Sport for all (but I wish it wasn’t)

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

To paraphrase George Best, I’ve spent all my money on sport and beer and the rest I’ve just wasted. Right now it feels like a tax on the stupid and I must be due a rebate. Here’s the reasons:

Cricket

Australia aren’t beating England. Because in being beaten, the losing team is at least competing. In the last three days, England have managed one session in which they aspired to parity. And every morning, a brief Internet surf shows that somehow last night was even worse that the one before. We score a meagre 157 with all our players, while Australia lope easily to 188 losing just one man who appeared too apathetic to run. Still fair play to the fella, we were clearly never going to bowl him out and he fancied some time out fishing while his colleagues smacked the cherry around.

Some of this is undoubtedly the fault of our crowing media that labeled the Australian team as too old to compete at the highest level. Last time this rather high risk strategy saw ˜Dad’s Army’ steal the Rugby World Cup from under the Australian’s noses. But our team “ even shorn of a couple of key players “ looks undercooked, overawed and heading for an embarrassing capitulation over five matches.

Rugby

Still at least we’re losing to the best team in the world playing the only game which breaks for lunch. On the Rugby pitch we’re losing to anyone who turns up in West London looking for a game. First the Puma’s deservedly won their first ever match at Twickenham and now the South African’s have slayed their St. Geroge’s dragon in a rather more unworthy manner. Last week, we had much possession but few ideas during the last twenty minutes, and sneaked a win by hiding the ball up our jumper.

This week, we threw away an eight point lead through a larcenous combination of indiscipline and incompetence. South Africa have their pub team touring the UK and Ireland showed quite how rubbish they were. But, and I feel a surge of pride at this, England made them look fantastic.

The coach will be sacrificed, the team will move on” and come the Six Nations and latterly the World Cup, every team will see us as a home and away banker while we’ll trade on fading glories.

Football

Okay, I accept that Sheffield United never pretended to be world beaters or even any good. But hanging onto the thinnest of thin slivers this weekend, I deludedly banked my sporting happiness on us crafting a draw against a London club which isn’t bankrolled by a few squillion. Oh, I see checking the web that indeed they now are. Anyway we had our chances but didn’t take them and are left languishing at the arse end of the table hanging precipitously over a huge revenue drop to the lower leagues.

And that’s to be expected but it was like the grim reaper receiving an early Christmas present of a nail gun. Which he’s enthusiastically applying to the coffin of English sport.

I really wish I didn’t care. It’s not as beating your head against an unyielding desk can in any way change matters. But it’s the manner of defeat which rankles, we’re either chicken in the face of an opponent who’ve mentally bested us off the field of play, before we crumble once upon it. Or we’re headless chickens running around chasing the ball in a perfect parody of seven year olds playing football.

It really doesn’t matter does it? At the end of the day, sport is just nationalism dressed up in a track suit, and surely living in a country with a healthy economy, supplying allegedly well funded public services and cosseted in a generally risk free environment matters more.

Well that should be the case but it isn’t. We take all of that for granted while sport offers us the chance to bask in reflected glory, but with that comes the responsibility of feeling impotent and angry when our team gets stuffed.

We may have invented most of these games but unfortunately every other nation subsequently punctured the myth that arrogance and birth right in some way determine the result, before actually strolling out onto the pitch and giving a shit. There are many problems with English sport ranging from apathy through misadministration and ending “ as these thing inevitably do “ with money. Too much of it to the wrong people rewarding the wrong things.

Still it could be worse. Much, much worse; you could be a citizen of a nation with fantastic weather, superbly confident sporting teams and a chip on their shoulder the size of Manchester. I’m sportingly depressed to be English right now but the alternative would be to have born an Australian or a South African.

You see, I told you there was reason for optimism. If I can institute a media blackout over the next month and pretend to enjoy the cold and dark, Christmas will be here and that’s a reason to be properly miserable.

That’s a worry – Part II

On By AlexIn Site StuffLeave a comment

I have an uber rant locked and loaded to fire at Chiltern Profits Railways which ratchets my angst up to a head exploding Defcon 2. Defcon 1 would see me laying about myself with a handy member of staff whilst eating the ticket barrier. so I’m hoping never to get there however hard they push.

And man they are pushing hard after the cleaner unplugged their state of the art IT system resulting in them losing zero revenue and a couple of hundred of us losing about an hour of our day, queuing behind a very stupid man armed with a belligerent attitude and a blunt pencil. That was us with the attitude and him with the pencil.

