Journal Entries
Surreal Saturday
Posted Oct 9, 1999
I'm just about to head for the pub to watch the football on TV. Nothing unusual about that - except that I know that I'm going to be in a room full of (mostly) English people frantically cheering on Sweden.
Somehow, it seems an appropriate way to spend the afternoon before the evening of the Monty Python TV special.
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Latest reply: Oct 9, 1999
Sick as a parrot
Posted Oct 2, 1999
Bradford City 0, Sunderland 4.
Plymouth Argyle 5, Leyton Orient 0.
Jesus F.N. Christ.
I wonder if The Samaritans have a website?
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Latest reply: Oct 2, 1999
Getting stuck in
Posted Oct 2, 1999
It's Saturday morning, and the start of a weekend during which I have to put some serious effort into my new career. I've got quite a bit of football writing to do over the next two days, and I am both excited and worried.
I'm excited because it's a fresh start for me, and I love The Beautiful Game. I'm worried because when I think of Britain's leading footie pundits, the available role models are not exactly inspiring.
If I do this job for long, will I begin to resemble a Thunderbirds puppet on one of Gerry Anderson's bad animation days, like Bob Wilson? Will I look in the mirror one day and find that I've suddenly sprouted a seriously dodgy moustache a la Desmond Lynam? Will my chin suddenly grow like Jimmy Hill's? And David Mellor... no, that's too horrible to think about. This really is getting scary. I'm going to go and take a look in the mirror RIGHT NOW.
Phew, that's a relief. I'm still my old self, and I'm looking rather dashing in my Leyton Orient replica shirt. Nobody could possibly laugh at that.
However, there is still another lingering cause for concern. What effect will becoming a football pundit have on my writing style? After all, football people do have a reputation for spouting endless cliches. I suppose I'll just have to take each sentence as it comes, give 110 per cent, and then hopefully at the end of the day I'll get a result.
Ah well, I really must go now and get on with it. It's time to for me to enter the long, dark stoppage time of the soul.
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Latest reply: Oct 2, 1999
Aaaarrrghcher!!!
Posted Oct 1, 1999
Friday, October 1 began fairly normally - but by the end of it I was confronted by a nightmare. I live in London: and ring the afternoon, some horrifying (if predictable) news had broken. Lord Jeffrey Archer has been chosen as the Conservative Party's candidate for Lord Mayor of London.
This simply doesn't bear thinking about. Archer is to English literature what Michael Winner is to films, and what Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is to music. He is a walking definition of the word "smug", and his work is a depressingly successful triumph of shallow style over substance.
I have a terrifying vision of the morning after an Archer election victory. Having been put off my breakfast by the sight of the slimy creature smirking on the morning news, I'd set off down the road feeling utterly paranoid, looking at my fellow Londoners and wondering which of these seemingly sane and decent people had helped the oliy scum to float to the top.
No. It can't be allowed to happen. I find myself wondering if I should try to contact Douglas Adams through h2g2, and try to persuade him to stand. It could work. His campaign posters could simply feature a picture of Archer and the immortal words of the Guide: "Don't Panic".
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Latest reply: Oct 1, 1999
Ormondroyd
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