Eventually Someone Will Invent a Pair of Sunglasses that Cover Three Quarters of Your Entire Body

So another saturday, and another delicate-headed post on The Blandford Examiner. I've been slightly impeded this week by the simple fact that there's sweet bugger all going on anywhere in the world this weekend, according to the usual sources, but I'll give it my best shot anyway. The problem is most papers and news outlets seem determined to center around the murder of Sally Anne Bowman and her killer being sent to prison for about nine million years. No real shock, really, and I'm not sure why it's news, after all, this is a bloke who's entire defence centered on the argument that he wasn't one of those nasty murderer types, he was just your average small-town necrophiliac rapist. I'd have given him ten more years just for being an idiot.

Let me try my best, though, to try to show you how boring today is. You can judge the entertainment value of world current events with a quick look at the BBC News homepage, and a few classics today are 'Should Garages Have a Compulsory Code?', which basically means a BBC reporter just got charged £500 by a bloke called Darryl for putting on some dirty overalls and changing something called a lag nut, ' Burrell recalled to Diana inquest', which translates into English from the original Bollocks to mean 'Dead posh tart still making headlines long after the most anorexic maggot has long since left her wretched corpse', and things have gotten so desperate for a story that the BBC seems to be launching some sort of campaign, along with assorted bored MPs, to build more public toilets so elderly people don't piss themselves in the street. I know this is a major problem where I live - you can't walk to the corner shop without having your shopping washed away by raging torrents of the piss of hundreds of pensioners who spend their lives surviving on a diet of weak milky tea and peering meekly out of the window. Actually, I'm lying, that never happens, and if you can't walk down the street without pissing yourself might I suggest some sort of bag, because clearly you are beyond any help the average syringe-filled kiddy-fiddling shed barely passing for a public convenience could do for you. Also, if you seriously think the lack of public toilets is a massive issue of real national importance, I have a bag suggestion for you as well - put one over your head until you suffocate.

In technology news, Microsoft have issued a warning to people planning on upgrading to the upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1: It breaks pretty much everything. Quite how a company headed by the richest man in the world finds itself completely incapable of making a product that doesn't shit all over everyone else's for no reason other than sheer incompetence is beyond me, but I suppose you don't get to be the most wealthy human being on the planet by employing expensive, skilled workers, and I expect Microsoft's entire range of products is coded solely by drunken pandas in outsize party hats, while Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer walk around the factory laughing raucously at them and the fact that they are paying themselves six million quid every second to laugh at a bunch of Ailuropods wearing comical paper fez. Honestly, I do my best to defend Microsoft and specifically Vista (which I genuinely do like) from the hordes of be-spotted nerds that would have us all using CP/M and burning anyone at the stake anyone who has ever willingly used a Microsoft product, but when they do something as rediculous as to go "oh, we've rolled all our security fixes up into one for this new release, you should buy it, and probably pay for it - oh, and it breaks everything you own". They might as well come into your house at christmas and punch your mother in the tits.

The above may contain exaggeration, but then again, it might not.

Anyway, in sport, as anyone who can tell the time will know, nothing much has happened as only the early kickoff in the football has finished, with Arsenal drawing 2 - 2 with Birmingham. Also, with the Carling Cup final being played tomorrow and the Klitschko fight on in the early hours of the morning, I'm holding off my sports review until tomorrow. About the Arsenal game, though, I do have to say my sympathies go out to Arsenal striker Eduardo, who looks to be out for a long, long time after a shocking broken leg very early in the game in an incident which sadly overshadowed England youngster Theo Walcott's first Premiership goals. I haven't seen too many replays and frankly I don't want to see any more, it was a sickening break, but Martin Taylor, the player on the other side of the tackle, really didn't look like he meant to hurt the Croatian international; in fact, he looked genuinely distraught at the state of his opponent after the challenge. Full credit to the Birmingham fans as well, who gave Eduardo a standing ovation as he was stretchered off in a display of football solidarity and appreciation that was truly touching. Shame on Gunners manager Arsene Wenger after the game, however, for using the injury for politicking, using it as an excuse for a rant about his team being kicked by opponents. It's part of the game. If only he'd shown the same class as the opposition fans.

I hope you stay up now, Birmingham. Your supporters deserve it.

Anyway, full sport report tomorrow. Goodnight.

