to her with her manga eyes...remind me what the point of her is again?
There were good points. A giant gay sumo lookalike called Jason paired with a tiny little old barmaid. They were known as guilty pleasures. If they're guilty, order the firing squad, although Jason's last supper might be a large one.
A goth-type "holistic vocal coach" called Ariel. Scary: tick. Pretentious: tick. Voice like Kate Bush with bi-polar disorder: tick. She stormed in and threw a piece of paper at Cole saying: "I am not a number". You will be one day love - you'll be holding it in front of you while a camera flashes.
As you will see from the rest of my blog entries I like moaning, so what I've written here is of no surprise. But I do actually like X Factor, I just think it could be so much better. The early stages offer so much opportunity for adventure, innovation and fun. Why not be more creative with graphics and camera work? Why not put some genuine jokes in for Dermot? Why not hold it in different, fun, locations?
The whole vehicle is just a giant cash cow for ITV and Cowell now, but alarm bells should be ringing. Apart from Leona the rest of the "winners" are nowhere (by the way if you fancy a bet the last two winners are Leona, Leon, so a cheeky wager on anyone called Leo, Len or even Eon if they enter a team, might be a good pick). They've gone because Leona was the only one who deserved to win (G4, Andy Abrahams, Rhydian etc were all miles better) and the others were all boring, limited and cliched.
Let's just hope the programme doesn't go the same way.
Any idea who she is? Thought not.
She is the producer of X Factor. I have no idea if this is the first time Ms Breen has taken on the task, and to research this would be a waste of valuable internet time which could be better spent gambling or looking for cheap holidays or women.
About three or so years ago I thought X Factor was one of the best programmes on TV, mainly because of the total destruction of wannabes that it engendered. The sight of seeing bright orange 20-somethings who've "always wanted to be a singer" yet never remotely entertained the idea of learning an instrument bought bile rising into my throat. The sight of Cowell taking those dreams and wiping his arse with them made me feel better.
But even with a multi-million pound brand like X Factor growth is needed, otherwise it becomes jaded. Yes, the singers are the stars and their faded brakepad voices are still funny, Cowell's putdowns are still funny, even Walsh's camp banter and hair that looks like a piece of toast can still be good, but in terms of production the whole thing is now very predictable.
To give you an example; Student Laura (20). Pretty, good figure, vacuous as the Wash. Comes in in garish outfit fished out of the drains near Primark. Gets excuse in early. Been training for two months but has bad throat. This is her dream. Goes in. Roars like a lion taking down a Zebra. Suspense. Cue sad music. Cowell says she is through "one million percent", after pausing interminably with his finger metaphorically floating over the "nuke dreams" button. Sad music changes to happy - "for a moment like this". She goes through. Leaves crying, just as I did the last time a job letter confirmed I was through to the last 5,000 applicants. As predictable as flying turds after a Jalfrezi sandwich.
It's as lazy as a retired old major in bed with his 30-something wife. A later example; three bints called "Dolly Mix" singing "I love Rock and Roll". At that moment I loved the idea of seeing their corpses being rolled above red hot rocks on a giant ironic spit, which can only be worked by putting another dime into an operating meter shaped like a jukebox. But as ever the producers didn't exploit their true awfulness. It was just singing, slagged off, complain about judges, bye bye. To give an idea of what they could have done (and bearing in mind these prgrammes are recorded months ago, so they would have had plenty of time to put this together) in American Idol last year there was a brilliant montage of no-hopers singing that very song, six of them howling together on one screen, blended by the producers into a choral arrangement that would make you want to bomb the church. Innovative, and really funny.
There's so much else that's wrong. Dermot is just an identikit Kate Thornton - the same old stuff. After a good act there's always the ..." and Jade wasn't the only act to thrill the judges in Manchester" followed by a procession of other tramps, camps, and scamps all battering out Hit me baby One more time. Cheryl Cole - face of a model, voice like a model car. And the porceleine doll sat next to her with her manga eyes...remind me what the point of her is again?
There were good points. A giant gay sumo lookalike called Jason paired with a tiny little old barmaid. They were known as guilty pleasures. If they're guilty, order the firing squad, although Jason's last supper might be a large one.
A goth-type "holistic vocal coach" called Ariel. Scary: tick. Pretentious: tick. Voice like Kate Bush with bi-polar disorder: tick. She stormed in and threw a piece of paper at Cole saying: "I am not a number". You will be one day love - you'll be holding it in front of you while a camera flashes.
As you will see from the rest of my blog entries I like moaning, so what I've written here is of no surprise. But I do actually like X Factor, I just think it could be so much better. The early stages offer so much opportunity for adventure, innovation and fun. Why not be more creative with graphics and camera work? Why not put some genuine jokes in for Dermot? Why not hold it in different, fun, locations?
The whole vehicle is just a giant cash cow for ITV and Cowell now, but alarm bells should be ringing. Apart from Leona the rest of the "winners" are nowhere (by the way if you fancy a bet the last two winners are Leona, Leon, so a cheeky wager on anyone called Leo, Len or even Eon if they enter a team, might be a good pick). They've gone because Leona was the only one who deserved to win (G4, Andy Abrahams, Rhydian etc were all miles better) and the others were all boring, limited and cliched.
