Another Url, Another Planet

Forty years ago that would have made for quite an interesting blog post title, especially if it had gone on to expose the almost spherical, legendary German goalscorer, Der Bomber, in a gay sex and drugs scandal.

Gerd Müller used to hit the ball so hard that his surname became a verb to describe hitting something really hard. Smashing it (as Jamie Redknapp might say) into oblivion. So, as youngsters, we would go out drinking with the sole aim of ‘getting mullered’.

So perhaps it is due to all those nights and days mullered? Or perhaps it is due to my recent somewhat enforced abstinence? Or perhaps it is just a coincidence that recently I have been suffering from gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, as it is affectionately known? My new friend GERD has been keeping me up at night and stopping me from sleeping. A right little pain in the arse, as it were.

Whatever the cause, I was delighted to discover that my GP knew just what I needed. I needed GERD muller. Something to inhibit my proton pump so hard that it wouldn’t be able to pump out any more protons. Yes, two weeks in Lansoprazole! I arrived at the checkout of my local pharmacy clutching my newly acquired sunscreen, shades and mosquito repellent with my prescription for a much-needed Spanish holiday, courtesy of our wonderful, free, national health service. Obviously, I was disappointed and somewhat humiliated to be told that they were all out of Spanish holidays at the moment and they weren't sure when they’d be back in. On the bright side, the tablets they gave me instead really do work! They inhibited my proton pump immediately and are without doubt a highly effective GERD muller. The only downside is one rather annoying little side-effect of the drug - it stops me from sleeping.

(Photos nicked from the rather lovely http://bundesligaclassic.tumblr.com)

Last week I was abducted by aliens. I was woken at dawn by my alarm clock to find a bright light shining in through the window. As if in a trance, I found myself drawn towards the light and compulsively (as I do every morning) drew the curtains. I felt a presence in the room. ‘Turn your alarm off, for God’s sake!’ said my wife. I felt a non-human presence in the room. ‘Miaow’ said the cat.

I found myself getting washed and dressed and heading out the door, as if I had an appointment to be somewhere. After a brisk twenty minute walk, I found myself right inside the massive, shiny metallic spacecraft, which appeared to have landed slap bang in the middle of a car park. I felt no fear, although I was a little apprehensive. I entered the craft and was transported up into its upper level via some kind of elevator.

I have blogged before about my experiences of abduction and how aliens harvested my organs and tortured me, so this was nothing new. I felt a familiar apprehension as I caught sight of one of my abductors, a short woman in a green uniform.

‘Would you like an enema before we start?’ she asked. 'A glass of water would be nice,' I replied. 'Do you need to go?' she asked me rather sternly this time. 'Well, I'd like to be back in time for the football.' Now in something of a huff, she handed me a green paper gown to wear, which appeared to have been designed for tailed creatures. I followed her through to what looked like an operating theatre where I was surrounded by three little green men with surgical implements and machines which went ‘BLEEP!’. They made me lie on a table and paralysed me by injecting something into my hand. One of the aliens stuck his finger up my back passage and said, ‘This might hurt a little bit.’ Then they made me pass out by gassing me. I awoke sometime later to find the aliens withdrawing a four metre long tube from my rear end. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I didn’t feel a thing.’ I was as high as a kite. They handed me back to my wife on a piece of string and told her, ‘Don’t let go of him.’

Somewhat bizarrely, they also gave me a piece of paper describing the contents of my colon - nothing at all in there save a few pesky piles.

What a bloody relief!

I received some customer feedback.

A Welsh reader writes:

You disgust me!

I’m not at all shocked or surprised. I disgust myself, frequently. Thanks for validating my experience.

A Mr Tim Savage of Stratford Jobcentre writes:

Get a job!

I wasn’t at all shocked or surprised. My doctor had been signing me off sick (not fit for work) for a while. So long, in fact, that my ex-employer, quite rightly, gave up on me ever returning to ‘my’ hot desk. In employment legalese, I was dismissed through being incapable of work. Meanwhile, Big Tim had helpfully been sending me enough money to live on every two weeks for a while, and in return I kept sending him my sick notes from my doctor. But I guess Tim’s goodwill was running out. He asked me to fill in a questionnaire about my health and asked me to visit Norman, a nurse, so that two months after losing my job because I was incapable of work due to ill health, Norman could assess my capability for work. Norman asked me lots of questions and asked me to move my arms about as if I was directing small aircraft in to land. He was ever so nice about it. It felt a bit like being interviewed by that very nice SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa chap off the telly, except no one came rushing in afterwards to brutally machine gun to death the people downstairs after we were done. Which was nice.