Every Other Child Might have a Right to a Nicer World, But You Don't, Because You're Welsh

So, the time has come - or, at least, it will do in a few hours' time - for Sherriff Benitez and the showdown at the Anfield Alamo. Rafa's got his uniform on, silver star buffed up and shining brightly and top lip only slightly quivering, as he puts the final touches to the game plan that, he hopes, will be able to bring down Inter Milan tonight on Merseyside and potentially be the making or breaking of his job. Quite how he's going to mastermind beating an Inter Milan side which are serious tips for the Italian and Champion's League titles this season is anyone's guess but his, but if he goes out of the final trophy his side have a chance of winning this year, I sincerely doubt he'll be around to try again next year - they'll keep him on until the end of the season but that'll be that, as his performance thus far has in no way justified the £60m he's spent on players thus far; I think he'll have to win the Champion's League and win it emphatically to realistically keep his job.

Elsewhere in football, Richard Scudamore has been busy telling everyone who will listen that his plans for a 39th game played abroad are 'not a dead duck'. Am I going to be the one to have to tell him, or will you? With the way he looks like he's about to burst into tears, I just don't have the heart. Franz Beckenbauer has weighed in, but it looks like Richie Rich just isn't listening, even though Der Kaiser reckons that the Premier League going head to head with FIFA to make a quick buck could cost England the World Cup 2018 bid. Given the Premier League's sociopathic disregard for everyone else, I don't think that's going to stop them, but it will give the FA food for thought when they meet next week to potentially nix the idea before it even gets started. Fingers crossed, eh?

Dead duck? Surely not.

Oh, and Chris Coleman's just taken over at Coventry. Good luck, Cookie, and I'm looking forward to seeing you in the Premiership again soon. Fulham and that sour-faced cretin al Fayed were wrong to replace you with those boring cunts Sanchez and now Hodgson, and you can prove it by stuffing them twice next season on your march to the Premier League. Maybe after that you can take the Ricoh faithful to Nanjing to lose a relegation decider to Chelsea in the newly-instituted 39th round, then go and lay one on Scudamore's smug face. I'd like that.

In the real world (well, Wales), not another teen suicide has occurred in Bridgend, marking the 17th such suicide in the last year or so. Bloody hell, it's like the village in the Midsomer Murders, wouldn't you just fucking move? If 17 of my mates had topped themselves in the past year, I'd be out of there kicking and screaming before you could say "Black Parade". Maybe that's where MySpace UK's servers are located? Food for thought, I suppose, to inexplicably overuse a phrase. It would certainly explain the quite serious spate of "nobody loves me" going around the place. Maybe they should move to Okinawa, Japan, where people routinely live to over 100, which just goes to show that a diet of fresh fish and weekly battles with mutated undersea lizards does keep you fit and healthy.

Elsewhere, in a fantastic stamp of approval for airport security in the wake of terror alerts (oh fuck, I can't believe I just wrote that sort of sensationalist tripe myself, but moving on), Gatwick airport have managed to not notice that, for three years, there was a homeless man living in their south terminal. I expect if he'd had a beard or was slightly brown he'd be spotted right away, but no, three years, eating, showering, sleeping and generally living in an airport. I wonder what the staff thought when he wandered into the restaurant twice a day, every day, for his meals? "Fucking hell, for a smelly bloke, he doesn't half travel a lot"? More importantly, have you seen the prices of meals in airport restaurants? That's a lot of busking, that is, unless he was surviving on tiny complimentary packs of butter wrapped in cheap gold foil. Probably more nutritious for you than an £8 cardboard 'beef'burger with wilted lettuce and a dour waitress, anyway. Staying with airports, the Palestinians have been getting uppity again about the Met's refusal to arrest Israeli Major General Doron Almog when he went through Heathrow back in September 2005. Apparently he's guilty of destroying 50 Palestinian homes in Gaza in retaliation, campaigners admit, for a Palestinian attack on civilians. I'm sure you all know my opinion on this, but here it is again: If you don't like what the Israelis do in what is Israeli territory, fuck off out of it. Go and live somewhere else. If you hadn't been a bunch of insane baby-killing militants, they wouldn't have knocked your bloody house down. Piss off.

Anyway, while I seem to have segued into international politics, let's get a couple more stories out of the way before I move on. Cuban ruler Fidel Castro has announced his retirement from the leadership of his country, saying it's time to pass power on to younger rulers. Of course, as expected, George W. Bush quickly came out to announce that this should mark the start of a transition to democracy for Cuba, which we can only imagine really means something along the lines of 'resistance is futile'. Frankly, I'm tired of America's insistance on democracy at all costs; look at Iraq - they have democracy, of a sort. They might be at daily risk of being blown up by militants on one side or another, but at least they can vote. Haven't America got better things to be doing than taking petty snipes at Cuba? Oh wait, sorry, my mistake.

