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La boca de la cueva

2010-08-05T17:37:00.002+01:00

I've moved into my new place. It can be found

To the end

2010-07-31T01:50:00.013+01:00

Manual Almunia: If that's what you call home grown you can keep it.

Is it possible I'm blogged out? I've found recently after washing my hands with the world for the fourth or fifth time that I have no motivation to discuss anything. There's many many things occurring as we speak that just a few months ago would have had my blood angried up to boiling point, now I just sort of sigh and continue on with my sandwich.

Do blogs have a natural life span? Can you grow out of them, or recede from them even? Who cares. Perhaps it's like ditching a Sheila. When you press buttons and nothing occurs it's time to put your pants back on and just watch telly? Perhaps it's the humidity, but whatever the ins and outs of the situation, the long and short of it is I'm simply not interesting or interested anymore.

Take football for example, there's a nonsense rule they've introduced this season to limit the number of "foreign" players teams can include in their squads. They must have eight "home grown" players of a twenty-five man squad.

However..by home grown they don't mean wee English lads with wispy little tashes and silly haircuts. Home grown just means any player who's been registered with an English club for at least 36 months regardless of age or nationality. And it only applies to the Premier League games, not the FA Cup, Europe or the other thing, the Carling thing.

This helps the national team how? I've already discussed many times why England are shit. And this will encourage clubs to live within their means how? As Arsene Wenger pointed out - it's always Arsene Wenger who has to show these people what nonsenses their rules are - big clubs will now have a surplus of players, expensive players and the only way the smaller clubs will be able to claim them is to either over-stretch themselves financially or have their wages subisidised by the bigger club, which is undesirable for all concerned. Gay.

* * *

In other news, it appears this catastrophic environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has been greatly exaggerated and so far only four sea otters have died and three dolphins were unwell for a few days. While Barrack Obama was busy telling the world that BP had poisoned the Gulf and the marine and bird life were all asphyxiating as we speak and this is somehow as epochal as 9/11 - science boffins were looking at this episode from an entirely indifferent perspective.

Choke on that you squawking little fucker

Oil, they pointed out for starters - is organic, it's not a chemical, it is leaking into the ocean, dispersing and evaporating all the time. The Gulf is warm water which also aids the dispersal and finally, there's no evidence anywhere that this is even remotely as devastating as the Exxon thing. Finally they point out, birds are awful creatures anyway and if there's less of them to wake us up at 6am then we can all find cause to rejoice.

You see that's exactly the sort of thing that would have me chuntering away at myself for hours, but now I just don't give a hoot. The only hoot I care about these days are the many loud ones coming from the owl in a tree near my bedroom window. Loud bastard. Why doesn't it fuck off? A small lady approached me earlier this week asking for donations for some sort of Wildlife Trust, I offered her £200 if she'd kill an owl for me. She backed off and hasn't been back. There's no pleasing some people.

* * *

It's the weekend now and of course once again I've considered going somewhere to play poker tomorrow, but of course I'll instead wake up in the afternoon, hopefully earlier enough to watch Jessica Ennis bending herself into positions that make a man forget to get old and forget to die.

The venue I usually can never be bothered to travel up to is of course DTD. They have some sort of bounty thing tomorrow where by you stump up £75 - £50 of which goes to the prize pool and the remainder is your bounty. Half hour clock, 10,00 chips, but it's a 3pm start though, I'd never make it. Blergh. It's become a routine of not doing anything.

I've nothing else to say. I'm empty. I'm done, I'm finished. That might be it for this blog. I think I might call it a day. Perhaps if I started a brand new one I might rediscover my blogging mojo? A nice new one with bright colours and a view of the beach?

I had an idea to host the TV weather girl World Cup, but I haven't been able to organise it, I'd search for footage of various weather girls and then just get too randied up to put all the fixtures together and have to do man's business instead*.

*Purely by coincidence, after my initial
research Mexico were clear favourites

Perhaps if I had copy of the angling times handy to keep me calm I could get it organised? I'll give it some more thought. In the meantime though I think we've come to the end of this blog. It's not really been emotional, just something to do. The blog version 2.0 will be awesome beyond blogging beliefs, but until then some music..

'eeeere, you can't park those there

2010-07-29T16:34:00.004+01:00

They may have just bought Harrods for a billion or so quid, but they're still not allowed to park their Lambourghini's outside it. That'll be £150 for the pair please your Majesties...and welcome to England.

Icelandic football - fishing goal celebration

2010-07-28T13:53:00.000+01:00

Guatemalan Flight's Data-Recording Parrot found

2010-07-27T23:41:00.002+01:00

Guatemalan Flight's Data-Recording Parrot Holds Clues To Crash

Mexico business

2010-07-27T02:28:00.007+01:00

How's about this for a funny old bet then on July 30th; - Chivas v Manchester United - United's new signing Javier Hernández to score the first goal but Chivas to win 1-0. You'll probably not get a bookmaker to offer you a price on this, but why not stitch an unsuspecting friend up for a laugh.

Chicharito you see is expected to start the first half for United and play the second half for Chivas, assuming his fitness holds up. FUN! This should actually be a good game to watch. This will be the first game in Chivas' new stadium which is a freakin' amazing looking thing on the top of a hill.

Chivas ought to win as the Apertura has started and the English league is weeks away and as United showed against Kansas - they're either not even trying at the moment or will struggle to finish in the top half of the table.

* * *

In other Mexican news, Efrain Juarez gave an interview today in his Celtic shirt and gah bless him he still seems completely oblivious to what he's got himself into. His English is very good for someone who's only been there ten minutes, I doubt though he'll ever master Glaswegian.

Speaking of learning languages, the plan, when I can say more in Spanish than just "the bakery is in the town square" is to try and wangle some interviews with the Mexican players based in the UK.

Are Celtic in the Champion's League? I hope they get drawn against an English team so I don't have to travel up to Glasgow if they allow me access to Mr Juarez. I'm making slow progress with the language so I'll just have to hope Efrain is keen to locate the bakery. And hope there's one in the town square.

Well durrr

2010-07-24T16:44:00.002+01:00

You dress up like twats, break the law, bust into the Queen's house and other such places and then wonder why the authorities won't let you spend time with your children?

Weekend wagering

2010-07-23T21:05:00.005+01:00

Horse racing:

Football: The Mexican Premera Division has just started and it seems only right I should have a small interest. Thank you to my fellow Mexican football bloggers for their input - some differences of opinions, but I have settled on an 'Unders' Trixie;

Chivas v Pueblo (1.84), Jaguares v Necaxa (1.80) and Tigres v Queretaro (1.72)

Also, I'll be backing the draw in the Chivas game. Although this is the last game in their old stadium I'm informed they have no real goal scorers so I shall take the 3.7 for a draw and hope I'm wrong as they're my goats.

De-evolved intuitive convergence

2010-07-23T01:17:00.005+01:00

There was so much bullshit in the news today. Thank the lord I washed my hands with the world again and don't care, elsewise I'd have shit myself out of frustration. It baffles me why there's any able-bodied people left in this country. If I was ten years younger I'd move to Vancouver. I'd be working at an all girls college teaching home economics by day and resting by night.

David Cameron doesn't know when the Americans joined the second world war. Evidently he only knows what he learns from war films starring Clint Eastwood. This by the way is a fucking disgrace - for this air-headed pomade stinking fraud of a Prime Minister to be unaware that America remained "neutral" until all the heavy lifting had been done by us is inexcusable.

If Britain was ever a "junior partner" it was years later and to the Russians - who had about 8 billion soldiers in theatre - not the Americans. I think David Cameron should have to apologise personally to every single remaining soldier who fought in the second world war and then he should resign and then just fuck off to some PR company repurposing cross-media architectures and sunsetting ideas to incubate frictionless mindshare and other such bullshit.

Further motivation to move to Canada came in the awful shape of some stupid 60 year old woman who wants to sue Simon Cowell as she felt humiliated on one of his telly shows. I'm still not sure if I didn't dream that because correct me if I'm wrong crazy woman, but those shows exist purely to humiliate people, that is their purpose.

If you went on their believing it was a genuine talent show and that reality TV shows of this nature are a genuine career path then I'm afraid you deserve to humiliated. Personally, I think people like you should be chained to railings in the dankest darkest part of a mental institution, fed rotten meat and prodded twice a day with sharp sticks.

Finally Nick Griffin appears to be in the news again. Banned from meeting the Queen at a Palace garden party - as if he was ever likely to get even within half a mile of her majesty. Although I heard the Duke of Edinburgh was really rather looking forward to meeting him.

This man is no more relevant in British politics than Howling Laud Hope of the Monster Raving Loony Party yet we remain as obsessed by him and his silly little party as the various History channels are with Hitler and his hence men. Why might this be I wonder?

I'm off to listen to some country music and forget where I live. I suggest you do the same.

In your face Mr baseball player man

2010-07-22T00:48:00.002+01:00

BT woman is whore of Babylon

2010-07-21T22:43:00.005+01:00

Weerrrrr why doesn't Dad ever want to speak to me?

..I'll tell you why, cause he doesn't give a shit what Mrs White says and you're a whiny little sprog and you only ever talk about yourself, which no doubt you get from your mother, but anyway, I digress...

The woman in these adverts, Jane..what a fucking whore! Just a few adverts ago as I'm sure ya'll recall, she was pissed off at poor Adam as he took a job (his dream job) near the seaside - probably Cornwall or sommat - yet now, even though they're still apart, in the very latest one which I can't find on the YouToobs yet, she appears to be up the duff!!

Surely BT's Broadband isn't so advanced now that you can fuck someone up over the chat box!? I hate BT, but I want one if you can do that. I wouldn't even need to leave the house. Technology eh?..fucking brilliant.

No but no but, though, but...who has done that to her? Her ex-husband I bet, or just some miscellaneous dick she had in a club one night at 2am while her kids were at home on their own. She'll say it's Adam's of course and hope his maths isn't too good. All so he'll give up his dream job and come back to her.

Women I tell you what, put on this earth to crush all the hopes and aspirations of anyone with a Y chromosome, just like an acorn under the oppressive boot of a Gestapo agent. If I can't be happy you can't be either. Misery loves company.

Heads or tales

2010-07-19T03:57:00.006+01:00

I despair. I utterly utterly despair. I know I washed my hands with the world again last week, but something just caught my eye and I tried so very hard to look away but I just kept on reading, now I'm pissed off again.

Not satisfied with sending our armed forces to fight two pointless wars with less equipment than a cub scout troop take on a camping weekend, it appears the MoD are now about to Court Marshall a Gurkha just because he happened to do his job in a way that might have upset the enemy. Someone wake Joanna Lumley up cause this is just bullshit.

Until I read about this Gurkha I've always felt that Sgt. Barnes from Platoon was the most badass soldier of recent times. If you've seen the film you'll recall that the only thing that stopped Barnes from killing Charlie Sheen's character at the end in that monumental gun fight was when a Jet fighter screamed overhead and dropped napalm on his head and even that only stunned him for a few hours.

But back to our Gurkha friend. His unit were tasked with shooting some high ranking Taliban dude, but they also had to recover his body so they could prove they'd killed him.

So, they do indeed shoot the guy, but they come under such heavy fire that they can't drag his body back with them...so, using his initiative the Gurkha pulls out his kukri knife and cuts the man's head off so they can just take that back and identify him from that as he knows anecdotal evidence will not be sufficient. Job done as far as I'm concerned. Good thinking, thank you very much and fuck me I'm glad he's on our side surely?

Apparently though, and this is the thing that'll keep me awake tonight, he's been sent back to the UK to face a possible Court Martial because - desecrating a dead body in this way is...I can hardly bring myself to type the words....is offensive to Muslims!!

Offensive...so fucking what if it's offensive? What in the name of Christ in sandals has that got to do with anything? Those are their beliefs not ours. Do you want this man dead or don't you? Surely shooting him was quite offensive too, but that was OK? They find it offensive we're even in their country, but we're still there aren't we?

How in God's name are these people supposed to do their job if they have to fight according to a phone-book sized manual of bullshit rules and regulations...none of which are observed by the other side?

This Gurkha dude who isn't even English but has generously volunteered to fight our bullshit wars for us isn't allowed to remove some random dead punters head, meanwhile the Taliban - who don't wear uniforms - can shoot British soldiers and then just throw their weapons away, pick up a spade and claim to be farmers and there's nothing we can do about it. Then when they gets home they can have a cold glass of goats milk while and watch some poor woman being stoned to death because she showed a postage-stamp sized piece of skin to someone she wasn't related to.

I don't have enough space on this blog to list everything that offends me about Islam, but I very much doubt they'd stop doing any of them out of respect for my sensibilities. Now, I know the Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamene reads my blog so I tell you what you smelly breathed, bearded goat fucker..I'll email in to the MoD and see if I can stop the Gurkha's from cutting the heads of your mates in Afghanistan if you admit that the sky fairy you worship is no more likely to exist than garden fairies and the Loch Ness Monster and the only real reason for your oppression of women is because you're gay and you're overcompensating. Deal?

Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamene enjoying a
lap dance from one of his own sons yesterday

That was the Weekend that was

2010-07-18T10:46:00.007+01:00

I had an horrific shock yesterday when I was flicking through the channels and came across T*ttenham playing a friendly against San Jose Earthquake on ESPN. They ought to have some sort of parental controls when they show Sp*rz games, like a warning or something and you have to punch in a PIN if you want to continue so you're not caught unawares by an utter shower of shit while you're eating.

I hear the game finished 0-0. Couple of things struck me funny. First of all, what the hell kind of kit is that the N17ers are sporting this year? It looks like something you can pick up from Paulie Two Thumbs' pound empire. And also why would you name your team "Earthquake"? A natural disaster, especially in a part of the world plagued by them? Is there a team in the Philippines called the Manilla Tsunamis? Or perhaps a team in Ethiopia called the Addis Ababa Famine? Very strange.

Meanwhile Arsenal gave the might of Barnet a sound 4-0 thrashing. Barnet being a similar standard to MLS in US of States. Jack Wilshire looked amazing. He's some how aged about 5 years over the summer and although I may get carried away sometimes with the cabillion of prospects Arsenal have in their ranks, I have a feeling in my testicles that this man will be something very special. It's about time someone called Jack rose to prominence in England. Good traditional football name is that. I think Arsenal have someone called Wilf too. Awesome.

