Genius

Apologies to anyone who's seen this before, but this made me chuckle yesterday.

There's a site here that hosts clips of Bollywood films, where you can add your own subtitles, and then post the link on for your friends to review. The available clips change every day apparently, leading to hours of fun.

Like all the best ideas, it's obviously simple, but addictive.

Money for old rope

The new Forest kit is launched today, probably rushed out on the back of the recent successful run, but hey, the sun's out, it's the weekend, My Name is Earl is on the TV tonight, let's be positive.

And this is it. I have to admit that I had to look at the official website to see how it differed from the old kit, but thoughtfully, they've taken the old one off. Someone at Umbro has really made a big effort, eh ?

Thankfully, it doesn't have any pin-stripes on it, and it still has the two stars on the arm, but, honestly, seriously, what is the difference ?

The official website also steers clear of showing the back of the shirt. Up until now, reserved for the player's number and name, for some clubs this has turned into another advertising revenue stream, rendering young kids as sandwich boards. Every penny counts at Forest, so it will be interesting to see which company's logo Bournemouth's right back will be looking at after Kris Commons skips past him tomorrow afternoon.

But for all my complaints, let's face it, I'll still get one.

If you're eating your breakfast .....

..... look away now.

Proof that power makes you more (more ?) attractive to the opposite sex.

Not Crazy

Following my rant about the current state of British music and just to prove, even if it's only to myself, that I'm still 'hip', 'with it' & 'down with the kids', I've got to say how pleased I am with a current spate of music hitting the shelves over the next week or so:

Dirty Pretty Things are basically the talented ones out of The Libertines, i.e. the ones who didn't f**k themselves up with ugly, skinny has-beens & Columbia's biggest export. "Bang Bang You're Dead". Superb.

The Raconteurs, The White Stripes with instruments.

Hard Fi, "Better Do Better", probably the best song from DEFINITELY the best album of last year. If you don't own "Stars of CCTV", BUY IT NOW. If you do, LISTEN TO IT NOW. (This subliminal stuff is easier than I thought)

The Kooks "Naive". From the album "Inside In/Inside Out", which also contains "Eddies Gun" & "Sofa Song". Fantastic.

Buy them all, download them all, knock "Crazy" off the top of the hit parade.

Memories

Not a fantastic weekend results wise, Forest lost for the first time in living memory with other teams around us suddenly deciding that now was the right time to restart their own Championship push. Bugger.

So instead of dwelling on this weekend, and because of the game yesterday where Marlon 'obviously not as good as King' Harewood scored the winning goal to put West Ham into the FA Cup final (and Europe), let's dwell on a game from 15 years ago …..

April 14 1991, Forest v West Ham, FA Cup semi final at Villa Park.

As a fresh faced, young free & single 22 year old, an FA Cup semi final at a sunny Villa Park would mean copious amounts of alcohol, a good result and a happy day out all round. As it transpired I was still recovering from a wisdom teeth operation not four days earlier, so alcohol was off the menu and my face looked like it had gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson, who could still box back then.

Early in the first half, Gary Crosby goes though on goal, but is blown over by Tony Gale huffing & puffing to get back in position. I've since heard the referee sent him off for foul & abusive language, which would be the only possible explanation as the word 'harsh' doesn't exactly cover it. From then on it was one way traffic, Forest waiting until the second half to wrap up the convincing 4:0 win.

While the game is well documented here, as with most games, the memories are of the extra-curricular activities of being a football fan:

• A Police dog demonstration before the game, two policemen, two dogs. The blokes are wearing protective padding round one arm and carrying a black bag in the other. One policemen goes one way, the other in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, both dogs go after the same man, one leaps at the padded arm while the other takes the arm that's left. Ouch.



• A West Ham fan, clearly irate at the red card decision against his team, leaps over the advertising hoardings and runs straight for the referee. Stewards & police follow, but too far behind. What will he do ? Has he got a knife ? Will he just lamp him ? The lad gets to the referee, but then seems to realise where he is and stops. He then gently taps the referee on the shoulder and gives him a piece of his mind, which by then couldn't have been much. The abuse the poor lad got as he was hauled away must have made him think that if he was going to get caught, it may as well have been for something significant.



• West Ham fans not shutting up for the last half hour of a game they were never going to win.



• Following the game, and the search is on for the coach we came in, which had helpfully moved from the car-park it dropped us off at. By the time we find it, the only people outside the ground are the sort of lads who would have arranged to meet up before-hand for a friendly discussion on whose supporters were better at having friendly discussions. My mate Kev & I stood with our backs to a warehouse wall as a group of Forest fans chased after a group of West Ham fans, only to return 10 seconds later being chased themselves by West Ham fans led by a bloke dressed from head-to-toe as a monk. Priceless.

