It's Frothy man

It was my birthday last week and I don’t like a fuss at the best of times so the purple princess popped out for a take away curry.  Whilst she was waiting a woman walked in to order some food.  She was dressed in a big coat, with a hat pulled down low and a scarf wrapped around her face.  After placing her order she went out to wait in her car (a large 4WD of course)…  So if she was so scared of catching something she felt the need to mummify herself against infection, it begs the question; just how fucking bad is her kitchen?

How the fuck did we end up here?  Apparently it started in China sometime in November 2019 and was brought to the world’s attention on New Year ’s Eve.  Well it is a slow time for news isn’t it?  Another wild, scary disease in a foreign country?  A couple of years ago it was Ebola, before that SARS or something?  No drama.

But the story wouldn’t go away, simmering and bubbling without me paying much attention then fuck me the pot boiled over, people are fighting over bog roll in supermarkets and in parts of Europe people aren’t allowed to leave their homes.  When I was a kid I’m sure Corona was a fizzy drink advertised by a Polar bear with a catchphrase then at some point it turned into a Spanish beer, now it’s going to change the world as we know it.  The world has gone mad.

You see the problem I have stems from two undisputable facts that life has taught me; governments routinely lie and media organisations have their own agenda so can’t be trusted.  This is especially true in times of crisis.  We are not being told the whole truth here, to me that is unquestionable. 

At the beginning of the week BoJo the clown announced in very English terms that we were all basically locked down.  To be honest I was glad because normally I deal with the great unwashed on a daily basis and this was beginning to make me nervous.  Two more days tidying loose ends behind closed doors and I’ve been housebound since Wednesday afternoon.

Bojo the Clown has been feted as a hero by the Proles on Facebook, compared to Churchill by one which is probably fair if you only focus on the latter’s pre WW2 record.  But all the clown has done is read statements having consulted scientists.  People are applauding the fact he has managed to do so without fucking up in an obvious way.  This is how low we have come when a politician shows the merest competence he is applauded.  If the clown had listened to the W.H.O. three weeks ago we might have avoided the inevitable body count. 

A couple of days ago there was a nationwide round of applause for the NHS.  I was with them in spirit but slightly embarrassed to admit I’d got the dinner timing wrong…  I also resist following the crowd.  Especially as half the people applauding voted for government that sends the NHS into battle under funded, under staffed and under equipped.  Surely the British government wouldn’t do that?  Oh yes they’ve done it before, another war in another theatre.

The following day Bojo the Clown and Hancock the village idiot both tested positive for the virus.  They are a pair of cunts but I don’t wish them harm.  The irony does amuse me though.  I wonder how many people they’ve infected?

So I’ve read loads and written a little.  I’m going through the shelves of CD’s and playing gems I’d almost forgotten.  I’ve refilled the bird feeders but so far only spotted a grand total of eight species.  I’ve escaped from my open prison on two occasions, it was easy.  I went to the Co-op and bought milk, there was no bread or bog roll.  I also went for a little drive, a circular route through local villages, to keep the car battery charged, that was my excuse at least.  But apart from my good lady I haven’t been within two metres of another human in all this time.  Even my children are in other houses for the time being; my daughter hasn’t left her home at Uni for over a week and my son is with his mother because after his college closed, for a while I was the biggest risk to him.  That is a scary thought.

28^th March 2020, it’s hard to get my head around the fact that I’ve been put on house arrest by a disease that is sweeping the world and killing thousands of people.  It’s here in the UK and over a thousand people have died.  Is this a Stephen King novel come to life?  No it’s real, it’s happening and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Anyway, here's a tune.

Old Scrote's day out

The morning was mild and breezy, as we drove to the lake I noticed Blackthorn and Gorse flowering on the embankments.  After an easy row down river, Isaac and I were fishing, for Pike as usual.  For some reason he’d forgotten how to cast today but he got his baits out far enough.  We both caught fish, I had the most but he had the biggest.  After a gruelling row back upstream we were back in the car by lunchtime, we have a full schedule today.

