Nothing in ze poker is standard

There are many many words I find offensive. As we speak, the word that irks me the most is "standard." I heard that word many many times on Friday. Standardisation of anything in my opinion is not good. Standardising things can only lead to an unimaginative soulless world, poorly prepared sandwiches and communism.

Here in the cave however we don't discuss politics or anything that might have the potential to keep us awake at night with thoughts of the overwhelming forces around us crushing our spirit like a wee tin can in the deepest depths of the coldest oceans. Alls I'm saying is it's a word we should all be cautious of if we cherish our individuality and capacity for independent thought, oui?

Poker for example is a classic case in point. There are far too many moves in poker now that are considered 'standard.' I blame internet whipper snappers for this. Most of them have yet to see a grown woman naked, but they've seen every possible hand in every possible situation and because they play by the numbers the game has become automatic for them. They're like little androids with whispy facial hair and appalling personal hygiene and fashion sense.

Internet whipper-snappers yesterday

Poker is played by everyone now; all personalities, all cultures, all ages, all backgrounds, even women are playing now. So many different formats, you don't even have to be physically sat at a table anymore, how can anything in the game be standard!?

NO!

Of course there are moves which have to be made, and one would be silly or speculative to try something else, but.....BUT....that doesn't mean you shouldn't even consider the alternatives. This is what I really object to; being on auto-pilot. Assuming the move is a no brainer just because it's the convention and not even stopping for even a second to consider the alternatives, and there are always alternatives people, always.

Would I seek the opinions about politics, economics or world affairs from teenagers dressed like a charity shop has vomited on them? No, then why oh why would I assume they would have all the answers when it came to such a nuanced and complex game as poker? These people know only how to nap. And I don't need any tips on napping thank you please.

No matter how thinly you slice something, there are always two sides. Who said that? Whoever it was he would never just shove 10xBB with an Ace without considering a stop-and-go instead, I can tell you that for nothing.

Just as Galileo refused to accept that all celestial bodies revolved around the Earth, just as Gordon Brown refused to accept that two years was not enough time for him to fuck England up forever, just as Arséne Wenger refused to accept that English footballers were any good, I refuse to accept that you should never fold pocket Aces before the flop and the small blind is worst position at the table.

Have I made myself clear? Good, well off you go then and remember what we talked about here.

Poker: the next generation

So now, I've just watched the heats of the new Poker Premier League IV on t'internets. I'm not sure when it airs here so I won't offer up any spoilers. It's good stuff though and it's been edited in such a fashion that one can barely find time to take a bite from one's sammich without missing something good.

I'm not sure how they came to decide that these twelve players represent the cream of professional poker, but it's good mix of players nonetheless. Attitooods and styles colliding makes for compelling telly and no mistake.

Luke Schwartz is of course a testy little scamp, but along with Yevgeniy Timoshenko he's playing a game that's on many many different levels to the rest of the players. Timoshenko in particular I think even has the skills to win the Pigeon's game.

Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu look baffled and lost; Tony G reduced to playing with bicycles and some nonsense comments about heart and commitment, but no actual game to speak of; Vanessa Rousso has very poor complexion but I still would.

Luke Schwartz is just like second generation Phil Hellmuth all emotions and F-bombs, he could be his son in fact...Timoshenko perhaps a second generation Chip Reese all calm, collected, smiles and a sixth and possibly a seventh sense for what's occurring at the tables.

I should think his father was probably a high ranking officer in the KGB and this is where he gets his cool calculating ruthlessness from. His paterfamilias is probably tying someone up with piano wire as we speak.

Jolly good stuff it is anyway and I'm motivated now to make an attempt at the 900 runner DTD Grand Prix tomorrow, hopefully I'll be able to la Forge ahead and not have to Klingon. Hahahahahahaha.

Back to the now

Yesterday was 25 years since young Marty McFly started fucking around in the past. I mean really, like where DOES all the time go? It only seems like yesterday. Perhaps it was, perhaps it was.

Punishing kings

Warning: This blog entry is a thinly veiled bad beat
story masquerading as a tournament report

I still hate Luton and Luton hates me. I think it must be because I've never owned that many hats. Well if that's what you can call a place to put a G-Casino and hold poker tournaments, you can keep it. I'm not going back there again, not until the next time anyway.

