The best team wins

England’s footballers were unlucky.  They played well but didn’t get the result they deserved.  So it’s not fucking coming home, although whoever eventually wins the trophy could be thought of having rescued it from a corrupt tournament held in a corrupt country.

One of the very many great things about Test cricket is the team which plays best invariably wins and if this doesn’t happen then a draw is the worst result they can reasonably expect.  And here we are, England in Pakistan two up with one to go having played the best cricket and the bravest.  Stokes’ captaincy with its all-out aggressive approach has been met with increasingly tougher examinations and each one has been passed.  No one could or would have predicted that at the start of the last English summer.  I keep thinking ‘it can’t keep happening…’ but it does, the team keeps performing and improving and winning!  Surely this goes against everything we know (and love?) about Test cricket; all-out attack with both bat and ball shouldn’t work but at the moment it is.

England are getting a lot right at the moment, team selection has been flexible and sensible which was not the case in the last months of Silverwood’s leadership.  The players selected are doing the job required.  Ben Stokes is a very, very good captain (making it apparent his predecessor was barely average on a good day) who will only get better.

England are going to keep playing this way and all the cricketing nations around the world will be taking notice, they will be coming up with plans to counter us.  The future is exciting, if still uncertain?

Forced out by Kevin Maxwell

A story of Police discrimination against one of its own officers who happened to be mixed race and gay. The book could have done with a better edit which could have made the timeline more accurate chronologically and also weeded out the repetitions.  Also I am aware this is an autobiography so will be one person’s version of the truth and with this book I always had the feeling that stuff had been left out.  Not just the author’s life away from the force which is barely touched upon.

I’m conflicted.  Was Kevin Maxwell the victim of homophobic and racist treatment?  Yes I believe he was.  Are British Police forces institutionally racist?  Yes absolutely.  Is the UK institutionally racist?  Yes it is.

I found it hard to absorb all the detail (KM isn’t a great writer…) but will take the authors word for the discrimination he experienced whilst a Police officer although to me it seems as much about toxic masculinity as it was race/sex.  I think KM himself could have handled things better at this early stage but that does not excuse what happened to him.  He didn’t have a ‘glass ceiling’, Maxwell’s ceiling was made of concrete. 

The attempts by the Metropolitan Police to silence Maxwell and the conspiracy that sprung up to fight him is sinister and would be shocking if we hadn’t seen other well publicised cases on Police wrongdoing in recent times.  KM describes in detail the closing of ranks, deceit and dishonesty the police force stooped to using against him; withholding evidence, falsifying evidence, deliberate provocation and leaking to the worst of British media.  The author lays his evidence out for us and it’s hard to deny that the service trusted to protect us citizens was utterly corrupt.  There is a warning for all of us; challenge the police and they will come for you, ignoring the laws they are sworn to uphold.  I suppose I’m a person who wants to trust the Police, (even if I don’t always agree with what they are doing) so this is an uncomfortable conclusion to make.

But it has to be said that while Maxwell was fighting the Police and Depression he also found time to write a detailed blog as well as make media appearances which doesn’t really sit right for me, again I don’t think he helped himself.

But fair play to Kevin Maxwell for standing up and for his positivity in defeat.  That’s the really scary thing, in the end the bastards got away with it.

Where do you start?

 Where the fuck do you start?  Well last week England were crowned world champions at the cricket thrashathon which was pleasing as we bloody well deserved it.  To be honest I didn’t really get involved until the final and then I was at work but England haven’t been world champions of very much at all in my lifetime.  If you weren’t a cricket fan you might not have even noticed which can’t be said for the current football world cup which you have to make an effort to avoid.  Holding the football world cup in a desert nation makes about as much sense as playing cricket in the Antarctic and when Qatar was announced as host nation it was the moment FIFA’s corruption became blatant.  This kind of mirrors wider society as in the post truth era, only a fucking idiot could fail to spot the corruption in western governments and beyond…

Summer ended with the departure of the liar de Pfeffel whose replacement was elected by polling seventy thousand Tory members.  They chose a total fuckwitt who barely had time to shit in the Downing street toilet before reality clamped it’s teeth down.  So she had to go and the replacement was voted in by 450 odd Tory MPs.  And they still claim this is a democracy!  Now at the gloomiest time of year all we here on the news is we’re in the shit and drowning in it.  Never mind, a bit of light relief on TV in the form of minor celebrities eating animal genitals and having shit thrown at them in a jungle.  But wait, we’ve got that cunt Halfcock’s gormless cranium on our screens!  Boils my piss, the wanker should be in the dock not on my fucking tele.                                                                                                                                      

Oh yeah there was some cricket

A few weeks have passed since the last test match which saw England win comfortably and take the series.  It was a shame the Saffers couldn’t bat because their bowlers were excellent and it would have been a tight series and given England a proper test.  This summer Stokes’ England have beaten the two teams that contested the world test championship final as well as the team that sat on top of the table mid summer.  It’s certainly been entertaining cricket but it remains to be seen if we can continue to be successful playing this way.  By this time next year we’ll have played another Ashes series and by then we’ll know what’s what.  One thing I’m certain of is Ben Stokes is a far better captain than Root will ever be.

Next up in December we play away in Pakistan in a test series for the first time in decades.  This will be tough and the home team will be favourites but I expect England to compete.  Since the new regime began the team selection has actually made sense, under Joe Root there were many times when it absolutely didn’t and not just at Brisbane.  New England have just picked what they believe are the best eleven players for the match in front of them and I’m sure this will continue.  Lees and Crawley are expected to keep their places and I hope they do well.  The selectors seem to think these two are as good as we’ve got so they may as well give them a good go.  The leading openers in county cricket have all been tried before; Burns, Hameed and Sibley have all done well this year but best of all has been Keaton Jennings who should be next in line should an opening appear.  Bairstow might still be unfit so Brooks should retain his place.  To win in Pakistan we’ll need our spinners to perform, Leach is our main man now even though Moeen Ali is reportedly available again.  We’ll need at least two spinners and Root should bowl too.  The major decisions might revolve around which seamers don’t play…

The Squad that probably won’t be picked;

Stokes, Crawley, Lees, Pope, Root, Brook, Jennings, Foakes, Ali, Leach, Parkinson, Anderson, Robinson, Wood, Potts, Broad.

Change

So, cricket!  The decider against South Africa starts this week after a return to the old England ways (shit one week, brilliant the next) sees the series all square.  There has been little debate about the make up of the team despite the top three only doing just enough to hang on to their places.  The openers in particular must contribute more, if not change must come.  It seems we have plenty of choice when it comes to bowlers who can take wickets on home pitches but the veterans are still as good as we’ve got. 

The final test of the summer could go either way, both teams are more than capable of taking twenty wickets and the saffer’s attack certainly surprised me.  Rabada is class and if the other two stay fit this trio will be a handful for any team.  England’s batting looks the stronger though, especially now the captain has stopped throwing his wicket away, this should be enough to see us take the series.

There’s also been this Hundred thingy on the tele.  I haven’t been interested and don’t care who wins but I have watched it simply because it’s been on.  For some reason I find the women’s game enjoyable but the men’s bores me, I think it’s because it’s just another white ball thrash which is absolutely nothing new and honestly I think the standard of cricket has been poor.  I don’t know why I prefer the women’s hundred, it doesn’t have the strength or speed but the skill is equal.  I think for the women this tournament is something new and I think they are more genuine in their appreciation, there is more passion and not just for the pay checks and exposure which they are long overdue.  Then again it could simply be because I’m just a dirty old man.  

