London 0lympics 2012

So after seven years of build up the Olympics games came and went. And guess what, it was a success. Did people get to work or was everyone squashed onto the tubes from first train to last train? And
was there gridlock traffic throughout the city? No. I’m sure that people wanted it to be just so that they could say “See, told you so. Bloody Olympics.”
The whole city coming to a standstill was just a growling fever called Olympic Paranoia.
Sure the anti-Olympic lobby had some good points. One was the corporate feel to it. Yes fine but so does every major sporting event.
The brands might well be everywhere around the venues but you didn’t see them on the tv. Not like in other sports. Especially something like Formula 1 which is basically a walking advert.
Before it all began I heard a few people say its basically just a glorified sports day. Those people must never have seen Usain Bolt run.

Hyde Park Curfew

So at the end of the Bruce Springsteen concert in Hyde Park Sir Paul McCartney came onstage to have a bit of a sing song, only for the plug to b pulled halfway through the second song as they went over the curfew.
I Saw some mobile phone footage of it on the news. Everyone stops playing apart from Springsteen who carry’s on in his bombastic fist pumping manor. A bit embarrassing to say the least.

I have to applaud the authorities on this one. No I don’t care about the local residents. If you’re lucky enough (I mean rich enough) to live that central in London then expect noise. Especially in the summer months when there’s always a few concerts in Hyde Park.

What I applaud them for is not giving them time to do a rendition of Hey Jude. I’m sure they would’ve done it. And it would’ve gone on for ages.
“La la la la la la la… la la la la hey Jude, all the people at the back. La la la la la la la… la la la la hey Jude, all those in the front. La la la la la la la… la la la la hey Jude all together now.”
How much longer will McCartney continue joins other old rock stars on stage and bang out a couple of songs from the sixties?
Well there’s the Olympic closing ceremony. Then please, no more.

Titanic Failure

I saw the film Titanic at the cinema. The way it dragged on I thought the boat would never sink. Of course the film was very unrealistic, I mean as if the people who were reviving the ship would sit and listen to that old lady banging on about bolocks for three hours. “So you went to the front of the ship and held your arms out while he stood behind you. Well that’s all very nice but could you get on with it please.”

Now there is a 3D version of the film. I guess its come out now to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of when the Titanic sunk. Its all over the TV at the moment. There was even a documentary from the iceberg’s point of view.
Yes, yes I do know that about ninety percent of an iceberg is under water. File that under boring over told facts.

In Belfast where the ship was built there are tours on it. Its nothing to be proud of Belfast. The Titanic is revered and yet it’s a failure. A massive failure. Sunk on its maiden voyage. Like a boxer getting knocked out in one punch. A batsman getting bowled out with the first ball.
Guess that there isn’t many other tourist things to do in Belfast.

Gary Speed

Gary Speed topping himself was a bit of a random one. One minute on Football Focus, few hours later he’s in the garage looking for a sturdy piece of rope.
Why did he do it? Who knows, maybe some reason will come out after a period of mourning for the family and friends he left behind. Maybe we will never know.

In the meantime tributes have been pouring in from the world of football. Rightly so, he was one of them footballers that fans respected even if you didn’t support the team he was playing for. That certainly can’t be said about Joey Barton who sent a few tweets with his condolences. But then his twitter tourettes manifested itself and he went on so say:
'Suicide is a mix of the most tragic, most selfish, most terrible (and I want to believe preventable) acts out there.'

This comment has caused a bit of a storm and Barton has refused to apologise.
And why should he? Sure I think that Barton is a dick and his reinvention of himself as the thinking mans footballer doesn’t convince me -oh but wait he’s tweeted quotes from Nietzsche don’t you know? Really, well how hard is it to type out something that someone else quoted many years ago? It isn’t his words its Nietzsche- but he’s right in saying that its tragic, terrible and yes also selfish.
Though its just as sad as someone killing themselves who has nobody close to them, when you leave a family behind then you’ve passed problems onto them.
But from what I know about deep depression is that it reaches a moment when loved ones don’t come into consideration. The only person that matters is yourself, and that person doesn’t want to go on anymore. They believe its then only way.

So yes Joey Barton has a valid point. But the timing wasn’t so great. Is my timing better? No, but them I know that my opinion won’t be in the paper the next day.

