Lucky Col
Dance as though nobody's watching, love like it's never going to hurt

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Carry On Daily Telegraph

Warning: This post has been deemed to be 18. This is because it has a reference to the Daily Telegraph. Please do not read the Daily Telegraph if you have an IQ above 18. Thank you.




If you didn't see Have I Got News For You last week, you'll maybe not have seen this.

The Office of Government Commerce have spent £14,000 on a new logo. And here it is:








Now, in today's terms, £14,000 for a new logo is money well spent, especially if you remember the London Olympic logo cost nearly 30 times that amount and at least you can read this one.

Until, that is, you put the logo on its side:


















Now, it doesn't need me to tell you what this looks like, so I won't. I'll let that bastion of impartiality, the Daily Torygraph, fill you in instead. Except the Torygraph have gone all Carry On about the story.



A spokesman for OGC said: “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”


And .....



Brand expert Michael Hamilton said while the logo’s double-entendre was probably not deliberate, it could prove an added bonus for OGC. “They’re going to get more column inches than they could ever have expected before.


Fnarr fnarr.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Celebrating

Listening to the football is never the same as being there. You hear the words, but every throw in is threatening, every pass clinical, every shot goal-bound. Of course they're not, we're in the third division for Clough's sake, but without the visual confirmation of reality, your mind has to fill in the blanks.

And so it was on Saturday, 4:40pm, 81 mins, Kris Commons misses from 5 yards and fails to put Forest in front. I'm already stood up at this point, unable to sit down, too nervous. This miss makes me sink to my knees in frustration. I know Carlisle are getting thumped, but Doncaster are winning, so a win, while not being 100% necessary, would still be good going into the final week.

4:43pm, and this happens:



Firstly, fair play to the lad who took this video. Secondly, I can't remember jumping round my front room so much, especially for scoring against Hartlepool FFS.

Another win, another step towards (hopefully) automatic promotion. So, what to do to celebrate ?

An early doors meeting outside Foreman's, a cracking bar at the best of times, but even nicer when you can sit outside in the warmth. I remember Foreman street when cars were allowed down in between the buildings and the old Evening Post offices. It was dark and enclosed, not a nice route to walk down. Compare that with the continental feel now, bars & restaurants both sides, a pleasure to relax in.

A walk down to the Wetherspoons in the Market Square. I hate it in there, the beers cheap and although they stock a wide sample of real ales, they're never kept well and always taste off. Couple that with the groups of people who congregate in pubs that have a supermarket mentality and you have the perfect recipe for a complete crap-hole.

From one of the worst pubs in Nottingham, to one of the best, The Bell. Bouncers on the door seem to deliberately keep the young people out, but I managed to sneak past them. This has been a regular watering hole of mine since I wasn't old enough to drink and I can't remember EVER having a bad pint in there.

One of the hidden gems in Nottingham is Cucamaras. If The Bell like to keep young people out, in there it's positively compulsory. You don't drink beer in Cucamaras, just the cocktails. I remember having a very good night in there with it being completely empty and three of us going down the menu taking each drink in turn. To show the age of most of the drinkers in Cucamaras, I had a drink made predominantly with milk. Very nice.

On to another permanent venue on a night out, the Tap 'n' Tumbler. While the music is far too heavy for my liking in there, I'd rather listen to that than the boom boom boom repetitive garbage that pretty much all other establishments pump out. When I win the lottery and buy my Indie 80's bar, I'll show them how it's done.

The Stage is another crap-hole, full of fifty year old women flashing their bits to fifty year old blokes, all of whom should know better. There is no decent beer in the whole place, and you need to take a week's holiday to get to the toilets. How it's still going is a mystery to me. I hate the place.

The last pub of the evening, and it's a belter. Langtry's is another pub that has always been on the itinerary and never lets its beer go off. This is how every pub should be, no hassle, decent beer, good food if you want it, no hiking expedition to take a p**s.

Ultimately, no evening out would be the same without a trip to the Irish to top things off. 23 years I've been going now, and it hasn't changed a bit. The DJ booth may have shifted 3 yards to the left, and they've taken some seats out of the bar area, but these are all small cosmetic alterations to something that has never been broke, so doesn't need fixing. The Irish gets a bad reputation by City guides, mostly for the occasional groups of Rugby club students that have to go there because every other club has turned them away, but if you want a good time dancing to proper music, or a late pint talking to your mates, there never has been, or ever will be, anywhere better.

* pics of Foreman's, The Bell & Langty's courtesy of Flickr. Click the pics for the images in context

What a difference a month makes

March 28, A Forest side turns up at Doncaster and plays so badly that even the official Forest website has to acknowledge we managed to produce exactly no shots on target in the whole 90 minutes. Unsurprisingly, the calls for the manager's head were wide-spread.

