There is no reason in England's dreaming

The English are a strange race. I say this as someone who considers themselves to be half English, but obviously I am not strange. They have extraordinary - I was going to say 'faith' but that's wrong, no they have extraordinary arrogance about themselves. Obviously this includes their hapless football team, not to mention their rugby and cricket teams, but also about other aspects of the 'English Way Of Life'. I obviously have to deal with the football first. I still can't believe how much they screwed up. I will admit that the other night, when Israel won and gave England their chance to qualify (with only a draw at home) I though how sweet it would be for them to lose to Croatia (even though I can't stand those anti-semitic nazis), but I never believed it would happen. I even thought at 93 minutes with the game over that Andorra were going to score an unlikely equaliser against Russia to put England through, just what normally happens to those lucky buggers. But no, the dream came true. OK, accuse me of Schadenfreude (especially as Wales were managing a draw away at Germany at the same time), I can take it. It's just the way the English are so smug.  They feel they have a right to qualify for the European Championships - and the World Cup of course - if not a right to win the damn thing. Why? The England football team have not been as good as many European teams now for many years - Germany, Italy, France, Croatia, Holland, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic - all of these teams (and possibly some others: Turkey, Russia, Greece...) have performed better than England on a regular basis. But, the English wail, we've got such great players: Gerrard, Rooney, Lampard, Ferdinand, Diver - oops, I mean Owen,... yeah, yeah, yeah.  And to a point this is true: these are good players. But the Italians, French, Dutch etc all have good players too. Some of them better. And this is pretty obvious, since many of them actually play in England, so you would think the english might notice. They also might notice that the bloke who played that glorious through pass for Olic to score Croatia's second goal plays for Arsenal .... reserves.

Some respected commentators (good lord, including the normally intelligent David Conn) are suggesting the fault is that too many foreigners play in the Premier league. No, the problem is far more obvious than that: the players are not as good as they think they are - and their manager is truly hopeless. If you think about it, if English players were any good, far more of them would be playing abroad, for big teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Milan etc. But no, only Beckham plays abroad (for the high powered LA Galaxy) and we all know about that. Apart from that there was Hargreaves in Germany, recently - but that's because he's really German (or Canadian, or Welsh) and  otherwise there doesn't seem to be a lot of foreign managers desperately looking at British talent. Except for the perennial bizarre rumour that Barca want the terminally incompetent Lampard.

But it is not just in their attitude towards sport that the english have their unfounded superiority complex. With the ongoing industrial and political disputes here in France, it has been interesting to read what the English viewpoint is. Generally, commentators keep repeating, thye French way of life is impossible, they are due for a major economic disaster to befall them, and that Sarkosy will lead them towards the Thatcher/Blair light where everything will be perfect. It is true that the French have economic problems - there is a large debt, and a problem with a large Black economy because of the perceived high levels of direct and indirect taxation. But the full picture is more interesting. Those same reports might mention in passing that French workers are the most productive workers in Europe for the hours they work, but for some reason the commentators believe they should stop doing reasonable 35 hour weeks with decent lunch hours, and work the British way. Forgetting that British workers (actually the reports usually say English, so let's stick with that) are the least productive hourly. Actually, this is usually mentioned in a different article slagging off trade unions and again in a different article praising Polish workers - which is a different article again to the one complaining about all the immigrants taking jobs away from the english. (Hmmm, that sounds similar to the football argument, doesn't it?). And as for debt, no it is true, the UK does not have the same level of debt, on the face of it, to the French. Except that that is not quite the case really, because UK debt just doesn't show on paper - because instead of the normal method of borrowing favoured by most countries (and people), by borrowing money from a bank and repaying plus interest over however many years this has been greed, successive UK governments have raised cash by selling off the family silver. The french may owe money, but at least they still own their schools, hospitals, government buildings, government departments - and their army while we're at it. In the UK all of this has been parcelled over to the private sector in a PFI initiative. Whilst France might get further in debt, the UK is going to end up with nothing to borrow against.

But of course the English are right. Who on earth wants a two hour lunch break? Who wants a 35 hour week? Who wants decent holidays? Who wants excellent health care? Who wants an excellent schools system? Who wants to retire at 50? Who wants protection for the poor?

The UK relies more and more upon the private and voluntary sectors to deliver services and to support its vulnerable people. The argument that the public sector is not able to deliver such services as well surely no longer holds water? The evidence is all around that privatisation of public services, and the subsequent demoralisation of state staff by depicting them as lazy incompetent wastrels, and paying them low wages for what are deemed 'low-value' jobs (i.e. teachers, firemen, nurses) has been a disaster. Thatcher, followed by Blair and now brown have laid waste to England. The English boast of the success of their economy (whilst growth levels tumble and unemployment rises) at the same time as complaining about how awful things are: floods, the price of petrol, foot and mouth, the NHS, teachers..... and yet the English really think the French aspire to be like them. Well, maybe a few do in Paris, as they look at their wages in comparison to the UK. But who can afford to live in the UK? Fewer and fewer. More houses needed, population getting older...

