Sir Woy Hodgson

And I'll quote Phil Croughan's earlier post as to why - which was doubly touching coming from a Liverpool fan last night.

"Its' hard not to like Fulham; small tight ground; good fans; great footballing team and a very likeable and talented manager who's been around for years and is now getting some overdue plaudits. Also have a soft spot for danny murphy who we should never have sold. They've come a long way from when I saw them play Wolves at the cottage in the late 80s in the old third division!"

We scattered my Dad's ashes at the Cottage around that time, and when we moved back to Tooting Nigel Sayer came down for the weekend and wanted to see a game so Tim Deacon and I took him to Fulham - they were in the bottom tier, about 90th in the League - only had 3000 paying fans - and it cost £6 to sit smack in the middle of the Stevenage Road stand.

I had a very strange sense of my father throughout the game, and started going by myself thereafter and believe the karmic synergy of a middle-aged bloke communing with his dead dad was how come Fulham began their irresistible Field of Dreams march to the Premiership. Plus Al Fayed chipped in a few quid.

When Fulham moved out of the Cottage with grand plans of a new stadium and moved temporarily to Loftus Road I went for half the season but it was a different church and and not the same, and then we moved up here and Fulham became an old friend we remember fondly, visit occasionally, and follow from afar. Much like an overseas facebook friend. Much like my childhood relationship with my Dad.

So, it was a sentimental night.


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Gordon Brown

That walking morality play; that one-eyed bullfrog; that pathetic blame-shifter; that prudent spendthrift; that dithering saviour; that ill-fitting sweaty sock; that bigot-hating bully; that PhD in hubris....

With each hapless gaffe and hopeless rearrangement of the deckchairs I can't help but like him a little bit more...


Be careful what you wish for...

The Unbearable Optimism of Vegetable Gardening

In October last year I walked away from my veg plot and greenhouse a broken man. My crop had been rubbish. The veg had been burnt, drowned, starved and frozen; planted in the wrong place, in the wrong soil, at the wrong time; messed about by moles and Bobby, eaten by sparrows and pigeons, rabbits and caterpillars, slugs and snails; attacked by beetle fly, root fly; anything that fucking flies. The days of the Thornton Heath allotment bounty and Tooting patio groaning with tomatoes seemed someone else's past.

Yet here I am 5 months later fully loaded up with seeds and a short memory. So here's a pre-war inventory of this year's expected crop and we'll count them all back in again come October.

Rhubarb, raspberry, blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, chives, thyme, rosemary, coriander, mint, sage, carrots, figs, pears, plums, garlic, artichokes, runner beans, beetroot, spinach, chard, fennel, turnips, spring onions, new potatoes, pink-fir apple potatoes, cucumbers, leeks, courgette, squash, chillies, tomatoes and 10 types of lettuce.

Misheard Lyrics

A radio programme did a text-in on these yesterday, and coincidentally last night I put on an old CD Eamonn had given us, "Celtic Heart", and first track up contains my favourite misheard lyric.

"Fergus Sings the Blues" - Deacon Blue - the second verse opens with some heartfelt name-dropping of blues' legends:
"Homesick James, my biggest influence"
which has never really worked for me as I've always heard it as:


"Oh, Sid James, my biggest influence"

Which frankly works so much better.

Any more?

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Weeping Angels

I have already praised "Blink" and Sally Sparrow (speaking of whom, 'An Education' is also highly recommended) so this is dangerously close to a repeat.

However, it's good to see the weeping angels back on Doctor Who for a two- parter. Kinda expected it as the current writer won a ton of awards for "Blink". Hasn't been as terrifying so far this time though. ("Blink" was rated by BBC's panel of children as 'off-the-scale" scary.)

Quite apart from being such a brilliant (and cheap) idea - "grandma's footsteps" really - I'm fairly sure a whole generation are going to grow up scared of statues, a phobia which could have interesting consequences for religion and the art world...!

Bagna Cauda

Which sounds like it should be an Ibizan hotspot but apparently isn't.

Anne makes all sorts of dips for our delectation - including goat's cheese; spicy red pepper; aioli and, of course, baba ganoush (can you do the fandango). Bagna Cauda has always been the one I've liked least - far too astringent for my feeble palate - and has usually had me up in a trice thrumming up a little marie rose sauce to dip my carrot in - "and bid him whip concupiscent curds in the kitchen".

However, last night she tried a recipe from Heston Bloominghell - a large leap of reconciliation for her - and it was so soft and gentle and scrummy that I ate it all up and left my mayonnaise/tommy sauce stand-by to congeal at the edges.

Not bad for a bloke named after a service station on the M4...



