Posted in Football at Wed 28 Jun 2006 by Stavros
20 days into the World Cup, and there’s no matches today. Or tomorrow. We are in no-man’s land between Second Round and quarter-finals. I feel like Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, just after the infamous ‘napalm’ speech, where he sniffs with his only evident emotion “Someday this war’s gonna end… “. Someday this World Cup’s gonna end. And it’s a long time until Euro 2008. I reckon I’ve watched 38 matches in all, and like Fulla said, even the Switzerland versus Ukraine cow’s arse/banjo mismatch was good because it’s the World Cup. I’m not making any predictions, because they’ve all been about as accurate as Frank Lampard’s right boot (eg Luca Toni for golden boot = total of no goals yet, swapping Adriano for Fernando Torres in my fantasy football team two days before Adriano scores again and Torres’ Spain get knocked out). Just one question, exactly how many Franz Beckenbauers are there? There seems to be one at every match, even when there’s another game taking place at the same time at the opposite end of the country.
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Posted in Crown, Films at Sat 24 Jun 2006 by Stavros
I was on the wine last night and my head is thumping like it’s hosting a cerebral Riverdance, so I’ll keep the festivities brief. Happy birthday blogofstavros. Three years old. 40,000 words, scores of pictures, loads of music, countless posts about hangovers and failing to get jobs in Aberystwyth, dozens of “new favourite bands”, and quite possibly millions of dodgy analogies. Ah the memories!
Anyway… Me and Merk are compiling the Crown quiz on Sunday night (missing Portugal versus Netherlands match, natch). I’ve got a bunch of lovely questions, but I’ve not come up with a picture round yet. I’ll do that when I’m in a cruel mood, so as to make it fiendishly difficult (I once did a face-mashing picture round, it was so hard the team that did the best got 3 points… out of 30). I’d like to do a post-rock special music round, name that Mogwai track from the first 3 minutes, name that Explosions in the Sky song from the first 10 minutes, but Merk’s providing the sounds, so it may be more tuneful.
I received a summerburn CD today. Already. I don’t even know what’s going on mine yet. I’ve been preoccupied with the cover design. What I didn’t receive in the post today, or yesterday for that matter was an Amazon bundle I ordered. I preordered the GTA Liberty City Stories and also ordered a couple of DVDs (Hope and Glory and Night on Earth) last week sometime. I expected them to send the DVDs straight away and then send the game out when it was released (yesterday - Friday the 24th). They didn’t. So I’m still waiting. Waiting for a thoroughly nostalgic yet oddly watchable war-torn Britain. Waiting for Winona Ryder as a cute tomboy taxi driver, and Béatrice Dalle as a sulty blind woman.
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Posted in Football, Music, Old Man Rich, Fulla at Sat 17 Jun 2006 by Stavros
I’ve had a great week off. It really has been tops. Getting up at about half-ten/eleven eating Cheerios, and sitting outside reading and listening to music. Afternoons are then dedicated to the footy. I’ve seen all the teams except Italy and Ghana (I was getting aboard the infamous wine-express at the Crown). Yeah, I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself for getting some money on the amazing Argies at 8-1, and now they are priced 4-1. I’m pretty sick of the dreadfully miopic press, but I was expecting it. Does anyone know what the point of Ian Wright is? And really Motty should have been put out to graze long before now. That’s not blasphemy neither, I was always more of a Barry Davies man.
I take it you’ve seen Merk’s photo of Old Man Rich here. Well last night everyone’s favourite Essex quadragenarian sank to previously unchartered depths. He-who-dresses-in-the dark exceeded himself with a lovely comedy weekend haircut. Imagine asking your partially-sighted epileptic barber to concoct a hairdo equal parts Flock of Seagulls and The Mighty Boosh’s Howard Moon. It would still not fully describe the uniqueness or car-crash perversity on top of his head. I imagine I might get to his age one day. I hope when I do, I’ll have the ability to scare and bemuse like the… errrrmm… great man.
Clockwork went pretty well. We played some good stuff, I think both us and the night itself are probably just finding feet, but I expect progress. In a couple of months it will either be a lively and well run night with two confident deejays, or it could be a twitching corpse. We’ll see, but me and Merk will be doing our bit. At the risk of sounding like an England footballer excusing for a poor performance against piss-weak opposition, it was fucking hard work though, it was so hot out there. And “the kids”, well they were constantly requesting stuff, most of the stuff we managed to play. But I was surprised when a cute 18 or 19 year old indie chick was asking for early Supergrass and the like. I’ve been playing early Supergrass for a decade man. She was cute though, so we obliged. Fulla got hammered, seriously trolleyed. He was unbelievably drunk, falling over drunk, babbling incoherently drunk, and dancing like a lech drunk. Brilliant entertainment. What a hero. He’s well blogshy though.
