Piers Morgan on Twitter, the highlights
In a list of the most repugnant individuals currently employed to make face in the mediasphere, it is difficult to know where, precisely, one would rank – and ‘rank’ is the mot juste – that astronomically repulsive twerp Piers Morgan, a man who truly does fart cologne. It’s not important; he’s up near the top – which is where any self-respecting elitist is happiest.
The most recent phase of Morgan’s journey unto repugnance – or what he calls his career – has seen him become a much sought-after opinioneer, first in Blighty then La-La Land, gabbing highly-remunerated ideas that reach us all through the ether and lodge themselves in – or cling desperately to – the brain, later to be blurted out as our own: “Liiike, I fink vat…” Some people call it ‘mass entertainment’. Like all cynically populist-yet-elitist right-wing figures – and as the editor of News of the World, he will have had ample practice at that posture – Morgan has to work hard to keep the sneering contempt from his mug, something that the deadly combination of Twitter and his own limitless vanity will, I suspect, make increasingly difficult. (Although, given that his roughshod ride over celebrity privacy whilst on Fleet Street paved the way for our elevated culture of bin-emptying, knicker-sniffing, pap stalkers, I dare say he gives a shit.)
What has any of this got to with football, you may wonder? Well, if you pipe down for a minute, I’ll tell you.
The FCF’s Hollywood correspondent, Murdoch Burdock (stress on first and second syllables respectively, naturally), brings news of Morgan repositioning himself, False Nine-style, as a football pundit. Not content with being final arbiter on Britain’s Talent – and certainly, we have been strongly tipped for medals in shooting, fencing, and rowing at the Olympics – he is now to be found saying stuff like “Mixer!” and “Good knock!” to a flummoxed audience.
It would be easy to poke fun – and Lord knows I’ve gone out of my way not to keep abreast of his career (I think I accidentally caught 10 minutes of some arrant pre-US ‘documentary’ on Marbella’s nouveaux riches) – but the top of my head, and some brief research, tells me he has a prime-time CNN show, in the old Larry King 9pm slot, and that there have been a few faux pas of late. For instance, a Tea Party politician called Christine O’Donnell, the acceptable face of bigotry, walked off an interview because “he would not stop talking about sex,” and he infamously got the gender wrong of a recently deceased comedian, Patrice O’Neal, to whom he was attempting to pay tribute (i.e.: grief-surf). Chris Morris was nowhere near either incident, Burdock reports.
One would expect all this of an imbecile, particularly one as shallow and deluded about his place in the world as the toerag formerly known as Piers Stephane Pughe-Morgan, but that hasn’t stopped him from turning his unctuous gaze toward O jogo bonito.
Credentials? Well, apart from slotting easily into the niche of ‘vituperative Limey’ (see: Mrs Robinson, S-Cowl), apparently Piers is an arseho- Arsenal supporter – which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense: he probably once had to review Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, however intellectually stretched; he epitomises the post-Sky gentrification of football already skewered in The Fast Show; and he would have thus eenie-meanied a team when the glory still spurted from the Henry-Bergkamp years.
You’ll not be surprised to learn, assuming you don’t already know, that Piers has a history of gushspouting footballistically on Twitter.
During the recent Arsenal versus Man United match, during which the capricious (but not-goat-like) Andrei Arshavin was roundly booed for being told to go on the pitch by Wenger – a decision derided by Robin van Persie, too, remember – as replacement for tyro winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, widely regarded to have been the Gunners’ best player at that point, Morgan flicked the following spunk-gobbet at his Twitter Clarice Starlings: “I’m speechless. Never seen a worse substitution in my time as an #Arsenal fan. Shocking. And for Arshavin???? Nonsense, Wenger. NONSENSE.”
Burdock’s sources confirm it was all this football-related chatter – and maybe also the fact that we’re all so fucking dumb that we’ll tune in just to see how shit he is – got him a job as a guest pundit on ESPN. Imagine! It would be like having Ruby Wax or Jerry Springer commentate on the cricket. Anyway, the professional lasher-outer tweeted of his new expertise, doubtless assuming there to have been a ceasefire in Syria out of respect for his epochal appearance and hoping the Twitterati would blow smoke up his ass and feed him grapes. Of all people, wee Michael Owen – who, despite the ongoing decline of his career, does exist – took virtual umbrage and defended Football’s territory from such impostures. Man-to-man, not zonal.
Here is the charming exchange from what soccer experts and media observer observers in the YooEssEh are already calling Superb Sunday:
PM: 2 hours till I’m live on air as expert pundit re Chelsea/Man Utd
for @FoxSoccer – be afraid @WayneRonney @RioFerdy5 @themichaelowen
MO: pundit maybe but please, you, an ‘expert’. Do us all a favour
MO: only in America could someone like you be asked to go on tv to
talk about football
PM: careful Benchwarmer, or I’ll have to focus my expert eye on you to
America later
MO: And that’s the problem in this world. Clueless people like you
somehow get in a position to talk about something
MO [cont]: they have no clue about in front of millions of people.
