Thoughts on This and That

According to this article in the Rugby League section of the BBC website, there is “a new curiosity about the goings on at Twickenham” amongst Rugby League fans due to the fact Andy Farrell is set to make his england debut this weekened, in a team also likely to feature Jason Robinson.

Though the author, Dave Woods, acknowledges that “Faz is good, but he’s not good enough to make generations of League fans forget all the reasons why they don’t really like English rugby union” he goes on to claim that “at least we will be watching”.

What a strange comment to make, I wonder who he claims to be speaking for, I certainly won’t be tuning in to watch union all of a sudden - and not for “historic, cultural and social reasons”, but because the sport is tedious shite, and I’d rather spend my afternoon sticking needles in my eyes than watching it, former Rugby League players in the team or not.

Having spent a fair amount of time watching BBC parliament online recently I’ve finally decided that I should pursue a career in politics, ultimately becoming an MP.

If I can just find a burning local issue somewhere, and run with it, I should be able to get at least one term of turning up to parliament and either sleeping, or cheering/jeering the person speaking while sitting on a nice padded seat. While employing someone back in the constituency to deal with the trivial day to day matters of my public, while spending my £60,277 salary and making use of my expenses allowance.

So Bradford City have today sold Jermaine Johnson for a fee believed to be anything up to £500,000 - despite being told when Dean Windass was loaned to Hull that we wouldn’t be selling him, it turns out he had a release clause in his contract anyway, so there was nothing we could do.

Before both of the aforementioned transfer dealings City chairman Julian Rhodes came out and told us, in an interview with Radio Leeds, that the club were set to lose £600,000 in the current financial year - despite bringing in the Johnson fee (minus a believed ridiculous 40% cut to the agent), a £150,000 loan fee for Windass and the saving on his extravagant wages, the article above quotes Rhodes saying we are still set to lose £600,000.

Something doesn’t add up does it?

That the Catholic Church will not be allowed an exemption from the new gay rights laws set to be put to parliament.

I’m slightly suprised by this development though, maybe the media coverage of the issue over the last few days has twisted the governments arm, so to speak, and forced them not to water down the proposals.

An exemption to anti-discrimination laws allowing an organisation to discriminate would have been ludicrous.

I haven’t listened to a late-night radio phone in for a while, and Radio Five Live is probably a tame re-introduction to them, but I can’t believe I’d forgotten just how many crackpots these things attract!

Nothing could ever beat the shows James Stannage used to present in Manchester on Key 103 though!

I don’t think there is anything that depresses me more than arriving back in Bradford after an evening out in Manchester (well, apart from maybe flying back to Liverpool from Madrid), there’s just a life and vitality about the place that I love, and walking down Oxford Road still gets me feeling giddy eight years since it first did. I think I know whatever happens I’ll be back there on a permanent basis before too long, even if they have ripped the heart out of Pizza co with the renovations, and the students are looking very young nowadays. Then again, where isn’t more vibrant than Bradford on an evening?

Then again, I’d miss the always fun journey on the last train home. Tonight I was asked, in all seriousness, if I was a spy (because I was reading Private Eye), managed to have a conversation about rabbits and budgies with three girls from Todmorden, who were all insistent I must be a writer due to the fact I was wearing a scarf. Then got to hear a sing-a-long to Ob La Di Ob La Da, I almost forgot the (light-hearted) Roses argument I had with a bloke from Littleborough after I responded to someone saying it was a nice place by commenting that it was on t’rong side o t’ills.

Life doesn’t get much better than that.

I was just listening to Five Live, who quoted an unnamed Conservative spokesman as “outraged” about the case of a man, convicted of downloading child porn, avoiding prison because of the Home Secretary’s letter advising judges that prisons are too full.

I’m not going to comment on the case, or the issue of prison overcrowding (I’ll listen to the debate on Question Time first), but why do politicians (from all parties) always claim “outrage” and the like in these situations? The reality is they are delighted about having the chance to put one over on the opposition!

Not that I’m a cynic, and that there aren’t some politicians who do genuinely care.

I’m sure some of you will recognise the woman in the picture as Franka Potente, maybe best known for her roles in the Jason Bourne films, though that’s not how she is best known to me.

For some bizarre reason she has become a regular feature in my dreams, they are not those kind of dreams, they would probably be quite fun, but she is just appearing in random situations. A couple of nights ago she was serving me in a bar, and then the supermarket I popped into on the way home, then last night she was my taxi driver and an air stewardess, all in one go. She certainly has a busy schedule.

I’m not sure what all this means, I can’t say I’ve ever thought about the woman much before, although I did feel a little sadness when she was murdered in The Bourne Supremacy, then again I have been having some rather lucid, odd, dreams recently. Maybe I ought to seek professional help?

I’m moving there. Not only is there £3 off the Lonely Planet guide to the place in Waterstones, but Count Duckula is still shown on the telly there.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

What a way to bring up my century of blog posts, I can’t say I feel too much better for it either!.