Let's just hope the programme doesn't go the same way.
Monday 25 August 2008
Better Beckham
The most amazing aspect of the closing ceremony at Beijing for me? The David Beckham interview on BBC.
When Becks first arrived several years ago he was a shy, awkward, boy-band teenager. Then, following the Simeone debacle, he became more morose and his interviews had a tinge of anger to them against the media, probably correctly. Soon, perversely, he courted the media with his tattoos and silly clothes and all the Hollywood razzmatazz.
On Sunday he was expressive. He was smiling. He was - dare I say it -interesting. Sure, there were still more "y'knows" than were comfortable for seven interviews, let alone one, but he was actually comfortable with what he was saying.
It got me wondering whether the Hollywood razzmatazz, the connections his wife has with people who are paid to be expressive, the moves to Madrid and LA, the ambassadorial roles he has...have made him a more rounded person than the freak show we thought.
It bought to mind two other footballer interviews I've seen with England internationals in the past two weeks, one very experienced, the other in the embryonic stages of his career.
Steven Gerrard scored a fabulous winner against Middlesbrough at the weekend, the sort of right-footed screamer that's become his trademark. His teammate Jamie Carragher scored for the first time since the Watergate Scandal and Liverpool won.
The interview afterwards was the broadcasting equivalent of mogadon. The one-tone, emotionless, unexciting, cliched, negative interview that is a blight on the sport. The interviewer tried feeding him - "And your teammate Jamie Carragher scored for the first time in three years, what did you say to him?" Guess what SG's answer was:
a) I said why the hell don't you do it more often, rather than humping balls into the Mersey more often than the goal?
b)The bastard was briefly one up on me in the goalscorer charts so I had to club one in myself to shut him up.
c) I said it was more poetry than football, his velvet foot brushing through the spheroid object, leather and leather repelling, pushing away from each other like Montague and Capulet, the ball swerving into the ropes like a seagull flying into a trawler net, the kop rampant, the Brough fallen.
c) Yeah it was an important goal but the most important thing is that we picked up three points etc etc etc crap.
Gerrard has always resisted move, even to other clubs in England, and his total lack of confidence in front of a microphone is a function of this. If I never hear him speak again I wouldn't care, and I defy anyone to say they actually enjoy listening to interviews like that. Why do sports journalists do it?
Gabby Agbonlahor was even worse. He scored the first hat trick of the season for Villa last week, and his interview was so dull that it literally lasted about three seconds. It was almost grumpy, it was so bad. It was verging on contemptuous.
There is no other sport where the practitioners are so limited in their linguistic gifts. That is a combination of factors but more and more I realise how important changing circumstances, and practice, and trying to communicate, must be.
Beckham, despite probably not being as good a footballer as Gerrard (and maybe even Agbonlahor now), will have a career after football. A spectacular one. And he will fit into it, because he has worked on it as much as his football. Gerrard - and I should say Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Terry, Giggs etc etc etc - will not. Good for him.
When Becks first arrived several years ago he was a shy, awkward, boy-band teenager. Then, following the Simeone debacle, he became more morose and his interviews had a tinge of anger to them against the media, probably correctly. Soon, perversely, he courted the media with his tattoos and silly clothes and all the Hollywood razzmatazz.
On Sunday he was expressive. He was smiling. He was - dare I say it -interesting. Sure, there were still more "y'knows" than were comfortable for seven interviews, let alone one, but he was actually comfortable with what he was saying.
It got me wondering whether the Hollywood razzmatazz, the connections his wife has with people who are paid to be expressive, the moves to Madrid and LA, the ambassadorial roles he has...have made him a more rounded person than the freak show we thought.
It bought to mind two other footballer interviews I've seen with England internationals in the past two weeks, one very experienced, the other in the embryonic stages of his career.
Steven Gerrard scored a fabulous winner against Middlesbrough at the weekend, the sort of right-footed screamer that's become his trademark. His teammate Jamie Carragher scored for the first time since the Watergate Scandal and Liverpool won.
The interview afterwards was the broadcasting equivalent of mogadon. The one-tone, emotionless, unexciting, cliched, negative interview that is a blight on the sport. The interviewer tried feeding him - "And your teammate Jamie Carragher scored for the first time in three years, what did you say to him?" Guess what SG's answer was:
a) I said why the hell don't you do it more often, rather than humping balls into the Mersey more often than the goal?
b)The bastard was briefly one up on me in the goalscorer charts so I had to club one in myself to shut him up.
c) I said it was more poetry than football, his velvet foot brushing through the spheroid object, leather and leather repelling, pushing away from each other like Montague and Capulet, the ball swerving into the ropes like a seagull flying into a trawler net, the kop rampant, the Brough fallen.
c) Yeah it was an important goal but the most important thing is that we picked up three points etc etc etc crap.
Gerrard has always resisted move, even to other clubs in England, and his total lack of confidence in front of a microphone is a function of this. If I never hear him speak again I wouldn't care, and I defy anyone to say they actually enjoy listening to interviews like that. Why do sports journalists do it?