TFI Friday

What's the best thing about the weekend ? The promise of a few jars ? No setting the alarm ? Catching up with people outside your workplace ?

No, no and no.

The best comedy to come out of America since ..... well, ever, is on Channel 4, 10pm Friday Night.

My Name is Earl.

Catching up on a missed episode last night, I noticed the actor's name of the lead character, which allows me to use the gratuitous, unnecessary but ultimately happy memory inducing photo below.

Girl from Mars

I don't get to the cinema as often as I'd like, so when I do go, it's usually a big-budget / cartoon / comedy affair at the Cornerhouse multiplex.

Thursday was 'Alien Autopsy', where Ant & Dec play a couple of 40 something cockneys by pretending to be a couple of 30 something geordies.

Half way through the film, when the two heroes are showing their fake alien autopsy film to the general public for the first time, Dec (I think) turns to Ant:

- Do you hear that ?

- No ?

- Exactly. They're not laughing are they ?

Quite.

It's all up for grabs now

Nick Hornby once argued that football was better than sex. As best as I can remember, his position was that while sex was fantastic, you pretty much knew what was going to happen, whereas when you watch you're favourite football team, you don't know the outcome, so any positive experience is a complete surprise, heightening the emotions.

Fade to April 17, 2006, Forest v Yeovil .....

The nerves around NG2 yesterday afternoon could be heard in the erie hum outside all the pubs & bars Trentside. Plenty of fans spilling out on to the sun-soaked pavements, but no singing before the game and precious little laughing. Was this what people did for pleasure on a Bank Holiday Monday ? Some had even queued from 9 in the morning to snap up the remaining seats for the eventual sell-out against Yeovil. All so they could shuffle quietly into their seats and have their nerve ends shredded for 90 minutes.

The pain at going a goal down early on, the agony of playing a team of nobodies off the park for half an hour with no reward and the relief of an equalizer to make half time seem semi-bearable.

Then the Nick Hornby moment, a pass out to the left, a quick cross, shot, blocked, ball up in the air, could go anywhere, Nicky Southall diving in at the far post, cue 28 thousand people going nuts. I'm in this picture somewhere. I'm the one jumping up and down with my hands in the air. Red shirt ? Picture of a tree ? No ?

Moments like that make it all worthwhile. The lows of freezing to death watching Barnsley roll you over when you could be in the pub on a Friday night, losing to Woking, Chester and earlier in the season, the 'fans-in-the-dressing-room' debacle against, would you believe it, Yeovil.

The lows are what the make the highs so enjoyable, and fortunately at Forest, there is no middle ground, no mediocrity, it's all highs or lows. European Cups to near-bankruptcy to Wembley every season to relegation to promotion & Europe back to relegation etc etc.

However, while I can understand what Nick Hornby was trying to say, he was, of course, talking out of his arse.

When all else fails ....

.... blame illegal immigrants.

Closet Tory

As much as I dislike centre ground politics, privitisation & the war in Iraq, the most stupid accusation ever leveled at Tony Blair's door was that he changed the Labour Party's policies to get elected.

Well DER.

Unfortunately, as the elections in 82, 87 & 92 proved, the electorate in this country don't want a socialist government.

Which makes the ramblings of this egotistical tosser all the more difficult to explain, especially as he himself 're-prioritised' his beliefs in order to get elected.

If the Labour Party loses the next election, who do you think will win ?

As far removed as the Labour Party is from the one I joined as an idealistic 14 year old, at least it isn't the Tories, the same old Tory party hiding under the blanket of another sharp suited, upper class pillock.

The World Cup gets just that little bit better

When it was announced that the official World Cup song was to be recorded by Embrace, the news was met by apathy, apart from those who couldn't even be bothered to be apathetic.

Apparently, the players wanted Kanye West, at least Wayne Rooney did, he had a score resting on it. Alledgedly.

I don't mind England having a Swedish coach, the lack of English candidates dictated that, at the time, there were no suitable alternative, but it would surely be a bad sign if we couldn't find an English band / singer to sing the official World Cup song.

However, there are now reams of alternative World Cup songs appearing, as if from nowhere.

Joe Fagin, best known for the theme to Auf Wiedersehen Pet and not a great deal else, is recording a new version of said song called "That's England alright". Genius.

Alex James & Keith Allen did the Fat Les singles a few years back and are back recording, and now comes the news that Jimmy Pursey is stepping up to the plate as well.

We may go out in the Quarter Finals following a predictable Rooney injury & a correctly (but forever disputed) disallowed goal but, like the devil, at least we'll have the best tunes.

Less than a year to go .....

The smoking ban came to Scotland roughly a month ago amidst a fear that pub trade would be so badly hit that businesses would close.

However, a story on the Press & Journal website, the local paper for Moray, suggests that in fact pub trade has actually gone up since the ban came into place.

