Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
http://www.uefa.com/uefa/keytopics/kind=512/newsid=839076.html
Dear Michel Platini,
We, the undersigned, hereby demand your immediate undertaking that if you, Sepp Blatter or any other members of UEFA’s hierachy have something stolen from you because of the corruption or idiocy of another, that you then publicly prostrate yourself upon whichever national or internet broadcasting site you choose and declare the following:
‘I utterly and totally accept that I have been robbed, violated or assaulted and in the interests of good sportsmanship I shall smile and declare myself to be a little velvet child, desperate for the approbation of those who seek to make me victim. I cannot declare this to be an unjust, nor appear angry or upset that I am become victim, for my superiors do not allow such behaviour’.
The price for not following such action is a unanimous boycott of all Sony, Vodafone, Hineken, Mastercard and related financial services and Ford products until such time as the 2009 European cup final is restaged with the legitimately successful teams from the quarter final stages, Manchester United and Chelsea Football Club again, by us, the undersigned.
test (ahhhhONEahhhTWOAAAHHHH)
I don’t particularly like Brian Ashton, I don’t like his demeanour, the way he communicates ideas – he reminds me of a dour PE Teacher I had in middle school, loading his commentary with scathing, hidden criticism and damning everyone who wasn’t his favourites with faint praise. Watching his post-game commentary makes me want to throw items at the TV, such as his voice and mannerisms fill me with hellish visions of school memories long since repressed.
What you can’t fault him for, perhaps sadly, is that he is a brilliant Rugby Coach. Without descending into hyperbole, he is excellent at his job – and yet week on week, John Inverdale and Gobby Logan constantly belittle him, teasing him like a sneering end page of the Sun, dangling provocation in front of him like a ball of wool in front of a cat you hate screaming ‘do you WANT IT?!, DO YOU?!’ and millimetres away from grasping it, they snatch it away to leave the cat falling headfirst into a concrete wall. Ashton managed to grab together the first twenty Englishmen he could grab hold of, and in a week had them ready to play in the World Cup. Three weeks later and they were World Cup contenders. Four months later and he takes England to 2nd Place in the Six Nations (Don’t mention the fact we owe the thoroughly amazing Welsh something for that). Brian Ashton is a Gnat’s pube away from taking us to a proper victory and yet somehow again, people are demanding his head.
Ashton himself begged that they alter the coaching structure, since currently the structure stands as so:
Brian Ashton (Head Coach / Attack Coach)
/\
John Wells (Forwards Coach) Mike Ford (Backs / Defensive Coach)
Ashton being figurehead, manager, media front and for many Lynchpin of English Rugby. Despite his begging, Rob Andrew - Whilst should be praised for not behaving like a Football coach and knee-jerking him to the side – has yet to actively place a better support structure around Ashton to work. I’m not suggesting that the whole world has to revolve in order to allow Ashton to do his job, but it seems that there is too much conflict and distress at the top end of elite rugby. So I’ve decided to suggest a new, Fantasy England Coaching Team, with explanations.
Ashton hates playing the media game, mostly because he is, at his stony cold heart, a dour northerner who seems to hate being in the limelight. Ashton has begged for someone to take over the role, so why not someone born with the gift of playing the media well?
Manager: Jose Morhinio
Oh come on, like I’d choose anyone else. Imagine a day where we lost 112 – 0 to Italy, Jose would stand there, Grey wool trenchcoat flapping in the tunnel, stony faced and declaring casually to Gabby Logan; ‘The best team did not win, the Italians – they all dirty cheats’ before walking off into the distance leaving the mouthy bitch speechless. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t pay a fortune for that moment.
Players Coach: Martin Johnson or Lawrence Dallagio
I had pondered this for a while only to have the wind removed from my sails by the bloody papers – a former player with a strong head and captaincy skills could come in and bring discipline, co-ordination and role modelling. Imagine another ‘Ciprianigate’ situation – instead of having the coaches, who have a developmental role, being questioned for metering out punishments, it would be the senior players themselves who regulate the conduct of their members – but again it can’t be another team member, as the teams should be about community, not hierarchies, so how better to remedy this than by including designated carrot-and-stick holding team coaches?
Attack Coach: Brian Ashton
Or that feller who kept us at #2 in the world and #2 in the Northern Hemisphere, back to what he does best, nurturing individual skills such as those of Toby Flood, Matthew Tait, Richard Wigglesworth, Paul Sackey, Danny Cipriani and King Wilkinson.
Defensive Coach: Sean Edwards
Like I was going to mention anyone else. It’s a fantasy signing because if the Welsh have any sense, they would offer this man a solid gold statute of himself and all the Irish virgins he can get his tiny hands on, but watching 15 Welshmen stand there patiently waiting for the French to realise that they were fighting for possession of the ball in a ruck with only Frenchmen was the most satisfying moment in the whole Six Nations.
Set Piece Coach: Jake Wood
Another fantasy signing, but let’s be honest – that’s where the Springboks raped us badly in the World Cup final, England have remedied a large proportion of the set-piece faults, but more can be done to make us Set-piece kings of the World.
You may scoff at my selection because it is unrealistic. Ah, but I can dream can’t I?
Christmas 2006/7 I made the resolution to get a pilot screened at Channel 102, something which isn’t possible now since they’ve changed their name to Channel 101:NY. Immaterial, I still want to have something shown there - just because I don’t want to let yet another thing lapse into never being finished, so I’m working on a new show;
My regular reader will already see where this is going - I step into the considerably sexy shoes of Mrs Lawrence Fox and do the routine, albeit in 5 minutes instead of 25 and with at least 400% more fat jokes. But in my neverending quest to increase interactivity, I post my first draft for you, discerning comedy fans to see what you think and how you would improve the script to make it razor-sharp. You are my friends and my sounding board - consult away.
