Tragedy

Once this was an art blog but now it's morphing into a football blog and today's topic is Wayne Rooney. He's an ugly, intellectually challenged, whore-mongering scouser but he possesses a special talent that is so bright you will only see it shining in the performances of a handful of players in any one generation. Ronaldhino has it, George Best and Maradona had it, Pele and Eusebio had it, Paul Gascoigne had it... So as we approached the World Cup in Germany - just six weeks away - I had a strong feeling that England could win it this time round because we had a secret weapon - Wayne Rooney - pumping away in the heart of our team, bringing others along with him - a player with unlimited energy, surging past defenders with natural foresight and self-belief, going for the jugular whenever the opportunity presented itself. It seemed the stage was set and Germany was to be his time in the sun - his chance to be a legend for all time.

Now his foot is broken. Even if the healing process goes well, Rooney will not be match fit, not raring to go like the colt he is, loving his football, pumping the gas. To me it felt as if our World Cup dream ended again just yesterday before a ball had even been kicked. I hope I'm wrong.

On the England manager front, it seems that Steve McLaren had a trial separation from his wife Kathryn and then bonked with one of his secretaries. Well, as I have said before, Steve comes from my home city of Hull where men are naturally oversexed. Perhaps it's the sea air or the fish and chips, maybe the Hull Brewery bitter but Hull lads have a natural instinct to bonk like rabbits and any Catholic priests or celibate monks who have come out of the city most likely had fathers from Lincolnshire! So good on ya Steve! This experience could help with team talks.

Besides, it seems that to be a national figure it's important to have skeletons in your cupboard. Leaders who live cleanly, faithful people with high moral standards, decency and taste don't seem too popular. Even the Deputy Primeminister (from Hull!) has been bonking with his secretary. Now that Rooney's injured we should perhaps get a team up for the World Bonking Championships - we'd probably win that. Last place would most likely go to Australia - well working with sheep is not the kind of training you need to do well in this happy pastime!

Delight

Further evidence of the incompetence of the business lunch munching five star hotel crew known as the Football Association surfaces with the news that the Brazilian nut isn't going to take the job of England manager after all! What the hell is going on? The sweet F.A. tell us we are getting this oaf Scolari and then two days later Scolari snubs them. What a narrow escape we have had! It is as if my prayers and the prayers of thousands of other England supporters have been answered. Now I pray that the sweet F.A. do what they should have done in the first place and give the job to Steve McLaren. He's passionate but dignified and he will be a good diplomat for the success of the national team. I wonder if Scolari knows the Portugese word for "twat". If he looks it up, he will be staring at a description of himself. Come on England!

Horror

The English Football Association must be occupied by a bunch of fools. We don't want bloody Luis Felippe Scolari to lead our national team. We want an Englishman (or woman!). Okay Scolari would be better than the turnip but he's simply not English. This is a country of over 45 million (hear that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland!) surely to God we can find one suitable candidate for the England job and that man was most definitely the Hull-born, over-sexed beach god - Mr Steve McClaren. I despair, I really do.

Like most Brazilians - a complete nut!

If England players have to be English then surely our manager should be English too. Scolari can't even speak our language properly so how could he fire up our lads? That Brian Barwick deserves a good pasting and if I see him in our local chippie he's going to get a right mouthful from me. Luis Felippe Scolari - sounds like a bloody ballet dancer!

Dubya

In a wonderful country with such talent, such ingenuity, how the hell did America ever choose a dumbass like this boozy failed academic to be its President? I hope to God the CIA are not blog watching - that's my career down the pan if they are! Any captions anyone?

Picture A

Picture B

Picture C

English

It's St George's Day and also the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and his death. St George, who allegedly slew the dragon, is the patron saint of England. So perhaps this is the best day of all on which to reflect about being English.

When I was a camp counsellor in Ohio during the seventies, I was at first gobsmacked to witness morning assemblies by the bandstand where children and counsellors sang patriotic songs before putting hands on hearts to swear the American oath of allegiance. The star spangled banner was hoisted and there it flew just as it flies outside thousands of patriotic American homes across the USA. This all seemed very alien to me. In England, patriotism is much more subtle and understated. Ironically, we celebrate St Patrick's Day more lustily than our own national day. St George's Day hardly ever raises a whimper of interest - no bunting, no oaths, no patriotic hymns.

English people have a contemptible habit of running down their own country instead of lifting their heads to recognise all the positives about our wonderful kingdom with its rich history, its beauty, its inventiveness, its musical, literary and artistic traditions. They should also be proud of our wonderful language which we have gift-wrapped for the rest of the world. Above all they should be proud of the essential decency and quiet goodness of English people who bore the very idea of democracy and gave this to the world too. It's too easy, too facile to deride Empire builders. There may have been some pillaging, some mistakes but England left a legacy of fair-dealing across the planet.