The French have problems. The English have problems. Meanwhile the French have great public services, great wine, great food and a football team that qualifies for the European Championship. The French know this. Do the English?

Robbie Fowler's magic...

I should be supporting an exciting team that splashes out enormous wages for huge stars, instead I find myself supporting a bunch of duffers with two very old slow, lazy duffers up front. I think it's time to start with Thompson and McLean. Alternatively get Feeney back from the Jacks, and Green back from the Donkeys. Did someone mention Jason Byrne? Is he still here? Aaaaargh!.

At least Feeney's got a good song.

le Ponderer returns

Just like TBL, it has taken a bit of time for me to sort myself out and get back to this. Months have passed and so little has happened in Cardiff City land (not to mention in mine).

From now on I will be writing this stuff from the sunny south of France, where the Socrates’ household is now based. Ah, this is the life, 35 degrees centigrade, a cool glass of the local white wine, I bit of bread, cheese. C’est la vie.

On Strike

Meanwhile in the home of the greatest football team the world has ever seen (they sing it so it must be true) interesting things have been happening. Chopra has gone off to premiership pastures, but City now boast a squad with 7 strikers. Really: Fowler, Hasselbaink, McLean, Feeney, Greene, Byrne and Thompson. Seven strikers. Two who earn a fortune and don’t play (at time of writing), one who plays and has managed to score one goal from the 247 chances presented to him, another who sometimes plays and might score one day in the distant future (but not for us, nor probably the Jacks, another who the manager thinks is too ‘raw’ (what does he want? Cooked strikers?) another whom no one is sure the point of, and another one with a broken leg – who is on the transfer list. And this doesn’t count Parry, who of course IS NOT a striker, but Jones seems to think can play up front. So no surprise then to City still linked with another truckload of strikers, including Davies at Oldham, Howards at Derby, and Vine at Birmingham.

Personally, I have noticed quite a lot of other forwards doing well, whom we should be watching, including Alan Lee at Ipswich, Rob Earnshaw at Derby, Michael Chopra at Sunderland, and not to mention non-league high scorers Leo Fortune-West at Cambridge and top scorer with 5 goals from 4 games for Halifax – Andy Campbell. To top that, I even saw Richie Wellens score two goals for Hartlepool the other day.

Jimmy Floyd

Of course anyone who bothered to read my last post several months ago will have noticed that I pooh-poohed the idea of City signing Hasselbaink. Mea Culpa - I was wrong. Let's also hope my assessment of his performances so far (bloody useless) also prove as wrong.

Fowler

I gather 3,000 Fowler 8 shirts were sold out of the club shop in one day. Apart from the fact it is hard to imagine the club shop being able to cope with that many orders, that’s a hell of a lot of shirts (especially for someone who hadn't kicked a ball when those shirts were sold), and I imagine a few more were sold thereafter. Also seen on Ninian Park terraces have been Number 8 ‘God’ shirts, in lieu of Fowler’s standing at Liverpool. Of course, there’s even more profit in these shirts, as they only have three letters on the back, but whatever, the margins are going to be better than for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. I assume though, that all these shirt sales won’t pay for much more than a month of Fowler’s wages.

Of course Fowler and Hasselbaink weren’t our only summer signings, we signed some other players too. There was that bloke from Scotland, you know, what’s is name, and the other bloke who used to play on the left for England but plays on the right really, and there was that bloke from Sheffield and I think we got a keeper or two. Oh yes, and an Italian left back from Plymouth. Team of stars, we are.

Money money money

The other interesting thing that happened in Cardiff this summer was all the stuff about the £30m, £31m, £32m, £15m, £16m debt we have (please delete as applicable). We’re hardly alone in this, but football clubs really have become home to a bunch of corporate scoundrels on a major scale. Ridsdale’s record is not an enviable one, and as for Sam the Sham, what can be said? Mind you Woolly Bully was a great song. What do you mean that wasn’t him? Another illusion shattered.

Who owes whom how much though, is the interesting thing. And what for? Cardiff have SOLD over £15m worth of players in recent times (Chopra, Earnie, Jerome, Gabbidon Collins etc), and spent very little. Where on earth does all the debt come from? I think it may be time to start a revolution.

See, I’m getting all French already.

Internationals

For the first time in my life I have paid the Sky shilling so I can watch football whilst here in France. First night I get to watch Wales win and England lose. Should have done this years ago. But what I want to know is how come Germany have made Bryan Ferry their manager, and how come a Christian Panda scored the winner? Those missionaries have got a lot to answer for. Surely a panda should be Buddhist? Ignoring the Wales Germany game (as should be done by everyone) the Slovakia game was also magnificent. That Bellamy chap looks good. We should sign him. And that Ledley bloke on the left wing.