In other news, as of the start of the new season, possibly sooner, you lucky lucky people will be able to digest my views and opinions of the various Mexican players now playing in the Premier League - and also to a lesser extent those playing in Europe at http://mexico.worldcupblog.org/

Thank you to Al for the invite. Hopefully Gio will be loaned out by T*ttenham so I won't have to discuss them, but I'm looking forward to watching Pablo Barrera, Carlos Vela and Chicharito and also God bless him Efrain Juarez who has for some reason agreed to play for Celtic. I can only assume his agent didn't mention what sort of places he'll be asked to play and how utterly shit Scottish football is. I know Mexico has it's problems, but will living in Scotland offer a more secure future? How will he cope with fried Mars bars? Let's hope for his sake a proper team picks him up as soon as possible.

Estoy siempre soplando burbujas: Pablo Barrera yesterday

* * *

Finally, obviously I wasn't even close to getting up in time to venture out to Nottingham for the Super 50 thing, but I feel I can manage to find the motivation to don some coordinated evening wear and head over to Abingdon for their 20/20/20 game. It feels like weeks and weeks since I last played poker, mostly because it has been so all things being even I should be home by about 8pm.

Why it has to be a syrup

2010-07-17T21:39:00.004+01:00

I can't watch the darts while Denis Ovens is on. His wig is tilting me. Why would you wear a wig if everyone knows it's a wig? If the syrup you're sporting is more ridiculous looking than just being bald surely that defeats the purpose? And being bald doesn't look bad anyway in fact.

And it must be a wig. Let's look at the evidence: It's always ALWAYS exactly the same length. You never see him with a really silly short haircut post-barbers, or with it looking in need of a cut.

He never ever ever touches it, clearly for fear of it slipping off. It gets very hot and sweaty on those TV stages and he's the only player that doesn't wipe his forehead with a towel for fear of dislodging his fake barnet.

Also, the parting - where the hair parts you cannot see any scalp. It's too thick, this is a clear sign of wiggage. Finally the colour, It's all the same colour. He's getting on a bit yet his hair shows no signs of greying and most people have lighter patches on their hair anyway through exposure to the sun no?

Denis, I know you read my blog. Get a grip. You look like a lego man.

Things women think are fashionable but aren't #1

2010-07-16T17:21:00.006+01:00

What the fuck?

Pensioner boots. Who on earth decided these monstrosities were an essential addition to a girl's wardrobe? These things are fine if you're a pensioner trying to keep warm in the winter. They're clearly comfortable, practical and warm so yes of course if you're surviving on a budget and suffer from painful arthritis they make perfect sense. And if you live in a place perpetually covered with ice, than fine they serve as great slippers, but if you're under 35..get the fuck out. Have a word with yourself, you look fucking stupid.

If you're still of an age where you have to pay to get on the bus and don't need to be lowered into the bath by a carer then the kind of boots you should be wearing are the kind that make Richie growl. Something like this for example..

Improv everywhere

2010-07-16T03:26:00.003+01:00

I love how a few people don't even look twice when a bunch of
storm troopers enters their train. Only in New York.

See, this is proof the world can be a fun place if we just tried a little harder. I say enough..enough I say of the shouting and fighting and the shootings and the stabbings of each other and the thing where wars start because of who has the most omnipotent sky fairy. ENOUGH! And more over, much more of the pretending to be a storm trooper and being frozen and similar things which make us laugh and in turn subdue our need for the violent stuff I just mentioned. A circular sort of ouroboros antidote for our social ills.

The end.

Feel the wrath in DTD

2010-07-15T20:17:00.005+01:00

Since I washed my hands with the world again I've found I have nothing to say about anything and although I prefer it this way I'm afraid it means the blog will now be reduced to posts about what sort of sandwiches I've eaten recently and of course details on how I've thrown monies away indiscriminately on ill thought out wagers and 2am Ebay purchases.

Before we get to that I think this is as good a time as any to announce that as my birthday this year falls on the same day as the next £300 game at DTD (August 7th) - that I always consider playing, but ultimately end up missing in favour of mooching about at home in some coordinated lounge wear - I will definitely play it this time around.

It will be different not simply because I won't have to stump up the buy-in, but also cause I feel it'll be cheaper than going to the Fox and playing PLO as I did last year on my birthday playing under the influence of various lagers and Turkish whiskeys.

Sooooo, for those that both know me and enjoy the odd hand of poker, you're of course all welcome to join me. I believe they have a £50 game the same evening if the £300 does not appeal.

I am also considering playing the 6-Max APAT event at the end of August and in fact the £50 deepstack thing at DTD this Saturday and by "consider" I mean have genuine intentions of playing but again ultimately probably staying here and trying on all my hats or something instead.

At this point I have nothing else to say. I have a fish pie cooking as we speak so I shall excuse myself if you don't mind. I'll bid you good day.

Booooring

2010-07-09T22:48:00.007+01:00

If you can keep your head when all about you are
losing theirs you must be a German goalkeeper

According to Paul the Octopus the worst World Cup in recent memory will be won by Spain on Sunday. I really would rather the Dutch won as I stand to win more, but in real terms I've found, just like the tournament in the USA in 1994 and the one hostaed by the aliens in 2002, I just want it to be over so we can all quickly forget it ever happened.

What will be the lasting memory of this World Cup? There hasn't been one and if the final is a typical one, there isn't going to be one. Just the irritating maddening resonance of those plastic trumpets. This is what happens when you stage the World Cup outside of Europe or South/Central America. Why don't they just always hold it in Mexico for crying out loud?

Everyone knows the World Cup should be held in unbearable temperatures and stamina sapping humidity so that at least one high profile player is caught on camera vomiting down his front. Heat causes poor judgment and mistakes and these all make for far better games.

World Cups are never about beautiful football, the best World Cups have been the ones with the most controversial incidents; Spain 1982 - Harold Schumacher almost taking Patrick Battiston head clean off his shoulders (above), Mexico 1986 - Diego Maradona cheating with every step he took, 1990 - Frank Rijkaard spitting deep into Rudi Völler's mullet (below), USA 1994 - er..Diana Ross missing a penalty? gay, France 1998 - David Beckham's petulance, 2002 South Korea/Japan - nothing, didn't happen and Germany 2006 - Zinedine Zidane's chestual headbutting of Marco Matorazzi.

This World Cup will be remembered for forgettable games and mind numbingly boringly punditry. If there had of been a stampede as I had predicted, it would have been caused by thousands of people desperately trying to flee from the stadiums before another freekick is ballooned into the Indian ocean from forty yards or another 1-0 game is played to a finish in freezing temperatures by players who so desperately want to be somewhere else.

In real terms I have to say I'd rather have spent the past few weeks in Rothbury.

Spitting image: Frank Rijkaard could have faced a lengthy time ban
had he not been gobbing at a German.

Breaking news: On a brighter note, I've just heard Michel Platini has collapsed while he was his tea and his now in hospital. Please let it be something painful so he shit himself while wearing light coloured pants.

The gayest gunman ever?

2010-07-09T22:04:00.009+01:00

So I'm just now watching the News and it appears the police up north have finally cornered this Raoul Moat fella, but...and I'm laughing as I type this....they can't arrest him because he's holding a sawn-off shotgun to his own throat. Yes, the police cannot apprehend the man as he is holding himself hostage. He's using the tactic Sheriff Bart used in Blazing Saddles to get away from the imbred gun touting racist villagers who wanted to shoot him.

It's embarrassing really. I can't think of another country where the police would try and negotiate in a situation like this. I can't imagine the LAPD or the French Gendarmes being so considerate. What difference does it make if he shoots himself?

Surely the most gay gunman siege ever. A farce from start to finish. His name is Raoul for a start. He only shot that first bloke initially cause he thought he was a policeman.

Poor Raoul must have let out the biggest loudest D'oh ever when the police pointed out to him that the dude wasn't a copper after all....making his 50 page letter about how he's going to kill every policeman in the country seem a bit daft really.

Despite every armed policeman in the country joining the search as well as the SAS, Dog the Bounty Hunter and a friggin' Tornado! it's taken a week to find him and now they have found him hidden in a bush they don't know how to get him out, he's not a f*cking man eating lion!

Whatever happened to come out with your hands up or we'll shoot? Is that not in the manual anymore? Sigh..when we needed Marion Cabretti or Dirty Harry or Sledgehammer we got a woman called Sue who'd struggle to cope with a pack of unruly Brownies. F*cking suffragettes.

Does my bum look big in this skirt?: Pretend Chief Constable Sue Sim making inquiries
in Rothbury yesterday.

Breaking news: Now they're bringing him something to eat! You couldn't make it up. Do they want this to end or not? If you don't want to shoot him fine, but don't make him more comfortable. Why not read him a story too? Next they'll all offer to turn their backs while he has a poo and he'll do a runner again. Shocking scenes.

Oh fuck me, they've drafted in Gazza to have a word with him. Come on lad, let's go fishing.

Giving up

2010-07-07T13:38:00.007+01:00

It's been many years now since our police force were of any use to anyone in danger or in need of assistance, but this whole manhunt business in Northumberland is really quite pathetic all the same. It's not Bin Laden they're searching for after all.

They're all very impressive looking these armed police dudes with their big guns, police issue chewing gum and knee pads and I'm sure they can all shoot up paper targets with the best of them, but when it's a crazed Geordie they have to deal with who might actually shoot back, suddenly they don't seem quite so gung-ho.

Alarmingly it's clear that the police don't really have a clue what they're doing. The police can't solve a burglary these days yet they're expected to deal efficiently with massacres and potential massacres. Sadly, the good people of Rothbury and Whitehaven may has well have called the Avon Lady.

If you have a problem and no one else can help and if
you can find her, maybe you can hire the Avon Lady

Just now a dude who appears to be in charge has announced in a press conference that he feels this Moat chap is hiding out in woodlands and in the very next sentence appeals to him to give himself up. How's he supposed to hear this appeal? Does Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson think Moat has a flat screen TV in his tent?

Give yourself up!? Is he taking the piss? You know the police have run out of ideas when they resort to actually asking the bloke to hand himself in. He might as well have just said, "we don't really know what to do..is there any chance you could just sort of..you know..just give up like?" Have we tried this with the Taliban in Afghanistan, "Alright lads, call it a draw and let's go home?"

Of course the real reason all these hundreds of armed police are completely redundant is that there's a very real chance Health and Safety regulations explicitly prevent them from engaging anyone who might actually shoot back at them as this would put their lives in danger.

Like life guards at swimming pools who aren't actually allowed to dive into the pool if someone's drowning as it might put their life in danger too - they just have to sort of stand at the side of the pool making swimming gestures with their arms and waving one of those lasso type poles at the hapless drowning swimmer.

This is effectively what the police seem to be doing up in Northumberland. Not actually trying to find the dude and shoot him in his horrible red face, just sort of standing on the side lines making gestures and hoping he'll do the decent thing and either surrender or shoot himself.

It's also pissing me off that they continue to refer to him as Mr Moat. Why so polite? He's been shooting people, he's proved he's an horrible c*nt..you don't have to be so civil. Why not call him fucko and see what happens. That's what Harvey Keitel would do.

Sigh, Moat might not want to give up, but I do. It's time I washed my hands with the world again. As of now I'm only interested in watching spaghetti westerns and eating sammiches that have spicy sausage in them.

Freeze bitches!: Armed police seize a couple of pensioners suspected of hiding
gunman Raoul Moat in their picnic basket. Two sun loungers were seized.

* * *

Sport now and I'm backing Spain to win on penalties this evening. I'd love to see a Dutch v Jormans final, but alas I fancy Spain to ruin what could potentially have been a classic and violent contest. There's always the chance the Spanish will sleep in and not be quite ready for the game, but ultimately I have to side with Paul the Octopus on this one.

Spain win says Paul the Octopus

2010-07-06T16:09:00.005+01:00

Paul the Octopus has predicted a Spain win in their semi-final with Jerry. This is intriguing. I really wanted to see a Netherlands/Germany final. I felt that had much potential to descend into chaos on and off the pitch.

It's possible of course he is wrong, it's all good natured stuff isn't it, not to be taken seriously. Unless of course you're Argentinian. Apparently after he predicted Germany would beat them, a newspaper in Argentina gave a recipe for Paella and dared anyone to capture him and kill him. They really are fun people the Argies, it baffles me why no one likes them.

All is not lost for the Bosch. According to the Daily Telegraph the only time Paul got a prediction wrong in the 2008 European Championships was when he predicted Germany would beat Spain in the final. So perhaps he's wrong again this time just the other way round.

The end.

Mob WSOP main event last longer wager

2010-07-06T05:01:00.002+01:00

Kara Scott is your winner.

RIP #24

2010-07-06T01:38:00.003+01:00

The NHL's best ever enforcer big bad Bob Probert died today. This is very sad news. He was perhaps the perfectly balanced hockey player - half man, half cocktail or narcotics - so perhaps this is not a total shock, but at 45 that's still far too young ain't it?

I used to have a huge big portrait of Bob Probert on my wall. I know he spent one or two years with Detroit and did some stuff there for a few games or something, but surely his best years were in Chicago - certainly most of his best arrests and domestic disturbances were while he was a Blackhawk.

Very sad to hear this. I remember reading once in one of the Chicago papers before he was traded to Chicago that Hell would freeze over before he'd play for Chicago after being such a legend at Detroit - let's hope that's finally happened and he's down there now skating around dropping the gloves with some of history's biggest arse-holes.

Happy "Independence Day"

2010-07-04T15:22:00.005+01:00

Happy Independence day everyone. Can it really only be 234 years since we finally managed to separate ourselves from our rebellious progeny? Our bastard son of a thousand maniacs. How time flies. Bless them to this day they still think they actually defeated us in that war..haha. They remind me of a small boy playing football in the park with his father who reels off in celebration after scoring a goal as his Dad lies prostrate on the ground feigning disappointment.

Over two centuries have past and they still haven't cottoned on to the fact that the whole damn shooting match was a ruse to make the separation on our part look reluctant. I'm laughing at their naivety as I type this.

Yes America, we really fought hard in that war, pheeeeweeee we really really did try our very hardest to win, cause of course back then when our Empire spanned a quarter of the globe we always sent a bunch of peasants and freelance lazy French and Spanish mercenary types to fight our wars for us.

