Friday, May 19, 2006

Grumpy old men – with subtitles….
Fancy a laugh? Then be sure to watch the BBC telly programme ‘Grumpy Old Men’….. not the regular series, no, watch it when it’s repeated in the wee small hours – that's the edition with the added sign language facility - performed by a digitally added person translating every word said.

A little lady is pasted into the bottom right hand of the screen and as the grumpies moan about this and that, bemoaning the annoying detritus of everyday life the lady does her best to keep up with the moan overload. The trouble is with grumpy old men is that they tend to do a lot of swearing….an awful lot of swearing……

It’s good to see that the sign language movements for 'Wanker', 'Dickhead' and 'Tosser' are exactly as you would think they would be….. except that this lady was doing the movements with unbelievable gusto. When a grumpy said how some Traffic Warden was such a wanker – this lady’s hand became a blur of repetitive action. A bit startling maybe – but 10 out of 10 for comedy value…..

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Stevie Gee, legend…..
I’m a scouser – and a lifelong Liverpool fan. The very first game I ever saw was in the Spring of 1963 when Liverpool played Spurs on a fantastically brilliant bright sunny day. Nine years old, walking through the dark damp bowels of old Anfield footy stadium, I breasted the top of the stairway to be met by a dazzling green square, I was gobsmacked. I’d never seen such a verdant sward. By half time, we were 2-0 down, the boy Greavsie doing his brilliant best. The second half saw us scoring 5 goals to run out winners 5-2. I was so excited I threw up – and since that day, I’ve been hooked.

So I looked forward to Saturday’s Cup Final with relish. I thought we’d murder West Ham. I’d even prepared a posting based on the famous rant by a Norwegian radio commentator upon his team defeating a mullet headed England team……

‘Sir Trevor Brooking, Billy Bragg, Ray Winston, Alf Garnett, we gave your boys a hell of a beating today’…….

But we didn’t. We scored 3 fantastic goals and made presents of 3 others. The difference was Stevie Gerrard - what a player – I wouldn’t swap him for anyone else. If he was playing for Real Madrid or Juventus he’d have been world player of the year by now. Forget Rooney’s metatarsal, Beckham’s ego and Sven’s barmy tactics, the key to victory in Germany is Gerrard – and playing him in his best position. (Taking Defoe would help as well!) The trouble is, does Sven realise it?

Come on England!