Loans

With Feeney of loan to the Jacks, it is hard to know who to feel sorrier for. On the other hand, what on earth were we doing paying £150,000 for a player whom we loan out straight away to Swansea? The strange thing is that we haven’t borrowed anyone ourselves, especially a defender, given the injuries to Purse and McNaughton. But then of course I forget, like everyone else, that when it comes to loans, outside of the premiership there isn’t a deadline until later in the year. Some time in November I gather, by which time the temperature here might have cooled too much for me to be typing in my swimsuit. There’s an image that you didn’t need, eh? Anyway, the other interesting thing about the Feeney loan, was that while the BBC was reporting it had happened, ICWales was reporting that the deal had fallen through.

Further press accuracy was provided by Sky, who was reported that Jason Byrne’s contract had been terminated. Which I gather it hadn’t. I bet that gave him a hell of a fright though. Bloody hell, can you imagine it: you get home from work to reado on the news that you’ve lost your job… Excuse me… who can I sue?

Time wasting all over Europe

I refer to Facebook, of course, that internet time waster enjoyed by many. Anyway, I joined a couple of months ago, mainly as a way of keeping in touch with people I no longer see who live in the UK (have I mentioned that I live in France?). This includes several City fans, but one thing I never expected was an invitation to become one of Earnie's friends on Facebook - why I don't know - _but I couldn't resist accepting. But from looking at his profile I learn he's considering a move _to Charlton and is a Scientologist. I'm sure that proves some unwritten rule_about not knowing too much about your idols. I am deeply disillusioned. I assumed he was a Buddhist, with a long held desire to return to Cardiff. Oh well.

A little pizza history

We have made one or two new friends here in France, including our local pizza man (of course). As well as making some damn fine pizzas, he is also a major Marseille fan, and an appreciator of Chris “magic” Waddle (as he was apparently known in France. Anyway, in appreciation of me emailing him a link to a Youtube video of Waddle and Hoddle singing Diamond Lights I received an invite to join him at the Velodrome in December, for the game against Liverpool. I will be forced to sit in the Marseille end and shout abuse at some scousers, but I am sure I will get over this trauma.

And a big "hi" to my lovely lying Belgium audience.

City not Signing...

In the last few days IC Wales has completely run out of Cardiff City transfer stories. So much so they have resorted to reporting who Cardiff are not signing. So far this has included ex-City captain Graham Kavanagh and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. You can see how the various reporters are working. Sitting in their office someone notices Hasselbaink is available. "Reckon City will sign him?" the hack says to his colleague. "Maybe, let's phone Ridsdale". So they Phone the club, get a denial, and there is there story. In the case of the Kavanagh non-story they phone Kav's agent too, who tells them that he hasn't had a game for a few months and might be interested if a team like Cardiff came in. Bang. An exclusive: "City Rule Out Bid For Kav". Pretty weak.

I am hoping that this is all happening in alphabetical order, and am looking forward to the shock headline: "Bluebirds Deny Interest in Zidane". And suddenly we will have re-signed Leo Fortune-West while the press have their back turned. Mind you, that might be an improvement on Thompson. Or Byrne.

I hope we do sign someone new, but I am getting the sinking feeling that as players and agents are approached by Mr Ridsdale they have a tendency to react like any other normal person - to run away as fast as they can keeping their hands tightly on their wallets.

Conversation overheard

"So I said to her, if you're going to get a vibrator don't get one bigger than, mine. 'Cause I don't want to feel inadequate. And she said, alright then, I'll just use the battery"

Hello Belgium

One fascinating thing about running your own website is that you can keep track of all your visitors. Every now and then when I have the off free moment, I find it interesting to do this: to check which sites are referring most visitors, to check whether links on other sites are being used etc. Sometimes some interesting but useless things crop up. For example, when I used to work at IVAC we realised that the CIA were a regular visitor to our website. I suppose they were really interested in the voluntary secdtor in Islington. Or they were so stupid they confused IVAC with IRAQ. They rhyme if you say it the American way. Obviously.

Which brings me to the fascinating fact that I seem to get a lot of visits from all over the world from people typing "toosh" into their search engines. I have absolutely no idea why they would do such a thing. My guess is they are looking for someting racy - but when they get to the toosh website are severely disappointed to discover nothing more exciting than this blog. Recent visitors have been from Italy, Japan, India, Holland and Belgium. Most fascinating is the thought of someone in Belgium typing "Gary Socrates London" into their search engine. Clearly a Cardiff City fan. There couldn't be any other explanation, could there?

Some people are strange.

Anyway, I found the above picture whilst looking for an image of Tintin, and given everything so far mentioned, I thought it worth putting here. Great isn't it?

Adding a comment a lot later on, more people come to this website because of the Tintin picture than anything else. How did that happen? I blame Google

Paris in the the Spring

Orangerie - Monets, originally uploaded by Gary Socrates.

Just back from a nice few days in Paris, for our wedding anniversery. Very rainy, but we had a good time. We saw Lucy and Chris, and limited our gallery visiting to the Picasso museum and the Orangeries. I went to the Orangerie many years ago, but I do not remember it having the effect it had on me this time. The paintings downstairs - especially the Cezannes and the Soutines, but also the Matisse were a fantastic start. The Monet waterlilies nearly made me cry.

