Sweet n Sour Cat Please

Barcelona fan's didnt mess about throwing coins



Paul Garden of Stan James fame


Another week of unemployment and I have settled into a nice routine of sleeping, watching telly, ps2 and golf, oh also getting smashed now and again. My neighbours are probably getting sick of my screams every two hours of ´fuck off VJ! ´ But Mr Singh keeps chipping in for eagle to beat me, curses.

Had a couple of dates last week which went reasonably ok but there won’t be any elusive date 3, unusually that’s my choice. I’m still hoping to get away for a break somewhere so there’s little point in taking things further at this stage methinks.

Telly has been surprisingly good this week and thank goodness for channel 4, E4 and more 4. Highlight was of course was last night’s new series of Ramsey’s kitchen nightmares which was brilliant. Some goofy 26 year old had borrowed money to open a restaurant in Spain and instead of using the local produce to full effect he had decided upon ´novelty´ dishes such as prawns with chocolate sauce, you can imagine what Ramsey made of that. After 40 minutes of abuse and piss taking (with one memorable scene where Ramsey discovers dog shit in the dining room) the poor chef\owner was finally persuaded that Ramsey might actually know what he’s talking about and he decided to listen. The device Ramsey used to get the bloke to listen was pure genius and I won’t ruin it for you if the programme is repeated this week, make sure you watch it. Also discovered that aside from Dragon and I there is another person who is obsessed with the food channels and cookery programmes, no less a person than PF admitted he was hooked!

This was followed by a new dating show on ITV which pitted a trainee lawyer\snobby cow against an Essex charmer. The Essex lad had 3 days in which to woo and Dragon and I were on opposite sides of the fence for this one. He didn’t rate the bloke’s chances at all but I have seen this type of operator in action and was convinced she would crack. As the programme rolled it was obvious Essex bloke was a top drawer player and somewhat inevitably in my book he bagged her and it was pleasing to beat the Moroccan open champion at golf (1up) and our will he won’t he prediction. Of course after he had slept with her a week or so later he finished with her, ruthless.

Sadly this week the last episode in TV’s greatest ever drama is shown. The Soprano’s has been in my life longer than any relationship I have had and has never disappointed, please God they make more series. Also I think it’s the last episode of Big Ron Manager. The concept here is take a racist washed up has been (Ron Atkinson), and put him in a club as a sort of trouble shooter where he can reveal how inept most football clubs are run and teams managed whilst he attempts to revive the club’s fortunes by trotting out cliché after cliché and phoning any friends he has left in football (Bryan Robson) and beg for loan players that never materialize. Its cringe TV at its finest.

It was another bumper weekend of excellent footy with the Barcelona game the highlight once again. Having said that they must be a lay for both La liga and the champion’s league, their defence is awful and now Messi joins the crocked list along with Etoó.
Arsenal Liverpool wasn’t too bad with Arsenal winning without getting out of 2nd gear. The game was marred for me by of course by Andy Gray. He gave two perfect examples of why I detest him. With Liverpool falling behind 2-0 Gray pipes up that if he was manager he’d be making a change right now, cue camera cutting to the sideline to see Benitez giving sub Bellamy last second advice, contrived to say the least. Later with the game over at 3-0 Bellamy scores but is 2 yards offside and the goal disallowed. Even after the replay Gray couldn’t stop his bullshit, ´well that’s very very close´ (it wasn’t) and officials need to be able to keep up with play´ (they had).
My idea would be to replace Gray with a betting pundit who could give updated information on Betfair prices along with any stand out in running prices from the fixed odds firms. Imagine a dull 0-0 being livened up with the betting analyst revealing that Betfred where still quoting over 7 corners at 10-11 even though there had already been 6 with 15 minutes to go, ´Fill Yer Boots!´.

