Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

If this is the final nail in the coffin of this season:

Ipswich 3-2 Norwich

: I shall be forced to join the French Foreign Legion, in order to forget ("Forget what? I've forgotten.")

Sporting Dream Could be a Nightmare

For much of my life I have harboured a hope that the three English football teams most important to my family- Norwich City, Leyton Orient, and Brentford- would play in the same division. I just didn't want it to be the old 3rd division. Bah.

Come on Norwich, pull out another improbable victory over relegation from the jaws of the defeat. The only other way to avoid this meeting of the teams is for Orient to get relegated themselves, and that's hardly the positive outcome one would hope for.

A sight to warm the heart in these dark times.

Norwich beat Ipswich 2-0. That's it- recession over.

Sorr'rite, untit.

Via King 'cross the water Walter Mondale in Norfolk- England's finest county, my spiritual homeland, and the land of 800,000 potential Jeopardy champions (as every sentence spoken there ends in a question, dunt'it); we present the very lovely and heartwarming East Anglian version of Estelle and Kanye West's hit "American Boy".

I can't read, and I can't write, but that don't really matter, because I'm a Norwich City fan and I can drive a tractor.

Ahh, Norfolk, my Norfolk

After a week of conventioneering, a welcome break comes in the form of the biggest news story to come out of my ancesteral stomping grounds in many a decade:

Monster marrow a record breaker
Grown by Ken Dade in Norfolk, the 65kg (113lbs) vegetable needed two men to carry it to a stand at the National Amateur Gardening Show in Somerset.....

Add two huge pumpkins and you have the makings of the world's lagest vegetables as genitals joke.

Health & Safety

From the BBC:

Youths warned over holes on beach
Police in Norfolk have traced two youths responsible for digging holes measuring 6ft (1.83m) on a beach and trying to conceal them.

The three pits were all found earlier this week on North Beach, Great Yarmouth.

Police had earlier warned that a person could die if they fell into one and were unable to get out (the rest of the story...)

Work on my tunnel to Australia (first attempted 1980 on the same stretch of coast referenced above* and continued intermittently at a variety of locations since) has been suspended, lest the Norfolk rozzers come-a-knocking.

The latest progress on my tunnel to Australia.
Never give up your boyhood dreams!

(*At Sea Palling)

They Thought It Was An Overcooked Thin Crust at Pizza One at First

I didn't even have to click on the link on the BBC news website to just know in my heart that this had to be Norwich Cathedral:

Cathedral emptied by Easter fire

To quote the story: "Reverend McFarlane said: "New Christians were baptised and confirmed by the Bishop of Norwich and the cathedral was filled with light from the candles and incense.

"Sadly, it was all a bit too much for the fire detection system and half-way through the Eucharistic prayer we were interrupted by the fire alarm and an automated voice telling us to evacuate the cathedral.

"Clearly fire detection systems can't cope with the Resurrection of Jesus."

Of course, we all know the real reason for the alarms:
The Health & Safety Executive: protecting Catholics from sectarian immolation since 1974
On an unrelated note, I'd like to see Paris Hilton play Joan of Arc, if only to hear her say "That's hot" in the ultimate scene.

Thank God for Beaker and Sooty

No child that ever lived, is walking the earth, or has yet to be born would ever consider this a comforting puppet experience

I was reading the BBC Norfolk page the other day when I saw that the Norwich Puppet Theatre- recently on the chopping block- was spared by an infusion of funding from a local charity.

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand I strongly support public funding for the arts and feel that children should be exposed to as many different media and forms of story telling as possible because the imagination is the greatest result of evolution humanity has ever known.

On the other hand, I was taken to the Norwich Puppet Theatre as a seven year old to see a production of Pinocchio and it scared the crap out of me. To this day, I love puppets of all stripes with the exception of unpainted wooden marionnettes manipulated by black-turtlenecked arts hippies. These creations horrify me, thanks entirely to my exposure to them at the Norwich Puppet Theatre. My memory blocks most of the details so I may stay sane, but I have a vague recollection of a show resembling a wooden puppet version of Hostel.

So in conclusion- public arts funding, good; Norwich Puppet Theatre, get those things away from me you sadistic child-terrifiers.

Thank you.