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Springtime Starters

Haven't mentioned food for a while and last night we enjoyed the food snobs' equivalent Springtime rite to the dusting off and firing up of the barbecue:

Asparagus wrapped in parma ham, roasted in oven and dipped in dill mayonnaise, accompanied by roast Spring garlic squeezed on toast with goat's cheese. The latter no doubt currently on the menu at Le Pont De La Tour and the Blueprint Cafe at around £14.95 a pop..


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Cherry Blossom

We live at the start of a single-track private lane that leads to the Manor. Or, how I prefer to think of it, the people at the Manor live at the start of a single-track private lane that leads to us.

I counted yesterday and there are 36 cherry trees along the lane, and this week they have been slowly stretching into full blossom.

Which is nice.




(Apologies to anyone awaiting a paean to shoe polish...)


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A singing dodo

"I'm alive!"



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A perfect name for a company

I'm not talking about the simple puns that adorn our high street - and are indeed worthy of their own 'in praise of' - who can see an Abrakebabra without smiling...

I'm talking firms similar to "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" take on building companies: "Snatcham and Graball", "Smeeriton and Leavit"; "Dodger and Scampit"; "Makehaste and Sloggit" and so on.

Well, there's a real estate agents in Shropshire (google it if you don't believe me) called "Doolittle and Dalley".

Beat that...

Spring Fashion

When TS Eliot was contemplating the utter futility of life as evidenced by the commuters flowing to work over London Bridge of a morning, he was either caught in the wrong era or not paying attention.

The first few warm days of Spring in London and the women bloom into a riot of colour, and offer much more than a glimpse of stocking. Happy days. In Shifnal I've had to make do with the mannequin in the dress shop window changing into a natty pair of denim hot-pants. The little minx.

Blokes are not so good at this ancient April rite. I was walking to the deli Saturday and it was a warm-for-Shropshire mid 60s lunchtime. I met two men walking past me in quick succession. The first was wearing a red sleeveless t-shirt, red shorts, and red flip-flops. The incipient sunburn was beginning to work its magic on his overall look. A couple of minutes later I was passed by a bloke wearing a heavy full-length coat, woollen scarf and gloves....


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End-of-the-Pier Novelty Acts

Ok, so elements of the show are nasty, morally bankrupt, stage-managed hokum. (The little drummer boy passion play particularly nauseating).

Soon the X-Factor elements of the show will take over, so enjoy whilst you can the chance to wallow in the life-affirming joy bestowed by a Midlands' bagpipes band called "Pipes and Brums"; a dog doing ballet with its slightly worryingly over-besotted owner; a bloke burping because he can; and a 10 year old girl from Wolverhampton channelling Vera Lynn, even though the old dame apparently isn't dead yet (Wolves at the leading-edge of the music scene for a change).

I'm with Eddie Izzard - what a Great country this is....


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The first veg of the year.

Not including mushrooms.

And I suppose they are really the last veg of 2009. And in reality the leeks were the last remaining runts of the litter. And I really don't like purple-sprouting broccoli much. Or many vegetables come to that...

Still, April is the cruellest month and all that...


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Never smelling of smoke

Now that's a blessing. Anne came home from visiting a tenant yesterday stinking of fags, and I realised I couldn't actually remember the last time that had happened to me.

That's really changed in our lifetime. First planes, then trains, then buses, then restaurants and finally betting shops and pubs became places you could go and then actually wear the same clothes the next day. Or at least pick them off the floor without wanting to vomit.

When I started office work in Bristol smoking was allowed - The chain-smoking Mandy Worsley used to walk around the place with an ashtray; then it became an "outside core time activity"; then only allowed in the "smoking room" aka Dantes inferno before being banished for good.

My mum's old maisonette was on the first and second floor and you had to go up a flight of stairs inside to get to the flat proper. A layer of smoke used to hang halfway down the stairs, and you had to take a symbolic deep breath before entering fug-world for the duration. Now even she only smokes outside.

Apologies to all smokers who have been hunted to virtual extinction, and yes I realise they'll be coming after the fat and drunk next...

The One Show

Yes, I do realise it's irredeemably naff. But we've watched it ever since it started, mainly because it's on when we are cooking/eating and we have banned soaps from the house.

The BBC do look like they may be about to cock it up, but to be honest the strength of the show isn't particularly Adrian Chiles, nor the synergy between him and Christine Bleakley (which would be nowhere near as big a loss as when his ex-wife Jane Garvey left Peter Allen on Radio 5).

The strength of the show is it's format - half an hour, spectating guest, and lots of small little articles by a host of sub-presenters.

It's the latter who are the real stars of the show. Losing Carol Thatcher and Hardeep Singh Kohli was a little careless but they still have the show's real star - Gyles Brandreth. And that definitely was a sentence I never imagined writing.

And as back-up you get Phil Tufnell on art and John Sergeant on sheds. You couldn't make it up.

Chiles and Bleakley make what they do look pretty simple. Chris Hollins this week is proving that's not the case!