These freakin' tournaments I tell you what, they exist only to test and punish me. I'm the pokering King Sisyphus. I build my stack up and then just one horrendous collision with the fate or the Gods, whatever you want to call it and it's right back down to where I started, or just busto altogether and it's back the next month to exercise my masochism once again and endure more punishment.

Now I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I played very well this day. I have not dominated a table like that for ages. I was so in the zone I became the zone. I half expected to find myself in a pot with Keanu Reeves or that Morpheus fella, I was soooo matrixing the table.

I was raising everything left right and on many occasions, centre too. The internet kids would have been proud of me as I c-bet 3 bet, 4 bet and even 5 bet my way with trash to a stack of 20,000 in the first two levels. Woooooo, I had never felt so alive.

Now why play this way? It's so when you do get a premium holding, your table mates are so pissed off with your bullying nonsense that they end up playing back at your with pocket guff and end up giving your their entire stack in a nice little box wrapped up in shiny paper with a red silk bow.

And so it came to pass, it was poker Christmas re-visited (see WSOP-E post last September). With blinds at 75-150 it's folded around to the whipper-snapper to my right in the cut-off who raises to 400. I'm on the button with pocket kings and I re-raise to 1,500 (I can't bring myself to say 3-bet again, I'm too old) as I had done many many times already.

Dude in the Big-Blind is not happy, some steam discharges from his ears. I've had his monies away on many occasions and he's having no more of it. He re-pops to 3,000. Original whipper-snapper raiser folds immediately and I declare that I am indeed all-in.

"Do you just never fold?" says frustrated big blind man.....who then let's out a sigh and shoves his remaining 9,000 in the middle. I turn over my kings and he shows pocket jacks. At this point I agree with Paulie two thumbs, I should just be allowed to scoop the pot there and then as I have clearly manouevered his boat up shit creek and stolen his paddle. He acknowledges this with a tap of the table and is already fixing to leave.

Only no...because the Gods hate kings and have cast me in the role of Sisyphus and so big-blind man will make some sort of funky straight on the river and I will be right back down to 4k and the wind well and truly taken out of my sails.

This 4k soon becomes no-k and I sit myself down in front of the tellies by the bar and watch West Ham lose while I begin to nod off and have a mucky dream about a blonde haired strumpet sporting nothing amidships except two whole bowls of angel delight and me without a spoon.

Well I tell you what I've had it now with big pairs. The only big pairs I want under my hands from now on are the traditional kind attached to strumpets. They're the only ones that are fun.

Me yesterday

Weekend punting

Some punts yesterday

Some more punts today: I don't have the time this morning to perform the complex series of equations which are the most devastating weapons I have in my sports betting arsenal with which to destroy various online bookmakers and Betfair combatants alike, ...nor do they even exist in fact...so instead I'm going to treat the Premier league coupon like a muslim husband treats a wife caught showing some ankle in public and take a wild stab in the dark at it.

It's a standard £5 per line Yankee: Totternington to win (evens), Sunderland draw (9/4), West Brom win (evens) and a Stoke win tomorrow against hapless Yoonited (9/2) despite Tony Puliss' regular visits to the home of Alex Ferguson to toss his salad.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a poker tournament to take down in the Lutons.

It's wrong Ian, but not as wrong as your head sir

"You buy a house you own the deeds, it's paid for if you're lucky enough
to do that, it's yours. What if it's 24 years you had it for and then it can
toddle off and do what it likes, it's not right is it?"

It's not often I agree with Ian Holloway, but on this point about housing I certainly do. If your house just toddled off one day even though you owned it, there would certainly be something wrong. With this specific case of affairs one can only assume you'd suddenly began existing in a cartoon as this is the only circumstance I can think of where a house might walk out on you.

I'm afraid I can't agree with any of the other arguments from his latest alarmingly incoherent sermon. Forget the impossibility of inanimate objects suddenly becoming mobile under their own steam, the fundamental difference between owning a house and club owning a footballer is of course one can't "own" a person. This is slavery.

Clubs only hire a player, but once the contract expires both parties have no obligations to each other. In return for wages the player carries out his duties each week and there the relationship ends at least from a legal point of view no?

I can't find any sympathy for Ferguson here on any level. He's built his career on bullying other clubs out of their best players and now he's on the end of a bit of bullying himself it's suddenly a huge betrayal? How did he get Rooney in the first place? By the same means Manchester City will eventually get hold of him...having greater financial clout and greater ambition.

