There Is No Debate

The beautiful game.

People, usually those blinded by their unquestioning Pavlovian devotion, still refer to football by this moniker. Perhaps 80 odd years ago when players still had full time jobs and played solely for the love of the contest the nametag was possibly true. I doubt it can be said to be so anymore.

I’ll admit I’m biased. I loathe football. Well, that’s what I say but it’s a kind of a misleading shorthand. The game itself is fine. No better or worse than tennis or cricket or hockey. What I loathe in reality is the culture of football. When I’ve dared to voice this opinion on various social networking platforms I am invariably shotdown by football stalwarts who take considerable time and energy to tell me, via lots of swearing and insults, of the marvellous community aspect of football, of how it makes people feel they belong, looks after and nurtures local talent, gives people a leg up and does a shedload of great charity work to boot. Oh and some footballers even have degrees thus disproving my cliched theory that all footballers are thickos who were only ever good at sport at school.

But all this changes nothing. I loathe the culture of football. The disproportionately large wages. The fast cars and the drivers who feel they have a right to drive them at 120mph and go hang the safety of other drivers. The attitude that they are God’s gift and their football stardom entitles them to behave like some rockstar behemoth – buying what and who they want, acquiring trophy girlfriends and trophy houses and extolling the chauvenistic ideals of sleeping around with whoever the hell they like. Nightclubs the country over are full of cocky young men who are earning far too much money for their own good and whose chat-up lines revolve solely around the fact that they are a “famous footballer”. All those around them are put there solely for their own entertainment and pleasure. Far too many of them see themselves as old world kings who own all that their eyes happen to fall upon.

Out of this culture we inevitably get people like Ched Evans.

I find it hard to countenance that there is even a debate about whether he should be allowed to return to a football career after he has been convicted of raping a 19 year old woman who was far too intoxicated to ever consciously consent to what was happening to her. The fact he has shown no remorse and refuses to apologize – indeed he refuses to accept that he did anything wrong – is testament to all that is wrong with footballing culture. The facts behind the case highlight the tawdriness and dehuminazing aspects of football social culture. Another player, Clayton McDonald, apparently sent Ched a text to say he had a “bird” lined up. Ched went round to McDonald’s hotel room and watched him bed the poor girl. Ched then decided he’d like a go too. CCTV footage reportedly shows not only how drunk the girl was but also various team mates of Ched watching from the sidelines as if they were at a spectator sport. No doubt braying and shouting slogans as if they were on the terraces; egging Ched on.

Let’s make it clear; there is no debate about the facts. Sleeping with someone who is too drunk to consent to the act is a crime. It is statuatory rape. End of. The fact that not only Ched and McDonald were a party to this but also others is a disgrace. Not one of them stopped to think how they would feel if this poor woman was their sister or daughter or other family member. So little empathy or respect for another human being – all burnt up in their unailienable rights to sate their own voracious desires. Because plainly their status means they own the world and can do whatever the hell they like.

To make it worse supporters of Ched – how can such a man have any? – have subesquently harrassed the poor woman so much so that she has had  to move house 5 times and go into hiding. She now cannot see her own family in case it blows her cover.

Again, this highlights all that is wrong with footballing culture. That a mere game is placed above not only the law but also all human decency. Defenders of Ched say he was punished with imprisonment not unemployment so should be allowed to return to professional football. It sounds a logical argument until you consider that the culture that has grown up around football and footballers created the circumstances that led to the rape in the first place. Acknowledge that and Ched’s return to football is impossible. Acknowledge that and you have to accept that it is not only Ched that needs to be punished, corrected and reeducated but a huge proportion of the profession itself. Plus those fans that still can see nothing wrong with Ched’s behaviour on that night.