I have lost my camera's battery charger - dog knows where - so only had my mobile phone to take pictures. Chris had been showing us his panoramic pictures, and this inspired me to play - especially at the Orangerie, but also elsewhere (see my flckr site for more silly photos - including one of the man juggling in the rain with a goldfish in a bowl on his head).

We ate (too) well, and enjoyed ourselves a lot. Soon, touch wood, we will be in France permanently.

2006-7 all over in 2006

It's not been much fun being a Cardiff City fan in recent weeks. At the start of the season I hadn't expected much, and so I guess I got what I deserved. But after being top of the league, six points clear for a couple of months I think we had a right to expect a better finish than we got. We finished 13th - worse even than my predicted 9th. We did not win one single game out of our last nine, and in that run only managed two draws - the worst EVER finish of a season for Cardiff, in over 100 years of existence. Watching them was dreadful: I saw games at home, and away at Derby and QPR and it was awful. Our players seemed lost, lacking in cohesion, with no confidence, and some with - at least it seemed - with little motivation. True we had several injuries. True the players that came in were not good enough (especially Byrne and Walton). But the young players that came in - Gunter and Blake especially - did well, whilst more experienced players: Whittingham, Thompson, McPhail - just looked a waste of space.

And I guess Jones has to take the blame to a large extent, just like he rightly took the credit when we were top of the league. He managed to motivate that team into a confident group of players, passing the ball crisply and accurately, and beating all comers. Fantastic. Some of the best football I've EVER seen City play. But a few months later the team is completely demotivated. Quite apart from the injuries, Jones fell out with Alexander (after mucking him around with stupid contract offers it seems), after falling out with others earlier (Weston, Barker) and started saying things to the press that were of a different tone. Instead of backing players up and keeping things in the dressing room, Jones started publicly saying things about players that could not possibly help. I have to admit the treatment of Alexander, plus negative comments about Parry contrasted with public praise for Forde (who looks decidedly average, if not dodgy) has swayed me. Chopra stopped scoring, Thompson stopped looking like he could ever score, Whittingham started looking like he'd prefer to be playing for Villa reserves, Gilbert disappeared altogther, Ledley came and went. And we ended up the season with 8 strikers, none of them looking any good, except perhaps Green, who looks like he might have a future. But Byrne? useless. Redan? Hopeless. Campbell? Past it. Thompson? Couldn't hit a barn door. Ferretti? Gone. Glombard? Rubbish. Feeney? You're kidding. Which leaves Chopra, who has a mimimum fee release clause so will, no doubt, be gone this summer to the likes of Man City or Everton.

Seeing what Alan Lee has done at Ipswich is also worth noting: 17 goals this season. Jones didn't rate him. I am seriously concerned that Jones can only manage half a season. Only one other team has been top of the league at the end of October and then not even made the play offs, ever. That team? Wolves. Who was their manager? Dave Jones. Hmmmm.

I guess he deserves another season, and maybe I'll be taking this all back this time next year. I hope so, but I doubt it. With reportedly 17 players to leave and little or no money for new signings I guess next season we'll be playing with a lot of our kids. Ihope they are good enough. 17 to go is a hell of a lot, though - unless it includes loans. Without loans we only have a squad of 25 - and that includes more than a couple of teenagers who have never played.

On the positive side, Chopra's goals made me £72.50 at the bookies, plus another £20 from Earnie. Cheers boys.

I should also note that today is, according to Peter Ridsdale, 'A Historical Day', because all the money is now committed for the new stadium. Whoop de doo. £58m on a new stdium, and £5.80 on new players? Entertainingly, he also said that 'today is a day to saver'. Is that a Super Saver Pete?

Things I did do

Oh it has been a long time since i wrote this Blog - if you don't count the last entry. Went to Tintern Abbey, which is kind of beautiful and not-beautiful at the same time - it is amazing because of the contrasts, the setting and the size. I'll put a photo here but there's a lot more on my flickr site here. Ignoring the farcical bollocks that is Cardiff City v Sunderand, we went on to Shrewsbury, which was surprisingly really nice. We stayed in the most up-itself hotel in the world, The Pwince Wupert - advice, if in Shrewsbury stay somewhere else. They park your car for you, but otherwise the service is crap. Cold cooked breakfast, not enough towels, a tiny TV you can't see from the bed, capped off by ceilings charmingly lopw. It's a beautiful old tudor building that royalty once stayed in, but Christ they must have been short. After two cold breakfasts and me banging my head for the twentieth time we moved to Cromwells - a nice wine bar with rooms upstairs for half the price of Pwince Wupert.

Anyway, after that we went to Warwick (far too many w's in this blog) and went to the castle. Very nice but incredibly over-priced and commercialised. It was no surprise when we found out that it is owned by the Tussauds group, who own all the big theme parks like Chessington and Thorpe Park. But enjoyed watching the trebuchet being fired (cool) and the birds fly (see here.)