11 points behind Carlisle with 7 games to play left even the management admitting that automatic promotion was now unachievable.

Fast forward just one month, today, April 28 and not only have we witnessed a Forest-esque decline in fortunes from the team at the top of the M6, we're now within just one point of finishing second.

We produce a better result than Doncaster and at least an equal result to Carlisle on Saturday and we're back up, something that seemed impossible some short 31 days ago.

Irony heaped on irony means that, as last season, Yeovil at home could again be our last game of the season. It would be nice to stick one over on them for the car crash we had to witness last year. Not that I'm still bitter about that or anything.

I think we'll do it, but no doubt I'll let the nerves get the better of me in the mean time.

But, and there is a huge but, there is the nightmare scenario.

Forest win on Saturday, Doncaster fall short and we finish second, job done. There is still the spectre of Leeds and their unsporting behaviour demanding their points back. Leeds can argue all they want that they had already had 10 points taken off them at the end of last season (when it mattered not one jot) and that this season they've played within the rules, but the fact remains that without cheating their creditors, they wouldn't have been able to buy Uncle Tom Cobbly and all to maintain their promotion push, that the rest of the teams played the whole season knowing where they stood in relation to the second biggest team in the division and, to cap it all, they signed an agreement to say they wouldn't fight the judgement.

Sure give them the 15 points back, then don't give them their golden share next season. See how Kenny boy likes that.

Because you know what, there's not a single true football fan in the country would want to see Dirty Cheating Leeds get promoted over Forest.

Not one.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Putting the world to rights

A couple of pints of Magpie Gold at the Lion followed by a few Belvoir Star's at the Horse & Groom, and what had we decided by the end ?

That Leeds United shouldn't get any of their points back. In fact they should be kicked out of the league and all the points wiped out of this season's league table because firstly, who'd miss Leeds any way, but mainly, because Forest have only got the one point off them.

And secondly, money is ruining football and it would be far better watching the likes of Larry Lloyd & Kenny Burns kicking Ronaldo to pieces on a Saturday afternoon on a quagmire, than it is watching fancy dans tripping over their own hair styles and getting injured on £120,000 a week.

Isn't beer a wonderful thing ?











Horse & Groom picture courtesy of Flickr

Friday, April 18, 2008

New music is like waiting for a bus

After complaining about the lack of decent music around at the moment, like buses, along come the following:

Clearly the winner of the worst band name ever, Ham Sandwich.

Ham Sandwich - Keepsake



The Swedish entry in the Cure sound-alike contest.

Shout Out Louds - Tonight I Have To Leave It



Followed by the American entry. I've got my tickets for Black Kids at the Rescue Rooms in July.

Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance

More proof, as if any more was needed

More proof, as if any more was needed, that drinking IS GOOD FOR YOU.

From the BBC:

Drunk Russian sleeps off knifing

A Russian man trying to sleep off a night of after-work drinking failed to notice a six-inch (15-cm) knife in his back - until his wife woke him up.

Yuri Lyalin, 53, took a bus home, ate breakfast and apparently slept like a baby before his spouse noticed a handle sticking out of his back.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Head in the sand

Thanks to Bristol Rovers winning at Walsall on Tuesday, Forest are at least guaranteed a play-off place.

While remembering that, yes, we are still in a division where I have to give two s**ts about how Bristol Rovers get on away at Walsall, I then have to remember how bad it felt the last two occasions we got to the play-offs.

At one-nill up at half-time away at Bramall Lane in 2003, I remember texting McG stating, and I quote:

next goal wins


Up popped Andy Reid to double our advantage early in the second half and the world was a very rosy place. The world was a very rosy place for about a minute before the wheels came off completely. Car crash television.

Fast forward 4 years to the debacle that was Yeovil. Two goals up with ten minutes to go, .... blah blah blah, not listening, fingers in my ears, blah blah blah.

So, you'll excuse me if I'm trying not to think about it this year.

On another subject, Clownderwood has gone on record this week extolling the virtues of playing with wingers. Well done for spotting something most Forest fans having been banging on about for months now.

What next ? Buying strikers in the transfer window ?

Britain's Got Talent

Just to prove that the barrel still hasn't been fully scraped away at the bottom, comes another series of Britain's Got Talent.

Last weekend saw such talent as a bigoted toady a**e-licker, a music impresario famous only for his inability to dress properly and a slapper more known for cheating on her husband with her co-stars than anything she's actually been in herself. Go on, name one thing Amanda Holden's actually been in, apart from Neil Morrissey's pants.

I know it's easy for me to knock these people without having the guts to do it myself. I know it's easy, so I will.

More and more people with 'life long' ambitions to perform on stage, impervious to the fact that if they were any good, they'd have fulfilled their 'life long' ambition way before they'd become impervious to their own complete lack of ability.

Just what this country needs, more talentless nobodies.

