What others were Feeling Like Today #11

1989

The ninety-eight Liverpool fans crushed to death at Sheffield bring back memeories of a similar disaster at Bolton in 1946. We never took a Sunday paper at home but sometimes saw the News of the World when we went down to Grandma's on a Sunday night, and I think I knew at eleven years old that there was something wrong about the gusto with which the tragic story was written up, and something very prurient about the way I gobbled up every word. Today I read very little, and because of being at the theatre see nothing of the live coverage on television. But already the process begins whereby terrible events are broken down and made palatable. They are first covered in a kind of gum: the personal reactions of bystanders, eyewitnesses giving their inadequate testimonials - 'It was terrible'; 'I'll never forget it'; 'Tragic. Bloody Tragic.' - and then wreaths inscribed 'You'll never walk alone.' Then the event begins to be swallowed, broken up into digestible pieces, minced morsels: the reaction of the football authorities is gone into, then the comments of the police, the verdict of the Sports Minister and so on, day after day, until by the end of the week it will begin to get boring and the snake will have swallowed the pig. Then there are the customary components of the scene - the establishment of a memorial fund (always a dubious response) and the bedside visits by the Prime Minister. I find myself thinking, it would be Liverpool, that sentimental self-dramatising place, and am brought up short by seeing footage of a child brought out dead, women waiting blank-faced at lime Street and a father meeting his two sons off the train, his relief turned to anger at the sight of their smiling faces, cuffing and hustling them away from the cameras.

Alan Bennett


Taken, as ever, from The Assassin's Cloak.

I'll section you, so help me

The Bro and I were chatting over celebratory post-football pints earlier about general bollocks and he mentioned how you kind of see everything a bit clearer when you're drunk.

"I think you're almost certainly very well slightly right," I said, "that's why all the good writers and philosophers are boozehounds. But it might also be why people become alcoholics. And that's not good."

Still, it got me to thinking on all the important things in my life right now. Like whether Oasis are actually still worth listening to, whether anyone ever before has been fortunate enough to find such a match for themself as I have managed to in a fair-looking member of the opposite sex, and whether people ever start producing those big black Guinness poos even before they've stopped drinking for the night and have gone to bed. Whether I'm going to be physically capable of putting on a duvet cover right now.

Yeah. Stuff like that.

G'night.

Fibreglass Links

Buckfast and cider on Sunday makes Andrew want to cry on Monday.

Right, after that awful, whinging last post about how shit everything on the internet is, I thought I might as well link to a few of the things out there in the last few days that I do really like:

Meadow is a newish blogger some of you may not have read. if she was a footballer people would be saying she's "bang in form right now" and suchlike. We need more bloggers who take the time to properly tell a story, whether fictional or true. I particularly like her three-parter, 'Sam'.

It being Easter and all, here's your own personal Lego Jesus.

Colm is offering to send anyone who wants one a postcard with a specially composed short story, just for you. He's a talented bastard, is Colm, so inundate the fucker with requests.

David Mitchell, he of Peep Show and QI fame, writes a blog for the Guardian that is always highly readable, and often pretty bloody funny too.

Slaminsky's postcard.

Fuck you, bunny.

Not quite enough monkeys

After being on something of an impromptu country break for the last few days I sit awake now, late at night, catching up on the many things that I might or might not have been reading over the last week or so, had I been online at all.

And I despair at so much of it, I really do. The vacuous nonsense that accumulates over a six day period is truly terrifying.

Not because I think I'm above it, but because I realise how much time and ever-crumbling brain space must be stolen from me every single day by this mulch.

italics for emphasis

It has come to my attention here at Chancing My Arm Towers that there is a growing fondness for classing the readers of any particular blog as one distinct group, easily referred to by some humorous plural noun. It works beautifully for summarily dismissing any large number of people.

Bock's readers are Bockolytes (but not, I repeat not, minions). Twenty, being special, gets to have both Bootboys and Lapdogs. Gimme's readers are, I dunno, Dickheads, probably.