Overall I think the hundred is bollocks but the format of the tournament would be a good starting point for revamping the domestic T20 game.  This may piss the counties off but combing the two short form thrashathons would create something greater than the sum of the parts.  But Test cricket is still the ultimate although I'm not sure the standard is as high as it once was and more unpopular change for the counties could be on the way.

And they're surprised!!

It appears there are still people left in the UK who believe what politicians say and more astounding there are people who can’t connect the state of our economy and society with forty three years of the same old shit i.e. neo lib Tory politics*.  These people say things like “I used to be a socialist but then I grew up…” and “everyone knows socialism doesn’t work”.  Wake up, open your eyes!  Capitalism doesn’t work either. 

Also there are people who cannot make a connection between rising fuel and energy prices and massive profits being paid to shareholders of fuel and energy companies.  This is a direct result of privatisation.  We were sold this by a Neo lib government who told us it would give us “choice”.  The only choice we have is who do we pay for our energy/phone/TV/every fucking thing.  The country is in the shit and this is down to forty three years of Tory capitalism*.  If you voted Tory you voted for privatisation, don’t moan about your bills, you’ve got what you voted for. There is nothing more gullible than a working class Tory.  (Definition :- if you don’t have an accountant you are working class).

We are told we live in a democracy, we don’t and we never have.  Our historic democracy was created when only the wealthy classes were allowed to vote, as recently as 1817 only 11% of the male population was allowed to vote.  As this percentage grew so our democracy has been shaped, moulded and perverted to ensure the upper class remains in control.  In 1941 George Orwell wrote; “The English electoral system, for instance, is an all-but open fraud. In a dozen obvious ways it is gerrymandered in the interest of the moneyed class.”  In the decades since things have been twisted further.

The next Prime Minister is being chosen by a tiny percentage of the population, a group of people who are either morons or corrupt.  The two candidates are both utterly unsuitable.  Rishi thinks it’s okay for his wife to evade paying tax, Truss is a total fuckwitt.  Both are self serving egomaniac bastards.  The fuckwitt will be the next PM because the uncomfortable truth is…  Rishi is just too brown for the racist Tory party.

Then we have Starmer, the most inept leader of any British political party in my lifetime.  The only explanation for him being so utterly useless is he’s doing it deliberately.  The bastard is bought and paid for, tucked up in somebody’s pocket.

*(NB  Anyone using Blair as a counter argument is a moron.) 

Latitude

We first went to Latitude festival in 2011 and had the time of our lives; music, comedy, fun and laughter it had everything.  So we went again the following year and it was just as good again so it became an essential part of our summer.  I think what we loved was it felt like we were stepping out of society for a few days to spend time in a community of like minded souls unconstrained by convention.  When we reluctantly re-entered the real world on the Monday morning we’d reject its values, preferring those of the world we’d just left.  We would start looking forward to the next festival immediately, ‘only fifty one weeks…’  I have spent some of the best days and nights of my life at Latitude festival and hoped I would do so forever.  But this weekend the festival was held just half an hour away, we didn’t go and have no regrets.

So what changed, was it us or was it them?  Maybe a bit of both.  We’re certainly a decade older now, days of exercise and nights of madness take more of a toll but we know how to pace ourselves, in every sense.  The festival gets more expensive every year which you’d expect, I can just about deal with paying £500 for the weekend for two of us but there needs to be a line up that backs this up and this year it just doesn’t.  I know there will be plenty of people for whom Lewis Capaldi and Snow Patrol are a musical orgasm but for us they have the opposite effect. But there have been other years where the line up hasn’t been anything to get excited about but we’ve gone anyway and had a great time but at £500 its now a bit of a risk. I get that a modern festival needs to make a profit, I understand I’ll be paying over the odds for anything and everything I choose to buy.  I might not like it but I accept it’s what has to happen for a festival to take place, I buy into it and play my part, but I have a right to expect value for money.

I think that’s the point, value for money, for the last few festivals we just haven’t been getting it from Festival Republic.  Forget the musicians and comedians they choose to book because everyone likes their own thing, what constitutes VFM for me might leave the new average Latitude goer thinking ‘WTF?’ which is how it should be.  I’m talking about all the other little things that make up festival life, many of these being the basic things that we need to exist through four days and nights in festival land.  I can tolerate paying too much money for food but I should expect it to be edible and it hasn’t always been, also I don’t deserve to feel ripped off which I have been numerous times over the years.  As for beer, Jesus Christ that is just daylight robbery, last I heard it was six quid for a warm pint of watered down lager, its outrageous but people pay and consume it, because that’s what you do ain’t it?  No wonder people take drugs…  But as we’ve established, I can live with this.  What FR has denied us in recent years are the simple things; adequate working toilets, at times running water and above all else, space. 

The beginning of the end was the appearance of “Luxury Loos”.  With this FR was showing it was possible to have something decent on which to shit but we’d have to pay extra for the privilege.  Just fuck off!  I find the very idea offensive, on every level, it’s like taxing a turd.  If you’re the kind of person who will pay bog tax without thought then we aren’t ever going to be friends.  Now luxury loos have become a fixture, there is no incentive for FR to maintain the stalls the rest of us have to use, if they are failing then more punters will pay up for the posh bogs.  Now it goes way beyond that, there’s Pink Moon camping and even Latitude luxury where you can pay more cash and enjoy a different festival experience to the rest of us.  As I get older I could potentially be tempted by these options but on the other hand it all goes against the festival ethos, it creates division, it isn’t what a festival should be about.

I suppose this brings me to my main gripe, what has most changed about Latitude is the audience, nowadays the people aren’t necessarily music fans.  Latitude was always dubbed the middle class festival and FR have definitely been keen to exploit this.  The location is perfect, close to the Suffolk coast where posh London likes to spend its weekends, it has become the festival of choice of public school kids and their parents.  They are not here for the music, they are here to see and be seen because that’s what the cool people do.  This group of people have slipped through the gates and slowly taken over and become the majority, just like their own nightmares of immigration.  These people don’t want to sleep in a tent, if they are not paying extra for luxury then they arrive in a campervan.

Over the years the space taken up by posh camping and campervans has grown and multiplied and swamped the spaces where the ordinary campers once dwelt.  Family camping has also stretched and taken ground and judging by the space that’s left, far more than is actually needed.  The areas left for ‘general camping’ have reduced to a fraction of what they were a decade ago, hence those of us wishing to use it are battling for space.  So we end up corralled together; no space, dodgy toilets and inconsistent drinking water while on the other side of the metal fencing we can see people with too much of everything.  To add to the insult we now have to camp way back adding miles to the legs over the weekend.  To get to and from the arenas we have to walk through a corridor of steel behind which are the camper vans and posh tents.  Latitude has become gentrified, they don’t want us anymore.

There lies the truth, we’d been gradually marginalised bit by bit over the years but the last two festivals we’ve been made almost unwelcome.  It’s like “Okay come if you must but camp out of the way and behave yourselves, don’t annoy the beautiful people”.  The small stage hosting Indie bands has gone as has much of the festival’s diversity, the old tag line “More than just a music festival” has also disappeared, now it really is just another music festival catering for people who just listen to radio 2 and even then it’s just in the car.  These are people that don’t know how to party and it’s their kind that runs the world.  In the beginning when you entered Latitude festival you were taking a break from the real world but now its encroachment is obvious and it’s waiting to grab your cash.  The festival as we knew it is gone never to return but I still hope we return to Henham park, all it would take is the right band or musician and we’d definitely be tempted. 