Into Town, the hairdressers first.  An old school friend has the scissors and the chat is nearly as fast as the snipping, during which he confirms what I already suspected, the young people today are consuming coke with the same nonchalance that we smoked weed. 

Onward into my dirty ol’ home town, at least that’s how it looks in miserable January, lots of shitty shops and vacant units.  It’s a far more multicultural place nowadays and this divides opinion.  It doesn’t feel as friendly, to me at least, but this isn’t down to skin colours as much as the vibe I feel.  I can’t help looking at the young women and not for the reasons you might expect.  I’m fascinated by the eyebrows, they look a bastard.  They’re all obviously drawn on, possibly by an infant relative and so obviously fake.  Then there’s the lips, all puffed up and pouty and yes fake.  As is the spray tanned skin tone, fake.  But I expect it all looks good on the social media portrait and that’s where they all mingle these days.  It occurs to me that they are trying to look like black women and they probably don’t even realise it.  Somewhere a fashion executive is saying “we got away with the eyebrows, what can we get the stupid bastards to do next?”  The other day at work I overheard a young woman say she’d spent “…nearly a grand on my lips…”, I know this will sound nasty but it was like spending money double glazing your shed.

Later, in the garden, the unidentified bush that squats in the Beech hedge is flowering.  There are some open daffodils too and the Snowdrops I transplanted from a waterside location are still surviving but definitely not flourishing.  I don’t know when the buds appeared on the Beech trees, they may have been there when the leaves fell off.  Spring is slipping in but winter hasn’t finished with us yet.

Evening.  I’m going gigging with the architect, well that’s what I’m calling him today.  As usual he is driving, the soundtrack is interesting, the conversation flows and spirals and goes off at tangents but fishing at the special place is an ever present theme.  We hammer along the A roads; A14, A11 then M11 and the further you go the more the concrete looms in and envelopes you before all the green has gone and everything is grey concrete or red London brick.  London.  What a shit whole.

We keep going, deeper into the labyrinth of bad manners that is the London road network.  The cars in front jump the lights and roar off.  We don’t but we catch up to the jumpers at the next set where it all repeats.  What is the fucking point?

We end up in Kilburn, parked a short walk from the high street.  All these London ‘Towns’ look the fucking same.  There are a few medium priced chain restaurants, loads of locally owned burger/kebab/pizza places and plenty of bookies.  A few grocers of various descriptions and maybe a Tesco express for those who don’t want to think.  And pubs, loads of pubs.  They all look grotty as fuck on the outside and our destination doesn’t disappoint but actually once inside I feel comfortable.

The bar is long and the Guinness is drinkable.  It’s a small room and it begins to fill until there are just enough people to make the gig not seem silly and the room retain a comfortable feel.  As usual we are the oldest people there, around us is a clientele that considers itself well trendy.  They look like students, not the cool bright ones, these are the misfits on the fringes.  Everyone gets hugged, except us two old fuckers of course.  There are several women with crap haircuts; long and straightish with high fringes that look like they’ve been self cut in the mirror using kitchen scissors, at 2 am whilst pissed.  Beside us at the bar the alpha male is wearing a tight, fluffy pink jumper beneath a black leather jacket.  He’s very demonstrative and has fastened onto a girl.  Everyone in the room knows these two will be fucking later and her mate looks like she wouldn’t mind joining in. And there he is!  The bloke who’s always in a crowd like this; Pixie boots, a long dark coat and shoulder length dark hair with a bit of a curl.  He’s the one with the funny face, looks a bit like Jim Kerr from Simple minds, you know him, he's always at the gig.  He's cool, he's different, he's quirky and he always leaves alone.  I know blurring the genders is cool these days and there’s lots of things I’m not sure about in this room.  This is not a comment, merely an observation.  Who am I anyway?  The oldest cunt in the room with my equally uncool and almost as old scrote of a friend.

