Golden Balls Grows a BEARD

What’s been going on in the UK this week? Nothing much apart from David Beckham growing a beard, if a quick trawl of the news media is any judge. Beckham grows a furball and the UK media goes ape. (My beard comes and goes and not a peep, whassat all about?) Acktuuaally, if people would stop and look he often has a beard. It’s only that for this one he’s thrown away the trimmer so that he’s looking all wild man and unconstructed. In fact he’s an inch or two away from qualifying for the Taliban.

We’ve been subjected to feature articles, editorials and TV news features because Davie boy has a wiry bush obscuring his jaw line.

We’ve gone ape, I tell ya. I know I’ve complained about the state of the news in this country and how the word “news” is permanently and forever qualified by a silent “bad” in front of it, but please geezabreak. A multi-millionaire sportsman growing some face fuzz does not qualify as “good” news. Or “news” for that matter.

Ok, I get it. He’s talented and handsome, but do we need to have endless debate over every step the man takes? And just waits till we get to the World Cup...if he gets picked for the England squad...because then Beckham mania will really heat up. In previous World Cups we’ve had the Prime Minister issuing press releases about his concern for DB’s broken metatarsal. We also had people burning Beckham effigies after he got sent off during a game with (was it?) Argentina.

This is me wearing an expression that suggests I’m dumbfoonert.

Next summer in South Africa while the English media will force every Scot, Irish and Welshman to watch the soccer with the sound off, the newspapers will be full of every movement of Golden (I’m guessing shaved) Balls. Headlines to watch out for may include; Beckham Ties Shoelace in Shape of Posh’s Naughty Bits, Beckham Eats Prawns with the Heads On and Beckham is Getting A Brazilian Regardless of Which Team England Draw in their Group. That’ll be the broadsheets; wait to see what the tabloids conjure up.

On the treadmill...

...something just as embarrassing as the Scotland football result against Norway? Surely not.

While watching the first part of the first half of the game, it wasn’t Caldwell that cleared the ball from the penalty box. It was me. In my head at least, it was I who gave the ball a quick punt up the park, keeping it out of the danger area.

The problem was that the TV I was watching the game on was mounted on a treadmill at the gym. I took an imaginery swipe at the ball. Forgot to tell my leg I was only pretending and missed my footing. Have you ever tumbled on a treadmill? Not a good look. I was saved from falling arse over tit by the safety cord attached to my t-shirt. A stumble. A quick look around me. Thankfully nobody caught my foolishness and I went back to running myself into a standstill. Which to be honest, takes all of ten minutes.



The wee fella was watching TV the other night. Well, he was copying what his father does and was surfing the channels, watching nothing in particular. He caught two seconds of Doctor Who – which is now considered to be lame, because someone at school said so; and Torchwood –he hates Captain Jack because he sacrificed a wee boy to save millions of other children. Every single life is important, he told me. Captain Jack is a loser. So there. Anywho, he stops, thinks and looks at me...


...see if you ever go back in time, Dad? Don’t touch yourself.


...wha...? Was my considered response. My first thought was a Nun wagging her finger at me and telling me I would grow hairs on the palms of my hands and would almost certainly Go To Hell if I ever kept my hands in my pockets. All I ever had in there was a penny, a half-chewed toffee and a bogey-ridden paper hanky. Why would I want to keep my hands in there?


....when you go back in time, he repeats with all the patience of someone talking to the village idiot, don’t touch yourself because it causes ripples in the future.


...what, like feelings of inadequacy and a guilt complex, I ask.


...weird. He shakes his head. Just weird.

Chocolate and other stuff

Looking at this picture,its a shame this isn't scratch n' sniff, innit? Or scratch, scrape from your fingernails and eat.

I was sniffed at in the office this morning. A woman pressed her nose against the flesh of my neck and made appreciative noises. What’s more she had all her own teeth and everything.

I want chocolate.

I’m cheesed off because the Manchester United v Arsenal semi-final is on sat TV and I only have council house sports on my telly. Mind you, the Barcelona/ Chelsea game didn’t live up to the hype. So maybe I’m wasting energy.
A thought, after listening to the commentators the other night crowing about how the EPL was the best league in the world and how 3 English teams had made it –yet again- to the semi-finals of the world’s greatest football team competition. ..there was a total of 6 Englishmen in the starting line-up for all 3 teams. Let me put that another way; that’s 6 out of a possible 33. Man Utd also had a Scot and an Irishman if we want to generously beef up the numbers, but it surely doesn’t make good reading for the caretakers of the English game. Fabio Capello, the Engurland manage was spotted in the crowd at the Nou Camp the other night. Should have saved your cash, Fabio.

Just read Kris Boyd on the beeb website saying he doesn’t regret giving up playing football for Scotland. For those who don’t know/ care he “retired” from international football at the grand old age of 25 after the Scotland manager left him on the bench during a high profile game. Now I don’t care what side of the Old Firm he plays for but I would just like to say one thing to “100 goals for ‘gers” Boydie; grow up, son. It should be an honour to play sport for your country. Take a look at David Beckham. He was ridiculed; effigies of him were burnt in public, he was used as pawn in a crap manager’s power games (Steve McLaren anyone? No, didn’t think so)and still he came back for more. He’s an example to every professional sports person out there. Whether or not you like the hype that seems to surround him, he works hard at his game, at pleasing his fans and at fulfilling his responsibilities as a prominent person in the public eye (Rebecca Loos aside). However, we could do without the adverts with him in his scanties. Nothing to do with feelings of inadequacy, I have to add. I too could stuff a pair of socks down the front of my y-fronts.

I want chocolate. Deliberately didn’t buy any during the weekly shop. 'Cos I would just eat it all.

Back to the sniffing, I can’t say I’m all that effective in an olfactory way. I’ve had the one bottle of aftershave since my 40th birthday (not yesterday, I might add. Nooooo, I hear you cry) and I often read work from female writers and admire their ability to bring their sense of smell into their writing. Is the varying effectiveness of this particular sense part of the whole male/female difference?

Thinking in terms of members of my family I have one sister who could double as a sniffer dog at airports. I swear she can smell a fart before it hits the air. My argument is that particular skill has developed because she expects it to be one of her own. Readers of earlier postings will have already been introduced to my sister, the Queen of Chaos. She’s a size six, four feet eleven with long blonde hair and looks about 15 years younger than her birth certificate states. She is also it is fair to say and without bias, very, very pretty and obsessed with bowel movements. Think Kylie with IBS.

And thinking about this issue from an evolutionary point of view. ..men were the disposable gender sent out to fight big beasties and bad men who came to rape and pillage. An acute sense of smell would have just gotten in the way. I can just see a group of men charging into battle...and pulling up shouting, whoa...get a load of that. Or. You can’t make me fight, sarge, that battle ground is absolutely minging.

The chocolate craving has passed. I should be congratulated. Tomorrow I celebrate by scratching, sniffing then eating a bar of Cadbury’s.

If I was a twitter...

Watching the Man Utd/ Everton FA cup semi this afternoon. Got me thinking Marouane Fellaini is probably the first player on the planet who could trap the ball in his hair (a welcome distraction - 'cos that's how exciting the game was). Can you still call it an afro if the wearer is a Belgian of Morrocan descent? A belgo? A morro? A belmo?

I've just taken that too far haven't I?