Observerations (sic)

30th October 2006

In the Observer Sport this month the Top Ten focuses on Unusual Headgear - I’m disappointed to say that I disagree with some of the picks so here’s a very quickly cobbled together www.steveqpr.co.uk alternative…

Bruce Grobbelaar’s Hat - Match Fixing Allegations (2001)…

It didn’t really take a Rocket Scientist to work out where Bruce was hiding his ill gotten gains – one doff of the cap to the ladies and he began haemorrhaging 50 quid notes from his scalp.

Tommy Docherty wears the FA Cup (1977)…

Probably the first to start the trend of donning the Cup in celebration of victory. This tradition has now been banned by the Football Association due to the cup suffering from severe Dandruff after Barry Venison wore it during Liverpool’s celebrations in 1979.

Alex Higgins gets his Gangster lean on (1982)…

Another Fedora entry, this time worn by the Irish mentalist who thought that the 1930’s gangster look would go down well in Sheffield. In addition to the spats and hat he wore a trench coat with 64 pockets for his chalk and kept his cue in a violin case.

Chris Boardman’s Cycling Helmet…

What happened to the six strips of ribbed rubber traditionally worn by pedal dancing anorexics? The Answer? Lotus built a carbon fibre bike and shamelessly lifted the helmet design straight from a legoman firefighter – Tossers.

One that didn’t make it…

David Millar’s Phantom Menace ensemble…

You’re bloody cycling pal not entering a soddin’ pod race.

October 30, 2006. Uncategorized. No Comments.

Big Shop

23 October 2006

We’re buying and selling your history,
How we go about it is no mystery.
We check it with the city, then change the law,
Are you looking forward?
Now you want some more…

We’re S-H-O-PP-I-N-G, We’re Shopping - Neil Tennant, Lidl 1987

A Poker Night is not the most advisable precursor for facing your fear however I did it at the weekend. Yes, after stumbling in at early am o’clock the next morning I felt duty bound to assist Len with the shopping. It was one of those BIG shops. You know, the ones where you get the massive family sized shopping trolley, 3 Himalayan tour guides and a crate of Evian in preparation for the assault on Sainsburys.

Parking as always is the initial stumbling block as I have a mortal fear of putting my car into a space where there is the possibility of a bloke parking a millimetre away from the drivers side door and then buggering off to the Brewsters Fare Pub on the same Trading Estate as he thinks he’ll get a decent meal there.

Listed below are a few tips that make a www.steveqpr.co.uk shopping trip relatively pain free…

1…

Invariably if you do park a long way from the trolley park you’ll find that there is a few rogue trolley’s that have missed the grasp of those trolley attendance with the thick rimmed glasses, loose turn ups and twisted ties. With trolleys now costing a quid a quick scoop of Superstore Car Parks can see you netting a hefty profit prior to the shop if you return them back to their rightful place – for the less fortunate amongst my readership this could be the difference between using Bog Paper the texture of sandpaper and Charmin six ply.

2…

On NO account let the wife be in control of the Trolley, before you know it you’ll be blindly following her and finding yourself in the cosmetics aisle discussing the pros and cons of choosing Anne French over Tesco own brand makeup remover (for those that are interested French wins by a country mile - just check out the grime on the cotton wool post use).

3…

Only the proletariat go up ‘n down the aisles – treat the main thoroughfare as your ‘Motorway’ with the aisles coming off it as ‘Junctions’. That way you can plough a furrow up the Main Corridor and get your partner to jump down the slip roads. Add a familiar road to the mix and the conversation (whilst being slightly embarrassing if said within earshot of other shoppers) can be quite fun…

Trolley - ‘Where are you going now?’
Runner – ‘I’m off at Junction 5 to pick up some Alpen in Droitwitch and I’ll be back on at Juncion 2 Dudley with a packet of Cheese Straws’

This Hitchhiker/Driver role-play combo can also spice up other parts of your life such as assisting the wife in her map reading duties when going on long trips.

