The Ministry Of Truth

One of the men currently trying to sell me a car is called Paul Snowball.

He’s a very nice man.  But still…

Oh, yeah: I got a job.

I start on 2 July.

I’m thrilled.

For the avoidance of doubt I felt I should confirm that I am not a participant in Big Brother 8.

Thank you for your understanding.

There is an astonishing, bewilderingly brutal attack on Clint Eastwood’s directorial work in Alex Cox’s embittered piece on “actors who direct” in Guardian Film and Music.

I can fully understand the frustration a talented helmer like Cox feels at Kirsten Dunst and Gary Oldman being given cash to direct films because they are big names, whilst Cox himself can’t get finance for a cup of coffee, but his judgement on this occasion is frankly bizarre.

It’s absolutely wrong (and exceptionally lazy) to suggest that every decent shot Eastwood ever printed was stolen from Siegel or Leone, for example, when Eastwood has harnessed in a wholly imperceptible way the visual brilliance of those directors (amongst others like Ford, Mann, Ozu…) whilst infusing his films with a humanism that Leone never had and Siegel never even attempted. Witness the scene between Kevin Costner and the black father in A Perfect World, Eastwood and the cut prostitute in Unforgiven, Robbins and Penn on the front step in Mystic River, Swank and her family in Million Dollar Baby and native american actor Adam Beach’s entire performance in Flags of our Fathers. Cox is so far off understanding what Cinema (other than his own) is capable of, that he’s coming across as a Baz Bamigboye ignoramus. Shame.

I’m a bit late to the party - even the naffing Daily Express has found this before me - but OHMIGODTHISISFANTASTIC!

Snow Patrol have apparently nicked this 1976 short - C’etait un rendez-vous by Claude Lelouch - for their latest video.

My favourite bits are the woman shitting herself at 5:22, the bloke staining his white suit at 5:49 and the pigeons just after the 7 mins mark.

Ahem…

I hope they launder those sheets regularly.

I thought Bryan Robson was a very good midfielder, though not quite as good as many commentators on the game would have us believe. However, despite being plagued by injuries Robson won many titles, trophies and awards, captained England - for whom he played 90 times - and (for six years) was the most expensive footballer in the country: you don’t achieve any of those things unless you are an excellent footballer.

Like many professional footballers, though, Robson didn’t know when to walk away from the game with dignity, believing that a successful playing career would inevitably be mirrored in management. He spent tens of millions of Steve Gibson’s pounds over seven seasons to enable Middlesbrough to maintain their then-impeccable record of having won no major honours in their history (despite leading them to three cup finals along the way).

It is difficult to recall a trajectory in football that has differed so markedly between, on the one hand, so glittering a playing career and, on the other hand, so dismal a record as a manager: perhaps Bobby Charlton and Bobby Moore challenge Robson in the management mediocrity stakes, though they both had the sense to get out of management fairly quickly and stay out.

Robson having overseen relegations at each club he has managed (only avoiding a second relegation with Middlesbrough because Gibson parachuted in Terry Venables as firefighter mid-season and keeping West Brom in the Premiership in his first season despite collecting the fewest number of points of any team ever to survive relegation from the Premiership) and seen his win ratio fall in line with the financial resources available to him, one might imagine no football club chairman would again prove daft enough to entrust their club to the man.

Bryan Robson’s managerial record

Middlesbrough (1994-2001)
Won 127 Lost 101 Drawn 86
Win percentage: 40%
2 promotions to the Premiership (1995, 1998), one relegation (1997)

Bradford (2003-2004)
Won 7 Lost 20 Drawn 1
Win percentage: 25%
Relegated

West Bromwich Albion (2004-2006)
Won 19 Lost 38 Drawn 24
Win percentage: 23%
Relegated

Step forward Sheffield United PLC chairman Kevin McCabe.

(From right to left, Sheffield United PLC chairman Kevin McCabe, Bryan Robson and Sheffield United FC chairman Terry Robinson, whose demeanour suggests he knows how this sorry fiasco will end.)

McCabe says he believes Robson will lead the Blades back to the Premiership within a season. “Bryan is an experienced manager,” McCabe said at yesterday’s press conference to announce the appointment. “We believe he’s the right man to get us back to the Premiership in the shortest possible space of time. It was harder to find anyone better than Bryan.”

He can’t have looked very long or very hard.

On news of Robson’s appointment, William Hill immediately lengthened Sheffield United’s odds of an immediate promotion from 12-1 to 14-1. Have you ever met a destitute bookie?

Football clubs - uniquely, with the sole exception of governments - believe themselves to be above economic theory and that the lack of proper qualifications and/or a decent track record should be no impediment to managerial appointments.

An Observer series a couple of seasons ago called English football “The Game That Ate Itself”; it’s hard to conclude otherwise when men like Robson can still earn from football not just a filthy shilling, but hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

It’s probably only about 48 hours in reality, but I don’t feel as though I’ve put the boot into Nick”y” Fucking Campbell for a while now, so here are some of the lowlights of My Life In Media from Monday’s Independent.

What inspired you to embark on a media career?

When we were teenagers, my friend Rob Harley, who now writes The Green Wing [sic], the actor Iain Glen and I used to spend our days “being people” on local radio phone-ins… “Being people” has been for all of us life’s greatest challenge.

Could you drop any more names, you despicable twat?  Shame you can’t get the name of your friend’s programme right, but there you go: Nick”y” has never struck me as much of a details man.  Talking of which…

Describe your job

I am a broadcaster and journalist although my wife Tina, who formally trained as such, has the deluded belief that you need to have reported on tedious court cases and council chambers for at least three years before you can even call yourself one. Sorry, I skipped that bit. I was presenting the Radio 1 Roadshow and Top of the Pops at the time.

Don’t even get me started on that piece of arrogant shite or we’ll be here all day.

At home, what do you tune in to?

Everything. From the Islam Channel to QVC, BBC4 to Sky Travel.

Do you have a favourite magazine?

For sheer entertainment I enjoy The Spectator on a Friday evening with a large gin and a bowl of nuts. Is that just a bit sad?

“The Islam Channel and QVC”?  I mean, for fucksake.  What a colossal pinhead.

Name the one career ambition you want to realise before you retire

To have one of the many songs I’ve written actually recorded by someone.

If you didn’t work in the media, what would you do?

Be a musician or actor.

And there we have it.  Nick”y” Campbell is, at heart, a show-off.  Nick”y” wants to be the centre of attention.  Nick”y” doesn’t mind how he achieves that - the Radio 1 Roadshow, Wheel Of Motherfucking Bastard Fortune, singing on a celebrity talent show or even (Hosting Yet Another Game Show While Describing Yourself As A Journalist Will Haunt You) For The Rest Of Your Life - as long as everybody is looking at him.

Cunt.

Viagra could aid jetlag recovery.

Apparently it helps you get up the next day.

I think this might just be the best computer wallpaper I’ve ever seen in my life.

I’d even watch ITV News if she were presenting it.

Ms. Theuriau currently occupies fourth place on the Minister’s Laminated List. And yes, I really do need to get a job…