It was 10 years ago to the day since l went to watch Manchester United at Sunderland. My mate dropped out at the last minute so l went by myself. Had to go in the home end, it chucked it down with rain, and it was a really underwhelming 0-0 draw. I also got a parking ticket, and cursed all the way home.
On the other hand, l wish crowds were allowed back into the grounds, so l could do it all again. Football without fans is crap.
This sort of stuff is now so commonplace it's not even a big story anymore.
Where's the revolution we so desperately need?
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Well done Fred Perry for putting out such a statement. Mindless dickheads wearing their clothes who are violent racist bastards must really piss them off.
I might even wear one of my (many) Fred Perry tops to work today as a (pointless) gesture of support
I'm so pleased there has been another episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio hour. This one is built around the theme of Whiskey / Whiskey, and it's another corker. I'd forgotten the amount of dry humour and poetry, and as usual, heard some great old songs from way back when.
Unfortunately, this might have been a one off, but with the current lockdown situation, perhaps there will be more soon. I certainly hope so. The transcripts of the show can be found here and here
For as long as it lasts, the whole show can be heard on SiriusXFM here or on youtube here
Methinks it's time to dig out the old episodes and replay them. Hours of fun. They can be found here
Enjoy!
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So the latest magnificent idea from our glorious government is to issue fines of up to £10,000 for those that are tested positive for Covid and break the isolation rules
Credit where it's due - This is a magnificent piece by Marinda Hyde on Dido Harding in The Guardian
Do you remember Ye Olde Operation Moonshotte, an ancient promise by the elders of this government to test 10 million people a day? My apologies for the leading question. There are absent-minded goldfish who remember that figure, given it was announced by Boris Johnson’s government barely three seconds ago. The only representative of the animal, vegetable and possibly mineral kingdoms who doesn’t remember it is the prime minister himself, who on Wednesday told a committee asking him about it: “I don’t recognise the figure you have just given.” Like me, you probably feel grateful to be governed by a guy whose approach to unwanted questions is basically, “New phone, who dis?”
Like me, you will be reassured by Matt Hancock’s plan to throw another “protective ring” around care homes. What’s not to fear about a Matt Hancock ring, easily the most dangerous ring in history, including Sauron’s Ring of Power.
Like me, you are probably impressed that the government is ordering you to snitch on your neighbours for having seven people in their garden, while whichever Serco genius is running testing as a Dadaist performance piece about human futility gets to live in the witness protection programme. Shitness protection programme, whatever.
Speaking of which, like me, you probably feel relaxed to learn that Chris Grayling, who notably awarded a ferry contract to a firm with no ferries, is now to be paid £100,000 a year for seven hours work a week advising a ports company. When I read this story I imagined his aides pulling a hammer-wielding Grayling off the pulped corpse of Satire, going: “Jesus, Chris! Leave it – it’s already dead! We need to get out of here!”
Elsewhere, testing supremo Dido Harding has surfaced in parliament. It was starting to feel like we’d see Avatar II in theatres before we saw Dido front up to explain this mushrooming fiasco. Her last appearance before a select committee was as head of TalkTalk – after two teenage boys hacked the network, resulting in 157,000 people having their personal details stolen. When she was appointed to head up the test and trace programme, Hancock explained he “can’t think of anyone better than Dido”. Then take another five seconds, Matt. Off the top of my head I can come up with Baroness Gemma Collins of Towie, and Grandmaster Glitch from the Go Jetters.
Still, here she comes again – Dido Queen of Carnage, on hand to gloss the havoc. As she put it: “I don’t think anybody was expecting to see the really sizeable increase in demand that we’ve seen over the course of the last few weeks.” But Dido: they literally were.
At least Harding is visible. Huge amounts of the malfunctioning system are now being run – badly – by unaccountable figures. Take firms like Deloitte, which ran logistics at the testing site at what we might call Chessington World of Misadventures. Hospitals felt forced to ask to take it over after the results of NHS staff were serially lost or misdirected. The pile of 2020 sentences I never expected to type is now Earth’s tallest structure, but let’s add another one: “NHS commandeers Vampire Ride from accountancy firm charged with controlling spread of deadly pandemic.” (Seriously, stick a fork in me. I’m done.)
While Harding was defending the barely functional testing system, Jacob Rees-Mogg was telling the Commons that “instead of this endless carping saying it’s difficult to get [tests], we should be celebrating this phenomenal success of the British nation”. To which the only possible reply is four-lettered.
