Voy Por Ustedes

With the minimum of research (i.e. none) today, I shall mostly be betting on Jelle Klaasen and that somewhat mentally unhinged Aussie-Geordie hybrid Paul Nicholson.

Also, due to a not unpleasant woozy sensation I felt in the area a couple of inches due north of my twadger when I was looking at some clogs on Ebay earlier, I'll also placing a small wager on Klaasen to win the whole tournament - currently at 28.00 on Betfair.

I'm going to attempt to take a sip of the whiskey every time Sid Waddell says "lipstick" or "under-stacker" during this Painter v Taylor match. If all goes to plan I'll be in a coma by 9.30pm.

It's cold out at the moment, but despite how it makes my winky go small, I like the cold when it's dry and pretty like it is today. I'd prefer it to snow, but a nice frost is aesthetically, the most pleasing of weather in my opinion. Better than rainbows cause those remind me of men dressed in leather with bushy tash's. I don't like it when it's cold in my house of course as I don't generally like to wake up with frost in my hair, but outside I'm cool with it if you'll excuse the pun.

So in real terms, any amount of water will freeze if it gets cold enough. But Niagra Falls is so huge that the tempretures would need to be something similar to the conditions between Mother Teresea's thighs.

But though, but, Niagara Falls in 1911 was much much smaller than it is today as the water has eroded away the rocks so quickly - apparently it has ventured something like ten miles inland in the last 100 years. So it may be true. I'd like to think it's true. So I choose to believe it.

I therefore apologise to the chap who initially told me about the 1911 freezing for doubting him and calling him a silly twat under my breath.

So it's the last week of the regular season in the Mercan nogger today and what an intriguing set of circumstances we have laid before us. Very complex play-off permutations - far too complicated to comprehend to the extent that I could explain it here and who cares anyway that's what I always say. I certainly don't and I doubt you do either. Am I right or am I right or am I right? Right, right?

I've never had one come in completely, but I have placed a wee £5 Yankee on the following four confrontations (which I'll thank you not to follow unless of course losing money sexually arouses you)..actually before we begin, I feel quite good about these efforts as it goes, or as good as one can feel given that I've done the minimum of research and the entire regular season has been an enigma, sprinkled with illusion and wrapped in a puzzle.

Now then without further ado, part one: the Miami Dolphins travel to New York for a game that could see Miami as the most unlikely winners of the AFC East. Miami were 1-15 last season, but Tony Sparano has turned them around and probably threatened a few people along the way and almost certainly has some members of the New York Jets coaching staff in the boot of his car as we speak. It's too close to call a winner, but I thought the scoring records of both teams suggests overs (42) is the bet here.

Any game involving Brett Favre is bound to be open and this one has the potential to get out of hand. Miami score roughly 22 points a game and concede about 20, New York concede about 22 points a game and score something like 25.

That's as deep as I'm going research wise. I don't know what the weather's like in the swamps of New Jersey today, probably snowing and 40mph winds, making scoring impossible, but hayell - I'm prepared to take a chance - and why not?

Elsewhere I've chosen San Fransisco to beat a completely unmotivated and frankly piss poor Washington Redskins. My team promised so much in the first third of the season, but ultimately failed to deliver when push was required to come to shove they were capable only of a flirtatious tickle.

I can't imagine the Skins are going to be too keyed up about a 4,000 mile meaningless trip to the West coast. I'm sure they're all thinking about their holidays, drinking cocktails and asking Peurto Rican waitresses if they do it doggy doggy so a -3 handicap shouldn't be too much of an obstacle for the 49ers.

I shall now contradict myself somewhat with my third selection as I've backed San Fransisco's neighbours, the Oakland Raiders to win on the handicaps. They're traveling 4,000 miles but in the other direction to see out their god awful season against Tampa Bay who I think have only a slim gnats fanny hair of a chance of making the post-season.

In fact they may be out of it already, but either way I'm going for Oakland because ...because because because becaaaaaause, because of the wonderful things they does...I do apologise, I've been bursting into song a lot recently, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me.


My golden rule for the handicaps wagering is never back a side in the NFL who have to overcome a handicap of over 10. It's a rather simplictic rule, but it's a fairly important one. You may be able to do this with the College games when so often the disparity in skill between the two teams is vast, but not so in the NFL. Even the shittest teams are very rarely 10 points worse than the bestest. Oakland have shown some signs of promise this year so I'm happy to gamble on a 13 point head start being good enough for them to see this one out. I am you know.

