Togger

30 Things The Minister Did On His Sabbatical

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  1. Learned more than he ever wanted to know about multiple myeloma, bone marrow transplants, quadruple heart bypass surgery and the work of cardiac intensive care nursing staff.
  2. Spent a lot of time driving up and down the M1.
  3. Lost 70lbs.
  4. Put 28lbs back on.
  5. Lost another 21lbs.
  6. Put another 18lbs back on.
  7. Lost another 14lbs.
  8. Joined the Labour Party in the hope that the new leader wouldn’t be a breathtakingly clueless wanker of the first water.
  9. Resigned from the Labour Party due to the breathtaking cluelessness of its new leader, Edward Samuel Miliband, Wanker of the First Water.
  10. Helped fund four albums (by Sophie Madeleine, Emmy The Great, Terra Naomi and a work-still-in-progress by Kat Edmondson).  Girls with guitars, eh?
  11. Been very impressed indeed by and become very well acquainted with the music of John Grant, The Wellspring, Sun Kil Moon, School Of Seven Bells, Alicia Witt, The National, Pete Yorn, Hannah Peel and A Fine Frenzy.
  12. Bought Tom McRae‘s back catalogue. Some fucker’s got to feed his pigs.
  13. Watched a lot of House, Wallander and Community, while wishing I lived in the States so I could watch more of Craig Ferguson.
  14. Got an iPad.
  15. Bought my godson his first iPod.
  16. Waved a fond farewell to Chesterfield FC’s “atmospheric” old stadium on Saltergate.
  17. Watched in open-mouthed amazement as Chesterfield FC won the Fourth Division title in their first season in their really rather fabulous new stadium.
  18. Bought a couple of domain names I like a lot.
  19. Almost completely deGoogleified my life.  Fuck, that felt good.
  20. Discovered and greatly approved of Mighty Leaf Teas.
  21. Got even more anal about fonts and typefaces.
  22. Fell in love some fabulous Mac software – Alfred, Flow, Hype, iA Writer, Sparrow.
  23. Installed a PowerLine network at the Ministerial Residence.  (I’m sure the Minister’s Wife would have preferred me to redecorate the staircase and landing, but you have to pace yourself at my age.)
  24. Discovered that Nerina Pallot is a seriously top lass.  (Her new album’s out next week.)
  25. Fell for Pop Culture Happy Hour.  Glen Weldon is now my personal hero.  (Mistyped that last sentence.  It originally said “Glen Weldon is now my personal herp”.  I think Glen Weldon would approve.)
  26. Had a Twitter exchange with Nicky Fucking Campbell in which I was so civil I did not once call him “Nicky Fucking Campbell”.
  27. Saw several David Ford gigs (travelling 150 miles through a snowstorm to attend one) and read David Ford’s book, I Choose This.  Was not disappointed once.
  28. Had brief work-related journeys to Miami, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, Paris, Munich, Madrid and Stockholm.  Didn’t really enjoy them but Stockholm is lovely (as are its inhabitants).
  29. Came up with an idea for Coalition Cabinet Toilet Paper, because wiping my arse is the only thing that shower of unmitigated cock cheese is fit for.
  30. Generally despaired rather a lot.
So we’re back.  Buckle up: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Sir Bobby Robson

By BigBrother in All posts No Comments Tags: , , ,

Once upon a time there was an English football manager who won things that mattered.

robby

He adored the game, respected its heritage and never lost an infectious enthusiasm for the potential of 22 fellas running around after a round leather ball.

He didn’t abuse the reporters who (at times) abused him; he didn’t refuse to speak for years on end to the broadcasters who helped pay his wages; he took evident pleasure from developing stars rather than buying them in.  He conducted himself with humility and humanity.  His teams played pretty damn good football.  And you got the feeling he’d have done it even if it didn’t pay him a penny.

How sad that he passed away having had to witness the crumbling of his beloved Newcastle United, whose current, humiliating predicament can be traced directly to his sacking in five years ago.

The English game, whose soul visibly diminishes with every passing month, today lost more than perhaps its last great manager.

Rest in peace, Sir Bobby.  And thank you.


Sir Bobby Robson CBE, 1933-2009

If you change your mind, I’m the first in line

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Now, who could have possibly foreseen this?