And behind that an ode to faffing, some gory stories you’ve probably already seen in a snake bites crocodile kind of scenario, another epic on a wind based theme and some scrawl I wrote on the train while drunk that seemed amusing at the time.

But you’ll have to wait. Into my traditional stable work orbit have been tossed asteroids and comets creating an unplanned effect we astrophysicists call “wobbly”. Until I can de-wobble my life or – in preference – harm those whose idea of a deadline is one they dream up in the bath, then it’s all going to be a bit quiet.

I just hope the ranting release valve gets hit before the Snailway company encompass all things incompetent one more time. They will be violence or at least heavy sarcasm towards those responsible.

We invented the game, remember?

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

My Antipodean friend is encouraging me to write a standard we were crap” article lambasting the English Rugby team who have turned Fortress Twickenham into Fill Your Boots, Twickenham. I cannot spin any positives when it’s obvious that we lost the 15 a side Falklands rematch, due to our highly paid team missing some basic skills such as Catching” and Throwing”

But I thought I’d wait until the triple whammy of Rugby League and Ashes Cricket crank up the humiliation and mental pain of any fool supporting English sport.

Until then, enjoy these cheesy nuggets of humour retrieved from the rancid remains of the Internet bargain bucket.

The English rugby practice was disrupted today when an unknown white substance was found on the practice pitch by some player. Head coach Andy Robinson immediately suspended practice and called the police, after a complete analysis by forensic experts the unknown substance was found to be the try line.
Practice was resumed when the RFU decided the players were unlikely to encounter the substance again!

Andy Robinson takes the England team for a training session, first up he tells the players to take up their normal positions, so they all go behind the posts to wait for the conversion!!

The RFU set up a helpline for disappointed fans after a disastrous season the number is 0800 10 10 10.
That’s 0800 won nothing, won nothing, won nothing!

There are two man made things can be seen from space,
The Great Wall of China and the hole in the English defense

What’s the difference between English team and an arsonist?
An arsonist would not waste 17 matches

Although the last one is mildly amusing. We’ll be fine tomorrow, beat the boks a million to nil and all shall be right with the world. Until the first Ashes test “ someone pass me a blanket and a large drink.

POST MATCH EDIT:
Result never in doubt then 😉 And there was even scant consolation for being stuffed in the RL match with the Aussies after the bog trotters gave them a good stuffing in the fifteen man game. Right, Ashes then, I’m feeling confident but it’s been said – and by professional people who know their stuff – I’m deluded.

Toilet Humour

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

Not so much gags about dropping your pants in the misguided pursuit of comedic merit, more a transcription of a microcosmic example of what happens where corporate life and bodily fluids collide. Although not in the truly physical sense “ well at least I hope not.

A man of a certain age is left with few pleasures; one of those remaining is a full and detailed review of the sports pages while communing with nature. And not in this modern willy in one hand, IPAQ in the other whilst wetting the urinal rubbish. I’ve mentally lambasted those nonses cracking off an email or checking out the football scores, when their attention should really be on what’s in front of them, or as happens rather more often, what’s leaking onto their shoes.

No I’m talking old school, slam the door shut to trap 1, perform the trick of dropping your strides while simultaneously rustling open the paper, and plonk yourself down on the thankfully unwarmed seat and think of England. The social variant of this process calls for a hearty cough to disguise the unfolding in case of other occupants prowling in this last Bastian of the male.

So obviously a communal gasp (or possibly gas) escaped both of us when we realised that the trap next door was occupied. Oh the stomach plunging embarrassment of being caught in loco paparis with literally your trousers round your ankles. This situation demanded a mature response, and in that vein I settled comfortably and refused to make even the tiniest sound until he wiped and ran. Unfortunately he too evidently couldn’t face the social stigma of being outed as a thunderbox rustler and adopted exactly the same ploy of total silence.

We’d probably still be there now except for a desperately difficult situation unfolding in Trap 3. The final cistern was being noisily breached by a man who’d clearly had a bowel full of sprouts in his recent digestive history. It put me in mind of The Ride of the Valkyries” arranged for Rectal Oboe and Small Intestinal Trumpet. Think of the kind of sound a horse attempting to play the trombone may well make and you’re right in here with us.

This went on for some time.

Continue reading “Toilet Humour” →

It’s the f*cking cooking, stupid

On By AlexIn Other stuff7 Comments

Reality TV generally leaves me cold. It’s a formulaic ritual where grandstanding prima donnas screech at each other in some lurid juxtaposition of vainglory and fame. But Gordon Ramsey is always worth a watch; you have to hand it to this man with a pan, who is now serialised and handsomely paid to bully people and call them fucking wankers. It’s nice to see such jobs being shared outside of sales managers and executives who believe such an attitude ups both their virility and importance.