Have I missed Latitude this year?  If we had tickets this year Little Simz would have been my one and only “must see” artist, followed by Groove Armada in the Big tent and that’s potentially a very good Saturday night which in hindsight I would like to have experienced. But that alone does not give me value for money.  In the beginning the Latitude experience was a magical weekend from beginning to end but the last couple of years it had become a few magic moments amongst a lot of physical toil.  But I am sitting here now thinking back to past festivals and remembering wonderful, beautiful, emotional experiences and I hope I’ll experience the like again.

De Pfeffel

A liar, always, the only consistency throughout his life.  His careers in journalism and politics were both greatly advanced by his lies but also, in the end curtailed by them.  He lied to his employers, he lied to all of his wives and mistresses, he lied to parliament, he lied to the monarch and he lied to the British people every time he opened his mouth.

Not just a liar but a hypocrite, caught red handed breaking the very rules he’d set.  Rules that were good enough for visiting a sick relative or even a royal funeral but could be bent out of shape for a Downing street party.  The Prime minister that broke his own laws.

In both of his careers he has been a purveyor of fear and hate; Homophobia, xenophobia, bigotry of all types including published racism, stark and nasty.  Take away the accent and the elaborate language (often used out of context), he could be addressing a Klan rally in Alabama.    All of this bullshit and bluster was driven by his ambition for revenge after being bullied at Eton. De Pfeffel has done more damage to this country than any other politician.

How the hell did he get there?  Who was responsible for allowing this man to stand for parliament?  How can people believe in democracy when people like De Pfeffel and Trump are on the ballot, when MP’s routinely lie in parliament yet they can’t be called out for doing so, when our last three Prime Ministers have been elected by such a tiny proportion of the population?

How can there still be a few, mostly elderly, ordinary people who claim to still support the man?  Do they think lies and hypocrisy are okay?  Or are they just a flock of bleating morons?

But he says he’s stepping down now, although he’s not actually resigned yet and as he has repeatedly proven, he’s not a man to be trusted.  But for once let’s say he does what he says he will, history should judge him harshly along with the bastards and morons who put him there.  He should leave office in disgrace, through the back door

Alexander De Pfeffel Boris Johnson.  Liar, hypocrite, misogynist, bigot, egomaniac, charlatan, total cunt.

Odd Boy Out by Gyles Brandreth

I can’t help liking Gyles Brandreth.  Apart from being a former Tory MP he comes from a class and background that I can’t empathise with.  He’s a spoilt child of privilege and has led an effortless life that would not be possible for someone coming from more ordinary stock.  But he tells a great story and comes across as a decent sort of bloke, very witty, entertaining and most importantly, honest.  In old age he has developed self awareness and a great ability to make himself the butt of the joke.  He has realised how lucky he has been.  The book is a memoir of the first twenty five years of his life but because of his amusing habit of going off on tangents the reader gets a good look at the other, later parts of his life too.

What the book unwittingly reveals is if you came from the right class, went to a top school and Oxbridge, spoke with the right and accent and most importantly had enough self confidence, then for someone of GB’s generation at least, the world literally was your oyster.  Doors open, connections are made, more than being given a leg up these people are handed a step ladder.  And everyone knows everyone else; politicians, actors, TV celebrities.  They all went to the same schools, lived in the same little world and shared life’s spoils.  And nowadays it’s their offspring that are doing the same thing.  The stars quoted on the cover endorsing the book are all personal friends of GB and the publications are former employers.

But I can’t help liking Gyles Brandreth and overall this was a good read although perhaps not as funny as I’d hoped.

Test cricket but not as we know it

During the month of June we saw the England cricket team somehow go from being the worst team in Test cricket to playing like the undisputed best.  How?  The obvious answers are the change in management, new coach and captain, ultra positive mind set and success strengthening confidence.  But Moeen Ali speaking on TMS mentioned something that should have been just as obvious, they’ve picked the right teams.  In recent series abroad we’ve handicapped ourselves by not getting the best available XI onto the field.  Go back to Brisbane last winter, just how fucked up was the thinking that led to that team being put out?  The Kiwis have made the same mistakes this summer, by not picking the right bowlers they’ve not been able to stop England smashing them all around the ground(s).

This unlikely series result against New Zealand came in the most unexpected matter, surely we couldn’t keep playing this way and expect to beat India?  For two sessions it looked like we might but then India took over and dominated, despite another Bairstow freak show.  By the end of day three India were in full control, there could only be one winner.  We knew it would happen really didn’t we, the Kiwis were out of sorts, the ultra aggression couldn’t work against India, we knew it…

But then we bowled them out and smashed 378/3 to win at a canter.  What the fuck did I just watch?  It’s a weird feeling seeing England make chasing down an impossible target look like a piece of piss and not even being slightly surprised by it. 

Hang on, we’ve just beaten, no thrashed last years’ world champions and runners up, this after a year of playing the worst Test cricket I can remember.  All of the fourteen players who took to the field contributed at some point in some way.  The batsmen are getting all the headlines but the bowlers and fielders took all eighty wickets available over the four matches. For once I have no speculation about team selection.

As captain in the field Ben Stokes has made a good start and seems to have the instinctive spark that escaped Joe Root entirely.  But with the bat he has given himself license to bat like a Sunday afternoon slogger.  For fuck sake Ben you’re better than that!  England will win more matches if he plays himself in first. 

So what next?  I don’t mean the white ball stuff which will be interesting in its own way.  How long can England keep playing Test cricket in this way before the wheels come off?  It’s got to happen at some point, hasn’t it?

Trent Bridge classic!

Trent Bridge, another great test match between a very good Kiwi team and an England XI that has managed to perform at its best for a second game in a row.  All of the bowlers got a wicket or two and all of the batsmen made at least a 50+ score, with the exception of Crawley.  Foakes’ keeping was excellent but the catching wasn’t great although this was the same for both teams.  I’m finding it hard to get my head round a game in which New Zealand scored 550+ on first innings yet lost and England were set 300 at six an over yet won?  Did we bat brilliantly or was the bowling rubbish?  I think maybe aggressive batting caused poor bowling?  Apart from Pope coming in for Lawrence this was the same batting line up that played in the West Indies, where they done well in two of the matches.  Maybe we have a unit that is coming together?  Better not speak too soon, again.

Two excellent performances and the series wrapped up I’m not sure I would have predicted that but that’s England, you never know what you are going to get, next week we could be shite again.  Whatever happens it should be fun to watch.

The Bastard and the Lizards

The bastard is still hanging on.  Booed on his way into the cathedral and his MP’s have their knives out but still the bastard clings on.  It took him long enough to get into the top job and by such an unlikely and circuitous route that he will stick like shit to week old underwear and will only give it up if he’s dragged from the building, he will never have the decency to resign.  He more than anyone or anything else is the reason it is embarrassing to be British in 2022, no make that English as they have more sense in the other parts of the UK.

The Lizards had a tea party and some of the population had a weekend off.  Some put up flags and celebrated, some took to the streets but some of those still had enough sense to boo the bastard.  I ignored most of it, even resisted posting the Pistols anthem on FB (it seemed a bit too obvious…)  But I did watch the concert, well some of it.  There were a few decent moments “Throw your curtains wide…” but when they wheeled out that cunt Rod I wanted to jump through the window, I managed to find the door in time.

Ah bless Lizzy Lizard, she’s not a bad old stick is she?  You could argue she’s a lot less trouble than the leaders we get to elect and to be honest she doesn’t piss me off far anything like as much as ‘Her’ government(s).  But monarchy, come on!  The concept is ridiculous and the young lizards know this, they realise just how precarious their position could quickly become and are being trained to behave accordingly.  I’m not sure but I think I might be starting to feel sorry for them, honestly who would really want to do their jobs?  Yes they get to travel the world in luxury but are their lives really their own?  How much of their lives are actually spent doing what others tell them?  Then again, as the Ginger Prince showed a while back, they do have a choice.