The first band comes on and almost straight away I wish they’d fuck off.  There’s a bloke standing on the left with smart hair and a tracksuit twiddling knobs and poking things.  Sitting in the middle is a shaggy haired kid and he too is twiddling things, with such concentration he can’t raise his eyes towards the audience.   And on the right another lad who looks like he may in the past have fallen into farm machinery is merrily thrashing a guitar and growling into a mic. 

I don’t know what the fuck they’re trying to do but it’s painful.  At first I thought someone might have spilled beer on the equipment and the one sitting in the middle was some kind of engineer trying to keep everything working.  Then I thought maybe the guitar player was actually a puppet on strings being controlled by haircut on the left which meant the lazy bastard sitting down was still the engineer.  Then I sussed it.  I was actually watching Scooby doo.  Fred was standing up on the left, Shaggy sitting down in the middle and Scooby was playing the guitar.  I couldn’t spot Daphne or Thelma in the audience but still my revelation meant I enjoyed the show on a different level.  Fair play to them for having the balls to give it a go but the noise they made was crap.

The next band on was the one the architect had dragged me to see.  The line up consists of two members of his favourite band doing what they call a side project.  ‘Jade Hairpin’ were very good.  I suppose I’d expected punk as that’s what they usually do but this was nothing like.  If anything it was more like the guitar Indie/dance music that I have loved since the nineties and I really enjoyed it tonight.  Mike and Jonah are brilliant and were in their element.  They know they are good, they ooze confidence and swagger and are totally comfortable in this environment.  I don’t know who the other two musicians were but they were good enough to keep up in talented company.  Jade Hairpin may well disappear soon but they may have a better chance of radio play than the band from which some of them came.  The architect has converted and convinced me; Fucked Up are a truly great band.  Hard core punk will put many people off but beneath the waves of sound Fucked Up have guile, intelligence and variety.  ‘Dose your dreams’ is a masterpiece.  But they weren’t playing tonight, Jade Hairpin were and they were bloody good.

The final band of the night was called ‘Hi Viz’ and they were angry, shouty punky people with heavy metal guitar solos thrown in who I also enjoyed but to be honest they didn’t leave an impression that will last.  They were good at what they do but for me had nothing that made them stand out.

Back in the car, it’ll take a couple of hours to get home.  On the way out of the capital again, in the dark the shopping villages glow out with their illuminated signs screaming.  ‘Buy Stuff!  Buy Stuff!  Buy more stuff!  Have you got enough stuff?  NO!?  Well you can buy more here…  Buy buy buy.’  Then a bit further a sign advertises storage, ‘Store the stuff you’ve bought here’, and then a bit further’ Insure your stuff here!!!’  And when you’ve done buying or have run out of storage you can hire staff, ‘Plant hire & stuff’.  All of them are saying the same thing.  “Give us your fucking money”.

And nobody questions it.  Wherever we go we are bombarded by it.  ‘Buy Stuff!’   We get home and switch on the box ‘Buy stuff!’  The postman stuffs stuff through my letter box; it says ‘buy stuff’.  It’s probably printed on recycled paper which is kind of ironic because within seconds of scooping it off the mat I’m dropping it into the recycling bin.  (Which I didn’t buy, it was an old kitchen bin I recycled.)

The roads get bigger and quieter; London is swapped for the great concrete ring fence that encircles the jungle with a wall of pollution.   The signs try to swindle us with a road closure but we ignore them and sneak through before the cones go down.  We leave the city glow behind us and head off into the dark, it’s a starry night out there, clear skies so the temperature is dropping fast.  We’re sitting comfortably in this warm metal box on wheels heading deeper into the countryside and what we call sanity.  I’m going to be fucking knackered in the morning.

Where's my milk and honey?

