Wednesday Wideness
The words are coming out all weird.
Luis Suarez
‘I didn’t realise that being an arsehole is offensive in England. In Uruguay being an arsehole is culturally acceptable.’ Finally, an explanation.
Alexander Netherton
Luis Suarez and Wayne Rooney
Giving the finger is not offensive. Giving the finger to folk giving it to you is not offensive. No one was offended, and anyone saying that they were is either lying or a moron. But the FA – those guardians of decency who allowed Abramovich to buy Chelsea, the Glazers to “buy” United, Shinawatra and Abu Dhabi to buy City, and all the rest – have backed themselves into a corner after taking offence on all our behalves last season and banning Wayne Rooney for two games. Meanwhile, they ignored last week’s wanton booting of Fabrico Coloccini because tomorrow they’ll attempt to convince UEFA that he’s precisely not that kind of martyr, and that his wanton booting of Miodrag Dzudovic deserves equivalent punishment to a small bit of indeterminate swearing down a camera shoved into his pus at a moment of high emotion. Admittedly this is not revelatory, but what a bunch of hypocritical, thick arseholes.
Daniel Harris
Villas-Boas
To the extent that it’s possible to feel sorry for someone in the employ of Roman Abramovich, I almost felt sorry for Andre Villas-Boas – dealing with him, Terrence, Lampard and Cole on a daily basis must be a significant pain-in-arse. But then they beat a pretty terrible Valencia, and the indignation erupted – it must be contagious. “It was a win of human values, responsibility, solidarity, strength of character, team spirit, ability to take criticism, resilience, and it was a great win for Chelsea players,” he cried, and he’s right – Dunkirk has nothing on his brave bunch of altruists, and credit to him for adding a new wrinkle to the footballing vernacular: ‘ability to take criticism was the winner’. “They deserve a respect they don’t get, ” he continued, correcting silly old us for hating them as a bunch of aggressive, entitled, dislikeabilities with a piece of aggressive, entitled, dislikeability . “We’ve been continually chased by different kinds of people but today we’ve given everyone – those critics – a slap in the face.” Or, alternatively, no one really gives a fuck. They’ve scraped through to the knockout stages, they’ll lose to the first decent side they play, and will end this season just as they ended last – winning nothing and even less pleasant than before. What a total bell.
DH
Cancer
A new report on welfare has suggested that patients on chemotherapy could be forced back into work as they recover from and/or try to beat, you know, cancer. You can argue the toss about whether it’s evil, money grabbing or just plain nasty, boiling down capitalism as nakedly as possible, but Christ. Is the only way to convince our landed overlords that this is a bad idea because it goes against good etiquette?
AN
FCF Christmas Do
You’re all invited. All you need to find is find the six of us huddled around a fire in a metal drum, each clutching two bottles of Tanqueray, complaining.
AN