Finally, I've gone for New England to beat Buffalo by more than 6 points. A price of 10/11 seems generous to me. I can't see New England having any problems with this one and if I do say so myself, this is the selection I'm most confident about. So there.


Alrighty then. Good luck me and good luck with all your bets you.

A shop has sold 650 CANDLES, 50 BAUBLES and 1001 PUDDINGS. How many SLEIGHS has it sold?

Also, what sort of a shop sells Sleighs and puddings? Have they learnt nothing from the collapse of Woolworths?

I'd say it's time we focused on something more positive, so from Richard Keys, the horrible hairy cunt of the now, let's move on to my Man of the year award, which for 2008 is actually a boy; the first boy ever to receive this coveted award.

Shame really as the prize is 24 cans of Kestral lager which I'll have to drink now as they'll go off if I leave them for eight years until young Ben's old enough to down them himself.

Young Ben Spratling, who has overcome enormous adversity in being born in Norwich and with a stupid last name, has become the first cub scout in the history of the organisation to earn all 33 achievement badges!

Fucking shit hot Ben, well done geezer. No mean feat is that...one of my greatest ever regrets was not having the motivation to earn the gold arrow when I was a cub. I didn't want to do the swimming part or the camping cause I was a great big blouse. Well no such compunctions for young Ben.

Ben's mother Debbie Spratling, who has no idea who Ben's real father is, had this to say, "I've obviously lucked out with Ben's father..whoever it was that had me up against that Kebab van the night I was knocked up must have been a right fucking little Yoda."

Unfortunately it seems Ben's older brother's paterfamilias lottery ticket wasn't a winner. "Darren can't tie his own shoe laces," explained Debs, "and he's 24 next week. Still, mustn't grumble."

Among his acheivements Ben lists his "Animal carer" and "Emergency aid' badges as the most valuable. "It means I can take care of my brother see, cause he's basically a dog and I'll be able to put him down when the time comes."

To be fair, I made up the last three paragraphs. I am genuinly impressed though with Ben's achievement and I will toast Ben 24 times when I neck his lager.

The award for cunt of the now goes to Richard Keys for his completely unveiled dislike of all things Arsenal on display now on Sky Sports one as we speak.

You hairy bastard. When arsenal have dominated a game at the Emirates but end up at half-time one goal down, we're accused of wasting chances, trying to score the perfect goal and incapable of putting teams away, while the other side is commended for taking it's chance when it came.

When it's Arsenal who have been dominated away from home but end up scoring and leading at half-time we're just lucky and the home side, in this case Aston Villa, are considered to be unfortunate.

I met Richard Keys once and asked him why he hates Arsenal so much and he just waved one of his hairy hands at me and claimed to be completely impartial and just a fan of football...well fuck off are you...you wouldn't support Coventry if that was the case. I hope your whole hairy body gets covered in nits you arrogant shit. Never trust a man with no lips, that's what I always say.

At this point I'd like to apologise to anyone who was in my company this evening. I'm only 65% conscious at the time of writing - 65-70% - consequently I was not at my sociable best and was not focused on the task at hand.

I may have even hallucinated for a brief moment when I thought I saw Ace-Jack and Ace-4 competing for a 6-7,000 pot on a board riddled with straight and flush possibilities. Ace high eventually taking the pot. Crazy talk.

In real terms I feel as if I've been worked over in the darkest corner of the Glitter Gulch for an entire evening and a further trip to the big house is almost inevitable for me which should be all kinds of fun.

Should my woeful physical condition deny me the opportunity later, I should now like to wish you all my very best for the New Year. May all your ace rag hands lead to rich's - Rich's chips.

The end.

I wasn't going to post this today as it's a bit gloomy, but it's a miserable fucking day anyway so who cares. Of all the bizarre choices for movies to show at Christmas time the Great Escape was always a weird one as was Escape to Victory, perhaps TV dudes were playing on the male population's desperate yearning to escape their ubiquitous Christmas hell involving loud toys and visits from the unwanted members of the extended family - the gay uncle, the alcoholic aunt, the weird nephew who dresses entirely in black and so on.

The movie that's equally bizarre particularly in the current economic climate is It's a wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart as poor George Bailey. There's nothing really festive about it even though it's considered a classic Christmas movie.

It's about a dude who faces financial ruin after being scammed by an horrible cunt, a run on his bank ensues and a bleak future of miserable nothingness so he tries to kill himself and is forced by a fucking interfering angel into changing his mind and swapping a blissful nothing for more of the same shit.

