Thursday, September 26, 2013

Where's The Beef?

I had breakfast in one of those Simply Life places the other day - well, it makes a change from the Mandarin or the Four Seasons (but isn't the "Four" redundant once you say "the"?).

I had the all-day breakfast, which means that it is available all day, not that it takes (like in some places) all day to arrive. Imagine my surprise when I found that the scrambled egg was made only of egg whites. To put it another way, it was egg, but effectively without the ckufing egg. What's that all about?

It can't be a health thing, as the breakfast includes tasty therefore unhealthy stuff like bacon and sausage. No, it must surely be a way of charging customers twice for the same egg. I'm not sure where the other half of the egg goes - maybe into egg-white-free omelettes - but, sure as eggs are eggs, it must be going somewhere billable.

FFS! Whatever next? Taste-free Cantonese food? Hang on a minute ....

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Oh, Danny Boy

Oh, those lovable Welsh!

Daniel Cooper, father of 3 despite being only 24, was convicted of indecent exposure after trying to shag a kebab shop counter and a Land Rover whilst drunk. At least it beats (on the indecency stakes - I leave it to my Welsh reader to make any qualitative comparison) shagging sheep whilst sober.

Mr. Cooper, who may or may not henceforth be known as Mini Cooper having been caught in all his naked glory on CCTV, "simulated" (why "simulated"?) sex with a blue Discovery, blue Discoveries presumably being the Essex girls of the car world. Did the Discovery drop its bag of chips, I wonder. We may never know.

Nor does the report state whether Mr. Cooper achieved the necessary degree of arousal, or whether he was properly prepared for his one night stand (what kind of lubricant is best?), though presumably the CCTV could answer those questions.

Cooper said he was so drunk he could not remember what happened until he was shown the CCTV pictures. Riiiight. Although his lawyer claimed that Cooper was "mortified and totally ashamed", he changed his name to "Daniel Hotcock Cooper" on his Facebook page, so not very convincing, really. Unless the description was a literal one, the exhaust pipe being still warm. Just wondering.

One of his "friends" said: "Daniel will never live this down – everyone is saying he was 'tyred' and 'exhausted' afterwards. "He is not a pretty sight when naked. We all felt sorry for the Land Rover and hope it wasn't offended."

Cooper admitted indecent exposure and must stay at home on weekend evenings for the next three months, where he will presumably be watching the Discovery Channel. Geddit?

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Send In The Clowns

"Sir" Alex Ferguson is an unlucky man. If only a few appalling refereeing decisions had not gone against him, his team, Manchester United, would have been unbeaten for 26 years.

But seriously, he has had his share of luck, including winning one last trophy in his last two years as manager, albeit through landing a single player who made all the difference to his aging team, with a bit of help from Fergie-time as well as some of the decisions he forgot to complain about. So he was able to go out as a champion, and to avoid having to decide, year after year, whether to hang on for just one more season or to go out as not-a-champion.

But he has  gone, or has he? He remains with MU as a director and as their "Ambassador". One would assume that this was to keep his experience in the club and to provide a wise head when needed. If so, it is not working as MU's humiliation in the transfer market has shown.

Much fanfare heralded David Moyes's arrival, with brash talk about the big signings MU would be making. Luring Ronaldo back, buying Cesc Fabregas, attracting Robert Lewandowski; all these projects were yelled from the mountain tops, yet none were achieved. The full sorry story is here: the upshot of the transfer season is that MU bought one 20-year old, paid four and a half million pounds more than they needed to for the only one of the two Everton players they were after, and made a laughing stock of themselves by referring to some well-known Spanish sports lawyers as impostors. They are left with the almost-sole achievement of not having lost their injury-prone and moody striker, Wayne Loony, to Chelsea, whose bids for the fat has-been were surely only designed to wind up MU anyway.

How strange that this chapter of accidents could occur with the wisdom of Fergie still in the club. Did he say nothing to the hapless Moyes and Woodward to suggest that they might, perhaps, think about trying this or that instead of blundering around?

Talking of Rooney, what a poisoned chalice Sir Alice has left there, with his claim when he (Alice) was leaving, that Rooney had asked for a transfer. In what possible way could this have helped his successor? And there we have it; I believe, far from helping behind the scenes, Alice is revelling in the contrast between his reign and his successor's. How long before MU's fans tumble to it?