Ha! Just got listed at Blogwise, and Gutspilling was one of the keywords they gave this blog! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry…

Enough said.

The Reds lost to Barnsley yesterday. It’s beyond a joke. Who should take the blame? It’s far less easy than in the England case, bizarrely, because with England there’s we don’t go having to sell all our half-decent players (let alone the really good ones) every time they start to show some form.

She’s got some good ideas, I suppose, BUT THIS WOMAN SHOULD SPEND NINE MINUTES IN THE REFLECTION ROOM LEARNING HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE WORD “ACCEPTABLE”. How bloody hard can it be? Is it spelled “asseptable”? NO!

That’s better.

Bugger. Transferring my DNS hosting away from UK2.net (go on - you know you want to, chuffing wide-boys: http://amail.co.uk/moveaway.htm) and there’s a little hitch. Not Easyspace’s fault, but it will result in a bit of a break in DNS. Normal service should be resumed on Monday. D’oh!

We were in town at lunchtime doing a spot of shopping for E’s birthday and I tell you what, I came away with bucketloads of sympathy for the lasses who work the cosmetics stands in Boots. Good grief - as if having to get dolled up to the nines every morning and enduring the constant wiff of overpowering mixed perfumes (something where I’m sure if it was in another setting it would be classed as an industrial hazard and result in the issue of gas masks*) wasn’t enough, they’ve also got another peril to contend with.

The Lighthouse Family was wafting down from speakers in the ceiling. Bad enough, goodness knows. But no, that’s not enough. Competing with that, they also have godforsaken pan-pipe desperados WITH A CHUFFING P.A. right outside their door spewing out their version of “My Heart Will Go On”.

Actually, I’d like to say that they not only have my sympathy, they have my admiration. The perfume sellers, not the Andeans. That much provocation would have turned me into an axe-murderer by now, and as far as I know, none of them has cracked yet.

*Establishments staffed solely by women wearing gas masks would likely attract a somewhat small but doubtless ardent clientele…

High on my list of things that send the old irkometer off the scale: this was provoked today when I saw an ad for a Public Enemy compilation on telly. It’s just this - if you want an American accent for a voiceover, hire a flippin’ American. Lord only knows there’s enough of them, getting on for 300 million in fact. Some fish-faced out-of-work actor from Birkhamstead just won’t do. I know we limeys should never forget the crime against the Queen’s English that was Dick van Dyke, but that was forty years ago now. Time to forgive and move on, chaps.

My thoughts, of course, are with those who were caught up in the bombings a week ago in London. It’s not helpful necessarily to blame the terrorism entirely on our country’s involvement as Bush’s poodle in the Iraq war. Plenty of us were against it, and maybe time will tell, but a line can’t reliably be drawn between that and the motivations of the perpetrators - at least for now.

In more general terms, though, I have to say I reckon we’re not doing ourselves any favours by acting like we’re the world’s policemen. What tactical advantage are we gaining by our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan when it’s sadly all too possible that the threat is at home? The WMD argument is dead in the water. Human Rights as justification is fine, except don’t imagine we’ll follow that to its logical conclusion: next stop Saudi Arabia! No? Zimbabwe? Egypt? Burma? Turkey? Certain bits of Cuba?

There is no question that any nation has not only a right but a duty to defend itself against any bona fide threat. I only quarrel over the manner of that defence. The total budget for a full-scale military involvement is toe-curling and I’ve often wondered what the CIA and MI6 would be able to do with even a tenth of that money. If we assume (probably perfectly safely) that the hard core of fanatics who actually carry out the atrocities are beyond our reach in both ideological or practical terms, we still have any number of ways to get close to them by exploiting the peripheries: their supporters, both active and passive. Whilst the suicide bombers are hell-bent on their vicious task, perhaps those that provide the safe-houses, the fake documents and the information can be broken or bribed. I have no qualms about my taxes being used to grease a palm if it means stopping the kind of horrors we’ve seen recently. Full-scale military action is far more, in this case, to do with being seen to be doing something about the threat than really tackling it. It’s tactical planning by tabloid. I can’t think of anything more frightening.

Bloody hell. Big Brother is on again. Seems only 5 minutes since I was finally freed of the misery last time round. The prospect of weeks trying to avoid E watching shrieking inadequates fills me with the kind of dread normally reserved for under-achieving Chinese fridge factory managers during their annual performance review.

Not being able to play footy is just sending me round the bend. Still went for the beers and the kebabbage (actually falafelage, a nice change). The social aspect is still great, but I want to kick a bag of wind about! Not fair!