It's in fact how we managed to build our Empire in the first place. Not sending in Professionally trained troops with stiff upper British lips and a Henry-Martin - no no - we sent in a bunch of Frenchy types who spent most of the afternoon eating onions or chasing after native girls shouting "Voulez-vous voir la malle de mon éléphant" ...do you want to see my Elephant's trunk.

Bless our ignorant progeny. Perhaps they know the truth and just refuse to accept it so they can still light up a load of fireworks every July 4th. I'll just let them get on with it. Telling them would be like telling a four year old that Father Christmas didn't exist.

Proper schadenfreude - Argies 0-4 Gormany

2010-07-03T16:54:00.001+01:00

All together now....

Maradona pelado

2010-07-03T14:02:00.003+01:00

This is the moment Paul the Octopus (born in the UK but raised in Germany) predicted a win for the Teutonic sausage eaters. He hesitated so this may suggest either Extra-Time or penalties. I myself have wagered £93.46 on overs 2.5.

I would prefer this to be an evening kick-off. A night game would have a far greater atmosphere under which to breed controversy and violence. I'm encouraged that a mini war of words has been waged these past few days.

If only there was a market on Betfair for how many times the Argentinian players will behave like utter c*nts during the game. I'd be on overs 10.5.

I do hope the German's win. There was a time when I considered ze Jormans to be equally as evil as Argentina, but no not now. I quite like them in fact. I want to see Argentina lose, firstly because it will be so crushing to a nation perpetually on the brink of collapse and because Maradona promised to run through the streets of Buenos Aires naked if they win the World Cup.

I want to see Argentina reduced to such social collapse they make Somalia look like a model democracy. I want them reduced to eating each other to stay alive and Maradona being such a fat bastard be the first course. I've also backed Paraguay.

Good day to you.

Eeeek noooo arghhh hoorah

2010-07-02T22:04:00.004+01:00

Urrrghhh...So now Ghana v Uruguay - with two minutes left in Extra-Time I have a feeling in my bones it's not going to penalties - I swiftly leap to my computron and fire up Betfair. I deposit £10 with the intention of having a cheeky £5 on each team to win in Extra-Time.

Uruguay is matched. Ghana I only get £3.04 matched leaving my balance at £1.96, which I can't now have on Ghana as I've clicked cancel unmatched bets and it's less than the £2 minimum. Meanwhile the prices are rising and Ooooooh penalty to Ghana. Fuck my life. I stand only to win £28 when I could have won much more if I could have had the last remaining £1.96 on.

But though but....they miss it anyway! I don't even get my measly £28. Awful game silly bollocks tits.

Trade Unions

2010-07-02T16:50:00.008+01:00

Just thought I'd make it clear to silly English Andy Murray fans that if you're going to adopt someone as one of your own despite them being from a different country purely on the strength of thier country being in a Union with England, then you may as well adopt Rafael Nadal as he's from Spain and they're members of the European Union - which is unfortunately a far greater Union than the UK.

Thank crunchy it's Friday

2010-07-01T22:52:00.004+01:00

So today was all rather arduous in all fairness. I know I'm going to struggle stamina wise when I have to get up in the morning. My feet feel a good 3 or 4 kilos heavier before about 4pm.

It was the second part of my annual review at the big house. After knocking out a comparitively awesome lung-function test last week - the best one since Mexico were cheated out of a quarter final place in 2006 by Argentina as it goes (I'm seeing a pattern here) - today however it was shit again. It was nice while it lasted.

They sent me off to have an ultra-sound. While I was sat in the very very quiet waiting room I was desperate to fart, but didn't want to offend anyone - I must stop eating jalepeno peppers before I go to bed. In fact I should not have been so concerned with my fellow Ultra-Soundees' sensibilities as the gas within me made it rather tricky for the Doctor dude to see my innards clearly. I think there's a lesson in this for us all.

In other news I'll be campaigning to have those little hats nurses used to wear re-instated. I think all of this country's social ills can be regressed back to when they decided to ditch those little caps. Why did they?

Probably some silly PC bullshit as male nurses didn't have to wear them. Male nurses - bah - what's the matter, too stupid to become a Doctor? Get a man's job and leave all the fondling and bed sheet folding to the womenfolk that's what I always say.

Sport now and the mini World Cup drought ends tomorrow with the first two quarter finals. Over on Paulie Two Thumbs' blog he appears to be pulling for a Brazil win as he has the most invested in them having backed the Dutch and Brazil pre-tournament. I myself am in the opposite situation. I also backed the Dutch and Brazil, but the Brazilians were my saver as it were. I have £530 monies coming my way if the Dutch can finally lose their tag as the best country never to win the World Cup and £68 if the Brazilians win.

I'm very disappointed they have to play each other. I fear for the Dutch. It's about this time of the World Cup when they start to argue amongst each other and put cigars in each others eyes. I was hoping that their unofficial "selection policy" may have allowed them to circumvent their inner squabbles, but I've heard tell of a Robin Van Persie temper tantrum so who knows. The Dutch are a funny nation - all clogs and funny accents on the outside, but when you take a closer look at the nation, they're actually quite unpleasant people. Still...who cares?

In the other quarter-final tomorrow I fancy some violence and a red-card. On Saturday it's been determined by Paul the Octopus that Germany will beat Argentina again and jolly good too. Paul has a 100% record in predicting Germany's World Cup results so far, even predicting their loss to Serbia! I shall be lumping on Germany and eating sausage in their honour.

Sky sports news news

2010-06-29T17:49:00.005+01:00

I have been meaning to get one or two things off my chest regarding the Argentinians, but that will have to wait as I've just been watching Sky Sports and I'm afraid there's a very real possibility that young Georgie Thompson may very well be up the duff.

That little fucker, Ant or Dec, which ever one it is she's inexplicably given permission to interfere with her sexually, has gone and ruined her for all men.

Sadly she appears to be one of those women that get very fat when they're in the club. Whether it be her metabolism, perhaps she has Greek ancestry, or perhaps she's always wanted to let her self go and now has an excuse, but either way I'm afraid to say in six or seven months she will have become an unrecognisable and bloater.

It's such a shame when this happens to beautiful women. But the Gods and Goddesses can be jealous and cruel judges. Let us now observe a moments silence to mourn the passing of a once delicious creature sadly now inedible.

Amen.

el destino de México

2010-06-27T21:37:00.006+01:00

Ciña ¡oh Patria! tus sienes de oliva, de la paz el arcángel divino,
que en el cielo tu eterno destino, por el dedo de Dios se escribió.

El Tri tonight have avenged history. Argentina have been broken. Mexico has a new dawn and will enjoy a brighter future. The nemesis of the Albiceleste has been put to the sword. The score of the game of course is not important. But let the past be forgotten and posterity rejoice in this victory.

There is no need to search for a recount of the game, you only need to trust in me as a witness to the slaughter. There has been such a defeat of Argentina in fact, that there is no need for my loyal readers even to watch anymore of the tournament.

I say to everyone, switch off your televisions until sort of Mid-July. The conclusion to the tournament is decided. Mexico is the World Champions. The whole world is genuflecting to the power and the glory of El Tri as we speak.

The sun has arrived in recognition of the power of Mexico. It is a message from God. Go out of your homes...turn off your televisions and radios and do not buy newspapers or any other form of sports news media. Trust only in God.

Viva Mexico! Campeones del Mundo! Via Con Dios mi amigos y guerreros. Beunos Noches.

Here come the Men in Black

2010-06-27T12:37:00.005+01:00

Mexican of the day

2010-06-27T01:56:00.003+01:00

Ochoooooooooooooooa

Even among the apostles there was a Judas

2010-06-26T19:00:00.006+01:00

So I abandon England for reasons stated elsewhere and I decide to adopt a new team five years ago just to give me a casual interest in the World Cups when they come around and now I find myself for all intents and purposes a naturalised Mexican as nervous about meeting Argentina tomorrow as I ever have been when England have played them in previous tournaments. Bugger!

Speaking of naturalised Mexicans, the biggest Argentinian threat to Mexico tomorrow is not in my opinion Lionel Messi, it's Guillermo Franco - Mexico's first choice striker born in Argentina but now a Mexican.

Every fan of El Tri is scratching their heads wondering my this man continues to demand a place in the starting line-up. El Vasco's tactics and team selections are as baffling as Rafael Benetiz's or Sven Goran Erikssons.

He plays Temo Blanco from the start against Uruguay for example. A Mexican footballing legend yes, and still a clever player, but he's 37 and weighs the same as a small pony. Conejo Perez in goal! Poor Oscar would be a great keeper if he weren't 5ft 6. Why does Memo Ochoa not play in goal why why?

Baffling stuff, but no more baffling than putting a striker up front who just can't score. Not as bad as Heskey, but bad enough. Goals are a rare commodity in the World Cup and it beggars belief you would voluntarily handicap yourself in this department.

For all their great team spirit and optimism I fear that Franco has plans to bring the team down from within. The Argentinians are a sly beast with no honour and I would not put anything past them. Why must it always be Germany or Argentina who crush my World Cup dreams? Why God, why?

:

Another fine Messi

2010-06-25T15:11:00.005+01:00

I tell you what, I'm just watch now watching Brazil v Portugal and it has to be said that Ronaldo is an incredibly ugly footballer. I'm not talking about his facial features, although to me he looks he looks like a shemale, I mean the way he plays the game.

His tricks and step-overs and silly back heels are effective, but it's incredibly ugly to watch and mostly unnecessary. He's all knees and elbows and splashes of hair gel. It's some sort of football Riverdance bullshit. A show pony with silly oiled nipples and a lemon scented penis I should think.

Lionel Messi on the other hand may play for one of the most evil and cowardly nations on the planet, but he knows how to play the beautiful game. He IS the beautiful game people. He's everything Ronaldo isn't. He's humble, quiet and has a face like a slapped arse, but he floats about the pitch like some sort of specter. Ghosting past people with subtle body movements and speed that belies his little squat body. No need for thirty step overs, just a slight dropping of the shoulder and he's away.

Lionel Messi is a genius. Where as Ronaldo's tricks are an end in themselves rather than a means to end, Messi uses a master plan to make his way through an entire defense. It's all calculated in a split second and then executed even faster and six or seven defenders are left with nothing but a distinct whiff of Old Spice in the air and sense they've just been made to look very silly.

It's a shame really that Messi's team will be run through with Mexican steel on Sunday as I'd love to see more of him, but there's no room for sentiment here people - he must be slughtered. Ronaldo on the other hand I could do with seeing much less of.

Cry for me Argentina

2010-06-23T16:18:00.005+01:00

After the slaughter of Uruguay it is somewhat unjust that Mexico now will have to play Argentina having finished second in the group simply because of a technicality. Yes in terms of actual goals scored Uruguay came out on top, but the game was a massacre.

Mexico raped the very soul of Uruguay. The children of Uruguay were drowning in the tears of the motherland yet because of actual goals scored they were foolishly declared the winners by FIFA. This is a treasonous effort by the villains at FIFA to deny Mexico her destiny, but she will not be denied.

The blessing in disguise here is that los guerreros will now be given the opportunity to avenge the conspiracy of the 2006 World Cup that contrived to see Mexico lose in the round of 16 to Argentina.

We will reduce Maradona to tears and the world will see him destroyed and his team of bandits and cowardly parvenus sent home in disgrace.

Viva Mexico!!

Mexico v Uruguay

2010-06-21T22:24:00.006+01:00

So now that the elation from serving up such a catastrophic thrashing to France has subsided, it's back to business tomorrow. Ordinarily this game would be a formality as both teams will qualify if the match is drawn. I'm not so shooowa this is how events will transpire however.

First of all, my Mexican brothers are of course warriors. It is not in their DNA to settle for a stalemate. This is a war and the Uruguayans are the enemy and all must be slaughtered one by one until their blood runs like a river through the muddy and broken streets of Rustenburg.

Secondly, even if El Tri were as yella as France or as weak hearted as the Italians it would still serve no purpose not to fight for the victory no? If Mexico finish second in the group - which they would if the game is drawn - they will almost certainly have to play Argentina in the round of 16.

This of course is not a game El Tri can't win (they were cheated out of a victory of Argentina in the same round last world cup) as Diego Maradona is clearly a crazy man and is just as likely to play one of his cousins in a central striking role as Lionel Messi. However, it's not ideal. The knock-out stages of the World Cup are very much like making love to a beautiful woman who has been unknown to man - one has to ease into her gently before pounding away to a glorious climax.

Maradona praying not have to meet Mexico in the round of 16 yesterday.

By my way of thinking my boys are far better served attempting to defeat Uruguay and possibly risk being eliminated in the group stages, than contriving a cowards stalemate for the sole purpose of making it one round deeper and going out anyway to a cheating Argentinian side aided by a referee probably from the state of Arizona who won't let the Mexicans on the pitch without seeing their papers first.

Finally, it may have been three years ago, but surely the Uruguayans have not yet fully recovered from the massacre of Venezuela where El Tri defeated them 3-1 to take third place in the Copa America with blistering goals from Omar Bravo and Andres Guardado and a penalty from Temo Blanco with the customary twenty yards run up.

VAMOS MEXICO

Disgraceful scenes

2010-06-20T22:07:00.003+01:00

I have the utmost sympathy this evening for the Brazilian team after such a farcical sending off of Kaka who is the son of God. I mean really, it's like sacrilege to cheat the legendary Brazilian team in this way. They are the custodians of fair play and the embodiment of the World Cup spirit. Where on Earth did that cheating Ivorian get that idea from?

Tee hee

2010-06-19T11:21:00.004+01:00

The English inquisition begins

2010-06-18T21:57:00.002+01:00

Just why have England been so shit over

the years? I just can't work it out can you?

Refereeing Hitlers

2010-06-18T14:33:00.007+01:00

Tee hee, Jerry have just been beaten by a Serbian team aided and abetted by a Spanish referee clearly sponsored by the company who manufacture the yellow and red cards. I do so love abysmal referees in these tournaments. I find them to be one of the World Cup's most endearing eccentricities - especially as Mexico enjoy the advantage of having one less shit ref that can take control of their games as the Mexican referee is amongst the very worst of them.