Texan billionaire and cricket promoter Sir Allen Stanford has been charged over a $8bn (£5.6bn) investment fraud, US financial regulators say.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said the financier had orchestrated “a fraudulent, multi-billion dollar investment scheme”.

The SEC said the fraud was “based on false promises and fabricated historical return data”.

The charges against Sir Allen, three of his companies and two executives of those companies followed a raid by US marshalls on the Houston, Texas, offices of Stanford Financial Group.

A US judge has frozen the assets of Sir Allen and the other defendants as well as those of the Stanford Group, its Antigua-based subsidiary Stanford International Bank (SIB) and another subsidiary, investment advisor Stanford Capital Management.

A receiver has been appointed to “preserve assets for investors”, the SEC said.

Certainly not ECB Chairman Giles ‘Midas Touch’ Clarke, eh, readers?

A Brief History Lesson


1989 – A Convention Of Cunts


2008 – A Cunt In A Chopper

Ministerial memo to British sports administrators: if something seems too good to be true, it usually is.

And talking of sports administrators getting into bed with greedy Chancer cunts, I wonder if Tess of Olympia will send food parcels?

An Italian court has found British tax lawyer David Mills guilty of accepting a bribe of about £400,000 from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Mills, the estranged husband of UK Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail at a court in Milan.

Following the verdict, she said: “This is a terrible blow to David and, although we are separated, I have never doubted his innocence.”

Beaucoup de blanc, tres peu de jaune

By julesallen in All posts No Comments Tags: ,

Michel Platini was a heroic player, both at club level with Nancy, St Etienne and Juventus, but in particular at international level where he was France’s talismanic midfielder throughout the 1980s, culminating of course in memorable French performances in Euro ’84 and Mexico ’86.

But to many of us who follow French football to some degree, there was a real sense that he went downhill pretty fast after that.  Firstly he seemed to have followed the course of so many other star French sportsmen, which is to open a bunch of restaurants and spend his life eating in them. He had a disastrous spell as manager of the French team, which coincided with that of Graham Taylor with England and had precisely the same level of success at Euro ’92 and qualifying for USA ’94.  Then finally as an expert studio pundit for Canal +, where his standoffishness, his arrogance (he only appeared alone with the anchor) and his clear boredom with the job (Lens v Sochaux anyone?) led to a standard of output which was about on a par with Glenn Hoddle, whom he resembles a little bit too closely in numerous other ways (though thankfully not on a superstitious level).

So we had a right to assume that upon his elevation to head of UEFA, we were going to get more of the same dross but with more ego to boot.

I have to say that much as I have found it hard to accept it and difficult to believe, from the beginning of Platini’s tenure, I have had a sneaking suspicion, which has gained in strength in the 18 months he has been on the job, that what he is doing is not only positive, fresh and bold, but also (with some misgivings) fundamentally right.

The main reason it has only been a sneaking suspicion (and one which I have found it difficult to voice) is that Platini has talked himself into being public enemy number one to English football.  He still has some work to do in shooting his mouth off and columnists as illustrious as the Observer’s Paul Wilson is referring to him as ‘increasingly barmy’.  Chief Executive of the Premier League Richard Scudamore can barely conceal his disdain for Platini’s views which he considers simplistic (and in many ways they are).  606 presenter Tim Lovejoy loathes him.

One thing’s for sure, there is a pattern to what Platini says that I find it difficult to contradict:

1) he believes that money is ruining the game, not helping it;

2) he thinks like a fan, not an administrator, but one who understands how football works behind the scenes;

3) he wants to act on racism in football, and

4) crucially, he doesn’t care about whether any of this makes him popular.

The reason for this post is that Andrew Hussey has written an article in the Observer today which I urge you to read as it picks up on the reality, rather than the soundbites alone.  In fact, you’re mostly better off ignoring the soundbites as apart from publicity, they rarely add anything.

Has Platini found his true calling?  And more to the point, can he actually achieve what he wants?

Bikini-clad girl on the front who invited you in

By BigBrother in All posts No Comments Tags: , , , ,

Again, it’s not just me, is it?

Should you actually deign to read this rubbish, you find that the text of the article bears little, if any, resemblance to the headline:

At least 12 top Premier League football stars are secretly gay.