They stole Louis Saha from Fulham, Rio Ferdinand from Leeds, Rooney from Everton and Berbatov from Totterington all with the same tactic. Now their financial house of cards has collapsed and that leverage they have enjoyed for the past two decades has gone, they're playing the victim and Ferguson's preaching about loyalty and respect. Frookin hypocrite.

* * *

Obviously this new five-year deal Rooney has signed after suddenly being convinced Manchester United are awesome after all is a compromise, similar to the one they reached with fake Ronaldo; sign a new contract now so we definitely get a return on our investment in you, stay until the summer so we can have more time to find a replacement and you can leave no questions asked then. This now gets the fans and press off both of their backs and Rooney gets his move along with an increased wage for the rest of the season.

The problem of course is that now there really will be cause for fans' "Judas" chants that are aired when these transfers take place. Had he left in January he could have done so perfectly legitimately as it's clear United are shite and have no money to not be shite in the future. And I doubt his team mates will be as easily appeased given he has spent the week explaining to the football media how shit they all are.

He's now pledged his future to United twice. The first time he may have meant it, but this time he clearly doesn't and that, to quote Ian Holloway, is wrong. I can't wait to hear what the Blackppol manager will have to say about this in the summer when Rooney poses for pictures at City's ground with his new manager having decided that Man United couldn't match his ambitions after all.

Luton, Gus Caesar and other news

Now that Wayne Rooney won't be leaving Yoonited until the summer it's time to turn our attention away from footballing karmas to the weekend's pokering action. We'll be very busy this next two weeks. Very busy indeed.

Tomorrow Luton's G-Casino will be hosting the APAT English poker thingy. Luton has historically not been kind to me. Ever since Luton beat Arsenal in the Littlewoods cup final in 1988 it's been somewhere I've enjoyed avoiding. My performaces at APAT events held in Luton have been about as successful as Gus Caesar's in that infamous final hence I'm still trading at 1.89 to be at the Pigeon's game on Sunday night.

Next weekend I'll be making an attempt to take down the biggest poker tournament in terms of numbers, ever held in the UK. Dusk 'Till Dawn have 900 runners registered for a £50 freeze-out! Crazyness. I've performed a little better at DTD than Luton, so I'm already drawing up plans for how to invest the £15k or so on offer to the winner.

So far my shopping list includes an ironing board, some sweets and a selection of winter-wear mostly in the shape of some nice jumpers and a hat. Big time baby.

The blind leading the blind

Football is often described as "big business these days." Not so. It's very very small business and incompetently run business at that. There's an excellent section in Simon Kruper and Stefan Szymans' book "Why England lose (and other curious football phenomena explained)" about how clubs chose managers compared to businesses in other industries and what's happening at Liverpool is a clear example of the nonsensical approach to picking the head cheese 99% of football clubs take.

When a company is looking for a new managing director, the whole process takes on average about five months - candidates have to write a business plan, give presentations, pass a series of interviews etc. Football clubs tend to find new managers about a week after sacking the previous guy who usually has only been given a few months to prove himself.

A couple of examples where this didn't happen are Arsenal waiting a season for Arséne Wenger to become available and Martin Edwards refusing to sack Alex Ferguson in 1990 because he felt had potential to improve.

There's a pattern that most clubs follow when picking a new dude; it's usually a mad rush to hire a new guy as this is seen as a sign of strength and a protracted process a sign of sluggishness. Rather than asking a candidate to present to the board some sort of plan for the club and explain their footballing philosophy and detail where they want to take the club and how, ..usually the new guy is just told by his agent that a club is interested and he accepts.

In England, the new guy is always a man, usually aged between 40-50, most often an ex-player (despite this usually being a hindrance), always under-qualified (football is still considered a game that cannot be taught in the classroom) and either recently sacked from another job or has achieved good results from his current position over a five or six month period. Finally he'll be English and taking over from a failed foreigner or a foreigner taking over from a failed Englishman.

Roy Hodgson was appointed on this basis. He has no claim to a job as big as Liverpool's. He's considered to have a wealth of international experience, but when you look at his CV it's pretty unimpressive. With the greatest respect to such footballing power houses as Switzerland, Finland and the United Arab Emirates and clubs such as Viking in Norway and Grasshopper in Switzerland, these are not comparable with a club as big as Liverpool and with expectations as high as Liverpool's.

