MY CONFESSION

Booze.

Within our culture it is everywhere.

Since we are born we are force-fed the idea that this is what makes us fun and likeable and tolerable for other people to be around us.  It is a thousand great nights out and turns every party into a joyous wonderful experience, a barbeque into a triumph, a quiet get-together between friends into an intimate tete-a-tete and a night out into a thousand memorable moments still to come.

Being a non-drinker I have seen a lot more of the other side than I have of that one.

I have seen the vomittous side, I have seen the angry arguments side, I have seen the doing stupid things and regretting it forever side, and I have seen these, as much, if not more than the media-painted-rose-coloured side.  I have enjoyed defying convention and laughing in the face of normalities and said “I will do things my way”, and looking at the health side of things I’m glad I have.

Because that’s the thing.  What I have also always been aware of is the health risks associated with drink.  The damage to the liver and brain are well documented, this alone always made me wary of it, and then add to that the other organs that are damaged as well such as the kidneys and the blood and the heart and for me alcohol was always a no-brainer.  

I always said that the little box on top of your shoulders contained everything you were, everything you are and everything you will be ...Probably best not to fuck around with it.

So what was my vice you might ask?  I mean everyone has one so what was my weakness, my itch that I just had to scratch?  Chocolate.  That’s all it was.  I loved chocolate.  If you want me to be more specific about it I will be, specifically almost all of it except white chocolate and Hershey’s, because white chocolate technically isn’t chocolate and Hershey’s is vile, it’s just too sweet and tastes like vomit, in my opinion, but that’s just my tastebuds for you.

Anyway, that was what I longed for.  At Christmas and birthdays it was easy for people to get me what I wanted because everyone knew what I craved.  I was easy to buy for and I got what I wanted and a lot of it.  Every celebration or anniversary I would feel like a very young person in some sort of confectionary store.

Life was good.

But it wasn’t.

You see while alcohol side’s effects and long term repurcussions are visible in people’s stance, walk, face and general behaviour, excessive amounts of chocolate’s effects are not visible, they are entirely invisible, and I didn’t realise until way later just what damage I was doing to myself until recently.

 A routine check-up and check out revealed that I was what is known as pre-diabetic, which means that you’re about as close to being diabetic as you can be without needing regular shots of insulin, however, it also meant something much more sobering ...I was going to have to give up chocolate.  

Before now I wouldn’t say I thought I was better than all the other suckers out there with there enjoyment of alcohol that ...Actually scratch that, I thought I was WAY better than everyone else.  I stayed away from everything that was harmful for you because I valued my smarts over everything else, but it turns out that my replacement crutch was killing everything else except my smarts.

It was a failure of a spectacular nature, and my love affair with chocolate is now over, which has left me searching for answers where there aren’t any questions. 

So what I thought I would do to draw a line underneath all of it is write an official goodbye to one of the most pleasurable things I have experienced in my life, my vice that hits me in the same way that drink does for everyone else after a tough day at the office or after an argument with a loved one.  It’s my goodbye to chocolate.

Dear Chocolate,

  You know, we’ve had some fun times over the years.  When I think back of all the moments I have enjoyed with you, Christmases, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Job starts, Job finishes and pretty much everything else in between.  You’ve always been there and you have provided me with some of your finest works over the years, always consistant, never a disappointment.  Your flavours have provided me with so much joy and so much delicious textures that it fills me with sorrow to have to let you go.  

  Bourneville was one of your greatest creations, for me it’s a reflextion of life itself, it is bitter and sweet all at the same time, as for Orange Aero, I now love the fact that it disappeared from the shelves for ages, unike its more popular mint sibling, because when it came back it was like re-watching a favourite film that you forgot just how damn good it was.

As for Kit-Kat, it is what it is, a moment of wafer and chocolate combined in a blissful twin moment, that sometimes, just sometimes, when you bit into it and it’s pure chocolate only, reminds you that life is also full of pleasant little surprises.

