You can't win ....

From the BBC ...

Home drinkers 'over-pour spirits'

Most people who drink spirits at home pour well over what they would get in a pub when trying to give a single measure, figures suggest.

The government's Know Your Limits Campaign found that among 600 people tested, the average amount poured was 38ml, compared with a standard 25ml.

Those aged 31 to 50 - the most generous pourers - gave an average of 57ml.

For a person thinking they were drinking 7.5 units a week, the larger measures would equate to 17 units.

You get moaned at for drinking too much, but if you try vaulting over the bar to borrow one of their optics, you get barred.

You just can't win, can you ?!!!

LuckyCol’s review of the year 2009

January

Forest decided to sack Calderwoodout on Boxing Day 2008, appointing Billy Davies just before our FA Cup trip to Premier League Manchester City, the richest club in the world. Billy could only sit & wonder exactly what it was he’d need to do as Forest completely outplayed & thrashed a poor City side. A contender for goal of the year from Nathan Tyson and a cracking half-time interlude in the concourse of the city of Manchester stadium. If only it could be like this every week.

I turned 40 in January, although I still don’t feel any different. Having a birthday banner in the pub is a novel experience, but also said pub having to close its doors at nine o’clock because of the sheer numbers of people is something you don’t see very often. It might have been me, or it may have had something to do with the band that were on. Too close to call !

February

Selectadisc announced it was closing, probably the saddest piece of news for many a Notts music fan.

The lions outside the Council House are called Oscar & Leo, apparently. There’s something I didn’t know at the start of the year.

Joe Calzaghe is a great big chicken, more bothered about his prancing about on Saturday night tele than getting in the ring with a genuine challenger. Carl Froch is now a world champion while Calzaghe is living in a caravan somewhere after cocking his marriage up. Ah well.

ITV are crap at showing live football. Any football. Any sport. Anything. ITV are just crap. Think about it, what was the last thing you watched on ITV ? Exactly.

Craig Bellamy is a dick. Like I didn’t know that before.

Martin O’Neil bottled the chance to become Forest manager, preferring to manage in the Scottish equivalent of the Blue Square Premier. In February he showed what money will do to a previously principled man. He’s had his chance, so f**k him. Good luck on the way down, Martin.

March

The town of Burnley moved in March. Before it was on the main (and I use the word ‘main’ very loosely) road to Blackburn, but shortly before we played there, they moved it lock, stock & barrel to just north of Glasgow. How else do you explain that it took over 4 hours to get there. And then we got beat 5:0. Poor, poor, poor. I remember the defeat well, it was our last on the road until …….

Who’d have thought there were enough intelligent people in Derby to warrant a University ? Actually, thinking about it, how can there be, stupid question. What it should read is this: Who’d have though there were so many stupid people in the UK that think Derby is a good place to carry on your education ?

Not only did Burnley move, but then Nottingham moved south, to the side of the Thames actually. Now that explains the 4 hour journey to Burnley ! Our big wheel, THE NOTTINGHAM EYE, had to be renamed so as not to confuse people with the London equivalent. I’ve been on both, and can’t see the other from the top of either. Anyone who gets the two confused must be so thick that the call from Derby University can only be days away.

Forest suddenly started getting professional. You could argue it’s something that other clubs have been doing for years, were only catching up, but still it doesn’t sit quite right.

With Selectadisc going, bang goes another Nottingham legend, the Irish. There’ll soon be no reason at all for me to go to town.

March saw the start of a worrying increase in retards thinking it was OK to make racist comments without even first caveating it with “I’m not being racist, but …”. A post office owner decided to not serve people who couldn’t speak English. The Post Office decided to tell him to do one. Good riddance.

And then I got a f***ing parking ticket. Outside my f***ing house. Marvellous.

However, good news came as I took my last Taekwondo club grading. A nice black tag to go round my red belt. Only six months to go ……

April

Forest’s professionalism showed is uglier face as we stole all three points off Bristol City. Oops. And then we play well enough to stay up, as though it was the easiest thing in the world, it’s just we couldn’t be bothered doing it before.

