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!

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?

And the day before yesterday was Tuesday

What an exhausting week. Running a training course where not enough people turn up (despite the fact their organisations have paid) making the course barely viable. A two day course, no less, which ends up with just two participants: it becomes, almost, a personal surgery - but I guess that's ok: just harder work. It's too hard to tell two people to "break up into groups". But it went reasonably well, despite all that, with the both giving positive feedback: but thank god that's over.

Tonight went to M's last EVER parents evening: for 13 years I have listened to teachers telling me how clever, nice, kind and hard working my son is (with only one exception - she was a fool). I know. I know. He's now got an interview at Oxford in a couple of weeks: of course I'm proud of him, the clever bugger.

Meanwhile, City have been playing crap and lost to stoke and are no longer top of the league. So that's all over, and from now on the battle against relegation begins. Interestingly, our bad form seems to have coincided with the introduction of the 'winter ball'. Chopra seems unable to kick it into the back of the net, while Mcpahil seems to prefer hitting players: sent off again and banned for three matches - three matches we will, in all likelihood, lose, and will end up floating mid-table by the new year.

Cheerful bugger, aren't I?

Today's Sunday, yesterday was Wednesday

So went up to Sheffield yesterday with the 1927 club. Journey ok, pub good, (nice beer, nice food, nice cat) and the football was ok apart from the complete inability of any City player to put the ball in the back of the net, despie a number of good chances. The ref was rubbish: Phil Dowd reffing us as a punishment for his crap reffing of Spurs and Blackburn last week, and I am pleased to say that my cohorts did not fail to let him know about his failure to understand the rules of the game. He obviously listened, because he was better in the second half: nobody got booked for kicking the ball, or anything.

Alan Wright though is incredibly small. And with his lack of hair he is very reminiscent of the little bald bloke Benny Hill used to pat on the head. Alexander gave him a tentative pat at one point after he cleared the ball well. You could almost hear the music starting up. It would be no surprise if they had to get him a special junior kit, and I hae been told his boots are only size 4. Standing next to Purse he looked like a mascot. The picture here shows him in his Villa heyday next to Gus Poyet. It gives you some idea of the proportions. To be fair, he played ok. For a short arse.

Still top of the league, but we should have won by at least one.

Afro Bombers Second Explosion

MMMM. Nice.

It must make sense to someone somewhere. This is from the website afrobomber.net. It's Japanese and means nothing to me. A computerised translation of some stuff on the front page doesn't help much:

" The people who idle in the online game PSO series... being to be, it does, but now funny so finding ネトゲ which is, they are the people who rage moderately and turn."

Now it's all clear. Nice Afro.

Short ugly old left back

So the last chance to sign someone on loan passes with us signing Alan Wright on loan from Sheffield United. He used to be ok when he played for Villa, but that was a few years ago. He's 35 now, and has certainly stopped growing: at 5 foot 5" he is, I am unreliably informed, the smallest player in the league. Well, he might be ok. We'll see.

The sad thing about the photo is that I got it from uglyfootballers.co.uk. So there you have it: short of players, so we borrow a short ugly old left back from Sheffield United. It's a wonder I'm not over-excited, isn't it.

By the way, I gather a cricket match has started in Australia that some people seem to care about it. Bizarrely K was listening to it on the radio in the night when she couldn't sleep. Kept me awake for HOURS, even though I was snoring, I am told.

Nothing much

It's been a funny first half of week. At the weekend both kids were in Belgium which is kind of strange, as they were there for different reasons. J was with her dad, M went with his school to see the 1st world war battlefields. Of course he managed to drink some belgian beer and brought back some welcomely received Belgian chocolate. Monday K & J were both ill: headaches, throwing up and all the fun that goes with that. J was back to school yesterday (kids bounce back so fast) but K's been off all week so far. Kind of strange for me, while I'm working at home. But at least I have been working - various bits and pieces: preparing for training I'm running next week, helping someone with a grievance and writing bids for work that starts in January. It would be good to get it, financially, but you can't rely on things like this, so also preparing other bids, and organising for other work I have coming up. Also putting new bits on the toosh website about the kind of things toosh can do. More interesting I think, and more likely to get the punters in: I need to do more marketting but am wary of emailing potential clients too often: I may circulate leaflets in the new year.