The weather was amazing, and has renained so until today, when it has finally clouded over and spots of rain have fallen out of the sky. Saturday I had a really nice day out in the pub with friends, comp[letely ruined by a football game in West London. The half time entertainment was interesting though. See things getting a bit sticky on the pitch below.



Meanwhile I am working a couple of days a week at Elvis, where I last worked 7 years ago. This time I am working on freelance rates which means I earn 50% more for two days' work than i did for five days then. Which is good. I am also entertained every morning by the lift, which is made by Schindler. Schindler's Lift. I still don't know why no one else thinks this is hilarious.

Oh well.

Things I didn't do

Go to Paris

Watch Cardiff City win

This Blog

The Big Fish

It has been hilarious listening to the radio the last couple of days hearing England fans complaining about how rubbish they are, and how McClaren should be sacked and Lampard dropped and Rooney too and.. and... and....

All that wailing drowned out the sad cries of Wales supporters, who lost 1-0 to Ireland. Not that terrible sounding, but Welsh people are not renowned for their optimistic viewpoint, so no surprise to hear a lot of moaning people coming back from Dublin. On the other hand, as a friend pointed out, this is the first time in living memory that Cardiff City would in all likelihood beat Wales in an imaginary game. Obviously Cardiff would get Ledley and Parry back, but then Wales do have Bellamy and Giggs. Not a lot else though. Simon Davies? No?

Anyway, both Wales and England are taking on the Big Fish this week, with Wales at home to San Marino (not much call for tickets I hear) and England away to Andorra. Andorra are rated 163rd in the world according to FIFA. A quick background check into Andorra's form tells me that they have actually won two games since their inception in 1996, beating Belarus 2-0 in 2000, and Albania 2-0 in 2002. More recently (October 2006) they lost 7-0 to Croatia.

Wales' opponents, San Marino, are ranked 196th (it makes you wonder who all those nations are between 163 and 196 -England? Wales?) and their team was established 6 years earlier than the Andorran team in 1990. Their best ever victory (only victory actually, but who's quibbling?) was a 1-0 win over Liechenstein in 2004. More recently, last September they lost to Germany 13-0. Interestingly, Liechenstein are ranked one place higher than Andorra, and their best ever victory was against Luxembourg - a magnificent 4-0 away victory in 2004. On to Luxembourg: they are ranked in between San Marino and Andorra at 178. Their biggest victory was in 1948 when they thrashed Afghanistan 6-0. You can see where I'm going with this, can't you: Afghanistan are ranked just behand Luxembourg at 179, and their biggest win was in 2003 against the well known nation of Kyrgyzstan when they won 2-1. Bloody hell, fancy having to make up a country just to win. Anyway, following the trail it turns out Kyrgyzstan is a real country and they are almost a proper team, being ranked 145. Fantastically their biggest ever win was against the Maldives in 1997, thrashing them 6-0. The Maldives, however, spit on the likes of Andorra with their lofty ranking of 158, and their best ever win was against (I love this) Mongolia, who they absolutely hammered 12-0 in 2003. Really. 12-0. Mind you you should note their 17-0 defeat to Iran in 1997.

Anyway, on to Mongolia - we're back down to 184, and a cracking 5-0 against Guam in 2003. (Honestly I am not making these up). We're reaching low, low levels here, with Guam ranked down at 199 in the FIFA rankings. But don't think this is the end, no no. Before moving on we should note Guam's biggest ever defeat which was when they lost 21-0 to North Korea in 2003, but the game I wouldn't have minded seeing was the Guam victory over Pohnpei (no I don't know who they are either) in 1998 where they won 16-1. Really. 16-1. A team SO MUCH WORSE than 199th in the world Guam they lost 16-1. So let's find out about Pohnpei: It turns out to be one of the four federated states of Micronesia (honestly - look on the right) and their team is not affiliated to FIFA. They have never won a game, although in 2001 they did celebrate a 1-1 draw at home to Yap (another of the Micronesian islands), and (as Wikipedia says - where else did you think I was getting this stuff?) some say they are the worst football team in the world. City have just signed their striker. Warren Feaney.

And there are no easy games in football, as they say. Except for the Scots, who play Italy tomorrow. Piece of cake.

"Sorry Steve, with Chops out you're the one we're relying on for goals"

The pressures of the promotion chase is clearly getting to the players, as this picture of Steve Thompson shows. Thompson is one of those strikers that everyone refers to as "hard-working" except when they are called "bustling". What this means is that they run around a lot ineffectually, scoring very few goals for someone in their position. Alan Lee used to hold this role for Cardiff but has since moved on to Ipswich where he has somehow transformed himself into that other rare breed of forwards - a goal scorer.