I had concerns early doors that the Saudi referee in charge of Mexico's slaughtering of the French yesterday would destroy the game as a contest after giving Guillermo Franco a yellow card early doors for frowning with intent to snarl and ordering Ricardo Osorio to roll his shirt sleeves down! but in fact he turned out to be OK.

Up until this afternoon it has to be said the worst referee so far in this tournament was Mexican referee Marco Rodriguez who cannot wait to get up in the morning to send someone off. It's usually the latin refs who are the worst as they're all so theatrical and love the attention. Also the refs from small football nations tend to get a little over zealous in order to compensate for their countries diminutive footballing stature.

As a rule of thumb, if the referee has latin blood thrashing through his veins or from a country that has no professional football league I will always bet on there being a sending off. And why not, if it means Germany lose and I make monies, then I'm all for it.

Good evening

2010-06-17T21:49:00.003+01:00

Like the aging French team keeping warm with blankets and Bovril,
I think it's time for me to take it easy (easier) and possibly get myself a budgie

Now then people, I've managed to tunnel out of hospital and made it home - many thanks to the courageous work of the resistance without whom I'd still be strapped to a hospital bed - I thought I'd just knock out a quick update on what's been occurring before my Horlicks grows tepid.

So obviously I managed to get myself into a bit of a sorry condition over these past few weeks culminating in what I can only describe as a hazy half-conscious presence last Thursday at my father's funeral where, like my Dad, I was present physically but in all other respects I was elsewhere.

In real terms I feel I had less oxygen in my lungs that day than you'd find in the lower atmosphere of Beijing at rush hour and I do apologise to anyone who may have spoken to me that day and offered me their condolences only to be met with a blank stare from my milky blood shot eyes. You may have assumed I was just upset, the reality I'm afraid was I was just unable to pay attention to anything anyone was saying.

Over the next week or so now that I am at least 80-85% human again I will set about contacting everyone who has been so supportive these past few weeks. I may not have been verbally able to convey my thanks last week, but it has been very much appreciated. I may also set about making some sense of these past few weeks' occurrences.

Elsewhere in my little world despite being home now, this little episode will probably require one or two lifestyle changes and vast quantities of coup and casserole. I will almost certainly have to ban walking. I'll leave that sort of thing to Ian Botham. I may have to abandon any further drinking sessions that cause three day hang-overs and the loss of one's eye-sight. I may even have to consider eating more vegetables.

Essentially I will take on the life of Granddad Boswell from the old Carla Lane sitcom 'Bread,' with or without the budgie. I have been reminded in no uncertain terms that I'm not as young as I used to be and of course when one becomes too old to hunt for buffalo, it's time to stay back with the women folk and make necklaces and I'm OK with this. It sounds fun.

On a brighter note Mexico have just given France and absolute slaughtering. I hear there are thousands of French onion breathed infrequent bathers slashing their wrists in disgust on the Champs Elysees as we speak. More on the World Cup later. In the meantime, some Horlicks. Thanks you all again, I'll bid you good evening.

Blackhawks win!

2010-06-10T05:05:00.002+01:00

The most miserable Beano ever

2010-06-09T17:40:00.004+01:00

Couple of things struck me funny when I saw this photograph this afternoon. First of all David Beckham is in it. Why is he there? Does he get to go to all World Cups from now on even though he's effectively finished as a player? If so, why does he?

Beckham has managed to weave himself somehow into the very fabric of English football. English football and Beckham are now coupled together in some sort of symbiosis that surely can only end in tragedy. For like conjoined twins, for one to live, the other must die. I therefore hope Beckham lives forever.

The second thing I found intriguing here is that Jack Bauer is in the front passenger seat. I know safari's are dangerous and of course the England team need protection, but Jack Bauer? How much have they coughed out for the 24 hours he was put in charge of security? I bet it was millions. I thought there was a recession on. Bloody footballers. Different planet the lot of them.

Finally, look how utterly miserable they all look, with the exception of Frank Lampard who'd clearly been taking crafty swigs from a bottle of codeine cough syrup as the day progressed. This for me is one of the fundamental reasons why England have no chance of success at this World Cup, they simply don't seem like they really enjoy each others company.

They're at the World Cup surrounded by some of the most incredible landscapes on the planet if you just ignore the townships - yet they look like a bunch of teenagers on a day out in Margate with their parents who have been arguing all day. Do cheer up fellas.

Initial World Cup wagering

2010-06-08T10:41:00.003+01:00

Now that my bollocks have recovered from being well and truly done at this years General Election, it's time now I feel to re-do them with some World Cup wagering and why not?

With just three days to go, I have invested in the following:

Outright win; Mexico (150.0), Netherlands (13.0), Brazil (6.2)

Group wagering - straight forecasts; Group B - Argies/S. Korea (5.9), Group C - US of States/England (8.4), Group D - Germany/Ghana (5.2), Group E - Netherlands/Japan (8.4), Group G - Brazil/Ivory Coast (3.3).

Miscellaneous crap; US of States to beat England Saturday June 12th (7.6), Lay - Ronaldo to score 1+ goal (1.49).

Mexico 2 -1 Italy

2010-06-04T00:08:00.007+01:00

Mexico utterly slaughtered the current World Champions today. In terms of actual goals scored it would appear to have been a close game, but of course as the most recent games against England and the Netherlands clearly illustrated, goals are a poor means of measuring the disparity of awesomeness and power between the combatants.

In actual fact only an act of rare pity from the Gods saved Italy from a savage loss of goals which would have handed them a humiliation lasting all of eternity. Posterity will show only a loss by one goal and the details lost to history. The reality was a bloody running through of the Azzurri by the warriors of El Tri.

I am receiving hourly reports of several players of the Italian team being disowned by their families for the dishonour of being so thoroughly vanquished. Silvio Berlusconi himself will address the nation later this evening just as soon as he has finished dictating some crucial correspondence to his seven secretaries.

It remains to be seen whether Italy will now even travel to South Africa to defend their crown which has been so undermined by this bloody and craven disgrace.

Urgh

2010-06-03T15:40:00.006+01:00

Is it me or the world currently an even more shitter place than usual? Personal losses aside, in this country we've got slayings in sleeping seaside towns and another string of prostitute murders.

Over in the middle east, Israel have shot a bunch of Turks delivering medical aid and box sets of CSI: Miami DVD's to the Palestinians. In Merca an oil slick is threatening to absolutely decimate the 2010 swamp snorkling championships in Louisiana.

In Central America torrential rains have opened up the Earth to the extent that the people of Guatemala can actually see hell and in Mexico Nestor De La Torre has dropped Jonathon Dos Santos from the World Cup squad leaving his brother Gio, who is part of the squad, in tears.

What the hell is going on? I don't think it stops here. There's a latent contagion with these things. I fancy it's got something to do with the laws of attraction. What we think about the most happens. So if the whole planet is thinking gloomy thoughts then the place goes to hell in a hand basket.

The World Cup is coming up. I confidently predict an horrendous tragedy here I'm afraid. Some sort of stampede or crush that seems to happen a lot in Africa. Maybe if South Africa score a goal or something. Let's hope it's against France.

I fear to look, yet I cannot turn away.

Losing faith in Israel

2010-06-02T02:57:00.000+01:00

Regardless of the legitimacy of Israel's raison d'état over their Palestinian issues, one has to conclude that this most recent attack on the flotilla carrying aid to Gaza along with several boxes of M&M's and heavy machine gun ammunition was a total balls up. I'd expect this level of incompetence from the Americans but not Israel.

America for example continues to send Marines (water soldiers) to fight in the desert. We of course have logically chosen to use the Desert Rats in the past, particularly in Iraq. We expect America to find a way to lose wars. I'm fairly sure they only succeeded in defeating us in the War of Independence because we were using free lance soldiers from the continent instead of proper soldiers who were being used to safeguard our interests in India. Once this collection of foreign layabouts landed on US soil they found they quite liked it and decided to fight against their employers instead.

The theme here is a complete lack of forethought. Israel has imposed this blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2007 but astonishingly does seem to have had in place a contingency plan for when their Commando's boarding these ships inevitably come under attack - whether it be with guns or office chairs and cups of hot Turkish coffee.

Everyone knows you don't fast rope down onto a tanker if there's a braying mob of angry Muslims waiting for you on the deck. It's basic special forces 101. You don't have to have read Bravo Two Zero to understand this.

Where were the stun grenades? Where were the tear gas canisters. They were to be greeted by Muslims, why not dump a load of pigs on them to disperse the crowd? It's embarrassing. We may be doomed as a nation, we may have generations of adults now without the ability to read or write and our Government might be a collection of nudist, tree bark essence drinking sexual revolutionists, but I pray at least the SAS could still raid a P&O ferry without being slaughtered by thirty or forty school children on a trip to Calais.

World Cup Fantasy League

2010-05-28T05:48:00.004+01:00

The Sammich warriors

A sudden urge to do housework overwhelmed me at about 3:00am and now I can't sleep so I've had a bash at putting together a Telegraph World Cup fantasy football team. My team..the "Sammich Guerreros" is an awesome outfit I'm sure you'll agree.

Why not put a team together yourself and join my league "The Mob et al" PIN: 8002139. It's hours of fun for all the family. Except the women folk of course.

:

WSOP Mob challenge

2010-05-26T21:09:00.004+01:00

Having studied the form religiously over the past twelve months I have compiled the following awesome team of poker talent for to take down the inter-Mob WSOP challenge cup**:

James Akenhead
Peter Eastgate
Lex Velhuis
Jimmy "Fricken ugly" Fricke
J C Tran (El Capitan)
Vanessa Rousso
Little Annette
Phil Ivey
Jeff Shulman

Good luck with all your bets. **We enter under the proviso that winner takes all. No deals, no savers, no negotiations. No nuttun.

Mexico v England cont..

2010-05-26T02:20:00.011+01:00

'El que no brinque es puto' - Anyone not jumping is a bitch
This of course does not apply to the Mexican defense trying to deal with set pieces.

I am almost recovered from witnessing the slaughter of England by my Mexican warriors. Having spent a few hours with a good 4-5000 Mexicans I fail to understand why America is so keen to keep them out of their country.

The Government of course only pretends they want to keep illegals out of the country as their very way of life depends on them sneaking over the boarder to work all the shitty jobs. American people however have no cause to be so hostile.

Mexicans are laid back, they can all play the trumpet, their food is lovely and they all sound like Speedy Gonzalez which is very funny. I was sat in front of the six amigos on Monday I can tell you right now with 100% confidence, if they all lived in my street my life would be up to 45% more enjoyable.

You keeeeeeck like a woooooman: why would you knock up a wall to keep
these honest to goodness chaps out of your world?

On the football side of things I have to say judging by the radio phone in show I listened to on the way home, I was far more satisfied with the game than the England fans were. One of the reasons I was so driven to abandon England six years ago was because of how utterly miserable and negative England fans and the media can be. And this deep seated sense of foreboding is compounded when you look at it from the outside sat amongst 5,000 4ft 8 singing and dancing Mexicans.

You've got a team of world renowned cabillionaire superstar players and Leighton Baines (ha was he really playing??) playing in a cazillion pound stadium, which incidentally is the size of a fucking planet, England win the game in terms of actual goals scored and that apparently is not enough for some fans.

England needs to be tickled. You need to do something to chill the fuck out because if you get your arse hairs up over only beating Mexico in terms of actual goals scored 3-1, then you've got no chance of coping emotionally with getting knocked out of the World Cup in the group stages without expensive professional counseling.

Mexico on the other hand I thought played very well, not entirely a full strength team as they're playing Holland on Wednesday, but encouraging stuff despite the one teeny tiny issue of not being able to hit a cow's culo with a banjo or defend set pieces what with only having one player over 6ft.

They're finishing has been terrible these last few friendly games and I so desperately wanted Carlos Vela the Gooner to score. Chicharito also has been quite, not coincidentally since he joined Manchester United, shit. Never mind though, they will come good and my 150.0 will look ridiculous when they line up once again against England in the Quarter Finals.

England's grumpy old fans were roundly booed in the first half as
they refused to join in with our Mexican wave, only in the second
half when they were winning in terms of actual goals scored did they find a
sense of humour and indulge in some fun.

Mexico v England

2010-05-24T03:22:00.005+01:00

My internets failed two nights ago for no apparent reason and have just now kicked back in again. Weird? I think it may have been from streaming country music radio all day. It couldn't cope with it anymore.

So tomorrow I'm off to Wembley to watch my boys slaughter England. The Mexico section is in one of the corners and I appear to have a seat quite close to the pitch so I ought to get on telly every time there's a corner in that section and of course every time my boys score.

I've had to have a cheeky £20 on Mexico to win at 9.4. I find this an insulting price especially if England are serious about putting Rio Ferdinand in the team and indeed making him captain. I've not heard what's happening with England so maybe that was just a joke, but if it's true England may has well save themselves a lot of money and time by not bothering to travel to South Africa. You'll be lucky if he even remembers to get on the plane. He'll be off buying records somewhere in Manchester when the team are meant to be flying off to the tournament.

Tomorrow I plan to have fun pretending to be Mexican whenever I'm spoken to by a policeman or a steward. It should really bring the thespian out in me. As English people, when we talk to foreigners we like to address them as if they're deaf pensioners if they don't speak English as we assume this will some how help them understand us. It'll be fun to see if this approach is taken with me if they think I don't speak English. GOOD EVENING SIR, YOUR SEEEEEAT IS DOWN THEEEEEEERE ON THE LEEEEEEEFT OHHHH KAAAAAAY?

Yeah cheers geeezer.

It'll be interesting too to see if I'm subjected to any racial abuse. Will an ape like England fan call me a spic or a wetback or a beaner as I negotiate my way back to my car after the game. Find out tomorrow at Voy Por Ustedes.

Bam Bam un gol por ti

2010-05-21T13:58:00.004+01:00

You can keep your World in Motion and your Three Lions - this is a proper World Cup song

World Cup Cassandra-ing

2010-05-20T20:48:00.012+01:00

I've just had a quick goosey at the World Cup betting and it makes for silly reading. England for example are a shorter price than Argentina. Spain are favourites! Mexico have shortened to 110.0 (time to lay-off? tee hee).

I have to agree with young Paulie two thumbs, it makes no sense not to bet on Brazil. They don't have that good a team, but the essential arithmetic here is that the World Cup has been held outside of Europe eight times and Brazil have won four of them - 5/1 on a 2/1 shot then. Whenever it's held in a non-traditional football country as it were, they always win; Sweden, USA, South Korea/Japan and so on.