Lords

It was a really good test match, maybe even a Lords Classic?  We had a bit of everything, New Zealand will feel like they should have won it, that England did so was mostly down to our four genuinely great players.  How can we be so bad so often with Anderson, Broad, Root and Stokes available for selection?  It’s like the West Indies when most of the greats had retired and they relied on Ambrose, Chanderpaul, Lara and Walsh.  Perhaps we should look at New Zealand, Kane Williamson a great player with a hard working team of very good cricketers punching above their collective weight.

Apart from the fab four the rest of the England XI, Crawley and Lees had brief moments, Potts had an excellent debut and Foakes was almost perfect behind the stumps then held his nerve to support Root and secure the win, his innings shouldn’t be overlooked but will be forgotten when a scapegoat is required.  Parkinson looks interesting, he could be fun to watch in the future.  Bairstow was bowled twice which is almost as predictable as Root getting a hundred but he caught very well in she slips and Pope also did fuck all with the bat but managed a run out.  All round the fielding was much better and all the team will feel like they contributed so the only question will be ‘should Leach come back?’  The second test starts on Friday and England will have to improve because New Zealand certainly will.  Trent Bridge should suit both sets of bowlers so it will come down to which batting line up stands up best and that’s anyone’s guess.

Mr Nice by Howard Marks

Read for the second time, twenty years after my first totally enjoyable ride on Mr Nice’s coattails I’m travelling the world first class with the world’s best Cannabis smuggler again but this time I have questions. 

Howard Marks portrays himself as a Robin Hood type figure, getting one over ‘the man’ by enabling the supply of a harmless recreational drug to millions of like minded souls.  This is what he told himself and I’m certain it is what he genuinely believed but he doesn’t hide his primary motivation which was to make himself very rich so he could live a high roller’s jet set lifestyle.  This contradicts the mentality of a stoner, this doesn’t go hand with the Robin Hood man of the people he claimed to be and the role he ultimately made a living playing following the publication of this book.  My cynicism probably stems from reading his final book, ’Mr Smiley’ which was very poor and nothing more than a cash grab though in the circumstances I can understand the reasons for it.

Mr Nice is certainly right in stating the laws prohibiting the trade and consumption of Marijuana are ridiculous but they are still laws and anyone choosing to break them knowingly will be considered criminals if caught.  These laws ‘controlling’ what the Establishment brands as ‘drugs’ are farcical and not even consistent across the world.  We may well ask why the same laws don’t apply to the trade and consumption of alcohol which is a truly destructive drug but we have to accept the current state of affairs.  It’s wrong but it’s just the way it is.    Marks freely admits to breaking these laws numerous times over many years so shouldn’t complain when the authorities finally catch up with him but he does, frequently throughout the last third of the book.  That’s karma bach. I have no ethical problem with the way Howard Marks made his money but I recognise his contradictions and note that he is a man prepared to break the law for his own gain.

We are told that in the ‘good old days’ when Marks started out the smugglers were educated, intelligent people, connoisseurs of the weed who were trying to provide a service.  It’s all portrayed as being a bit of a hoot, mostly harmless rich kids sneaking around playing cops and robbers.  Many of those involved may have done so knowing they were too well connected to get in any serious trouble.  The smugglers were Politicians, University graduates, the English upper class, i.e. the Establishment.  Over time ‘real criminals’; London hard men and ethnic gangs ousted the old boys’ network and it was then the business became more profit driven, cynical and occasionally bloodthirsty.  That the quality of the product dropped at this time is undisputed.  These days I suspect the dealing and shifting is still done by career criminals but the finance is still provided and reaped by the Establishment, nothing much has changed. There is mention of the ‘War on Drugs’, an emotive slogan used by naïve governments all around the world at various times.  Whenever and wherever the War on drugs has been fought, drugs always wins.

I have learnt that autobiographies cannot be wholly trusted, this is Howard Marks take on his thoughts and actions, he will naturally portray himself in the best possible light.  It occurred to me that if Howard Marks was as conscientious in his constant Marijuana consumption as he claims then how on earth can he still remember the minute details of deals done decades before he sat down to write the book?  Also the author freely admits to the web of elaborate lies he weaves in order to paint himself in a better light and fool juries.  We know he’s an accomplished liar, how can we trust his autobiography?

Whatever…  It really is an entertaining read, a good laugh at times even second time around with a more cynical mind, it’s full of interesting and amusing characters, luxurious exotic and squalid settings.  I still want Mr Nice to win, I want him to sneak the herb across the borders and receive his rich rewards, I wanted him to beat the man.  But he doesn’t do it too often and although I don’t believe there were many, if any innocent casualties from his actions, I don’t really think he was particularly nice.

PS.  Free the Weed.

The world is insane but at least we have cricket.

I haven’t had a rant for a while, is this because everything is tickety boo and harmonious in the world?  Nah is it fuck.  It’s hard to ignore the obvious, we are governed by a moron who is a proven liar, a published bigot, a criminal and all the usual stuff you can say about the fat cunt… and I’ll not dwell on energy providers making enormous profits while we are being expected to pay massive prices to stay warm in winter.  That’s what you get when the country votes for capitalism.

But what is particularly boiling my piss right now is celebrity trials.  I don’t mean I’ve suddenly become obsessed with the cult of celebrity and have become concerned about the Kardashian’s latest crisis.  I mean celebrities taking each other to court for nothing more than PR; firstly Johnny Depp and his ex wife arguing about who battered who.  I don’t fucking care and I definitely don’t consider it ‘news’.  Now there are two footballer’s wives who are in court disputing who slagged who off behind the other’s back.  Yes, two people whose only claim to fame is being spunk receptacles for international footballers are in court to decide who is the biggest bitch.  To borrow an expression from my kids, ‘How is this even a thing’?  That’s just the first of many questions, others include; who the fuck are these people?  When did falling out with someone become a crime worthy of trial?  How much does this shit cost and who is paying?  Are they so fucking arrogant that they think the rest of the world actually cares about their puerile squabbling?  At least we know the answer to that one. 

But summer is coming and there will be cricket!  A test series against the world Champion Kiwis begins in a couple of weeks, the visitors will be favourites but will England be rejuvenated by Ben Stokes captaincy and Brendan McCullum’s coaching?  England were always going to choose Stokes and I have a good feeling about this.  Picking the star all rounder to skipper the side may not have gone well in the past but he is a very different person to Botham and Flintoff.  But McCullum?  That one took me by surprise.  I think we know how he’ll want England to play but do the players have what it takes?  Then there’s Rob Key, another one I would never have seen coming but apparently he’s had a big influence at Kent since he retired though I can’t remember them winning a great deal.  I do like the squad they’ve picked though, Anderson and Broad had to come back because they are simply the best we have and the selectors taken notice of county form in going for the likes of Pope, Foakes, Brooks and Potts.  Oh and bloody Overton.  Whichever XI takes to the field New Zealand will give us a proper test and we’ll have a better idea of where England stand in the world of test cricket.

Anger is an Energy by John Lydon

I loved punk and I loved the Sex Pistols, I always wanted to dress in the punky styles but my mum wouldn’t let me…  Even now I love the ethos of punk; anti establishment, anti fashion, anyone can have a go – make noise and have fun!