The twenty year anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster highlighted the lack of accountability still shockingly missing. It may seem to those uninformed that maybe it’s time to let it go, but a read of the official report should persuade you otherwise.

May

In May we learnt that Derby is a worst place than Baghdad. Like we didn’t know that before, d’uh !

Newcastle got relegated, Joey Barton swore at Alan Shearer while the rest of the country laughed. We still haven’t stopped. I celebrate with a bottle of 'dog'. It goes down really well !! Man United also fail to retain the Champions League, completely outclassed by Barcelona. Ha ha ha ha ha !! Can't retain the European Cup, not in our league, then, are they ?

The MP’s expenses debacle blew up. Suddenly we had to care about duck islands, husbands who watch adult films and whether someone has their spare toothbrush in their London flat or their constituency home. I have two toothbrushes the same, so that doesn’t bother me, I never knew ducks lived anywhere else other than on water or river banks, and to be honest, I’d be more bothered if blokes didn’t watch a bit of blue while stuck in a hotel, don’t we all do that ?

June

In June it was reported that eating a curry once a week helps prevent Alzheimer's. Bonus.

Mouth breathing, tattooed, fat loser on a grab-a-granny night out gets tazered for repeatedly ignoring Police requests to firstly calm down, then secondly give himself up for arrest. Or, gentle caring citizen gunned down by Police marksmen in a scene resembling the end of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. You decide, it all got videoed for posterity. Otherwise, no-one would have been any the wiser or given a shit. Which no-one does anyway after he gets an interview on East Midlands Today when you start to sympathise with the Policeman.

The newly elected Tory controlled County Council tries to stop the development of public transport. Now there’s a f***ing shock. What next, cuts in public services ? Oh ….

In June it was reported that eating a curry once a week helps prevent Alzheimer's. Bonus.

July

As the ashes were well under way, time for the Aussies to start moaning about not winning. Best get used to it, boys.

With no football in July, Saturday afternoons can be spent getting trolleyed in the Horse & Groom.

Or Wollaton Park. For free !!!!!

Who said not football in July ? Sven Goran Ericsson joins Notts County. I’ll just repeat that, Sven Goran Ericsson, the bloke who used to be England manager, shagged Ulrika Johnson, joins Notts County. And then they beat us in a pre-season friendly with jolly killer Lee Hughes up front. I have a lie down, it’s all too much.

August

Ingoldmells never changes. Good. Conversely, neither does Mablethorpe. Bad.

Forest completely hammer West Brom, but lose to an own goal. Then they are in turn completed hammered by Watford. Oops could be one of those seasons. However, the first 45 minutes against Derby at the end of the month make me smile from ear to ear, and I’m not alone. Oh yes. Nathan Tyson auditions for the job of flag carrier at the 2012 Olympics. Genius.

Researches found that drinking gives you a headache, while understanding the impact zombies would make on society. That place at Derby University is looking more and more appealing by the minute, isn’t it ?

Big Brother is cancelled. Woohoo. Now if only the same can be done for X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing, I’m a Celebrity …….

September

Off to Sheffield for an all you can drink bat round some of the better pubs in Yorkshire, including the best pub in the country, apparently. I wouldn’t even put it in the top three pubs I could walk to, let alone have to travel to by train.

Forest lose to Blackpool & Blackburn in the space of four days. All these defeats …..

Off to London. Can’t see Nottingham from the London Eye: Check. Rude cockneys on the Tube: Check. Everything overly expensive, foul air & crap beer: Check, check & indeed, check.

October

Goose Fair is still the best way to haemorrhage £100, while the Beer Festival just gets better and better. God, I love October !

On a warm autumn afternoon in October I finally passed up to Black Belt. Four years training, bruises, broken bones (not mine, fortunately) all lead to a nervy 8 minutes and an even nervier wait for the result. I’m convinced I’ve blown it, but haven’t. It looks good !!

Simon Amstell rounds off the month in fine style. October’s ace !!