Whistling at pets

One of our cats used to go wild for Anne and I whistling the theme tunes of University Challenge and Antiques Roadshow at her.

Last night Bobby was less impressed with our rendition of the saxophone solo from Baker Street...


As an aside, Bobby has lived with us since a puppy, and we've always only had a doorknocker - no bell, and on the whole he ignores anyone coming to the door anyway. However, if a front-door bell rings on television (eg at the start of University Challenge), he goes mental - rushing to the door and barking like a guard dog should. How come?

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Irrationally Hating Certain Singers

In Anne's case - Jennifer Rush. A quick perusal of wikipedia suggests this has been going on ever since the early eighties when a young Jennifer had an acrimonious split from Liverpool's goal sensation Ian Rush. Broken-hearted she broke up her eponymous Canadian heavy metal band and returned to her native Germany to perfect the power ballad, something she achieved with the Power of Love in 1985, at that time the biggest selling load of bollocks ever, and stayed that way until Frankie Goes to Hollywood's marvellous cover a few months later. Huey Lewis would later treat the song to a prance dance re-mix which rightly led to him being airbrushed out of musical history completely.

Anne hates her so much and so irrationally that Jennifer has become the benchmark of awfulness in our house, as in: "Brussel sprouts really are the Jennifer Rush of vegetables", or " Peter Crouch really is the Jennifer Rush of footballers" (although to be fair Jennifer is probably better at holding the ball up. And heading.) My guess is we've invoked her name more times than we've made love, and even once during: "For God's sake Gary, I'll do it myself,. You really are the Jennifer Rush of fucking."

My personal irrational hatred is Eva Cassidy. It's little known that Eva was the product of a brief liaison between David Cassidy and Suzi Quatro, whose dalliance in the toilet of a Texaco garage on the outskirts of Droitwich was later immortalised in Suzie's seminal punk classic "In the Can".

It's not just Eva's ability to suck all the soul and meaning out of hitherto pure and simple songs that is unparalleled, but that once a song has been Eva-ed we have to put up with a thousand reality TV contestants badly covering her own terrible covers. Of course, we shouldn't forget that Eva died tragically young, the victim of a vicious attack by her next door neighbour driven over the edge by a decade of incessant warbling and ridiculous phrasing.

Which singers do you irrationally love to hate?


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Swallows

What do three swallows make?

Well, Bobby giddy for a start - they wheel and dive all over the fields and I swear they tease him on purpose.


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Unfit people

Note to all future guests, who may accompany us on walks up the Wrekin/Long Mynd etc:

When you hit the steep climbs and start slowing, falling back, wheezing, snorting, spitting, clutching at trees and your chest, remember that with every single step you are making me feel better about myself and going up tenfold in my estimation of your virtues as a human being.

If on the other hand you trot up like Daryl and Iain did the other day, leaving me in a melting heap of my own lard....


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The Grand National

Which is, of course, where it all started for me. Crying when Crisp lost to Red Rum. Followed afterwards by Churchtown Boy, The Tsarevich, Clan Royal, and, most agonisingly of all, my favourite horse ever - What's Up Boys - all breaking my heart.

Then I learnt how to consistently win on the race (bet months in advance, and bet on ten or more horses) and all was well with the world.

But now, for reasons too boring to explain, the race has been turned into the lottery most people always thought it was. 32 horses can win today, no question. Which makes it a great spectacle but a terrible betting race. So don't expect a tip from me.

If you want to know what I have backed to meaningful stakes then that would be: Hallo Bud, Dream Alliance, Maljimar, Niche Market, Mon Mome, Madison Du Berlais, State of Play, Ellerslie George, and this morning I'll add Character Building just so I can cheer on Nina Carberry who has a definite chance to be the first female jockey to win the National...

I'm not really expecting a return.


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Growing Mushrooms (part two)

Having been the victim of cruel and heartless jokes; having had everyone and their dog share their dodgy expertise on fungal nurture; and having long ago given up spraying and hope, I can now announce to a waiting world that last night the lump of compost in a cardboard box in the downstairs toilet gave birth to one fully-formed 1 oz bouncing baby mushroom and a few siamese ones (sorry can't remember the PC term for that - I'm old).

My life is complete.


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A great weekend's sport

Aintree (a kind of Cheltenham lite), US Masters golf, FA Cup semi-finals, and a brucie bonus this year - Fulham's pending Europa cup exit. Iain and Daryl are joining me for the fun.

Anyone wanting to join in, consider this. England are 6/1 to win the World Cup. Tiger Woods is 6/1 to win the golf. Eek.

As for Aintree, here are the rules for a profitable few days. If you backed a horse for Cheltenham and it ran badly, back it at Aintree (at a bigger price). If you backed a horse at Cheltenham and it won at a big price, don't back it at Aintree unless it is a similar price. You've been to the wedding, skip the funeral. In the handicaps favour horses from northern yards that skipped Cheltenham to wait for Aintree.