Football – the players, the managers, the club owners and even the fans – need to take a long hard look at themselves. I’m sure there is plenty to celebrate about football but there is too much that needs to change. I’m sure many of the fans and players are decent people with good morals but as Ched and his team mates clearly show, there are too many with a highly inflated sense of entitlement that leads them to treat others as nothing more than pieces of meat, there to be used and then forgotten about. They and those fans that condone this kind of behaviour need to be educated to the contrary. A strong message needs to be sent out that this kind of behaviour is morally wrong and repugnant. It is a blight and a cancer and those on Twitter and elsewhere that think it Ok to harrass a victim of rape are as guilty as Ched. They all need to be eradicated from football completely. Expunged and exiled.

Maybe then, when footballers are proper role models that showcase respect and decency and even, dare I say it, chivalry for all, both on and off the pitch, then maybe, just maybe, football will truly be the beautiful game that so many of its fans desperately want it to be.

A Tale Of Two Toilets

Not sure why these two separate memories should have pushed themselves to the forefront of my thoughts today but rather than fight it I am going to do as all the best plumbers do and just go with the flow.

Back at the tail end of 1999 I realized an ambition I’d had since my teens and went to Egypt. Although the whole thing was an organized tour I went on my own which was a big thing for me at the time. The furthest place I’d been to on my own to before then was Weston-super-Mare and, believe me, despite the sand and the dodgy food, there is little comparison.

My one all-abiding memory of Egypt isn’t the pyramids, or Saqqara, or The Valley of the Kings, or even the limbless beggars that lined the streets of Aswan.

It is of the toilets in the Cairo Museum.

After a weeklong Nile cruise I had three days in Cairo. The Museum was a must and it didn’t disappoint though I will admit that by this point of the holiday I was mummied out. I had also succumbed to ‘gypy’ tummy. The first spell had hit me at the Son Et Lumiere show at the Philae Temple a few days before but a quick necking down of a couple of Imodium tablets had set the potential avalanche like concrete.

Unfortunately, all this did was ensure the infection stayed within my gut where it wore away at the halting effects of the Imodium until, days later, at the Cairo museum, that particular train of matter decided it was going to make a break for it no matter what chemical cocktail I attempted to throw at it.

Thankfully, the Cairo Museum toilets were near at hand. I recall at knee-clenched wait in the inevitable queue before the cubicle became free. I dived in, already sweating uncomfortably with the effort of holding back both time and tide and was immediately faced with the single desolating sight of my life.

No toilet paper. Nothing. Not even a newspaper.

I must have staggered out of the cubicle looking like a very unsuccessfully desiccated mummy. And instantly met my saviour: a young Egyptian toilet attendant who without a single word but an understanding nod handed me an entire roll of toilet paper all to myself.

When I was done I gave him the most money I’d given to any of the locals on the entire holiday. Money well spent. Wherever he is now I hope his gods are smiling on him.

My second toilet memory is the ridiculous to the above’s sublime.

‘Twas a day visit to Dover. Part of a weeklong family holiday to Canterbury and environs. I’m not sure why we elected to have a day in Dover as my memory of the town was that it was rather drab, rather dirty and rather smelly. I was possibly not seeing it in its best light.

Part of the trip saw us at some kind of terminal. I’m not sure now whether it was for ferries or boats or whether it was just some kind of all-purpose visitor centre. I do know it was as far South-East as you could go without dipping yourself into the sea and we had a decent view of the coast. As with all visits to places new – and the undeniable thread to this post – a trip to the lavatory was necessitated by a can of coke.

In the cubicle there, on the edge of England, the very cusp of Europe, I came to face to face with the most astounding example of human organic graffiti that I’ve ever seen.

Picture if you will an entire toilet roll wedged down the bottom of the toilet. Packed so tightly that the softening effects of total submersion in cold water had been unable to destroy the toilet roll’s shape. Now, picture if you will, the kind of poo that a horse would have been shaken to produce harpooning the cardboard centre of the loo roll down its entire length with a good four inches to spare emerging from the top and indeed from the very surface of the water. It looked like a postmodern representation of Thor’s hammer.

My overriding thought at the moment of confrontation was simply: how?