They are in fact the only team in international football that actually over-achieves according to Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski in their brilliant book "Why England Lose," which is highly worth reading if you want to cut through all the nonsense pundits and thick journalists churn out and uncover why things are the way they are in the game.

The Dutch are another intriguing prospect. South Africa being colonised by the Dutch means lots of people in the country already wearing clogs so the familiarity of the culture must surely help them acclimatize, but as always with the Dutch one has to ask the question, do they hate each other this year?

This is an interesting question. The bottom line here I'm afraid is that the white population of the Netherlands are incredibly bigoted. It's no coincidence that Apartheid developed in a country colonised by the Dutch.

Marco Van Basten - either out of common sense or his own prejudice - recognised that the Dutch team don't do too well when there is a high percentage of black players amongst their number. So he dumped them. It's a predominantly a white squad now and with eight wins in eight games in the qualifiers it appears to have borne fruit.

Black and white picture, not a black and white team

Regardless of the politics, how can one not take them seriously as contenders? In fact, I can't see past these two teams. As I understand it they could even play England if both teams made it to the semi-finals and there's very little hope for England there surely.

Of the other contenders; Spain simply spend too much time asleep, Argentina have only one good player, Germany will find it heavy going running around at altitude in those leather shorts, England will dig deep and find a way to fail, France may not even qualify from the group stages and finally Italy cannot win as they won it last time and you're not allowed to win it twice in a row.

Mexico of course can't win. They have the possibility of bombing out in the group stages, but also the potential to go deep and be the surprise team of the tournament if the correct blend of experience and yoof can be found. They also have an uncanny knack of beating African teams and South American teams 1-0.

I am happy to have backed them at 150.0 with a view to laying off should they reach the quarter final stages. They may not be strong enough to win, but I can predict that some of their players will attract the attention of the big European teams; Ochoa in goal (star of the sammich advert) and Efrain Juarez (number 16 in the sammich advert) in defense should both be playing in Europe next season along with Chicharito (number 9 in the sammich advert) who has already been lost to the dark side and possibly the awesome Pablo Barrera (not in the sammich advert - more of a tortilla man) if he gets to play.

Preliminary wagers then; Win - Brazil and Netherlands. Back to lay - Mexico.

Good luck with all your bets.

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Oh my gaaah!!

2010-05-20T11:45:00.002+01:00

Look at this!! My little Mexican warriors talking about sammiches! It's like they're reaching out to me. TO ME! They love me and I love them.
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Go on then fuck off see if I care, heartbreaker!

2010-05-19T08:06:00.001+01:00

Uno tiempo

2010-05-19T01:50:00.003+01:00

So I have bought myself a ticket for England v Mexico in the Mexico section. I don't care what the score is of course, as long as my boys can score just one goal, just one measly goal, it's all I ask. Although four of five goals would also be welcome. I want to experience just once Mexican football mentalism first hand. Is that too much to ask of the Gods?

England v Mexico

2010-05-18T22:07:00.007+01:00

Javier Hernandez fully aware of the value of his shirt

I've just now been negotiating with one of my Mexican brothers somewhere in the barren wastes of virtual bandit country in order to finally deliver to me one of these most rarest of football shirts - the Mexico away shirt, long sleeved version.

For to own one of these shirts is a big deal amongst fans of El Tri and sports jersey type collector people in general. It's not available you see to the public. Lord knows why. So anyway, some rich dude in Texas has managed to get hold of a few that are player issue - the rarest of the rare. Very nice they are too. The only other alternative is to purchase a fake replica from some Mexican "entrepreneur" - I am also in negotiations with someone exploring this avenue.

In other Mexican related news, they're playing England next week and I am still as we speak umming and ahhing about going. It'll be an intriguing fixture. England all in white, Mexico all in black. England shit, Mexico awesome. There's talk of switching the fixture to the Emirates as Wembley's pitch is so disgraceful there's a serious danger of injuries to England's soft-boned chicken-hearted, precious kittens. Bless. I'd definitely go if it was played at Arsenal's stadium.

Either way it'll end 1-0 to Mexico. This must surely represent the only opportunity I'm ever likely to get to watch my diminutive warriors live, but of course as with every potential away trip at the moment the same obstacle remains in my path: can I be arsed?

How much will I regret not going if Mexico not only win, but Wayne Rooney is carted off with a broken spine having lost a confrontation with the colossus Carlos Salcido and John Terry is brought down by a crunching tackle from Rafael Marquez which puts his very life in danger?

I think I have to go. I must go. Will they let me in if I'm wearing my pajamas? Only time will tell.

**Update - I have bought myself a ticket so I can bond with my Mexican brethren and witness the slaughter of England.

Wayne Rooney with a functioning spine

Out spoken speaker

2010-05-18T13:39:00.004+01:00

In about an hour Parliament will sit for the first time post-election. Time for all those new MP's to start big school. The first order of business will be to elect a speaker. Usually they just vote the old one in as a matter of course. This time it appears they'll be a vote as so many MPs find John Bercow to be so unpalatable and unsuitable for the job.

I myself think he's a despicable cunt. We talked in some length previously about the possibility of some public hangings of members of the previous Government, although Mr Bercow is notionally a Conservative he was elected by Labour to stitch up the Tories and as such, of those many Labour MP's I'd like to see strung up, I'd have to have Bercow included amongst their number. Oh how I'd rejoice at hearing that sweet snapping sound as his neck is broken, like a twig snapping on an open fire place. As a bonus perhaps his head might even come clean off?

Errr....anyway, this vote will tell us what sort of Parliament we have. In order to deal with the economic devastation left by Labour we'll need a strong Parliament, so this afternoon's vote will show us if it's a new kind of robust House where back room stitch-ups and patronage are a thing of the past or if it snouts in the trough, obsequious skulduggery once again as has been the case with the previous few hundred Parliaments.

** Not even a vote. We're doomed.

Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain

2010-05-16T17:40:00.002+01:00

That little Mnemonic sentence was how we were taught to remember the colours of the rainbow at primary school and it appears to perfectly sum up the state of affairs at Wembley as York striker Richard Brodie struggles to get his team back into the game after conceding two early goals. I have actually backed a draw so jolly well come on boy. Wouldn't it be ironic if he scored York's third goal?

Meanwhile over in Mexico's Azteca stadium Mexico are preparing to take on Chile and an intriguing game it promises to be. This will be the first time in a while El Tri have played a team ranked higher than them. I suspect it'll be an absolute slaughter. Chilean blood will run like a river through Mexico City. Ahahahahahahaha bastado's.

Sunday issues

2010-05-16T12:40:00.005+01:00

Ed Milliband is a shifty little fucker isn't he? He's got bad eyes, dark eyes, dead eyes. Already for me he's proven you can't trust him. He declared his intention to run for the leadership of the Labour party at a Fabian Society do!

Are you familiar with Fabianism? It essentially means sneaking up on people. Not openly confronting people man style with integrity and principle. It's about catching people unawares and imposing undesirable conditions on them without them even noticing. You want someone like him running the country? Oh wait..

David Milliband is even worse. The most astonishing coward. The Labour party leadership contest has at it's core a white hot mixture of chicanery, cowardice, double-dealing, unfaithfulness and hucksterism.

Amongst this slither of career politicians, bureaucrats and quill-driving villainous communists lies the very end of life as we know it. Fortunately we'll be long since doomed before they get another crack at strangling the last breaths of freedom and liberty out of us all. Phew!

Sport now and it appears Amir Khan wasn't able to knock out Paulie Malignaggi. I'm afraid this means Amir Khan is an utterly inconsequential cunt. I was going to spend my winnings on some new jumpers. Not now though.

I've heard tell of a play-off final this afternoon involving Oxford. I have no idea who they're playing, but I fancy them to lose. Oxford for me have always been cloaked in failure. It's something that they've always been very good at, so I might have a few shillings on the other team.

Obviously the main event of the day is game one of the Western Conference final between the hawks and San Jose. I believe they drop the puck at 8pm proper time so I may have to give the Pigeon's game a miss as they may not win if I don't watch it.

On the other hand, the Blackhawk games I missed in the previous rounds of the play-offs because I was either unable to stay awake or I'd had too much Sailor Jerry rum, were all won. So perhaps they might do better if I do go to the Pigeons. I am defending champion also I think.

I'll discuss this with myself over tea and crumpets now. Enjoy your Sunday then.

Stephen Timms stabbed

2010-05-14T17:08:00.003+01:00

Labour MP for East Ham Stephen Timms has been stabbed in the chest during a constituency event at a local community centre.

Police were on the scene immediately, something that doesn't often happen when people get stabbed in that part of the country and he was rushed to hospital, something which also does not often happen in that part of the country.

A police spokesman said as of yet there appears to be no motive for the attack on Timms who was a stalwart of a 13 year Labour Government that ignored the plight of the poorest sections of society, consistently lied to the nation about the measures it was taking to combat social deprivation, knife crime and the almost third world conditions of the inner city communities.

"Baffling stuff," added a Labour spokesman. "What on Earth would possess someone living in squalid conditions, in a violent community, with no prospects for a better future to knife a Labour MP?"

Weekend guff

2010-05-14T14:46:00.005+01:00

Back in February we tipped up Amir Khan to KO Paulie two thumbs' namesake Paulie Malignaggi at a price of 9/1. The fight at that time had not been officially announced hence the juicy price, but my Raccoon in Brooklyn assured me the fight would go ahead.

He was right. It's tomorrow and although I won't be watching as I will hopefully be doing something more interesting, I'm pleased to have snapped up those generous odds as the best price I can find today for a Khan KO of the noisy little Guido is 7/2.

Good luck with all your punches Mr Khan.

When I say I hope I'll be doing something more interesting, this could have course mean anything as this does not promise to be much of a contest. If I had any kind of balls and motivation I'd be whizzing up to the Nottinghams tomorrow morning to play the £300 side-event of the UKIPT.

I've been following the updates of the main event and it looks like a fun place to be. And since I couldn't be bothered to dust off my lederhosen and head to Vienna either this weekend, I ought to really make the effort.

Alas, I simply find it so difficult to even put socks on let alone shoes as well. I'm going out now, I'm going to Boots to buy another one of their Cajun Chicken wraps, hopefully on this voyage I will summon up some motivation to go out and interact with the wider world this weekend.

Finally, Mexico overcame the enormous challenge of Angola last night winning 1-0. Back Mexico to beat South Africa by the same score line on the opening day of the world cup. They always beat Africans 1-0.

None so blind as those that will not see

2010-05-13T16:25:00.007+01:00

Gordon Brown 2007-2010: gone but not forgotten

I wonder how long it will be before people start to miss Gordon Brown? They say it'll never happen, they say they can't see it, but they said that about Tony Blair. I'm gonna take a guess at one month.

A paltry month before Cameron and Clegg, with their silly bollocks Con-Dem stitch-up, have so thoroughly pissed the nation off that they'll hark back to a time when Gordon Brown was able to do just as bad a job all by himself without all this public schoolboy homosexual flirting to boot.

I wish cuddly old duffer Gordon Brown was in charge again, people will say. With his silly old grumpy ways and saggy old jowly cheeks and funny old inability to make sound economic decisions and hilariously never admit to making mistakes. Remember that time when he blamed America for fucking up our economy, we'll laugh. Oooh, and that time when he said in the House of Commons that he'd saved the world!! Bless him.

We'll talk about him as if he was our cantankerous but lovable granddad who hit us with his walking stick whenever we came near him, but was nonetheless the head of the family and we should have respected him for it and how it's too late now. Now we have to live with uncle Nick and uncle David and wear clogs and eat lentils.

Europa League

2010-05-12T17:55:00.006+01:00

I've just been over to Paulie two thumbs' blog and he appears to be quite keen on an Atletico Madrid win in 90 minutes in the Europa Cup Final. I had abandoned football until the World Cup so had no idea until I read that post that there was even a game on this evening! Crazyness.

My German correspondent, Jürgen von Snoosnacker - a small red squirrel from Augsburg, has put together a quick analysis of the fixture and it appears the teams are in fact both shit when they play away from home. Something like three wins each all season in all competitions combined. And one of those for Fulham was against Portsmouth.

While Fulham have played something like eighty million fixtures to reach the final stretching back to last July, Atletico have played only four, having began the season in the Champions League where they won no games. Of those eight games Atletico have played in this Europa nonsense they have won only two of them and one of those was against Liverpool.

I can only conclude from this that with both teams suffering from an almost phobic inability to play away from home, that a draw is inevitable and hopefully a penalty shoot-out. I will therefore have a few quid at 13.5 and 14.0 respectively on either team winning via such an outcome.

The end.

Con-DemNation

2010-05-12T14:10:00.006+01:00

Wrong

See, see how wrong it looks when you put a real Conservative next to the Liberal abhorrence of Nick Clegg. Thatcher would have never let this happen. She would have won a majority first of all as she would not have sold out her conservative principles simply to appeal to the appalling miscreant demographic of the nation that brought Tony Blair and coffin chinned Gordon Brown to power.

No no no. Even without a majority she'd have still told Nick Clegg to fuck off. She'd have actually spat in his face and then set fire to his children. He would have been so busy frantically extinguishing the flames roasting the flesh off his children's backs he wouldn't have found time to even consider opening negotiations with the Conservatives to form an opportunistic coalition Government.

And little Antonio, Alberto and Miguel's horrific third degree burns would have served as a warning to all subsequent olive-faced chancers who fancied holding the nation to ransom just to further their own careers.

No way Jose

2010-05-12T12:42:00.003+01:00

Here's Johnny!!

With all this politics and nonsense, it's been all I can do to stay awake for the important things in life, which at the moment mean the NHL play-offs. My boys, my lads, my boys, lead by the awesome Jonathon Toews, have now progressed for the second year in a row to the Western Conference finals.

They will face San Jose. An intriguing match up. I predict goals. Both teams loaded with offense but with rather suspect goalies. I shall not make a prediction on the series, however I will say this people, this is the series that determines where the Stanley Cup will end up this year. The Eastern Conference is very much weaker than the West. They are all in fact veritable nancy boys by comparison.