Remembered Jackass

Last night the news broke that one of the Jackass crew Ryan Dunn and a fellow passenger had died in a car crash. He had tweeted a picture of himself out drinking an hour or so before. What a jackass (not original I know, but its just so hard not to mention it).
So today I picked up the crap free London newspaper Metro. There was a picture of Ryan Dunn on the front cover. Yesterday’s cover had a picture of Bruce Springsteen’s saxophone player Clarence Clemons who had died of a stroke. Both worth a mention, but to be on the front page then it must be a slow news week.
So I read the few paragraphs where I learnt that the car had flew off the road, hit a tree and burst into flames. A police investigator said that “Speed may have been a factor.” No shit.
Then it went on to say that one of the stunts that Ryan Dunn did on Jackass was when he put a toy car in a lubricated condom and placed it up his rectum.
Now when Dunn did that I bet he thought it was hilarious, maybe it was. But would he have done it if he knew that that’s what he would be remembered for and would be mentioned in reports of his death.
To the general public Clarence Clemons will always be remembered as Bruce Springsteen’s saxophonist over anything else that he ever did in his life. But I would take that over having a toy car stuck up your arse.
What about all his other stunts? I don’t know, as I didn’t watch Jackass. I’m just going on how the crap free London newspaper Metro boiled it down to me.

Blatter Deserves A Slap

Is it acceptable to punch a seventy five year old man in the face? No of course not, unless the man in question is Sepp Blatter.
The unbelievably smug president of Fifa really thinks that he’s the main man in world football. Not the players, not the coaches, not the fans but him. Like last summer when Spain won the World Cup Blatter handed the trophy to the Spanish captain Iker Casillas and then instead of getting out the way, he stood there as the players celebrated, as if the glory was his too.
Now there’s the corruption allegations and the farce of the Fifa presidential election where he is the only candidate . Then man has to go, but he won’t as the FIFA old boys have it good. Its like the Masons or some other secret organization where the members are too scared to fall out of line.
Then at work today I head on the radio that Blatter is going to form a committee to look into Fifa’s corruption problems. And on the committee will be 88 year old Henry Kissinger. I thought it was a joke, Henry Kissinger, from Richard Nixon’s administration will look into corruption. It must be a joke. When I got home I had to look it up to see if its true. It is and apparently Kissinger is a long-term associate of Blatter’s. Well that figures then.
I still think it’s a joke or Blatter is just taking it further to see what he can get away with. I expect him to soon announce other members on this committee to be Vladimir Putin and the Crown Prince of Qatar.

The Rapture Postponed Again

The old crank Harold Camping has given a new date for the end of the world. It’s going to be on October the 21st. He didn’t apologise to all the people who sold their houses and assets in preparation for the rapture. Why would they need to sell them anyway, what are hey going to do with them money? I have no sympathy for them at all.
Anyway, why did this bloke get so much publicity anyway? I can understand him maybe getting a little mention on Christian news outlets in the bible belt states but not on mainstream media over the world.
Wait, I guess that I’ve fallen for it just by mentioning it here. Ah shit.

Obama And The Queen

Barack Obama is stepping into overdrive and going on the re-election campaign early. On the back of the killing of Bin Laden he briefly made a visit to Ireland, for it seems no other reason than to get the American-Irish vote. He went to the place where one of his ancestors lived and then drank a pint of Guinness (of course, its mandatory). The push for the American-Irish vote ticked alongside the African-American vote.
He’s now London with the Queen, who’s also hardly been out the news lately. BBC Royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell is clocking in some hours overtime. First the Royal Wedding, then the dull blanket news coverage on her state visit to Ireland where there was live coverage of her doing such interesting things as waving and laying down a reef. I know it‘s her fist visit there due to political tensions but did it really need to be taking up the whole of BBC Wold News for four days?
Why didn’t I watch something else? Well because I was on holiday in Italy and that was the only English channel in the hotel room. So I flicked between the news and various football matches on the Italian version of Sky Sports.
Now Obama is here in the UK. I wonder what he and the Queen are going to talk about? Most old lady’s her age talk about the weather, their next doctors appointment, the health of people they know but you don’t, and the price of a lamb chop.
I imagine out of these things the Queen can only talk about the weather.