This has basically just happened for real thanks to Bernard Madoff but I don't see too many parents reading the Wall Street Journal to their kids.

After Madoff's $50billion ponzi scheme went tits up, a french investor called, wait for it, deep breath...Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villechet went and killed himself cause he lost close to a billion dollars.

And to add insult to injury, his family couldn't even afford to have his name carved into his head stone cause it was too fucking long. They settled for Aaaaww Rene instead.

If you recall I highlighted the fact that this whole financial collapsing schabang was a giant ponzi scheme just a few weeks ago - you can read it here. Did anyone listen to me? Did they bollocks. Tough shit that's what I always say.

If you're so fucking greedy that you're not happy just sitting on a couple of billion and want more and more and are prepared to risk doing business with someone called Madoff offering you 50cents on the dollar no questions asked, then you deserve everything you get in my book. Bloody French ponce. You wouldn't have spent any of it on soap anyway you smelly git.

Merry fucking Christmas.

Good gracious me we're almost at the end of another year and what a year it was. Well no not really, one year just blends into another like stains on the kitchen floor but let's put a positive slant on the occasion if not for me, for the children.

To be fair a couple of genuinely good things occurred this year. I reached the age of 34, which means I'm older now than Jesus ever was and although he's due back any day now according to the rapture lot, a second coming doesn't count so in your face Jesus you sandal wearing hippy.

As great as winning a last longer bet with Jesus is, the highlight of the year was obviously the Vegas trip with the Witney contingent of the Witney inc. Carterton Mob. A trip I hope we can make an annual event assuming Paul the Game has recovered from his recent experiences.

I tend not set myself resolutions or goals for a new year cause all of the cool things I've done in my life (that has been longer than Jesus') I've just sort of stumbled into without any prior planning, so it's gonna be as you were this year. Up at about 4pm and if opportunity knocks then smashing I'll open the door, elsewise I'll spend the year in my jammies again and play with Lego.

Today I've mostly been researching toys. My best chum has a couple of wee fella's and it's important their Uncle Nunzio gets them something spectacular. I got side tracked though on a visit to the Lego website. Space lego back in the day was immeasurably awesome. I think one Christmas I got a bike and a space Lego Galaxy Explorer. In retrospect, my life peeked that year. I must have been 6 or 7.

There's very few things in life that fills one with such a feeling of awesome as seeing a shiny bicycle in the living room when you bomb down the stairs on Christmas morning at about 6am. If I recall correctly, I've received two bikes on Christmas Day; a Grifter and a Chrome Burner BMX.

Who'd have thought that a shiny bicycle juxtaposed to a faux tan leather sofa could produce such a feeling of unbrindled joy in a wee one? It is magical though, a sparkly bike in the living room on Christmas Day is without doubt the most wonderful sight before your innocence is shoved out of the way by puberty and your focus is dominated by tits instead for the rest of your life.

I still consider that BMX or possibly that Galaxy Explorer to be the bestest Christmas present I ever got. I don't like children as a rule as they're so damned noisy and they always write rude words on my dirty car, but it's almost worth having a couple of them just to be able to buy them bicycles and Lego at Christmas. I'm very glad Lego is still popular. I was worried that it might seem too antiquated for the wee ones of today.

I don't mind telling you though, I'll be searching the deepest parts of the interwebs for one of those Galaxy Explorers just for me. Some Lego boffin somewhere must have one. I want it. Do you hear me? I WANT IT. If Rachel Stevens were to offer me a brand new Galaxy Explorer or an evening of sex with her and a few pints of warm runny custard, I honestly think it would take me more than a minute to decide on the sex. That's how bad I want one of these Lego sets.

So this evening I passed up the Pigeons game for another effort in Abingdon; a 60 runner £10 re-buy crap shoot structured mess of chaos. I just needed an easier Sunday game to be honest. I was able to make it through the re-buy period unscathed after doubling up on the first hand with pocket Jacks winning a race against A-Q, but from there on in it was like negotiating a minefield trying to pick a spot to shove ones chips in.

I found it tricky to maintain my concentration to be fair as directly in my line of sight on the adjacent table was a young miss sporting marvelous tits, cause of course I loves tits. I hope she won't consider me chauvinistic, but I really do love tits. I think I like tits more than sweets. I shall take blinkers next time, but tonight it was a challenge staying focused...a bitter-sweet few hours as I'm sure you can appreciate.

