Today's Headlines

Some headlines today seemed so obvious that they hardly deserved the name.

Avram Grant sacked By Chelsea.

Gosh what a surprise !! Chelsea came 2nd in the league and failed at the last hurdle to win the Champions League. Good for most clubs but not for free spending Chelsea who assume throwing money at a team will ensure success. Mr. Grant did himself no favours by having a face like a bank holiday weekend and all the personality of Amy Whinehouse when sober. Ok I know that's not fair on Ms Whinehouse - as no one has ever seen her sober.

It's never easy when an English football team is managed by someone for whom English is a distant 2nd language as he is expected to answer inane questions after every game. However there are really only 2 questions that EVER get asked on these occasions, whether you've won or lost, and so any manager worth his salt, or his roubles, only has to learn how to deal with a couple of stock questions :-

1) So how does it feel to have won/lost ?
2) Will this result have an effect on the rest of your season ?

Just how people (who have baffling job titles like touchline reporters) like Gabriel Clark and even worse, Geoff Shreeves can make a living out of shoving their microphones in front of everyone from the managers to the ball boys and asking them one or both of those questions after EVERY game, is beyond me.

Guys, we really don't need to know. Final whistle goes and we all go make a cup of tea or have a pint and so no one hears you anyway. Play the music, show the credits and bring on the next program.

England Wickets Tumble Against The Kiwis.

Lets see now, where have we seen this before ? We invent a game, we play it for a century or so and still get stuffed by Johnny Foreigner. We Brits do it so well. Cricket may be a 5 day sleep for most people, including those who have paid to actually watch the games, but England continue to send those already asleep into a deep coma from which there is little hope for recovery on the horizon.

In the world rankings (the cricket world that is), England are 4th in the Test Match table, one place above Sri Lanka. Wow. That doesn't seem too bad......until you realise the world is a VERY small place when you're talking about cricket. There are only 9 Test countries in fact so we're 4th out of 9. As for ODI (One Day International) countries, the world is a little bit bigger......12 countries.....and we're 6th in that table. Mind you, that's not saying much when the bottom country is Kenya which has got zero points. Well it's hard to play cricket with bloody wildebeest wandering all over the pitch.

Speaking of nul points, bring me nicely to the next headline...........


UK Comes Last In Eurovision Contest.

Wow, there was a shocker and no mistake !! In this annual kitch musical competition, we've never stood a chance since we sided with America and saved the world from non existent weapons of mass destruction. Speaking of which, did you SEE the Finnish entry ?! I've put the word musical into the description but over the last 10 years or so, it's become more political than musical as everyone votes for everyones neighbour and the ex Russian countries still vote for Mother Russia which provides them with oil, weapons and technology - so lets not upset her, eh ?

I think the fall of communism and the subsequent split up of the USSR was all a cunning plot by the Commies to guarantee success in the contest. I mean it seems very obvious now that by creating all these little satellite countries, they pretty much ensured that they'd get 12 points from them all and so win without the rest of Europe needing to turn up.

And speaking of the rest of Europe, when did Israel change the world map and become European ? What's next.....change their currency to the Euro and join the EC ? I suspect a few nations might have something to say about that. As for this progressively ridiculous competition, the UK might as well have entered Irelands turkey - oh hang on though, we decided to enter our own, didn't we ?


Leeds United Fail To Win Promotion To The Championship.

And so the rest of the country rejoiced as my team lost in the playoff final to.......oh God help us.....Doncaster Rovers. Oh the shame, the shame. A few years ago I'd have been so upset that I've have made John Terry look like Rambo. I might even have had a transference moment and smashed something in the house in my manly anger.

But I've moved on from those days. I downsized so that my living room has very few items available for smashing. I didn't replace my cat when it died a few years ago so I've nothing available for kicking either. Mainly though, it's been my attitude to such things that has changed and it's just not so important to me anymore.

Added to that, I quite expected us to lose today as I felt we'd rode our luck just to get to the final. We'd won so many games during the regular season in the last few minutes and if Carlisle had continued to go forward after scoring against us in the first of the playoff games, they could've put the final out of our reach at that point.

Oh get me....quite the little soccer pundit.

Oh I'm still really really upset but I'm not going to be sacked, it's not the end of my career and so why should I weep and carry on like it's anything important ? I mean who needs the stress and agro of playing the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal when you can play......Milton Keynes.

Oh dear God...........hand me a sharp knife.


Hollywood Movie Distorts History !!

So this then easily becomes the only headline today which passeth all understanding. Avram Grant sacked - not a shocker. England can't play cricket....not a shocker. UK have no friends in Europe ( + Israel).....not a shocker. Leeds lose in a final.....not a shocker.

But hey, Hollywood movies aren't historically accurate....I'm stunned.

The reason for this headline comes from the release of the latest Indiana Jones movie in Russia. It seems that the fun loving Commies have once again lost the plot by thinking that Hollywood churns out historically accurate movies instead of ones that are designed to entertain us. This Times article gives details of some astonishing quotes from party members who seem to have taken winning the Eurovision Song Contest as the opportunity to divert attention from their miserable education system. As an example.......

“Our moviegoers are teenagers who are unaware of what happened in 1957,” said Sergei Malinkovich, the chief of the St Petersburg Communist Party chief. “They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war. It’s rubbish.”

I guess they don't teach much history in Russian schools if kids there don't know what happened as recently as 1957. They certainly don't give them much credit for going to watch a movie purely for entertainment purposes as opposed to using it as the basis for upcoming examinations.

"But how did I fail my history exam, comrade. I watched Red Sonia, The Hunt For Red October, Firefox AND Carry On Up The Kremlin ???"

(Before you go looking it up, I made the last one up to add my own silliness to the post).

So now they want the movie banned, Harrison Ford has no future in Russia and both he and Cate Blanchett are second rate actors. Oh dear. They ARE rather upset, aren't they ? Probably right about the last bit though.

As usual Australia has jumped on the bandwagon and just in case they are ever invited to enter the Eurovision Song Contest, they are buttering up the Ruskies even before Australia becomes part of Europe in 2027. Read the Times article and see what you think of Ms. Smith.

I suspect she's lost the plot a bit too and being that she's an archaeologist to boot (and let me be first in line to do so), she should know a bit more about historical fact that most in the Russian Communist Party.

I think that she may have taken digging holes to an entirely new level.

Anyway it's just sinking in that Leeds will be playing in the 3rd tier of English soccer again next season so I'm off to drown my sorrows in a pint of Pepsi Max and watching "Ben Hur" to see what things were REALLY like back in the days before Communism.