His own ma and pa clearly hopelessly overindulged Jacob Rees-Mogg, but millions of other parents just will not feel minded to take it from this rejected Charlie and the Chocolate Factory character. If there were any justice, Jacob would have been stretched into a mile-long liquorice lace by vigilante Oompa-Loompas as they sang one of their trademark cautionary songs.
Instead, he is somehow leader of the House of Commons. There, he speaks of what ordinary people “should” be doing – with the air of a man who knows that if any of the Mogg progeny are sent home from school with a possible Covid symptom, it’s not going to be him taking time off work to homeschool them and wait for a test spot to open up in Manchester a week on Friday.
There is zero uncertainty about childcare and loss of earnings in the Rees-Mogg household, where even the adults still have nannies. (At the age of 51, Jacob retains the live-in childcare professional who was – formerly? – responsible for wiping his backside.)
Yet again, the overriding impression is of a government run by men for whom the domestic sphere is a mystery they have no wish to get to the bottom of. One of them driving hundreds of miles to Durham – just in case he got ill and still had to do his own childcare – sounds, to the other guys, like a totally reasonable thing to have done. Meanwhile the big boss fails to be meaningfully involved in the lives of between 17% and 29% of his children (awaiting full data). If you can be persuaded it’s normal to drive a 60-mile round trip with a child in the car to test your eyesight, then naturally you believe parents should think it fine to stick a five-year-old in their own vehicle and travel 400 miles to obtain what’s necessary to get the child back to school and them back to work.
Either way, of course a government run by weirdo elitists didn’t reflexively foresee that September – back to school, back to offices – was going to mean a huge surge in testing demand. This is the trouble when “hardworking families” is merely a demographic you wish to appeal to, as opposed to who you are. Real-life “hardworking families” could have told you in a heartbeat that September was the main event. THEY could have predicted it. Because unless someone else does it all for you, huge amounts of parenting are about thinking ahead, planning, creating yet another routine that keeps the whole precarious show on the road – the endless foresight of it all.
Only this week Dominic Cummings was pictured slouching through the Downing Street gates carrying some archive letter written by US general Bernard Shriever, pushing for continued investment in ballistic weapons technology. Cummings should hang around the school gates instead, where any amount of mothers who’ve seen all this shit before and didn’t have time for it back then would be able to enlighten him in the simplest possible terms. Namely: Hey squidbrain, I’ve got some “data” for you! Mind if I “special advise” you with it, only I don’t have a window to put it in a 20,000-word blog? OK, here goes: I don’t WANT you to build me a fricking missile defence shield, I don’t CARE about the Manhattan Project, I think all your reading recommendations REEK of the business section of the airport bookshop, and I’m NOT going to be accused of “carping” by guys who’d have a nervo if they had to change a nappy.
You know what I want? A SWAB WITHIN A THIRTY-MILE RADIUS, YESTERDAY. Now spad THAT, genius.
• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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Another reason to be put off modern football. with or without fans.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Exhibit #1 - One of Manchester United's new kits.
I rest my case
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These photographs have been on my computer for quite a while, so l assume Slash's house has now been sold, but if not, and you've got some spare money, here's what it's like.
An update of a famous old photograph by Cold War Steve. Sad that it is still so pertinent
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Christ on a bike! I may look in the mirror these days and curse getting old, but it's all relative.
Watching a re-run of 'The Big Match' today from 1974, they had a 'Where are they now?' feature, which featured Vic Woodley, who used to play in goal for Chelsea. Obviously an old photograph or two from his playing days was shown, plus some recent ones, including this one, where it was announced he was looking 'spritely' at his age.
I'm not going to say how old he is in the picture, but he's the same age as me!!!!
How times have changed. I guess the drink and drugs over the years must have worked their magic.
On a related note, l picked up a prescription for myself the other day at Boots, and after the server looked at the information, l was asked if l often picked up medication for the gentleman in question, I stated it was for myself, as l was the person the information was about, and she apologised profusely, but said she was amazed, as l looked so young. I guess she was expecting me to look like good old Vic.
Mind you, she probably had the wrong type of glasses on
Genius - Such as simple idea once you've seen it, but it's new to me
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Rather sadly, this is how Germany see us at the moment. From 'Der Spiegel'. Roughly translated with my limited German, Boris is saying he wants a total Brexit, and the banner says 'Democracy is the enemy of the people'.
Learn from History folks, and hold these incompetent, lying, hypocritical, money grabbing Tory bastards to account.
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