So anyway, back to the game...tits structure really was fast because of the number of runners and the limited time available to get the thing done before people had to get up for work on Monday. I actually saw no premium hands, but chose the right moments to shove my chips in every now and then. That's as sophisticated as the moves got.

The time I finally did get a hand (pocket jacks!) in the small blind I shoved again hoping to get a call with a shitty hand since my many shoves were not going un-noticed...I was called by Kings and I was given a tits of chocolate biscuits...a tin of chocolate biscuits....for my effort and a seat in the cash game.

I lost about £100 in said cash game, but having no re-buys in the tournament and a cheeky treble wager on the American soccer ball coming in, plus another treble on the proper football and I have made a £300 profit on the evening, give or take a pound or tits.



Meanwhile in other news, an old lady from Gloucester got stuck in a muddy river bank up to her waist for 20 hours. I assume she must be new to the area, or inexplicably never heard of Dr Foster.

My ribs are still hurting and the accumulation of pain-killers has made me go a bit odd I think you'll agree. Still, you've got to laugh. Nannight.

Although I'm a Gooner I'm not so partisan that I can't acknowledge a great career when it finally comes to an end.

Darren Anderton, remarkable really...nearly 15 years in top flight football and only about 7 games actually played. Amazing..really incredible. Will we ever see the likes again?

TV theme tunes are a nostalgic gold mine. A thread on Red-Dog's diary on Blonde about this very subject has seen me searching away on You Tube this afternoon for the introduction to the American Football show Channel 4 used in the mid 80's presented by Mick Luckhurst and Gary Imlach.

Holding out for a hero was the theme tune by Bonnie Tyler, coupled with grunting Mercan footballers and so on. Frookin magic. I used to watch it on Sunday evenings in me jammies after my weekly bath. It was the last TV show of the weekend I was allowed to watch. Then it was bedtime and school the next day. Booo. I swear it rained every Monday the whole of my school years.

Just a few days ago I wagered on Baltimore winning the Superbowl. Now, that wager largely depended on them beating Pittsburgh, which they failed to do. Controversial circumstances mind, but lose they did.

Now it's not inconceivable they might beat Dallas, but I'm not quite as confident as I was last week as there's a wee detail I over looked which was awfully remiss of me. I've been under a lot of stress recently though and my bowels are playing up.

What I failed to take into account was this game tonight is the final regular season game Dallas will play at Texas Stadium as they're moving to Arlington next season and teams generally win their last game before moving to new accommodations.

Since 1996 teams playing their last regular season game in the NFL before moving elsewhere are 11-2. Dallas are bound to have a legion of ex-players on the field at half time and spend hours reminiscing while the Ravens stand about kicking paper cups around and wishing they were somewhere else. Also the Ravens appear to be catching the Cowboys at the wrong time. Romo looks good and if he's fit it's hard to imagine a +5 handicap being enough.

Undeniably I've let myself down with an outrageous, presumptive and audacious wager and I shall ban myself from eating any fudge this weekend as punishment. I won't be betting on Dallas of course as I don't ever want to prosper from their success, but I can't see them losing this one. Even the good people at the Baltimore Sun are abandoning their own team. Woe is us.

*Update: As we speak with about 6 minutes left in the game Baltimore are up by two scores 19-10. I just may have miss-over-underestimated Baltimore and me too for betting on them to win the big show. Wooooo me.

So it's about that time of year when I have to begin compiling my top 5 females of the year list, won by Jen Mason last year. It's been a sparse year if I'm honest with only a couple of candidates springing to mind at the time of writing.

Rachel Stevens is in the mix and she can thank More or Less for that. More or less is a radio show about the use of numbers in every day life. It doesn't sound too enthralling, but it's actually very interesting.

It's on radio 4 on Fridays at 1.30pm and repeated on Sundays at 4.00pm I think. Tim Harford presents, he's an economist and columnist for the FT.

Er...anyway, so they were discussing the voting fiasco on Strictly Come Dancing - an anomaly according to the BBC which was highly unexpected, but in actual fact had about a 1 in 8 chance of occurring according to the More or less people.

So yes, Rachel Stevens now ought to be a favourite to win the dancing thing because of the mathematics of it all apparently, although young Paul the Game won't want to hear that... and in my opinion having researched her form thoroughly because of the controversy, she easily meets the criteria for my honours list.

If I sway off on some tangents over the course of the next few blog posts please excuse me. I'm pain-killered up again and I'm not capable of maintaing a steady course of conversation. Other condenders at this time include ...QPR have scored...woooo hooo, 88th minute? Thank fuck for that..Scarlett Johansson for her role in Lost in Translation. Granted that movie was made in 2003, but I only saw it for the first time earlier this year. I found her delicious.