Gabby Agbonlahor was even worse. He scored the first hat trick of the season for Villa last week, and his interview was so dull that it literally lasted about three seconds. It was almost grumpy, it was so bad. It was verging on contemptuous.
There is no other sport where the practitioners are so limited in their linguistic gifts. That is a combination of factors but more and more I realise how important changing circumstances, and practice, and trying to communicate, must be.
Beckham, despite probably not being as good a footballer as Gerrard (and maybe even Agbonlahor now), will have a career after football. A spectacular one. And he will fit into it, because he has worked on it as much as his football. Gerrard - and I should say Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Terry, Giggs etc etc etc - will not. Good for him.
Tuesday 19 August 2008
Olympic scam uncovered
The Olympics have been soured like cream tonight by allegations that some of Great Britain's Olympic medal wins have been made up by the BBC.
Using hi-tech graphics, computer-generated soundbites and downright jiggery-pokery the broadcaster has been accused of "conjuring up a load of shite" to make Britain seem great.
The shock claim has been made by disgruntled ex-employee Barry Sport-zpauper, who approached the Comedy Guy journalists after being sacked this afternoon for uncovering shocking dossiers of how the scams happened.
The journalist and retired weasel wrestler told Comedyguy that the real British team were the biggest bunch of misfits, miscreants and mindshits outside of Johnston Press.
He said: "The BBC has been planning this bollocks for years, ever since it realised that people like Gabby Logan are dull as turnips and wouldn't recognise a sharp bit of broadcasting if it bit her in the arse like a leech.
"It knew that as a state broadcast machine it needed to make the Olympics seem as hip and right-on as possible with London coming up god-nows-how-many-thousand-days-that-we-will-no-doubt-be-reminded-of-interminable-times later. We needed definite winners.
"With that in mind it created graphics of the athletes to use in its footage which could be superimposed over the real sportsmen, to prevent us from seeing Chris Hoy peddling round the track backwards and Louis Smith turning up for the gymnastics wearing giant foam hands."
According to Sport-zpauper BBC officials have resorted to desperate measures to "fill in the gaps" when they trawled their archives but were unable to find footage of the athletes.
The journalist said he discovered something was up when he read some notes on Christine Ohurougu "racing" two months ago.
He said: "Ohuruogu is classically forgetful and hasn't even turned up in Beijing. Last time we heard she was seen renting a little apartment in Eastbourne pretending she was called Keith.
"We knew she wasn't going to show, but because she hasn't competed since 1998 in anything meaningful we had trouble getting footage of her.
"So we chose some poor lass from some other country - Ghana, or possibly Guernsey I think it was - while superimposing pre-prepared footage of Floella Benjamin - the closest approximation we had - onto the screen on top of her.
"In the screen I, and everyone at home, could see a heavily pixellated Benjamin outstripping Sanya Richards like she was outpacing Little Ted and Jemima.
"In actual fact we finished with bugger-all medals and people literally pissing on their GB flags around the stadium. It was an absolute Jim Davidson of a joke."
Sport-zpauper said other footage disguising was even more incredible.
"We had a boxer who was so inept that he knocked himself out after he tripped on a pie as he climbed into the ring. Because of headguard graphics we were able to replace this cretin with footage of George Foreman from the Mexico Olympics of 1968 superimposed over another fighter in another fight.
"The fact that he was in black-and-white while his opponent was in full colour hasn't been picked up on yet.
"Then there was the rower in the coxless fours who had not only forgotten his oars, but also his clothes and worryingly, his sexuality.
"Tina Cook turned up on some sort of moose/toad hybrid in the equestrian, while Becky Adlington torched a whole wing of the Olympic Village because she believed she was the reincarnation of Boudicca.
"All of them were recreated, botched, pasted or forced into footage to con the great British public, while arseholes like that bloke from Blue Peter prattled on about it."
With the schemes in place GB has disguised its position as not only being bottom of the medals table but also on minus figures, such is the embarrassment the country has caused its inscrutable guests.
Sport-zpauper said that newspapers and radio had joined in with the con to get better reader figures.
He said that he felt he had an obligation to uncover the truth to the great British public.
Plus, he added: "I'm sick and tired of Bradley Wiggins' blatant cleptomania being disguised on-screen - the twat took my copy of Great Expectations the other day."
Using hi-tech graphics, computer-generated soundbites and downright jiggery-pokery the broadcaster has been accused of "conjuring up a load of shite" to make Britain seem great.
The shock claim has been made by disgruntled ex-employee Barry Sport-zpauper, who approached the Comedy Guy journalists after being sacked this afternoon for uncovering shocking dossiers of how the scams happened.
The journalist and retired weasel wrestler told Comedyguy that the real British team were the biggest bunch of misfits, miscreants and mindshits outside of Johnston Press.
He said: "The BBC has been planning this bollocks for years, ever since it realised that people like Gabby Logan are dull as turnips and wouldn't recognise a sharp bit of broadcasting if it bit her in the arse like a leech.