Speaking of American interference, in the Balkans, Kosovo, the 'state' created by America after the Bosnian war, has declared itself independent from it's parent Serbia, which has, quite justifiably, driven the Serbs into a frenzy. Russia are claiming that doing such is threatening to dangerously destabilise the region, and they're not wrong, seeing as the last time the Serbs got themselves all worked up, they had quite a good go at wiping Bosnia off the map until they got too big for their boots and had a pop at someone who actually had an army (namely Croatia). Hand grenades have already been thrown at various embassies, both in the Serbian capital Belgrade and the ethnic Serbian sector of the largest city in Kosovo, Pristina, which just about shows you the situation in the region - if Scotland declared independance from the rest of the UK tomorrow afternoon, there might be quite a few scraps in the border pubs, but I doubt anyone would start chucking explosives about. It's a dangerous time for the Balkan region as the Serbs continue to lose territory after Montenegro dissolved their partnership with Serbia in 2006, and with a hard-line nationalist movement growing in Serbia led by Radical Party leader and recently defeated Presidential candidate Tomislav Nikolic. Belgrade: Not somewhere to go for your holidays.

And finally, back in the UK, however much I wish it wasn't, we have the story of the worst excuse for a disgustingly perverted crime ever given. Mark Dixie, accused of murdering aspiring model Sally Anne Bowman, has made the morbid and bizarre excuse that he didn't murder her, he merely came across her body in a pool of blood on her driveway and had sex with her. He says he didn't know she was dead, and I don't know, maybe I believe him. I mean, I can see how that could happen - many's the time I've come across young models in the middle of the road in a viscous puddle of their own gore, and none of them have been dead. They've all just been laying there, quivering with anticipation, waiting to be seduced by some sort of necrophiliac rapist freak. Seriously, what are the chances of their being a murderer and a necrophiliac in the same place at the same time, outside of a Tobe Hooper movie? Poor attempt. Ten out of ten for creativity, but minus several million in the 'not making yourself look like some sort of extreme sexual deviant' category. Idiot.

Anyway, that's it for today. Football later.

Goodnight.

Blandford Examiner in Being Right Shocker

That's right, ladies and gents, call it. FA Cup draw lands Chelsea plum draw with struggling Championship side and kept away from anyone who might actually beat them. Sorry, Barnsley, but you haven't a hope of beating the Zombie in the cup with Abramovich breathing down his neck about winning the quadruple. They won't do it but they'll give it a good crack, and after his performance at Anfield I fully expect super-keeper Luke Steele to be recalled by West Brom to lead their line out in the Championship. That's if they don't stick a mask on him and pretend he's not cup tied for their own much simpler proposition of Bristol Rovers away.

Manchester United vs. Portsmouth looks, for all 'Arry's expertise, like a foregone conclusion and with the 'random' selections going the way they're going, I reckon we're going to see another Man U/Chelsea final. The other quarter final is the less than mouth watering prospect of whoever wakes up and decides to find the goal out of Sheffield United and Boro going to Wales to give Cardiff a good seeing to, but that's only if either of them can find the net by this time next week. If not, they should be chucked out and Liverpool should be reinstated, though only if they can win a play-off with Accrington Stanley. Accy for the cup anyone?

Still, Portsmouth vs. Man U is undoubtedly the tie of the round, though playing on that bog of a pitch (which Arsene Wenger came out of his hole to complain about this morning) means that Pompey are likely doomed. Still, I'm not too sad, as much as I dislike the Scotch nutcase and his merry band of cunts, at least Lassana Diarra won't get a crack at a winner's medal, because I think the resulting French smug would be pretty much unable to bear. 'Arry was singing his praises for a full two pages in the paper the other day, describing him as one of the best players he's ever worked with. Is he bollocks. The man who has worked with, amongst others, Joe Cole, David James and Big Sol in his time surely cannot truly believe that Lassana bloody Diarra is the best player he's ever worked with. I reckon constant praise must be in the moaning bastard's contract. Still, lets see how long it lasts before he starts demanding a move to a 'big club'. Who reckons he'll still be happy at Portsmouth this time next year?

Anyway, that's it for now, I'll be back with the proper news on things other than a bunch of overpaid nancies kicking a pig's bladder about later on, but for now, here's the FA Cup Quarter Final draw in short:

_________________________________________

Sheffield United/Middlesbrough v Cardiff City

Manchester United v Portsmouth

Bristol Rovers v West Bromwich Albion

Barnsley v Chelsea
_________________________________________

Goodnight.