Scotland In The News

Yesterday was my day off and I woke in a bit of a blurred vision daze hangover, switched on the kettle then had a flick around the five TV channels that I have (yes, I am the only person that I know who still has analogue TV. I know you can pick up a digital box for about fifteen quid but I’ve just never picked one up when I’m out and about). I came across the turgid stench that is The Wright Show. I can usually only muster a minute of it and that was all I managed today. Mathew Wright wasn’t hosting it but it was still just as bad. Instead some Scottish woman was the host with guests Joe Mangle from Neighbours, some yokel dressed like Crocodile Dundee and a woman I don’t remember much about. The topic in question was ‘Should Scotland have independence?’ The guests were clearly out of their depth and after Joe Mangle mangled his clueless answer I switched it off. Next time that programme darkens my screen it won’t last a second.
Apparently two thirds of Scotland would like independence. They might say this now but when it all gets broken down and they realise the downfalls of independence nowhere near two thirds will vote for it in a referendum. For a start if Scottish people still think they’ll get free prescriptions and free higher education. Yeah right, forget it.
Scotland has also been in the news about the rise in sectarianism. Celtic and Rangers can’t play a game of football without a fight breaking out or the manager getting sent a parcel bomb or a fan running onto the pitch to clock him one. What’s wrong with these people?
I went out with an Irish mate of mine on St Patrick’s Day. He brought along a Northern Irish bloke who he works with. Within ten minutes of meeting him he let it be known that he was on the catholic side of Northern Ireland. As the evening wore on and more drinks were drunk he began to shout out anti-protestant songs. I said to him “What are you singing about? Catholic, Protestant its all the same, don’t get so uptight about something that doesn’t matter. It’s the same God.” I new that it would antagonise him, and it did.
Its just hating for the sake of hating. The Scottish Football Association will pussy foot around the issue because there is no other way. But really they want to say ‘Let history be history and grow up you idiots.’

American Patriotism Needs An Outlet

So was Osama bin Laden armed or not when they shot him? Who cares, what were they going to do? He was wanted dead or alive. But really only dead as the Americans wouldn’t want to take him to a trial and go through the whole process like they did with Saddam Hussein. To much bother. Bullet in the head, job done. They go home and Bin Laden is on his 9th virgin by the end of the day.
Then the news breaks and the whole western world celebrate. We all go out on the streets cheering and waving flags. No wait, that’s only in America. Maybe they saw the Royal wedding a couple of days before and were desperate to have some of that crowd gathering flag waving patriotism that was going on.
I saw a picture of one bloke dressed up as Captain America. It was all a bit strange. When arrests were made over associations to the London 7/7 bombings there weren’t British people going out to celebrate. Its just not necessary.
Maybe its because Americans are a patriotic bunch but don’t have an outlet for it. Their main sports don’t have national teams that play in tournaments. There’s no baseball, American football or basketball world cup. Maybe if Americans cared more about football and were better at it then they would stop dressing up as Captain America at every opportunity.
Or maybe they would be worse.

More Royal Wedding News

The run up to the wedding is in full flow. Every day there’s a news segment on it.
Just looked at the BBC News website and there’s a new story every hour. How the choir boys are preparing for it, Kate Middleton’s family tree, Royal Wedding souvenirs, how annoying over smiley faced Cat Deeley is presenting the wedding on CNN and that the King of Swaziland is going. That’s all within a span of seven hours.
I caught the family tree story on the six o’clock news, it was about how going back a few generations on Kate Middleton’s mothers side they were from a mining town in County Durham. Some members of her family still live there. They talked to her cousin who owns a chip shop, he’s not going to the wedding.
I wonder when he last saw Kate. I’ve got relatives that I’ve not seen since I was a kid. I’ve got second cousins that I wouldn’t recognise if they knocked on my door and introduced their self’s. I have a first cousin who is a deacon (or something like that) in the Church of England. His life is a world away from mine and I’ve not seen him for about seventeen years.
Princess Diana was portrayed as ‘the peoples princess’ and ‘the queen of hearts’ and all that rubbish. Lets not also pretend that Kate Middleton is from a poor family that made good. It’s obvious that she isn’t, she’s an upper middle class girl. The report briefly mentioned that her fathers background comes from money, well he must be if he’s going to pay for this massive wedding. Oh, wait a minute, the taxpayer is.