As for Cardiff City, will they bounce back from last Friday's dreadful QPR game? I'm going up to Sheffield to get dru... sorry, I mean to find out. I do hope we get one or two more players in soon: our squad is looking paper thin. Again, last week's game showed that we need everyone playing, everyone on form. Let's hope we get there against the owls. Good nickname. J thought I was making up their real name "Sheffield Wednesday? WEDNESDAY??!! You mean United, don't be silly". A 9 year old expert: WTFDIK? Hey, this post needs a picture. Ah, that'll do. (Don't ask why).

Oops! Cardiff slip up against QPR

Well, last night's defeat to the hoops was a piss off. K and I went to the Quays in Holloway Road to watch, and they put it on for us on a big screen in the corner: there are different screens all over the pub. The other screens were either showing Gaelic Football or Irish musicians. Meanwhile behind us a couple of couples were rowing rather rowdily. Not enough for me to take my eyes off the football, you understand, but rowdily all the same. As for the game lots of people have been slagging off Ledley: Interestng. I don't think Ledley's been much cop for a while: I actually thought he was better last night than in other games I've seen, Scimeca's passing seemed to have gone astray, Parry was anonymous, and our front two looked the worst I've seen them. Thompson was no surprise given he was returning from an injury, but Chopra's performance was by a long stretch the worst I've seen him play. Gunter's performance for a 17 year old's first game was very good (he'll improve), McNaughton looked good in the 2nd half (apart from the goal). Still, we were the better side by a mile in the second half and were unlucky to lose to a breakway goal a couple of minutes from the end.

Apart from the rowing we were entertained by a simultaneous disco for the last 20 minutes of the game. We watched the game while the DJ played "Going back to Africa" by Toto for a couple of South Africans, and the drummer of the band on later drummed along badly to the song. We were glad we weren't going to stay for the band. I've got more rhythm than that drummer.

We need to be better to have any chance of staying up near the top, though. Luckily Birmingham failed to beat Wolves and Preston only won 1-0 at Leicester so we're still top on goal difference. We miss Gilbert, I should add, for his battling qualities and forward movement.

We didn't stay at the Quays. It's a big modern friendly Irish pub with a widely varied clientele. Apart from the rowing young couples, we saw older couples dressed up to eat, a couple of asian ladies drinking tea, old Irish men at the bar supping on pints of Guinness, a woman on her own drinking a cup of coffee, various other young people come for the band... It's an amazing job to pull that many and so varied a group of people in, and I guess it helps that the bar staff are so friendly. Shame they couldn't organise the right result.

Pictures

I have started putting my pictures (as opposed to photos) on ArtWanted. Take a look. (click here) It's kind of a weird website in that it has its own community. As soon as you upload a picture you get comments from other artists: this is because there are people who take this terribly, terribly seriously: if they comment on your work you are likely to comment on theirs - the more comments you get the higher rating you get, the more likely you are to appear on the front of the website, the more people see your work, the more people comment on your work etc. The problem is I haven't liked many other people's work. Therefore although I've received some nice comments from some people, I absolutely loathed some of the art those people put up on the site, and I'm far too polite to say: "thanks for the nice comment, but your paintings are shite". The cynic in me says they probably hate my work anyway, but don't care if it gets them comments. Hmmm. maybe I should go and congratulate someone on their shit.

Hollandish

The telly was on yesterday evening and I caught some of the England - Netherlands bore - sorry, I mean match. Marley and I were drawn to discuss the issue of why the Netherlands is sometimes Holland and the people are Dutch. It makes absolutely no sense. They must all get very confused about their nationality:

"Your team are playing"
"Who, Holland?"
"No. Netherlands"
"Nevermind, I'm Dutch"

I don't get it. I'm sure someone can bore me with a rational explanation, but clearly it's all a load of bollocks and they should all just sit down and decide once and for all what they want to be called. I have a few suggestions if they wants some ideas. Cloggies from Clogland, for example.