Dani Behr also may be considered. Usually I don't like to include anyone with an IQ lower than Des O'Conner's but I'll make an exception in young Dani's case. I was excited by her when she appeared on This Week last week, she looked sultry in a kind of slutty whore kind of way.

The fact she has a blokes name works in her favour - as you may recall, I kinda like women sporting mens names. I still haven't addressed the source of this appeal. It's better that way.

More on this later.

So now last night I placed a small wager on a Phoenix - Dallas double. I wager I thought I'd lost, until now. Both games were even match-ups but the home team always has a slight advantage and Nashville and Columbus are in Chicago's division - I always pay more attention to teams in the Central Division and both of these teams look like they've lost their way a bit recently.

Now then, Phoenix won. Hoorah! Only 2-1, but a win is a win is a win. Dallas, with 2 minutes to go were winning 5-4. Crazyness. I get nervy in hockey games when Chicago or the team I've bet on only has a one goal advantage with a couple of minutes to go in the game as the losing team always pulls their goalie and the extra man often makes the difference. With a one goal advantage and two minutes or less to go in the game, you know your team is either going to score in the empty net and win by two goals or the extra skater will tell and the the game will go into over-time. Columbus scored. Bastardo's!

Over-time in hockey is golden goal. Columbus scored after 13 seconds of OT. Bastardo's!! I was angry at this. It was only a small wager, but I take it as a personal insult from the betting Gah's when the games end in this fashion. As it turned out though, the game didn't end in that fashion. The goal was reviewed for ages and even though the reuslt was posted on the NHL website and ESPN, after about 5 minutes they ruled the guy had kicked the puck in the goal and play resumed. Dallas then went on to win. Woooooo. What a pleasant surprise.

The end.

The TV license is a tax on television owners, watching or listening to the BBC has become a tax on the stupid. There doesn't seem to be a single TV show or radio show on the BBC now that doesn't involve a phone-in. Almost all of those phone-ins are irrelevant too from the point of view of the listener and viewer.

The BBC have been fined again recently for offering up a prize phone-in on radio shows that were ostensibly live, but were actually pre-recorded, therefore anyone phoning in had no chance at all of getting through to the particular host of the show cause he'd gone home hours ago.

Are people genuinely still assuming these phone-in things are legit? Shooooowarly not. And this Strictly Come Dancing thing, what the fuck is all that abaaart. The whole show I mean, not just the voting. It's popularity is the most exceptional example of what Hitler was talking about when he said, "All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach."

The BBC are very accomplished at persuading people that their TV shows are awesome. Their hype is so convincing to prole England, people are having sleepless nights wondering whether an ex-footballer or failed pop singing contestant will cha-cha-cha successfully at the weekend.

When you break the show down, it's C-list celebrities competing in a ballroom dancing competition at which they're complete novices, yes? No matter how many sparkly costumes you clothe these people in and no matter how many twinkly bits you surround the sets with, that's all the show amounts to. Yet people are fucking mental about it.

Why was Come Dancing never that popular? The contestants on that show could actually dance no? If the appeal is not the dancing then what is it? Austin Healey? How many of the shows viewers know anything about Rugby or his Rugby career specifically? I don't doubt it takes talent to dance properly - I can't dance, I've seen people on fire move better than me, but something that requires talent isn't necessarily entertaining.

Bricklaying requires talent, but getting Ali McCoist and Adrian Chiles to build a wall against the clock isn't going to have people on the edges of their seats. Or at least, I hope it wouldn't any way. But if they played loud music, put twinkly bits on the bricks and had a panel of really abusive judges and gave the viewers the opportunity to vote off a contestant via a ruthless public phone-in, who knows?

Whatever the appeal, why the desperate need to vote? Why do people have such a burning desire to phone-in to things on TV? Just so they can shit on someone? There's a cabillion shows on TV now that offer you the opportunity to phone-in and give your irrelevant opinion about an irrelevant subject and they've managed to persuade millions of people this is a privilege you should pay for.

And the expense on each viewer is compounded by their need to then text all of their friends with their choice, which incurs an extra charge of £1 or £2 depending on your network charges. "I voted Austin off, E is such a cunt." And all of those texts and phone calls mean nothing. No one at the BBC is tallying your votes and your mates don't give a toss either.