  And as for Terry’s Chocolate Orange, you know what the best thing is about that?  That’s right, that sliver of pure orange chocolate in the middle.  It’s to Chocolate afficados what the remains at the bottom of a bag of dry roasted peanuts are to nut fans, and lest we forget, the Wispa, which was Cadburys take on an Aero, but, was different to an Aero (I still can’t figure out how?)

  And then there’s all the delicous boxes, the after-eights, the dairy milk, the black magic and the Thorntons.  Mmmm, Thorntons, and now we have the Aldi brands too, the exquisite Moser Roth’s and all those other little mixes that you only get from that store.  

For all these things and more that I can count, I thank you.  It’s been great, but you’re killing me, and so it’s time to ease you out of my life.  It won’t be easy and I miss you soooo much already, but so long.  

Fondest memories

Mike Lambert

But that isn’t the end of it.  It is merely the beginning, you see there’s a Diabetes timebomb that’s going on across the country, it’s affecting a lot of people, and we, as a society should probably be doing more about that.  I mean this is a condition that is potentially lethal and yet there’s very little being advertised.  I mean you have to really look and notice to actually see what is going on.

http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/diabetes-a-uk-health-emergency-11363917705967

http://home.bt.com/news/uknews/over40s-given-diabetes-warning-11363881911111

  Maybe chocolate should have a government warning on the wrapper.  Maybe every-time there’s an advert it should include the words “Enjoy Chocolate responsibly”.  Of course it will have no effect at all but at least it would acknowledge the problem, something that currently we don’t appear to be doing, in spite of certain quarters attempts to prevent it.

  And all of this pains me.  It’s sad that one of the things that I still crave now, that I feel a burning hunger for deep inside every time I walk down those aisles in the supermarket, every time I venture down that end row in home bargains, and every time I get to the second row in Aldi is damaging me so much inside, and hurting so many others also.

I've been MrChatable, I am pre-diabetic and I miss chocolate.  :(

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LET’S BE HONEST, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ENGLAND TO WIN THE WORLD CUP.

But it’s not going to happen.  Yep.  I’m hitching my colours firmly to someone else, not because I’m not an England fan and not because I like saying “I told you so” to everyone when I’m right and they’re wrong (even though I do enjoy doing that!)

You see Football is a game of narrow margins, it is a game not about the strongest links but about the exploitation of the weakest, and the World Cup is the cruelest chalice of them all where great players such as Cruyff, Zico, Yashin and Platini have all seen their dreams of lifting the greatest trophy on earth crumble to dust.  The World Cup is an incredible spectacle of skill, organisation, patriotism and luck but it is also something that comes around every four years only.  It is special because it is rare, few teams win it but through fair means or foul some teams do.

However one thing that you do need to win the world cup is between 7 or 8 World class players and NO WEAK LINKS.

As we’ve seen from the Champions League teams with weak links tend not to win and the World Cup is an amplification of this 100 fold.  Back in 2002 and again in 2004 it could be argued that England fell into the above illustrious category.  They had a slew of great players all coming together at the same time and while it was easy back then just to accept England not winning (as usual) now, when we look back, it seems hard to understand just HOW they managed not to win anything.

How long ago do these games seem now, how long ago is it since we saw David Beckham;s wonder free kicks, since Joe Cole’s amazing goal against Sweden, Rooney tearing through Croatia like a dog shredding a chew toy and since Owen’s blistering hat-trick against Germany?

One would have thought that this new breadth of English talent that came through in the early 00’s would have spurned the FA on to not just find more of this talent but nurture it so that the great drop-off of talent and ability did not occur as it does do in the English game due to untold distractions such as dames, injuries or laziness. 

So while Trevor and the rest of the head honcho’s at the FA say they are targeting the 2018 and anything now would be a bonus but from what we’ve seen in the astonishing drop-off in quality over the last 8 years I would not expect England to trouble the upper echelons of a major final for another 20 years, with the exceptions of Hart and possibly Barkley, there isn’t anyone from now who could squeeze a place into that amazing squad fro then.