November

Forest win some, draw some, lose, well, none at all. That’s a couple of months now. We could be bothering the right end of the table if we’re not careful.

The City Council finally get some good press in, of all places, the Daily Mail’s Nottingham Evening Post. It can’t last, though, can it ?

December

The City Council finally get some good press in, of all places, the Daily Mail’s Nottingham Evening Post. So it can last then ! Well, right up until the leader of the Council decides to slag off his own planning department. Oops.

Nottingham is deluged with retards looking for a fight. Actually, Nottingham is the latest venue for a couple of hundred Luton hooligans & friends they’ve picked up on the internet to drink themselves into a stupor, piss all over ancient monuments, fight anything that doesn’t look like a bald c**t in a Ben Sherman shirt and then complain that their civil liberties have been withheld. Diddums. If you don’t like it, f**k off home to your mum. Twats.

Forest hammer Leicester at home. It’s all looking almost too good. I’ll wake up soon, we’ll still be in League One and Calderwoodout or (**shiver **) Megson will still be manager.

I get swine flu. F***ing marvellous. But at least I come out of this well known disease with as many testicles as I started, which makes a change.

It snows a little bit and the whole country comes to a stand still. People who are told not to turn up to airports & railway stations turn up anyway and then moan they’re not being told anything. Still, it could be worse, we could live in America where it’s acceptable to pull a gun in a snowball fight. Whatever happened to “accidentally” picking up a piece of dog egg in your snowballs ?

A proper moron decides to blow up an American plane by setting his leg on fire. What next ? Flying to the moon by cutting your finger off ?!! America decides to increase its security processes, conveniently forgetting that the moron in question was actually on an exisitng security database but they still let him travel anyway. It begs the question, who are the biggest morons in this ?

Fed up of Christmas ?

You're not alone ...

(From the always fabulous Left Lion)

Worrying

Good idea from Forest, last game before Christmas, money a bit tight, on SKY, make it kids for a quid to boost the attendance.

But doesn't putting Earnie on the advert kind of rub it in a little bit ?

























While over on the sheep website, that special something if you're stuck for a present for the D***y fan in your life:

Sven pledges future to Notts

I'll give it a week.

If only I’d known, I’d have tried harder

I share my birthday with a famous snooker player, same year, everything. We even got a snooker table at the same birthday. Unfortunately, our snooker paths diverge at that point.

While I can claim, quite spuriously, to have played in the World Snooker Championships by means of being whitewashed in the first round of a club tournament where the winner got a guaranteed place in one of the early qualifying rounds for the main event, my fellow Capricorn went on to win the thing several times. Bugger.

So imagine my frustration last night when Ding Junhai went on to win the UK Championship final last night and with it, not only a nice cheque for £100,000, but also his own body weight in pies courtesy of sponsors, Pukka Pies.

Like the animals that go in said snack food, I’m proper gutted.

Which side of the fence do you sit ?

The, ahem, race for the long since forgotten about Christmas number one slot is on. It looks like being Rage Against The Machine losing out by some margin to some faceless nobody off X Factor. And who won it this year, some spotty student who couldn’t even remember when George Michael was famous for more than falling asleep in the middle of the road. He’ll get a million pound record contract, release an album of incredibly dull MOR ballads that bored housewives will buy in their drones before being dumped by his record company as soon as his balls drop, left to tour with whatisname, that bloke who won it the other year, and that thin girl, you know the one, what was she called again ?

But before deciding which single to spend your hard earned 69p, first a helpful Q&A.

• Can RATM pip the faceless spotty prepubescent to the number one slot ? Yes, but only if you download ‘Killing In The Name’ from a countable source.



• Should you bother, isn’t being told to buy one single exactly the same as being told to buy another ? Well, if you buy RATM you’re sending a clear message to Simon Cowell that ‘F**k you, I won’t do what you tell me’. However, you’re then sending out a clear message to some nobody sat in a darkened bedroom with clearly too much spare time on his hands that ‘Yes, actually, I’ll do everything YOU tell me’



• Won’t buying the X-Factor single make me look like a right cock-end ? Yes. Yes it will.