I Hate Western Digital, and You Should Too

Hello boys and girls, how are we doing today?

I'm up at nearly six in the morning trying to get my entire year's worth of work and play off of my external hard drive, which took it upon itself to fail this afternoon, and I've just been reliably informed by the parent who I've just spent the entire week shifting furniture for that any leisure time tomorrow is strictly off limits until I've taken down a bunch of wall brackets because the rest of the midgets in this house are too small to take the bloody things down. The sooner I'm off and back in a new flat the better. Still, anything's an improvement after spending yesterday feeling delicate and hung over watching Arsenal and Liverpool getting thrashed. Oh well.

Anyway, what's been going on in the news today? You ask, with a slight sense of apprehension. Well, first off, the government has announced that Northern Rock is going to be nationalised. That's right, to all of you who have lost thousands and thousands of pounds through Northern Rock's astonishing stupidity will now have the pleasure of having a certain percentage gleaned off your taxes to keep the bastards afloat and the management in Armani suits until they're back on their feet again. A huge comfort, I'm sure, to all the people that lost their savings to the point of not knowing where the next tin of soup is coming from thanks to the bastards at Northern Rock.

Moving on, who on earth let Nickelback into the charts? The ultimate purveyors of music for people who don't like music have been churning out their atrocious by-the-numbers radio rock for long enough now that us educated Brits should have grown beyond the American penchant for songs you can listen to without actually listening to them and given up on the bunch of Canadian wastrels for good. Then again, we are the ones that made Liberty X into platinum-selling recording artists, so perhaps I'm giving us too much credit; you do have to ask yourself what's wrong with a country that celebrates the sheer unadulterated mediocrity of Nickelback and Jack fucking Johnson enough to send them soaring to the top of the album charts, closely followed by a child abuser, a soul singer named Adele who's been labeled as 'the new Amy Winehouse' (does that mean she'll soon be found in a club toilet injecting heroin into her feet? - Ed) and Morrissey, a man who for all his songwriting talent has been writing the same jolly ditty about wanting a bloke to cum on his face for the past 20 years. Just go to Soho and get it over with, Morrissey, you're not fooling anyone.

Incidentally, 'Adele' (no surname - she's too famous to have a surname, despite nobody knowing who she is. Give over, love, you're not fucking Cher) is not the new Amy Winehouse. Why? Because I'd do Amy Winehouse, and I wouldn't do her. I reckon good old Amy would be more of a laugh in the pub for a start, and it's a lot easier buying gifts for a woman when you know the lady doesn't love Milk Tray, she loves a nice big bag of skag. It might be high maintenance, but never let it be said that I don't like them classy. That, and I've been looking for a nice Jewish girl long enough now that I'm willing to settle for just the latter half.

Anyway, speaking of Amy Winehouse, apparently Mark Ronson has been shortlisted for Single of the Year for 'his' version of 'Valerie'. Excuse me? His version? The Zutons wrote it, she sang it, what, precisely, did Mark fucking Ronson do? I'm getting sick of these 'producers' that actually do fuck-all but add a crappy GarageBand loop under someone else's song and get paid millions for the privelage. I thought Timbaland was bad enough with his piss-poor one-second drum loop under an already-crappy One Republic song getting him into the charts, but I don't actually see what Mark Ronson did at all. Perhaps he stood at the side and wanked in time with the trumpets, the malignant little tosser. Anyway, the theme for the Brit awards will apparently be 'Glam vs. Punk', so expect nothing to do with either, and the hosts will be Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. Fucking hell, haven't they dominated TV enough? The only Osbourne I will accept presenting the Brit awards is Kelly, and even then only if she does it naked save for a few carefully placed scoops of Mint Choc ice cream.

In other news, New Zealand are hosting a conference on cluster bombs, the US have recalled about 4 million tons of beef for being a bit dodgy, and the Palestinians are pulling faces because the Israelis went and nicked a few militants for firing rockets at children. The Palestinian Authority has been stomping about and throwing its rattle out of the pram about 'overstepping of bounds' and such, but it's pretty simple to see the balance of power here; the Palestinians didn't like it one bit last time they got uppity and Israel turned their lights off, and they're more than capable of doing it again. If you don't like it, Palestinans, fucking move. You don't have to live slap bang in the middle of Israel, you could move to Wales or something. I'd suggest you stop killing children and try to get along with your neighbours instead, but you've had fifty odd years and you haven't seemed capable of doing that, so I won't even bother.

Move to Cardiff, you'll be happier there and it's by the sea and everything.

