Mackerel Malaise

I have never been a vegetarian, nor can I ever imagine myself becoming one. The homo sapiens has been around now for 200,00 years give or take and for that time, for the most part, we have been carnivores and it doesn’t do to ignore history. However I must admit that I am the worst sort of carnivore – I could no more slaughter an animal than I could fly, but if someone else does it and puts it on a plate with some spuds and vegetables, then I am happy to eat it.

I have two young children and so far I have tried to shield them from the connection between what they see frollicking in a field, eating grass and mindings its own business and the hunk of meat that is served to them at mealtimes. I have tended to refer to meat as either white or red, so as not to “personify” it. As my children have become older they have become more aware of the connection and the odd query as to a chicken’s lineage has been discussed at dinner time.

At the moment my children are on their school Summer holidays and are currently in Pevensey Bay with their mother and by all accounts they are having a splendid time. I spoke to both my children today and they were keen to tell me about their fishing exploits and how, between them they had caught 11 mackerel and sundry other fish. I will leave aside the fact that whenever I went fishing in my youth all I seemed to catch was confectionery wrappers and prophylactics! Apparently, from speaking to their mother they were going to cook the fish on the beach and toast marshmallows for their evening meal. I could not bring myself to speak to them about this and make the connection between catching a wild animal, killing it, burning it and then eating it .. I spoke to them about how lovely the marshmallows would doubtless taste. I think I am a moral coward on this subject and feel compelled to broach the subject with my children sooner rather than later .. but I will just listen to Meat is Murder one more time first …

Mister Manchester

I got a call from my brother to tell me that Tony Wilson had passed away; like my brother I was truly saddened by this news. Tony was a great man and I had a lot of time for him and what he did for my home town. I am fiercely proud of my hometown, just like many people, it was the place where I grew up, was educated, got drunk for the first time and did a few other things for the first time too etc etc.

In the era when I was really into music, he contributed an enormous amout to getting Manchester on the music map and he will be sadly missed by many.

Flat Champagne

I was eagerly looking forward to the start of the new football season; it is always nice to have it back, but with United’s purchases in the Summer I had high hopes of watching even more expansive, attacking football.

Feck! We were frustrated by a man-marking scheme ably deployed by Reading – that completed un-expected ploy! However it seemed to frustrate some of the most talented footballers on the planet and United were poor. Scholes had a quiet game and without his guile we were too easily repelled. I would not have been too bothered about this and put it down to early season lack of form / fitness, but the fracture of Rooney’s left foot (the third one in as many years) was a real blow. It would seem that Tevez will be called into the fray sooner than anticipated and I am hopeful he can fill the pie-boy’s gap for the next two months, but I was looking forward to them playing as an attacking duo … roll on October!

In the morning I had visited Polesden Lacey with my family and on the way we had stopped to watch some Sunday League football. Now I have not played football for some time and I am no longer quite the svelte midfield general I once was, but bugger me these blokes were useless. They were of a similar shape to myself and many of them were younger, but based on what I saw I am the white Pele

On the way back from Polesden Lacey I spotted a hose riding school (or so I thought). My daughter used to have riding lessons and is keen to start again, so I stopped the car and wandered in. I asked one of the young girls fettling the horses “who was in charge ..” and she pointed me in the direction of a classic Surrey Set female, who I fully expected to be wearing a string of pearls beneath her Barbour gilet! I asked about the lessons and she replied in a cut-glass accent, with a hint of a porcine snort – “Oh no dear, we do not do lessons here, this is an equestrian centre”. At this point I am thinking, what the f*ck is the difference between one of them and a riding school. However Ms Piggy proceeded to give me directions to the nearest riding school and was very polite, so it would have been churlish to mock her and my daughter was stood next to me – but I was sorely tempted. At this point I decided to head home and buy Grace a rocking horse!

Manners Madness

When the long overdue (imho) smoking ban was introduced in the UK I was abroad, so I did not witness the first pangs of angst many smokers here did. I am not a smoker myself, but I respect that other people have the right to damage their bodies (to some extent) if they see fit. However the case for passive smoking is proven and I do not want them to damage me and mine – so get the f*ck outside! I had figured that this legislation would cause a few arguments in the initial period of its introduction, especially after a few glasses of alcohol had been consumed.

However the severity of the most publicised incident truly shocked and disturbed me. I was listening to the Today podcast this morning and they were interviewing Kelly the brother of the victim, James Oyebola (who has subsequently died). It would seem that James was truly a “gentle giant” and he was generally regarded as a peacemaker by his friends and family. He had a asked a group of people, politely by all accounts, to stop smoking and they shot him twice, once in the head!

This incident was still washing around in my cranium and then I read about this. What is happening here, in both of these incidents it would seem that the victims were doing absolutely nothing wrong and were simply asking people to show some consideration. What are these people thinking when they perpetrate acts like this, how does anyone think that this is acceptable, normal or tolerable!?

Community Service

Off to the new Wembley today to see if the toilets are still flooded with urine. We all jumped into the car, fired up the trusty TomTom and headed off. An hour later we were there, parked closed to the ground (10 GBP for the priviledge) and awaiting the arrival of my two brothers who were making the journey up from Manchester. They arrived shortly after us and we headed over to Nandos Chicken for lunch and a catch-up. There was a slight difficuly in that my brother had ordered four tickets from Manchester United (and paid for 4), but they had only sent him 3. The whereabouts of the missing ticket was not clear, but presumably the club had sold it to someone else too and Wembley would not issue duplicates which left me down both money and ticket – but hey, that’s life for a football fan, you get treated like sh!te by the club you support – at least the fans of the bigger clubs do!

The game was quite good, of a much better quality than the dreary FA Cup Final, some 3 months earlier. It went to penalties and van der Sar saved all three of theirs and we scored all of ours – Ferdinand scored a great one for a central defender, especially as it was against probably the greatest keeper in the world at the time.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7EYkhOiuWU]

Argie Bargie

So finally Tevez would appear to be headed for Man United, what a protracted load of ol’ nonsense. I doubt the full story will ever be widely known, now that the two parties have shyed away from the High Court and reached a “settlement”. Apparently all that is needed now is for the sanction of the craven FA and the deal can be done. I feel sorry for Sheffield United who were relegated when it should probably have been West Ham, but as ever the FA bottled the big decision. They knew full well that if they docked points and sent West Ham down – the club of our beloved only ever World Cup winning captain, there would be questions – as West Ham is a “big club”. So sod that, lets screw about with the poors saps from Yorkshire.

As one Argentinian joins another one looks set to leave, I will be sad to see Heinze go; he has become one of my favourite players but I can see he is not the player he was before his recent injuries. I am off to the Charity Shield at the new Wembley this weekend, it should be a good day. I think both teams will be some way from full strength (or fitness come to that), but it should be a good day all the same.

I see United are continuing their scouring of the world for new talent and it seems this wee lad was given to them on a plate, apparently his grandfather sent Utd a DVD of his skills from Brisbane – do they play football down there … Kevin ?

Whether that talent will mature and turn him into a world-beater remains to be seen, but I wish him well, if only because he reminds me of my since-departed “silky” skills …. I wish!

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG47FDenyXw]