• Will buying RATM single make me look cool to the groovy chicks, enabling me to finally lose my virginity over Christmas to that stuck in the nineties grunge chick down the road who hasn’t figured out yet that leaving your hair in that mock dreadlock style actually makes you reek more than a sewage farm in July ? Yes it will, I promise.

So there you have it, concrete proof of what you need to do. Go ahead, buy the RATM single, several times if you want. It might not change the world, it might not make ITV cancel X-Factor next year, it might even get you laid (*) but at least you won’t look like a dick by buying the X-Factor record.

(*) The chances of you getting laid while listening to RATM can go down as well as go really, really down.

Knuckle dragging mouth breathing retards

Now that the BNP has finally shown its true intellectual level “We’re not racist, the Ku Klux Klan think we’ve sold out”, where now for the knuckle-dragging-working-class-blame-the-world-for-their-own-inadequacy inadequates ?

Well, goose-step forward the EDL, the English Defence League, a coalition of differing groups from cities all over England, no, correction, Britain (duh !!) who want to defend our country from the spread of extremist Muslims and who have access to their parents computers after they go to bed.

These groups claim not to be racist, in the same way the fat bald drunk bloke in the pub isn’t really racist because he starts every sentence with the phrase “I’m not being racist, but …..”. And they’re not racist, oh no. They let black people join !!! D’oh !!!

To be fair, they’re not born of racist origins. They’re just wannabee football hooligans funded by Loyalist paramilitaries. So, hope that’s clear now. Look at these two, for example, they're clearly very much in love, same haircut, similar clothes. Awwww, bless.

They say they don’t mind Muslims in this country, which is big of them, they campaign against the extremists, the terrorists, the ones who want an introduction of Sharia Law into this country, a reversal of the de-christianalisation of this country.

Well, sorry if I’ve missed something, but I’m pretty sure we’ve already got MI5 & MI6 on the case of the terrorists, or am I missing the recent prosecution of English born terrorists plotting to blow up planes with bottles of non-airport purchased Oasis ? And as for Sharia Law, it’s already been discussed and just as quickly completely dismissed. The laws of this land are based on the Government drafting legislation for our elected officials to decide upon, not a thousands of years old redrafted religious manual of any ideology. A quick flick through Facebook reveals that there are several groups pro & anti Sharia Law in the UK, some with as many as 1,400 members. Woooooo. However, to put that in perspective, there are currently a couple of Facebook groups to propose Jeremy Clarkson as the next Prime Minister, and these two groups alone total over NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE.

There are claims of Mosques being built on Christian burial grounds. Are there ? Where ? Name one.

There are examples, however, of other types of buildings right here in Nottingham being built over Christian burial grounds. The Ice Arena, the new PC World near Victoria Centre and Victoria Centre itself. Presumably these morons will be campaigning against the spread of the ‘other’ extremist religion, Capitalism. And overly expensive concert tickets.

We have to put up with Trick or Treat every year, Starbucks on every corner and an over reliance on greedy useless American bankers, both the real and rhyming varieties, yet these morons want to stop people quietly worshipping whoever they want. They could at least do something useful and stop leary teenagers banging on my front door until I have no choice to answer before black-mailing me into handing over cash and / or sweets.

When the IRA waged their own terror on these shores during the seventies, sure there were was an anti-Irish backlash, but you couldn’t tell who was Irish and who wasn’t simply by looking at them. Contrary to popular belief they weren’t all 3 foot tall, they didn’t all smoke a wooden pipe and neither did they all support any terrorist activities.

But these new extremists, well, they’re all brown aren’t they, they stand out more. And in these days of economic depression, what better than marking out someone different to pin the blame to.

And as for dechristianalisation of the country, I’m pretty sure I had Easter off work and I know I’ve got time off at CHRISTmas too.

They came to Nottingham last week. They met up for a pint first, before relieving themselves up the side of Nottingham Castle.