Roy Hodgson got this job because he was English, had some good results with Fulham the previous seven or eight months and was well liked by the English tabloids. The downside of course, was that he was not qualified for a job this big, boarding on hopeless.

Liverpool will now take a reciprocal course through the same illogical process of selecting a manager if they choose Frank Rijkaard who appears to be odds on favourite to take over and continue Liverpool's descent into the Championship.

He's available having been sacked from Galatasaray after less than one season. His first club job was with Sparta Rotterdam where he was able to relegate the side for the first time in it's history, but established himself as a special one by some how being offered the Barca job and receiving the gift of Ronaldinho from the footballing Gods.

Those three years of success with Barca appear to be the exception rather than the rule, and Barca is after all an exceptional club - I'd like to think I could win at least three La Liga titles with them without ever even having to leaving my bungalow - but it will be enough for all future clubs to justify appointing him and enough for him to justify accepting these jobs.

I'm going to predict no more than an eighteen month reign for Rijkaard if he's given the Liverpool job. That ought to be more than enough time to prove he isn't qualified. He'll then have to be replaced by an English/British manager as the fans will have had enough of Johnny Foreigner wrecking their beloved Liverpool and it'll all start again.

The apprentice

I was able to watch the entire episode of the Apprentice this evening for the first time. My stomach was aching from laughing at Tott**ham so I thought it the ideal panacea.

I'm alarmed that the dude they fired in the end is a qualified Surgeon. I feel he must have been on the wrong end of many many malpractice law suits to have ditched this profession and sacrificed all the perks that come with it in the shape of moist available foo-foo, in favour of being humiliated by Alan Sugar. One can only hope and pray he doesn't return to the operating tables.

I found myself pleased that the feisty Paloma will remain in the show. Despite the 10/1 shot she has a cock the size of a rhino's leg strapped down inside her trouser suit, I'm still game if she is.

In my world she would dress herself in a PVC catsuit and hide in the shadows ready to pounce whenever she caught the scent of my lust in the cool night air.

She wouldn't of course be allowed to talk during any of our sexual exchanges however as she talks such utter guff and her accent is very unattractive.

As if by magic, the shop keeper appeared

My party piece card trick is awesome. I take a deck of cards, shuffle them up and spread them face down on the table. As if by magic I then amazingly pick out the six of clubs. You have to see it to believe it (as of now incidentally I am nicknaming the six of clubs "the shop keeper").

As cool as it is, it gets a bit boring after a while, so recently I've been working on ways of delivering the trick in new and exciting ways. Since I like poker I thought maybe I could in some way work it into a hand, and so I thought I'd give it a go at the Pigeon's game yesterday.

So, what I did was, I contrived to get all my chips into the pot with Ace-Five against a dominating Ace-Eight. The idea being that to win the hand and stay alive, I would need a six to make an incredibly unlikely gutter-ball straight on the river after the board cards were dealt with an eight on the flop and the turn card a brick.

Also, to cut my outs down even further, the six of diamonds would be counterfeited as my opponent would have the ace of diamonds and the board would be showing three diamonds. Brilliant!

So anyway, it was brilliant and I pretended to look disappointed as the cards came out and I was down to only three outs with one card to come. I even added in a few F words to pretend I was annoyed at making such a loosey-goosey call. I'm not exactly sure which cards I "chose" to come out, but it was something like this:

The "shop keeper" appears like magic on the river

Everyone thought it was amazing when the six of clubs appeared and I just pretended to look relieved and contrite as if I hadn't meant it all to happen and I wasn't just a lucky bastard. Alan didn't seem quite so impressed.

Family ties

Let's hope neither side has anything to cheer
about after this afternoon's Merseyside derby no?

The iMac challenge has taken some reverses and we're unfortunately down to the felt. We can't even afford an Amstrad. Our last £60 is now in play, invested in a Premier League double, which we hope will see the Meeeeeeerseyside derby end in a draw and Manchester City winning at half-time and full-time of their financial mismatch with Blackpool and also an NFL Trixie where of course the Ravens will beat New England, Atlanta will beat Philadelphia and Detroit will not lose by anymore than 9.5pts.

If we're successful the challenge will continue. It will continue until we go bust or reach our target and why not? Now if you'll excuse me, I haven't been to bed yet so I'm going to retire or I won't be able to fit in a snooze before the Pigeon's game later on this evening.