So are we looking back to the dark days of the seventies when the England squad failed even to qualify for international tournaments?  Well, no, I don’t think so, but in spite of two under 17 victories at youth level the lack of opportunities for these players at the highest level has caused no end of problems for the senior squad.

However in spite of this plummeting of standards this will not stop me from watching the world cup when it’s on and wishing Ray and the rest of the squad all the luck in the world

After watching the Netherlands last night, they will need it.

AN OPEN LETTER TO MICHAEL GRADE

Dear Mister Grade,

During the current celebrations of “DOCTOR WHO” many people (including current show supremo Stephen Moffat) have taken you to task over your role in canceling the series that they loved.  They have identified you in many ways as enemy number one in its demise (along with producer John Nathan Turner) and you have come in for so much stick it would seem in poor taste for a lifelong “DOCTOR WHO” fan like myself to add to your woes by ripping the hell out of you in an open letter like this

...So I won’t.

In fact, actually I would like to thank you for cancelling “DOCTOR WHO” when you did.  You see with the Doctor riding the crest of a wave in terms of popularity at the minute it seems crazy to thank someone for getting rid of such a hit show, but this is because history tends to be written by the winners and as such is usually wrong.  Let’s cast our minds back to where it all began, where it started to go wrong and why your decision was ultimately the right one.

Back in the heady days of 1963 BBC head of drama, Sydney Newman had an idea, not for a kid’s show, but for a drama, a sci-fi drama about a time-traveller that the entire family could watch.  

Giving his idea to newly promoted producer Verity Lambert (no relation ...as far as I’m aware.  ???) they enlisted a great actor to play the role and from 1963 through to 1979 the show was a runaway smash.  It may have been scary at times, and blighted by special effects that were never really that special, but it was undeniably a success (if you don’t think of all the times that the Fourth version on the Doctor has appeared in “THE SIMPSONS”.)  But then came an after effect, a ripple through time, of something that was so gargantuan that even “DOCTOR WHO” could not help but be affected, it was an after-shock from “STAR WARS”.

In 1980 ITV showed a big-budget sci-fi show called “BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY” which, before the big embarkation of the video age, caused a massive reduction in the Doctor’s viewing figures.  It had the big-effects of “STAR WARS” (well, cheap versions anyway) and so dragged some of the “STAR WARS” fans away (for only one season anyway as the second season of “BUCK ROGERS” was cack!) but this caused ripples at the BBC who replaced their tired old Doctor with a younger man (actually this was a good move as he was top!) and a new producer but apart from the new man at the helm this was the temporary end for the good Doctor as standards slid, the high-standards of writing slid and the show descended from Drama where it’s greatest moments always came from into the realm of being a mere kid’s show.

So history lesson over for those people who aren’t au fait with the show, this is why it left the screens, not because you were vindictive or had no vision to see what the show could be, it’s because it descended into farce.  The Irony is that over the other side of the pond around the time that our “DOCTOR WHO” was facing cancellation paramount television was  starting its own big budget sci-fi show “STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION” and learnt  something after the first two seasons, that the key to success is in the writing rather than the effects.  It was arguably this shift in quality in season 3 that not only kept “STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION” on our screens but also created 3 further “STAR TREK” spin-off series that lasted in total a staggering 24 seasons, including “NEXT GEN” itself (the image below is from what it is probably the highlight of all seven seasons of NEXT GEN, season five's THE INNER LIGHT.)  

If the show hadn’t died temporarily in 1989 it may not have been brought back when it was in 2005 with TV standards in this country reaching a point where both effects costs had reduced sufficiently but writing standards had increased sufficiently.  Now we have “DOCTOR WHO” back to where it should be, as a drama, occasionally comedic, but usually terrifying, and amazingly it’s all down to you, MIchael Grade, the man who saved “DOCTOR WHO” by killing it.