The sooner the ban comes south of the border, the better.

Hopefully this time it won't get as far down as Derby, and then march back home again.

Thankyou

Another good result for Forest at the weekend, although not the best performance, coupled with several helpful scorelines elsewhere in League One and what seemed like over-optimistic clinging to the play-off safety net four weeks ago now looks like it could happen. We've got the momentum, the players, the supporters and most importantly, a decent management team. A top six finish on current form is not only a possibility, but also quite likely.

Of course it could all go Pete Tong. Tranmere has never been that good a hunting ground for the Garibaldi and this time in eight days we could be 8 points adrift with only three games left.

But the fact that we are in this position is in no small part to our new managers, unbeaten home AND away, playing good football, putting players in their correct positions and earning their share of lady luck's bounty.

The season could have petered out into a stale, mid-table slog, or possibly worse, a relegation struggle. But instead, the end of season is exciting for all the right reasons.

It's never dull being a Forest fan, so Charlie & Frank, thankyou.

Sad day

It's been a sad day for music today, two very different musicians passing away, both having a small, but none-the-less valued, influence on my life.

Gene Pitney was one of my mum's favorite singers, and she didn't have many, so there was many a time listening to a greatest hits tape she brought back from Jersey.

Martin Gilks, the drummer from the Wonderstuff, also passed away today. The Wonderstuff did some cracking indie-disco tunes back in the days when every weekend was a road trip to London, Bristol, Coventry, Birmingham or Manchester. He also spent some time with the Mighty Lemon Drops, who were probably only the second or third band I ever went to see live.

A sad day indeed.

Crazy

There’s something not right about the new number one, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. The first “single” to get to number one on download sales alone.

Firstly, and don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against downloaded music, but this development sets a precedent signalling the potential end of physical single sales, which will then ultimately lead to the end of any physically available music content.

I used to love the physical aspect of buying a single, the picture sleeves alone well worth the 49p singles used to sell for when I was a lad. There’ve been singles I’ve bought simply on the basis of the picture sleeve alone.

Onto CD’s in the late 80’s, and even back then, there were people I knew refusing to embrace the new digital culture, refusing to accept that their music can be faithfully reproduced on anything other than thin black vinyl.

With CD’s, there’s the cover booklet to read on the tram home, for those bands who can still be bothered to thank the people who supplied their “towels” during recording.

With downloads, you’re left with a file on a PC, which you can transfer to a cheap, plastic matchbox with a headphone socket, to listen on the move. I must be in the minority; I still burn all my MP3’s onto CD’s to play them in proper CD players, like we had when we were kids.

If I’m in town, and I fancy a particular album, I’ve got HMV & Virgin to aim for. I know that they don’t stock everything, so usually head straight for Selectadisc. What I won’t do is pay a subscription to get on to a download site that doesn’t stock everything. Nobody in their right mind would pay to get into a major record store not knowing whether what they wanted was there or not.

Music has turned from an object of desire on physical & audible levels, to non-existent, disposable strings of 1’s & 0’s. As the Arctic Monkeys so eloquently put it; “There’s only music so there’s new ringtones”

Secondly, and more importantly, Crazy by Gnarls Barkley is dull, repetitive c**p.

Saturday April 1

Into the caff for fried breakfast with the boys. How they keep open charging £3.80 for 4 slices of bacon, 3 sausages, 3 eggs, 4 rounds of toast, hash brown, tomatoes, beans & mushrooms I’ll never know, but while they’re still there …..

Another good result for Forest on Saturday, despite the curse of the manager of the month award and the dream is still alive. The best bit about being an optimistic lad is watching other, how can I put this politely, more pessimistic, supporters suddenly turn round to your way of thinking.

As the results came in, one after another, I don’t think it could have got any better, good results for Forest in League 1, Derby getting well & truly hammered, Leicester losing at football & rugby and a cracking result for Elgin in Scotland.

A couple of pints in the BpitW on a Saturday afternoon can only mean one thing, the kids are at their grand-parents.






Down to the Grovesnor for an early start. Exmoor Hound Dog tasting very nice.











Up to the Forest Tavern with the most expensive taxi ride in history.












A short stroll to Fade followed by a quick one in the Lincolnshire Poacher.

Can you tell an interesting anecdote that doesn’t start with the phrase “When I was in Australia” ?

Condoleezza Rice pulling more spectators on her visit to Blackburn than normally attend Ewood Park

How far can a normal man swim underwater ?

A quick look around a very disappointingly redecorated Golden Fleece (won’t be going in there again) before a last one in The Orange Tree (formally Russell’s).

I don’t do the all-day sesh thing very often any more, town pubs don’t have the same draw for me as 15-20 years ago, and 7am on Sunday morning I got a stark reminder of exactly what revenge my body has on me when I subject it to unusual punishments.

Damn you, dehydration.