That's it really, except to tell you that in the football everything was exceptionally dull. Sir Alex has been earnestly crowing like the biggest cock on the farm about his 4 - 0 drubbing of Arsenal, while Arsene Wenger and Rafa Benitez have been keeping understandably quiet about the whole mess. The two late ties played today were incredibly tedious as Sheffield United played out a bore draw with Middlesbrough, and Pompey vs. Preston was decided by a scrappy own goal in the last minute of added time, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic as that makes it sound. Boring, but poor Darren Carter probably had to buy all his own drinks as the Preston players drowned their sorrows after he sliced what should have been a routine clearance into his own net at the arse end of injury time. Other tha that, the only major story is that Richard Scudamore's bloody stupid 39th-game idea is dead in the water, according to Reading chairman John Madejski. Well, him and everyone else with a brain.

That's all there is to tell you, really. In the Formula 1, every story everywhere seems to be about Lewis Hamilton's reaction to a few idiots dressing up as monkeys at him at testing in Barcelona - well, lack of reaction really, he's been extremely level-headed about it all and it's been the media that have hyped it up beyond belief. I think hes shown a great deal of maturity about the whole thing, which is more than I can say for the papers - while in the boxing some boxers have been talking about how bad and mean they are and how bad they're going to beat their opponent when they meet in the ring. Much as I expected then.

Anyway, I'm giving up on my battle with technology for the evening.
I think it's all gone right down the pan to be honest with you.

More tomorrow.

Goodnight.

You're Just a Small Club Near Tranmere

So, it was (most of) FA Cup 5th Round day today - Preston vs. Pompey and Boro vs. Sheffield United happen tomorrow - and as usual there was the usual assortment of shocks, drubbings and predictable valiant defeats. I don't know why they call them shock results now, as pretty much every time the FA Cup rolls around at least one 'big club' seems to get it in the neck against a bunch of car park attendants from Brinkley, but today's was one of the best in recent memory. Well, it would have been if the club that was defeated was playing to their potential and not behaving like the dire shower they've been playing like in recent weeks. Speaking of dire showers, Arsenal's untimely cock-up on the sodden Old Trafford turf against Manchester United turned what was supposed to be the showpiece of the round into a boring parade of abject failure. More on that later, though, because the real tie of the round was Liverpool vs. Barnsley.

Liverpool's famed cup manager Rafa Benitez has been kept out of the firing line recently by the fans because of his reputation of a knock-out miracle worker. Which is just as well, because if he was judged solely on his league form he'd be out on his ear. The shame of going behind twice to a bunch of postmen and labourers was dismissed as just a blip when they just snuck past Havant & Waterlooville in the previous round ('hey', I hear the Scousers cry, 'they've got a full international on their books' - yes, folks, Richard Pacquette has a whole 1 cap for that powerhouse of world football, Dominica - a Carribbean island with a population just slightly higher than a full house at Anfield who's main export is bananas), but the reality of his incompetence was laid very much to bare this afternoon as Liverpool lost 2 - 1 to Barnsley. Alright, so the Yorkshire lot's keeper had an absolute blinder, but there's serious issues when a team supposedly gunning for Premiership and Champion's League glory can't get at least a couple past a keeper only on loan at Barnsley because he can't get a game at West Brom. Either way, Benitez appeared shellshocked at the end and must be under real pressure now with only the Champion's League to aim for, and with an in-form Inter Milan looming in midweek the season is looking very close to being an abject disaster for Peter Crouch and co. Barnsley will be partying long into the night, though, and did play a huge part in this massively entertaining game, and reminded a lot of people that there's still some romance in the cup, even if it has in recent years largely run dry.

Elsewhere, results were of the much more boring variety. Arsenal just don't like February games, it's just a bit too chilly for their foreign contingent, and with the winter wind nipping away at William Gallas and his charges, they contrived to go completely to pieces on an Old Trafford pitch that could be readily compared to something you'd normally find in the Everglades. I'm not making excuses for Arsenal's shocking performance, as they look precariously close to going out of three competitions in three weeks the same way they did last February, but the pitch really was waterlogged, and it did impede their usual passing game. Of course, what also impeded their usual passing game was the fact every single player in a white Arsenal shirt looked like they'd rather be indoors sipping a mug of hot cocoa than kicking a ball about in a swamp. The boys seem just a bit spoiled to me. The worst part of it from Arsenal's point of view is that they deserved to lose by many more than the 4 they did lose by, and should by all rights have been on the end of a serious drubbing, as Manchester United, had they taken their chances, could and perhaps should have been in double figures well within a first 45 minutes in which Arsenal were barely on the pitch.