I voted to remain and although initially pissed off with the referendum result, over time I just got bored of the shit show and tried to ignore the whole thing.  But I can't ignore that this is the closest thing to a real democratic vote this country has ever seen and I have to respect that vote even if I don't like it.  I don't have a problem with that bit.   The vote was held after campaigns from both sides of the argument that were farcical, full of misinformation, lies and what you and I call bullshit. We didn't really know what we were voting for.  That is the bit that itches my arse.  

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

I agree that the EU is a farce of fuckery.  It is a giant cow pat of bureaucracy; undemocratic, corrupt and cruel; it badly needs reform but then Westminster is all of those things and its a whole lot closer to home.  No matter how bad Brussels is, our own parliament is a hive of bastards, hopefully the real problem will now be more obvious.

"The English electoral system, for instance is an all but open fraud.  In a dozen obvious ways it is gerrymandered in the interests of the moneyed class"

You see the trouble with Corbyn was he gave the likes of me hope, but too much media shit stuck and it was never going to be allowed to happen.  What we need now is a socialist successor without the smears who can ride the tide of muck that will inevitably be hurled her way.  Ultimately we need electoral reform, true proportional representation and we might not get the former before the latter.  

"We shall have to fight against bribary, ignorance and snobbery.  The bankers and larger businessmen, the land owners and dividend drawers, the officials and their prehensile bottoms will obstruct for all they are worth.  Even the middle classes will writhe when their accustomed way of life is menaced."

Reading back I realised I've used a reeking pile of fecal references, this wasn't deliberate but it does seem to fertilize things appropriately.  All of the quotes were written by George Orwell in 1940, during the darkest days of the war.  Europe as a whole is in a much better state than back then, thank God.  Unfortunately English politics and English politicians are a fucking sight worse.

"... a few rich men and their hired liars..."

But the last word goes to Johnny.

Three - One to the Engerland

The fourth and final test was competitive for four sessions but then England took over.  Root won the toss and the openers put on 107 before Sibley fell.  At 157/4 the game was in the balance but another century partnership, this time from Root and Pope put England in control.  Back came South Africa, a maiden 5 for from Nortje reduced England to 318/9 but tenth wicket fireworks from Wood and Broad took the game away.  England were all out for 400 with Crawley top scoring with 66, his first half century.

England bowled, South Africa couldn't get the ball away and cracked under pressure and were all out for 183, only De Kock passed 50.  Mark Wood bowled at frightening pace to take 5/46 and England had a massive lead.  Root could have enforced the follow on but this would have given South Africa a sniff, so in went England again and despite a strange stop-start innings the lead piled up.  On the fourth day the Saffers resisted for a bit but Wood terrified them into submission again and England won by 191 runs.

Once again I followed the game via the Talksport commentary and I still haven't warmed to it.  With people like Nicholas and Manthorpe at the microphone it's OK but then you get someone like Gough or Peitersen chipping in and I find myself snapping "Fuck off" at the radio.  Comparing this coverage to TMS is like comparing a pint of 'Ghost Ship' to a glass of home brew.


Going forward England at last seem to have found some top order batsmen.  Things looked worrying when Rory Burns went home injured but Sibley and Crawley have come in and done better than we could have hoped.  We now have three viable options at the top of the order.  Unfortunately Joe Denly, who up until now has been just about doing enough to keep his place, hasn't pushed on and if all players are fit his days are numbered.

Root and Stokes are carved into the line up and another youngster, Ollie Pope has been fantastic at six, he is a star of the future.

I love watching Joss Buttler bat but like Bairstow he has been found wanting at test level.  Ben Foakes is our best keeper and deserves an extended run in the side.

Sam Curran had a reasonable tour, he chips in here and there without making a match winning contribution.  He is young and improving but at the moment I'm still not convinced he should always make the XI but is a good man to have around the squad.

We have a wealth of bowling options, especially in home conditions where Anderson, Broad and Woakes all do particularly well.  In spinning conditions we have relative newcomers Dom Bess and Jack Leach along with the experienced Mo Ali and Adil Rashid.  Matt Parkinson has also toured but hasn't showed us anything yet.

