In Soviet Russia, John Terry’s face kicks you!

I don’t get it.

Chelsea skipper John Terry gets a boot right in the face from Arsenal player Abou Diaby, busting it open, knocking him unconscious, covering him in blood and sending him to hospital. Both sets of physio’s tend to him, every player looks like they’ve just seen him shot in the face, oxygen is administered and he’s stretchered off on one of those things that make sure your head doesn’t move. Serious business. Sky are certain he is moments from death and are preparing to transmit a black screen and silence in respect…..

Fast forward a couple of hours later and Terry is partying the night away in a London night club til 3 in the morning, without a care in the world whilst Diaby, the lad whose foot he heat-butted looks likely to be sidelined for a couple of weeks due to an injury incurred during the clash. WHAT THE FUCK IS JOHN TERRY’S FACE MADE FROM? He gets to go on the piss after he bounced between Diaby’s boot and the floor and should be ready to play on Saturday whilst the Arsenal man is crocked. Crikey. Scientists should look into investigating what exactly constitutes Terry’s skull or the possibility that he possesses amazing regenerative abilities similar to Wolverine from the X-Men.

That was just one of a couple of notable incidents to occur during the Carling Cup final or what very clever punologists who operate out of the tabloids have dubbed the “Snarling” Cup final. Ho! Such wit, personally I would have dubbed it “The final where Arsenal fielded a team of reserves against the full priced Chelsea hordes and ran them ragged for most of it before being conned by Terry and the Ref into losing, before all hell broke loose in the closing minutes. Oh and Chelsea fans are vegetable throwing scumbags but that will be lost in the media hype regarding the bust-up” Not the catchiest mind, but conveniently sums up my feelings. I still don’t really know what happened in the final melee, but as far as I can tell Adebayor lost the complete rag cause he was mistaken for Eboue (who really is a nasty piece of work). Fabregas also had a semi-brain-meltdown and Fat Frank Lampard continued to be a complete cunt.

Like the Barcelona final, the sting of defeat was somewhat eased by the fact that we played well, but that’s not really something I want to get used to feeling. In the end, history will record who took the trophies home, not who passed the ball nicely. Still, the manager thankfully rewarded his young guns who had got the team to final by letting them try and leap the final hurdle. They didn’t, but they gave it a hell of a shot.

The game was a bazillion times more entertaining than the egg-chasing the day before in Croke Park. I think the whole fun was taken out of it for me when the English national anthem was successfully sung without incident. I thought for a split second it might have triggered some device buried deep inside O’Connell Street that would have caused the Spire to launch into space, turn around and drive directly into Buckingham Palace, exploding and releasing thousands of clones of Kevin Barry to invade London. But no, everyone stayed quiet, and then the sporting could begin. How boring.

And relieving.

Footnote : I don’t know if relieving is a word.

Broadband woes

My internet connection is pretty poor these days. It comes and goes randomly, sometimes letting me surf the web but not IM, then allowing me to IM but not surf the web, and generally frustrating my usage of YouTube. You can imagine my annoyance when i’m trying to do something as simple as look at footage of a man farting as seen through a thermal camera. So, having done the typical Irish thing of not complaining for ages things finally came to a head and we decided to do something about it. Now, our broadband is supplied by BT, so we decided to give them a bell. First time we called we were on hold for 45 minutes with no answer, and then their lines closed for the night. OK, sure, we’ll try again tommorow. Next day, same deal, no ones answering the phones. Ok…we live in the electronic age, let’s email them! They “resolve to answer our query within 24 hours”. Did they? Did they fuck. Nothing happening, all the while farts being captured on thermal imaging cameras are going unseen by my eyes! Then to add insult to injury we discover that not only have they been giving us a mediocre service, but they’ve been overcharging us as well for the pleasure! Great!