Garbage.

But at least it's better than the 'I'd do anything' s***e on the BBC.

Friday, April 11, 2008

If only .....

I'm sure these 'alternative' movie trailers have been out for a while, but I'd not seen them until last week, and if you haven't seen them, they're worth watching.

The Shining



Titanic 2



Sleepless in Seattle

Possible Oscar nomination ?

While waiting for my flight back from Belfast last Sunday, I got lent a copy of the News of the World.

I don't normally read said comic, but it was either that or the Sunday Express (Princess Diana's still dead) or the Mail on Sunday (Princess Diana's still dead and it's all the fault of the illegal immigrants).

The main story over the last few weeks has been the "Nazi Orgy" held by F1 boss Max Mosley. He of course denies this, to the horror of his family. Not that he did it in the first place, but that he actually DENIED it afterwards. His father would be spinning in his grave.

Last Sunday's paper had an interview with one of the, ahem, prostitutes involved in the alleged orgy.

During the interview, she confirmed that it had all been Max Mosley's idea stating that she had been;

only following orders


Which begs the following question:

How much did he have to pay them for them to stay in character for so long ?!!!!

Blood Brothers

I've never been a huge fan of the theatre and certainly not of musicals, but on the premise of saying yes to everything, off we went to the Theatre Royal on Wednesday night to see Willy Russell's 'Blood Brothers'.

If you've not seen it, I won't ruin the plot for you, the first scene of the play itself does a pretty good job of that.

Like a lot of Scouse stories (Bread, Boys from the Black Stuff, this season for Everton), it starts off all sunshine and roses, only to fall into a trap of sorrow, despair and ultimate tragedy.

Linda Nolan still sounds good, although a bit 'lovie' at the end, but that bloke who played Wilmott-Brown in Eastenders hasn't half lost some weight.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

10 things I now know about Belfast

  • Even when there isn't a football tournament on, they still fly flags from lamp-posts.

  • It's not very easy to run across a busy road in a chicken suit.

  • Room 1107 at the Belfast Hilton is huge, comfortably sleeping 7 or 8.

  • Even lucky people have a day off the good fortune. The only two times my horse was mentioned in the Grand National was at the start of the second circuit to say it was still upright, and then with three fences to go to confirm it wasn't. However, this wasn't to be MY day off the good fortune, as it was then confirmed that King John's Castle had, in fact, finished second and the commentator had got it wrong. £15 to me thank-you-very-much.

  • The bar at East Midlands airport IS open at 5:30am, and is strangely quite busy.

  • I've learned this before, but still need a lot more testing, the Guinness in Ireland tastes better than over here.

  • I now know all the words to "A little respect" by Erasure.

  • Irene & Nan's is one of the top ten bars in the world, apparently. God knows why.

  • The older you get, the more recovery time you need.

  • Men being men, at some point someone will try to set fire to alcohol, and then someone else will suggest a way of drinking it that would leave the recipient in need of A & E.

    You would think that the older we get, the more experience we pick up along the way. This person here, for example, decides to light the glass nearest first, then wonders why he burns his fingers trying to light the second glass.



    Nothing wrong with that you might think, BUT, this is the SAME PERSON who did this nearly two years ago. D'oh !

  • Wednesday, April 02, 2008

    Before I go .....

    A new crime report out today shows gun crime in Nottingham, while still being too high for most people, is now at a national average. And these are figures from 2006/07, so I'm sure they've reduced even more since then.

    I am a pillockWhile this is still nothing to shout about, I wonder whether this t**t will deem it necessary to write about how s**t London is now, especially bearing in mind that, and I quote from the report;

    In Greater London and Greater Manchester, the likelihood of falling victim to gun crime is more than twice that in Nottinghamshire.


    Over to you Mr Jenkins.

    Off to Belfast

    I'm off to Belfast for the weekend, my first time in Northern Ireland. Hopefully their airports are less strict about time-keeping than their Republic counterparts, eh McG ?

    Anyway, some tunes to get in the mood .....







    Winning to prove the point

    A cracking result last night at Carlisle where, to be honest, it wouldn't have surprised me if we'd have come away with a right hammering.

    The point being, we all know we CAN play like that. We all know we CAN create chances. We all know the team IS capable of going to any ground in the country and winning.

    It's just that, more often than not, we don't.

    Tuesday, April 01, 2008

    D'oh

    Off to Belfast for the weekend for my mate's stag do, but couldn't let April Fool's Day go by without winding the poor lad up. He's flying into Belfast City Airport early Friday morning, while we've got a more leisurely flight into the outskirts of Belfast International, so I had to send him this, just to worry him up a bit.

    The actual details relate to a strike in 2002, at Belfast International Airport, so you'd think he could spot the changes I had to make to this picture, wouldn't you ?

    Nope. Bless him.