March 2009

[Sweder]

An ugly, twisted scrape through dense internal fog, the impossibly loud thrum of a thousand jack-hammers bludgeoning my frontal lobes as I hauled the carcass of St Patrick though indecently cheery sun-drenched hills. Without casting aspersions - I have no wish to upset the big fella - I met up with SP for an impromptu Guinness-and-pool fest in Seaford. The hostelry of choice was about as far removed from the soft embracing inns of Ireland as you could find. The Shore is a stark, modern facility, sporting enough chrome to fit out a 50's Diner. We failed the dress code, neither of us having a hair style - well, only one of us actually having enough hair to style - that replicated having shoved one's head into a vat of engine oil and hung upside down for several hours. Still, we were tolerated.

The pool was a personal triumph. Having suffered terribly at the hands of SP on our journey into the heart of the American Dream last month - there was at least one evening when I failed to win a single rack - my heart sank as I swiftly fell two frames to nil behind. During my evisceration on the tables of Bully's Bar in North Myrtle Beach I had argued, not unreasonably I felt, that I played at my best somewhere between two and six pints into an evening. Of course that was several millennia ago when I was a young man capable of drinking and playing pool whilst rolling cigarettes, holding forth on any number of topics, feeding the jukebox to maintain a steady supply of Stranglers and keeping an arm round my beloved of the hour. These days it's all I can do to tie my shoe laces unaided. Last night I rolled back the years (minus the fags, the music and the girls), the black nectar flowing through my veins to lend deadly aim to my cueing arm. I could no more explain this sudden flood of form than I could reliably describe my journey home, yet frame after frame went my way until I'd amassed an unassailable lead. SP bore the landslide with good grace, laughing wildly as a frame seemingly destined to go his way slipped away on a fluked double-double black.

Setanta Sports had elected not to cover this epic re-match, choosing instead to slide down to the Emirates for the belated FA Cup 6th round tie between Arsenal and Hull City. The Tigers had enjoyed a famous 2 - 1 victory at the New Library earlier in the season and they started as if they'd been watching re-runs of the win on the journey down. The match turned on a moment of controversy, the on-field officials perhaps the only people in the stadium not to notice William Gallas wondering, criminally offside and lonely as a clown in Hull's six yard box, looking for all the world like an extra from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest who's slipped his minder, before the ball rebounded off his mystified head and into the net.

According to reports the post-match tunnel saw scenes of gross unpleasantness, Cesc Fabregas, the Gunners’ club captain and not involved in the match, accused of spitting directly at one of the Hull City officials. Asked for his view on this shameful behavior Arsene Wenger rolled out his stock-in-trade 'I didn't see it' response, adding that 'it did not happen' as if this deadpan statement would erase the bitterness clearly overwhelming the Hull City manager Phil Brown. To his credit Brown just about managed to avoid throttling the banal Man from Setanta as the broadcaster cruelly displayed a looped recording of the winning goal on a giant flat screen barely a foot away from Brown's wasp-chewing visage. Wenger's opinion of the match lent credence to suggestions that he'd borrowed Lord Ferg's rose-tinted spectacles. (Old Granite Chops had laughably claimed in an MUTV interview that the Rowdies had 'been the better side' during their 4-1 shellacking at the hands of the Liverpool Redskins). Hull deserved at least a replay; any scorn poured on Arsenal this morning will come as cold comfort indeed.

I have good news for Mr Wenger and his team of Labrador handlers. UK government ministers have just approved an increase in disability benefits for blind and partially sighted people. There'll be dancing in the halls of the Emirates tonight. I just hope they don't slip on Flabbergasted’s phlegm and hurt themselves.

Back to this morning and the dreadful piper-paying flog, I stumbled on to an ungainly fence-clasping finish, sweating profusely in the warm sunshine, dripping head throbbing in tandem with my battered heel which sadly shows no sign of improvement. I fear more greenbacks must be paid in pursuit of a cure. Meanwhile, no more running for me this week

Track du jour: Won't Get Fooled Again, the wonderful, merciless, 'Orrible 'Oo.
Aposite, and a stonking track to boot.