As all this is happening, I discover via Damien Mulley’s blog that BT are rumoured to be quiting the broadband market in Ireland! Well, why wouldn’t they? They’ve robbed us and given us nowt in return, I’d do a runner and all. I go and tell my oul fella that he’ll have F-all chance of getting his money back if their gonna split, it’s hard enough to get in touch with them when there in Ireland, what’ll be his chances when they’ve upped and gone? Well, Jimbo is from a different era, and being the stubborn warhorse he is, he turned to me and simply said “oh..i’ll get my money”. To do this, he informed me, he’d “even go to the Ombudsman”. Now this bizarre threat conjured up in my head an image of a shadowy figure, who operates out of a remote farm and who wanders around with a meat cleaver and a blood splattered leather apron. A man who “has a big boot in his car, and a place where no one will hear us….”

The truth though is much less interesting, but probably much more effective and less likely to have my dad involved in a murderous revenge rampage. In the mean time, we’re gonna try and change providers as soon as is possible so I can get back to my fart watching.

The Fall, Rise and Fall of ManYoo Fans in my estimation…

Ah, Manchester United. Once the most hated organisation since the Third Reich and the FAI combined, there was a time when Manchester United fans found community in being hated, and we non-ManYoo fans found community in hating them. It was wonderful. They won everything left, right and centre and we hated them for it. But we also hated them for their attitude, arrogance and the fact that their numbers multiplied exponentially when they started winning. Then there was a sea-change in English football. Arsenal became genuine rivals and their once unbreakable hold on the Premiership was shaken and it became for a couple of years a two-horse race. But still, for every time Arsenal won the league, ManYoo would bounce back stronger and win it more times. All the while their fans still maintained that air of superiority that hung around them like the stench of stale wee off crazy old people at bus stations.

Now, this is not to say Arsenal and their fans have ever been loved either. These days, especially amongst the internet football community, they do arouse a certain level of hatred in others. A few years ago they were highly respected., mainly I suspect for being the only team to offer a challenge to the ManYoo empire. Now though, not so much although they do get (begrudgingly) a lot of respect for the style in which they play. But I digress…

So ManYoo fans, by association to the big-business behemoth they supported, were a hounded and hated bunch. Then they were saved, by a man named Roman Abramovich. The Russian tycoon bought Chelsea and spent six trillion rubels turning them into the most hated football team in history. Money well spent. All of our anger, hate and envy was directed in a laser beam of emotion at Stamford Bridge. Sadly it didn’t burst into flames. So now we had Chelsea storming to victory and the entire world calling them rich bolloxes and fancy dan bastards, a new era of football hate had begun.

The 2006-2007 season starts. Chelsea have spent silly money on Ballack and Shevchenko and we all think that they are about to win the league on the opening day. A dark cloud hangs over the Premiership as the Evil Empire prepare to annihilate us all…then something peculiar happened. The season got under way, but Chelsea didn’t wipe us all out and Sheva turned out to be…well kinda poo. Then, ManYoo who had never really gone away, and just gotten some proper rivalry over the years from the Arse and Chelsea, kept winning. (Except of course against Arsenal, wahay the double, i digress for personal, petty reasons, again). Suddenly it looked like there might be an actual title race on…..and something bizarre, unthinkable and unimaginable happened. Those of us who had for years spat bile and fury at the mention of the words “Manchester” and “United” now thought some dark, treacherous thoughts…that if our club could not win the league…then we wanted ManYoo to. So much was our hatred for what Chelsea had become (and had come to represent) that we were willing to get into bed and get saucy with Satan himself. It was strange times. Cats and dogs started living in peace. Rain went upwards.

So after years in the wilderness ManYoo fans found themselves welcomed back into the community. They could converse with their friends who supported other clubs without the conversation becoming a petty slanging match of “YOU ARE CUNTS” and “YOU ARE JEALOUS CUZ WE WIN EVERYTHING”. Any day we expected Israel and Palestine to become best mates. Now, this is where, from a personal perspective, it all changed again. ManYoo had my support, I really didn’t want to see Chelsea, Jose Morinho or that cunt-of-all-cunts Ashley Cole lift the Premiership in May. I let ManYoo fans know this. They understood. All was well. There was a mutual admiration. But it wasn’t to last.