Football is full of it.
PM: thing is, Benchwarmer, I’m more likely to score a Prem League goal
than you these days
Miaow.
I’m not sure of any ‘previous’ – there are only so many minutes in the day; only so many Prozac this side of intensive care – but note his delightful facility with the put-downs. Heart-warming stuff. Lovely, cute bullying. The kind of man you’d want your daughter to marry…
Not content with picking a rumble with one cherubic favourite of the Mums of Middle England, Santa Banter (as he’s known to the Mexicans who clean his pool) then got embroiled in a spat with Gary Lineker yesterday, one that seemed to develop from the previous tête-à-chest between Owen and Morgan:
PM (straight tweet): Fox are airing Chelsea/United match on main
network today, before Superbowl. Giving Americans the chance to watch
some real football.
GL: Shame we don’t get Fox here. Would be intrigued to watch your
analytical tactical input. Could be quite something.
PM: I’ll send a tape. They call me ‘Lineker with looks and brains’ over here.
GL: Must be down to your stunningly successful football career.
As is the way with Twitter, this then prompted a multi-sided exchange (slebs and plebs alike), for which we probably require a three-dimensional format to represent adequately. Nevertheless, the meatiest part of said subsidiary ding-dong-ding was a spat between Piers– I kid ye not – and Lord Sugar, the latter having chimed in that Morgan’s punditry was “embarrassing to say the least” (Lineker: “Surely not?”), the former defending himself against the accusation that the Arsenal fans hate him, to which Sugar retorted: “deluded again, maybe hate is wrong word, they just think you talk double barrelled boll…”
And he was like “Everyone hates you, Peez”. And I was like “Like, you best, like, fuck off, yeah?”
Lineker then suggests getting the pair of them on a MOTD spesh as pundits. As you’d imagine he would have been had the offer been to carry out a liver transplant, Piers, predictably, is up for it: “Let’s see who’s Top Dog, Shugs”. So far, so banter…
Perhaps drawn by the description of “erudite entertainment,” he then posted a fawning blog on his Fox Soccer punditry (tagging Sugar, Lineker, and Owen in the tweet), at which point he’s again gently teased by Salt ‘n’ Lineker, before it all prrrrroper kicks off, blud, ya get meh:
GL: You must have been up all night trying to find that blog
PM: They’re flooding in. Expecting the BBC to be in touch very soon.
GL: Spoke to the powers that be at the BBC and they are very
interested in you… Staying in America
PM: I just spoke to the powers-that-be at CNN & Fox. And they said: ‘Gary who?’
GL: Ah well, there’s always the rest of the world
PM: I currently air in 200 territories / countries – how you getting
on? #SmallPondMinnow
GL: I think the 2 world cups I played in probably edged that.
PM: Hmmm. Next time you’re in LA let’s stroll down Hollywood Boulevard
together & see where the crowds surge, ‘Mr 2 World Cups’.
GL: You asking me out on a date.
PM: Yes. Mwah x
PM: We actually have a lot in common. Neither of us has ever won the
World Cup, European Championships or Prem League/1st Div.
GL: Or have a golden boot… Oh sorry Piers I forgot I’ve got one in the attic
PM: Ah yes, here’s the fabled ‘golden boot’ in action [he posts a link
to Lineker’s penalty miss vs. Brazil in 1992, one that would have
equalled the England goalscoring record]
GL: I have no recollection of those images, didn’t fake them did you?
[Deft use of satire from Lineker here, alluding to the Leveson
Inquiry]
At this juncture, a mystery racehorse owner from Chester appears:
MO: No surprise to see you have been on Twitter a week and Big Breasts
has already started spouting his rubbish at you.
GL: I know, bless him. You can tell all he ever wanted to be was a footballer.
PM (to MO): Did you give Noddy’s pal tips on how to take penalties,
Benchwarmer? [Link posted to Owen missing an open goal against
Barcelona in a pre-season friendly!!]
MO: Don’t need to lardy. He scored 48 goals for England, end of story.
PM (to GL): Of course, you’d never fake images – now would you,
‘National Treasure’? [bizarrely, he posts a link to GL in latex for a
crispvert]
GL: You should see me now I’m working out.
Aside from the obvious question (whether Morgan had some flunky at hand to trawl YouTube on his behalf), you have to marvel at the abject puerility dribbling from Piers – truly, we are living a new Renaissance. I’m sure he never browbeat anyone, ever, for failing to be sufficiently patriotic when at the Screws or Mirror, so mocking Lineker for missing a penalty seems slightly cheap and dishonest. (Research assistant is off sick today; will have to leave this as conjecture for the time being.)