San Jose yesterday

This is as close to Lord Stanley's Cup as the Blackhawks have been in my life time. Nearly thirty years I have followed this team through thin and thin, and finally, with the finals approaching, they are in the thick of it. I can only hope, since we're doomed in this country, that no one attempts to eat me before they can ultimately succeed.

It's a trap!...I think. It is a trap isn't it Dave?

2010-05-12T11:52:00.007+01:00

Parvenu Nick Clegg about to get what's coming to him

I must give David Cameron his dues. He's clearly a more devious and cunning campaigner than I had given him credit for. I can only assume that now he has bent the Conservative Party over in order to accept the Liberal Democrat's penis in a voluntary act of party political sodomy, he will at the last moment draw up his party's trousers and call another general election thus leaving that snake, that parasite, that parvenu Nick Clegg and his party, with their collective trousers down, thus exposing them to the nation as the devious, duplicitous, conniving and domineering band of stamp collecting, sexually aggressive communists we here at Voy Por Ustedes always knew them to be.

It's so devious I'm almost sexually aroused by it. Surely now that the keys to Number 10 are his, Cameron, in consultation with George Osborne, will announce to the nation that the accounts are in a terrible state. Far worse than they had suspected. They will then concede that they do not have a mandate to introduce the savage level of cuts required to reverse the horrendous annual spend and once again ask the nation to go to the polls in order to obtain that mandate.

The Labour party of course have no money and cannot compete in another election, the Liberal Democrats too have no ability to finance the sort of devious, under-hand campaigns they rely on to deceive the electorate into parachuting their bearded morris-dancing loony-toons into the House of Commons. The British people will also frown upon their double dealing during the coalition negotiations and their ultimate betrayal of forming a grotesque conjoined twinned Government with a party so fundamentally opposed to their whacky ideologies.

The Conservatives will win in a landslide. No longer having to concede on policy or Cabinet positions or electoral and political reform and both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats will be swept from the British political landscape for ever.

Aha, aha, ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Er..I can only assume that's what he's doing, otherwise he's just engineered the most rubber-spined and pointless acquiescences since the Germans so readily accepted the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

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Clueless Cameron begins the end

2010-05-12T00:37:00.004+01:00

Now that's settled, it's every man for himself. Good luck everyone.

Brown quits...

2010-05-11T17:20:00.005+01:00

But he did not go quietly...

Reconstruction played by actors

The enemy of my enemy is my friend..

2010-05-10T23:41:00.012+01:00

Electoral reform: dodgy meetings in the middle of the night

....unless it's Gordon Brown.

In order to fully appreciate what a slimy whore we're dealing with in the Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg we have to take a look at his background. His mother is Dutch, his father was a banker, his paternal grandmother was a Russian Baroness who fled the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution and his great-great-grand-father, Ignaty Zakrevsky, was attorney general of the imperial Russian senate. Clegg is married to a Roman Catholic Spaniard.

When you're produced from a gene pool so polluted by inherent sexual deviancy and social superiority and married to someone from a country where duplicity, skulduggery and doing as little work as possible for the maximum profit are its defining characteristics, it's no surprise that Nick Clegg has no scruples at all with whoring out his integrity and principles and the nation's future to prop up a failed Government in order to obtain for himself a position of power the previous generations of his family with a Y chromosome took for granted.

Hello Mr Brown, would you like a date?

This entire election Nick Clegg has campaigned on a ticket of change. Of moral superiority, of giving our Parliament back to the British people. Of breaking off the shackles of a corrupt political process, yet what he is now about to deliver makes the expenses scandal seem completely inconsequential and an understandable error of judgment. If we were a Latin country the House of Commons would be on fire by now, instead people just email in to the BBC...."I'm very cross indeed." Margaret Fiddly-Walton, Tunbridge Wells.

In order to obtain for himself a position of power he will now abandon everything he stood for before the election and prop up a Government that has rolled this country slowly and steadily to the very edge of the economic abyss. He will keep men and women in powerful jobs who are grubby thieves and liars who deserve nothing more than to have their necks snapped in a series of public hangings for the treasonous betrayal of trust we so stupidly placed in them. Snap snap snap..

Britain is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. This is the only issue that matters as we speak. There is no time to focus on anything else. Electoral reform is not a national issue. Most people don't even know what you mean by first-past-the-post, or proportional-representation. In fact most people don't vote, let alone care how elections are conducted, yet as part of this stitch-up it will be imposed on us as part of the Lib-Dem sweetener.

This is only an issue for the Liberal Democrats because a change in the voting system is the only way they have a future. They claim to only have the national interest at heart, yet the only people that will benefit are the Lib-Dem nudists, pagans and morphine addicts who make up their parliamentary party and who see Clegg has some sort of Jim Jones type cult leader. I hope they all kill themselves.

This backroom stitch up in fact is exactly what you get with a PR voting system. Gordon Brown will now bribe all the Celtic parties and dump all the costs of public service rapings onto the English tax payer. Before the year is out we will eating each other in order to stay alive. This of course is what they want. Those sneaky conniving Celts and Nick Clegg the closet Spaniard - his wife is probably still bitter over Trafalgar - they've always hated us.

* * *

The only way I can see a future for us where we aren't barbecuing our neighbours this winter is if David Cameron calls his bluff. Clegg was playing the two parties off against each other. Much like footballers do when their contracts are up for renewal. Clegg wanted to make Cameron aware that while he wanted to do a deal with him, he was also having talks with Real Madrid. He thought this would give him leverage to win a better deal.

What Clegg forgot to factor into the equation was that Gordon Brown is an infinitely more accomplished confidence trickster than he is. When Clegg spoke to Gordon Brown he did not expect him to suddenly appear before the crowds of reporters outside Number 10 like the shop keeper in Mr Benn and announce to the world that they had talked.

Clegg's greed has given Gordon Brown the smallest of opportunities to remain in power, but it might just be enough. Brown's resignation means nothing. He stated he'll remain in charge only until the economic future is secure or until the autumn conference season. A day is a long time in politics, four months is an incalculable period of time and gives Brown every opportunity to manouever his way through and round all those obstacles in the way of him keeping his job.

Cameron should now just cancel the deal with the Lib-Dems. He can claim the moral ground now. He can sit back and watch the rainbow alliance destroy itself and then win a massive majority in the autumn without having to concede anything. We are of course still doomed, but this latest Brown lead lunacy might at last lead to the end of Labour and the Liberal Democrats and in the meantime see the British people progress from composing angry emails to some proper Greek style civil unrest.

"I wish all you Romans had only one neck!"--Caligula

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Gasp..

2010-05-10T17:56:00.003+01:00

Gordon Brown would slit the throats of his own children if it meant clinging to power for five more minutes. In order to deliver the speech he's just given he would have had to draw on all of his reserves of contempt for the English people and it's politics.

He has declared his intention to resign by the next Labour Party conference in the autumn, but in the mean time he would like to facilitate an alliance with the Lib-Dems to form a coalition Government (a government of losing parties) in order to sort the nation's economic crisis out. The crisis he caused in fact.

As always with Gordon Brown's speeches, you have to read between the lines of the lines between the lines before you uncover the full devastating truth of what he's actually proposing.

First of all, he knows there's no deal with the Lib-Dems while he's still Labour leader. So by resigning he's trying to make it look as if he's making a grandiose sacrifice. In reality, he's the leader of a party that has just suffered a humiliating defeat in the only election he's ever stood for and he should have resigned on the spot some time early on Friday morning.

He also knows that his party cannot form a majority coalition Government with the Lib-Dems alone, so it'll be the parties from the colonies that will complete this dodgy rainbow alliance and finally give them the 326 seats they need. In order to bring those parties into the fold he has to promise them though that the savage cuts on public services will not effect Wales, Scotland or Norn Iron. Therefore he's heaping the whole economic burden on the English tax payer. The English tax payers who are already massively subsidising the colonies. The English tax payer who so emphatically told Gordon Brown to fuck off last Thursday.

Added to which, once he has stepped down, a new man will step in and once again we will have another Labour Prime Minister who took no part in a general election campaign and was therefore unelected. According to Gordon Brown, this is the political and electoral reform the country is so desperately crying out for. Utterly fucking astonishing stuff.

Huh? What? But why?

2010-05-08T18:19:00.004+01:00

Why can't this happen right...David Cameron announces that he wants to be Prime Minister and his party wishes to govern with a minority Government. No coalitions! NO. He then calls on Gordon Brown to step down and let him get on with it or try and form a coalition of his own, which of course is impossible for several reasons.

Why can't David Cameron just do that and dismiss Clegg and his silly group of whiny nancy boys and table tennis enthusiasts. He's loving all this attention. It makes me sick. Just tell him and his wonky mouthed loony-toons to fuck off.

The essential arithmetic of the voting from the election make a Labour coalition with anyone almost impossible. In order to reach the 326 votes, they'd need to bring at least four parties into their coalition, yet given the dynamics of those parties and the various ideologies, this is impossible. Also no one wants to work with Brown. They know the country hates him and do not want to be the ones responsible for keeping him in a job he never should have had in the firs place.

Finally, no party can afford another election. Labour and the Lib-Dems are broke and even Lord Ashcroft pockets are not deep enough to finance more of this nonsense. It's in everyone's interests to just let the Conservatives get on with it. Whoever takes over will be so unpopular anyway that you'd be crazy to want to be Prime Minister now anyway. We're doomed.

In other news, what on earth was that impromptu demonstration about from those Lib Dems voters? Electoral reform is not a priority for the country. Most people couldn't give a shit about the election as a whole, let alone how it's conducted. No one was talking about this election whenever I went out on an evening, not unless I brought the subject up and even then they'd quickly try and get me to talk about sammiches instead.

Proportional representation as listed on most people's priorities for change is somewhere between free pillows for everyone and the need for Alan 'Howling Laud' Hope's policy for socks to be sold in threes in case you lose one. Who cares? Apart from anything else PR gives parties like the BNP a greater opportunity to win seats in the House of Commons. Utter nonsense.

If the economy is not addressed now, there won't be any further elections as there won't be a country anymore. What world are these people living in? It's like being diagnosed with terminal cancer but refusing to begin your first course of Chemotherapy until you've been to the hairdressers for a haircut. If you don't start your treatment you'll be dead, it won't matter what your hair looks like and you'll lose it all anyway.

Doomed.

Unless I'm mistaken..

2010-05-07T23:18:00.004+01:00

I've been asleep most of today, so I've only just caught up with the progress of the electoral stitch-up going on behind the scenes. Everyone appears to be saying the Liberal Democrats have no bargaining power as their support yesterday was so dire, but I it's the opposite no?

The magic number to win a majority is 326 (possibly a few less depending on what happens in Northern Ireland). Soo, given that the Conservatives have 307 seats, any other party with 19 or more seats has the chance to be "king-makers."

The least number of seats you have won over 19 the more you are punching above your weight then surely? The Lib Dems have only 8 percent of seats with 57, but they have way more than 8 percent of the influence. They're the only other single party apart from Labour with more than the 19 seats needed to build a coalition with David "I failed" Cameron. So this has been a successful election for them.

Even if they had only won 20 seats, they would still have the same level of bargaining power. The only thing that is denied them, is the option of forming a coalition with Labour as the two parties together don't have the 326 seats required for a majority, but the Conservatives were always going to be the biggest party so this is ultimately irrelevant anyway.

Also, Gordon Brown needs to pack up his pots and pans and leave. All three parties throughout this campaign have been talking about the need for a new kind of politics. Of doing away with the skullduggery of the old ways..yet he's using a technicality in our antiquated constitution to cling to his job. Yes, by the letter of the law he has a right to remain as PM until Cameron can put together a coalition, but that doesn't mean it's the dignified, or moral thing to do.

It's clinging to the letter of the law that caused the expenses scandal. And has he forgotten his little speech back in 1992 when it looked like John Major's Conservatives were going to lose and Labour were going to end up with the most seats;

Not with a bang, but a whimper

2010-05-07T15:08:00.003+01:00

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute
conversation with the average voter." -- Winston Chruchill

So just to sum up then..this democracy of ours which is so much more preferable to an unhinged, brutal, uncompromising, fascist dictator sweeping the entire Palace of Westminster into the Thames and starting again.

Our weazy antiquated constitution finally caught up with Gordon Brown, who was an unelected party leader and unelected Prime Minister, and dragged him to the ground and beat an election out of him, which no one has won. Our election has some how managed to produce a result where everyone has lost. That is quite some feat. Almost impossible to achieve in fact, in any other walk of life.

* * *

Rather than a four week election campaign where the various manifestos of the parties were presented and examined through press conferences, speeches and hustings, the whole process was reduced to three 90 minute Presidential style debates, where the leaders of the three main parties argued their case without being cross examined by anyone and were safely able to agree to avoid any discussions of the real issues that now mean in no uncertain terms that we are in fact doomed. Instead they were able to reduce the crisis facing the nation to a debate about National Insurance, bus passes and body language.

The consequences of this were that Nick Clegg and his eccentric party of nudists, communists and jerryatric, beastiality, leather-fetishists, were taken seriously for a moment, but ultimately dismissed by the general public once they realised they wanted to ban us from being British, disarm us and force us all into sexual relationships with members of our immediate family and Eastern European immigrants.

Come election day, only 65% of the nation could be arsed with it all. Of that 28 million people, only 37% voted for the Conservative Party (10 million-ish), which is roughly 1/6 of the population of the country. However, they will probably try to form a Government with the aid of the Lib-Dems - that same collection of hippies, Europhiles and pacifist salad munchers who went out of their way to illustrate to us all how so very very different they were from the Conservatives and how new and shiny they were and how old and rusty the Tories were.

So an election will now be reduced to a series of talks in a back room, completely detached from our precious democratic process, were politicians will try to divvy up powerful jobs without having to endure the whole process again. The results of which by definition, will deliver another unelected Prime Minister, who will be subordinate to an unelected European Parliament, which as we speak is bringing the heavens down on all of us through a series of disastrous treaties aimed at crushing us all together in some god awful political, economical, social hadron collider.

Lame

2010-05-07T04:43:00.006+01:00

Well what an ultimately disappointing anti-climax and non-event that was. Weird results all over the shop. We were right about the Lib Dems not enjoying any real support, but unfortunately Ed Balls has kept his seat and the Conservative majority looks unlikely, but not dead.

