Levels
So Man U lose again, to a team brimming with quality. They did their best but failed in front of goal.
Fifteen years ago Old Trafford was the destination of choice for players like Rogers and Palmer. All due respect to the players there now, but they aren’t in that class.
As the game ended tv focused on the ‘hierarchy’ who signed them. They aren’t the root cause of the decline. That began on the day that the appalling Glaser family were allowed to buy the club with borrowed money, then transfer their debt on to the business, a piece of chicanery that should never have been allowable. They are still there but in the background having sold the football operation to Ineos, and its Monegasque owner. The Three Dumb Monkeys in the stand are his placemen. They have failed and should go. I’m sure if would be cheaper than sacking another managerial team, and shelling out more cash to buy a replacement out of his contract.
Crowing
I’m watching Rooster on HB Max.. Often I will skip the title, but one time I didn’t. Halfway through I said ‘Wait a minute, is that …?’
And it is. Michael Siipe has done hardly anything since REM broke up, but ‘I played the Fool ’ is right up there.
Dare we hope?
Grover
What’s your favourite music video? (Bohemian Rhapsody excepted.)
POTUS
Taking a break from series 4 of The Diplomat, I re-watched the first episode of The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin could never have come up with the present incumbent, not in a million years.
Tentacles
My energy supplier told me last week that it will increase my monthly direct debit by 50% from November 1, even though I have a significant credit balance.
I have told them to piss up a rope, to leave it as it is and let me manage my account myself.
Currently, UK energy companies hold £3 billion of their customers’ money in positive balances. That cash will be earning significant interest. It would be nice to think that all of it goes I into reducing bills, rather than to shareholders, but that would be naive.
Not only but also
As a man in Scotland I feel under attack by our First Minister. Mysandry exists too, all too often in secret because its victims are afraid to speak out.
Broaden your mind, John.
Prophetic?
Having read today’s headlines, I find myself thinking of Lenny Belardo.
Tide turning?
Tiny sample in Holborn & St Pancras but the Tories finished above Reform. And the Lib Dems only just finished fifth. The bell is tolling for Sir Ed Davey.
If you’re going to do it …
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmn4540d4z87o
… do it right.
I knew someone who went to Dignitas. It has that name for a reason. Why can’t its process be replicated?
There is a far better place we go …
Healthier and happier? Must have been miserable when it was alive.
Everybody’s pal
Clearly, Andy Burnham has never been to an Old Firm game.
Still shocked
When I am in a restaurant and the bill arrives I never scan it. My card comes out and it’s done.
I wouldn’t have looked at last night’s either had it not been face up when I took it from my wallet and had one item not caught my eye. Still water: 750ml. £9.
Mind boggled, I referred back to last week’s evening out in another restaurant, 200 yards away from last night’s, and with a similar menu. There? Different label, but still bubble-free H2O. £4.
Yes there is an added cost in bottling, ‘at source’, but come on folks.
My wife rarely drinks water straight from the tap. Normally she boils it, bottles it and keeps it in the fridge until she’s ready. If we ever go back to where we were last night, it’ll be in her handbag.
The word
Sat here in the sunshine, mid-walk, listening to Counting Crows. They’re one of my favourite bands, alongside REM, Del Amitri, and Deacon Blue.
Okay two of them are Scottish but they all have one thing in common. They all have something sensible to say, and express it well.
Simples.
The guilty must pay
As a Man U fan, I was appalled by what I saw last night. Change is needed at the top and I don’t mean Michael Carrick. He can only work with what he has, and he doesn’t buy the players. That is down to the CEO, Berrada, a mercenary pure and simple, and the ‘Director of Football’, Jason Wilcox, who only assumed that role after Jim Ratcliffe sacked his original choice, Dan Ashwotth, a man he had been so keen to recruit that he waited for him to finish his gardening leave from Newcastle.
Wilcox builds the squad, he oversees the summer signings. Of this year’s crop, one arrived injured. Two played last night; one was off form and the other, a youngster was out of his depth even in a second string game. The defence? There wasn’t one. Our only left back is injured, his replacement took a knock early but couldn’t be replaced. The centre backs were two relative novices, good individually but not together.
Yes, Carrick could have played McGuire and Martinez in central defence, started with Mainoo in midfield, and won the game hands down, but with Premier League and Champions League commitments, the Caribou Cup (that’s as near as I can get) has Mickey Mouse status. He should have a second string that is capable of delivering at that level, but he hasn’t. The man responsible should be fired, not him.