"It knew that as a state broadcast machine it needed to make the Olympics seem as hip and right-on as possible with London coming up god-nows-how-many-thousand-days-that-we-will-no-doubt-be-reminded-of-interminable-times later. We needed definite winners.
"With that in mind it created graphics of the athletes to use in its footage which could be superimposed over the real sportsmen, to prevent us from seeing Chris Hoy peddling round the track backwards and Louis Smith turning up for the gymnastics wearing giant foam hands."
According to Sport-zpauper BBC officials have resorted to desperate measures to "fill in the gaps" when they trawled their archives but were unable to find footage of the athletes.
The journalist said he discovered something was up when he read some notes on Christine Ohurougu "racing" two months ago.
He said: "Ohuruogu is classically forgetful and hasn't even turned up in Beijing. Last time we heard she was seen renting a little apartment in Eastbourne pretending she was called Keith.
"We knew she wasn't going to show, but because she hasn't competed since 1998 in anything meaningful we had trouble getting footage of her.
"So we chose some poor lass from some other country - Ghana, or possibly Guernsey I think it was - while superimposing pre-prepared footage of Floella Benjamin - the closest approximation we had - onto the screen on top of her.
"In the screen I, and everyone at home, could see a heavily pixellated Benjamin outstripping Sanya Richards like she was outpacing Little Ted and Jemima.
"In actual fact we finished with bugger-all medals and people literally pissing on their GB flags around the stadium. It was an absolute Jim Davidson of a joke."
Sport-zpauper said other footage disguising was even more incredible.
"We had a boxer who was so inept that he knocked himself out after he tripped on a pie as he climbed into the ring. Because of headguard graphics we were able to replace this cretin with footage of George Foreman from the Mexico Olympics of 1968 superimposed over another fighter in another fight.
"The fact that he was in black-and-white while his opponent was in full colour hasn't been picked up on yet.
"Then there was the rower in the coxless fours who had not only forgotten his oars, but also his clothes and worryingly, his sexuality.
"Tina Cook turned up on some sort of moose/toad hybrid in the equestrian, while Becky Adlington torched a whole wing of the Olympic Village because she believed she was the reincarnation of Boudicca.
"All of them were recreated, botched, pasted or forced into footage to con the great British public, while arseholes like that bloke from Blue Peter prattled on about it."
With the schemes in place GB has disguised its position as not only being bottom of the medals table but also on minus figures, such is the embarrassment the country has caused its inscrutable guests.
Sport-zpauper said that newspapers and radio had joined in with the con to get better reader figures.
He said that he felt he had an obligation to uncover the truth to the great British public.
Plus, he added: "I'm sick and tired of Bradley Wiggins' blatant cleptomania being disguised on-screen - the twat took my copy of Great Expectations the other day."
Wednesday 13 August 2008
Championship Johnager
I said on Sunday that I would do a quick preview of the season, specifically concentrating on the Championship. It was a good start financiallly at least, as QPR, Coventry and Brum all won netting me £72. Here's where local knowledge kicks in: Norwich have won three times in nearly 50 games in Coventry - I've seen better strike rates for canaries in cages.
So what can we glean from the opening weekend: A few opinions:
*Birmingham will be the team to beat - They stank on Saturday worse than the Lincolnshire sprout fields on a hot summer night. But they have goals in their side, proven winners, and don't give up. A good outside bet for top scorer might be Gary McSheffrey, who showed none of the ability of the promotion winning side, often drifting randomly like a penny in a urinal. Now he's in the right division to flourish.
*Blackpool are doomed - it's the classic, tight,tetchy game in a dismal ground where the plucky underdogs pull out all the stops in closing down the cliche-ridden game and suddenly the bigger team not only pulls the rug out from under their feet but then steal their Sky Plus and vomit in an expensive vase. 89th minute goals are the currency of relegation, and I'll bet Blackppol will be making quite a few transactions this season.
*Reading aren't going up - the rats are leaving the sinking ship. There's no Sidwell, the FA Cup specialist Kitson has gone to Stoke (nothing like furthering your career - for a year), Shorey's gone - next thing Coppell will be going. Where I have no idea? Manchester City? Macclesfield? Madagascar? Moulton Chapel? Who knows, but when he goes, the "Royals" will have about as much chance of coming back as Henry VIII.
*Doncaster - Playoffs? - I ask the question because when teams have momentum they can often find themselves in the middle of the playoff brawl without knowing how they got there. Before you scoff I'm sure you will tell me that you predicted Bristol City would finish top 6 last year. If so, you're either a lying tart or a demon of some kind - either way I banish you from the blog. This could be the first of several big scalps this year.
*Rule out Watford at your peril - Watford are the lepers of the division. I've heard more positive broadcasting about Basra than Vicarage Road this summer. And yes, they've lost players. But their manager's too good for the relegation dogfight, unless it's in the division above. They'll finish about 16th.