I'm not sure which side it's worse for that Manchester United played exceedingly poorly while still managing to put 4 without reply past Arsenal, but Sir Alex will surely be looking for his side to work on their finishing as they spent the entire first half taking shots at Lehmann without interference from any Arsenal players and still managed to only score 4 goals, while Arsene Wenger will have to get his phrasebook out to tell his players how terrible they were, as I doubt the kind of language required will have entered into the refined Frenchman's vocabulary until now, largely because he normally doesn't have to. It was schoolboy stuff and Emmanuel Eboue, who was just starting to get me to like him again after he stopped being a nasty diving little cunt, fully deserved his red card for aiming a thinly-disguised flying kick at Nani midway through the second half; if you want to kick anyone, Emmanuel, kick one of your lot, because it's not Man U's fault your boys played like chumps.

Still, you might think that any FA Cup tie that features 4 goals and a sending off would be an exciting game of football, but it wasn't. Next time I want to watch Man U have a training session against a team of cardboard cut-outs, I'll subscribe to MUTV. At least that way I'd get to hear the wise words of the BBC-boycotting Sir Alex, and maybe work out what kind of spell he used to turn the Premiership's best pure passing team into a bunch of wallowing sulky hippos - it might come in handy for Sunday League.

In a far less news-worthy story, the other member of the Big 4 Brigade, Chelsea, smacked Huddersfield 3 - 1 at home, with Big Fat Frank on the scoresheet twice. What price a home draw against Barnsley for the Blues in the next round? You know, because the FA Cup isn't rigged or anything. It'll be them or Bristol Rovers, who triumphed over Southampton 1 - 0 with a massively deflected goal, with the other playing Man U at Old Trafford, unless Preston or Sheffield United get through tomorrow, in which case they'll be in the mix to face the Big 2 left in the competition as well, but I doubt whoever is in charge of drawing up the 'random' FA Cup fixture list at the Football Association will want either of them to play West Brom, who looked on Premiership form to thump Coventry 5 - 0 to seal their place in the next round. If any Championship team is likely to go all the way, on this form it's the Baggies, and Coventry simply looked all at sea against them today and, for them, Chris Coleman can't get back from his Spanish adventure fast enough, with the Welshman apparently the bookie's tip for the Sky Blues' management position.

In the other tie which I've forgotten to mention so far, and the final tie of the round other than those being played tomorrow, was Cardiff City's 2 - 0 victory over Wolves, which was nothing less than Dave Jones deserves after putting up with some horrible abuse from certain quarters. He genuinely seems a nice bloke and I'd love to see him go far, but I'm not sure how far the ageing legs of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink can take him. Jimmy's a top slice of class, but I still think West Brom have a better chance of succeeding as a Championship club in the FA Cup quarter finals; Roman Bednar isn't half the player Hasselbaink was in his prime, but you just never know when those 35-year-old lungs are going to run out of puff, and I think West Brom have more quality throughout the side, with players like Chris Brunt, Zoltan Gera, etc. I mean, they've even got bloody Pele on their books! (Not that Pele, but still, it must put the wind up any opposition players that are a wee bit thick, seeing that name on the back of an opponents' shirt).

Anyway, I was out on the lash last night and don't feel too great just at the moment, so that's it for this evening.

Goodnight.

Edit: Corrections, corrections, corrections.

Premiership Weekend Roundup

So, Manchester United get beaten by Citeh on their own patch for the first time in about thirty years, and assistant manager Carlos Queiroz is straight on the excuses. Apparently, the poor hard-done-by Man United players were worn out after their painful international exertions - Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Cristiano Ronaldo were all over-tired and restless, apparently. No mention of Richard Dunne, Martin Petrov and Gelson Fernandes' appearances for Ireland, Bulgaria and Switzerland, then. Or Joe Hart's fanatastic game for England U21s. Just those poor Manchester United players, all sore and grouchy at having to play two games of football in a week.

The game finished 2 - 1, but in reality Citeh deserved to win by the two-goal lead they had up until Michael Carrick, who is still the most overrated player in world football, stroked in a consolation goal that, in an indication at just how poor the red half of Manchester had been, was celebrated like a cup-final win. Benjani Mwararararawari got himself very tenuously on the scoresheet by getting the faintest of touches on a Martin Petrov cross-cum-shot that looked goalbound long before the Zimbabwean flicked out a dreadlock for the final touch, after Darius Vassell stabbed in at the second time of asking to turn the game for Man City, a team who rapidly look like they're regaining the devastating form they showed at the beginning of the season after that little blip over christmas. In contrast, United looked overawed by the pomp and ceremony of the Munich anniversary and were badly outclassed, surrendering what could be three massively important points in the race for the title, with Arsenal now two clear points ahead with a game in hand going into their monday fixture with Blackburn.