The ManYoo fans I know began to get cocky. The old cockiness of years gone by. It wasn’t enough that for once in their lives they weren’t being hated by the envious mobs, they had to rub it in. They hadn’t won the League in 4 years (Arsenal had won it more recently than they had, and undefeated I may add ), so they could hardly lay claim to being the force they once were but suddenly it was if the last few years hadn’t happened. History was being rewritten and ManYoo were still the all conquering warriors of old. Why was this? Why weren’t they happy that they had the mutual support of rival fans, united against the common enemy of Chelski? The answer, I think, is that ManYoo fans need to be hated. It’s part of their bizarre psychological make up, that they have constructed this ivory tower of superiority and need rival fans to hate them as it ads to their sense of self-importance.

THEY HATE US BECAUSE THEY’RE JEALOUS! So, by extension, if they don’t hate us, ahhh! they mightn’t be jealous! But that makes no sense! We are Manchester United! The richest club in the world (not true)! The most successful in Britain (not true)! Nooo! They must hate us, because to hate us is to validate us!

So they have gone about the last couple of months systematically destroying the goodwill we have shown them and reverting to their ways of old. How sad. Now when you enter into a reasoned, logical debate about football with them its not long before they begin to beat the war drums and chant the old guff. Now, I will fully admit that personally it’s been their uneducated and uninformed remarks about Arsenal that annoy me the most, and is the main motivation for this blog entry. Everyone has the right to their opinion, but it’s because they’ve been delivered with that good ol’ ManYoo smugness of yore and many of the comments are not based in any kind of fact that I’ve decided that obviously ManYoo fans don’t want our support. They’re happy enough to be hated and alone and worship their false idols by themselves. This feeling of other people wanting them to do well is so alien to them that the moment it happened, they began to sabotage it by not embracing the support but by throwing it in our faces. The ABU years have moulded them into dark, loveless creatures unable to accept a helping hand from the lowly common masses, for to do so would be to stoop to our less-successful levels. We are but footballing peasants.

In the end this whole sequence of events has in one way removed one conflict in my life, I now no longer care who wins the Premiership this season; I think both contenders are both equally worthy of my indifference. Cuz the way I look at it, if either Ashley Cole or Christiano Ronaldo get to lift that trophy in May then there is no fucking justice on this planet. The end can’t come quick enough.

Big Brother is watching, and it loves you

It seems that the Sony corporation have been keeping a close eye on me lately. Last year on St. Valentines Day when I was a singleton they attempted to cheer my day by sending me a Valentine’s Day Card….well a Valentine’s Day card full of links to expensive Sony gizmos. Now exactly one year later they come calling again, but this time somehow know I am attached and email me with this little title: “here are some fantastic Sony gifts she’ll love you for!”.

This level of corporate insight is slightly disturbing. They did miss one thing though, since the stupid shiney poxy mp3 player I bought off of them died within a year of purchase I wouldn’t give that shower of cunts another cent of my money.

As of this evening there have been no reports of aviating swine or heavy snowfall in Hell.

Prelude: This is an epicly long blog. And yes, it is about Arsenal. But, fear not, for if you choose to believe me it features criticism of Thierry Henry. So if you stick with it you may just witness this momentous once-in-a-life-time event.

Long time readers and people who know me (whom I suspect are more-or-less the same people, frankly) will know that I am a dyed-in-the-wool not-to-be-shaken stubborn-to-the-point-of-insanity supporter of Mr. Thierry Henry, France and Arsenal footballer and Clio driver. I say supporter because despite the fact that the man is skill personified he has an amazing ability to get under the skin of anybody who is not an Arsenal fan. They hate him. They despise him. The man can bring in out in people the most wonderful rage, whether it be because of his little side-line dancing, his post-match interviews or simply his face. Websites like football365.com have a great letters page where you can see daily how much this man can infuriate football fans all over the globe, sometimes simply by dancing.