If betting on the National, you should have bet already as those bookie chaps are just going to keep squeezing those prices until you're bent over double... if you still intend betting there's 32 horses that have credible chances of winning. Maljimar will come second.

Skylarks

"Hail to thee blithe spirit
Bird thou never wert
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art"

Blah blah blah whatever...

What Shelley forgot to say was that when a skylark's sat there in the sky singing its little heart out, it sounds uncannily similar to the sound of a fruit machine paying out.


Percy, pass the laudanum...




Bysshe, Basshe, Bosshe...




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Being 48

Most people seem to hate getting older, but it's always struck me as something to celebrate, considering the alternative.

My Dad died at 48, so I guess this year will be equivalent to my 37th year - when I was young I was made aware that my lifeline pointed to me expiring at 36 - and I spent the whole year waiting for the inevitable. Of course, having cheated death once I shall spit in the eye of lucifer and I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death (or as Woody said, "now I think about it, I shall run through the valley of the shadow of death").

In reality though, it's not the years, it's what you fill them with. My dad had three wives, and a million stories from living and working in Rio, Munich, Brussels, Stavanger, Los Angeles, Seattle, and of course Stillman Valley, Illinois.

I've worked in Stockport...


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Laughing in the Face of Fear

At the start of the risible but very watchable Jonathan Creek last night a scantily clad '80s maiden is in a field when a hand snakes along the ground and grasps her ankle. So far, so ever so slightly scarifying.

Then, in the big money shot, we see the face of the man as he grimaces and slithers from the vegetation.




And it's Oz Clarke....

I'll be very surprised if this isn't first up on Harry Hill's TV Burp this week.


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Growing things from seed

I'd hate for you to think we're johnny-come-latelys to this vegetable lark. We are, I'd just hate for you to think that. To be fair we have had three allotments over the years, but in all honesty we (by which of course I mean Anne) were never able to do it quite the way proper allotment owners do.

They:
Cost of allotment £16
Cost of half of allotment middle-class newbies can't manage £0
Cost of shed taken from next door's abandoned allotment £0
Cost of scaffolding planks for borders provided by dodgy white-van cousin £0
Cost of endless bits of plastic and wood pilfered from skips £0
Cost of incredibly useful cloches £1.99 in Aldi
Cost of seeds swapped, and kept back, and free in magazines and occasionally bought £1
Cost of manure that allotment has delivered in one free-for-all pile on April 2nd and which you have to camp out overnight to get dibbs on £0
Overall cost per vegetable 0.1pence

We:
Cost of 72 gardening books all telling you the same thing £990
Cost of two sheds to house shiny new tools and someone to build them £800
Cost of three raised beds using railway sleepers (creosoted to poison the veg) £280
Cost of greenhouse - to burn the cucumbers - £400
Cost of plug plants to replace all the tomatoes that were raised by seed but eaten by dog in copy-cat easter egg hunt incident £65
Cost of grow-feed, slug-pellets, vitamins, homeopathic remedies, acupuncture etc that all good middle class seedlings need to survive according to the Guardian weekend gardening page £125
Overall cost per vegetable £2.10


I'm not kidding. Next door have just built a raised-bed so deep it's got a diving-board at one end...


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Reading an unputdownable book

What better way to spend a sportless, dark and gloomy Good Friday than being rendered immobile by a damned good read?

I reckon it's only something like one in every ten books I read that grabs me by the throat and won't let me go until I finish. They may not always be the best literature in the world, and some of them I've forgotten almost as soon as I close the book, but the pleasure of the moment remains.

So, thanks Stieg Larsson for the second of his trilogy, which had a disappointing ending but kept me turning the pages all day until I got there!


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Labour's new election strategy

I just can't see how this could fail...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/01/labour-gordon-brown-hard-man



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Irrationally Hating Certain Footballers

I was watching Ibrahimovic last night and compiling in my head a list of footballers who I've actively detested over the years, for no good reason whatsoever.

Charlie Cooke (there was a kid of similar name who used to hit me)
Stuart Pearson (smug goal celebration)
Zico (how I laughed when Gentile punched him)
Glen Hoddle (Glenda)
Liam Brady (no idea)
Mickey Thomas (curly-haired gobshite)
Germans (obviously)
Graeme Le Saux (gave Guardian readers a bad name)
and Peter Crouch (who was playing above his level with QPR, yet alone now).

These days my commentary on watching England goes something like:
"For fuck's sake you twatting dipstick head the fucking ball. Take this useless beanpole off, Mike Berry can trap the ball that far; what is the fucking point...GOAL!!!"
(Anne shouting from kitchen "Who scored?")
"Ummm......"

Much the same happened last night...



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