Another club that could have benefitted from United's failings was Chelsea, but their 0 - 0 draw with Liverpool gave no hint that we were watching two of the pre-season favourites for a title race. Avram Grant's side might have crept a point closer to United, but United will surely not have too many more off days, and games are rapidly running out for Grant to haul his side back into the title race. With 12 games remaining at the end of this weekend's fixtures, Chelsea really needed to win this game against a woefully out of form Liverpool side to stay in the realistic race for the title and, while they are still very much involved in the race, they must definately now be considered only third favourites, and really need to avoid any more off days, particularly against Arsenal at the end of March, to avoid being in the potentially embarrassing situation of having to form a guard of honour for United two games from the end of the season.

As much as I could criticise Chelsea, it does take two teams to make a bad game and Liverpool more than did their fair share. As I said about Chelsea, they really need to start winning games, especially against the teams around them in the table. It's all very well thumping Sunderland 3 - 0, but when you can't pick up maximum points against a team like West Ham, you really are struggling to justify your £60m summer outlay on a team expected to challenge realistically for the title; with all due respect to West Ham, they are the kind of team that title challengers should be beating. But I'm getting sidetracked. Liverpool might have an excuse for their poor form in this game, seeing as they were without the mercurial Fernando Torres, as well as with a defence stretched tighter than a drum skin meaning the increasingly nervous-looking Martin Skrtel was left trying to keep tabs on Nicholas Anelka all game. Rafa Benitez pointedly dodged questions after the game about Liverpool's ambitions being reduced to just aiming for 4th place, but that is realistically the best they can hope for now, as nobody really expects Chelsea or Manchester United to stop grinding out at least half-decent results, and while there are still lingering doubts about Arsenal's ability to last the pace, with a 16 point lead over the red side of Merseyside, nothing barring a complete collapse will see the London club fall below their northern rivals by the end of the season.

For the blue side of Merseyside, however, things could hardly be rosier. While what should have been an easy win against a Reading side in the middle of a 7-game freefall turned into a scrappy victory won with a lucky header by no-nonsense utility man Phil Jagielka, the result does mean that the best Liverpool can do with their game in hand is draw level on points, meaning that the battle for Merseyside bragging rights is now a straight fight to the finish, with the boys in royal blue definately being the form team.

Speaking of form teams, you couldn't get much further from that than Reading. They now have now lost every league game they have played this year and while Everton are showing winning form in beating teams while playing badly, Reading are only managing half of that, and it's not the good half. With Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs still to play, as well as a crunch game against their main relegation rivals Birmingham City to come in the middle of March, it really doesn't look good for Steve Coppell's team, who have really struggled this year after being last season's surprise package, and it looks like their only hope of staying up could be finding a team that are performing even worse than they are. After seven straight defeats and racing into the second month of the 2008 without a league win since the new year that might seem like no mean feat, but thankfully for Coppell and co, there's always Newcastle United.

King Kev's Tyneside revolution has, now more than ever, fallen flat on it's arse. There's no journalistic gloss, no media foundation that can be brushed over Newcastle's continued painful struggles. Keegan's promise of swashbuckling, gung-ho attacking football has come to nothing and they appear even worse now than they were under Sam Allardyce's tutelage - unsurprising really, as, after all, Allardyce made a career out of coaxing awful defenders into slightly less-than-awful performances, while Keegan's lack of defensive nous notorious, and Claudio Cacapa is the worst defender on Tyneside since Jean-Alain Boumsong, and appears to embody the worst of both the lanky Frenchman and his former Tyneside colleague Titus Bramble. A 4 - 1 defeat to Aston Villa was no more than they deserved for an absolutely dire performance, and they probably didn't even deserve their opener, stabbed past Villa's goalkeeper by Michael Owen, desperate to impress after maybe finally realising that being Michael Owen isn't going to be enough on it's own to warrant a place in a real international manager's plans.