The country remains completely in the dark as far as a final result is concerned let alone a seat count, but Cameron looks to be in a position to become the next PM with a minority Government or a teeny tiny majority and Gordon Brown ought to be finished, although true to form he will probably be dragged out of Number 10 by his shoe laces.

Final positive prediction as we head to bed to dream about our impending doom;

Conservative - 37% - 330 seats
Labour - 28% - 220 seats
Lib Dems - 24% - 60 seats
Others - 11% - 40 seats

Really am gutted about Ed Balls. Desperately wanted to see him lose and punch an old lady or something out of frustration.

Now this election is over and our fate sealed, the blog going forward will focus on a theme of every man for himself. We'll be offering up recipes for cooking human flesh as we'll soon be reduced to eating each other to survive and they'll be some tips on keeping warm for those living under bridges and in the shadows.

Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?

2010-05-06T23:16:00.004+01:00

While I was waiting to see how much money I've lost on this election, I felt it was time I had a bash at one of these ubiquitous Downfall movie spoofs. I'm afraid though, this won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't experienced Pigeon's poker.

The Hollow Men

2010-05-06T06:06:00.005+01:00

Please bow your heads and observe a minute's silence as we mourn
the loss of a once great nation,after which it's every man for himself.
WAAAAAARGGHHHHH we're doooooooooooomed

Mistah Kurtz -- he dead

A penny for the old guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

Are we fooked

2010-05-06T00:45:00.004+01:00

General Election predictions

2010-05-05T12:46:00.010+01:00

I think at this point it's important for us to offer up our predictions for tomorrow's General Election. I've felt within my bowels that the polling numbers have underestimated the support for the Conservatives and are over-estimating the support for Labour.

I also feel that the surge in support for Clegg's band of vegetarian, nudist, Scientology oddballs will not manifest itself in voting numbers. There's a big difference between saying you'll do something and then actually doing it, just ask poor Arsene Wenger.

So, with this in mind we feel there's value in backing some of the more extreme outcomes and are thus predicting the following;

Conservatives 38% - 370 seats (7.8 on Betfair)
Labour 25% - 165 seats (9.8)**
Liberal Democrats - 25% - 82 seats (10.5)**
Others - 12% - 33 seats

Obviously it's impossible to translate vote percentages to seats won, so these are approximate, but with the aid of young Nate Silver's newly developed swingometer on fivethirtyeight.com essentially we, in my head, think the Conservatives will have a majority and the Labour party will be humiliated.

We're also predicting a turnout of approximately 68% (3.20), which will allow Gordon Brown to claim that there is an anti-Tory majority and he should still be Prime Minister while ignoring the fact that his party is hated so so so much more.

Elsewhere I still fancy Ed Balls to lose his seat (13/8 PaddyPower) and despite a Conservative majority I've laid George Osborne (1.40)as next Chancellor.

**Young Nate Silver has produced an updated prediction this morning using very similar percentages to my predictions, I have therefore replaced my seat guestimations with his predictions. I was not far off though in fact only ten seats either way for the Lib-Labs.

Get out of this one Mr Cameron...

2010-05-05T03:16:00.005+01:00

"Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations. No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum." -- David Cameron in the Sun newspaper on September 26th, 2007

When David Cameron made this 'cast-iron guarantee' he of course knew that he would never be put in a position where he would actually have to deliver on it. He knew the Lisbon Treaty would have been ratified before he ever became Prime Minister. Or, he thought he knew.

Because of a tangled web of nonsense it appears the Lisbon Treaty's process of ratification will have to begin all over again and I should imagine when David Cameron heard about this his blood turned to ice and his knees buckled. Some poo may have leaked out also.

Apparently a chunk of the treaty will have to be re-written - something to do with the distribution of MEP's - so once again it will do the rounds of all member states for ratification some time in late June, by which time David Cameron should have been PM for a good seven weeks.

This is fantastic stuff. I can see only two consequences of this; firstly and most likely, Cameron will find some way of not offering us a referendum thus exposing himself as a liar and as enthusiastic for selling out our nation's Sovereignty as Clegg and Brown. Second, he will offer us our referendum and we will of course vote no, as will Ireland and the Czech Republic and maybe other nations and our belief here at VPU that Europe will never ever never be united will be borne out.

This is fantastic news and ought to provide some incredibly uncomfortable times ahead for our new PM. More on this later..

Shit: Cameron yesterday

Predestination continued...

2010-05-04T04:49:00.006+01:00

Well look now, I of course won the Pigeon's game because it was meant to be, but I don't know what was meant to be following my victory. Alls I know is I went to the Fox to pay my debt and to enjoy a sociable drink with the patrons present.

As we speak of course with it being 4:51am and the Blackhawks having won without my help and of course my being semi naked with no real recollection of how I got home or indeed where my trousers are, I am still in some confusion as to where my life is..but I think we can safely relax and entrust this day's feelings of bewilderment and confusion with the Gods' grand scheme of things.

In the meantime...ooooh..urrrrghhh....I won't lie..those several measures of Jerry Sailor rum have imposed on me an effect,.......an effect I may not truly appreciate until later in the week.

In monetary terms I appear to be some £250 lighter than when I arrived., But of course this is of little consequence compared to piercing pains in my temples and face. FUN!

:

Predestination and how to arrive safely.

2010-05-03T01:21:00.008+01:00

I think by now we've established we are in fact doomed. By any reasonable measure and definition of the word - doomed doomed doomed. Now the one thing that prevents me each day from downing a pint of bleach and being done with it, is possibly the same thing that keeps me going back fortnight after fortnight to the Three Pigeons to compete in a poker game I simply cannot master - this of course is Predestination.

There are some intriguing parallels between politics and the current economic state of affairs and the Pigeon's game. I'm not an Economist, but I can do basic mathematics so even I can see that this country is fucked. It is simply not mathematically possibly for us not to be. The news dudes keep telling us we're in a completely different position to the Greeks, but not by much - give us a few years.

The Greeks answer to their quandary is to smash their capital city up. Genius. Who's going to pay for that damage? The tax payer. The same people who are smashing it up in other words. Silly Greeks. If they're not inventing homosexuality or eating awful hors d'oeuvre and then sleeping in the shade for hours somewhere, they're compounding their crippling economic debts with civil unrest and to make matters even worse they're taking time off work to do it!

Who ever thought that just because countries are geographically close, they ought to then be economically and culturally compatible? Silly. While the efficient and hard working Germans go about their daily business the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese are all taking naps or riding around on scooters shouting obscenities at young girls while grabbing their crotches. The Euro-zone was never going to work.

No one in the history of man kind has united Europe. Why do people continue to try? When will man learn that although we can make a car that can park itself, we have NOT made the Gods our subordinates?

All those genius economic minds thought they had it sussed, but no. NO! Europe was never meant to be united and no matter how hard those Eurocrats-Bureaucrats try, it will never ever ever never work. Why though you ask? Simples...it has to be down to Predestination.

For the same reason I cannot close out a Pigeon's game when Peachy or Joy are still involved - even if I have 95% of the chips - Europe will never be united. If every single country in the EU has to collapse economically and millions of people have to take the lead of the Greeks and start busting up the place and eventually and inevitably descend into another World War, then so be it. Be the Gods have spoken.

Have these people people not read their Bible? Course not, they're all Liberal atheists. The European Union is just another Tower of Babel. Built by many people with a common language - MONEY. They spoke the language of "let's make shit loads of monies." Well you're gonna see where that gets you.

The Gods will bust it up just like the Tower of Babel and scatter everyone once again over the land, once again speaking all their different languages and with completely different cultures. While the Germans make their BMW's the Greeks will entice young boys into the shade, the Italians young girls into their homes before their mother's get home and the Spanish will simply sleep.

Britain of course could have escaped all this if we had just been happy owning a quarter of the globe as the Gods had intended and not gotten involved interfering with the Germans' Eastern domination campaigns. So what if they wanted to colonise Russia? It's so cold there. Who goes to Russia for their holidays? What spicy Russian foods are on offer in mobile food vans at chucking out time? SO! Let them have it, that's what I always would have said at the time. But no, we thought we'd have a world war instead and we are now reaping what we sowed.

If the country is doomed, so be it. Its every man for himself now then. I hope then that the Gods will look down on me and protect me. They will understand that I was happy with the British Empire and having all those funny little men around the world working for us and making our dinners for us and building our stuff for us when all they asked in return was to be beaten with sticks once a day. No colonial guilt here Gods, I promise.

It's only that I feel the Gods will pity me that I will continue to ante up at the Pigeons. In fact, there was evidence this evening in a game, that the Gods have forgiven me and see the good in me. Never before have I enjoyed such good fortune while holding such utter garbage. The noisy scouse chap I "three-outered" twice, was clearly a closet Europhile atheist and needed punishing. Where as I of course have seen the light. The Gods have decided our fate. We are merely actors in their grand production - and there is no mercy for those who fluff their lines or ad-lib.

From now on I will simply act my part and not question the consequences. It's all so simply now. Phew. Now that's settled I think I'll have some hot chocolate.

BigotGate - Taiwan style

2010-05-01T22:11:00.001+01:00

I told you

2010-05-01T04:12:00.002+01:00

From 'the Underground Economist' Tim Harford's column in the Financial Times:

Yet, I am reminded of Kenneth Arrow – the youngest and perhaps most brilliant of all the Nobel laureate economists – and his “general possibility theorem”. Arrow’s theorem – more popularly known as the impossibility theorem – explores how individual preferences could be lumped together to express the preferences of society.
To get a rough idea of the proof, first let’s agree that if A is unanimously preferred to B, society must be assumed to prefer A to B. We can then prove (I won’t – but it can be done) that we can shrink the size of this decisive group regarding A and B from “everyone” to a single decision-maker. In other words, “society’s preference” between A and B ends up depending on some particular individual. Finally, it can be proved that if an individual is decisive as far as A and B are concerned, she ends up being decisive over all possible outcomes. In short, the only “social preference” is the whim of a dictator.
Arrow’s theorem is often interpreted as meaning that no voting system can ever reliably reflect society’s real preferences. It actually means something much more profound: that it is nonsense to even speak of society’s real preferences. In an election week, this puts democracy in its proper place: it is indispensable, but let’s keep a sense of perspective, shall we?

Weekend wagering

2010-05-01T01:35:00.006+01:00

I'm hearing the Labour Party are now down to between 24%- 28% in the polls and this appears to be the moment they were told. It's great of course to see them all so dejected and miserable, but it's no consolation for the 13 years they have all spent abusing their powers and the nation's trust like a Catholic Priest abusing a generation of wee ones. If they were lining up for a firing squad I may be able to gain some closure, but no, like all those children I'll have to settle for some financial compensation instead.

Using young Nate Silver's swingometer we discussed in previous posts, it appears that when the Labour Party's poll rating reaches or dips below 28% this represents an inflection point of sorts and they really begin to collapse. Only a poll commissioned by Gordon Brown himself would put them above this mark at this point in the campaign, some polls have them as low as 24% - their worse poll rating for 92 years and worse then 1983 when Michael Foot did his level best to destroy the party. How fitting if the Labour Party and Michael Foot were to die in the same year.

So anyway, with all this in mind I have bought back my 'No overall majority' bet as I fancy the Tories will sneak in with a small majority of perhaps only 15-20 seats. A hung Parliament is still favourite, so I'll be taking the 2.42 for Conservative majority and why not thank you please.

In other betting news, obviously we've already identified the winner of the Kentucky Derby tomorrow; it looks as if it's going to rain so I fancy Dublin might just be a corking selection at 20/1 e/w. Sidney's Candy also well supported and in fact Sidney Crosby is having a great game for the Pittsburgh Penguins as we speak so this is surely an omen?

I've backed a completely arbitrary football Trixie; Man City, Reading and Birmingham. Not sure why but I should think that will be successful.

It's the MotoGP second round this Sunday from Jerez in Spain - the original second round was supposed to be in Tokyo but that absurd flying ban meant the teams couldn't get there so it had to be postponed. Ordinarily I would have a decent sized wager on Valentino Rossi here as this is a good track for him and a bad track for young Casey Stoner.

Rossi unfortunately is in poor physical condition having dislocated a shoulder recently. He claims it was a Moto Cross accident but my sources inform me he was attempting the complicated sexual mounting of a stable girl from Cadiz and became entangled in her bridle.

Like Valentino and future encounters with stable girls, I prefer not to get too heavily involved here, but I think if he'll forgive me, I will place-lay Rossi at 1.12.

There may be some hockey wagers, but for the meantime I'll bid you good day.

How to spot a Sociopath:

2010-04-30T19:56:00.003+01:00

1. Do you often feel used by the person?
2. Have you often felt that he (or she) doesn't care about you?
3. Does he lie and deceive you?
4. Does he tend to make contradictory statements?
5. Does he tend to take from you and not give back much?
6. Does he often appeal to pity? Does he seem to try to make you feel sorry for him?
7. Does he try to make you feel guilty?
8. Do you sometimes feel he is taking advantage of your good nature?
9. Does he seem easily bored and need constant stimulation?
10. Does he use a lot of flattery? Does he interact with you in a way that makes you feel flattered even if he says nothing overtly complimentary?
11. Does he make you feel worried? Does he do it obviously or more cleverly and sneakily?
12. Does he give you the impression you owe him?
13. Does he chronically fail to take responsibility for harming others? Does he blame everyone and everything but himself?

Daily Show clip

2010-04-30T16:25:00.004+01:00

(Click on picture to watch video)

This is hilarious. It perfectly highlights how lame and superficial our politics has become. It's a bitter pill to swallow to be mocked by an American, but I love Jon Stewart and it's important we take our medicine.

This whole episode should be on tonight at 8:30pm on More4 (channel 138)

A new world

2010-04-29T23:06:00.005+01:00

It is of course clear that we are doomed. Our once great nation dismantled, bankrupted and finished as a democratic going concern. In no time at all our currency will be worth less than the Vietnamese Dong and consequently our absorption into a Federal Europe inevitable where we will exist as a mere outpost for people who put milk in their tea.

With this in mind, I think this is a good time to begin weaning ourselves off our addiction to material possessions; Televisions, cars, expensive clothes, dependency on electricity, food, light, and heat etc.