Issues Of The Day Like Hair

Lot of news going on today, like the budget. What’s gone up? What’s gone down? How will it affect you? Has booze gone up? It’s stayed the same. Okay so let’s move on. The Libya situation. Is the UN military right to intervene? With all the cutbacks that David Cameron has enforced over the last few month why is he so eager to go charging in? Does Colonel Gaddafi dye his hair? Come on, no one has hair that black at the age of 68.
On the subject of hair, while watching Match of the Day last weekend I noticed that Mark Lawrenson has always had that brushed back layered look on top with it being on the verge of a mullet at the back. Alan Hansen Hansen’s side parting never changes either. But at least his hair doesn’t look dated.
Not like former spurs manager Gerry Francis who is still rocking the mullet. Infact its even worse as its receding at the front and even longer at the back.
Roberto Baggio is still persisting with that ponytail rattail thing. Its worse than his 1994 World Cup final penalty miss that he blasted over the bar.
Chris Waddle blasted a World Cup semi final penalty way over the bar. He also had the mullet of all mullet’s but to Waddle’s credit at least he had the sense to get rd of it in the early nineties.

Smoking Moss

Non-smoking day was this week, and some media outlets were criticising Kate Moss because she was smoking on the cat walk on this so called day of all days to kick the habit. For a start, if non smoking day is a day to encourage someone to stop then it won’t help as nobody knows it is non-smoking day until they hear it on the radio or read it in the paper that very day. Kate Moss had a fag, so what.
But wait, isn’t she a role model that children look up to for inspiration? No, she’s a model, not the guiding light for the nations future. A model. She wears clothes for a living and gets photographed. Also it was the fashion designers idea to have her smoking on the catwalk, maybe just maybe because it is non-smoking day and knowing full well the fuss it will cause. And the next day, guess what? Pictures of Kate Moss were in the papers with the designers clothes on.
The same day the government say that tobacco and tobacco products will have to be sold under the counter in supermarkets next year and by 2015 in all shops. The point being? To stop smoking. Yeah because people are going to go to the corner shop to buy cigarettes and forget they want them when they can’t see them. “I’m sure that I came in here for something? No can’t remember. Just a pack of chewing gum please mate.”

Pointless Inquiries

Is anything going to come out of The Chilcot Inquiry? Will there be a conclusive outcome with repercussions to follow? No, of course not. Tony Blair was giving evidence last week, what’s going to come of that? Nothing. It will just drag on for weeks more at a huge expense and when it finally does grind to a halt there will be so little outcome that it will barley be reported and soon forgotten.

The inquest to the death of Princess Diana took six months and cost millions. What was the outcome? That the irresponsible driving by her chauffeur killed her not the Royal family. Was there ever going to any other outcome? Of course not, it seems like the whole point of the inquiry was to shut Mohammed Al-Fayed up.

Also going on at the moment is the 7/7 Inquest. Only BBC news seems bothered to report on it daily. Today’s news from the inquest is- “A senior paramedic was unaware of any deaths until 30 minutes after arriving at the suicide bus bombing in Tavistock Square.”
What is the point of such evidence? What is the point of this inquest? We know what happened and who the bombers were. Other days headlines are- “The 52 victims of the 7 July 2005 bombings were "murdered" in acts of "merciless savagery.” No shit, you don’t say.
At the inquest they’re also showing never seen CCTV footage. What’s the relevance of seeing twisted metal and people screaming at a new angle. “Out now the 7/7 bombings DVD special edition, with extra unseen footage.”
These inquiries are pointless and only happen so that it seems that the powers that be are doing something.