How had somebody physically achieved this singular feat of faecal protest? Did they poo first and then fit the loo roll snugly over the top like some kind of grommet? Or did they install the toilet roll first and then ease the poo out inch by agonizingly slow inch, micro-managing and fine adjusting the angle of approach, ensuring the nose cone was lined up perfectly before fully opening the bomb bay doors and letting her loose?

As with my adventure in Egypt, philosophizing ultimately had to be put aside: I had a burning desire to “go”. Thankfully this time it was merely a number one and, after a quick hosing, I left the sculpture all but intact. There was no point flushing, believe me. That monster was going absolutely nowhere.

I often wonder about it even now and for all I know it’s still there… pinning this country to the Eurasian plate like a tin tack through a giant post-it note.

It would be a fitting addition to the Natural History Museum’s permanent collection should they ever be scouting for one.

Toilets, eh? What amazing adventures one can have in them. It’s often the best penny you’ll ever spend...

On The Second Day Of Christmas I Was Given The Greatest Nosh In All The World...

It was perhaps the most sensual experience of my existence so far.

A singular gift that most dream of but are seldom rewarded with receiving. An act that sends shivers down your spine and grants you the type of sensory satisfaction that you normally only find in works of fiction. Fifty Shades Of Grey doesn't even come close.

To some just the thought of it is repulsive. Dirty. Degrading. Even though, given the specialness of the time of year, there is justification for suggesting it to your loved one / partner.

I know. I know. Despite years of apparent intimacy, such requests - often coming out of the blue - can seem like a bridge too far. It can push boundaries to breaking point.

It is, I will admit, not everyone's bag. Some just can't handle the taste - slightly peppery, slightly salty - and can't close off the gag reflex.

Some switch off their taste buds and just go for it - functional, perfunctory - not really enjoying it; just going along to please and gratify.

This does not work for me. It does not float my boat.

I'd much rather an out-and-out no than a sighing agreement to suffer in silence.

No.

I want the peak moment to be shared. To be indulged by all participants.

The hedonist in me is just built that way.

And so it was that, this Christmas, I girded my loins and propositioned my wife.

"Please", I said.

"It is only once a year. It is a special time. Why don't we, you know... do it? Do the deed we rarely speak of?"

She gave a maidenly blush (special and rare in itself, believe me) and, blinking away her sudden coquettishness, replied, "You mean... you want me to..."

I nodded down to the small, firm, round objects cupped seductively in the palm of my hands.

"Yes," I said. "I want you to make bubble and squeak. After all," I winked slyly, "We did buy in an extra big portion of sprouts especially."

And with that, she took those dreamy green nuggets of deliciousness out of my hand and mashed them up with boiled potatoes, coated them in flour and paprika and fried them up into saucily green burgers of vegetable delight.

Bubble and squeak might not be the food of the gods but in my house, at this time of year, it is the one thing guaranteed to pop my cork.

And blow me to ecstasy and back if my wife didn't enjoy gobbling it all up just as much as I did.

You can't beat a good bit of nosh at Christmas time, you really can't.

Happy Season's greetings to you all.

Saville Row

The worst thing for me about the whole Jimmy Saville debacle isn’t the frenzied media circus that has suddenly vomited into being.

It isn’t the appallingly lazy round of jokes that, in one way or another, make pedestrian reference to any one of his ridiculous catch-phrases.

It isn’t the disapprovingly pious TV shows that show clips of Jimmy Saville from years ago when he made slyly inappropriate gags and comments to camera which the presenters of today then shake their heads and sigh censoriously about.

It’s the simple fact that, during my childhood, a time when I had no idea that such horrible things could happen, all this was allowed to happen. It was known. Known by adults from all professions and walks of life. Known by many. Suspected by many more. And no one did anything. No one did anything at the time when it would have made a difference. When it could have saved someone. It was covered up. It was brushed under the carpet because Jimmy did so much good work for charity and was a massive personality.