To be fair to Thommo (or "The Thommohawk" as he likes to be known as - stop laughing at the back there) he really DOES work very hard, and unlike Lee wins a lot of balls in the air, which he even manages to head in the right direction. And if the alternatives are Byrne, Campbell or Redan then Thompson it has to be. Not sure about Green though, he looks a pretty good prospect - running fast, winning balls in the air, taking players on and all that stuff. I'm sure someone at Cardiff will soon knock all that out of him - or we'll sell him. As for our other two forgotten forwards, Ferretti and Glombard, clearly DJ has decided they are a waste of space. Glombard I saw at Norwich and he was hopeless, but I have never seen Ferretti play. Rumours have it that DJ thinks he is a bit of a wuss. Despite all these forwards, the story is that DJ is trying to sign Feaney from Luton, who is another "hard-working striker" in the mold of Thompson. Has any team ever had so many strikers that were not good enough to play?

Bay City Rollers

Could this look ever come back?

This comes from the story that the Rollers are suing their old record label who owe them millions of pounds. Their excuse is, apparantly they "didn't know who to pay". Come on! It's Eric, Woody, Derek, thingy and the other one. We all know that. Altogether now: "You got to give a little love, take a little love, be prepared to forsake a little love.."

How terrifying is it that I remember any of these lyrics? I wasn't even living in the country at the time.

House

Our house is on the market. The good news is that it is worth more than we expected. Estate Agents are beating our door down to sell it. There are not enough houses on the market, we are told, so it's a sellers' market at the moment, despite the fact everyone keeps telling us the market is about to collapse. It is looking like we are selling at exactly the right time: which is unusual for us, given our past history. Now the fun is tidying up, getting rid of old stuff, dealing with estate agents..... Aaargh!

Derby, Commentary and SuperTed

Yesterday we went to Derby. I am supposed to write this game up but am suffering from a lack of will. May do it tomorrow, along with my bit about how shit the on line service has become. I have been involved in an email exchange with the people who run the Cardiff City website - some people called Premium TV, because they have now 'upgraded' the site so that they have security protected the videos they show. This has also affected the online commentary, and it now means that no one can listen to the commentary unless they have an up to date PC - as opposed to a Mac (like I use). Of course they are losing pennies on people watching highlights on YouTube (except there aren't any on there), and of course they will lose £££ because of people like me cancelling their subscription and asking for their money back. Ironically Cardiff won an award recently for their website. I think they should give it back.

It makes absolutely no sense, except for Microsoft who make a fortune out opf this, and the people who sold them the new security system. Cardiff lose people listening to them, piss off their own supporters and gain precisely nothing.

The fact that they actually don't have to link the commentary to the video service (who cares about the videos anyway?) hasn't occurred to them.

Anyway, apart from the awfulness of yesterday's match, we had a nice trip out, and it was nice to meet Mike Young, of Superted and other cartoons fame. I'll paste in a superted picture above here - except he's probably copyrighted them all and will sue me!

Anyway see more here (Mike's website) and here(kabillion.com). Cartoooooooooooooooooons.

Stop Lottery Money being spent on Olympics

Go to this http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Defend-funding to sign a petition against lottery money all being blown on the Olympics instead of the voluntary sector. I wish they would just get rid of the Olympics altogether - I don't mean just in the UK, I mean everywhere. What a complete waste of time and money. Unlike football, obviously.

Mind you, our prime minister is not exactly renowned for his listening skills, is he? Remember the couple of million marching against the war in Iraq?

Privacy

Privacy, originally uploaded by Gary Socrates.

I was training today at West Norbury Library (as you do). This was the Gents toilet. Fortunately I only needed a pee, but - call me fussy if you like - I don't think the yellow and black tape gives much privacy.

Thinking about it I am glad there wasn't anyone using it when I took the photo.

St David's Day

A hand goes up in front of me as Arsenal keeper saves penalty

A hand goes up in front of me as Arsenal keeper saves penalty, originally uploaded by Gary Socrates.

Yes: a fun evening out at the Emirates watching Cardiff's under 18s team lose 3-2 to Arsenal's lot. The most surprising thing on the night was the crowd: over 11 and a half thousand. Second most surprising was how good Cardiff's youth team were, especially as they didn't have Blake or Gunter, who instead played against West Brom tonight.

The chanting was especially fun. The 1927 club in full voice singing vartious Cardiff songs, responded to by five year old Arsenal fans shouting "Who are ya?". "We're Cardiff, we're barmy, we're cheeky to our mums". A fun night out.

Pub Quiz

Naturally when the Quizmeister at the Dartmouth Arms asked each team to choose a category for questions I made sure our team's category was Cardiff City FC. Naturally when he asked the question about where the Mighty Bluebirds (OK he didn't use that phrase, he is a Stoke City fan) originally played, where another sport was normally played, I gave the correct answer of Sophia Gardens - where Bartley Wilson's Riverside Cricket Club's football team first played in October 1899. Naturally the drunken idiot quizmaster said I was wrong and gave the answer as "The Baseball Ground" - former home, obviously, of Derby County. Why do I know these dull facts? Because I read fascinating books by Graham Lloyd and Richard Shepherd, of course, giving all these important bits of useful information. And a quick bit of reading of Graham Lloyd's Cardiff City's history (A Hundred Years of the Bluebirds) gives me the interesting information about where the confusion comes from: when Cardiff City moved into Ninian Park in 1910 they had to do a deal with the local Council so that the ground could be used in the summer off-season for baseball matches. There you go.