Last night saw old Slam Dunk Ramsey laying about himself with special vitriol saved for, what I’m thinking of as, the Prawns Of Wrath. The young boy, funded with his dad’s cash, who was allegedly running the restaurant shared almost none of Gordon’s cooking skills but matched him toe to toe for arrogance. Ramsey, clearly furious that this oiky underling failed to understand the basic premise that God was in the kitchen, sent him out bullfighting. Apparently this was to make the lad understand the importance of instruction from an experienced practitioner. It was a brutal and lazy physical metaphor to begin with even before the increasing gored and terrified participant ran for cover. It would also have carried significantly more weight had the instruction had any effect whatsoever other than to beat the bloke into submission and subsume his ego to that of Flash Gordon.

The format is such that it’s impossible for the restaurant to fail any more spectacularly whatever the great man does. Short of grilling its’ customers or serving up family pets, the makeover is destined to generate an upturn in its fortunes. So essentially it’s a rigid set up for a middle aged man to swear and bully his way through an hour before returning triumphant to the stirring sounds of his ego being serenaded. We all know the ending before we start watching and yet watch we do as the textbook unrolling of incredulence, stupidity, cajoling, enlightenment and finally mutual affection unwinds off the plot reel.

But I think it’s great and can’t wait for the next one where hopefully a ritual disembowelment of the sous chef during a team bonding jousting session precedes a bitch fight with frying pans. Someone shout at the BBC ˜Now THAT’S public service broadcasting’

Domestically untroubled by cooking, it’s unlikely old Gordy will ever pop round to our house to check out my signature dish. And with it being Beans on Toast enlivened by a Lager chaser, that’s probably no bad thing.

Democracy is wonderful.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding2 Comments

Yes I appreciate that this sentiment is not consistent with my oft aired views that the only state run government worth considering is benevolent dictatorship. And while it is equally clear that the majority of politicians are power crazy wankers, democracy does have its’ merits.

Chiefly amongst them is the state opening of Parliament. While Black Rod hammers friskily on the door with his, er, rod, the entire Metropolitan Police force seals off the elected Nut House and its immediate surrounds. Except while cones block cars, bikes are waved through and what followed was two miles of blissful traffic free riding.

Silence claimed the road aside from snicking gears and background rustle performed by the leaf ensemble. Four abreast “ racing “ down Constitution hill and then sweeping around onto the Mall with bored policeman waving us on. It’s the first time I’ve realised what a broadway the Mall is, barely constrained by the great parks of central London. It was all really quite impressive as Admiralty Arch hoved into view, before a final sprint ended abruptly when the snarl and angst of motorised traffic reclaimed the streets at Trafalgar Square.

Still it was fun while it lasted. Maybe we could lobby for a State opening every week. I’m sure that the fella would like to exercise his Rod “ black or otherwise “ more than once a year.

Down but by no means out.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsense4 Comments

Simon Barnes of The Times is a great Sports Writer. I always to turn first to his page because he’s so even handed with the raw emotion and the actual occasion. He writes beautifully about the pointlessness of sport while still held in its’ magical thrall. A good read every day, trading adjectives and verbs in the volatile market of what distills to grown men kicking a ball about.

But today he wrote about his sons’ condition of Down’s Syndrome. Any parent who can read the article without wiping their eyes is kidding themselves. One statistic that stuck was the stark reality showing that 94{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} diagnosed with the pre-born condition results in termination. I’m not sure what this says about parenting in the 21st century but it’s nothing with any obvious merit.

There is nothing I can add to his honesty, but I do remember when our second child was growing in the womb, we too had the test to detect what medical science calls an abnormal foetus. We talked about the long term consequences of a Down Syndrome child with all the seriousness of those faced with decisions guided by nothing but a moral compass. But silently I prayed hard “ for the first time since being confirmed as a lifelong atheist “ that our baby would be fit and healthy.

In public I would never have called for termination, but in a sleepless night before the test, that may have been my preference. And now it’s brutally obvious that any such decision would have been plain wrong “ you cannot deny a child life because it doesn’t fit with your view of how life should be. We can no more play God than those choosing designer babies with their blue eyes and Cambridge intelligence.

It made me realise how lucky we are to have two healthy kids whose lust for life validates our own. Take the religion out of it and you are still truly blessed with children even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.