Anyway. As a result of Norman’s niceness and despite me failing to safely land any aircraft due to my two frozen shoulders, Tim decided that I was capable of work after all, and told me so. And although Tim recognised that I have an illness or disability, he wasn’t going to send me any more money to live on unless I appealed, actively started looking for work, or appealed. All of this made me feel rather like a terrible burden on society and that society might be just a whole lot better off without me around dragging it down. And I had been feeling really pretty suboptimal anyway. So I went back to my doctor, who signed me off sick again and gave me some anti-depressants and painkillers, and decided that of the three options given to me - appeal, look for work, or appeal - I would like to appeal. Tim wrote back straight away saying that he would send me some more money to live on as long as I send him my sick notes from my doctor. Seems fair enough.

It’s quite a difficult juggling act. On the one hand trying to get better, to get well again. On the other, remaining ill enough to be eligible for handouts. The last few months I’ve been rapidly deteriorating, hitting a new low, barely able to speak to anyone even online. Most of the time, I simply don’t feel like I have anything to say. That said, I have some good days, and I have now almost completed my assessments for psychotherapy and expect to start in a group sometime in the new year. At my last session, the therapist said it seemed like I’d been depressed all my life, but only now (well, two years ago) asked for help. Thanks for validating my experience.

I had a good day yesterday, a good morning, at least, and decided to put it to use. So I carefully crafted for you, my dear reader, a veritable Christmas cracker of a musical podcast. Perhaps a cracker that doesn’t crack and contains no party hat or plastic toy, but only a lame joke, but a cracker nonetheless. And here, containing my best charidee radio DJ voice, it is:

Just A Ride, Episode 1: Xmas Stocking Filler (29:15)

Eggnogg version (90.7 MB)

Absinthe version (may not be legal in some countries) (70.2 MB)

Sorry, couldn't be arsed with show notes. Here's the playlist instead.

Merry Xmas everyone. That is all.

On Saturday night, I shared a bonfire - in honour of the last person to enter the UK Parliament with honest intentions - with three Bolivians (all of whom have jobs, and at least one of whom has a cat), a Pole, a Catalan, an Irishman, several English people (one of Asian extraction and one born in Africa), a Roman candle or two, a Chinese lantern, twelve Lincolnshire sausages, some French’s American mustard, a large bag of pomme de terres of Peruvian ancestry, and a guy that looked like Frank Sidebottom.

Oh, and - long-time readers of my blog who have not yet required a psychotherapeutic intervention will be pleased to note - some onions.

The onions went down particularly well. I fried them myself. They were so good, people asked me ‘How did you make them?’. ‘I fried them,’ I said. Did I sweat them, or cook them slowly? Not deliberately. There was a lot of them. No, I have never made French onion soup.

I also cooked the sausages. All I did was put them under the grill and turn them over occasionally, in between supping hot mulled wine in our neighbours’ garden and nipping back across the close to knock back some warm English ale and make sure our house wasn’t on fire. Unfortunately, that's also when they burned FrankGuy. So, sorry, no pics. (I also conducted a thought experiment about making a vegetarian alternative to sausages.)

One of the Bolivians wrapped the pomme de terres in tin foil and buried them in the burning embers of the bonfire to cook while a committee of English people tried to work out how to set the Chinese lantern alight. The token environmental activist present complained that setting a Chinese lantern alight wasn’t very environmentally friendly, and to be honest, I had some sympathy with her. Still, we were getting drunk, and this Chinese lantern was going up, one way or another. And up it went.

Perhaps the launching committee might have considered the location of the launchpad - well, actually, they did. ‘There’s a park five minutes walk from here,’ I said. ‘We’re not going there,’ they said. So, finally, we lit and launched the lantern in the close, and it rose up and up. Up and straight into the tree. Where it stayed, burning away in amongst the damp Autumn leaves. It’s still there now.

We burned some more pallets on the fire and then dug out the apples of the earth with a spade. The foil came off some of them in the process, to reveal glowing red potato coals within. Someone expertly cut the spuds in half and applied butter to the hot flesh, and passed them around with napkins and spoons. It was the best tasting potato I've ever had.