It was at the other end where the real action took place, however. John Carew is the sort of giant hulking beast written about in Norse mythology, and the Norweigan international scored a hattrick to prove to everyone that a team who's defence consists of Claudio Cacapa and the utterly confidence-shattered Steven Taylor doesn't deserve to stay in the Premier League, regardless of how many of their fans insist they are 'too big to go down'. I'm not sure how much time Keegan is going to get or how long his legend will keep the Geordie faithful off his back, or how long he, given his tendency to walk away from jobs that do not go his way, will choose to stay around and let his star over the Tyne become even more tarnished. Can you hear them crying out for Shearer yet? If they aren't yet, they soon will be, with Man United and Liverpool to play in the next three games. Then again, Keegan could turn it all around with victory over one of them, and if he beats Liverpool, a prospect not entirely out of the question given their recent form, Villa would have a chance to go 5th and above the Merseysiders, a position they would no less than deserve given their excellent form of date.

The only other interesting result of the weekend, with Arsenal playing tomorrow, was West Ham's 1 - 1 draw with Birmingham. An uninteresting game in terms of the ball-playing action, it was an exciting game for all the wrong reasons, a dubious penalty and a red card. The result I have no qualms with, neither team did enough to justify 3 points but nothing to warrant going away with nothing, and 1 - 1 neither flattered nor embarrassed either team. The controversial points were, well, the things I mentioned above. I have a mate who is a massive West Ham fan and he was absolutely incensed that James McFadden was given a penalty for his stumble in the box under a tug from Lucas Neill, calling referee Mark Clattenburg every name under the sun, but the fact is that Neill did have a handful of his shirt and, with the rules as they are, that's a penalty. You can't get away with any kind of contact in the box and what a player as experienced as Lucas was thinking doing that right under Clattenburg's nose was anybody's guess.

The other incident was Lee Bowyer's red card for a studs-up challenge late in the game. I didn't see the incident for myself, but both Alan Curbishley and the popular press seem to be saying that the dismissal was rather harsh. Harsh or not, I find it hard to feel sorry for Bowyer in this case, as he has for many years been a nasty little oik, from being up in court for affray to having a punch-up in the center circle with Newcastle and now Hammers team-mate Kieron Dyer. He has a reputation that goes before him and it is not an undeserved one, and I doubt anyone would have any sympathy for Joey Barton if he was harshly punished for a borderline tackle next week. If you don't want to be thought of as a dirty player and a nasty piece of work, try spending a few years not being a dirty player and a nasty piece of work before you start complaining about borderline decisions going against you; after all, if most players go in studs-up, it can be dismissed as an accident, or a momentary lapse of judgement, while players like Bowyer, Barton and Chelsea's Michael Essien have proved with their consistent behaviour that their intention is to kick, stamp and hurt opposition players as much as possible. That's just the way it is.

Something of a Tribute

Right, this post is somewhat out of character for this blog, but I don't care, it must be said and it will be, if you don't like it, you can suck it up later until the proper post.

This week, the Daily Express, for all it's faults, is running a series of articles on the Munich air disaster which claimed the lives of 8 of Sir Matt Busby's 'Busby Babes'. Today's article was an interview with Sir Bobby Charlton, one of the survivors lucky enough to escape the crash with his body and his career intact. Far from feeling lucky, however, Bobby feels guilty. He speaks as a man haunted by the deaths of his friends and colleagues all those years ago. Guilty for the success he has had that others were denied. The way he speaks gives away a humble, gracious man from an age when success did not and does not breed arrogance. He describes his feelings of guilt at survival and for what he went on to achieve, that he did not deserve those achievements, and that he can never live up to the accolades that his colleagues could and should have gone on to earn, or the legacies they never had the chance to forge.

Nonsense.

Sir Bobby Charlton is a world cup winner and will forever be. He is still his nation's top scorer, has earned over a century of caps for his country, as well as making over 800 appearances and nearly 300 goals in club football, making over 750 appearances for Manchester United, finding the net on one short of 250 occasions, a phenomenal record for a player who spent most of his career as a midfielder. He has achieved heights of greatness that few players, certainly very few Englishmen, will ever see. He has won everything there is to win, done everything there is to do and been everything there is to be in the beautiful game. He has been a fantastic player on the pitch and a wonderful ambassador off it for more than 50 years, and the fact that he is still so humble and so unassuming about his achievements is just another testament to the integrity and skill of a man who deserves his place, whether he would agree or not, with the best and the greatest of all time.

Bobby, I know you won't read this, but all true football fans will agree with me - when the two halves of Manchester come together to mourn the victims of the disaster, the careers of Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower and the young lights of Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan and Duncan Edwards - described by Charlton himself as the greatest player with whom he ever shared a pitch - there will be many words spoken and many tributes paid, but no-one could make a greater tribute to them than what you have achieved, for them and in their name, since that fateful day in Munich that claimed the lives of so many of England's best and brightest. You are a credit to your country, a credit to your club and, most of all, a credit to their memory.