Cut Price Booze

The price of a pint in my local pub has gone up. Its now £3.10. Its not the cheapest pint in the area, but then I would rather drink in my local backstreet boozer than the JD Wetherspoon’s on the high road. Its not the most expensive as that that title will always be held by the shiny bar on the high road that’s filled with coked up Essex boys.
Its getting to expensive to spend all Saturday night in the pub so now a lot more people stay at home a little longer to have a couple more drinks at before they go out. Pubs are suffering as a result, but its not the customers fault. The price of alcohol in a pub has increased far beyond the rate in the off-licence. I can buy a can of beer in the shop around the corner from me for a pound. A rise of about 20p from when I bought booze (underage) in the early 90s.
Then I heard that the Coalition Government are going to bring in minimum alcohol pricing. “No,” I thought, “now its going to cost a lot more to have a couple of beers at home!”
Then they implemented the law and all was okay. It turns out that a can of beer can not be sold for less than 38p a can. So it will only effect (if at all) the super special promotion bulk buys that they have at Christmas.
Health campaigners are not happy with the new law as it’s a watered down outcome. Well they can stick their morale high ground kill joy stance. There’s nothing wrong with a couple of beers at the end of the working day, and a good few more at the end of the working week at an affordable price. Not everyone that cracks open a bottle is a binge drinking ASBO that’s ends the night puking in the gutter.

Stratford Spurs FC

So David Beckham is training at Tottenham. There was no big deal when he trained at Arsenal a couple of years back in the MLS off-season. But there wasn’t a chance that he might turn out in a Premier League game for them like he might at Spurs. So there’s been news reports from the Tottenham training ground in Chigwell and football hacks and pundits giving their opinion on whether it will be good for the team or not. Because they must be pro or against him in a lilywhite shirt.
“They only want him for the shirt sales,” is a lazy response I’ve heard various people say. A work colleague told me that in the Tottenham shop you can buy a shirt with Beckham on the back with the number 77. I told him that you can have anything printed on the back of a shirt if you ask for it. I can have my name printed on the back, it doesn’t mean that I will be running out at White Hart Lane this weekend.

Its been a Tottenham heavy news week. Should they move to the Olympic stadium? Well it makes obvious sense as a business decision. But tradition is a big part of any football club and that’s countering the pure business decision.
At first I was totally against them moving to east London. Tottenham Hotspur Football Club should play in Tottenham! North London, not east! But then most Tottenham fans like myself are from the surrounding areas, not Tottenham itself. And Stratford is not too far from Tottenham, its only that the postcode changes from N to E, its not like the Olympic stadium is in west London or on the other side of the river. The transport links to White Hart Lane are awful where as you don’t get any better than transport links at Strafford. On a selfish standpoint- Stratford is three tube stops away from me. I could be door to door in half an hour.
If it happens I’m sure that in time I will get used to it but at the moment even with all the plus points it just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t help when there’s stories like the one in the Evening Standard on Thursday that said that Tottenham may have to change their name to something like ‘Stratford Hotspur.'

But of course that’s just bullshit scaremongering. I fucking hope so.

Vox Pop

If anyone comes up to you in the street or on the train and started talking to you, the natural thing for most people to do is ignore them. Maybe say as little as possible to them so they don’t realise that you want them to go away but by not totally engaging with them they will hopefully move on. like when a drunk starts talking to you at the bar or when outside smoking a cigarette. If the conversation comes naturally then fine, but its not like that when some drunk just wants to talk nonsense to whoever is in their line of vision. Usually they say some quip and laugh as they look for you at laugh back with them. I hate it the most when in happens in the gents at the urinal. Sorry but I don’t want to start a conversation with a drunk stranger while we’re both holding our dicks taking a piss.

But it seems that if a stranger comes up to you in the street with a microphone and starts asking questions then a lot more people are willing to converse. Vox pops- “Because your opinion matters.” Or rather because some idiot who feels they must give an ill informed opinion just because a microphone and a camera are shoved in their face.
Today the terror alert in the UK has being raised, so BBC news went to Heathrow Airport to see what people there thought about it. “Well its kind of unnerving but there’s not a lot you can do apart from looking out for something suspicious and reporting it to the police,” someone said in the as he struggled with his bag in the car park. Thanks I feel better now.