A few other random footballing things:
*I know Michael Owen's injury prone, but things are getting ridiculous. I hear today that he hasn't played any pre-season friendlies because he had mumps. Mumps?? Who the hell gets mumps at his age. It seems his body has been battered more times than Joey Barton's Playstation Controller so his entire nervous system and alimentary canal are now giving up the ghost. I guarantee by the end of the season he'll have chicken pox, herpes, and barely be able to stop shitting himself on the pitch.
*Lovely to see Frank Lampard staying in Britain. Bottled it completely, like most UK players.
*First impressions of Liverpool (against Liege): disjointed and disappointing. Forget the big teams - West Brom, Bolton, Fulham, West Ham, Blackburn,Hull in November and December is the key. Watch that title challenge disappear faster than Benitez' hairline.
So what can we glean from the opening weekend: A few opinions:
*Birmingham will be the team to beat - They stank on Saturday worse than the Lincolnshire sprout fields on a hot summer night. But they have goals in their side, proven winners, and don't give up. A good outside bet for top scorer might be Gary McSheffrey, who showed none of the ability of the promotion winning side, often drifting randomly like a penny in a urinal. Now he's in the right division to flourish.
*Blackpool are doomed - it's the classic, tight,tetchy game in a dismal ground where the plucky underdogs pull out all the stops in closing down the cliche-ridden game and suddenly the bigger team not only pulls the rug out from under their feet but then steal their Sky Plus and vomit in an expensive vase. 89th minute goals are the currency of relegation, and I'll bet Blackppol will be making quite a few transactions this season.
*Reading aren't going up - the rats are leaving the sinking ship. There's no Sidwell, the FA Cup specialist Kitson has gone to Stoke (nothing like furthering your career - for a year), Shorey's gone - next thing Coppell will be going. Where I have no idea? Manchester City? Macclesfield? Madagascar? Moulton Chapel? Who knows, but when he goes, the "Royals" will have about as much chance of coming back as Henry VIII.
*Doncaster - Playoffs? - I ask the question because when teams have momentum they can often find themselves in the middle of the playoff brawl without knowing how they got there. Before you scoff I'm sure you will tell me that you predicted Bristol City would finish top 6 last year. If so, you're either a lying tart or a demon of some kind - either way I banish you from the blog. This could be the first of several big scalps this year.
*Rule out Watford at your peril - Watford are the lepers of the division. I've heard more positive broadcasting about Basra than Vicarage Road this summer. And yes, they've lost players. But their manager's too good for the relegation dogfight, unless it's in the division above. They'll finish about 16th.
A few other random footballing things:
*I know Michael Owen's injury prone, but things are getting ridiculous. I hear today that he hasn't played any pre-season friendlies because he had mumps. Mumps?? Who the hell gets mumps at his age. It seems his body has been battered more times than Joey Barton's Playstation Controller so his entire nervous system and alimentary canal are now giving up the ghost. I guarantee by the end of the season he'll have chicken pox, herpes, and barely be able to stop shitting himself on the pitch.
*Lovely to see Frank Lampard staying in Britain. Bottled it completely, like most UK players.
*First impressions of Liverpool (against Liege): disjointed and disappointing. Forget the big teams - West Brom, Bolton, Fulham, West Ham, Blackburn,Hull in November and December is the key. Watch that title challenge disappear faster than Benitez' hairline.
Sunday 10 August 2008
Artificial Mintelligence
See my MMA blog down below: It's not just boxers who are nutters.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/mma/08/08/rampage.returns/index.html
Just been out doing the gardening in preparation for some BBQs later in the month. Gardens are a fascinating window into evolution and a study of how some organisms can adapt to their surroundings. They say that in the event of a nuclear holocaust only cockroaches will survive; Well I'll tell you what the bastards will be eating: mint.
Mint is the Terminator of plants. It's had more comebacks than Sinatra and has the staying power of Russell Brand on steroids. It doesn't matter what you do, where you dig, where you are in the garden; even in a plot made of asbestos and rubble, there will be mint somewhere, its serrated leaves contorting into a wry,invincible smile amidst the carnage.
I put about three bathfulls of weedkiller on an infestation of the renegade herb a month ago, and it all died. Apparently.
I go out this afternoon, and it appears I had not put down weedkiller; I had in fact doused my garden in shredded lamb, with a sign saying 'insert rampant relevent herb here'. Had it been December, I would have called it a Minter Wonderland. It had not only returned, but decided to broaden its horizens by migrating to the entrance to the garden, the far end of the garden, the other side of the garden, underneath the garden, above the garden, and basically every other part of the garden. My mouth dropped open, immediately letting its bitter, mocking taste pervade my nostrils. I then spent hours slicing the damn things down with shears, chainsaws, machetes, lawnmowers, animals with sharp claws, cheese knives and anything else I could get my hands on in a feverish, sweaty hackfest.
AND YET HERE'S THE RIDICULOUS THING: I have a herb garden. Outside. There's Rosemary, Parsley, Sage and Coriander in the little pot. It did have mint. And it's died. The one place I actually want mint, and it's keeled over like Michelle McManus on Wii Fit.
Meanwhile, its cousins on the grass patch nearby lament its passing by doing what they do best: growing in annoying places. "It's what he would have wanted" they sniff, as they strangle the life out of an errant rose or lilly.