So unusual as it seems, from all the official Whovians out there, who love the show, and all the unofficial ones who do but don’t admit to it, I say, thank you.  Your contribution to the series has been noted, well, by one fan at least.

Mike Lambert (AKA Mr Chatable). 

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MY TRIBUTE TO THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF DOCTOR WHO CELEBRATIONS.

Hello all.  Having seen all the bits and bobs floating around the internet and recognising it was a great time to do something a bit special I came up with this very short tail.  It was inspired by a recent titbit I saw on You-Tube where Sylvester McCoy was reading out Matt Smith’s speech to the assembled throng of baddies from the episode “THE PANDORICA OPENS” and doing a mighty fine job of it, if I do say so myself.  And it got me thinking about words and speeches and how one sentence can have two meanings ...Anyway I’m probably giving too much away here all I’ll say is, here’s the clip and I hope you like the story.

BLOODLESS COUP

The TARDIS whirred disapprovingly as it hurled itself through the time vortex.  The internal workings of the gargantuan force of a black-hole pushed and pulled against themselves in order to propel the impossible vehicle through time and space.  Right now the internal workings of the Doctor where pushing equally hard against themselves as he weighed up all the different moments and different experiences of his life and hoped to resolve those different forces and move forward.  He had dropped off Sabine at Space Disney and left her there for a week while evaluating just what he wanted to do and what he wanted to be.  His attire was something he hadn’t worn before, the black suit, black tie and black shirt were items he needed to wear but in the past had avoided.  He was in mourning.  Now, perhaps more than any other time before, he had a small decision to make that could have massive implications, not just on time and space but for the unique individuals it concerned.

He flicked a switch, latched onto the relevant time stream and set forth on the precise location.  Space Disney was a matter of minutes away.  The consoles displays reflected in those tired sad eyes of The Doctor and he prepared his mind for all he had to say to the new stray who had decided to travel with him.  As the TARDIS veered through the relevant stream and slowed the Doctor could feel it, he could detect the strain on this massive beast of a ship as it moved through a vortex the like of which had never been known before the time-lords came along.

The TARDIS bucked and swerved a few more times before making a flawless landing (ish!) in Space Disney at the agreed designated area.  The Doctor flicked on the monitor and could see Sabine awaiting with childlike glee, chewing on her self-replenishing blue candy-floss while watching the magic-box appear.  The Doctor swallowed a lump in his throat as he flicked the switch and allowed the doors to open.  He flicked the console back to read-outs and smiled half-heartedly as Sabine ran inside. 

“Doctor!  I had the most amazing time, you have got to see this place!” Sabine exclaimed, joyfully.

“I already have, actually,” The Doctor countered before closing the doors.  “Probably too many times.”

“Are you all right?” Sabine asked as she detected his sombre mood.  “What’s happened?”

“We need to talk,” The old Doctor said as he allowed the TARDIS to dematerialise back into the time stream before setting co-ordinates on the console for a new location in time and space.

“That sounds serious,” said Sabine looking worried.  “Where are we going?”

“Home,” advised the Doctor.

“Your home?” she asked.

“No.  Yours,” said the Doctor, hitting a switch and causing the enormous, tiny blue box to lurch to the right before beginning it’s journey back to the planet Kurl.  “Let’s take a seat ….and a chat.”

They went into the ante room just off the TARDIS console room.  It housed four comfy chairs around a coffee table, laid on a silver tray were two cups and a pot of tea.  The Doctor poured out the liquid before sitting back, cup in hand and preparing his words.

“People come aboard this vessel and they don’t know me,” he began before taking a sip of  drink.  “And I think if you’re going to be putting yourself in harms way across the galaxy you should know just who you’re traveling with.  Don’t you?”

Sabine nodded, almost scared to have a drink.