I have discussed footy a lot with friends recently and without doubt the best idea I have heard is from my mate Faiz. He wants all clubs to be owned by billionaires and to used as their personnel fiefdoms. Fuck salary capping lets go the other way, the world’s first million pound a week player, transfer fee’s going into the billions etc how good would that be. I believe a few of the world’s leading billionaires indulge themselves by playing the yacht game (basic rules, whoever has the biggest boat wins, currently the Sultan of Brunei is leading but Abramovich has a bigger one being built at the moment).

Me old mucker Graham Poll again made the headlines last week by sending off a player who apparently called him a ´fucking cheat´. The player alleged he had called him a ´fucking shit´ which bizarrely would have gone unpunished (witness Rooney’s verbal assault of Poll last season where he called Poll all sorts for 90 minutes without retribution from Poll). Two words Poll that may not only assist you but all referees’ in future, ´unsporting behaviour´.
I had the pleasure of watching Stan James play Mansion on Monday (1-0 to the Stan’s chaps, hurrah!).Great game which was made even more wonderful by being able to witness the most inept display of refereeing I have ever seen in my life (he actually booked a player for a foul when there was no player within 5 feet of him) but two bookings he dispatched where perfectly in order in my book. Two players from Stan’s where booked for verbally assaulting the ref, one told him to keep his fucking whistle out of his mouth (good point but no need to shout it at him), the other was for calling him a fucking prick (again fair comment but don’t let him hear you). Surely if all officials booked players for any sort of abuse even footballers would get the message.

I was going to witter on about Mclaren’s abuse of position by not drafting Beckham into the England squad (Kieran Richardson is a better option apparently), Mike Newell´s abuse of female officials (you couldn’t make it up) or the normally reasonable Rafa Benitez´s explanation of what he needs to do to get Liverpool winning (he gets paid 40 grand a week to come up with the pearl of wisdom that is, ´we need to improve´) but instead the little matter of players celebrations after scoring raised its head. Shevchenko scored for the mighty Blues at the weekend and celebrated world cup Brazil team USA 1990 style by rocking an imaginary baby to celebrate the birth of his 2nd daughter. Over the weekend El Hadj Diouf of Bolton (he of spitting at players and fans fame) was questioned over alleged wife beating accusations. How much more topical it would have been after he scored by not charging to his fans all smiles and waves, instead say getting Campo to pretend he was his wife and landing an imaginary left hook on him.

Finally on Friday night over dinner I was discussing my poker past with a young lady when I remembered my favourite ever poker story and I remembered I had not yet entered it onto the blog, very remiss of me. As you would expect it involves absolutely no poker rather two great characters that I had the pleasure of sharing many beers with and being regaled by their tales of madness. Aiden Bennett is a huge Dublin drinking machine with a penchant for trouble and his best friend and travelling companion at the time was one Mad Marty Wilson. They told me a tale from years ago that neither thought that unusual but I thought stunning in both its sheer stupidity and comic genius.
The story goes that Marty and Katherine were over in Dublin to stay with Aiden and his missus for the first time. As you would no doubt expect the chaps engineer some fabricated story to enable them to go out and explore Dublin’s hostelries. After a night’s drinking they are on their way home when they witness the sad demise of a cat that had mistimed its run and was promptly run over by a bus. I can’t remember which one had the foresight to see a comic moment but that’s irrelevant. Unspoken they walk over and scrape the cat up from the road, put it in a carrier bag and cross the street. Aiden then walks into a Chinese takeaway which is now filled up with the nights revellers looking for meat n rice fix, bangs the cat on the counter resulting in blood and entrails smattering over the place and announces in a thick Dublin accent ´Tats the last fookin one il sell ya!´. Marty explained that as his sides were splitting so much with shock and laughter he found it very difficult to get away from the 6 or 7 machete wielding chefs that chased him and Aiden all over Dublin.

Right back to tackling VJ plus there’s another 100 pound comp at the casino tonight. I’m still no nearer to booking a holiday but PF has kindly let me use SJ phone lines and internet to get something sorted, I can imagine the poker teams fear when they see me entering the office looking like I’m ready for work, I’m tempted to tell them I have been bought back Ramsey style to ´Sort out this Fucking mess!