So Johnny Rotten was/is a hero and I really enjoyed reading his autobiography, getting his take on life and all things musical.  ‘Never mind the bollocks’ stands the test of time and PiL are one of the most underrated bands of all time.  Rotten/Lydon is the kind of antihero that I’m hotwired to like.

So to the book, it is a damn good read but…  Any autobiography has to be taken with a pinch of salt because we are obviously getting one person’s take on things which can’t be anything other than biased.  I can’t help but think that this book is very much skewed to Lydon’s point of view and the truth is somewhat different.  This is not to say that I believe JL to be dishonest, I just recognise there are two sides to every story.

At times the book gets bogged down in the details of recording and touring which gets a bit boring, even for a fan and Lydon goes to great lengths to justify his behaviours and opinions.  It’s as if he’s trying to convince himself and this extends to contradictory opinions and attitudes.  One of many examples can be found towards the end of the book when Johnny accurately describes Britain; a country deeply corrupt from the top down, where the curse of class structure still exists and the law does not apply to the wealthy.  His answer is to become an American citizen…  Johnny you can’t see the wood through the trees mate!

But I did enjoy hearing Lydon’s voice come out of the page and I loved his rants whether I agree with him or not and I have to say I do agree with a hell of a lot and next time PiL tour the UK I’ll definitely be there, again.  But to be honest, if anything I actually like Johnny a little less after reading this book and don’t tell anyone but I actually preferred the Clash to the Pistols. 

England vs West Indies. The red ball re set goes tits up.

The three test series vs West indies was quite predictable in many ways and this includes the result, a home win.  Firstly the pitches for the first two matches were shocking.  I suppose it was inevitable that economies which rely on the tourist dollar and have been starved by covid are going to produce pitches that hold up for full five days.  England’s management probably guessed this so leaving our greatest partnership at home might prove to have been a master stroke.  But could we have forced a win in these matches with Anderson and/or Broad in the team? Probably.

England certainly had the best of the first two tests without really ever seeming close to a win.  The batsmen performed well as a unit on the benign pitches and there were big individual innings from Root, Crawley, Bairstow and Stokes. 

The bowlers always looked a little light, especially when arguably the best two on tour (Wood and Robinson) were injured.  Debutant Mahmood done quite well and Leach deserved better returns.  In hindsight we definitely should have picked two spinners on these pitches.

The third Test was an embarrassment, suddenly confronted with a tricky pitch the batsmen reverted to type with a performance which resembled the shite they produced in Australia.  By this stage we were basically playing a third choice seam attack who were found wanting.  In these circumstances we learnt nothing we didn’t already know; Woakes is ineffective away from home and Overton just isn’t test class.  West Indies won by 10 wickets with five sessions to spare.

What can we take away from the tour and the big ‘re-set’?  Not much.  We are still miles away from having a decent batting line up but although there wasn’t a big score from Alex Lees he didn’t disgrace himself at the top of the order.  Root played two more great knocks and Stokes looked like he was getting back to his best.  Crawley, Bairstow and Lawrence did enough to hang onto their places but little more, as usual.  Ben Foakes had a poor third test and will probably end up a scapegoat, I predict the gloves will be passed back to Bairstow in the near future so Pope can be squeezed back in.  Of the bowlers Stokes and Leach performed as we’d expect and Mahmood had a decent start to his test career.  Things may well have been different if Robinson and Wood had stayed fit but leaving Anderson and Broad at home was an arrogant (non) selection which was punished.  It will be no surprise if Joe Root bears the brunt of any recrimination and I think change is well overdue.  In sixty odd tests he’s been an adequate captain but nothing more.

Finally the Talksport commentary…  God it was barely tolerable.  Former cricketers that I liked as players came across as opinionated pricks; Gough and Harmison in particular but Butcher and Prior were little better. Nicholas was okay but he loves the sound of his own voice and why was Manthorpe even on the air? And as for fucking Jarrod Kimber, Aussie stat man formally of Cricinfo,  Just piss off you irritating twat.

Spring is here and summer approaching, the ordeal of supporting England will continue but at least we’ll have TMS on the airwaves to entertain and ease the pain.

The News in brief

War huh?  Nobody could have missed the news this week, Russian troops invaded Ukraine which to be fair was no great surprise as it has been on the cards for weeks.  The reasons behind this are, apparently Russia fears Ukraine becoming a member of NATO which we assume would lead to US forces being stationed there?  Russia would say they are protecting their own borders.  Russia also wants to install its own puppet government into Kiev, something they’ve tried and largely failed to do for years.  Also there’s the small matter of a crucial oil pipeline running through the country.  This is obviously a shit situation, not least for those directly involved, which could lead to many thousands of civilian deaths.  Sane people can only hope the bombs and bullets cease very soon without too many casualties.  We all wish the people in Ukraine well but those on Facebook adding a Ukrainian flag to their profile, I see straight through you. 

The so called ‘free world’ is up in arms and rightly so but people have short memories. Two decades ago USA and GB invaded two sovereign nations on the pretence of security; looking for a terrorist figure who was actually in another country and ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which no longer existed.  Then there was what they called ‘regime change’ basically installing pro US puppet governments.  Of course the oil fields had nothing to do with their motives…  Needless to say thousands of innocent people died and after the ‘allied’ troops withdrew both regions were plunged into chaos.  I suppose what I’m saying is in the recent past, ‘we’ have been guilty of doing what Russia is doing now, people in glass houses shouldn’t play cricket.

It is true to say that Russia is behaving like a thug but the US is the great world bully and GB the gobshite, short arsed sidekick.  Posing and posturing, standing up to Putin but Biden inspires no confidence, at times he seems barely conscious but thank fuck it isn’t Trump!  Then look at our own supposed leader who in any previous generation would not have been deemed suitable for any kind of public office but here he is, embarrassing us on the world stage.

Talking of our esteemed prime minister…  Last year when I was doing the right thing by staying away from beloved people and my favourite fishing places, that cunt was partying.  When last Christmas I stood in a cold garden so I could visit my family, that cunt was partying.  Through my mother’s dying months when most of us were largely locked down, that cunt was partying.  And at her funeral, held with restrictions on numbers and other things that bullshitting, racist, fat cunt was partying.

Sport :- I’m glad Giles, Silverwood and co have done the decent thing and stepped away and welcomed the appointment of Strauss, for whom I have a lot of respect.  But leaving Anderson and Broad out of the squad to tour West Indies deserves a public investigation and possible police involvement.  If nothing else its disrespectful to West Indies who beat us last time we visited the Caribbean, this after Curran was picked in favour of Broad in Barbados.  Our greatest bowling partnership should be picked on merit for as long as they are fit and able.  If they don’t return to the test side this summer I might end up cheering for the opposition.

And finally…  There are some people out there who believe the BBC is biased and evil.  This opinion is all their own and is made from their own great judgement and intelligent insight.  In no way is this opinion influenced by the commercial media from whom they get their information.

Thought for the month.  Vanity = Ugliness.

Sack the lot of them?

Ah well it’s so easy to sit at a keyboard 11k miles away, having never played the game at a standard above the lowest leagues and even this over twenty years ago.  What the fuck do I know? 

Let’s start with the good bits, the bowlers done pretty well.  Mark Wood had the kind of series we all hoped he could, Broad and Robinson bowled well, Jimmy was Jimmy.  But (and here things start to go downhill…) as good as he is at home Chris Woakes is not the type of bowler to do well in Australia.  Jack Leach done okay at times but like all the bowlers he suffered from mismanagement.  And for much of the series England’s fielding was not test standard, slip catching was particularly poor.  With terrible selections and butter fingered fielders it’s a wonder the bowlers done as well as they did.