This Has a Crushing Inevitability About It

When one reads the words "sheep act" in connection with my spiritual homeland of Norfolk one fears the worst. Luckily this story is not about a bunch of perverted Jethros doing some illicit smock-lifting around some ovine hindparts, but rather about Farmer Barnes's performing sheep:

Disease alert leaves farmer stuck
A Norfolk farmer whose performing sheep were to appear at an Aberdeenshire show has been stranded miles from home due to the foot-and-mouth disease alert..... The 35-year-old, who tours the UK with his Sheep Show, is living out of his lorry while his sheep graze nearby.

he Sheep Show - an act which introduces nine different breeds to the audience and finishes in a "sheep shuffle" dance - had been due to perform at Turriff's agricultural show on 4 and 5 August. However, Mr Barnes arrived on the same day that foot-and-mouth was discovered on a farm near Guildford in Surrey.

He and his flock were moved away from the public and the show went ahead without live stock....(the full BBC story)

The only thing Norfolk people like better than performing sheep is juggling turkeys. Or perhaps formation motorcycling sugar beets, at a pinch. I am glad to read that our passion for theatrical live stock and produce appears to be catching on across Britain.

A Half Gallon of Glen MacInbred, My Good Man

England is getting its first whisky distillery in 100 years, in the Norfolk village of East Harling. The same East Harling where my mother's family lived when my grandfather was one of the village policemen, no less. Despite the presense of a bona fide pickled Scottish sailor to help them make the beverage, the drink produced cannot properly be called 'scotch'. Perhaps they should market it as 'Nortch whisky'. Then it would sound so disgusting nobody would buy it, and I'd be able to snatch it up by the caseload at a knock-down price.

Much like grape vines taking hold in southern England, I think this can be laid at the door of global warming.

A traditional West Norfolk cup holder. That's not her drink, she's watching it for a friend.

I'd Almost Rather Stick With Oil

White gold; Tilney St Lawrence Tea, that is
I happened to catch a story recently that mentioned that should the technology become available to make production affordable, sugar beet farmers were well positioned to benefit from the coming ethanol boom (the always riveting Biofuel Review has more details). As a child of East Anglia (for my American chums, that's the grumpy bit of merry olde England) this first filled me with joy.

"Oh!" I thought. "All my below sea-level dwelling, unisex frosted hair modelling, speaking like a seagull crapped in one's mouth paisanos are finally going to be able to break the bondage of the soil and live like Texans or Saudis. Yippee."

Then I contemplated the above sentiment, and a cold chill ran up my spine. It takes a certain sort of soul to remain on the land, growing unglamorous crops like oil seed and sugar beet, staring out over the flat and featureless landscape, never able to escape the smell of poultry dressing (its not for salads, lets leave it at that), and getting all one's news from Look East. Throwing mad money from the sugar beet-to-oil-substitute industry into the mix is only going to have two results, neither good.

Result 1: The formation of a primitive Methodist Taleban who'll impose strict shia'horse law on the county and blow up all the fonts in the Church of England churches like so many Bamiyan Buddhas. Face it: "wahabbi" already sounds like a Norfolk exclamation.

Result 2: They'll all take the money and end up like this proud successor to Nelson.

Please- don't give them any money. They'll only cause trouble as detailed above then blow whats left in the arcades at Cromer.

Ull be avun that, wuntuh, when uhm quids in, unteye."

How Very Predictable

Melanie Philips, minus wig and glasses
While looking for the latest on the 15 British sailors and marines hanging on in Tehran's Hijab Hilton I accidentally stepped in a big pile of Melanie Phillips' column from the insufferable Daily Mail of March 28th. The very fact that Phillips' spews on behalf of the Hate Mail and is the author of a laughable book called Londonistan should discount her as an authoritative source on matters Middle Eastern, but I have to admit I had only rarely read her filth and was in the mood for a bit of rough, so I took the plunge. Here's some of the choicer cuts:

"Admiral Lord Nelson must be revolving in his grave. While on patrol in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq, 15 Royal Marines and sailors were seized by Iran on a trumped up charge that they had entered Iranian waters.....

We have consistently shown we are not prepared to defend ourselves. In 2004, the British servicemen who were kidnapped by Iran were spirited to Tehran and paraded blindfold on television, which broadcast their apprehensive apologies for a ‘big mistake’. It was an act of war against us. We let them get away with it....