The superstar dozen are even scared to confess their homosexuality to their team-mates.

At a forum to launch an anti-homophobia campaign, pundit and ex-England Under-21 star Paul Elliott, 44, said he knew 12 top current players who were gay.

The ex-Chelsea defender, who advises the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said he would never reveal the names.

Even by the standards of someone like pornographer Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily Star newspaper, this is pathetic.

Scum (d. Alan Clarke, 1977)

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Two things.

First, I’m getting an iPhone 3G.  And I’m not even paying for it!  Said thing of beauty is to be provided by my employers.  (Of course I’ll probably have to forfeit this year’s remaining annual leave entitlement, but…)

Second, The Moral Bankruptcy Of 21st Century English Football (Part Infinity + 1) and There Are Times It’s Embarrassing To Be A Lawyer (Part Infinity + 2), courtesy of The Guardian‘s George Monbiot.

In the past few days, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has dropped its [libel] cases against some of its fans. I am now allowed to write about the worst example of legal bullying I have ever seen.

The club has had serious problems, on and off the pitch, and many of its fans use an internet forum – owlstalk.co.uk – to discuss them. They make the kind of comments you would expect to find on any talk board, and which would normally be forgotten within 15 minutes. Two and half years ago the club launched its first suit. Only now have the people who posted these comments emerged blinking from the labyrinthine nightmare of English law…

Sheffield Wednesday went to court to demand the names and email addresses of 14 people who had posted comments on owlstalk. Here are some of the comments over which the club complained. “What an embarrassing, pathetic, laughing stock of a football club we’ve become.” “Another day, another blunder. I doubt even Leeds were in such a mess this time last summer, and look what happened to them.” “I am waiting with bated breath to hear who the Chuckle Brothers have signed after their trip to watch players abroad. With the amount of money they have to spend and the wages they can offer the best we can hope for is that little known Transvestitavian International I Sukblodov, who last scored in a brothel.”

Such comments were deemed by Sheffield Wednesday’s lawyers to be “false and seriously defamatory messages” which had caused grievous injury to the delicate flowers who ran the club. (They should try posting an article on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site.) The lawyers threatened “proceedings to include claims for injunctions, damages, interest and legal costs (which could be substantial)”. The judge threw most of the application out, but instructed the forum’s host to reveal the email addresses of four of the posters, whose remarks seem to me to be almost as trivial as those he dismissed. This took place a year ago, and the long shadow of the law hung over the posters until the club’s lawyers dropped the case last week.

Another case dates back to February 2006, when the club sent a warning letter to a fan called Nigel Short. When he received the letter he offered to apologise and to change his comments, but the club rejected this. He was able to fight it only because he found a lawyer – Mark Lewis of George Davies Solicitors in Manchester – who was incensed by this case and was prepared to represent him. “I’ve had two and a half years of worrying I was going to lose my house,” Short tells me. “It’s been hell. If Mark hadn’t done this no win, no fee, I would have been bankrupt by now.”

In November 2007, Short was diagnosed with throat cancer. The case continued. But on Wednesday September 3 he announced that his treatment had been successful. On Friday September 5, the club dropped the case and agreed to pay his costs. It issued a press release which suggested it had done so because of “Mr Short’s medical condition”. I asked the club whether it had abandoned the case because it knew that Short would now live to fight the action. It has refused to answer my questions.

Full case report of the fiasco here.

I dare say if I thought about it long and hard enough I could come up with some pithy pun or other on which to end this post – given my origins it would probably centre around an (entirely justifiable) insult towards natives of South Yorkshire.

As it is, I’ll suffice myself to say that the firm of solicitors instructed by Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, its directors and shareholders in the above matter was Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis, known colloquially as K&L Gates.

Decide for yourself whether you would ever entertain the notion of instructing such a firm.  The Minister will be taking his (admittedly limited) purchasing power elsewhere.

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

By BigBrother in All posts No Comments Tags: , , , ,

I know I recycle this riff more regularly than anything similar achieved to date by Noel Gallagher, but I’m really not sure English football can sink any lower.

And my anger at the moment is as much towards the fans as towards the self-serving cunts that now seem to own all of the country’s clubs.