So, just so you understand, they met in a PUB, both men & WOMEN, before being LEGALLY ENTITLED to march through Nottingham, avoiding the CHRISTMAS market to demonstrate about how this country is being converted into a Muslim society !!!!!!!! And they don’t see any irony in that ?!!!!!! F***ing idiots.

I had the misfortune to sit next to one of these white working class ‘I’m not racist, but …’ morons at my kids Christmas play last year. I had to put up with him banging on for the best part of the opening 10 minutes of the production as to how it was a disgrace there wasn’t a nativity play on.

Has no-one realised that Nativity plays are shit. If you’re not going to have a real donkey and Michael Crawford falling from the roof, you can bet it’ll be pants from the off. Guaranteed it’ll have one of the teacher’s children as Mary, Joseph will burst into tears at some point while most of the other ‘actors’ will play parts as diverse as ‘Tree number 3’ or ‘Flock’.

But this particular numpty was having none of it. After ten minutes I’d had enough. It was “Political correctness gone mad”, apparently. “We can celebrate all of the ******* festivals, but not ours” was another phrase, before actually using the phrase “I’m not a racist, but …..” and then proving he was both a complete racist and a f***ing fat bald t**t.

I’d had enough, I turned to him and, without disturbing the continuing performance, calmly but firmly asked him this question:

Which religious book did he think the story of Joseph and the Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat actually came from ?

X Factor NOT fixed shock

I may have read this somewhere. On the other hand, I may not .....

TV viewers were today left in shock when it was revealed that hit reality TV program ‘X Factor’ was in fact NOT fixed.

Producers today admitted for the first time that the process for removing contestants was purely down to a unique completely trustworthy public telephone voting system.

Mrs Grace Ullable from Rotherham has already complained to her MP:

“It’s a disgrace. All I want to do is text my selection to t’number on t’tele safe in t’knoweldge that t'decision has already been made. Now when I vote, it makes a difference. I don’t think I can handle that kind of pressure. To be safe, last Sat’day, I voted for all of 'em, so I didn’t feel guilty, like”

Producers acknowledged that, in the past, mistakes had been made:

“Stories would be placed in the media concerning contestants in a bid to increase popularity and ratings”

said an anonymous insider

“Gareth Gates was walking away with it one year, until we ran the story of him punching that granny outside the auditions. After that, it was Will Young all the way. We still got a record deal for Gareth, so everyone won.”

And in another shock admission that will astound fellow TV executives, especially those at Channel 4, the producers of the X Factor also confirmed that contestants voted out would definitely NOT be returning at a later date.

“We decided that artists who lowered themselves to this kind of degrading treatment in the name of entertainment and who still didn’t have enough talent to even get into the final, really weren’t worth bothering with. And besides, there’s always Eurovision.”

The current producers have distanced themselves from events in the past:

“We can’t pull the wool over their eyes any more”

said another source,

“The general public who watch the X Factor aren’t stupid”.

Current judge Simon Cowell was less than impressed, however:

“The general public who watch the X Factor ARE stupid. How can I promise a safe passage through the rounds for all the contestants who I believe fancy me, if it’s down to the filthy masses to decide their fate? They know nothing about how the pop industry works. They get what I give them, NOT what they want.”

Fellow judges Cheryl Cole, Loius Walsh and Dannii Minogue were unavailable for comment as Cole was too busy possibly shouting racial abuse out of the window while Walsh & Minogue were too busy rehearsing spontaneously throwing water over each other.

File sharing

I wrote earlier in the year semi-defending music piracy, but now it seems the major labels practice copyright infringement on a whole new scale:

More here at Ars Technica (hat tip: Never Trust a Hippy)

Artists' lawsuit: major record labels are the real pirates

Between $50 million and $6 billion may be owed to musicians and artists in Canada, but not from your run-of-the-mill file sharers. The Canadian recording industry itself is being accused of massive copyright infringement, and the list of miffed artists just keeps getting longer.