Discipline at United gone to pot

This is a picture of Wayne Rooney not playing as Ferguson doesn't like him anymore. An intriguing state of affairs, but for me what is more interesting is the thing sticking out of the fella's mouth on the far left. Don't know who it is, but should he be smoking? Must be Italian no or maybe Dutch?

Benoît Mandelbrot dies

Benoît Mandlebrot has died I'm hearing. This is a great shame..the world can't afford to lose genius like his. His IQ is equal to approximately a quarter of a million X-factor watching, Heat magazine buying chavs. Hopefully natural selection will redress the balance soon perhaps with a massive earth quake in Romford.

The depth of poker brought to the surface

Yes yes..hmmm yes..I've been watching "the Big Game" on poker stars TV. It's good stuff although the loose cannon on this week's show is a bit of a sap with what looks like half a hair cut. One of those many millions of Americans who buy all their clothes at the Gap, call their wives honey, and drink Lite Beer. One of the pros fighting over his money is Lex Velduis.

Lex has a cool sounding name in my opinion and may not even have heard of the Gap. He's Dutch and lord knows what toxins he has thrashing through his veins on any given day. He's keen on this meta-game jazz the kids always talk about and no doubt when you're playing at the nose bleed stakes it's an important aspect of the game.

However though, beneath all that 'he knows that I know that he knows that I know' jibber-jabber, there are still the fundamentals of the game. Human nature being one of those fundamentals. I believe he forgets this and tries to be too clever. Sometimes in poker a spade is quite literally a spade.

We cannot of course deny human nature...superseding everything one will almost always revert to type and it appears to me that internet whipper snappers like young Lex are all doomed to failure because there is inherent chaos in his being, oh yes...chaos much chaos.

Consequently too often this chaotic style polarises their hands so once one has scraped away all those layers of thinking it often boils down to a simple 'has he got it or not'...and given his nature, usually the answer is not.

In many ways this is illustrated by the fable of the scorpion and the frog....

"Good afternoon my good man" says the scorpion to the frog on the banks of a river one sunny afternoon.
"Eeeek, fuck, get away from me!" squeaks the frog.
"Be calm sir," says the scorpion reassuringly, "I seek only a safe passage across the river."

"You can fuck off," protests the frog. "If I carry you across the river you'll sting me and I'll die."
"But sir, I mean you no harm, if I sting you I will drown too," explains the scorpion.

"Well, OK then hop on," agrees the frog. Half way across the river the Scorpion raises his tail and drives his stinger deep into the back of the frog's head injecting lashings of his fatal venom into his brain.

"Oh you bastard, why did you do that?" asks the frog, "now we will both die!"
"I know, I'm sorry" concedes the scorpion, "but it is my nature."

I think you know what I'm trying to say. Good afternoon.

The iMac finale

With £200 in the pot after some unsuccessful wagers, I've entrusted the success of the iMac challenge to the gambling Gods. A series of multiples have been placed with little to no research beforehand on this weekend's football fixtures, which if successful will return £1150 and a shiny new iMac and possibly an even more awesomer one than I had originally budgeted for.

The wagers in question are as follows:

Double - Newcastle and Oldham £100 @ 4.42
Treble - Dortmund, W. Bremen and Wolfsburg £30 @ 6.54
Yankee - Aston Villa, Cardiff, Marseille and Roma £55 @ 9.3

Whatever the result I'll emerge from this challenge a better man and a happier man, unless of course I lose in which case I'll be pissed off and not a better man.

Paying will avoid a field officer calling at your property

I accidentally opened a letter today addressed to the previous occupant. An old lady who I understand is in fact now dead. It was from a debt collection agency working on behalf of British Gas.

She owes them £23.76. She didn't tell them she was moving out back in January and they want their monies. I don't know how much it costs to commission a leg breaker from Glasgee to recover this debt, but I should think it'll be more than £23.76. No wonder British Gas customers' heating bills are so high.

I've told them of course she doesn't live here. I told them many many times in many many ways. Everyone has. I think even British Gas told them she doesn't live here any more and they even confirmed to me that they understand she is no longer resident here, yet they still send their threatening letters here.

They're sending Glasgow's equivalent to Rocky over here on Friday if she doesn't pay up. They seem to be pursuing a single strategy - send enough letters using progressively more bold fonts and red text with each letter and she will eventually receive them and pay.