However what excites me most is with the pace of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood we have bowlers who can help us win test matches in Australia...

Third Test

An almost perfect test match for England.  Win the toss and bat.  Build a strong platform and accelerate through the middle order to set a big total.  Then bowl the opposition out twice and win by an innings.  Once again the younger players led the way, particularly Ollie Pope with the bat and Dom Bess with the ball.  There were also decent contributions from Crawley, Sidley and Curran too.  Of the established players Ben Stokes once again proved that he has become a very special player, Broad was as consistent as ever and Root took some wickets!  The fourth and final test starts on Friday and England should feel confident of victory.

It's a national scandal that TMS has not had ball by ball commentary for this tour.  I've listened to the 'Cricket Social' but it doesn't quite cut it so I've been forced, reluctantly to tune in to Talk Sport.  It fills the role of giving me cricket commentary but it isn't even in the same school as TMS, let alone the same class.  The commentary team cannot hope to compete with the names and voices that have become our summer friends on TMS.  A few are OK, Mark Butcher for example, even if he does sound like he's just fell out of bed after a night on the piss.  Mark Nicholas would be a good commentator if he stopped trying to hard to sound clever and stopped sharing anecdotes of great cricketing performances given by people other than himself.  How many tests did you play Mark?  

Most of the Talk Sport commentators move me in no direction, Prior is OK, Harmison is out of his depth and Batty doesn't piss me off.  Then we get to the dregs.  Stats man is Aussie Jarrod Kimber who comes from the Cricinfo team.  He is a bell end.  Then there is the sickening KPego who has not found any humility since retirement.  It may be hard to believe but there is someone even worse in the comm box.  I loved Darren Gough as a player but his media persona is loud, opinionated and pig fucking ignorant.  Fuck off Goughie.  Talksport's greatest crime involves their self promotion at TMS's expense, with the tag line 'Less cake and more cricket'.  Fuck off and choke on some bill-tong.  Bring back TMS and all the cake, buses and pigeons. 

Second test

England won the second test late on the fifth day and so tied the series at one each.  This was a tough match that was made harder by losing our rising star Rory Burns the day before and the great James Anderson towards the end.

All eleven of England's players contributed to this win.  Ben Stokes was man of the match with an awesome all round performance, there were good contributions from Anderson, Root and Broad.  Most pleasing however was the success of relative newcomers to the team; Ollie Pope (aged 22) with a half century in the first innings and Dom Sibley's (aged 24) epic ton in the second.  Curran (21) took useful wickets, Bess (22) was brilliant as the controlling bowler and Zak Crawley (21) got a few runs second time around.  The future is starting to look a bit brighter.

With Burns and Anderson out of the tour we'll hopefully field a settled side for the next test with Archer coming in to replace Jimmy.  If England equal the standards set in the second test then we should win.

New year, more cricket.

The first test finished in the most predictable manner with a comfortable win for our opponents.  England will look to the illness sweeping the squad but it was still the kind of erratic performance that we have become used to.  We have a habit of losing momentum when in good positions, especially in the first match of a series.  Illness or not our preparation going into Test series is obviously not good enough.  Root winning the toss and putting South Africa in might have been the decisive moment.

There were good performances from Broad, Curran(!), Denly, Archer and Burns but others were under par.  Illnesses meant Bairstow got a game as a batsman but his contribution means he'll be easy to leave out if everyone else is fit.  The second test begins tomorrow, England can play much better but have to start straight away if we are to have a chance in this series.

So 2020.  We have two Teflon coated hired liars 'leading' Britain and the US.  We live in a world where women are paid less than men, where sex offenders can buy their way out of prison... I could go on and on and on but the whole shitshow is rigged to keep things pretty much exactly how they are now.  It's all irrelevant because the bastards making all the money are killing the planet.  But fuck all that, switch of the news and ignore it, just concentrate on the things that make you happy.  An England win would be a good start.