Then there’s the batting…

Not quite two years ago, England won a test series in South Africa with young players contributing, the future of the test team looked assured.  But none of them have pushed on; Crawley, Sibley Buttler, Bairstow, Burns and Pope have just been treading water and recent re-additions like Hameed and Malan haven’t nailed down a place either.  The England teams of the nineties are much maligned but those batting line ups were much better than the recent ones.  The likes of Butcher, Gatting, Smith and Hussein were better players let alone Atherton, Stewart and Gooch.  The last England team to win down under had Matt Prior batting at seven and keeping wicket; he averaged higher than any current England player except Joe Root as did all of that batting line up.

Halfway through the series I was thinking “sack the lot of them” but then who else do we pick?  It seems like there are very few options out there, for example statistics say the best two openers in county cricket are Burns and Sibley.  This pair aren’t any better nor worse than Hameed and Crawley, I’d be surprised if it isn’t these two who open the batting in the Caribbean.  Who else is there?

What is certain is Root and Stokes are always going to play and with his ton in Sydney, Bairstow has once again done just enough to hang onto his spot.  We hope this is the beginning of a late career surge for JB but fear we’ll see many more examples of how not to play a straight ball. 

This still leaves two more batting spots to fill but I can’t see how Joss Buttler can be one of them.  Nice bloke but it’s time he went out to white ball pasture, he’s had enough chances.  I suppose the next in line for a middle order bat is Dan Lawrence but from what I’ve seen he doesn’t look like a permanent fixture.  English pundits purr when speaking of Ollie Pope but he hasn’t made the grade yet, why not give Sam Billings a go?  Will someone like James Vince get a recall?  If there’s no one else then why the hell not?  When it comes to keeping wicket, just pick Ben Foakes FFS!

What bothers me most is England’s brains trust.  The lack of preparation before the first test could be excused by unlikely weather and a Covid world but the truth is two inter squad matches was, is and will always be inadequate practice for an Ashes series.  This was a failure at the planning stage and is inexcusable, the team was handicapped before a ball was bowled.  Joe Root’s captaincy has developed to the point where we can now call him average, on a good day.  As leader he had a few days this tour which were far from good. 

Since Ed Smith’s surprise sacking, England’s selections have been baffling and the team’s overall performance is getting worse.  For this trip down under we took two players who were only ever going to be drinks carriers and never looked like playing.  At least Overton and Lawrence’s reputations haven’t diminished which is good for them at least.  The biggest management cock up of all has been the bizarre selections or more to the point, non selections.  I’m all for ‘horses for courses’ but only if they pick the right fucking horse!

The whole tour can be defined by the first morning in Brisbane where we left out our world class tall fast bowler then won the toss on a green pitch under cloudy skies and elected to bat.  The Ashes series was effectively over after one ball.  Those responsible for these decisions are not fit to be working in the world of international cricket and it’s here the blame lies for what happened over the five matches that followed.  For this and for his consistent ability to talk trite bollocks Chris Silverwood must resign.  At least he'll show people he's got more self respect than our lying, racist Prime Minister.

XI for first test vs West Indies;

Crawley, Hameed, Bairstow, Root, Stokes, Lawrence, Foakes, Wood, Robinson, Broad, Leach.

Why we Kneel, how we Rise by Michael Holding

Michael Holding, one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time and part of the greatest Test cricket team we’ve seen.  Latterly an unmistakable and intelligent voice on cricket media.  In short a hero for me.

The book stems from a rain break in play in a test match between England and West Indies, with BLM in the news Holding gave an emotional interview to which people responded in their thousands.  A seed was planted and a book became reality.

As a parent to mixed race kids I thought I was pretty clued up with the subject, it turns out I didn’t know very much at all.  The book educated me, saddened me and shocked me.

I’ve never really understood “Black history month” and it is only now that I realise just how much is being ignored.  In the history taught to British children, black people only enter the picture with slavery, all the civilisations before this are ignored.  Since slavery most black history has been edited out, both the cruelties of white imperial rule as well as the achievements of black individuals.  Yes we’re taught a bit about MLK and 60’s civil rights but that is it.

There were so many stories of appalling behaviour by white people (though I want to add a distinction- historically white people of the upper class.  Their attitude was in turn taught to ordinary white people) throughout.

Holding’s distinctive voice comes through, as does his passion and anger but he is not a writer.  He has enlisted Ed Hawkins as ghost writer and spoke to other prominent black athletes who are quoted in various chapters.

This book is a polite answer to the frightened people who say “All lives matter”.  This is a book that everyone should read but sadly the people who really need to read it most are the ones that won’t.

Great Britain in 2021 (AKA Horrible Histories 2021)

January 

The good news was short, the world finally said goodbye to Trump whose insane presidency came to an end but not before he incited his cult who, led by a man wearing a buffalo head, stormed the US capitol building in a probably accidental attempt to overthrow what they call democracy.  When the melee had ended five people were dead.  Over the following months many people were imprisoned for their actions and for his call to arms, Trump was punished with a lifetime ban from social media...  The US media went mental claiming the storming was “terrorism”; it wasn’t, it was a riot.  It was also described as an “attack on democracy” which it possibly could have been if the US was as democratic as it pretends, which it isn’t, obviously. 

Meanwhile back in Airstrip One Covid was still rife, the prime minister AKA Cat Funt assured us everything was fine and kids could return to school.  Within hours he’d performed another expert U turn (well he does practice a lot) and put us back into another strict lockdown.  By the end of the first week of 2021 it had become obvious that the government’s recent policies had allowed millions to become infected and thousands more would die.

In other news there was a short lived scandal over how much profit capitalist bastards could make out of a school meal that was allegedly worth £30.  Mail readers went into hysteria on discovery that young people, starved for months of casual sex were gathering together to party.  But things did start to look up, in the US Trump was finally led away and was replaced by Old Joe who looked barely alive, also Covid vaccines began to be delivered (i.e. injected into people’s arms), at last there was hope that Covid could be consigned to history.

February

At the beginning of the month the country got together to mourn the passing of the anti Covid poster boy, poor old Captain Tom who sadly and ironically succumbed to the virus.  His passing was a genuinely sad event but the fact this was an unquestionable public example of government mishandling was ignored, as were the 110 000 other Covid deaths.

In early February the country was bombarded by a foot of snow which is kind of normal for the far north where in a scene reminiscent of 1970’s Moscow people formed long shivering queues for the foodbank but obviously a crippling disaster for the south where the herd rejoiced and gathered together to pelt each other with frozen projectiles and give the virus spread a much needed boost.

A Tory MP called Sir Charles Walker gave an extraordinary interview in which he basically said we should stop lockdowns and let people die of Covid.  This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as he is a Tory and it was Cat Funt’s preferred strategy all along.  Walker’s hideous outburst was prompted by debate about travel and the herd’s right to have a holiday.  If your two weeks burning under a hot sun really is the highlight of your year then you really should question your values and priorities in life.  A day or two later it a group of 63 Tory back benchers (dictionary definition – complete cunts) started to campaign loudly for an immediate end to anything that might keep people safe.

It was alleged that Health secretary Halfcock had broken the law when giving billions of pounds worth of contracts to his mates, meanwhile the Dark/Silent Knight, (apparently the leader of the opposition) looked the other way as did the country’s media.  All pretence of democracy was shattered but the herd didn’t care as they waited with bated and fetid breath to learn when they could go back to the pub.