“I am a time-traveler and I have lived for over a thousand of your years and in that time I have had many faces, and many lives.  As people of course you change as time goes by, but while you’re face changes slightly mine changes completely.  When I die, when my cells are reaching the end of their living tenure, my body does this thing called regenerating, it means my whole physical being changes, the only thing that remains are my experiences.”

Sabine furrowed her brow.

“I started out as quite a pompous man, full of bluster and armed with a vast array of knowledge that I shared with my grand-daughter as we left home to explore the universe, my longest life saw me take six hundred years of steps through the stars, as my body regenerated it re-invigorated my desire to travel again and I took this opportunity with gay abandon until I was forced to regenerate by my fellow time-lords and banished to Earth.  With my ability to travel gone I grew restless, aggressive and dictatorial, until I had to face my great fear, which actually killed me, but with no fear came freedom and with my friends I explored the universe.  Boy, that was a great time.  I thought it would never end, but with the universe at stake I had no choice but to surrender my existence, but the upside was something I never expected ...I finally became the man I always hoped to be.  I was calm, at peace and completely rational, able to weigh up all pro’s and cons and appreciate everyone I met for who they were, good or bad, until the universe went mad and I was poisoned.”

“You were poisoned?” asked Sabine.

“Yes.  Spectrox.  It was either myself of my companion who survived and I did not want to see another of my traveling companions die.”

“ANOTHER companion?” Sabine asked.

“Another companion,” the Doctor replied solemnly.  “The poison affected my regenerations and my outlook, it took me two more lives to get back to get back to the man I wanted to be and the poison finally left my system, but then came the war.”

“What war?” Sabine continued.  The man who saved her suddenly seemed less appealing and slightly horrifying.

“The Great Time War,” the Doctor began.  “Ever since then I have run through the cosmos not looking back, almost afraid to, but time catches up with you.  I have to face who I am and what it means to be me.  Have a drink.”

Sabine sucked on her tea and the Doctor pressed on.

“I have blood on my hands, the blood of a thousand races and I don’t want that.  I am a threat to my friends as well as my foes and I can’t live like that any more, I want no more blood on these hands and no more deaths on my conscience so I say this to you now.  Turn back and run.  Whatever you think is the right thing to do, whatever you believe is the right path for you, leave it now.  Run as far as you can because that is the only way I can guarantee your safety.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Sabine.

“If you don’t the only thing I can do now is apologise, I can only say sorry for what is about to happen,” said the Doctor, his eyes filled with remorse as he pushed himself off the chair and headed back to the console.

“Here...” began the Doctor as he flicked a switch for location.

“We...” he continued as he turned the dial for location.

“Go!” he concluded as he hit the button to set the TARDIS off on another mission.

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The Doctor and Sabine crashed against the metal, slightly warm, floor of the Obliteration chamber as the Cybermen hurled them inside and slammed the door shut.  The Doctor get up and pushed at the door as the Cyber-leader raised his hand to signal to his soldiers.

“WAIT!” yelled the Doctor.  “You don’t have to do this!”

“Yes we do,” said the Cyber-Leader in his monotone cynthi-voice.  “We have tried to kill you and failed due to your regenerations, we cannot turn you into us as that has failed and you have beaten us too many times for us to ignore you, therefore in order for the Cybermen to survive you have to be destroyed utterly as the force that holds your molecules together will be removed causing everything you are to be literally torn apart.”

The Doctor swallowed hard before responding.

“Cyber-leader, I have blood on my hands, the blood of a thousand races and I don’t want that.  I am a threat to my foes as well as my friends and I can’t live like that any more, I want no more blood on these hands and no more deaths on my conscience, so I say this to you now.  Turn back and run.  Whatever you think is the right thing to do, whatever you believe is the right path for you, leave it now.  Run as far as you can because that is the only way I can guarantee your safety.”

“Goodbye, Doctor,” said the Cyber-leader, with neither joy nor remorse in his voice.