Third, we should announce that we are seeking a UN resolution condemning the kidnap of our Marines and enabling us to use ‘all necessary means’ to get them back. And we should back this up with some significant moves by a couple of frigates. In short, we need to rattle some sabres through a far more muscular and indeed coercive diplomacy...." (the rest of this crap is here, if you must)

How nice of Ms. Phillips, a woman of late middle age and as far as I can tell no military reserve obligations, to offer up the lives of young British servicemen and women in pursuit of some vague notion of national outrage (outrage missing, it appears, from Britain's High Streets). We don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go, and all that. Perhaps in an effort to drum up troops for her proposed diversionary effort she'd like to stand outside some of Britain's rougher housing estates handing out white feathers to those of military age not in uniform. Wikipedia notes she has two children: if they are of age, can we presume they are doing their bit for the Union Jack, defending British honour against johnny foreigner and reminding him whose empire it is anyway?

Of course, Ms. Phillips makes no mention as to why Britain's name is mud in Iran, and has been long before any of the Ayatollahs were born. For those of you interested in the subject,this book is a decent place to start; if you want to get a grip on the Anglo-Iranian thing in the context of American policy, this one is rather good. But for Phillips that would of course mean reading things that don't cleave to her pre-existing world view. Of course seizing the sailors was a dumb move (didn't the Iranians understand that Royal Navy tars on shore for more than 20 minutes without access to cheap lager become unmanageable?) but acting as if the Iranians had given the Queen a dirty sanchez is even dumber.

Oh and Phillips, take your horrible mitts off Nelson, thank you very much. We Norfolk types don't care for his misappropriation by idiots. To suggest that Horatio would have chased pell mell after the Iranians betrays a breathtaking ignorance of the great man's methods. Bold and decisive he may have been, but he was also a meticulous planner who never fought a battle half-cocked or on terms of another's choosing.


Notwithstanding the above, I may have to start reading Phillips' column on a regular basis, if only to read her inevitable insistence that the British Government reactivate the Bengal Lancers to pursue the killers of cricket coach Bob Woolmer lest Britain's national honour wither on the vine.

"Get off me Dad, You're crushing my insulin pump"

The Lord-Lieutenant of Norfolk and his deputy on the steps of County Hall yesterday
What is it about people called Gibson? First that born again Australian midget Mel Gibson went off about the tribe to the fuzz while off his noggin on Vicky Bitter and Bunderberg. Then Dr. Ian Gibson, MP for South Norwich in my spiritual homeland of Norfolk, England blamed his constituents' suceptibility to diabetes on inbreeding. He then called the female interviewer "Sugar beet tits". Its got everyone back in Mustardland all thredickled.

Us North Norfolk and North Norwich types have long had our suspicions. And my Norfolk antecedents, the Highs and the Bunnetts, may have married each other in large waves, but at least we didn't marry our cousins like those filthy South Norfolk shammocks. Well, not first cousins.

Thank goodness so many of my ancestors married furriners, otherwise I'd have four nipples instead of the normal three.

Crazy Like a Fox.. A Big, Reactionary Tory Fox.

I was pondering writing a long considered post on this story I saw a few days ago, but instead I'll let the BBC speak for me:

"Charity removes Churchill statue
A charity's controversial statue of Sir Winston Churchill in a straitjacket has been removed after it caused outcry. Rethink commissioned the sculpture, unveiled in The Forum building in Norwich at the weekend, to highlight the stigma of mental health problems.

Forum managers said the 9ft statue had to go after complaints from tenants and members of the public who said it was insulting to the Churchill family. The sculpture had been due to stay in place until the end of this week.

Churchill's grandson, Conservative MP Nicholas Soames, said the piece was "absurd and pathetic" and "sensation-seeking" and the Churchill family condemned the statue as "offensive to them and to the people who revered him".

In the House of Commons on Monday, it was also condemned as "an ignorant gimmick". Senior Tory Sir Patrick Cormack said the glass fibre sculpture was an insult to both the former prime minister and to those with mental health problems.

Not everyone was critical of the statue. Lecturer John Britton who 12 years ago lost everything through manic depression said he thought it was brilliant." (The rest of the story)

If it's any consolation, he was still less mad than Hitler.