It is all desperate, craven stuff. And behind the playground nastiness is the brazen smugness of Morgan – evidently, he thinks he’s now a player, a man of influence, maybe an icon. He has probably given his penis a nickname. He must be hoovering up gigantic quantities of boliviana to maintain such exorbitant levels of strutting narcissism. Did I mention he is friends with Kevin Pietersen?
Anyway, like the true staminabeast he is, Piers promptly finished stuffing $50 bills in the orifices of Russian strippers alongside his braying school chums* and pootled on back to Twitter, where he found the eco-house-dwelling son of Neville Neville, fresh from a shift of proper punditry. Neville was ready. He’d decided to get tight, not let him turn, and generally show him on to his weaker side, at which our ever-loquacious, zeitgeist-riding hero offered this contribution to the social media site’s gemütlichkeit:
GN: Self-praise is no praise
PM: Not much danger of any form of ‘praise’ in your case, Ratface
GN: Don’t need praise. I’m not insecure. Hope this move is permanent to US.
PM: I’d invite you out to Hollywood, but they’d only arrest you for
possession of an offensive face in a built up glamorous area
GN: Happy in Lancashire thanks Piers. I’d invite you to Lancashire but
you’d only end up chopped up inside some meat pies or eating them.
PM: You should try a few pies, Ratface – fatten yourself up a bit. The
Worzel Gummidge look is a bit last year
GN: Was widescreen tv invented for you. Is that life stories thing still on?
PM: I know one thing Ratface. You in High Def TV is the nearest thing
to Dante’s Inferno I’ve ever seen. Life Stories back in 2 months.
GN: Got any guests that don’t cry and we actually know on this series?
#scrapingthebarrel
PM: By the way, who fights your battles for you now – since Uncle Roy
fell out with Grandpa Alex?
PM: Why don’t you come on? Bring Uncle Roy to hold your hand for you
if you’re too nervous.
GN: I’d like to see you interviewing Roy. Hope your security is good.
PM: It’s the best – my Chief Bodyguard is Patrick Vieira. Your [sic]
remember him, the one who sent you running to Uncle Roy every 5
minutes?
GN: Was that the night we won 4-2 while I was supposedly bricking it?
Don’t believe myth Piers he squirted a water bottle!
PM: At least he had a bottle – you used to lose yours the moment
Vieira clapped eyes on you.
GN: You been watching MU v Ars for the last ten years. We did alright
on the physical front I felt. I Never felt uncomfortable. [It’s
unclear whether the capital N is a deliberate pun on his name or a
typo caused by that letter sequence always bringing the upper case out
of him]
Cerebral stuff, no, this Twitterhoea? It’s like Baddiel and Skinner’s History Professors. “See that mug? That’s you, that is”. Edifying, it is not. One can only hope that HMCR don’t allow the oleaginous parper back in the country. Let’s face it – and this is the only absolute precept you should ever hold – anybody who describes anything as a bit “last year / month / week” quite frankly deserves to be shot before their pathetic neurotic bilge infects us all. Now is the new then.
OK, right, so we’re all agreed that, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s an absolute throbber? Good. All the fish in our barrel are dead.
Now, given the hyperspeed at which Slebdom works (I mean, @AnfieldCat already has 20,000 Twitter followers), we could soon have made-for-TV swapsies between Piers and Arsène Wenger – entirely plausible given that Le Prof started to consult Piers regularly on footballing matters shortly after this August outburst of his (five months before the aforementioned tweet about The Ox): “Wenger signing ANOTHER kid for big money? When will he realize we need experienced defence, not more young strikers #Arsenal #Chamberlain”.
Anyway, on this job-swap show, Wenger would go out to “a built up glamorous area” and interview vapid ‘entertainers’, while Morgan comes and manages Arsenal – or “Woolwich Arsenal” as he insists on calling them – for a season. The results would be hilarious. I imagine he would turn half the Emirates into a giant corporate lounge for the various neo-aristos with whom he fraternises, their creation of an ambience of fame captured by a special camera and beamed over the big screen whenever the match is in a lull. Furthermore, the rest of the stadium would have their already steep tickets hiked further; he would build an imperial box, as seen in Roman coliseums, where the Arsenal bench was; and potential new signings would be forced to do a 7-minute slot of keepy-uppies in front of Morgan at Cobham, at the end of which he would pronounce his inconsequential verdict, most of the words being sucked straight up his nose. Finally, whatever the problem, he would chuck some money at it. Literally.
Right, I’m off to commit suicide. Ciao.
* This image contains some artistic licence. Like Piers’ punditry.
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