When In Alabama

From the latest episode of 'Real Time With Bill Maher':

BILL MAHER:Thank you very much. Thank you. How you doin’? Thank you. Thank you. Wow, what a crowd. I think I know why you’re happy tonight. ‘Cause Al Gore won the Nobel Prize, is that right? [applause] [cheers] That’s true. Al Gore won the Nobel Prize. Or as President Bush announced it: “Sweden is with the terrorists.” [laughter]

No. The President did not say that. What he said was, “The Nobel Prize is just a theory. It needs more study.” [laughter]

And you could tell Al Gore is still wary about these kind of things, because they told him today – they said, “You received the most votes.” He said, “Yeah? Who won?” [laughter] [applause] [cheers]

Turn The Other Cheek, Christian

Don't mind me. I'm only four years late with this YouTube clip of what many people consider to be Christian Dailly's finest moment, and which occurred in the aftermath of Scotland's 2-1 defeat to Germany in the qualifying stages of the 2004 European Championships.

The outburst is fascinating to me if only because I never took Dailly to be the Keano type, and because the BBC Sports report of the game gives no indication that the penalty was in any way considered dubious. Obviously something was getting on Dailly's wick that night as this clip further confirms, and it suggests there should now be a rethink on Dailly's career before he retires. Maybe after all this time, it turns out a 'Keano' should in fact be entitled a 'Dailly'.

Don't mind my fluff posting on such trivial out of date matters. I'm cranking out the posts at an accelerated pace at the moment to get myself behind a blogging landmark that is currently looming on the horizon. And when you couple that with the fact that I'm suffering from a temporary bout of "Ninety Minute Nationalism", it adds up to me scouring YouTube for cinefilm of the Wembley Wizards, and putting the finishing touches to a five thousand word blog post on why I think England's fifth goal in this infamous game was offside.

This current bout of NMN better pass soon, 'cos I don't have the legs to pull off the feat of wearing a kilt. And the more I think about it, Scotland qualifying for the 2008 European Championship will seriously mar any chance I get of actually enjoying the tournament next year.

Some Jokes Are Better Than Others

Joke of the day. Found via here.

Not the funniest round of jokes I've ever read, but the one below is pretty canny. Not for the fainthearted or for those of you from Larkhall:

A Protestant Glaswegian family head out one Saturday afternoon to do their Christmas shopping. While in JJB Sports, the son picks up a Celtic Football shirt and says to his sister, "I've decided to be a Celtic Supporter and I want this strip for my Christmas" the sister is outraged at this and promptly whacks him round the head and says, " Go talk tae yer ma".

Off goes the unusually intelligent little lad, with Celtic shirt in hand and finds his mother.

"Mum." "Yes, son?"

"I've decided I'm going to be a Celtic supporter and I want this strip for my Christmas."

The mother is outraged at this, promptly whacks him round the head and says, "Go talk to yer da." Off goes this little pearl amongst swine, with Celtic shirt in hand and finds his father.

"Dad."

"Yes, son?"

"I've decided I'm going to be a Celtic supporter and I want this strip for my Christmas."

The father is outraged at this, promptly whacks his son round the head and says, "No son of mine is ever going to be seen in THAT!"

About half an hour later, they are all back in the car heading home. The father turns to the son and says,"Son, I hope you have learned something today?"

The son turns to his father says, "Yes, Father, I have".

Father says, "Good son, what is it?"

The son replies, "I've only been a Celtic supporter for an hour and I already hate you hun bastards."

Lovestruck

" . . .the greatest leader of the free world in history" and that she would save the world from the "satanic monsters and freaks".

Hat tip to Lenny.

Menshevik-Salfordian

Noticed via the sitemeter that the blog is getting shedloads of hits at the moment becuase of people searching for the 'We Have A Dream' mp3, which just goes to show that Scotland football fans are never happier than at the moment just prior to slipping on the proverbial Georgian Peach. Prove me wrong, please . . .

And whilst I'm on the subject of yesterday's football, could someone please explain to me what the deal was with the positioning of the Ukrainian defenders for Scotland's second goal? When McCulloch collected that pass from Ferguson, the left side of the penalty box looked like a scene from the Marie Celeste. Strange times.

However, for this blogger that mystery pales into insignificance in comparison to another sitemeter sighting this morning. It turns out that someone found the blog via a google search for "julius martov" mark e smith.