It was tolerated. It was, if not morally then certainly by the inaction of society, approved of. It was somehow the norm. It was the era of the lecherous uncle. The dodgy pervert at the end of the street. Mr Flasher who lived alone in the bungalow at the end of the road who’d get you if you were naughty.

And people wilfully turned a blind eye.

Well all those blind eyes as good as signed a huge permission slip for Mr Saville to do whatever the hell he liked, with who he liked and for as long as he liked.

The worst thing is all the time and money and energy currently being spent on someone who is dead and completely beyond our condemnation. All those head shakes and tuts and sneers. All those “I always felt there was something unsavoury about him” epiphanies that only serve to glorify the TV presenter spouting the sentiment. All those newspaper headlines from newspapers that chose not to run with the story back when he was alive and here on this planet and could have been brought to justice. All that violence directed at smashing a lump of inanimate, unfeeling, uncaring gravestone to make a point that Mr Saville will never get.

All this energy would be better spent being channelled into helping not just Jimmy’s victims but also the victims of all those Jimmys that are at large and still active right now. All those kids being abused outside our own little spheres of existence that we pass by in the street and keep ourselves wilfully in ignorance of when we walk to work or to the shops. It would be better spent identifying and stopping all those Jimmy Saville’s that are alive and well in every town and every city in this country of ours; better spent smashing the paedophile rings that flourish beneath the dark shadows of our middle class “not nice to talk about” ignorance rather than a dead bastard's gravestone.

A grave and a gravestone can’t hurt anybody.

You need to stop these people before they get put into the ground. Or just don’t bother.

Skin

Nothing says “real person” more than bad habits.

See, I don’t subscribe to the view that people should be perfect or beyond all reproach. Stars and celebrities who project an air of excessive personal hygiene to the point of godliness are damned liars and fakers. I actually think such media projected sterility makes them less lovable. I mean, could you really love someone who never ever hooks a bit of earwax out of their inner ear with a fingernail?

Think carefully before you give that question a kneejerk response.

If we were all to be honest about it, picking one’s nose makes one more human, more fallible, more real and more accessible and, therefore, more deserving of other people’s love and more able to be loved.

To that end then, to court your adoration and earn the love I know that you are all yearning to give me, I have decided to share a few of my bad habits with you.

Nose and ear picking can be assumed as standard. We all do those. Some of us use cotton buds on sticks. Some of us fashion the corner of a hankie into a surgeon’s scoop. Some of us even buy those little mini Henry desktop Hoovers in an attempt to automate the process but we all – all of us – at some point in our lives introduce various hooking devices into the small recesses of our faces to remove redundant matter. I’m not going to bore you with the wherewithal of this or cut and paste data from my mucus log-book to give you an example of my longest bogey or most scallop like clump of earwax... just assume that I do it like the rest of you (though possibly with a little more class).

No, peculiar to me (not necessarily peculiar to you) my worst habit is probably picking my actual face.

Spots, mini scabs, tiny blemishes, dried and dead skin, anything that feels out of odds and disrupts the smooth texture of my skin when caressed with a sensitive fingertip is up for immediate removal in my book. Even better are those tiny scales of dead white skin that become trapped within the follicle forest of my beard or moustache. Because they have to be teased out through the barrier of possessive bristles that tend to want to keep them embedded where they are. I think that it’s this obstacle course of hair that makes the process all the more enjoyable. You can’t just have a quick scratch and flick and be done with it.

You have to dig. You have to wheedle. You have to be subtle and tactical. Especially if you want to get the skin out all in one piece replete with visible follicle holes.

I find I go into an almost meditative state when I engage in this activity. It’s, like, totally Zen. I bliss out. I enter an altered state of consciousness. It is deeply therapeutic. I suspect it is a shamanistic activity though Google doesn’t appear to want to back me up on that one at the moment.

Ha! What does Google know? Does Google have a face to pick?

No.

Sod Google.

So.

There we go.

I pick my face. I am totally deserving of your love and adoration and devotion. And if anybody doubts the veracity of that claim you can now prove it beyond all reason.

Now pucker up and kiss me like a good 'un.