From now on I'm going to become a gardener specifically excelling in grass, thistles, mint, daisies and thorn bushes. And I'll no doubt be overrun with some other swine like dandelions, or broccoli, or some other as-yet-undiscovered plant that smells like fart.
A preview of the Championship, using over-the-top and misguided assumptions following the first game of the season, will follow later this week on this blog. So log onto your minternet and have a look...Jesus Christ it's got to me...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/mma/08/08/rampage.returns/index.html
Just been out doing the gardening in preparation for some BBQs later in the month. Gardens are a fascinating window into evolution and a study of how some organisms can adapt to their surroundings. They say that in the event of a nuclear holocaust only cockroaches will survive; Well I'll tell you what the bastards will be eating: mint.
Mint is the Terminator of plants. It's had more comebacks than Sinatra and has the staying power of Russell Brand on steroids. It doesn't matter what you do, where you dig, where you are in the garden; even in a plot made of asbestos and rubble, there will be mint somewhere, its serrated leaves contorting into a wry,invincible smile amidst the carnage.
I put about three bathfulls of weedkiller on an infestation of the renegade herb a month ago, and it all died. Apparently.
I go out this afternoon, and it appears I had not put down weedkiller; I had in fact doused my garden in shredded lamb, with a sign saying 'insert rampant relevent herb here'. Had it been December, I would have called it a Minter Wonderland. It had not only returned, but decided to broaden its horizens by migrating to the entrance to the garden, the far end of the garden, the other side of the garden, underneath the garden, above the garden, and basically every other part of the garden. My mouth dropped open, immediately letting its bitter, mocking taste pervade my nostrils. I then spent hours slicing the damn things down with shears, chainsaws, machetes, lawnmowers, animals with sharp claws, cheese knives and anything else I could get my hands on in a feverish, sweaty hackfest.
AND YET HERE'S THE RIDICULOUS THING: I have a herb garden. Outside. There's Rosemary, Parsley, Sage and Coriander in the little pot. It did have mint. And it's died. The one place I actually want mint, and it's keeled over like Michelle McManus on Wii Fit.
Meanwhile, its cousins on the grass patch nearby lament its passing by doing what they do best: growing in annoying places. "It's what he would have wanted" they sniff, as they strangle the life out of an errant rose or lilly.
From now on I'm going to become a gardener specifically excelling in grass, thistles, mint, daisies and thorn bushes. And I'll no doubt be overrun with some other swine like dandelions, or broccoli, or some other as-yet-undiscovered plant that smells like fart.
A preview of the Championship, using over-the-top and misguided assumptions following the first game of the season, will follow later this week on this blog. So log onto your minternet and have a look...Jesus Christ it's got to me...
Thursday 7 August 2008
There's still time for London...
Firstly, take a look at this. Hilarious.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/citing_poor_conditions_china
Olympics tomorrow. All looking forward to it I'm sure, but my letter to the Olympic committee for new events didn't get anywhere. Imagine if these beauties had taken place.
1) The steroid sprint: Everyone in athletics has taken drugs and is on drugs and eats drugs for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, late lunch (although with an injection of these babies you'll never be late) dinner, and tea. The obvious solution is to let them fill up on juice and go for it. Imagine the results - An 8 second 100 metres, which would have been 6 had one competitor not attacked the others with a sharpened crispy duck pancake in roid rage. The urine test afterwards would be like Mount Vesuvius. And the post-race interview would feature more obscenity than Jade Goody wrestling Amy Winehouse naked in Jalfrezi sauce. Although at least Chambers would do well...
2) Backwards walking: The most ridiculous event in the whole games is walking, so let's make it even more ridiculous.They have to go backwards, uphill, dressed as David Bowie circa 1972, while random lorries of varying sizes carrying, oh let's say baboons, come down the hill playing happy hardcore, and nuns and penguins wrestle in the background.
3) Pub Darts: Imagine the Gods seated around Mt Olympus with wise Zeus stroking his chin in wonderment at the feats of physical and mental strength below. Then imagine their contempt as the track and field dissipates in a cloud of smoke. When the mist clears, a 30 stone man eats a steak pie before climbing to his pustule ridden feet, slobbering to the oche and wrapping a grisly mutant hand around a dart and throwing it with all the exertion of an anorexic lettuce into a rubberised board. The gods would weep, and I, in my curry stained dressing gown, would smile.
4) Smog parachuting: As we are well aware, the smog in Beijing is of an exquisite quality. The The winner of a 13,000ft skydive would be the one who dives through the polluted sky and lands with the most limbs.
5) The tibet triathlon: Specifically for Tibetan protestors, the triathlon starts with competitors taking on a 2,000 mile run over broken glass carrying a buffalo, then a 100 mile cycle ride on one of those bikes where you turn the handlebars left and it turns right, concluded with the 100 mile swim along the Yangtze River, while cruel Chinese dictators follow playing that "ooh ooh" song from the 5,6,7,8s.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/citing_poor_conditions_china
Olympics tomorrow. All looking forward to it I'm sure, but my letter to the Olympic committee for new events didn't get anywhere. Imagine if these beauties had taken place.