Might it be that so many people have so few opinions now on anything important that TV phone-ins are the last bastion of expression for their self-importance? Ask someone in the street why a 2% cut in VAT is a pointless measure to lift the nation out of a recession and they may cry and run off, but ask them whether John Sergeant should have pulled out of Strictly Come Dancing and you'll get a rambling 15 minute speech about how unfair it all was.

If Gordon Brown wants to ease the recession and get the chav demographic of the country spending again - then really he just needs to ban phone-in's for 6 months, that's what I always say. If all that money saved was injected into the economy probably via Argos and Threshers, we'd have an economy as healthy as the Germans in no time. It's no coincidence the Germans have no phone-in shows. I've said my piece, I'll bid you good day.

Are we looking at a general election sometime in the spring of 2009? I'd say somewhere near June, about the time Gordon Brown will proudly and loudly announce that the UK's involvement in Iraq is now officially over, a few weeks before huge unemployment figures begin appearing on the news on a regular basis and a few months before his tax increases put everyone in the poor house.

It's not before time that the whole Iraq disaster is ended of course, but I feel for all those service men and women who board a Tri-star in Basra in June thinking they're only eight hours away from touching down in Brize Norton and seeing their families again, only to see the plane head off in the other direction and hear the pilot's announcement two hours later along the lines of, "welcome to Kandahar airport, the temperature is 120 degrees, please make sure all body armour is in place before disembarking the plane."

For the last two seasons the NHL have staged an outdoor game. The inaugural event was played in Edmonton between the Oilers and Montreal Canadiens at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium. Briwyant stuff it was watched by 57,000 hard-core hockey dudes in -30c temperatures - so successful was it they decided to make it annual thing.

Last year it was in Buffalo, this year it's being held at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. Any game between the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Redwings is a classic. They're two of the original six teams and have played each other more than any other two teams in the history of the NHL. This is the classic of all of winter classics.

It's played on New Years Day. I went to Chicago in January once, I think with wind chill it was something like -35 and that's -35 in both temperature scales. I saw a dude in a t-shirt and wondered what a Geordie was doing on the south side of Chicago in January.

Wrigley Field is a great looking stadium. I love sports stadiums. Whenever I visit a new city I head for the stadiums. I like the old school baseball stadiums and Wrigley Field is the most characteristic with it's Boston Ivy outfield wall - it looks great covered in snow.

I'd love to be there, but since I'm not as hard-core as I used to be I'll be just as happy watching it at home - maybe with the window open for effect.

I opened a facebook think cause I thought it was the only way for me to get in touch with someone from way back when and with mission accomplished I went to close it down and I was asked to punch in these two words to confirm deactivation:

Gaylord? I haven't used that word since I was 7. I shall now try and use it more in conversations though. I tell you who are gaylords, Benfica. I put together a wee accumulator tonight so give the UEFA cup some meaning and every one of them came in except Benfica who lost at home to a team called Metalist Kharkiv!? Who in the name of fuck are they? How can Benfica lose to a team called that? I would have ventured to Dusk Till Dawn with those winnings for their January 3rd/4th £50,000 guaranteed £330 game. Portuguese friggin gaylords.

One month to go, so this hopefully will be one of the final George Bush rants you'll have to skip over. I tell you what, this shoe throwing incident is a funny old thing isn't it people. Not funny ha ha, but funny, what the fuck is going on funny. The way it's been reported, if you didn't know who George W. Bush was or what he's been up to these past eight years, you'd think he was the victim here.

Bush has very magnanimously stated that he has no hard feelings towards the journalist who launched his size 10's at Bush. It's jaw dropping gall from the man really. How thoughtless can one person be? How many times can a President miss the point in two terms of office?

Granted, it is funny watching someone throwing shoes at a politician, I'd love to see someone smack Gordon Brown in the face with a pair of Timberlands. No doubt John Prescott would have thrown his own shoes back, but in the context of this attack it's not funny, it's another example of how monumentally ignorant, insensitive and completely unaware Bush is to all the suffering he's caused. It's even less funny when you listen to what was being shouted when Muntathar al Zaidi was throwing his shoes at Bush's face.

“This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” And after he was knocked to the ground he continued saying, “Killer of Iraqis, killer of children.” The news channels haven't really discussed at length the nature of these comments. It's a shame really that our journalists don't have the balls to talk to Bush and Gordon Brown like that.


They haven't really talked about how five years ago the Iraqi's were beating statues of Saddam Hussein with their shoes and are now attempting to beat the actual George Bush with them instead. He is of course responsible for thousands of deaths and has sent Iraq back to the stone age. His invasions have caused so much grieving and suffering, a huge percentage of Iraqi's actually feel nostalgia for the tyrant days of Saddam Hussein.