__________________________________
Dear Mrs ********
You owe £23.67 please pay
__
Dear Leg breaker she doesn't live here any more.
__
Dear Mrs ********
You owe £23.67 please pay
__
Dear Leg breaker she doesn't live here any more.
__
Dear Mrs ********
You owe £23.67 please pay
__
Dear Leg breaker she doesn't live here any more and I think might even be dead.
__
Dear Mrs ********
You owe £23.67 please pay
__
Dear Leg breaker, sigh
__
Dear Mrs ********
You owe £23.67 please pay by Friday or we'll take it out of your arse.
__________________________________

This reminds me of an experiment to determine whether rats had problem solving capabilities whereby the rats received a wee electric shock every time they made an attempt at reaching a little feeding bag through a specific little hole. They wanted to see if the rats would just continue time after time to make it through the same hole or source out a safer route and they just kept on walking through the wired up hole and jumping back every time it shocked them.

Silly debt collection agencies no better than rats.

Pay your f**king gas bill Adriiiiiaaaaaaaaaaan

Las muertas de juarez

Mexico play Venezuela tonight. Usually a fairly comfortable win for El Tri, but there's lots of peripheral nonsense to consider here that might influence the result and present some opportunities for furthering our progress in the iMac challenge.

Lots of commotion behind the scenes with Mexico. Director of the national teams Nestor De La Torres has resigned having lost a dispute with the players. After Mexico's last win against Colombia the players had a huge piss up allegedly involving hookers and trannies. Carlos Vela and Efraín Juárez were banned from the national team for six months, 10 players were fined $50,000 pesos.

The players complained, and said they would not represent the national team again until the internal squabbles were sorted. They've had discussions prior to this friendly with Venezuela and the upshot of it all is Nestor is out - resigning after refusing to apologize for how he dealt with the players.

So, given that the players are not exactly focused and this is a friendly anyway, and also that this game is being played in Juarez, currently one of the most violent places on Earth, I fancy there won't be the kind of slaughter on the pitch usually seen in the streets.

I've backed Mexico/Draw and Venezuela/Draw on the HT/FT markets at 24.0 and 26.0 respectively - £5 each and I've backed overs on the murders markert (120.5).

Serbs, Hawks and the iMac Challenge

As we speak Serbian fans are in a corner of the Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa burning Albanian flags and celebrating the death of Norman Wisdom while they await an absolute pasting from the Italian police.

I'm afraid they'll get no sympathy from me once the Polizia di Stato have taken their frustrations out on the nasty little fuckers for causing this Euro 2012 qualifier to be abandoned as I had Italy in a double with Denmark and since it was a Betfair acca double the bet is voided as its considered one market so I don't even get monies for the Denmark part of the bet. Bastards.

We did have a winning bet last night however as we were on overs (5.5) in the Blackhawks v Sabres game in Buffalo. My boys finally got a win on the board winning the game 4-3 and adding some £18 or so onto our total, which stands at a mere £138 (once the £90 is returned) + £65 from the original kitty (£203 total) rather than a more encouraging £300+ had Italy been given the opportunity to give Serbia the beating they so desperately deserve.

Filf

I find it depressing that Will's mum from the Inbetweeners is considered a sexy older woman....a MILF as the kids say.

She's two years older than me.! If I had children that would mean I'd qualify as a FILF! I do have nice eyes I suppose and schoolgirls wanking over (pictures of) me isn't that unpleasant a notion, but still..time flies doesn't it? It seems like only yesterday I was explaining to my school chums just what I'd do to Cherie Lunghi if I got my hands on her.

So that's it I'm old then, I'm officially allowed to wear slippers. I'm an older sexy man. Fine.

Betfair pokering

Look at this..this is why I never play online poker. You ante up and they give you a woman as an avatar - that's me in the middle. They could have at least have given me one with a nice rack like Mike's. I had no choice but to insta-bust.

Wildlife at one

Is there a collective noun for a group of air hostesses? Until I find out and for the purposes of this blog entry I'll be using the word clunge.

So this afternoon at the Subway sammich place would you believe it a clunge of air hostess' arrive on the scene followed by a dude who I assume was a pilot judging by his uniform and self-satisfied countenance. He stood off from the main clunge like a stalking leopard eying up a herd of vulnerable gazelle.

Now I am of course the champion of the individual and the last person to pigeon hole anyone, but I think we can agree that nothing says "choking for it" and "strumpet" like the uniform of an air hostess. Indeed these ladies could not have looked any dirtier and randier in their outfits if they had all been sporting sandwich boards with "FUCK ME" scrawled on both sides in their own menstrual blood.