After weeks of promising a roadmap Cat Funt waddled up to the podium and unfurled a large sheet of paper he’d picked up free from a Little Chef in 1989.  After consulting with an embarrassed looking aide he then stuffed it back into a pocket, stared cross-eyed into an autocue and started revealing someone else’s grand plan for leading the country out of lockdown.  This all made perfect sense, especially when Funt reiterated that it wasn’t safe for people to be meeting in groups until the end of March but children would be able to return to schools in a fortnight.

March

At some point early last year the ginger Prince and his ride announced royal life wasn’t for them and disappeared to California, then Covid was born and the world went mad.  By March’21 there was finally room in the media for royalty so Ginge and ride went on US TV and had a whinge about their life of wealth, privilege and luxury.  In response Piers Morgan quit as leader of the opposition and decided to freelance as a gobshite cunt for hire. 

A young woman went missing in London.  When her body was discovered it transpired that she’d been murdered by a serving policeman.  Protests held in response saw women handled (literally) with blunt force by metropolitan police.

This was enough news to enable Cat Funt to escape any undue(?) attention from the media.  The Covid death toll passed 150k* in the UK but vaccinations were being given at a rate well over half a million per day. (* This figure was constantly manipulated, usually downwards, throughout the year).

April

After being secretly ill for some time Prince Phillip died and was mourned by many, notably Mail readers and TV comedians who would have to work harder for a cheap gag in future.  Despite being a passive republican I can’t help having a bit of admiration for the old goat and it must have been hard for Queenie burying him amidst all the Covid restrictions.

Football, the national religion threatened civil war as the top clubs were being lured into a league with those bastards in Europe.  Widespread hysteria and public outcry postponed the move for another year at least but get used to the idea footy fans it’ll happen one of these days.

One of the Prime Minister’s very many dodgy deals had become a little too obvious so the electoral commission began investigating Cat Funt’s wallpaper.  One question was ‘Who actually paid for it?’ another is who the fuck needs paper that costs £840 a roll?

In the US it was comparatively quiet compared to the laugh a minute ride of the Trump era (Just lots of deaths by car crash, winter storms, Covid and gun rampage) but in April the cop who murdered George Floyd was found guilty and locked up. 

Lockdown eased a little or more importantly for a few, the money started to come in a little faster again.

May

The Navy was called in to referee a skirmish between French and British fisherman who were arguing over scallops or something. 

The so called Labour party done abysmally in local elections, they even managed to lose the Hartlepool by election so Sir Prick Starmer blamed everyone else and cried.  There was a brief skirmish with the fire head but the two were separated before she could rip his balls off.  (NB assuming a- he has any and b- she could find them.)  However Labour candidate Sadiq Khan was re-elected as London Mayor.  Khan is a divisive figure due mostly to the colour of his skin.  What a sad, corrupt shower of shit the Labour party has become again, bastards in sheep’s clothing.

The BBC was investigating an interview that took place a quarter of a century ago but is still relevant because it involved a royal who everyone loved, then despised then loved again after she was killed.  A conclusion was reached but it was all an irrelevant use of licence money.

In a sign of the high street dying in this Covid blighted world Debenhams closed its doors for the last time.  Although obviously a sad event it was celebrated in private by hen pecked husbands all over the country.

The odious Dominic Cummings began his revenge by acting out of character and making statements that might somehow resemble the truth about what really happened behind the closed doors of Cat Funt’s government.  In truth he said nothing that wasn’t already obvious to anyone with half a brain.  People who defended him a year ago attacked with vigour and vice versa.  Cummings drip fed his revelations throughout the year, he told us nothing we didn’t already know but was a prick in Cat Funt’s arse and made the PM look a little more unkempt and uncomfortable.  Cummings had no real effect because everyone despises him and the government were able to talk it away with “waffle, waffle sour grapes waffle…”

Lockdown eased a little more.

 

June

On the first of the month nobody was reported as having died from Covid, the first time this had happened since March 2020.  By now just about everyone who wanted a jab had received at least one.

A convicted child killer was released from prison after 33 years (but he was locked up again by the end of the year) which partially hid the news that the high court had declared the government had broken the law by handing half a million pound contracts to friends of Cummings.  Tip of the fucking iceberg.

Cat Funt met an American pensioner in Cornwall.  Apparently these are the leaders of the free world which if actually correct would have been truly frightening.

Having comfortably beaten England over two matches, New Zealand then defeated India to deservedly win the inaugural World Test championship.  In doing so they demonstrated skill and sportsmanship that would not be rivalled during the English sporting summer.

Halfcock uttered some routine shit but by the end of the month was all over the news due to his resignation.  This long overdue departure was not down to incompetence, corruption or 150k people dead but was in fact caused by him being caught fucking a servant.  Halfcock then declared he was actually in love with the soon to be forgotten servant so after deserting his family the two of them skipped off into a meadow of wild flowers whilst holding hands.  They were both the tragically killed when a farmer drenched them in ‘Round up’.  *The last sentence may well be wishful thinking.

By the end of the month the people of England were disregarding their ambivalence and grabbing seats on the bandwagon as the national football team progressed onwards with increasing momentum through the Euro tournament.  In Scotland the population queued to get into fallout shelters.

In the US Bill Cosby’s conviction for fucking the wrong person(s)was over turned begging the questions; Is he innocent or did he get away with it?

In Suffolk a family went into mourning when the matriarch passed away.

July

Football mania continued to grip the country and groups of intoxicated people roamed the streets issuing loud grunts in a form of chant.  Roughly translated it sounded like “is caarmin ome” and was repeated until the grunter was overcome by delirium.  Ultimately England done well to reach the final against Italy where they were beaten by a better team, in truth had we won on penalties it would have been a travesty.  In the aftermath the English football fans displayed great restraint and intelligence when they attacked Italians and abused the non white members of their own team.

Football hysteria almost hid the news that Southern Water were fined £90 million for illegally dumping 21 billion tonnes of raw sewage over a five year period.  By the end of the year Cat Funt had eased the laws to make dumping shit in our rivers if not legal then certainly more difficult to punish.  Funt couldn’t tell what the fuss was all about, everyone knows water comes in a bottle with some French writing on it.

In mid-July Cat Funt ended all Covid restrictions, basically saying the virus isn’t going away and you plebs must learn to live with it so best of British luck to you.  Morons celebrated what they (and only they) called ‘Freedom day’, oblivious to any irony or offence taken by people who never took freedom for granted anyway.

Live music returned to festival stages which meant thousands of people could build squalid shanty towns, get wasted and huddle together in fields or sweaty airless tents.  It seemed neither real nor sensible and we really were dancing in the dark but by God I needed that.

But there was some funny stuff going on as well!  UNESCO realised that Liverpool really is a shithole after all and withdrew some meaningless accolade or other.  Labour MP Dawn Butler was ejected from parliament for repeatedly telling the truth, in this case she was calling Cat Funt a liar and the celebrity racist currently calling himself Tommy Robinson was ordered to pay a Syrian schoolboy £100k in damages after losing a libel case.

The Olympics took place in Tokyo despite being a bit late it all went rather well.

August

Britain’s were able to go on holiday so did so and nothing much happened.  Had there been any news then the royal previously known as ‘Randy Andy’ might have got away with being indicted in a sexual abuse case.

Someone went metal with a gun in Plymouth which made most of us even more relieved that we don’t have similar gun laws to those idiots on the other side of the Atlantic.