Sometimes I find myself hating the pomposity of the English upper classes with their snobbish tones, horses in the paddock, kids at private schools, Jag on the gravel but they are not really representative of the English race. The mass of us are closer to the base of the economic pyramid - working hard for a living, cherishing family and friends - getting by. We give generously to charities, we laugh at ourselves, we meet in pubs and chatter like monkeys in a troop, we tend our gardens and shake our heads at crime and injustice. That's the England I love and of which I am very proud. This is the mythical land of King Arthur.

So here on St George's Day, in this the green land of my ancestors, surrounded by the foaming ocean, I say stand up for England for all that we are and have been and will be. We are blessed to live here and we should sing out loud in the words of William Blake:-

I shall not cease from mental fight

Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green & pleasant land.

Seven

They keep cropping up in the blogosphere - these damned lists that are meant to somehow reveal your hidden truths. Well this is another idea that has been doing the rounds and I apologise to visitors who are already yawning. Perhaps some of you would like to take the baton and reflect on your own seven item lists:-
Seven Things To Do Before I Die:
1 - Visit India
2 – Hand carve a wooden bowl
3 - Grow up
4 - Learn how to wolf whistle with two fingers under my tongue
5 - Hear one of my own songs on the radio
6 – Build a Portugese style barbecue in our garden
7 - Get to know my grandchildren.
Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1 – Wolf whistle.
2 - Change the spark plugs on a car.
3 – Watch hospital operations on TV.
4 – Pass a beggar without feeling guilty
5 - Physically hurt anyone
6 - Intentionally kill an insect.
7 – Believe in God
Seven Things That Attract Me To...Blogging:
1 - Seeing my own words published.
2 – The randomness of it all.
3 – Contacting other people from around the world.
4 – The design element – how a blog looks.
5 - Freedom of choice – what I put.
6 – Regular contacts with favourite bloggers.
7 - It' beats watching TV.
Seven Things I Say Most Often:
1 – Chairs under everybody!
2 – What’s for tea?
3 – Good morning!
4 – Thank you
5 – Oo! That's better.
6 – Fucking hell
7 - Pint of bitter please.
Seven Books That I Love:
1 – Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
2 – Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
3 - Kes – Barry Hines
4 – Angela’s Ashes - Frank McCourt
5 - The Magus - John Fowles
6 - Jude The Obscure - Hardy
7 – Animal Farm - Orwell
Seven Movies That I Could Watch Again:
1 – Schindler’s List
2 - Titanic
3 – Once Upon a Time in America
4 - Midnight Express
5 - One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
6 - The Last Picture Show
7 - Mutiny on The Bounty

Nothing

Well I sat at this keyboard with around a hundred blog posts behind me, felt like writing something but found there was nothing much I wanted to say tonight. "Nothing will come of nothing..." said King Lear in my favourite play by Shakespeare.

I thought I might have a rant about something I particularly detest and that's tattoos - especially tattoos on women - but I'll save that for some other time. Then I thought I might explore a topic to which I have given so much mental energy (and some physical energy too!) since I was a boy of eleven and that's sex - the activity that brought each one of us to this life - but I'm always aware that blogs are live and worldwide and you never know who might drop in and check out what you're saying so I've vetoed this personal reservoir of fantasy and memory, lust, soul-searching and beautiful connectivity. And I thought I might write about something else that's very dear to my heart and that's food - meals consumed, meals cooked, remembered meals that make your mouth water, awful meals, the politics of food, supermarket empires - but I haven't got the energy tonight.

My daughter was hogging the computer again with her frantic "MySpace" adventures, MSN and music downloads. Shirley and I met up in the pub for the Tuesday quiz and I got the highest score 22/25 - entitling me to try to crack the safe and win £270 but my guessed code - 108 was wrong so the pot will grow on Sunday when I join my mates - Roy and Mike for another stab at this monster prize.

I was back to work today after the Easter holidays. Adolescents and A4 paper. The Year 10 had been on work experience before Easter. They now have to prepare speeches about these work placements. I gave them guidelines and a bunch of questions and asked them to bullet point their speeches. After twenty minutes, most had done well - lots of points to make but there were the usual suspects who'd written absolutely zilch - the same kids who never have pens to write with, the ones who arrive late and want to leave early with smug know-all facial expressions that cannot hide the fact that they have done so little in their lives and know almost nothing. I await their pathetic and ill-considered work experience accounts with minimal interest.

I should be mounting the stairs for bed but I have always been an owl - never a lark. This morning I was the grumpiest old sod alive as I turned the key in my ignition, pissed off that I hadn't been able to find the CD/Radio security front panel so I wouldn't be able to listen to the morning news on my way past Sheffield Wednesday's ground to the concrete architectural monstrosity that is both my place of work and my place of torment.