If they hadn't given away a two goal lead at Fulham, Manchester City would have a perfect start to this season's Premier League, ten wins out of ten, reminiscent of Big Ron Atkinson's last full season with Manchester United. Then, United's Captain Marvel, Bryan Robson, got injured and the rest is history: United's results tailed off badly, Atkinson was sacked the following October, and Lord Alex Ferguson began his twenty-five year reign of uninterrupted glory (if you discount his first six seasons).

A lot has changed since those days. While United still rely on a talismanic Wayne Rooney to be fit and firing on all cylinders, City have assembled a squad of players the envy of pretty much every other team in the Premier League. They have replaced their talisman of the last two seasons, Carlos Tevez, with Sergio 'Kun' Aguero, who looks fitter, faster and equally, if not more, capable of scoring against anyone and everyone. David Silva already looks like the player of the season.

Then there's Yaya Toure, Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko, all of whom look genuinely class acts. Micah Richards, James Milner and Gareth Barry look to have rediscovered some decent form and Adam Johnson continues to look like changing games in City's favour whenever he plays. Gael Clichy and Aleksandar Kolarov look better than Wayne Bridge. And while Kompany and Hart don't look quite as accomplished in defence and goal as they did last season, they're solid enough alongside Lescott or the returning Kolo Toure. Add to them, Nasri and de Jong, Zabaleta and Hargreaves, and City appear to have an incredibly strong first team squad.

In addition to their freak 6-1 win at Old Trafford, City mauled a well-below-par Spurs 5-1 at the Lane and thrashed woeful Blackburn 4-0 at Ewood Park. They also beat newly-promoted Swansea by the same score in their opening fixture at the Council House, after being outplayed for an hour, and saw off relegation certainties Wigan 3-0 in their second home game. Everton's traditional miserable season start continued with a 2-0 defeat at Wastelands and Aston Villa offered little resistance succumbing 4-1. Wolves looked like they might take advantage of City's ten men in their last game, but ended up losing 3-1. Similarly, abysmal Bolton briefly looked like staging a comeback before losing 3-2 earlier in the season.

Perhaps tellingly, City have struggled so far in their first season in the Champions League, drawing at home to an impressive-looking Napoli, losing so poorly in Munich that Tevez refused to play and luckily scraping a last-second winner at home to Villareal. The return with Villareal is tonight, followed by a potentially awkward trip to QPR Saturday tea-time. However much I'd love to see Gabriel 'The New Ronaldo' Obertan score the winner, I don't expect Newcastle to continue their unbeaten run at City the weekend after that, but I do expect Liverpool and Chelsea to at least get a point each in their upcoming home games against them, and who knows what Arsenal will do when they visit?

So City have done almost as well as could be expected of a team costing several hundred million pounds, but can they sustain their often brilliant start in tougher fixtures to come, and for the rest of the season when the winter kicks in and when the really difficult games come thick and fast? God, I hope not. And history tells us that City will find a way to fuck it all up again, somewhere along the line.

As for United, a freak 8-2 win at home to Arsenal, an easy 3-0 win over well-below-par Spurs, a somewhat lucky 3-1 victory against Chelsea and a 5-0 stroll at abysmal Bolton aside, United have ground out wins at West Brom and Everton and at home to Norwich, and draws at Stoke and Liverpool. United's upcoming fixtures look relatively straightforward on paper, assuming that we can at least continue with our tendency to win even when not playing particularly well. Crunch time, as usual (I hope), will be in late January and early February, which could well lead to a title decider in the return fixture with City scheduled for the last weekend in April.

Chelsea are clearly a team in transition and seem to be blowing hot and cold. I think they've blown their chances this season already and could find themselves in a fight for a Champions League place by the season's end. That fight will, of course, be with Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal, and it will be a fight to see who can be the least crap on a consistent basis. My money's on Spurs and Arsenal to finish third and fourth.

As for the rest, it's either mid-table mediocrity or a relegation dogfight to keep the fans entertained. Wigan, Bolton and Blackburn already look doomed, but I expect Wolves, QPR and Swansea to give the Lancashire clubs' fans some hope for most of the season. But you could pretty much pick any one from Norwich, Sunderland and West Brom to join them in a season of struggle.