That was the week that was

A very hectic last week which is why no postings for a while. And a complaint that this blog is too much about Cardiff City. As if that were possible. The thing about personal blogs is that unless you are an 18 year old depressed girl in your student bedroom you realise quite quickly that it's not always too wise to reveal too much publicly, Therefore very little about my personal life, and lots about Cardiff City. And a bit about Fred Pratt. Anyway at the end of last week, after a couple of very time consuming, expensive and irritating days doing things I don't want to talk about on here, on Thursday we went back to Ganges (which was nice), flying to Montpelier. The journey was blighted by incompetence at Stansted, but all fine once we were on our way. The weather as we arrived was such a contrast to here: 21 degrees and bright sunshine. The drive from Montpelier is easy and quick and beautiful. Views of the Cevennes and Pic St Loup as you whiz down good but quiet roads. A lovely welcome in Ganges where straight away we meet people we've met before. (Getting hooted at in the street in the process as we blocked traffic to say hello - gosh I felt French driving so inconsiderately).

Friday we went down to the river beach at Laroque, said hello a couple of times to the house, said hello to our bank, and generally had a nice time.

Saturday was Armistice day and a public holiday in France. From the comfort of our seats in the bar (outside, plenty warm enough) we watched the mini parade from the church to the town hall (About a two minute walk normally, but the slow march done by the local dignatories stretched it to nearly three). Where the mayor and some other dignitaries hung around a while doing I don't know what. A big man with a yellow jacket arrived carrying a banner. And that was it. "Vive la France" shouted one parent from the playground by the Bar de la Poste. It was clear he was being ironic.

There was much fuss on the news about shops opening on a public holiday. We went up to La Vigan where there was a lively market. We bought some pretty stones, and I bought my dad a beret. I can say this even though it will be a surprise for him on Thursday when I see him, as he never looks at the internet. It's not that he thinks it's evil or anything (like Kinky Friedman asserts despite having his own website) it's more that he's never advanced beyond the typewriter - and mum doing his typing.

Later that night we watched a lovely sunset. Still warm enough to be sitting outside at the bar.

Sunday we headed home. This time via Nimes. Again a relatively easy, if slightly longer (an hour or so) drive to the airport, through pretty countryside (not as pretty as theMontpelierr journey) and no problem with car hire (and no extra charge) picking up at Montpelier and dropping off at Nimes. The only problem was the croque monsieur I ate at the airport which put me out of action for about 24 hours once we got home. There we go, no one really wants to read a blog about my bowel movements do they?

The good news on the way back was the victory over (spit) Burnley. Still top of the league, and McPhail not suspended. No more right back though with Chambers back to Watford and Gilbert out for a while injured. And no Alan Smith who Jones tried to sign on loan- I'm kind of glad he didn't want to come to City: I have strong memories of his last visit to Ninian Park, getting sent off for 'assaulting' Andy Legg. (Inverted commas inserted on advice from counsel).

One final point: Ganges rhymes with Manges. "Je mange a Ganges". Plenty.

Bring your boots (someone's filling theirs)

Great article in the Guardian today by David Conn regarding Hammam and money. His money, City's money, and various other people's money. Ridsdale is clearly playing with other people's money. Of course he's done this before and landed Leeds with £95m worth of debt. I can't pretend to understand all the financing stuff that's going on, but it doesn't look like there's going to be much money around in January to strengthen the squad.

Which we need to do. McPhail suspended. Loovens injured, Thomson injured and out for a month, Gilbert now out for 6 weeks. And Chambers goes back to Watford after Saturday's important home tie against (spit) Burnley. It's getting to the point where the old joke about if you bring your boots to Ninian Park you might get a game might come true. Although of course nothing seems to want to make Jones pick Ferretti. I have heard that this is because he doesn't like players who "Scream when they are tackled". Better than someone who says: "never mind then mate, off you go" I would have thought.