“If you don’t the only thing I can do now is apologise, I can only say sorry for what is about to happen,” said the Doctor, his eyes burning with hatred, his voice tinged with anger, not for the Cyber-leader, but for the actions that had been forced on him.  He moved his arm slightly and the sleek sonic screwdriver slipped into his right-hand.

“Here...” he said softly as he flicked a switch on the tiny, yet powerful, device.

“We...” he whispered as he flicked another switch and a faint hum escaped from the most adaptable weapon in the cosmos.

“Go!” the Doctor concluded as the Cyber-leader dropped his hand and the chamber was activated.  The Doctor aimed the device at the control panel housing, the screwdriver emitting a powerful blast of anti-protons attempting to reverse the polarity of the Obliteration chamber.  For a few second the Doctor could feel the outer dermis moving, tingling as the cells started to disentangle themselves.  The molecules in his face began to vibrate and pull as they threatened to rip apart everything that he was and everything that he would ever be.  The Doctor held his nerve as his assistant screamed, a blinding light encompassed his vision and then the Doctor phased out.

The Doctor opened his eyes and could see a darkness outside the chamber.  The door that was sealed shut was now open.

“Sabine?” he said before moving to check on his companion.  “SABINE!”

“Ugh!” a low moan behind him removed his fears and he turned to face her.  She had passed out to under the shock but his shout had roused her.  “What happened?”

“I reversed the polarity of the Obliteration chamber,” the Doctor explained.  “It meant it cocooned us from the Obliteration rays.”

“And the Cybermen?” asked Sabine, anxiously.

“They did not fare so well,” said the Doctor as he left the housing.  All around on the floor fizzed the empty suits of the Cyberman as all manner of biological material had been turned to dust by the Obliteration rays, leaving nothing inside but burnt out husks.  The two time-travellers stepped past the fizzing suits to exit.

“Are they dead?” asked Sabine.

“For now,” replied the Doctor, cautiously.  “The Cybermen’s suits have emergency protocol’s if the neural paths aren’t reignited after ten minutes to try and detect the nearest host body, so I suggest leaving at speed is still the best option.”

Sabine and the Doctor quickly stepped through the sleeping armour and ran through the corridors where the Cybermen had fallen like broken statues as the emotionless minds that had controlled them span through the air.

“On the upside,” said Sabine, sensing the Doctor’s black mood.  “At least this way their’s no blood on your hands.”

“Oh it’s their all right,” the Doctor replied without looking back, his gaze merely falling on his fingers.  “You just can’t see it.  That’s all.”

The end.

Nods to Peter Capaldi’s eyes for being such a perfect image to match this story and Steven Moffat who has taken the series to new heights with his Doctor Matt Smith.

See you all soon.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqqRUh69L8A

WENGER’S GREATEST TEST ...FOR THE MOMENT.

Arsene Wenger is, so far, having a decent season.  His team still have their beloved Champions League football, they are still in the FA Cup as it hasn’t started for the top teams yet, and also the are top of the Premier League heading into November.  Life is good if you’re an Arsenal fan.

BUT

Their game today comes on the back of two home defeats, as all the pundits are pointing out.  Big Woo!  Teams lose all the time and come back, look at United recently.  They may be struggling but are still close enough to the top for it to be less of a concern (Or are they?)  The big reason why the match today is so much bigger than in previous seasons is because Arsenal’s last defeat was a defeat by design rather than by chance.

Arsenal fielded a weakened team for the Milk/Rumblelows/Carling/Capital-One/League cup and this in turn means that the winning streak that was stopped due to Dortmund being the better side has been exacerbated by the manager himself.  Usually in the past whenever he has done this it has lead to a loss of form that then affects the rest of the performances from here on in, until they regain form later in the season but not before the traffic bump has slowed things down so much that it then becomes impossible to win a trophy.

Admittedly this is probably the first time that Wenger has had a player who is capable of turning a game on it’s head in the shape of Mesut Ozil since Henry (No offence, Cesc!) and that may well be the key today to the Arsenal conundrum that has been going on for the best part of eight years.  How do you stop your own winning streak without stopping your own winning streak?  Mesut Ozil may well be the missing piece to solving this puzzle once and for all.  