Tuition Fees (another 2p worth opinion on the matter)

I really don’t know where I stand on these student protests that are going on. Should further education be free? Yes, no, in a way, well when you put it like that, yes, but saying that., no.
About five years after I left school it seemed like all of a sudden everybody was going to university. I’ve met some people who are at or who went to university who seem as plain dumb. Does that me and most people I went to school with were dumber? No, because only the really academic went to university.
Or maybe since the prominence of the internet more people are gaining the good A level results to get into university. Copy and paste from Wikipedia and then alter it a bit to make it look like their your own work. Or maybe I’m being over cynical. Or maybe I could have gone to university if Wikipedia was about then. Or maybe if I did any homework and studied at all.
Anyway, the students don’t have to pay the money back until they leave university and get a job. So what are they moaning about. Then again nine thousand pounds a year does seem excessive.
I’m all in favour of a protest and making a stand. But what’s the point in smashing windows and spray painting a Winston Churchill statue.
Are the police heavy handed? They have a history of it from the poll tax protests and miner strikes. But I can’t stand them protesters that shout right up in the faces of the police, spit at them, throw missiles and then scream police brutality when they get a slap back. But as long as they don't slap them as hard as they did in China.

Sport At School

The education secretary Michael Grove has said that £162m will no longer be set aside for the national PE scheme. The money that was for sport will now be spent as the headmasters see fit to.
Many people may think that its right that the headmasters should spend their budget how they please. Maybe so. But I think most headmasters will drastically cut their sports funding.
Well so it should be, right? I mean maths, English, biology, chemistry, physics, geography and history are much more important. Those are the subjects that are going to get you on in life aren’t they? Well for most people yes, but sport is good for all kids. To boil it down, sport keeps them fit. And for those who really like it and take it seriously it can keep them out of trouble.
Michael Grove’s proposal doesn’t surprise me as the last time the Tories were in power they didn’t care about sport and sold off as many sports fields as they could.

When I was at school in the 80s and early 90s I wish there was a certain amount of the money that our headmaster had to allocate to sport. Especially my secondary school as the sporting facilities were between nonexistent and pathetic.
There was no sports field so most of the our outside PE lessons took place in the school playground. That or we got on the school bus to the sports field or athletics track. This wasn’t so bad as it was only a few minutes away, but swimming lessons were a complete farce. A forty minute round trip to the pool, plus changing time left us with enough time in the water to do three or four lengths.
I appreciate that most comprehensive schools don’t have a sports field or swimming pool but some new tennis rackets and cricket bats wouldn’t have gone amiss. Our school football kit was tatty early 70s style kit that was used by all years. It was an embarrassment to play in.
My school wasn’t run down and in desperate need of funding, it was just that sport was low down on the headmasters priority.

Due to a spree of injuries and a girl getting a football in the face for about a week he banned us from playing football in the playground. Football in the playground was one of the few things I liked about going to school. There was always about four games going on at once, and when in position of the ball you had to try and remember who was on your team and had to dribble past people who were involved in another game. Instead of a Monday night bore of a game on Sky between two teams that are quite happy to settle for a nil nil draw I would rather see four professional teams play playground style.

Today’s crap story from the metro

The free paper called the Metro that you can pick up from tube stations hardly contains the most in depth reporting. Its basically a paper of headlines with news snippets. And the sports reporting is just plain awful.
But there always seems to be a story that leaves me somewhat confused.
Today’s is about a woman with a rare condition that makes her vomit whenever she gets exited called cyclical vomiting syndrome. She says, “As much as I try not to think about exiting things, I can’t stop them happening.
She spent most of a holiday in Las Vegas being sick. (So she must have been on a good winning streak, so it couldn’t have been all bad).
Her husband surprised her with a break to Paris. Where she was sick 144 times in 24 hours.
144 times in 24 hours, that’s every ten minutes. That’s a lot of excitement. Surely after having your head down the toilet throwing up bile and stomach lining the excitement would wear a bit thin. And 144 is a specific number. Why was she counting?
Also why is her husband surprising her with a trip to Paris? To limit the excitement which leads to constant vomiting surely he should’ve eased her into it by suggesting the idea first.
I hope this condition developed after they got married as throwing up while walking down the aisle wouldn’t have been a pretty sight.
‘I pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss the bride.‘
‘Thanks vicar but I think I’ll wait until she’s brushed her teeth.‘
As for their sex life…
See I don’t think its fair that this poor woman suffers with this condition when it could be put to good use with some overly annoyingly excitable people. I’m thinking Jedward.