I’m going to send a donation to the Down Syndrome Trust once my blurry eyes run out of tears. Not because I feel sorry for the kids “ they know no different “ but because if they pass the stigma exam of what children should be, they deserve all the help they can get.

And if this seems like sentimental nonsense without an obvious point then welcome to being a parent.

Well, that’s a bit of a worry.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsense5 Comments

A study today “ researched with all the rigour a single train journey allows “ shows a key finding that I’m sharing the carriage with a bunch of bloody Nazi’s. This hypothesis is based on a random sampling of those performing the three handed trick of coffee, briefcase and newspaper. And the newspaper of choice was the Daily Flail.

This is not some statistical anomaly, over 50{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of these suited and jackbooted city types were nodding away at a politically correct version of Johnny Foreigner starts at Calais and that’s where he should bloody well stay‘. Cautiously I peeked inside an abandoned copy to check whether my prejudices were as bad as those reading the Mail. They are, mine aren’t “ it’s all sneering at liberalism, and spiteful vitriol at an all encompassing moral sub class defined as Anti Britishness“. All the history you’ll ever need to learn from the Union Jack and a copy of Biggles.

So aside from those commuting to the London offices of the Gestapo, what were the remainder of my esteemed travelers reading? Around 10{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} were struggling with the full size but comparatively moderate Daily ToryGraph, a few more checking the size of their portfolios in the Financial times and the rest plotting world domination on that crucible of the modern communications age; Lucifers Notebook. Known as the Blackberry by those who own them and oh for God’s sake, turn the bloody thing off will you” by the rest of us.

A friend of mine perfectly places it at the centre of all things stupid with this comment: I sat next to a bloke with a Blackberry on the tube the other month. He was beavering away spinning his little jogwheel and pressing buttons, giving every impression of being a vital informational hub in his critical enterprise. Actually he was playing Tetris.”

Anyway I digress but for good reason because train journeys should be for sleep, reading or slack jawed looking out of the window. Not balancing every electronic item you own on your knee and then looking horrified as someone accidentally spills coffee all over them.

So that accounts for most reading material in the carriage. Of those left, one bloke was getting excited reading an article on how to install bow thrusters�? and exactly one other was reading the Guardian. That’d be me then. I expected, at any time, to be asked for my paper and possibly my papers before being ejected from the train. Go and live in a nude commune, you bloody tax dodging hippy‘ would have been their derisive farewell cry as I plunged down the embankment.

So all in all a bit of a quandary; as a self confessed hand wringing liberal, I feel I must vigorously defend everyone’s right to be intellectually closeted and mean spirited. But does that include those who read the Mail? Talk about pushing the limits of democratic acceptability. Surely I should be allowed to harm one of them if only to set an example?

What to do? Maybe I’ll source a copy of the Sun or Daily Star in the spirit of comparative experimentation. This may be troublesome as the station café offers only right wing ideology and copies of Mein Kampf. But I think it’ll be worth the effort.

Right now that’s off my chest, next up is the story of a bloke with “ literally “ a rocket up his arse. The kind of story the Daily Mail would approvingly headline Illegal Immigrants on fast track home”

Gone tomorrow, hair today.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding2 Comments

I’ve decided to grow a beard – although if one was striving for complete accuracy, this is merely a hairy symptom of not shaving. It’s a little known indicator of Ebola/Flu/a minor cold that your upper lip becomes anything but stiff when serially assaulted with snot and ˜soft‘ tissues. Soft my arse or possibly soft as my arse, these barely disguised sheets of weapons grade wet’n’dry turn the under-nasal area into a no shave zone.

So on finally staggering valiantly into the office, only 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of my professional associates burst into violent fits of laughter. The other 10{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} either held that laughter in long enough to make it to the bogs before collapsing in unconstrained mirth, or are so brain dead they failed to notice a wizened old rat clamped around my jaw.

Still I believe in all it’s goaty greyness it adds a certain gravitas and dignity to an otherwise undistinguished fizog. I may be tramping alone in the word of facial fashion on this one but it’s keeping me warm on cold commutes, providing a repository for emergency food and “ in extreme circumstances “ may offer a full head of hair if I can merely rotate the old spud 180 degrees.

So I think you’re all with me here; a bit of a winner all round.

Sadly the addition of a weighty facial hair and the loss of a lung to asthma in no way crimped off the competitive gland. Having been removed from the traffic biorhythms for the last week, I was out of sync with a three light set and he sneaked past without any respect for my bearded and snotty countenance. A bit of a cycling conundrum was he with a worthy but elderly race bike, a pair of fierce looking calves and bicycle clips. Had it not been for the old diorriha preventers, I’d not have raised what little game remains but honestly BICYCLE CLIPS.