I don't mind telling you, Richie soon lost interest in his sammich and Richie loves his sammiches. Sadly my oxygen levels began to plummet so I had to leave, but as I wheezed home it did make me wonder, given the almost requisite dirtiness required at entry level for this position (ooo-er), why their male colleagues are all such a fleet of Berties?

This must be why the Pilots all look so happy and why the auto-pilot of passenger airlines are switched on for 90% of the flight as the Captain needs as much time as possible to enjoy the disproportionate amount of miscellaneous sex available on any given long haul flight.

An airline pilot in hogs heaven in amongst his prey, while a
whoopsie on the far right looks on disinterested, yesterday

The iMac challenge

Just to give me something to do this week so it doesn't fade away into the annuls of time without a trace like most of my weeks, I've embarked on the iMac challenge. My current Mac has started to look not quite so awesome recently and the new ones look decidedly more awesome so it's only right that I should own one.

I will attempt to win one however rather than relieving myself of the £999 acquiring price. I'm only giving myself a week however to reach this total as my patience can only be stretched so far. I shall add a Blue Peter style totaliser to the blog just as soon as I find the motivation.

So it's quite simple..I've started with £100 in the kitty. My initial wager was a failure; a £15 treble on Casey Stoner to win the Malaysian MotoGP, San Jose unders (5.5) v Columbus and US of States to beat Poland. Only San Jose obliged. Boooo.

My second and third wagers were successful however; A £5 per line trixie on a Redskins win and overs for the Detroit Lions and 49ers games. This gave us a return of £93.81. Hooorrah. We then randomly stuck the £3.81 on Pandorea to win the 2:40 at Salisbury at 8.40 which duly obliged returning £30.59. Hoorah again.

The remaining £90 of profit left from the trixie bet has now been wagered on a Denmark/Italy double in tomorrow night's Euro 2012 qualifiers at 2.44.

Sooooo, in actual monies we have £65 left from the original kitty plus £30.59, with £90 in-play (which will return £205 after commish). Obviously this wager is like finding monies in the street so we can assume our total stands at a little of £300. A third of the way there on it'll only be Toosday.

I've never felt so f**king alive.

Hiding from the truth

Listen Google, I know you read my blog because you own it so listen here; stop trying to link everything I do in my life to your main computer banks. Is it too much to ask for a man to want to keep some aspects of his life private? Is it? WELL, is it?

I'm not even talking about anything naughty, I don't care if you had a good old laugh in the office reading my complaint email to Girls on the farm magazine, I'm just talking about the basic right to privacy. For example, I just now went for a shit and when I got back there was an advert for bulk toilet paper on my google mail home page.

These people must be stopped before it's too late, if we don't do something before Google becomes self aware we're doomed. In fact it may already be too late. Simply moving to a cave won't be enough. You'd source out a cave in terrain untouched by civilisation only to find Google ad cave paintings on the wall. I've seen it happen.

Just back off OK?

* * *

In other news, I've just now been reading that young Kirstie Allsopp - who I'd do cause I find posh conservative types with bouncy poonts very exciting indeed - has been having a twittering argument with Alan Sugar who is a crass and disgracefully deluded cockney barrow-boy.

I of course have never liked Alan Sugar and find it physically impossible to watch him or his TV show, but even by his standards this is petty stuff. I've hated him since I was at school, not least because of his connection with Totterington, but mostly because I had one of his shitty computers and while my friends were playing cool games on their Spectrums I was playing a treasure hunt game that took twenty-five minutes to load and three minutes to play. Stupid syntax errors.

It's because of owning shit like this as a child I'm having to
over-compensate now with expensive Apple computrons

Anyway, so Ms Allsopp has criticised Sugar for being a bossy twat (paraphrasing) and taking himself too seriously. His retort(s) have been along the lines of her being a liar (ha, are you 12?) but mostly how shit she was when she appeared on the celebrity version of the Apprentice, hence proving her point for her really.

That he seems to genuinely judge people on how they perform on the Apprentice (even a celeb version) perfectly illustrates how consumed he is in his own self-importance, but even more so as surely Alan Sugar's role in this show is ironic anyway no? Is he not supposed to be a sort of Alf Garnett of the reality TV genre? I'm sure he's there for people to laugh at, not laugh along with.