My favorite bit: "the Churchill family condemned the statue as 'offensive to them and to the people who revered him'". God, I should hope so. Anyone who reveres anyone else- living or dead- needs to have their arses kicked and their ears boxed. I also read elsewhere that WW2 veterans groups were also pissed off. I suppose that means all the veterans who voted for Labour in 1945 and contributed to kicking Churchill out of office were traitorous scum too then, eh?

Screw you, Fatty Soames. You aren't even half the reactionary bigot your grandfather was, never mind any pretentions you might have towards claiming the more inspiring parts of his personality and mind as your own.

I'm also oddly comforted that a need was felt to raise awareness of mental illness in Norwich. Dear concerned charities, they are not mentally ill, they are Norfolk people. It's not down to synaptic malfunction or chemical imbalance, those people act like that because they shag their cousins.

James Blunt's Dad

I have been following Listmaker's burgeoning obsession with James Blunt with interest. I personally don't mind the bug-eyed British singer who sounds like he has a strangulated hernia but any excuse to further work the Blunt bug into Listo's ear can never be passed up, so it was with a degree of glee that I forwarded a story from the BBC about Blunt conquering the US charts to my American Brooklyn chum on Friday.

While reading the story I noticed that the BBC had a link to an interview with Blunt by one of its regional branches. And not just any regional branch, but BBC Norfolk, state broadcaster to my spiritual homeland. So I clicked on the link.

Who knew? Blunty's family is from Norfolk! Jimmy dropped the "o" from his name, going from "Blount" to Blunt" in order to appear slightly less posh (a tall order for a former member of the Queen's Life Guard) but as the BBC Norfolk interview says "say the name Blount in north Norfolk and his family's link with Cley Windmill is sure to pop up in conversation."

Further reading revealed that James Blunt's dad owned and operated the mill (pictured above) as a bed and breakfast; the very bed and breakfast I tried to book Country Mouse and myself into after my mum's wedding in 2004. I wanted to take Country Mouse up to North Norfolk on a nostalgia filled stomp around places from my childhood and around the home towns and villages of my maternal grandfather's family.

About three months before we were due to travel, I called the Cley Mill to see if I could book a room and the man who answered the phone laughed in my face! Furthermore, when I asked if he could recommend anywhere else locally given that he had the great fortune to be fully booked, he said something to the effect of "you'll be bloody lucky you filthy peasant" and hung up on me!

Of course I was able to book a room at the very next place I contacted, the exceedingly agreeble Blakeney Manor located one village over. And while on our vacation, Country Mouse and I enjoyed a charming walk across the salt marsh that seperates the two villages, a walk that culminated in my standing in the parking lot of the Cley Mill flicking Vs* at the building while yelling words to the effect that I hoped my great-aunt (who used to run the Bell pub in the neighboring village of Wiveton) used to water his relative's whisky on the sly.

Now I come to find out that the horrible man on the phone (who at the time I described to Mondale as "a Daily Mail reading, moleskin trousered, petty Tory of the sort that gives Norfolk a bad name") could well have been James Blunt's dad. Well bugger me with a toasting fork. No wonder the floppy haired balladeer's songs are so mopey.

Friends of mine have launched multi-year boycotts on half the circumstantial evidence that I have that James Blunt's dad was the one being rude to me. I however will rise above the fray: the sins of the fathers should not be visited on the sons. Even so, I think that the next time I'm back in Norfolk I could well be found a la Lloyd Dobler, standing in the forecourt of the Cley Mill at 2am, hoisting aloft a boombox from whose speakers blast You're Beautiful at full volume.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

(*The English finger).

Norfolk Alien Found Shocker!

From my spiritual homeland, Norfolk (England, not Virginia):

Alien crash lands in the attic.
Builders working in the attic of Barney Broom's cottage in the village of Gunthorpe found an old jar containing what appeared to be a model of an alien, about 12 inches tall, made of clay and preserved in a liquid which smelled of vinegar.

The jar was wrapped in a 1947 copy of the Daily Mirror. The alien appeared to have a serial number on its foot.

Intrigued by the discovery, Mr Broom's initial suspicion was that the model was somehow connected to nearby United States' airbases. Not quite knowing what to do with it, he approached the Sci-Fi Channel, which is now carrying out investigations into whether the serial number is a form of military identification.

I am surprised that no one has suggested that this could be a leftover prop from a middle school health class warning of the perils of cousins marrying.

