Merry Blooming Xmas Cardiff City

Yesterday saw the final end of Sam I am at Ninian Park. He had to leave his own way though, causing as much stress and strife as possible. The story is he was after an extra £10m guaranteed payments if/when City get promoted and stay up. Clearly he walked away with something more than he was originally going to get. Which presumably means less for City. As I write it has appeared on a BBC website that he demanded and got a further £500,000 plus a bizarre payment of £90,000 to his brother. I am at a loss as to why he is being wished well but so many fans though. Frankly, good riddance. The argument in his favour goes: "He saved us from the dungeon, without him we'd still be in the low divisions". Well that may be true: but I have no doubt the bugger was trying to get as much out of City as possible, and I would love to see his balance sheet at the end of the day: what's the betting he leaves City with a tidy profit?

He is a strange man though: despite all the above, he loves to be loved and admired, and clearly has a love of football and an affection for Cardiff City (and their traditional cypress tree - an interesting aside: this was the Lebanese businessman's suggestion for City's logo). I wonder how long he will be seen hanging about at Ninian Park though, as life president?

As I write City are playing away at Leicester. I was going to go, but various circumstances prevented this from happening, so I'm listening to Richard Shepherd commentate (he's actually a second cousin of mine) for the City site. Leicester are on top and our character from Pride and Prejudice has just come on: Darcy Blake, instead of an injured Ricky Scimeca. And Josh Low has gone off for Leicester. I used to like Low when he played for us, but he was one of those players who fans decide they don't like no matter how well they play: a bit like poor Rhys Weston. It's a strange phenomenon. Others, like Ainsworth, are loved, despite how rubbish they are.

Anyway, ten minutes into the second half and we're not losing. Of course this means I now can't stop typing until the end of the game, thus turning this blog entry into one of the most pointless accounts of a match ever written. So although I'm writing I'll only cover the key points. Like Julian jenkins (helping Richard Shepard out on the radio) getting annoyed about Purse fouling pointlessly. That's a pointless annoyance about a pointless foul. Purse will do this until he can't run any more. Just like he will get sent off a couple of times a season and give away too many penalties.

I received my Thin Blue Line this morning. My column was pretty weak, but I have to say it was the worst edition I have read in a long time. Too much stuff on Hammam: which was too generous (back to the game: Gilbert's gone off, Alan "short arse" Wright has come on. Jenkins reckons it's because Gilbert's not fit enough to play any longer. Nor Wright. I can't wait for the transfer opening to window - joke). The worst thing in TBL was the comment about Hammam leaving us in "safe hands". Unbelievably this wasn't a joke. Peter bloody Ridsdale, "safe hands". You have to laugh or else you'll cry. Hey Leeds fans! Did you hear that? Peter Ridsdale: "safe hands"!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Jeeeeeesus. Strange below par edition all round though. Maybe Andrew's had enough? I wonder if he'll read this? And answer me? As you can see from the image on the left he's being doing this a long time. I only joined in an issue later I think. As you can see from the headline very little has actually changed at the club. Better covers on TBL now, though, and I liked the donkey joke.

This is a picture of Darcy Blake. A good looking young man, you might think. But it turns out this isn't the Darcy Blake who plays for City, but a dancer who you find when you do a google image search. I'll see if I can find a picture of the City Darcy Blake. Here you go, on the right here. At least I think that's him. Hard to tell given the paucity of phtos on the web. He seems to be playing well, but I wonder if the other Darcy Blake would be better? Back at the game, still 0-0 with 20 minutes to go. Sounds like Leicester are the better side, but we're getting the odd chance: Purse just headed a corner over the bar. Probably fouled someone at the same time.

Suddenly all over them! Sounds like we should have scored, with chances for Purse and Parry. Oops as i say that Leicester get a corner. 15 minutes to go. Leicester score: offside: phew. Cheers Linesman. still 0-0, 12 minutes to go Richard tells me.

I've killed a few minutes by uploading a few of the above pictures: it's an interesting experience looking for TBL on the web. I found this image on a German website for fanzines. Meanwhile Chopra has missed a sitter according to Jenkins, "A real chance" according to Richard Shepherd. How long to go Richard?" Inside the last minute of normal time". Thanks. Julian Jenkins very impressed with Darcy Blake, who looks "such a footballer". 3 minutes added time. Inside stoppage time. 0-0. Wright goes forward on the left. Sounds more confusing than it reads. Nothing happens. Thompson failed to control the ball (not for the first time). Jenkins is criticising our forwards' form. What's that coming over the hill? The transfer window. Into the third minute of stppage time. Swansea have equalised. Birmingham winning 4-0 at Southend. Final whistle. 0-0. A draw is ok. Better than last week by a looooooong way. And i'm glad to have done my part, without having to have run from the crisp bowl to the station. Richard's wishing me a Merry Christmas. (Well, to be fair it was to all his listeners) So Merry Christmas to him too. And all his listeners.