In the 70's people mistakenly took Alf Garnett literally and racists up and down the country would bump into Warren Mitchell in the street and shake his hand and congratulate him on speaking up for the white man, completely oblivious to the fact that his character was sending up racists.

Alan Sugar is now performing the same roll for the nations whipper-snapper business types who have the full rainbow of skills and can't wait to get up in the morning for some blue sky thinking and to touch base with someone. They are so blinded by his image they are all incapable of seeing the joke.

The hilarious difference of course is that Alan Sugar hasn't worked this out either and judging by this little spat with Ms Allsopp he may never cotton on to the fact that his fearsome boss routine is meant to be ironic and generally speaking a genuinely successful businessman in his 60's, second in importance only to God ought not to take such pleasure in ridiculing teenagers barely out of short trousers. This is very similar in fact to Adam West who was never told Batman was meant to be a spoof and so played it straight all the way through.

Ms Allsopp yesterday, probably not wearing any knickers

The fact that Alan Sugar seems to be considered the cream of English business acumen proves many others have failed to get the joke and explains why we're in such a shit state as a country and why I've been forced to move virtually to a cave. Gordon Brown got the joke though I'm sure and Sugar's peerage was all part of his master plan to fuck England up.

It's all wearing a bit thin now though and I really think someone at the Beeb ought to tell him that the joke is on him for the sake of the nation and if he refuses to accept that he isn't awesome after all, he just needs to check his Google mail after he takes a shit as there will be no advert for toilet paper waiting for him, I've heard Google don't even know where he lives.

Alan who? confused Google employees in London yesterday

Hero to zero

Given my consistently inconsistent footballing prognostications of late, I've decided to abandon proper football and have a bash at some Mercan football wagering. This evening while I'm struggling my way through the Pigeon's game, the game of the season so far in the NFL will occur in Philadelphia and even if I am pushed around by Joy, I'll thank my lucky stars I'm not Donovan McNabb being pushed around by the city of Philadelphia.

This is a big one so early in the season not because it will necessarily make or break the season for either team, but because of both Quarterbacks' individual circumstances.

The hapless Redskins led by ex-Eagle Donovan McNabb will enter the Lincoln financial field to a generous round of applause from the fans in recognition for McNabb's eleven years of service with the Eagles. Or so he thinks.

Fans in Philadelphia are somewhat partisan. It's true McNabb didn't really want to leave, didn't ask to leave and had a good relationship with Eagle's fans, but usually that doesn't count for much when you return with a rival team...and you ultimately failed to deliver anything while you were there.

I don't recall Flyers fans being too generous to Eric Lindros when he showed up in Philly in a Rangers uniform for the first time. There might have been generous applause for McNabb had he returned in a Seattle Seahawks uniform, but not a Redskins one. I'm expecting a hostile reception for him, and if the Redskins start well the last decade may as well have not happened.

Michael Vick has something to prove in this game also. I am pleased he is now the starting quarterback. I don't have any time usually for people who list dog fighting as a hobby, but I've never understood why he had to go to jail because of it.

In America it's acceptable to hunt for sport. Sarah Palin for example can gun down bears from a helicopter for fun and it's fine, yet Michael Vick's dog fighting championships is punishable by jail time and a career in ruins. Not condoning dog fighting of course, just I fail to understand the difference in terms of animal cruelty.

Anyway, I digress...so now he has wrested the number one spot from Kevin Kolb, albeit after an injury to the original starter, he now has the harder task of keeping hold of it. Beating Washington tonight and sending Donovon McNabb home penniless will go a long way to securing this. It will allow his employers to point at McNabb and say they were justified in ditching him and ditching him to a divisional rival at that, it will also put to bed the nonsense surrounding the Kolb/Vick starting quarterback flip-flopping debacle.

I myself can't see how the Redskins win here. They have a shambolic defense. Strictly going by the numbers it's a home banker. Michael Vick is red hot and the Redskins defense is the worst in the NFL.

McNabb would have to produce something for the ages to win this game and the simple fact of the matter is Andy Reid would not have traded him to a division rival in the first place if he thought he was capable of that kind of performance.

As a Redskins fan and a sports better on a cold streak, I say this with a heavy heart and a light wallet; the 1.44 for an Eagle's win must surely be far too generous to pass up. I know anyone can beat anyone on any given Sunday, but this isn't really any given Sunday.