A few months after the 9/11 attacks George Bush told reporters that he and Laura had had a wonderful year! Really, maybe it wasn't quite so good for the rest of your nation. Since the latter part of 2001 he's been at war, I might just have lost the ability to enjoy myself in my old age, but should a President at War be using that kind of language? How can you have a wonderful year under those circumstances, let alone say it out loud?

That comment was nothing compared to this Christmas video he's released featuring his little fucking war mongering dog Barney. See how much of it you can watch. I'd rather spend a weekend at one of those murder mystery weekend's in Mumbai than watch 30 seconds of this video.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this back in September, but somehow in my sleep one night I managed to injury my shoulder. Chuffing well hurt it did. I thought it was broken. I had an X-Ray and the radiologist said I hadn't broken anything, but to try and take more care because I'm such a delicate flower. I didn't mention to her that all I'd been doing was sleeping.

So anyway, I've done it again. It's my ribs this time. I had yet another X-Ray today this time at the big house cause I was fearful of a pneumothorax, but it seems I'm fine again. Just maybe I have some internal bruising or sommat.

Is it possible someone is giving me a shoeing every time I go sleep? There is a chance I pulled a muscle or jolted something when I hit whatever I hit when my car tyre burst on Monday...I hadn't mentioned that before because of circumstances we won't go into at this time....so anyway, apparently I'm so fragile now that just a little nudge can snap bits of me inside.

A third possibility exists that I'm just a whining nancy boy with the pain threshhold of a male hairdresser. I managed to dress myself today without crying, but only just. I was fighting back the tears like a big brave soldier. I've been shopping online this afternoon for one of those bubbles that kid lives in though. The metaphorical one I live in is not offering me enough protection.

Possibly not the most appropriate movie poster to stick on the wall of the tube station where Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by the police.

Eduardo played in his first game tonight since busting up several parts of his leg in February.

I shall now seek to play my second long term wager in the space of a few days as I'm quite sure there's enough time left in the season for him to finish in the top 4 Premiership scorers, 100/1 at the time of writing. Just need Torres, Ronaldo and Anelka to suffer awesome goal droughts for the rest of the season.

When I recovered my car this morning I felt the steering seemed a little sluggish on the drive home. I thought maybe it is was me not really being 100% fit to drive and carried on with my journey. I shall stop next time and give the car a once over.

The end.

As it was a non Pigeon's Sunday and the Washington Redskins weren't on TV, I had the superb idea of venturing over to Abingdon to play a £50 freeze-out and possibly have a little drinky poos while I was it. Good job I didn't order Guinness as I wasn't there long enough for it to have settled.

Two hands of note really that saw me distribute my 7,000 starting stack amongst two of my table mates. The first one I played badly, the second I'm still processing - at the time of writing I think I executed a perfectly good bluff Daniel Minieri style, but was called by a guy who had no where near the odds to call and in my opinion no where need the brains to be aloud out without supervision.

But it's an emotional event busting out so early in a tournament so I'm quite prepared to concede that I played both hands like the progeny of a village idiot and a glamour model.

Let's look at the evidence, see what you think:

Hand of doom number 1: Blinds are 50/100, levels are 20 minutes, this is the second level, nothing too exicting has occured as yet. I'm in the big blind with Ace-Three off.

Two limpers, small blind completes and I think a limpers tax is called for. I make it 500 to go. Everyone folds to small blind who calls. This man looks like a photo-fit of a typical bank robber seen on Police 5, a sinister type usually called Barry Gardner - so my intention was to play the hand very cautiously from here on in.

Somewhere between that initial intention of prudence and the flop I must have started thinking of something else and lost my focus because when Barry Gardner checked the flop of 9-A-9 I decided to bet 700 into a pot of 1400 - insta called. The pot is now 2,800 and I'm alarmed. Keep the fucking pot small man, god damn me this is elementary stuff.

What I should have done was check behind Barry on the flop, because when the turn card came a blank, Gardner bet out 1,500 and I suddenly had no idea where I was at. Had I checked the flop, he'd have still bet the turn - but probably only about 700, which I can call and have the same monies invested as my flop bet, but I'd have got to see the river.

Instead I had to muck my hand to his bet as I had no info on this potential bank robber/rapist/cottager and had to assume he either had a 9 or a better ace. I still don't know, but I really need to give myself a few extra seconds to think these moves through otherwise I may as well just burn my money and stay home. Very badly played hand by me. The end.