Not only was he terribly confused about the acceptability of these seventies anti-icons, he also was pretty damn nifty through the traffic with his narrow bars and suicidal approach to closing gaps. I strapped on the metaphoric tortoise shell and played the long game, catching him on half remembered light sequences and sprinting past up Constitution hill having taken a lengthy draft up the mall.

He wasn’t happy. I could tell as we circled each other like wary stags waiting for release up into Hyde Park. Nobody was clipping out of pedals here but I broke first opting for a lengthy trackstand while still maintaining eye contact. I’m not sure he was impressed but I certainly was, and when the green fired off instant sprints across the traffic, an impromptu wheelie marked my determination to be first into the park.

This is my personal Mount Ventoux. Oh I can hear you mocking but put the world’s finest riders on crappy commuter bikes after a day in our offices and let them attempt to sprint past the local dogging club and suicidally black clad pedestrians, and I’m heading for a podium. So a desperate 200 seconds followed where Al just the one available lung” Leigh revved up his biggest gear and manfully resisted the strong urge to throw up.

Looking back is a sign of weakness and I had enough of those already so it wasn’t until the Bayswater road stuttered into my personal geography did I steal a glance. The perfect commuter win is when your assailant is still in sight, far enough back for it to be clear to everyone he’s a broken man but close enough that your gloating cannot be mistaken for constipation.

He was nowhere in sight. I can only assume he turned off some distance before. To say I feel aggrieved is akin to wondering if the French ever felt slightly piqued that we nicked all the best bits of Canada once they’d colonised it and named it new France. I nearly went back to find the ungrateful bugger and demand an explanation.

First bicycle clips and now this. Honestly, some people have no idea at all.

It™d be great to be five.

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

Not five o’clock when my the maritimely authentic, personally installed barn mounted yardarm dips below the sun, rather a physical age where mental conundrums are verbalised without ever passing through any kind of appropriateness filter.

Let me source you a representative example; to my left Random, five years old and cheerfully unconnected to the workings of the world, to my right a copse of wind blown autumnal leaves latterly connected to their host trees.

Dad, I know why those leaves are falling off the trees”
Why’s that Hon?”
Because it’s Autumn and the tree has to go to sleep for the winter”
That’s right”
So, these leaves, they all die do they? Doesn’t the tree love them anymore?”
Thinks for a bit, death is a minefield that kids simply navigate whilst you explode on moves they’ve planned three moves ahead

They’re not dead Hon, they’re just going into the soil to make new trees”
I’m pretty happy with this, most angles covered
They still die though, they don’t even live a year and even our hamster lasted longer than that”

Bugger, that bloody hamster, it didn’t die of natural courses, it’s genetic drive for an out of cage experience ended fatally during an in a cat experience.
Well yes I suppose so but the tree goes on for ages, come and have a look at how old it is”
It’s an old oak, stretching arthritically for the sky throwing limbs akimbo around a fat and knarled trunk.

Wow, that looks really old? changes verbal direction Is the bark like skin then?”
Prods next sentence with minesweeper. Comes up with a clean tone
Yeah I guess it is”

Wow, looks even more wrinkled than Grandma and She’s ANCIENT”
Grandma is in attendance. Now not looking quite so fondly at her previously loved cheeky granddaughter. Change subject rapidly before she gets really personal.
Anyway, why didn’t you want to walk home from the pub, you’ve only been swimming, you’ve had a huge lunch, you got up late, you’re only five, what’s wrong with you?”

Pensive expression spreads on her face like clouds on a sunny day. Fastens finger to lip and mentally strains for the right words. Clouds turn to rain as she’s clearly upset she can’t express herself properly
Well Dad, you know, you know, I’m, you know¦, you know…..”
Come on, have a go at the words, what do you mean”
Honestly?”
Honestly”
Dad, I’m bloody knackered”

Grandma de-wills youngest daughter whereas I have to be collected off the pavement due to hysterical convulsions. But this is the kind of thing that happens all the time with Random “ she’s just loose change in the vast mint of real life.

A couple more to cement the argument – When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she responded with a huge smile and I’d like to be a big house which we could all live in”. And only last week she asked me Daddy, if I was a baby elephant, would you still be my dad?”

Biologically tricky to answer that one. But I tell you if they grow up any faster, I’m having ˜em down the hospital to check for Genetic Modification.