America, Jesus, Islam and France

Just a few images I found on the internet that mused me this week:

Reach out and touch toast. Ever seen John Waters' "Pecker"? Great film. "Full of Grace!".
Nor me.

They'll never find Osama

I agree. Absolutely.
See above.
Now this is more like it.

Bricks, the FAW. And what the hell is wrong with Blogger?

Fancy a brick? For a mere sixty odd quid you can buy a brick from Cardiff City with your name or some other text on it. Like "Jones Out!" or the more surreal "I like cheese" or my personal favourite "Je ne regrette rien". Sadly, despite this exciting innovation no one at CCFC has learned to spell: "Seperate the two lines with a coma" the website advises. (click here). Presumably this coma is induced by watching one of City's FAW Cup games. Interestingly (more interesting than the game) the Newport side that knocked City out of the FAW cup featured more players with City first team experience than the city side did. But then again they did have a range of ex-Bluebird heroes such as Jason Bowen, Lee Jarman and damon "Not a Girl" Searle. Great stuff.

Meanwhile Blogger is driving me mad I tell you. Can't cut and paste properly any more, things moved around so that words get split. Bloody hell, it's almost enough to make you go back to WordPress. Anyway,  I've changed to black because I got sick of the sight of my old Blog, and i thought that might help things, seeing as how I'd played with the html. But no. Now I just have a black, depressing Blog. Strangely still popular in Belgium. Hello Belgium! Get a life!

More unedited TBL stuff

Doomed

As predicted in the last issue of TBL, Jones has been sacked and the bluebirds inevitable tumble to the bottom of the table has continued. Thank god I didn’t have any money on that. But what changes has the wily Mr
Jones made? Has he brought in new players? No. Has he instituted new tactics? No. What has he done? Played Parry up front. That’s about it really, apart from playing Gunter for a couple of games before flogging him to Spurs. But Parry up front? How has that worked? It’s not like it hasn’t been tried before – and failed miserably. Can anyone explain it? The worrying thing is I don’t think Jones can, eithe

r: he has one tactic and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It clearly helps though when we’re all calling for Jones’ head. So “Jones out!” I say.

One thing Jones really is inconsistent at – and I challenge anyone to dispute this – is buying/picking strikers.  Chopra – brilliant. Jerome – fantastic. Fowler - er.. Hasselbaink – hmm… Byrne – ha ha ha. But he does get points for selling them for lots of money. We got loads of money for Jerome and Chopra (I make it about £9m – what happened to that money eh?), and as for the reported £500,000 for Steve McLean: What? Half a

 million? Bloody hell. It is reported that Sturrock at Plymouth who managed him before (crucially before he broke his leg) really rates him. As someone I know said, it’s a shame we didn’t have an old bit of rope he used to tether his dog with that we could flog him. (Cheers Darren).

 

But as another person I know says, it may turn out that McLean comes good at Plymouth, like Lee at Ipswich. On the other hand, why was Fleetwood let go? How many goals has he scored at Forest Green? 175,000? How much were Crew prepared to pay for him? £28? I may be confused there…

Robbie Fowler’s tragic
He wear’s a tragic hat. And when he signed for Cardiff he said “oh no there goes my back”. Strange to hear that D

ave Jones was on a radio phone in recently attacking David Giles’ attack on Fowler in the Western mail. (And  if you find a clumsier sentence in this issue of TBL please write to the Editor). It’s hard to believe Jones wants him for another year even though he can barely walk – unless of course the reported £15,000 plus a week deal depended on appearances. Or maybe Fowler is Jones’ landlord and he doesn’t want him to get too upset about the stains on the wallpaper.