I knew I was right, and yet I was happy to keep my cool. Unlike another time when an idiot running a pub quiz in Highgate refused to accept my answer to his question about who had played for Scunthorpe United and captained England. My answer, Ian Botham, was both clever and correct, but he insisted I was wrong and that only Kevin Keegan was the correct answer to the question. Fool. I was quite embarassing (K tells me) in the manner in which I disputed this. But this was a long time ago.

I should add that the Dartmouth Arms is a very nice pub, with good food and a great fun quiz. The pub owner/manager who runs the quiz is actually extremely nice and very entertaining as quizmaster, despite supporting Stoke City. And I could tell from a mile off that as a kid he wore Adidas football boots. Which meant I got a point for that, even if I got none for Sophia Gardens: the correct answer. I may have already mentioned this... The image on the right is of Cardiff playing (Dirty) Leeds at Ninian Park in 1952. We hope to keep being Leeds 'bogey' side this Saturday, when we play them again at Ninian Park. I won't be there, unfortunately, but I will probably be listening to Richard Shepherd's commentary.

No Soul At The Ricoh Arena

Many modern stadiums have no soul, and the prime example of this is Coventry's Ricoh Arena. I used to like their old stadium at Highfield Road, but their new plastic stadium several miles out of town next to the motorway is a horrible place. It has no atmosphere at all, and it is very hard for the crowd to generate an atmosphere, even at an eventful game like yesterday's Coventry v Cardiff 2-2 draw. The Coventry crowd only sang their traditional Eton boating song once or twice, only bothered with a half-arsed chorus of "sheepshaggers' at the Cardiff fans (must try harder), and spent most of the 90 minutes booing. Even when they were winning. They seemed to derive particular pleasure at booing our goalkeeper, Alexander, for having the temerity to put his face into their forward's boot. Very strange. The boos stopped, strangely, after Cardiff equalised (leading to Cardiff chants of "You only boo when you're winning"), but started up again when another player pulled Alexander's shirt.

Funny really: they probably had a justification to boo a couple of things: they had what looked like a decent goal disallowed, and they have a bloody hoprrible stadium and the weather was crap - but their boos were pretty random. Although, to be fair, they did result in Loovens getting booked for sod all in the first half, as famously useless ref Graham Poll booked him under pressure from all the boos, and this ended up with Loovens getting sent off for a second, justified, yellow card, which removed our ability to defend, and meant the game was a draw, rather than the unlikely win Cardiff seemed to have stolen after Whittingham's great second half shot into the top corner of the net.

But it's a horrible stadium. And 16 year old pom pom girls don't improve the view at half time. As you can see from the photos here. Ah well, another fun day out with Cardiff City. Next its a trip to the Emirates to see the youth team lose to Arsenal's under 18s, a week Monday.

Snow in Holloway

Snow in Holloway 8/2/07, originally uploaded by Gary Socrates.

Serious snow here today. The country grinds to a standstill. I struggle on. Working at home is so hard sometimes. Tomorrow though I have to drive the car to Enfield. I hope the snow melts. I hate scraping it off. Maybe some kids will take it off for me to have a snowball fight. You never know.

Here they are

It's a bloody disgrace.

Socks away

What on earth? The good news is Cardiff winning three games on the trot, after an awful 14 match run of no wins at all. Also the legendary 52 points now achieved after last night's Sky-fesr 2-0 victory against Barnsley makes us safe from relegation. If you are wondering why a football fan is relieved his team is safe from relegation when they are only 1 point off second place, you know NOTHING about supporting a football team, and probably are either uninterested in football altogether or have spent your life supporting someone like Man U or the Gooners. Not a PROPER team.

The bad thing is our TV shame. Not our normal fighting or riots or anything like that, but our socks. Yes, thats right, our socks. As Ledley and then McNaughton lay supine on the pitch, close ups of the backs of Cardiff players legs as they stood around watching physiotherapists do their thing revealed that Cardiff have the name of the city, in Welsh, printed on the backs of their socks. But, horribly, instead of the properly spelt 'Caerdydd', there on all the players socks (all 22 plus 6 sub socks) is printed 'Caerydd'. That's right: a 'D' missing. Pretty pathetic when you can't spell the name of your own city. We're a laughing stock I tell you.

You wonder who the sock suppliers are. Did they get them cheap in bulk from some Ebay supplier? Did they get them from the club shop? Unfortuntaely, the ones in the picture above, from the City online club shop don't show the back, so it's impossible to tell whether the ones City have been selling to fans have a similar mistake. Suspiciously though, the shop indicates they are "sold out". Hmmm.

Anyway it's apparantly not true that Swansea have got socks with "illiterate jack bastards" written on them. But only because they couldn't fit it all on.

No posts

I find it hard to post at the moment - we have been having a difficult time which maybe later will get dealt with. For now I think the only things I'll post will be pointless crap about Cardiff City and stupid things. Always happy to argue about Pendolino trains though.