L’Homme De Jour
The Secret Diary of a Male Call Girl
1. Ext. LONDON.
Steve is walking along the bridge at Charing Cross. We pan across to the visage of London and back again to Steve.
Steve V/O:
I love living in London. It’s the greatest city in the world. Full of noisy irritating people who don’t care what you do or who you’re doing it with. So really, the first thing you should know about me, is that I’m a whore.
2. Titles.
STEVE walking along tower bridge.
STEVE walking along embankment, looking the business.
STEVE standing and looking across the river, along which the logo appears, as if projected onto some vertex we can’t see. L’Homme Du Jour - The Secret Diary of a Male Call Girl.
2. STEVE in BED.
STEVE wakes up, he’s talking directly to camera.
Steve:
Morning
He rises with the camera and begins to talk to it. He is wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt.
Steve:
Man-Escort, Man-Hooker, Man-Prostitute, Man-Whore. I don’t care what you call me. It’s all semantics.
3. STEVE in the toilet, sat on the loo.
STEVE:
There are many different types of man-prostitites. I’m very high-class, I charge by the hour, and I charge… a lot. (beat). I bet you’re wondering how someone so horrifyingly ugly gets paid to sleep with women?
STEVE pulls out a photo of Ron Jeremy and cocks an eyebrow.
STEVE’s phone rings.
STEVE (To Camera)
‘cuse me.
4. Int. Office.
STEVE’s PIMP - MARTIN is sat in an office, very high class, very expensive.
MARTIN:
A new client for you this afternoon. She’s got some (pause) particular tastes.
5. Int. Toilet
STEVE:
Roger and out.
6. STEVE’s bedroom
STEVE:
Being a Male Call-Girl is exactly the same as being a lawyer. You have to give the client…
CUT-TO
7. Another bedroom
STEVE V/O:
Exactly what she wants…
—
More to come tomorrow people - tell me what you think so far…
(1 of an infinite series).
At the dinner table, during a quiz, during which there are stick-packets of both white and brown sugar on the table, should you pick two of each up, mingle them, and by grasping the brown in one hand and the white in the other, say ‘For ten points, which socio-political movement from the 80’s is *this*
Every year my girlfriend makes the resolution to read 52 books in a year. I just resolve to read more. In the last 6 months, I’ve read 6 books; I rarely feel like reading after pouring at a textbook for days on end, but this is an appalling state of affairs. So I’m doubling up my stakes. Starting now, on the 17th July, I’m going to try to read 52 books before January 1st 2008.
I’m going to cheat a little by counting the books I’ve already started, and the books I’ve read over the past few weeks on slow nights at work, but the hope is to see how close I can get to 52 in the next six months.
Unless you’ve been stalking me on Facebook, you’ll be unaware that I’ve been dabbling something a little subversive, a little dangerous, a little outré; Vegetarianism. This rates below homosexuality on the list of ‘things to write home about’ but I’m sure my Veggie and Vegan friends will be staring in disbelief, I have a reputation for being as much the meat-consuming baron. In fact, I doubt I’ve gone 15 years without eating something meat-related each day. My only favourite flavour of crisps often contain some derivation of Cow and I literally survived my third year of uni on fried mince.
But not anymore. Last monday I began ‘Project No Meat’, and depending on your level of militancy, I’m either a saint or the worst kind of sinner. Because home cooking is the very embodiment of ‘Meat & 3′, the aim was to replace the meat with Quorn, Tofu or Cauldron materials which would be a low-fat, healthier and vegetable-licious alternative. Let’s do the rest of this, FAQ style:
So what do you do for lunches, Dan?
Well, I’m still eating classical sandwiches, which involve some sort of lunch-meat, usually ham, beef or chicken, hence why I don’t consider myself to have been on a ‘Vegetarian diet’. I’d be an awful vegetarian anyway.
You’ve done 7 days of this, any results to speak of?
Yeah. When I began my diet in September 06, I weighed a staggering 19st 2lbs. By the end of my degree, I had shed 1st, and had frequently managed to get to 18st 0lbs, but had never managed to get beyond that. I had hit ‘a plateau’. This created massive despondancy in me, and without even small, incremental wins, It’s been hard to keep the morale up. When I started this, I was 18st 2lbs, Saturday I weighed 17st 12lbs, a loss of 5lbs.
You’re deluded chubby; that’s just water retention
If that’s the case then I’ve been retaining special heavy water like the Nazis wanted to use in ‘49. If it was a case of water retention, then it’d have fallen off during the initial burst of weight loss. The fact I have hit a wall since March indicates that this is the real deal.
5lbs in a week is dangerous, you should go back to eating lots and lots of meat
Shush. This won’t keep up, i’m sure it’ll slow down during week 2 of this project, but I’m hoping to remove some more meat from the diet and replace it with more vegetables.
I trust you’ve been exercising, Dan
I cycle for an hourthree days in every four, I do weights every other day. I’m not being silly.
So would you reccomend this to other lardies then?
Kinda. I’ve managed to do this through a combination of luck, willpower and an ability to fall off the wagon and trust I can get back on. I’m sure had I been a puritan about this, I could be wafer thin by now, but it’s come off slowly. Also a lot of faux-meat products taste like dogshit.
Cauldon Sausages are vile with a capital CAT PISS. Do not, under any circumstances, eat them, in fact avoid all Cauldron produce, and stick to Quorn. The only issue of which, is that it bends you over and rapes your wallet instead of your fat cells.
Would you like to give us any cooking suggestions?
You old flatterer, see the next post.
