Author: Mosh

June’s hotting up. I was tempted go to Download, but as I only want to see three of the acts (Machine Head, Slayer and Slipknot) and they’re 3rd, 4th and 5th on the Sunday bill… it just doesn’t seem worth it. £50 plus booking fee, travel, food and so forth for maybe 90 mins of actual music. Nah.

Festival-wise, I am going to Leeds for the fourth year in a row. My only concern is, once again, wondering which Premiership game it will clash with. Last year was ManUre at home, which I obviously didn’t want to miss. Season before it was Man City away – we found a pub 2 miles away showing the game on telly. Year before that was the home derby against the mackems. Like I’d have missed that!

OK, so June. First off I have Elly visiting for a week, arriving on the Sunday I would have been going to Download if it hadn’t been expensive and badly-organised. The following Saturday will be Deicide in Sheffield, and then Anthrax in Nottingham the following night.

A week or so’s break and then Fear Factory in Manchester. I really need to start working out again.

Of course, not to forget the small matter of Euro 2004 over the month as well!

Well, it seems after much uhmm-ing and aah-ing that Scottish and Newcastle are to close Newcastle Breweries and move production of my favourite beverage to The Federation Brewery in Gateshead.

They recently shut down the Fountainbridge brewery in Edinburgh, which I thought was their last Scottish premises. Which begs the question – under current loopy EU regulations that say we can’t have Cornish pasties unless their made in Cornwall, Cheddar cheese unless it’s made in Cheddar, Jaffa Cakes unless they’re made in Jaffe (probably)… does the company have to rename to “English and Gateshead” and change the infamous “Bottle of Dog” label to read “Gateshead Brown”?

As loads of people in the UK will know, Ron Atkinson “resigned” from his job with the ITV (and lost his column in the Guardian) after saying something he shouldn’t have after Chelsea’s Champion’s League match on Tuesday. Basically, the microphone was left on, though the broadcast had finished in the UK, and viewers in the Middle East heard him comment on the lack of performance of Chelsea’s Marcelle Desailly.

According to The Sun, he said something along the lines of “******* lazy big nigger”. Ron’s come out and said he’s sorry blah blah blah, not intended to offend blah blah blah just an upset fan who wanted to see the team do well. OK, to some extent he has a point, as Desailly (and Chelsea as a whole) had a howler, but…

What if he’d called Desailly a “******* lazy big ****”? Would the furor have been quite so extreme? Somehow I think not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m dead set against meaningless racism, which is quite difficult living in Bradford. The place suffers from a large contingent of Asians who seem intent on giving their people a bad reputation. Surely, though, Ron’s choice of words was wrong but his intent was to insult the guy and get some frustration out of his system?

This tails back to another of my personal niggles. Is “****” really worse than “crap”? Is “crap” worse than “poo”? They’re all words after all. Go back 10 years and “crap” would not be heard on TV. Now I even hear “****” on daytime radio – a much more tightly-controlled medium in the UK.

I love the politicians who are just crying “Think of the children! What about the children?” Have any of them walked past a playground in the last 5-6 years? ****, even *my* ears start to burn. I even heard one whinging vote-grabber going on about the last “verbotten” word left being “****”. Her worry, get this, was that if we run out of swear-words, people will no longer be able to take their frustration out verbally and what will they do then?

So there you go. The rise in civil violence is down to TV and radio being more free with swearing. Social anarchy is all XFM’s fault. But not Big Ron as he apologised for it and made swearing seem bad again. Good lad, Ron. Saving the world again.

All I ask is that if we play like crap tonight, one of the commentators of a darker skin colour calls Laurent Robert a “useless, lazy honky”.

Very entertaining game in an audience participation kind of way. Not the result either team would have hoped for, but it was kind of ruined by one of the worst “refereeing” displays I have seen in many a month.

Barry Knight is a tall guy and it seems his head is in the clouds, judging by some of the decisions he made. In the first half, bugger all went our way. In the second half, he seemed hell bent on making Villa’s lives awkward. Maybe it’s because he watched the videos and saw what a complete sack of bollocks his first half performance was.

Consistency, to this man, only has meaning when discussing the thickness of custard and certainly not the way his decisions pan out. Vassell decides to make the most of some accidental contact and goes down like a felled tree. Andy O’Brien walks from the pitch. In the second half, a similar clash of personalities with the teams’ roles reversed results in… erm… oh. Nothing.

During one incident where Knight was trying to set up a Newcastle free kick, it was clear that the players had lost any respect for the man whatsoever. As he failed miserably to keep the Villa wall in place, Michael Bridges was judo-thrown to the ground (ok, twisted round the waist and shoved) by one of the Villa defenders. Despite the linesman seeing this, Knight didn’t really bother with it setting instead for a quick word with both players. By which time, the Villa wall had moved forwards 3 yards. So he had to re-sort that…

Shearer’s challenge late on in the game, frankly, deserved a red. He got a yellow. Offside decisions were given against players (Shearer, more often than not) who were a man’s-width behind the defensive line when the ball was played forward.

All in all, a pitiful display. Not from the players, though. Both sides were very much up for this game as could be told by the challenges and rising tempers.

Oh, and to the woman who shouted “Newcastle are ****” at me on the way out – we held you to a goalless draw after havign a player sent off. Just think what we’d have done with 11 men.

One final point. Villa Park is the first ground I’ve ever been to where I’ve had my camera “refused admittance”. They did a grand job of looking after it for me, and were very polite about the whole thing. All the same, there’s nothing on the ticket saying I can’t bring one, the only notification being right at the entrance by which time you’ve already got it with you.

For crying out loud, it’s a point and click digital camera. I’m hardly going to start competing with SkyTV and Mirror Group Newspapers, am I?

If they’re not leaving your driveway gates wide open when their car’s safely not stored there, they’re parking in said driveway so you can’t get your car inside.

And if it ain’t that, it’s leaving their bedroom windows wide open while they swap partners with two of their friends, one of whom is a screamer. I could hear every *slap*…

Full details of their address and so forth are available on request. Sorry, but the selfish, lazy ******* have pissed me off one too many times. Happy to help humiliate them now. I’ve had enough.

Well, it’s either that or I’m going to punch the lazy *****.