But in Afghanistan the shit was really hitting the chinook’s blades.  The dreaded Taliban, bearded bogeymen with evil intent were rapidly recapturing territory previously held by the US/ Afghan puppet government.  Old Joe had pulled the troops out and the Stan was going back to the way it was before it had become a scapegoat for terrorism.  But tragically it means that hundreds of British soldiers died for nothing other than political whim.  Thousands of refugees then tried to scramble out of the country, looking for freedom in the countries that ‘helped’ them and where they will not find a friendly welcome.

September

Mail readers found themselves in a state of anxious confusion due to the success of a British woman in the US open Tennis.  (NB Tennis is a type of sport played by the upper middle class (i.e. can’t afford a polo pony) and those afraid of a cricket ball).  Celebrations of success were muted somewhat by discovering the winner was an immigrant with dark skinned parents.

Also in the US, former ‘singer’ R Kelly was found guilty of sticking his cock into people and places he shouldn’t and was presumably sent to prison.

The only other story in this month concerned petrol.  A media report led to panic buying, this in turn led to more media coverage and more panic buying, by the end of the month supplies were running out and we were wondering if we’d be able to take our cars out at all.  Once again the great British public demonstrated brainless sheep like behaviour and some scenes posted to social media would have been funny in other circumstances.  No one is quite sure what caused the shortage but it was absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, honestly!  According to those hard of thinking at least.  What is for certain is prices rose rapidly thereafter and haven’t returned to ‘normal’ so once more we’d been kicked in the wallet.

Also one of Randy Andy’s legitimate kids spawned another privileged brat and Katie Price was hospitalised in a car crash despite the ample air bags.

October

The beginning of the month heavy rain in London which brought flooding to Kensington and Knightsbridge but unfortunately this did minimal damage and they all drive 4WD round there anyway.

Attempts to restart the various careers of renowned village idiot and disgraced Tory Matt Halfcock stalled before they got off the ground which was probably for the best but means we don’t get to see the fuckwitt crash and burn once more.

David Ames, a relatively benign and popular Tory PM was stabbed to death by a nutter.  The media immediately seized upon the ethnicity of the murderer.  Cat Funt paid tribute after someone reminded him who Ames was.

In the US Brittney Spears was making headlines as it appears she isn’t batshit after all.  I wish her all the very best as long as she doesn’t start singing again.  Also Facebook announced it was changing its name to Meta, probably to help us forget all the bad publicity of recent times.

Climate activists began gluing themselves to roads in a misguided attempt to highlight what we used to call Global warming.  Sadly their actions, though newsworthy, probably done their cause more harm than good.

Meanwhile Covid (like the Taliban) was still lurking in the shadows waiting for people to drop their guard.

November

Throughout the first part of the month scientists, aliens and “world leaders” were gathered together in Glasgow to take part in a publicity stunt designed to assure people that they were interested in healing the planet.  Actually the largest group of people at this event were lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry and this fact alone tells us how effective COP26 actually was.  It was a cynical PR stunt and was rightly called out as such by Saint Greta amongst others.

Also crooked MP Owen Patterson resigned after he narrowly failed to get away with being a corrupt, self-preserving, greedy Tory bastard.  This led to bastard politicians coming under much more intense public scrutiny about their routinely corrupt undertakings and Cat Funt himself felt plenty of heat although not enough to finally roast the bastard.  MP’s took up a fully defensive position and hoped they could keep their heads down until Xmas when everyone would get pissed and forget.

In Liverpool a potential suicide bomber tried to disrupt Remembrance Sunday, he succeeded in killing himself but thankfully other people received only minor injuries. 

The great sport of Cricket beat itself up with allegations of racism, at first these were brushed under the carpet then came bursting back with the promise of better processes in the future.  But with anything the media sinks its teeth into we next witnessed a witch hunt that may do more harm than good.  The guilty will be punished but how can anyone be judged when our own PM has a published racist past? 

In a similar vein over in the U S of Mad a white teenager was acquitted of murdering two unarmed black lives protestors despite being filmed doing so.  Throughout the year there have been countless incidents of people of colour being shot by police.

A snow storm with high winds hit the north of England causing two deaths and a shit load of problems.  People in the south only became aware of this when “I’m a celebrity…” was postponed.

A boatload of refugees/asylum seekers capsized in the channel leading to thirty deaths and widespread celebration amongst Mail readers.  How dare these people attempt to illegally enter the country which helped to bomb them out of their own homes?!

Covid started to flex its muscles again with the introduction of a new variant from Africa (where else?)  Cat Funt responded by belatedly restricting flights and making masks in shops and buses mandatory again.  Thankfully

December

Just when you thought things possibly couldn’t get any worse ‘Omicron’ arrived.  It sounded like a villain in a crap sci-fi film but was actually Covid’s revenge.  As December helplessly ground on, infection figures soared, sporting and music events were cancelled and the hospitals got very busy.

Cat Funt took to the airwaves, would he do the right thing and lockdown again?  Of course not, he hasn’t got the bottle, instead he rattled on about booster jabs and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself.  Perhaps he was savouring time away from infant crying and shitty nappies as his whore had just shat out another child of privilege although you couldn’t technically call this one a bastard.

As the second anniversary of Cat Funt’s election passed many people suddenly woke up to what was obvious all along; the man is totally unfit to lead anything more complicated than a conga line.  He is blatantly lazy and arrogant, he is obviously untrustworthy and misogynistic, he is a published racist and homophobe.  In a by election the Tory bastards lost a Shropshire seat they’d held for 200 years, even his own party started to turn against him.

(Around this time an idiot on social media, who could not admit he could be wrong and may have misjudged Cat Funt, blamed the whore claiming the PM had changed since he got married.  He’s been the same for over twenty years you stupid fucking wanker.  Glad I got that off me chest.)

Also in December cricket fans were uncomfortably compared to Tory voters in showing blind faith in their idols despite all of the contrary evidence.  Realisation dawned; this is the worst England team (or at least batting line up) in living memory.

The story about Downing street Xmas parties wouldn’t go away either, when it was revealed the man charged with investigating actually attended one.  The spawn of Robert Maxwell was convicted of sex crimes which could in turn lead to Randy Windsor’s head being placed on the block.  At this point you start to wonder if we’re living in an elaborate reality show written by Mel Brooks.

In 2021 the English celebrated a normal Christmas and new year (Wales and Scotland were criticised for being sensible); mingling with family, loved ones and people they can barely tolerate for one day a year.  The result of this was another massive rise in Covid cases which had reached 190k per day by the end of the year and we now await the inevitable death toll carnage sure to descend in New Year.

At the end of the year in which Afghanistan was abandoned, Britain felt the need to demonstrate just how far human kind has regressed and how far it’s possible to stretch irony by awarding a knighthood to the renowned liar and war criminal Tony Blair.  This honour has previously been bestowed on the likes of Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Philip Green and that cunt Rod Stewart.

 

So here we are, 2022, Jesus fucking Christ, despite being vaccinated with hope we are in an even worse position than we were twelve months ago.  This year the government isn’t even pretending to try and protect the citizens.  Also I wonder if being jabbed three times isn’t enough to prevent infection then what was the point?  Was it all just a publicity stunt?  Assuming we’re not crippled by the latest wave of Covid we’ve then got to deal with living in an openly corrupt society, surrounded by the living brain dead and governed by crooked cunts.  

But what can we do?  We can’t be unaware of what’s going on but we can notice the humour in it all and try to block out the bollocks.  We can try to ignore the bullshit, it works for me, most of the time.  Remember the acquisition of possessions in pursuit of status will not make you happy, ignore that shit.  If you pay tax don’t condone Amazon, boycott it.  Just concentrate on the people you love and spend time doing the things you enjoy most.  Come together.  When the time comes vote for change.  Happy new year.