Genius supporters 

The recently reported story of the City “fan” (or as ably described by the Echo: “football thug”) being banned from football grounds for another five years after breaking his existing ban to watch City v Wolves. Colin Cody was originally banned for six years after his involvement in the little bit of bother at the famous Leeds game in 2002. Adding to his genius credentials he was locked up in jail in 2004 after driving a van into the front of Fairwater Police Station, shouting “I did it for the Soul Crew”. The first thing he does after coming out is to head for Ninian Park. In addition to his banning order and a 12 month community rehabilitation order, Cody was ordered by the judge to take part in “an enhanced thinking skills programme”. An “enhanced thinking skills programme”?? It makes you think, eh? Actually it turns out this is a real programme, and appears to have been pioneered in Gwent. I used my thinking to work that out. Well, actually, it was Google. Same thing really. 

New Kit Old Kit

Having realised that many people preferred to buy an old fashioned shirt from TOFFS, or to stick “Fowler 8” on the back of an old blue T Shirt which looks vaguely like an old city shirt from 1953 (or was that only me?), City have decided to cash in and asked fans to choose a “new” badge and shirt, based on old-style options. Unsurprisingly fans chose the 70s style shirt with the stripes that is most associated with the photo of Robin Friday sticking his fingers up at the Luton keeper he’s just beaten, and chose the last but one badge – the one that Hammam got rid of th

at everyone liked. However, I predict a problem in replica shirt sales etc: many people have already GOT the 70s shirt and won’t both to buy a new one, and many people have still got their pre-Hammam mugs, keyrings etc, that they can now get out of their drawers. Or carry on using because they never cared that much anyway. Also, you can already buy a fake old-fashioned style stripey shirt from the club shop, made of cotton and costing less than a new replica shirt. So why would anyone buy a new replica next season? Especially when a blue t shirt is so much cheaper. And that “Fowler 8” might last another season yet. 

The (non) return of Earnie and the story of the messageboard 

Want to get a story in the national press? Make up a silly rumour and spread it on the Cardiff City Mad message board. Personally, I haven’t looked at the messageboard for a long, long time (so if you see anyone called Gary Socrates posting there it’s not me – it’s happened before), but it appears a lot of people do, including the local south Wales press, when they’re short of a story or two. “Earnie’s coming back to City on loan” writes some fantasist authoritatively on the messageboard, then the rumour gets printed in the Echo or the Western Mail. Next thing you know it’s on the BBC website (because those hacks haven’t got any better way of getting stories than scanning local papers) and someone’s phoning Earnie and he’s denying the whole thing, and Paul Jewell’s making comments and so on. It’s easy see. It was on my blog this summer where I wrote how stupid transfer rumours were, and that there was bound to be a rumour soon that Hasselbaink was coming to Cardiff after Leicester had knocked him back. See what happened? (Actually I deny all knowledge and refuse to take the blame for that one). On the other hand, have you heard the story about Bellamy coming to city on loan? No? Nor me. Yet.

 Transfer window

 Out of the transfer window (Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! SPLAT!) goes Byrne, Gunter and McLean (no-one else as I write). In comes…..  Enckleman. A premiership goalie with loads of experience. Well. Not really: Since Blackburn signed him in November 2003 he’s played a grand total of 3 games. Awe-inspiring, eh? It’s not that I think we desperately need new players. Well, no,  actually it is. Hasselbaink is no good, Fowler is injured and possibly finished, Sinclair and Scimeca don’t look like making an early return, and with these players out and gone it is clear we’re short a full back, a goalie (maybe – see above), and a forward. Up front we’ve got Parry, Hasselbaink and Thommo. With Warren Feeney to return to fitness sometime in February, it is rumoured. In midfield we’ve got cover from the kids: Blake and Ramsay, but our squad is getting really threadbare. And if the rumours about bids for Ledley, Parry and Thomson finally happen before the end of January we’re unlikely to replace any of them with anyone worth signing. Now that number 44 (Gunter) has gone, the highest squad number is now 36 (Hasselbaink). But that’s misleading (it’s his age next birthday) because the following numbers are all missing: 9, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, and 35. And number 31 is 17 year old youth goalkeeper Josh McGuiness. We’re doomed I tell you. Jones out!