The sooner we can redefine our priorities, the sooner we can recognise that it's not material goods that make us happy, it's the intangibles in life that give our lives value; friendships, family, nature, the arts, nookie and so on.

This process of real change will not be easy. It'll be a long and tricky journey, but the sooner we set off, the sooner we'll arrive in a newer world, a better world, a cleaner world. I say we..I'm actually moving to Vegas, but good luck with this.

Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!

Leadership debate review

2010-04-29T22:43:00.005+01:00

Very very difficult to give these three 'leaders' any respect at all, so let's review and score this final verbal scuffle via the medium of puppy pictures;

David Cameron: Very serious. Ridiculous, but very serious.

Nick Clegg: Enthusiastic and ridiculous.

Gordon Brown: Goodbye old fella.

Leadership debate preview

2010-04-29T18:22:00.013+01:00

I just made tea and put honey it in. Hmm cosy. I shall now present to you the Voy Por Ustedes guide to this evening's final Leadership Debate on the BBC's at 8:30pm, which will give the three leaders a chance to test their powers of misdirection, double-speak and hucksterism.

Some numbers first of all to give us some frames of reference. The size of figures they'll be regurgitating tonight will be enormous. National Debt, annual deficit, spending cuts and what not,.. all huge, so let's give them all a more human context if you will;

National Debt - this is the granddaddy of all figures. This is how much we're in hock as a nation. Currently £811bn rising to £1.3trillion by the end of the next Parliament! Yowzer! This equates to roughly £14,000 per person in the country, even little tiny babies, rising to £21,000.

Annual deficit - this is how much the Government is currently over-spending per year, which is then obviously heaped on to the national debt. Currently £158bn for this year and similar figures for next year too. So for each of us roughly £2,600 a year.

Spending cuts - laughably through efficiency savings the three stooges are claiming they can claw back much of this deficit. But one would have to wonder how on earth it could be possible for a Government to be currently wasting the billions and billions of pounds a year that would make this option viable. If you were so incompetent that you were wasting this much money, then surely you'd be too incompetent to figure out how to save this money in the future. It's policy that sort of invalidates itself. It's very clever in that respect, but it hurts my head to think too much about it.

Cuts to public services and tax rises are the only realistic means of seriously putting a dent in this deficit. Yet the cuts specified in the three manifestos only account for a fraction of what would realistically be necessary. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has measured this black whole in spending cuts for each party and found that the tories are short some £52bn (£880 each), Labour are short £44bn (£730 each) and Lib-Dems short £34bn (£565 each).

Expect Cameron and Clegg to blame Labour for them not being able to be more specific for refusing to produce a spending review before the election and expect Brown to mumble something about the IFS accusing them of not looking past the end of the next Parliament - i.e. no one wants to come clean on the savage nature of the inevitable cuts. In real terms this is going to really hurt everyone with the exception of a small circle of Cameron's friends.

National Insurance increases - they'll hope to just spend the time squabbling over this NI increase which amounts to only £6bn (£100 each). It makes very little difference to anything, but they'll hope it sounds important and we'll eventually end up scratching our heads and maybe even changing channels.

It's important to bear in mind that when Gordon Brown talks about "taking money out of the economy" what he means is everyone paying less tax. Gordon Brown thinks the state IS the economy and only he can be trusted to distribute the country's wealth appropriately, thus not paying more NI is taking money out of the economy, it's how every filthy commie thinks. Cameron needs to remind people of this and insist that he's happy to trust us all to spend our own money how we see fit.

Fun! Ultimately Gordon Brown will of course blame the Banking collapse for everything. But it's nonsense. There is no doubt the USA Wall Street tomfoolery has influenced the economic crisis here, but it's simply standard practice for a Labour Government to run up a huge tab when they stay at Number 10. It's how they roll.

Had the sub-prime mortgage fiasco not occurred we'd still be facing this massive level of debt. They'd have contrived to push us towards the very brink of bankruptcy somehow, it's what they do. That ID card nonsense would have cost cabillions, DNA databases, further ballooning of the public sector, waste, nonsense and so on. It's what they do and don't let them persuade you otherwise.

Meanwhile if Clegg had his way we'd have ditched the pound in favour of the Euro and we'd now owe Greece billions and billions and Cameron would be destroying us with his love of that Laffer Curve we spoke about previously.

Summary - we're fucked.

On the immigration side of things, Brown will bang on about our newly installed points system which limits immigration from non-EU states - conveniently ignoring the fact that the EU represents approximately 450million people all of whom could legally come and live here tomorrow if they wanted to.

Nick Clegg will become sexually aroused by immigration and European integration and Cameron will try and pretend he isn't but watch his eyes glaze over as talk of further EU assimilation is discussed. He loves it too.

Summary - We are fucked...but since they're essentially robbing us of our identity, at least we won't know who we are anymore, so while we'll know someone somewhere is being fucked, we won't realise it's us until afterwards. Sort of like being nationally date raped.

:

26 year old of the day

2010-04-29T18:20:00.002+01:00

The coveted VPU 26 year old of the day trophy goes to
Maya Black for making Nick Clegg look like a twat this morning

Playing on the swings

2010-04-29T15:03:00.009+01:00

We here at Voy Por Ustedes have been examining the polls today - or more to the point, how those poll numbers translate into actual seats in the House of Commons. The swingometers used by the various news dudes are misleading as they use a Uniform National Swing percentage to translate the poll numbers into seats and the volatile the polls the more inaccurate the seat predictors become.

In the most extreme case this can produce illogical results. For example, let's say no one at all votes for Labour - there are instances if you play around with the swingometers where Labour can still keep up to about 10 seats depending how those lost votes are distributed amongst the other parties even if they received 0% of the votes.

Young Nate Silver - founder of the Baseball Prospectus site and the subsequent FivethirtyEight.com site which predicted with incredible accuracy the results of the US electoral colleges in the last Presidential debate - has set about producing a more robust method of translating opinion polls into seats.

The polls are usually pretty accurate, so if we can figure out a better way of translating them into seats we could have ourselves a very accurate picture of how the House of Commons might look on May 7th and more importantly we can place wagers with more confidence in the election markets.

Here's how young Nate sees it according to his newly developed swingometer:

These percentages are very close to those we here at Voy Por Ustedes had predicted just last week in our post USA here I come but crucially the seat distribution is very different.

Under the uniform national swing calculator, Labour's eventual seats total is greatly over-estimated and the support for the Tories under-estimated. Using young Nate's system the Conservatives are only 26 seats short of a majority.

This is intriguing as we still have one leadership debate to go which will be shown tonight on the BBC. With Gordon Brown's paranoid delusions causing him to berate a pensioner yesterday, the ratings for tonight's debate - which is on the Economy and fantastically, Immigration - should shoot up.

Even an ape ought to be able to slam dunk Gordon Brown on his handling of our economy, so if Cameron can some how raise his game to the level of an ape's, he might be able to bridge that 26 seat gap and win an over-all majority and more importantly win us some money, betting on the over-all majority markets.

One more thing before I eat my sammich - the magic number to win that majority is not 326 seats. In real terms it's actually between 322-324. Sinn Féin should have between 2-5 seats in the House of Commons, but as they have not taken the Oath of allegiance, they remain empty. Not a significant difference, but since this election is so close it may be enough people.

Standard Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf joke

2010-04-29T12:22:00.002+01:00

A very small casserole

2010-04-28T22:24:00.005+01:00

Explain it to me again: a confused voter yesterday

Do people in this country actually understand how our electoral system works? I assumed they did, but I'm not so sure now. Following Gordon Brown's inexplicable decision to humiliate a pensioner this afternoon, lot's have people have vented their spleens on their computrons.

As soon as his 'bigot' comment had spread across the internets like marmalade over a piece of hot toast, voters everywhere emailed in to all and sundry to declare categorically that they will not be voting for Gordon Brown now, many of them declaring they would be abandoning Brown in favour of Clegg, yet this is of course impossible.

You cannot vote for Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg directly. Not unless you live in one of their constituencies as I unfortunately do. If you live in one of the other 647 constituencies you'll be voting for one of their colleagues. This is not a Presidential democracy. We pretend it is, the campaign is now run as if it is, but it isn't.

We elect parties. They publish their manifestos and an army of nerds are then posted to each of the 650 constituencies to argue the points of these manifestos to Gillian Duffy and other racists of the nation and we then elect them to Parliament to represent us for as long as possible before the intoxicating potency of power corrupts them irreversibly and they begin to serve only their own means.

Voting for any of the party leaders because you like them is not only a sorry reflection on what appeals to you personally, it's also misguided and stupid. So let's hear no more of this 'I'm voting for [insert part leader name here]' business.

There but for the grace of God go I

2010-04-28T21:12:00.007+01:00

OK enough is enough now with this whole Gordon Brown insult thing. We've all had a drink, we've had our fun, let it go now. I mean if I had 5p for every time I'd accidentally accused someone of being a bigot behind their backs when in fact I'd actually meant the exact opposite, I'd be a rich man.

Just yesterday in fact I was chatting to an elderly neighbour of mine about his garden. Very nice it looked I told him, but of course as soon as I was back in the privacy of my own living room I cut loose on the old fella. I accused him of being a closet transvestite, a necrophiliac and a climate change denier. It's easily done and I only said those things because I was tired and didn't realise that I actually meant them.

Oops, see! I've just photo-shoped a picture of their
exchange and accidentally depicted Mrs Duffy as the
leader of a white supremacist movement

You were always on my mic

2010-04-28T20:16:00.002+01:00

It's Elvis week over on Paulie two thumbs' blog so I felt this video from Guido Fawkes was particularly apt

Bigoted Old Woman - the gift that'll keep on giving

2010-04-28T13:17:00.008+01:00

Oh fuck

Oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck

It's the poetic justice of it all that has so made my day. I do of course feel bad for Mrs Duffy that she has been so humiliated by the man she thought was devoted to defending her, but if her mistreatment speeds up the demise of this odorous totalitarian lunatic, then her embarrassment will carry with it an inherent nobility.

This of course is a man who has systematically removed the privacy of the individual. A CCTV camera on every corner, a snooping nanny-state and a variety of hotlines for shopping in the neighbours who may or may not be up to no good and so on...for him to ultimately be unmasked by a piece of surveillance equipment himself will almost be worth having endured his time as Prime Minister in the first place.

And it gets better, if he was remiss before, he has not learned his lesson. He has just appeared on the Jeremy Vine radio show to apologise and explain himself, but was seemingly unaware his confession was also being shown live on TV. Now there's a man who doesn't learn his lessons.

Fantastic stuff. They're saying this won't have an impact on the election ultimately, but I fancy this is just the kind of thing that does destroy campaigns and politicians. Let's hope it snaps him in two like an excruciatingly painful compound fracture of the spine.

**Mrs Duffy is a widow who's husband died of cancer and worked with handicapped children. Essentially she may be the nicest pensioner in the country.

FUN!

Breaking news - Brown really fucks up

2010-04-28T12:21:00.006+01:00

Fantastic stuff! Gordon Brown was questioned this morning by this old lady (Mrs Duffy) in Rochdale who he clearly didn't like. After the impromptu questions and answers session, which he concluded was a "disaster" he got back in his car and referred to her as a "bigoted old woman" assuming his microphone was turned off.

This will of course dominate the headlines this evening and possibly tomorrow too and ought to kill off any chances he felt he may have had of convincing the nation he wasn't in fact, an utter cunt completely indifferent to the nation's underclasses he so tediously claims to defend. This is awesome stuff.

The rocky road to Dublin

2010-04-28T06:52:00.013+01:00

I was just listening to some blue grass music - a song about how a man's best friend ran off with his wife and he really missed him - when an email pinged into my inbox. As coincidence would have it it was regarding this Saturday's Kentucky Derby! It was sent by one of my leading US horse racing handicappers, Johnny Texas from New Orleans...who manages to tap out quite a legible email considering he's a raccoon.

Attached to the email was a dossier he'd compiled on this year's Kentucky Derby and it made for quite interesting reading and I'd like to share it with you.

Like all classic horse races the Kentucky Derby has had some hard and fast rules and trends extrapolated from its 135 years of renewals, by punters wishing to narrow down the field and ultimately zero in on the winner.

What I'm reading from Johnny Texas though is that some of those rules over the past few years have begun to look rather unreliable, and backed up by some data compiled by Franky Boston from Minnesota - a life long gambling beaver - he explains why:

Three related trends appear to have altered considerably in recent years. Meaning sacrosanct indicators for handicappers searching for well prepared Derby winners may now be inconsequential:

Many Kentucky Derby prep races are now run on synthetic surfaces while the Derby itself stubbornly remains a dirt race. This obviously calls into question how horses who are now prepping for the big one on poly-tracks are coping with the dirt of Churchill Downs. This may be especially relevant to Saturday's race as the forecast is for storms and therefore sloppy dirt.

Schedule changes in prep races and training alterations for Kentucky Derby runners have changed the number of races contenders will have run and how much rest they will have had before the big one; In short, horses are raced less and rested more.

Barbaro for example, became the first horse in 50 years to win off a five week lay-off. Street Sense won in 2007 after only two prep races. In 2008 Big Brown became the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby since 1915 with only 3 career runs. It's crazyness; dogs playing with cats, sunshine on a rainy day, mass hysteria!

Despite these changes, Eskendereya was still the favourite before pulling out of the race yet his preparations showed a more traditional pattern; six starts, raced three times since January, raced on dirt and final prep race was only four weeks before the Kentucky Derby and the vast majority of the field have followed similar preparations - but it's the few exceptions that have intrigued Johnny Texas, Franky Boston and also Vinny Montana from Cincinnati, a pigeon who can smell a derby winner like other people can smell gas.

Aye Aye!!: Franky and Johnny who were on Barbaro

and on it large at Churchill Downs in 2006

The current favourite Lookin at Lucky has raced only twice. Sidney's Candy, many punters' fancy, has never raced on dirt. Ice Box has not run for six weeks since winning the Florida Stakes. What on Earth are we to make of all this!

If these recent trends continue one of the those three will be your winner. But will history barge back in all big shoulders and geeet outta my way!? Well, if it does we'll need to search for a runner with more traditional form.

Johnny and the boys are undecided and with this in mind he recommends backing one of each as it were; so we'll be investing in Sidney's Candy (currently 6.6 on Betfair) and the bigger priced Dublin (25.0).

Good luck with all your bets.