Christ, I'll be chewing over the rhyme and reason for that particular search for the rest of the day now. Surely Smith is more of a Workers' Opposition type of guy? It casts a whole new meaning to the lyrics of 'Hey! Student'.

Pete and the Dud

Of course he wrote 'Michelle'. It was the only bum note on what is, otherwise, my favourite Beatles album. Paul McCartney and Pete Doherty take time out from the tabloid life to stroke each other in this month's Observer Music Monthly.

And naturally they have things in common: the Barat/Lennon comparisons and trade offs; both being seen as the well dressed good-looking sensitive ones who the fans wanted to take home to meet their mums; Doherty born in '79, Macca dying in '79.

It all adds up to a bit of journalistic fluff, but I did like McCartney's anecdote about meeting Penny Rimbaud at the height of punk in the seventies, and fingers crossed that the late Linda McCartney's reported love for The Smiths didn't begin and end with 'Meat is Murder'.

I'm not sure that these type of music magazine blind dates ever work. Wasn't there that case of the NME covering Paul Weller meeting Pete Townsend at the height of The Jam's fame? I seem to remember reading - maybe in The Beat Concerto? - that they hated each other on sight. But that was nothing in comparison to that time at the height of mullets and militancy on Merseyside that the now sadly defunct Record Mirror covered The Redskins meeting Derek Hatton within its pages.

Sure the pictures of the meeting looked cheery enough, but the gossip is that afterwards it took seven copies of the Militant International Review to mop up the spilled egos. Any advancement for a unified vanguardist left at that time = via the SWP's recent Open Letter to the Militant Tendency - was squandered over an argument as trivial as who played bass on the originally recording of Wilson Pickett's "Ninety Nine and a Half (Won't Do)".

Damn those petit-bourgeois Bolshevik-Centrist-liquidationist types . . . those completely demoralized elements, wearing button down Ben Sherman shirts, sporty number one haircuts and knocked off shiny Pierre Cardin suits.

Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Goal)

News just in and it's official: Scotland are better than the Faroe Islands.

Blogbumps

Something I said?

I'm sure my current inability to access Harry's Place is nothing more than a temporary glitch - and has more to do with techie questions that I don't properly understand than any notion of someone blocking my IP address - but it does seems weird that it appeared so soon after I made this wee observation on the UK Left Network yahoo discussion group:

Re: [UK Left Network] Weekly Worker

Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:46 pm

Show Message Info

"Darren"

New picture editor?

Btw, if you view UK Left Network posts as grouped messages rather than as individual posts you will get some strange messages cropping up under the same post title.

For example, the following post cropped up under the 'Weekly Worker' grouped message title:

> Sat May 26, 2001 12:34 am
> Show Message Info

>"Harry Steele"

>formercommunists@...

>The following UK_Left_Network poll is now closed. Here are the

>final results:

>

>

>POLL QUESTION: Should the Weekly Worker group allow Harry Steele an article on his views regarding the CPGB in the pages >of their paper?

>

>CHOICES AND RESULTS

>- yes, 13 votes, 81.25%

>- no, 3 votes, 18.75%

The people have spoken.

I await the details from the editor.

As a gesture of good will to the WWG I will drop my usual fee.

HS

________

Did 'Harry' ever write his article for the WW? It seems so long ago. I guess he's in a happier place these days writing about Posh and Becks.

regards,

As I say, it must just be a glitch and, being the technophobe that I am, I'm reading too much into such things but 'The Dedicated Follower of Fashion' on HP does seem to be increasingly tetchy these days since he was prominently featured in a 'What To Wear' section on Lenny's Place.

But what about Harry the Hatchet? Where is he? There he is.

Speedbumps

Current reading:

"You inherited a succession of your father's cars. The Austin Princess with its leatherette seats that performed skin surgery on bare flesh in hot weather. The two-litre Datsun automatic that rode up at the front when you hit the accelerator, like a speedboat. Your mother borrowed it once but couldn't find the knob to turn the cassette player down, and drove her Mothers' Union friends to a meeting in town with The Fall's Hex Enduction Hour in wrap-a-round stereo at full tilt on looped playback." (Quoted from Simon Armitage's All Points North)

How was Simon Armitage to know that over twenty years later art would be imitating life? OK wrong album, wrong continent and wrong lifestyle, but you get the gist.

In like a bullet at #961

Sorry I'm a bit late with the latest bloglist, but apparently they don't inform you direct about the final results if your blog happens to finish outside the Top Ten. Bastards:

The top 10 political blogs of all time

Oh well. Maybe next year.