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Posted in Football at Thu 8 Jun 2006 by Stavros
I love the World Cup. I hate the lazy one-eyed (or metatarsalled) coverage of a lot of the press. I hate the way they assume I care more about the wives of the English players than the chances of Ivory Coast being this year’s Senegal. Still, once it’s under way I love it.
Will Togo be the worst team, or will that be Trinidad? How will the Italians fare with all that dodgy shit back home? Is this the worst German team ever? And if it is, wasn’t the last German team supposed to be, and didn’t they get to the final? Will Mexico ever get past the second round? Are the Ukraine more than just a one-man team? Can Gerrard and Lampard play alongside each other? Which Dutch player will walk out of the squad in a hissy fit this year? Will the ageing Czech’s deliver as much as they promise? Can anyone stop the Brazilians?
So many questions, but so many memories to compete with. Roger Milla’s corner flag dancing. Maradona versus half a dozen Belgians. Linekar’s wrist cast. David Platt’s Italia 90 volley. Rijkaard’s volley… of flop into Rudi Völler’s daft perm. Being Irish in 94. Jack Charlton having a benny at the officials in the midday sun. Baggio’s cup final Neil Jenkins impression. Whiskey-fuelled Scottish fans singing for 90 minutes despite getting hammered by Morocco. Dodgy Spanish keeping against Nigeria. Suker putting the tableclothed Croats through at the expence of Germany. Zidane’s cup final headers and Ronaldo’s pre-match eppy fit. Those dreadful white-elephant stadia in the Far East. South Korea knocking out Italy and Spain while suspiciously getting to the semis. Ronaldo’s minge haircut en route to the golden boot last time around.
With all this in mind, I’ve booked myself the week off work. In which to watch about 29 matches, and even some one-day cricket inbetween games. Champion. Hopefully it’ll also generate some revenue in my betting account, which despite a flukey Derby win on Saturday is still looking feeble of late. Basically, if England, Argentina, Italy, Mexico and Brazil all win their respective groups, and Holland don’t get through theirs, and Luca Toni scores the most goals and Argentina win the cup, then I’ll be a ton up. So, it’s practically mine already then.
Huddle in and share your World Cup memories, tips and expectations.
Stavros.
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Posted in Music, Work, Downloads at Mon 5 Jun 2006 by Stavros
With impeccable timing the inside of my bottom left eyelid develops a small cyst. It doesn’t hurt or annoy, but it’s enough to get some brilliantly stringy eye-snot. Rubbery goodness. Anyway I’ve been wearing my glasses to work, just incase. I hate it, but it occured to me I might aswell use it as my excuse to get out of this Birmingham team-building borefest. So, I have an appointment at the doctors. I haven’t of course. But I did google it.
It’s fine, no problem, it should disappear in a week and wearing contact lenses isn’t a problem. I won’t know this until Thursday morning you understand. Ahhh the cloak and dagger world of getting out of wanky “workshops”, but I really can’t sit in a meeting room full of twatty accountants listening to the twattiest of them ramble on about how we can make a difference in a national firm through pulling together, and utilising blue-sky thinking, resulting in pushing the envelope, probably while jumping the shark. Or summat. At the last one in December I kept my jacket on and fed the earphones of my mp3 player down my sleeve and listened to Sonic Youth and Massive Attack. I used to do that in GCSE Business Studies. So it was a useful qualification after all, setting me up to the rigours and realities of working. Fuck me, I’ve never thought of it like that! Fair do’s they knew what they were doing, talking the same shit twice a week for two years. Life preparation.
Music time:
My new favourite band is an Australian twee-pop collective, who are prone to using brass intruments. I just needed to write that down, because I’m not sure I believe myself. Anyway this is Architecture in Helsinki with “Do the Whirlwind“. They are great fun.
I’ve got the new Futureheads single for you here, aren’t I good? “Skip to the End“, it’s from their new album, News & Tributes. I like it, sounds a little bit more mature than some of the stuff of the first album. But fear not, they still occasionally put ludicrous vocal harmonies where they shouldn’t.
Lastly, this is Hot Chip. I don’t know anything about them, except the video for “Boy From School” is like one of those pieces Neil Buchanen used to do at the end of Art Attack. It’s sounds touching and delicate. It’s quality, but it’s a fairly large file so be patient if your pipe’s a bit thin.
Stavros.
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