We will see.

MOYES AND MAN UNITED:  THE PROBLEM THAT NO-ONE HAS YET LOOKED AT.

Much in the press is being written about David Moyes current reign as the Manchester United manager, with many people already speculating that the reign will be short and who else may find themselves in the United hot-seat when, rather than if, he goes.  Even the rescuing of points by messrs Rooney and Hernandez will have done little to please or persuade the growing army of malcontent fans who feel that this merger of man and club must come to an end sooner rather than later.

However, the appointment of David Moyes has meant that when, sorry, if this happens, any change in management will be far more difficult that anyone has yet anticipated.  Let's look at the evidence.

When Sir Alex Ferguson left the other key-man at United also left, namely Chief Executive David Gill, this meant that the the two key men were leaving in one go.  This would have been tough for an organisation that may have been in transition or was struggling, but united won the league at a canter and have always been challenging for trophies.  How do you replace this team of winners?

Unfortunately Ed Woodward was given the job of Chief Executive (and has acquitted himself not too well so far with his disastrous transfer window antics) and David Moyes has come in and replaced United's back-room staff with his own team (although sometimes when you don't do that it leads to more problem like those encountered by Brian Clough at Leeds when he went without his long-term compatriot, Peter Taylor).  Herein lies the problem for United going forward.  

With David Moyes wholesale dismantling of United's successful back-room team and replacing it with his own people it means that any changes at the top to remove Moyes would not stop there.  There would need to be three or four dramatic firings and rehirings in order to bring about the dramatic changes in fortunes that would be required.  Would the people who knew the set-up previously come-back, if not who would they get to replace them?  

All these questions have not yet been addressed in the popular press and yet they all require a serious amount of probing.  United's success on the pitch may have seemingly been down to the hard work of one man, but in reality a number of people had a hand in United's utter dominance of the English game, and it is this collective departure that has metaphorically torn a hole through United. 

BUT

Before I cannot leave this blog today without reminding myself of the axiom that I came up with a few years ago and every years has remained true ever since, bar no exceptions.  IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW YOU START THE SEASON, WHAT MATTERS IS HOW YOU FINISH IT.  If the signings that eluded them in May are made good by January then it is entirely possible that United and Moyes could shock us all with an amazing mid-season turnaround.  

We shall see.

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MEMORIES ARE SHORT BUT REALITY ALWAYS WINS OUT IN THE END, CHRIS WADDLE.

When one reads the reviews for the film “JACK REACHER” one would think Tom Cruise had made a film where he rips each page out of the novel and wipes his arse with it.  Of course many critics rip into the height difference between Cruise and Reacher, hell even the hair colour is different.  I mean why doesn’t Cruise portray characters more like his own height like Humphrey Bogart did in the old days, right?

WRONG!!!

Bogart played Sam Spade in the classic movie “THE MALTESE FALCON” but in the novel Sam Spade is blonde and 6 feet tall.  You see that’s the thing about memory, it tends to let people down, people rewrite history until it fits what they think it is and very rarely do we see things as they are until way after the fact.

For example, in the seventies ABBA were regarded as good, in the late eighties crap and from the nineties onward, good.  The same is true of The Bee Gees and now David Beckham, in a sporting capacity, is going through what ABBA and The Bee Gees went through earlier with Chris Waddle stating that Beckham wouldn’t be considered in the top 1000 Premiership players or players of the last fifty years, or twenty years (Jesus, Chris, talk about moving the goalposts, just pick one!) a bandwagon that many people have also jumped on, no doubt while burning ABBA and Bee Gees records while stating why The Arctic Monkeys will have far more cultural significance than either of those groups in twenty years time.  Many people reluctantly point out that he made the most of what he had, that all he could do was cross the ball, had some dead-ball skills, but that was it and the rest was all just PR, hype and branding.