So now I have come to the realisation that you, my dear readers, you who unerringly read my every utterance with nary a moment of doubt in your mind, you, too, deserve a collective title to properly indicate your full uniformity of thought and venom. You have earned this right through your regular attendance, haphazard commenting, and steadfast, unswerving agreement with everything I say. Because you only read my blog, right?

But what to call you? The Chancing My Army? Too obvious. Andrew's Arseholes? No, no, no. Should I call you Legion, for you are many? Hmmm...you're not that many. From today and forever more I christen you Andrew's Elite Death Squadron of Crack Robot Warriors in Pursuit of the Upholding of Truth, Justice, Righteousness, Global Hegemony and All-Round Superbness and Excellence. It was only one of a number of submissions from a think-tank (oh, how I love a good think-tank) consisting of Kofi Annan, Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, Dale Winton and Senator George Mitchell. I chose it for its concise expression of all that I stand for.

You will, of course, all be given ranks within AEDSCRWPUTJRGHARSE (for short). Expressions of your warm admiration in comments will not help you gain a favourable commanding position in AEDSCRWPUTJRGHARSE, as I know you all already harbour such thoughts toward me (I really must thank you for those, I use them to heat my manservant's quarters at night). But I am now ready to reveal that you, Bloglines subscriber in New Delhi (yes, you, I see you there), shall be awarded the rank of Starboard Admiral. And you, mystery reader in Fethard, Co. Tipperary whom I contemplated popping in for a cup of tea, slice of brack and an old chinwag with in on my way down to Cork a few months ago, you can be Wing Commander (I don't know which wing yet).

And you all, from now on, shall be expected, nay, ordered to excoriate, eviscerate and email any other bloggers whose opinion differ from those stipulated in the contract you all signed up to when you agreed to read this blog. And, naturally, write nasty posts about them on your own inferior blogs, should you have them. But only, only on my command. Heel!

Sugar Baby

"Your breakfast is ready." She's been up for over an hour now.

"I didn't ask you to make me breakfast."

I am that much of an asshole in the morning. I groan and roll over, without a note of thanks. She tries to rouse me a couple more times before I gradually start to sit up, the implication that I'm doing her some kind of favour in undertaking this strenuous task writ large all over my face. I grunt a little and frown at her. She brings breakfast to me.

POP TARTS!!!

Everything changes now. Pop Tarts are the kind of breakfast that should always be followed by exclamation marks. We never had them for breakfast in my home when they first came out about sixteen or seventeen years ago, being far too sensible (or "poor", as I understood it) to spend that kind of money on breakfast. They are awesome. I recline back in the bed and start munching, crumbs going all over my chest and onto her sheets. "These are awesome," I say, continuing my morning policy of saying exactly what comes into my head. "I had a conversation with my second year class yesterday about how awesome they are. They're awesome."

I leap up and head to the bathroom for my morning tinkle and beauty regime. My hair needs a little fixing - last night's attempt at a white man 'fro has left a few odd kinks in it. I come back and give her a long, slow kiss. Unfathomably, she lets me do this. "Ready to rock now?" I ask chirpily, putting on my shoes swiftly in the full knowledge that she's been ready to leave for about fifteen minutes now. But even she is shocked by the speed of this transformation.

I decide to sing her one of the few songs I know all the lyrics to as we walk along. I imagine she's pleased, though her face betrays nothing right now. We get to her bus-stop and I do my annoying clingy thing. My morning lethargy has made me miss my first lecture of the day and may very well see her slightly late to work.

She gives me a hug and grins. "I need to find a way of getting sugar into you before you wake up."

But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

Home in Wicklow for a little while earlier I decided that I could no longer tolerate my own level of mankiness and went for a shower. I looked in the mirror and marvelled at how wild and unkempt my wild and unkempt beard has become. Then I picked up a hairbrush (I don't own one) and slicked back my ever-growing hair. I resisted the temptation to ape Ron Burgundy's famous cry of "Hey everyone, come see how good my hair looks!" and wandered out into the hallway in some grotty boxers, in search of clean socks and, perhaps, a muffin.

"You look like Porno-Rasputin," laughed my brother.

Which hurt a lot, as I'd been aiming for Porno-David Koresh.