And I love it. Part of my admiration for him has grown since I’ve noticed just how annoying he can be. Now this only tends to work when he’s running rampant over the league fulfilling his remit as BEST FOOTBALLER ON THE EARTH. This season, well, he wasn’t really doing this. But, as I have noted before, you write him off at your peril. So after he had a wee nap over Christmas he came back with full force, knocking in goals like the Henry of old. And what also returned was his smug as fuck cock-swaggering attitude that some of us love, but most of ye hate.

Yesterday whilst at embee’s daughters birthday party most of the revellers were glued to the egg-chasing match taking place. I don’t really have much interest in Rugby, what can I say, it just doesn’t do it for me. Now despite the fact that Irish soccer team are complete poo these days and the Irish Rugby team are quite good, I still can’t fully throw my weight behind them. I watch sport to be entertained, and I don’t really be entertained by egg-chasing. I have manifested this before with ludicrous comments like “I hate rugby with all my soul” and “I hope Ireland lose!” but honestly, well that’s just me being a twat for no reason other than my continued interest in winding everyone up. Truth is I always want to see Ireland excel at any sporting endeavour and am glad that some of our nations sporting fans can enjoy some kind of success these days. But whilst everyone else was thoroughly wrapped up in the big rugby match between Ireland and France at Croke Park, I took it in my stride, regularly sneaking out to a computer to check how the Arse were going against Wigan. France are beating my own country, roosta is non-nonplussed, Wigan go one-up against a British soccer club full of foreigners and roosta’s day looks like its gonna be ruined. Merde!

Anyways, being one-nil down these days is par-for-the-course for the Goonies. We’ve come back from being behind about 6 billion times this season, so I wasn’t really worried. Back to the Rugger – it was looking like Ireland were gonna win the match, then the egg bounced funny and the Frenchman scored a touch-down. Cue lots of “ahhh nooooo’s” from all present. And something funny happened yours truly, I got a bit upset about it. I don’t know Brian O’Driscol from Ronan O’Gara (I do however know that Shane Byrne looks like a troll), but as soon as the match ended I too felt the cruel sting of defeat. Maybe I’m human after all? It didn’t last long though, I had round-ball to watch. I wrested control of the telly remote and flicked it over to Sky to watch the second half.

Arsenal then scored. Well, Wigan scored an O.G. But something much more momentous happened. Thierry Henry finally annoyed me. Chris Kirkland, Wigan goalkeeper AND more importantly goal keeper for my fantasy Premier League team Jermaine Jackson FC, lay flat on the ground as Thierry ran over to grab the ball from the net. As he passed Kirkland he grabbed the ball and thrust it in the keeper’s face with an unbelievable arrogance. I buried my head in my hands. I don’t understand the bile that gets produced when Thierry has a dance, but this was unforgivable. I turned to face my potential detractors to find that the room was populated by older women enjoying cake, and one young boy (or possibly stat-robot) to whom the antics of Thierry Henry were not as interesting as the fact that Cesc Fabregas has passed the football 1619 times this season. The football fans it seemed were out in the kitchen consuming Guinness and debating the merits of putting a road through the Hill of Tara. But I wasn’t spared my blushes, because although there was no-one there to goad me, I was mortified. It was purely and simply a horrible thing to do, and let’s face it if someone like C Ronaldo or Frank Lampard had done it I would have attempted to put my foot inside the telly.

In Henry’s defence, it was a protest against Kirkland’s time-wasting antics and he seemed genuinely apologetic at the final whistle but still it was not a nice thing to see. And as soon as it happened my first thought was the reactions of those who already hate him cuz this was well proper fuel to the fire. I still don’t think this one incident justify’s the utter shit these people (usually ManYoo) say about him however. I just hope’s he doesn’t do anything of the sort again, its the kind of thing he simply doesn’t need to do. Players like him have the skill to shut-up anybody. In the end the Arse true to form came back to win the match and restored my faith in humanity. With Liverpool losing it was vital we made up ground, but in typical fashion they went about it arseways.