If there is hope, it has been alleged, it lies in the proles.

So what did the proles of Newcastle do to demonstrate their anger at, er, their club owner running their club on financially prudent lines?  Did they rise up in solidarity and boycott the club’s next home game, as they said they would?  Did they bollocks.  Over 50,000 spunked £30+ each to watch the visit of Hull City – 3,000 MORE than at their previous home game while the Sainted King Kev was still in charge…

The vast majority of Manchester City’s fans, meanwhile, were all too willing to jump aboard Thaksin Shinawatra’s gravy train 14 months ago despite the man’s reprehensible political record.  Having waved that nasty little man off, with a couple of hundred million quid of beautifully laundered money in his pockets, what did they do?  They donned Arab dress to welcome another billionaire owner who knows nothing about football (you wait 127 years for a billionaire and then two come along at once…) with a questionable record on human rights and had some “comedy” £500 billion notes printed up to wave at Roman Abramovich.

Having just seen the name of the club they profess to love sullied by its association with a morally bankrupt man on the verge of a conviction for tax evasion and corruption, they’ve not only got into bed with another apple pie regime but they’ve lubed themselves up, too.

For the uninitiated, and according to Amnesty International:

The United Arab Emirates retains the death penalty…

In December 2007, the United Arab Emirates abstained in the vote in the General Assembly on resolution 62/149 calling for a moratorium on executions and, on 2 February 2008, it was one of the 58 states that signed a statement of disassociation with the resolution, placing on record their “persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention to existing stipulations under international law”.

In all of the Emirates, except Dubai, flogging sentences are imposed on those caught having “illicit sex”…

Amnesty International has regularly raised with the authorities reports of persons – both Emirati and foreign – arbitrarily arrested and held incommunicado for prolonged periods of time, commonly in undisclosed locations where they may face torture and other ill treatment. Those responsible are usually said to be members of Amn al-Dawla (State Security)…

Other forms torture and other ill treatment documented by Amnesty International have included sleep deprivation, suspension by the wrists or ankles, severe beatings to the soles of the feet, the use of electric shocks to various parts of the body, and threats of sexual violence…

Women in the United Arab Emirates continue to suffer the impact of discriminatory laws and practices which affect most aspects of their life, including marriage and the choice of marriage partner, dissolution of marriage and child custody, and inheritance…

In the course of 2007, the government failed to respond to UN human rights bodies in respect to requests for access and on individual cases raised in 2006…

There are also reports of restrictions on the right to freedom of expression…

Political parties do not exist in the United Arab Emirates; political dissent is not tolerated and those targeted for arrest include Islamists or those critical of the human rights situation in the country.

All but a few of those fans so vocally initially opposed to the Glazers’ takeover of Manchester United seem to have come to terms with their new owners now that another Premier League title and European Cup are in the Old Trafford trophy room.

Liverpool Football Club is being turned into a laughing stock, their new owners having reneged on their pre-purchase pledge not to load the debt financing for the deal onto the club itself and proving themselves incapable (or, more accurately, personally unwilling) to finance the oft-promised new stadium.  A full 1,000 Liverpool fans summoned up the energy to protest at the weekend – after all, the club’s joint top of the table…

Suddenly, Deadly Doug Ellis is beginning to resemble Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi.

So fuck it: I’m out. Mr. Scudamore, Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Abramovich:

I’m not scared:
I’m outta here.

Counting Crows

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Congratulations to Fabio Capello and his players on an excellent result last night.

To clarify, the last sentence of my previous post was not intended to be a prediction of defeat last night (though I unequivocally expected a Croatian victory), so much as a wider observation on the state of English football and the organisations responsible for its demise.

I hope last night’s victory is one of many more for Capello, a fantastic coach; unfortunately I don’t see it as anything more than another brief but ultimately false dawn.  I genuinely hope I’m proved wrong.

And I hope The Manchester Guardian stops running headlines such as “Capello’s Fucking Brilliant And We Always Said He Was” and “Capello’s A Fucking Genius And We’re Going To Win The World Cup So Buy Your St. George’s Flag Now”, which is how the paper’s football page reads today.

Harry Potter really has turned that organ into a bloody expensive arse-wiping rag.

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