I hate PR, I don’t particularly like hype and I goddamn hate branding!

I would not buy a perfume because some over-paid star had their fisog on it, I detest the way celebs are used to get people to part with their hard-earned cash.

So therefore if I was to offer a different opinion on the issue to the learned Mister Waddle I would have to feel pretty confident in that opinion.  Chris is, or was, a highly-rated pundit and I do not wish to pour scorn on his view-point as he is far better placed than me, Mister Chatable, to know what does and does not make a great, or even, world-class player.  But, as I said, memory can be affected by many things, I have seen it myself with footballers over the last twenty years, as pundits and newspapermen come up with stuff that now seems like madness.  In fact it wasn’t that long ago that various bods in the press were saying the Alan Shearer shouldn’t be playing and that Andy Cole should take his place on a regular basis.  Of course now, with what we know looking back, we recognise this for the bollocks it was, but often people’s judgement gets clouded, by a desire for instant results at the time, and later also plain old dislike and jealousy.

The haters all look at why he shouldn’t be included as one of the top players, BUT, let’s do the opposite, let’s look at why he should?

Let’s analyze what makes a great player, but wait, we can’t, because on that pitch their are 11 players and each one needs different skills to be good at their job.  For example, Chris Waddle would probably say that Zinedine Zidane was a better player than Claude Makelele.  Zidane had a bucketful of tricks up his sleeve and was one of the most skillful players the game has even seen and probably the best I have seen in my lifetime.  But without Makelele at Madrid, the trophies dried-up for Zidane.  Makelele wasn’t a trickster or a wizard and he wasn’t particularly pacey BUT, he could really pass the ball and he had vision.  

Vision is something that most of the great players have, the ability to see what will happen before it does.  Beckham had that.

The ability to pass the ball and dead-ball skills are things that Waddle mentions glibly, almost as though they should be ignored and forgotten, the great thing about this as far as Beckham is concerned is that the England team in his absence proved just how much of a skill this is as a largely Beckham-less England forgot how to pass a ball, seemed to lose the ability to take corners and made free-kicks seem like something from the other team to take the ball back and score from.  MacLaren may have wanted to show the press he was his own man by dropping Beckham (and after a couple of easy wins the press where certainly all “David Who?  A-ha ha ha!) but that was arguably the decision that came back to bite Stevie MacDutch in his short tenure as England manager.  

If the England team proved anything without David Beckham it was that passing and dead-ball skills were skills in themselves (even though in pictures he looks a right spanner when performing one of those free kicks, as you can see!)

And now for the last, you see, as I said at the beginning, people tend to have short memories and the one thing that I cannot forget that a lot of people have is just how intimidating he was on the pitch to the oppostion, because, like all great players, not GOOD ones, GREAT ones, they are a threat everywhere on the pitch and this was what Beckham, at the height of his skills, was and I can say this hand on heart because I just watched what was probably one of his greatest games, Germany 1 England 5.  At his best this was what made him a great player because it didn’t matter where he was, he could be a threat anywhere on the pitch almost and launch defense into attack, differently to Makelele, but just as effective.  

If you’re looking at a top England eleven in terms of positions then Becks would be in most people’s on the right of the pitch (Sorry Chris!) and if he wasn’t (in favour of sir Stan, of course!) then he would be in most people’s England top 22 for sure.

I was going to conclude this by pointing out that memory tends to be comprisable and that time would show us what was real, stripped of both PR and branding AND also the similarities between Bryan Robson and Beckham in that Robson was probably unappreciated to some degree when he was playing for England and that time would show us what we’ve missed.  Thankfully I don’t need to do that.  Last night’s friendly did that for me.  Since those heady days of 2001 we have lost far more than we’ve gained both in terms of Premiership quality and also National ability, but I’ll save that rant for another post. 

I’m Mister Chatable, I’ve been unappreciated and hated today and will certainly be so tomorrow.

A tribute to the greatest living Englishman:  Chris Waddle!

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