Oh and we won’t say anything about the dive in the first half….

I never thought when I woke that morning that I would finish the day having felt any kind of emotion at a Rugby result or that I would have seen my opinion of Thierry Henry altered for the worse. Sport I suppose is funny like that, and that’s why I guess we all love its different forms.

Epilogue: My criticism of Mr. Henry ends at 00:00 hours on Tuesday, February 13th. After such time he will return to being completely incapable of wrong doing and I will defend him without question. I will also treat Rugby games with renewed disinterest. Thanks for reading!

Time for Livin’

Life, a famous retard once commented, is like a box of chocolates. You never know what your gonna get. That my friends, is painfully true. Having endured 90 minutes of Republic of Ireland playing San Marino, I strolled out to the kitchen for a temporary reprieve from the assault on the senses that International football has become. What do I spy? A big fucking tin of chocolates. Like a jilted woman, hurt by the world one too many times, I make a bee-line for it hoping the chocolate will stop the pain. I grab it and pop it open expecting to see a menagerie of biscuits and treats. What do i see? A half-eaten Christmas cake. Oh, Forest how right you were.

We live in troubled times. Birds are getting the flu left right and centre, the earth is warming up (even though its fucking BALTIC outside, I wish this global warming would hurry the fuck up) and Halifax are bringing chaos to our little old country with their violent ads. The other day I heard people on the Joe Duffy show complaining about the new Halifax ads. What. The . Fuck. They are probably the best advertisement for a bank ever, or since Egg had that guy from the Soprano’s threatening to break our fingers if we didn’t get one of their credit cards. I’ll take a bunch of bank managers kicking each other through windows to “Ballroom Blitz” any day over that sleaze-bag from Bank of Ireland handing out loans left right and centre to students who even the Bank know are going to smoke and drink it away just so he can get in the pants of the young un’ who wants braces. At least we don’t have that fucker Howard singing re-worded pop hits about mortgages and loans.

Life is too short for this. Seriously. These people are afforded this rare gift of life and choose to spend their days ringing in to Joe Duffy to complain about the most insignificant shit ever. There’s no justice. Old Abe Lincoln himself commented “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” I hope St. Peter has a big section in his book marked “Joe Duffy callers” and a big black marker.

Double the entendre, double the fun….

At lunch time today my sister and my mother sat at the kitchen table enjoying a cup of coffee and blabbing on in that inimitable style that women have. Subjects I imagine include local gossip, knitting, kittens and as it would occur, flowers. I was dotting about the homestead oblivious to this discussion when I walked in on this little dialogue.

Sister : It’s known as Morning Glory
Mother : Oh, i’m having an awful problem with Morning Glory
Sister : It is hard….

You could imagine my shock,dismay and delight at hearing such things. I stood there slack jawed and wide eyed as I let out a hearty guffaw. My family simply looked confused that I found such an exchange so funny. A moment of bewilderment ensued. “Morning glory” , as it turns out is a common name for a number of species of flowering plants in the family the Convolvulaceae. As the name implies, morning glory flowers, which are funnel-shaped, open at morning time, allowing them to be pollinated by hummingbirds, butterflies, bees and other daytime insects and birds, as well as Hawkmoth at dusk for longer blooming variants.

Me, being not privvy to such floral terminology and having a mind firmly entrenched in the gutter, thought i had stumbled into an altogether more different and disturbing conversation. Thus laughter and confusion abound. Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement said “Earth laughs in flowers. “. I meanwhile laugh at flower-based sexual innuendos. Horses for courses I guess.

If you, like my mother, are still confused as to the source of my school-boyish laughter…er….i dunno…see what Wikipedia has to say, disambiguosly. If you have and don’t find it funny, then…… DON’T JUDGE ME.