Boys, you need to get spanked!

Embarrassingly, I was born in England, Yorkshire, in fact (which gives me at least something to salvage - thankfully when it all gets too much so that even being a Yorkshireman isn't enough, I can retreat back to my Scottish or French parentage, and take what comfort I can from that), so I from time to time have no choice but to ponder what it is to be English.

And what it is at the moment, is to have a prima donna pack of dizzy deborahs running around a daisy field calling themselves professional footballers, making the art of football look like a real embarassment.

Is English football so bad, and the English so feckless, that the only reason the premiership can be called so is down to the myriad of foreign TALENT - and we must call it talent, in contrast to the pack of BOOBIES that haunted Israel for 90 minutes yesterday, Saturday 24th March 2007, during a predictably unwatchable Euro 2008 qualification international game?

So predictably unwatchable, I DIDN'T WATCH!

There is generally no doubt that they can all play football, and we have even seen evidence of that in the premiership, so who lobotomises them every time they put on an England shirt?

I have a theory.

They get paid too much and the media make them think they are little gods, when in reality they are a bunch of lads who can't believe their luck that they get paid insane pots full of cash only found previously at the end of rainbows or in Leprechauns' lairs, and so predictably behave up like lost brats with no sense of what they have to do to earn it.

I get tired of listening to my dad saying how the game today is not the game he played
65 years ago, when he played against the likes of Danny Blanchflower and Bill Shankley was up and coming.

I get tired of it, but maybe that is because I can't believe something, in a universe ruled by evolution (unless you are a crazy religious intelligent designist with a penchant for making round pegs fit into square holes) can actually regress and not evolve. It doesn't seem to fit the laws of nature.

So I guess I must apologise to my dad and his generation, who indeed seem to know something we don't.

Dad, I am sorry, (English) footballers of today haven't got the heart, do not display the skill, and don't know how to play football.

The should all be put over a collective paternal knee and spanked until they weep, and no play acting.

Yes, the little brats should have their pocket money taken away and given gruel and chores until they realise they do not know it all and should learn their place, and their trade.

I will leave someone else to blog about Steve McClaret, Trier Venbabbles, the Swedish 1 (what was his name), the insane amounts of money the FA get from SKY, and whether there is corruption in football.

For now, I am going to build a list of:

Things the Older Generation of Footballers Can't Understand about
The Way Footballers Play Today.

I would really appreciate comments on this one, from players of the past, or their scribing blogger listeners/relatives/students, but I can start without you...

A Sombre Reflection

Brittle Steps in Mists

Walking with lies all around you,
Expecting faith and getting death,
Brittle steps in mists of foggy winter
Along the river.

Waters cold and feeling icy,
Expecting cleansing getting ill,
Frozen kicks in swirls of murky winter
Along the river.

Judgements live to bind and gag you,
From Guilty Parties in the crowd,
Confused mind in thorns of twisted landscape
Along the river.

Drinking ghouls forget to feel life,
Expecting nothing, getting it,
Placid souls in boats of silent mourning
Upon the river.

The End of Houses of Parliament Sauce, Mr Bond

You may or may not have read a scurrilous article about the shame of MPs heating costs and their inclination to preach to everyone else.

Well, Heinz have decided HP Sauce (which OF COURSE stands for Houses of Parliament, hence the picture on the bottle), invented in this country and consumed mostly in this country, shouldn't be made in this country any more.

They are moving it to Holland (Click for report), where I suppose they will add their 'potato salad' cooking flair to the product. Then ship it back here to where all the HP addicts live.

Actually, if you look at the effort they put into the HP Foods website after they took HP Foods over, you might be inclined to say "Probably should have seen that coming, about on day 2 of the takeover negotiations, if there were any.

Is nothing sacred. What would Jack Sprat say?

Incredibly though, we did get Aston Martin back from Ford Motor Company.

Seems it has been making money while Ford in general has not, and so it was a sellable asset. Even then I understand they did a 1/2 price deal on it!!

Oh well. Hurrah!

Oh yeah, and you can get Casino Royale on DVD Now. Hip Hurrah!

A Philosophical Pause...

There are so many things you don’t want in life, and so many things you end up having that are on that list.

Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of thinking co-operation is a way forward in this world.

It is not.

Co-operation in itself is a sentence of purgatory, the length of which is determined by the time you give yourself up to it.

I am not saying all systems are wrong, and all the things people want to do with their lives, and need other people’s compliance on, are bad, and that the world is in a constant state of self gratification and simultaneous frustration, though if you try looking at it that way, you will certainly see it. There are however a lot of tides out there that will take you away from sure: you have to be a strong swimmer, or climb aboard a passing vessel, to get to your firm footing if you find yourself in the wrong current.

In a heavy sea a big ship needs a strong captain.

Even in a light sea, a solitary swimmer needs a clear mind.

Did the advertisers Really Mean This?

This advert appears currently in the London Underground, on the other side of the tube line.

You can't therefore easily express your confusion on it in situ, so thanks to the miracle of camera phones, I lifted it for enhancement.

I think my confusion is fair.

I can usually tell when the advertising agency is having a laugh with their client, but in this case I dunno.

Do GRANT & THORNTON intend they be an ant that has somehow gone off the rails and believes itself to be a queen, or a stallion of a pack? Wouldn 't that imply

DANGER! DANGER!
DON'T GO THERE PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMER!!
LOWLY ACCOUNTANT HAS SERIOUSLY LOST THE PLOT,
AND STARTED CHANTING SIX LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BETTER

Or perhaps the agency has decided Grant Thornton can't see they are having the mickey taken, and so have subtly undermined their intention of wanting to appear as the most dutiful innovative ant there ever was.

C'mon, there is no such thing as a leader ant better than the rest. If you squash 1, another ends up at the front of the queue, 'leading'. Oh dear. That isn't a very good message is it?

Or perhaps agency and firm just don't care enough about making sure the message is water tight and consistent, in which case why would you want to use the services of either?

Dodgy Petrol

I don't know about any one else, but I have already noticed that petrol has slipped upwards a couple of pence in the oil company stations during this time of trouble over Morrisons/Tesco petrol and silicon contamination as it now appears to be. Immaculate timing?

But hey, while no-one has noticed, lets tell everyone prices might have to go up because of demand...


... MEAN WHILE Although oil prices have crept up this month, had anyone noticed a fall in price in the past few months - $64/barrel in December to $52 mid-January. How long does this take to feed through, and what is the latest price rise down to, if not opportunism?