1) The steroid sprint: Everyone in athletics has taken drugs and is on drugs and eats drugs for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, late lunch (although with an injection of these babies you'll never be late) dinner, and tea. The obvious solution is to let them fill up on juice and go for it. Imagine the results - An 8 second 100 metres, which would have been 6 had one competitor not attacked the others with a sharpened crispy duck pancake in roid rage. The urine test afterwards would be like Mount Vesuvius. And the post-race interview would feature more obscenity than Jade Goody wrestling Amy Winehouse naked in Jalfrezi sauce. Although at least Chambers would do well...
2) Backwards walking: The most ridiculous event in the whole games is walking, so let's make it even more ridiculous.They have to go backwards, uphill, dressed as David Bowie circa 1972, while random lorries of varying sizes carrying, oh let's say baboons, come down the hill playing happy hardcore, and nuns and penguins wrestle in the background.
3) Pub Darts: Imagine the Gods seated around Mt Olympus with wise Zeus stroking his chin in wonderment at the feats of physical and mental strength below. Then imagine their contempt as the track and field dissipates in a cloud of smoke. When the mist clears, a 30 stone man eats a steak pie before climbing to his pustule ridden feet, slobbering to the oche and wrapping a grisly mutant hand around a dart and throwing it with all the exertion of an anorexic lettuce into a rubberised board. The gods would weep, and I, in my curry stained dressing gown, would smile.
4) Smog parachuting: As we are well aware, the smog in Beijing is of an exquisite quality. The The winner of a 13,000ft skydive would be the one who dives through the polluted sky and lands with the most limbs.
5) The tibet triathlon: Specifically for Tibetan protestors, the triathlon starts with competitors taking on a 2,000 mile run over broken glass carrying a buffalo, then a 100 mile cycle ride on one of those bikes where you turn the handlebars left and it turns right, concluded with the 100 mile swim along the Yangtze River, while cruel Chinese dictators follow playing that "ooh ooh" song from the 5,6,7,8s.
Tuesday 5 August 2008
Not Keane
NME has a pic of Keane's new direction. What the Hell?
http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=10&title=we_reckon_keane_are_the_new_klaxons_3&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Check out the guy on the right. David Walliams turning into Hawk from the Legion of Doom.
He also seems to be wearing Dmitri Kharine's shirt, circa 1994.
And what the hell's that shite on the lead singer's hand? I'll tell you what it is - that hand's been stuck up his backside; everyone else in the industry seems to be up theirs, so why not.
Everybody's changing, but not for the best.
http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=10&title=we_reckon_keane_are_the_new_klaxons_3&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Check out the guy on the right. David Walliams turning into Hawk from the Legion of Doom.
He also seems to be wearing Dmitri Kharine's shirt, circa 1994.
And what the hell's that shite on the lead singer's hand? I'll tell you what it is - that hand's been stuck up his backside; everyone else in the industry seems to be up theirs, so why not.
Everybody's changing, but not for the best.
The Black (Day) Parade
Our newspaper today broke the story that Spalding's flower parade is no more.
Rising costs meant that the carnival trust set up to organise the annual event made the painful decision to scrap it in its 50th year.
For those who've never been, the parade consists of floats - essentially tractors - which have a display of flowers formed into a planet, or a farm scene, or house etc. Each parade, which goes through the heart of Spalding, is themed. Last year's was "thanks for the memories". Ironic I guess.
Hundreds of thousands of people come to the little town, incredibly, for one weekend.
But is it a surprise that it's going? No.
Every year people gripe about the parade (which by the way has as many tulips as rocking horse poo - they've been paper versions in the past few years). The gripes are always summed up in one word: disappointment. The floats come through; there's usually a few that are decent; then they go; then people get drunk at the Poacher and fall in the Welland.
Some floats are obviously well made and a lot of work goes into them. But it always seems people are doing it because no-one had the bravery to say that we should celebrate Spalding differently.
Whether forced by financial constraints, or acting on feedback, or making the decision with other ideas in mind, the Trust has shown that bravery.
So let's go for it. A proper festival at Springfields, with proper celebrities and local groups. An entry fee for a start. As suggested on the inevitable Facebook group, let's have some real ales. Let's have fireworks, Nintendo Wiis, great games. Proper food - Chinese or Indian. Let's support our drama groups more. Let's keep the Flower Queen - all of our Queens have been great ambassadors.
The more ideas people come up with the more an embryonic idea will grow - and then Spalding will still have a standpiece we can be proud of.
Rising costs meant that the carnival trust set up to organise the annual event made the painful decision to scrap it in its 50th year.
For those who've never been, the parade consists of floats - essentially tractors - which have a display of flowers formed into a planet, or a farm scene, or house etc. Each parade, which goes through the heart of Spalding, is themed. Last year's was "thanks for the memories". Ironic I guess.
Hundreds of thousands of people come to the little town, incredibly, for one weekend.
But is it a surprise that it's going? No.