4…

On no account buy anything with the word ‘value’ emblazoned across the product. Invariably the product will do one or all of the following…

last a minute, taste like crap, break, split or not prevent your partner getting up the duff.

5…

Always ask the checkout girls under the age of 21 if they applied their makeup with Spear and Jackson tools. They’re welded into there seats at the start of their shift and a portion of their wage is funded by the Central Governments Urban Stress Relief Programme and it’s their duty to put up with any type of derision that you chuck at them.

Have you got any tips you’d like to share? If so, my advice would be to start up a website and publish them.

October 23, 2006. Uncategorized. No Comments.

The Derby

11 October 2006

So, Len and I have done it once again. Yet another City Break is on the horizon courtesy of scuffer airline (SL)Easy Jet. I swore I’d never fly with them again after the last time where I’m afraid to say the call for ‘….those bearing Tickets with the initial A on them’ to make their way to the boarding gate was met with a stampede of illiterate Welshmen on a stag do to Madrid with a large letter D (Dai? Dunce? Dickhead?) emblazoned across their boarding passes - the smell of Stella Artois, Paco Rabanne and brand spanking new Reebok Classics rushing to the departure gate was enough to send the sniffer dogs into a tailwagging panic that lifted their arses a few inches of the ground.

To cut a long story short (for ’story’ read ‘uninteresting drivel’) we found some flights at a bargain price and the lure of Rome and the Olympic Stadium to watch Roma or Lazio was too good an opportunity to miss - the flights were booked prior to the Italian football fixtures being released but I was safe in the knowledge that one of Rome’s teams (Lazio or Roma) would be playing at Home on the weekend of the 9/10 of December. As with Madrid (and the unblogged Barcelona) I assumed tickets would be easy to come by in view of the fact that the Stadium rarely houses a capacity crowd for League games.

Stadio Olimpico

Enter Messer’s Murphy and Sod and their stupid bloody Laws - the Italian Fixtures were released at the end of August and threw up the local Derby ‘Lazio -v- Roma’ thus volleying my carefully laid ‘buy a ticket on the day’ plans into the stamp sized space between upright and crossbar.

I object strongly to buying tickets through ticket agencies - the premiums that they charge are that of the debt of a third world country and frankly like a NHS specimen sampler who loves getting up for work in the morning, they take the piss with a passion.

What did I do you may ask (others mightn’t give a toss)?

I emailed the home team of course with the following text in emailed pigeon English…

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to buy tickets for Lazio -v- Roma in 2006.

Can you help please?

Yours…

I received a response from Lazio Football Club that embarrassed me, it was a three paragraphed reply, skillfully written in elegantly succinct English with perfect prose informing me that they’d be delighted to have me and that they would retain two tickets for myself and my wife and that I could apply for them 7 days in advance of them going on sale.

As I look at my initial email to Lazio I experience those hot sweats of regret that creep up on you when you’re deeply embarrassed. I wish that I could go back and eulogise about my passion for Italian football and how I love Espresso, Torino Bread, James Richardson and Paulo Rossi in equal measures.

Own GOOOOLAAZOOO!!

Unfortunately I can’t take it back and I’m left with a feeling of kinship to one of the Welsh Scuffers at Bristol Airport. It’s a bloody nightmare Boyo.

October 11, 2006. Uncategorized. No Comments.

100%

08 October 2006

‘The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.’ - Washington Allston

Caring not a jot about the aforementioned quote (Washington Allston should let his artistry do the talking in my opinion), recently I’ve entered 2 competitions - one on the BBC sport website and one on a Gloucester RFC website (amongst other things).

Now I don’t want this entry to turn all self masturbatory but bugger it (and I realise the irony of putting the aforementioned phrases in the same sentance!), I’m struggling for material and a quick cut ‘n paste solves the problem. So here are my winning (yes, I said ‘winning’) entries…