Hand of doom number 2: This is a fucker. I'm sure I played this perfectly logically, but I thought that after I busted out of a game at the Venetian back in May. "Logic don't pay the bills honey" - who was it who said that? Monroe probably.

Anyway..so it's 100/200 I'm still on about 7,000 maybe a little over and I'm in the small blind this time. I know there's a pattern emerging. I have problems playing my hands in the blinds. A blind spot if you will.

I have nothing, 10-3 off - I have no intention of getting involved until two people limp in and there's suddenly 700 in the pot (including the blinds) and it's only 100 to me, also Mr Big Blind appears completely disinterested in taxing the limpers. I complete. Mr Big Blind checks his option.

So now, with 800 in the pot we see a flop of 5s-2c-7s - immediately I decide to try a Daniel Minieri style check raise if the opportunity presents itself. I check, Mr Big Blind checks after looking at his cards for a few seconds and dude in the cut-off makes it 500. Button dude folds and I decide he's not going to call a re-raise and make it 2,500 to go.

So with 3,800 in the pot the initial raiser does indeed fold. But he's folded out of turn as Mr Big Blind is still in the tank. Eventually he calls and I'm mildly irritated as I'm almost certain he's drawing and he's not getting anything like the odds he needs to do so.

The turn was the Jack of diamonds, I put in the rest of my stack which was approximately half the pot and astonishingly after three or four minutes of dwellage he calls and shows the Ace-Eight of spades. It's worth noting he had won a fairly decent sized pot so still had about 5,500 - 6,000 had he folded.

"If I didn't have the Ace I'd have folded," he says almost apologetically as the rivered 8 of diamonds sends me packing. What in the name of fuck does it matter that you've got an Ace? That's what I wanted to say to him. Did he really think that had he made a pair of Aces that it would have been beating my hand? Obviously he did...but what did he put me on that was good enough to check-raise a dude and then put my whole stack in, but was losing to a pair of Aces?

I'm sure his play was bone headed, but I'm scared to say it out loud in case I've missed something really obvious. I know I should not have even gotten involved with 10-3 in the first place, but once I was in I thought I'd executed a nifty little bluff.

Tell me peope, am I silly twat? You can tell me, I can take it.

I do apologise, but one more thing about Star Trek; when they need to send an away team down to a planet, its usually lead by Commander Riker, but no matter what the weather conditions on the planet, no matter if there's a 100mph gale and pissing rain, or freezing temperatures, he never wears a coat!

He's usually with Data and Worf, but obviously they don't need a coat, but Will Riker is a human, he's been very lucky not to catch pneumonia.

It sets a bad example is all I'm saying. All those nerd kids in the northern parts of America are going to watch him and think they can go outside when it's 20 degrees in the winter, sporting just a thin nylon type top. I've emailed in, but haven't received a reply yet.

Are they selling Irish pork again yet? The mixed grills they've been serving in Dublin since the withdrawal of all their bacon and sausages have been a bit dull - fried potatoes, boiled potatoes, baked potatoes and chips. An Irish related post without a potato gag is like a day without sunshine that's what I always say.

So now...I've been researching this latest hysterical food scare and of course it is just that, a food scare. It's fair enough to be concerned, the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with Dioxins, do you remember him? His face went all horrible if you recall and he glowed a bit like those kids in the Ready-Brek adverts of old.

Nasty stuff and of course if you're selling pork goods you don't want to be nuking your customers if it's avoidable. But once again the meeeeja have sensationalised this with out of context numbers and now no one will go near a sausage and bacon sammich for love nor money.

Granted Dioxin levels 200 times the safety limits sounds a lot, but it's not. Viktor Yushchenko was exposed to under 1mg of these nasty chemicals. That's 1,000th of a gram. The safety limit for your basic average sausage is 0.6 nano grams - which is 1 billionth of a gram. So for a sausage to be found contaminated with Dioxins 200 time the safety limit is fuck all.

In sausage terms you'd have to eat approximately 400,000 of them to expose yourself to the same levels as poor Viktor. Of course, if you some how managed to eat that quantity of pork, the resultant cholesterol levels would cause a massive heart attack before your face turned into a rice pudding. Silly media.



So to sum up - what should actually happen given my research is a total shoot out in Baltimore with about 100 pts each and Dallas to thrash New York by at least 40 points.


Now the weather: It's cold, so no matter what you've seen on Star Trek, do wrap up if you're going outside.