Every year people gripe about the parade (which by the way has as many tulips as rocking horse poo - they've been paper versions in the past few years). The gripes are always summed up in one word: disappointment. The floats come through; there's usually a few that are decent; then they go; then people get drunk at the Poacher and fall in the Welland.
Some floats are obviously well made and a lot of work goes into them. But it always seems people are doing it because no-one had the bravery to say that we should celebrate Spalding differently.
Whether forced by financial constraints, or acting on feedback, or making the decision with other ideas in mind, the Trust has shown that bravery.
So let's go for it. A proper festival at Springfields, with proper celebrities and local groups. An entry fee for a start. As suggested on the inevitable Facebook group, let's have some real ales. Let's have fireworks, Nintendo Wiis, great games. Proper food - Chinese or Indian. Let's support our drama groups more. Let's keep the Flower Queen - all of our Queens have been great ambassadors.
The more ideas people come up with the more an embryonic idea will grow - and then Spalding will still have a standpiece we can be proud of.
Monday 4 August 2008
MMA - Much More Action?
This is known as Sycamore Gap, and if you're sycamore blogs, then maybe it's time to go... I intend to write comments, post jokes, musings, and anything that I can find lurking in the recesses of my mind.
My first piece is on MMA - mixed martial arts.
I have been a boxing fan since I was little (insert obvious joke) and I can't explain why. Part of the attraction was a logical offshoot from wrestling, of which I was a disciple in the early 90s. For anyone who can't remember how a punch was thrown in wrestling, stand up, throw a "roundhouse right hand" making sure you miss by at least three inches, and stomp your right foot as the blow whistles past. Any normal person will look at you bemused, so try and perfect the art on someone called Luke, Butch, Virgil or Haku for the proper effect.
But at some point I grew to savour real punches. The sound of leather on jaw, the joust of mind over matter, the way the stricken fighter sat in his corner peers through a swollen eye at the arse crack of the round card girl. There is no other sport, perhaps excepting grand prix, where an ending can result so explosively and brutally. In football, if a team is 5-0 up with two minutes left there's not a lot of point. In boxing, it's never over (for those who remain unconvinced check out Julio Cesar Chavez vs Meldrick Taylor on Youtube; a desperate final burst from Chavez dropped the brilliant Taylor with two seconds to go, changing the fight and more tragically, Taylor's livelihood.)
The new upstart MMA apparently retains this excitement with interest. It's boxing on acid. It's no-hold barred, multinational playground fighting. It's two men fighting in a steel octagon over three five minute rounds. If it were music, it would be Phats and brawl or Whitknee Houston. If it were food it would be fists and chips, or Monster punch. I'll stop now.
Some would argue it's a higher form of the art, enabling more variation in use of the elbow, knee and foot.
But the sight of two men scuffling on the floor trying to slip blows in-between elbows and arms in a bloody tangle reminded me more of New Road on a Friday night. I half expected one of them to examine a folded-up Zorba menu in his back pocket while the other swigged Sainsburys 22p lager in his corner between rounds.
In one fight a precise elbow split open a guy's eyebrow. Claret was pouring out like a fat woman's hip over a size 6 pair of jeans. One particular blow a minute later sent blood literally flying onto the camera, resembling that scene in Predator where the alien stands above Bill Duke and blasts lasers into his mind.
Rose tinted glasses indeed. By round three, repeated smashes to the wounded patch, by now resembling burger meat, had left a smear of platelets and haemoglobins in an arc of gore at least
5ft long across the canvas.
In boxing it would have been stopped instantly. Henry Cooper was slashed by Cassius Clay and resembled the girl out of Carrie, and was taken to the corner and pulled out. At the very least, a fighter would be taken to the corner to be inspected (Hagler/Hearns etc). In MMA, the referee, obviously thinking about Coronation Street, or his piles, or cheese and onion crisps, let the massacre continue to an eventual one-sided points decision.
The victor's blond hair was salmon colour by the end. The whole episode turned my stomach...and yet I could see what the fuss is about. The bravery, the technique, the atmosphere... somehow it was validated.
When Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin squared off in the sold out main event, over 25 minutes of tactical warfare, I was hooked. Griffin, apparently one of the sport's stellar stars, realised he had to take the brutish Jackson's legs away. So he kept kicking them. Hard. It made me wince more than any punch to the face ever could, but you could see Griffin's mind working and appreciate the talent and strategy he was putting together.
The Mandalay Bay in Vegas was sold out, and by the looks of things most of them were kids. Kids who should be boxing fans, but prefer the immediacy and the brutality of MMA. Too many main events in boxing have been bore-a-thons, or more regrettably on one occasion bite-a-thons. The top fighters have avoided each other too many times. COntenders have been avoided, no-names have got title shots.
So fans have turned to MMA and boxing better look out, because it's (insert cliche - "on the ropes", "receiving the count", "in danger of being knocked out", or my choice "clinging on like a punch-drunk old wino who's been clipped round the face more times than Joan Rivers) .
It's still the better sport - anyone who saw the masterpiece that was Margarito and Cotto last week will confirm this - but it needs more otherwise it will be blown out of the ring.
I have several suggestions, but they are for another time.
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