Jones beats the curse again

Once again, despite City being top of the league, Dave Jones has not won the 'manager of the month' award, it being awarded instead to Burnley (excuse me) manager Steve Cotterill. "I am obviously delighted, it's the first time I've won it at Burnley," said Cotterill, whose side won four and drew two games in October. "I felt we had a tough month and, coupled with injuries, that's probably made it a bigger achievement. That is all credit to my players."

"Piss off you smug bastard" Jones was allegedly heard to reply. "It's not whisky, so who wants it anyway". Jones then wondered off down the pub singing "WE ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE, WE ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE" and narrowly avoided being arrested. "We thought he was the soul crew" said Inspector Moron of the South Wales Police.

My pictures

I have uploaded lots of pictures to the ArtWanted website. This is one example. It's a drawing I did a Loooooong time ago of a friend I shared a house with called Mark. I haven't seen him for years. He was a major U2 fan before anyone else was.

If you want to see more please click on the link here:

ArtWanted

Pardon my French

Today I have been learning how to put accents and stuff on my writing. It turns out that it is very simple to change my UK keyboard into a French keyboard - except of course the letters are all printed in UK stylee on the keyboard, so I have to get a visual 'keyboard' on screen. Which given my arduous typing is pretty hard: I normally look at keyboard and screen, now I will have to look at keyboard, screen and keyboard on screen. But anyway, let me practice:

Bonjour, je m'appelle Gary. C'est très difficile de utiliser le clavier français; parce que lettres certains est dans positions différante sur le clavier: par exemple, le m est où la ; devrait être et le q et où la a devrqit être etcetera et c'est très difficile de trouver les signes de ponctuation.

Enough of that. I had to change the keyboard back to English to find a full stop. Maybe that's why French sentences seem so long. It's especially the a and the q that do my head in. The m isn't much better.

Anyway, here's a nice I took picture of the Tate modern (even if I say so myself), which I think I mentioned we went to yesterday. They are having this amazing exhibition of fun slides at the moment. But is it art? probably not, but looks fun. J was very disappointed that the queues were too long for her to have a go. A picture on the left of the slides. Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Warbrobe parked by Wardrobe Terrace

Warbrobe parked by Wardrobe Terrace
Originally uploaded by Gary Socrates.

We all went for a walk today by the City, St Pauls and across the wobbly bridge to the Tate Modern, then up the Thames towards London Bridge. It was a lovely sunny day and I took some pictures. Including this one. It is of a van amongst a whole row of vans which were part of a big film crew. This is the wardrobe department, parked just by Wardrobe Terrace. I wonder if they did it on purpose?

We went for lunch at a pub by Southwark Bridge just next to the Golden Hind, and Ipswich v Luton was on the telly. Alan Lee scored a hat trick. Hard to believe. But of course I always liked the song: "Alan Lee, Lee, Lee , won't you score a goal for me, me, me, Alan Lee, Lee, Lee , won't you score a goal for me. With your left, with your right, with head or with your knee, Alan Lee, Lee, Lee , won't you score a goal for me." Never did. But he has now scored loads for Ipswich. Oh well.

I wonder if Magilton's managed to get hm off the (alleged) booze and fags?

Money in the City

I'm sure - well in fact I know - I'm not the only one who has been thinking about the Ridsdale deal to take over City. The more I think about it the simpler it becomes and the less it makes sense: So put simply - some City people will put up money now (approx £25-30m) and then in a couple of years will float the club on the stock exchange (or whatever) on the basis they will get a lot more.

Simple, see, except it's hard to believe that this is a worthwhile risk: the development of the stadium, promotion to the premiership etc. Football clubs don't make money. Also, who will own the stadium? City don't own their stadium now...

There's something extremely worrying going on. None of this believeable, none of this stands up to examination.

So back to the mascot discussion. I think this one is worth looking at
:

No I don't know what it is either.