Sacred cow

At the risk of sounding ‘off-message’, standing out like Donald Sutherland in ‘Invasion of the Body-Snatchers’ or sounding like I can ACTUALLY sing in an X-Factor final, I just need to get one thing off my chest:

Gavin & Stacey: It’s just not funny, is it ?

That didn't take long, did it ?

Notts County, the richest football club in the world.

Well, it was always going to end in tears, wasn't it ?

"Enjoy the ride while it lasts" was the mantra from the doddery old fools who still call Meadow Lane home. Well, the ride stops now.

From the BBC:

Notts County owners Munto Finance put club up for sale

Notts County's owners Munto Finance have put the club up for sale, reports BBC Radio Nottingham.

It is understood that there are already potential buyers including director of football Sven-Goran Eriksson and executive chairman Peter Trembling.

They are thought to be in talks with Notts about a possible buyout.

So there you go, a host of top players talked about (Maldini, Beckham, Pele ...), one top player signed (Sol Campbell), one top player legging it after one game (Sol Campbell) and a host of Premiership reserves, players on their way down and one on his way out of prison. Oh, and the tax man gets paid off six months late.

Hardly much of a rollercoaster ride while it lasted, eh ?

But there are four facts, according to Mr Notts County, Colin Slater:

1, Notts County is on the market,
2, Munto Finance are seeking to dispose of the club,
3, Munto are in contact with some potential buyers and
4, it is an option for Munto to consider that Eriksson and Trembling are in talks about a possible management buyout

Now, number four seems like the important 'fact' here, the one that could save the club from probable administration and worse, possible extinction.

It's just that 'facts' don't have words in them like 'option', 'consider', 'talks' and 'possible'.

Coming soon to Channel Five

When Eighties celebrities attack !!

Pop star Shakin' Stevens denies photographer attack (From the BBC)

Su Pollard involved in alleged public order offence (From the Nottingham Evening Post)

Scum

More about this later, but in the mean time this needs further publication, just in case you don't what kind of scum these knuckle dragging retards are:

These are the people who claim to defend England. They're pissing up the walls of Nottingham Castle. Doesn't it make you proud ?!!!!!!

Wankers.

(From Flikr)

Forest 4:1 Doncaster

If this one result doesn't show how far we've come in a year, then nothing will.

If rumour is to be correct, Colin Calderwood ceased to be manager of the reds at half-time the last time we played Doncaster as we stooped pathetically to a 2:4 home defeat. We were in the pub when we found out, and we ordered a round of drinks to celebrate.

Fast forward 11 months and again Doncaster are bothering the Championship at the Derby end, while Forest seem to have been undefeated since the reign of Henry II.

The difference is palpable.

Forest score mid-way through the first half and it's expected, it's been coming. The muted celebrations of a team full in the knowledge that they're better than they ever have been.

Wes Morgan made it two goals in three games with a bullet header past the increasingly immobile Neil Sullivan. By Forest's third, Doncasters first choice fat goalkeeper had given up even trying. He was replaced by their second choice fat goalkeeper, must be a Yorkshire thing. At least he made an effort with McGugan's cross shot, but he was never anywhere near it.

Billy Sharp pulled one back, much to the annoyance of Lee Camp, but also much to the general antipathy of the rest of the crowd. 4:0, 4:1 puh !!

On the tram and the true scale of the victory became clear. A quick look at the League table and, f**k me, we're up to 4th, our highest league position since the halcyon days of Paul Hart's free flowing attacking brand of football back in the early noughties.

This winning lark, all these unbeaten games, well, it's easy isn't it. I'm surprised none of our previous clueless bunch of half-wit managers have tried it. There's only complacency can beat us now, and with a local derby coming up, that ain't gonna happen.

A decent football team to support, Nottingham being lauded as a city again, black-belt, getting engaged, jeez, this is turning into a good year !!!

Somebody in the Evening Post office must be having kittens

Two weeks, and two stories of Nottingham being a top city, this time Blue Bell Hill Primary being named the number one school in the country, the whole country, for the value it adds to its pupils' education. I know my mum & dad are as proud as me as my sister is one of the senior staff there.

Fantastic news.