If it was Christmas every day it would be very inconvenient

M and I discussed this today. It's a ridiculous song: "I wish it could be Xmas every day". It would be really annoying: while you m ight think it would lead to daily presents. meals etc the problem would arise: where do you buy the food from? Where would you get the presents? And if you think about it it gets worse: who would work every day? All the moslems, hindus and jews. Who wouldn't be happy at such blatent religious discrimination. In fact they would have a damn good case in law. Mind you the courts would never be open to hear the cases so that's that problem's dealt with. But there are other issues: Christmas telly every day? God no. How many "Christmas Specials" can you take? How many episodes of James Bond? And what about Boxing Day football? It would never happen! What a disaster! No no no no no no no no no no no. It doesn't work. Boxing Day every day though, there's something to consider.

Bloody cold

Winter is biting. The weather's turned cold. Scraping ice off the car, hands freezing, searching for the hat to keep you warm no matter how stupid you look. Day's are short. Brrrrrrrrrr. It's a bit chilly.

Kill some snowmen I say.



Bah humbug.

Party season

Friday evening was interesting. First I went to a retirement do for David Green, retiring Chief Executive of Cripplegate St Lukes. Lots of people there, including my old boss from LVSC days, and various others I was pleased to see, and one or two less pleased. Also a noticeable absence of some strategic Islington people who I expected to see there. Mind you I left at six so they could have come later. But good luck to David who is one of the most laid back people I've ever met. Nice to see his leaving present was several cases of wine.

The reason I left early was to join K at her work's Xmas party. An interesting experience: by the time I arrived they has all been drinking for over 4 hours - I'd had a glass and a half of wine. I don't think it would be wise for me to post the photos and film of K singing "American Pie" with her colleagues around the karaoke machine (I DO want to say married after all!). K said earlier that NOTHING would get her doing karaoke, and was quite sure she would not. There must be some interesting formula for different people and exhibitionism: how many glasses of wine does it take YOU to stand up and make an idiot of yourself? K's level proved to be quite high (not a cheap date), and seems to be roughly the equivalent of how much do you have to drink to be chucking up later on? My own level's probably a bit lower, but I'm also a bit shyer in front of people I don't know. Under those circumstances I believe the graph would have shown that I would have reached the 'unconscious' phase before the 'get up and sing' phase. Fortunately I started later, and therefore never quite managed to catch up.

I'll have to try harder.

Christmas Tree

Here's our Christmas Tree: finally decorated after lengthy disputes between K and J. Mainly from J I should say.

I have also been sending Christmas cards (yes, yes, yours is in the post...) so I guess Christmas is really coming. I probably should think about buying presents now, I suppose.

Personally I can't wait for it all to be over. I'm a new year sort of person really, rather than a Christmas one: but I suppose a Christmas rest would be nice.

Unfortunately working for myself I've realised that the chances of a Christmas bonus are somewhat reduced.

That Old Kav Magic

According to the BBC (actually I think they nicked it from the Sun): "Graham Kavanagh says Sunderland's poor start to life in the Championship may have been down to their Abba soundtrack in the dressing-room." They don't say what music Kav would have preferred, but it's a surprise to me that Keano would choose Abba in the dressing room. I had him down as a more heavy metal type, making the team march out to "The Ace of Spades". Kav I reckon is more your Sinatra type and is dying for Ray to win X-factor (I know, but I've got a 9 year old at home). But then again I am probably wrong about all of this: they are all probably huge fans of Take That. Owzabout that then guys and gals.

Dead Dictators and Birthdays

Pinochet's dead. What was horrifying about this news was that he wasn't dead already. Surely somebody could have 'offed' him ages ago. That's the trouble with this world: nice people are too nice. If you see what I mean. It terrifies me that I'm going to find out that even more scumbags I thought were dead aren't yet.

One personal Pinochet aside is that the date of the coup in Chile was September 11th. Now more famous for other things, but always more famous for me as my mother's birthday.

It was also my birthday the other day, December 7th, generally better known (in the US anyway) as Pearl Harbour Day. When I was studying American History for A level just a few years ago (Oh alright a loooooong time ago) I announced Pearl Harbour Day was my birthday. Which was interesting. The next date we came across turned out to be someone else in the class's birthday. And the next, and the next, and then someone's mother's birthday, and then someone's sister's birthday etc. etc. I suppose the truth is if you get a big enough group ( I guess there were about 20 of us) it's statistically likely that this will happen. But I'm not sure, I only got an E for my Stats A level. Depressingly I told someone recently (younger than me) that I was born on Pearl Harbour Day and they thought I meant the actual day - making me 17 years older than I am.

You do the math.

Laid Back

A quiet weekend. Relaxing after a pretty hard week. Saw friends today - Jem and Mimi, which was nice. Yesterday laid around, did some shopping, listened to the awfulness that was Cardiff v Colchester, had a meal and went to the pub. We needed a rest. I could use one that lasts about 5 years. I think what I really need is a million pounds. K keeps promising me she will win the lottery but has so far no kept her word. Some fool asked me why I didn't buy a lottery ticket. How ridiculous, that's not my job: my job is to sit back and moan about K not winning, obviously.

Meanwhile, Cardiff City's job seems to be not to score any goals. You know what I mean, that thing on the left here; the gap between the posts. Unfortunately, Chopra seems to have forgotten that's his job, and continually puts the ball to the left, right or over the top of the thing. BETWEEN THE POSTS BOYS, OK?