Nil nil nil nil nil nil

Our nil nil score against Spurs was a good result: against a 'top' Premiership side who fancy their chances in the cup. But it doesn't disguise the fact that although we are playing better again (since Gilbert came back?) we couldn't score in a brothel. Chopra has completely forgotten where the goal is, and our midfield - well, Scimeca - aren't scoring either. There was a horrible season a few years ago when we drew 23 games - exactly half - equalling somebody's crap record. We of course finished near the bottom of whatever league we were in at the time (third or fourth). We've only lost two in eleven games - sounds quite good - except we've drawn the other nine.

Meanwhile Dave Jones is having problems getting anyone to come to Cardiff. Luton don't want to sell Vine, Hoskins has gone to Watford rather than us. According to the BBC Jones has ay least £1.5m to spend. But on who? We need a couple of players to liven things up.

Mind you, Flood looked quite good today: completely different from the Luton game where he looked rubbish. Role on the replay.

It was 30 years ago tomorrow when Peter sayer's goal knocked out Spurs out of the cup. I remember that he used his bonus to buy a TR7. Seems like only yesterday. Could have used a goal today. Why is a Spurs fan asking me for a ticket for the replay?

Bloody Pendolino Trains

I hate them. Sitting on these damn trains that take you to the Midlands (and elsewhere - went on one to Preston earlier in the season) makes me feel nausious. The seats are too small, there's not enough legroom, the flow of air is dreadful, and the way they tip up going round corners makes me want to puke. Actually that's not completely true - it's the straightening up that makes me feel sick, I've discovered. Having done a few journeys to Birmingham recently I have discovered that the worst bit seems to be between Milton Keynes and Coventry. Why can't they build tracks straight? Or just get some nice French TGV trains?

The nonsense is that the tipping trains means they can go faster: except all that's happened is that the trains now get you to Birmingham at roughly the same speed they used to 20 years ago. I don't get it. I'm getting old and grumpy.

FA Cup Fever

On Sunday City are going to have the fun of playing Spurs in the FA Cup 3rd Round. Bizarrely some City fans are excited by this. Others less so - I have decided not to go to the game but to take the easy 'Sky' option. The question is would I have done this a few years ago? Certainly I went down to Ninian Park for the Leeds game (if you need to be told about this suffice it to say - we were in the third division, they were top of the premiership, we won, and there wasn't a "riot" whatever the press say), so I guess being in Division 2 (in old money) or "the Championship" has made me a bit blasé. But also we lost to Spurs in the league cup only a couple of years ago, and last year's big trip to Arsenal was so much more exciting. (Me and my old man 'took' the North Bank). Anyway, it also seem less exciting when you're watching a team that has slipped up so badly recently and you start to believe every game will be a 0-0 draw. We haven't won in weeks, nor even scored. Our players are tired and injured, Jones seems to have no idea how to get some of them playing again. Chopra is doing a fine impersonation of Andy Campbell, and the only hope for a draw is 0-0. However, I doubt that we'll be able to hold off Spurs, and we'll be very lucky to come away with 0-2. Now the problem is getting a babysitter for J while K and I go down the pub to see the game.

Catching up on stuff

As I wrote yesterday I feel the need to catch up on stuff in the blog. Not going to the pub tonight - staying in and watching Celebrity Big Brother and Desperate Housewives - so some time to do it, albeit briefly.

Christmas was cool, with all of us together. It was a really nice day for all of us. Lots of nice presents, too much to eat and nice to see my cousin Nathan and my Aunt Elizabeth, over from Washington and Virginia respectively. Shame their visit was so short.

Anyway - best Christmas Cracker joke: What animal would you like to be on a cold day?

A little otter.

The kids went away after 27th so K and I had a chance to relax, and have some fun too. This included trips to Islington shopping (sales, gift vouchers to spend etc), trips to the british library to look at maps and to the british museum to see french drawings. Lovely.

New Year's eve we went out and ate tapas in Holloway Road (much better than I remembered, I've not been there for a couple of years) and then went on to the disco at the Landseer, featuring DJ Nacho - who normally exists as just plain Nacho, the pub manager. It was fun, and we managed to stay up late, do a bit of dancing, do a lot of people (I should actually say nerd) watching, and get drunk.

This was followed the enxt morning by a trip to Luton with my old man to watch another City 0-0 draw. Eoight draws in ten games - and losing the other two. Down from being top to eighth. My start of season prediction of ninth is looking pretty good at the moment. Unfortunately I put no money on it.

Since then its been back to work - here today and yesterday, to Birmingham tomorrow, train ing next week. Pretty busy, which I guess is good, except I want the holidays to last for ever really..

Happy New Year

I've not bothered to post for many days now, and I feel like I have a lot to say about Cardiff City, Gerald Ford, Saddam Hussein and lots of other things such as how Christmas went an and and and and.... On the other hand I'm going to out to the pub.

Happy New Year!