We Are Getting Too Old For This Sort of Tomfoolery

Mondale and I were chatting on the phone last night about the travails of our beloved Norwich City FC when he mentioned a football diversion he and some old pals used to pass the time with. It's a variation on fantasy football, and fittingly for Mondale it involves putting your ego front and centre of the action.

Essentially, what one does is imagine oneself as a football (meaning in this case "soccer") player and project a career trajectory for yourself through five teams, from wet-behind-the-ears apprentice to battered shinned veteran. For those of you not versed in the arcane world of English footie, the game would work equally well for baseball, or cricket, or Aussie Rules, or kabbaddi, or maybe even co-ed over thirties bocce.

After discussing the concept for a while, both Mondale and I decided that we would both ponder our selections and post our "careers" simultaneously. I did wait for him at the appointed noon hour but I imagine that he is having a busier day than he first anticipated (I told him to write it last night like I did, but in his defence he does have a life). Hope he catches up at some point.

Here goes for my five:
NAME: WISDOM "CHOPPER" WEASEL. POSITION: RIGHT BACK.
FIRST CLUB: Norwich City FC, 6 years (2 years youth, reserve, 4 years first team)

Discovered as an unremarkable but reliable stopper at the back with legs toughened by playing on a surface that alternated between marsh and ice floe, I begin my career with every schoolboy's dream; playing for my home side. After progressing through the youth ranks and reserve side, I make my first team debut aged 19 at Carrow Road against Ipswich, a game we win 3-0. After 4 nailbiting years and one League Cup semi final, I am part of the team that wins promotion to the Premiership.

SECOND CLUB: Sunderland (3 years)

The next season Sunderland pass us on the way into the Premiership as we slip back down a division. Eager to screw things up further, Norwich manager Nigel Worthington flogs off the starting back four to various Premiership sides in order to buy "this cracking Ghanaian lad from Trondheim" for a club record 5 million quid. I'm sold for 300,000 to Sunderland, where while never looking likely to claim a place in the England side, I do enjoy 3 seasons of Premiership graft.

THIRD CLUB: Glasgow Rangers (3 years)

Bought on a whim by Rangers new Russian oligarch owner in the off season because of my red hair, at first I take to the Scottish Premiership like a duck to water. Lots of clattering tackles, ginger haired types, and deep fried Mars Bars at half time: smashing! Thanks to the inflated wage packets handed out by the oil tsar I soon begin entertaining delusions of grandeur both on and off the pitch. An ill-timed and ugly challenge during the Scottish cup final tears my right ankle ligaments, a hole in an advertising hoarding, and a nun's wimple in the Celtic fans section. Despite recovering match fitness, my off season drinking gets me in trouble and I'm caught in a sting by a reporter from the Glasgow Herald saying rude things about the pope and yelling "Galsgow's miles shitter". I am released from my contract.

FOURTH CLUB: Beijing Guoan (18 months)

By now paranoid and suspicious, my agent only persuades me to sign with Bejing Guoan because their club colours are yellow and green like Norwich. Out of shape yet still with a vestige of the old skill, I seem to be making a come back, helming the club to third in the league. Unfortunately, both homesickness and a clash of styles with Guoan's new perepetetic Dutch coach Ruud Kokk cut my time in China short. My return to Heathrow, bloated and be-stubbled, is headlined "Sino-us Infection" by Britain's Sun tabloid.

FIFTH CLUB: Leyton Orient (5 years)

I never thought I'd be seeing out my career as player-manager at Brisbane Road, just down the way from my late paternal grandparents' patch. But then again, after the trails and tribulations of my rapid fall from grace I thought the only career open to be around a football ground would be driving the burger van. Luckily, a good turn on the BBC's "Question of Sport" quiz show was enough to catch the eye of the O's chairman who through a set of brandy goggles mistook me for Gordon Strachan. I have done nothing to disabuse him of that notion, and find the few words of Glaswegian slang I picked up at Rangers quite handy in keeping my job.
***************************************

Well that was fun. Not one for memes myself, but I'd be interested in other people's trajectories; any sport (or even fantasy career I suppose) you like.

Norfolk: The Choice of Sophisticates

5th headlined story today on the Eastern Daily Press (the paper of record for Norfolk, England):

"Pigs in Barn Blaze Drama"

I love being an East Anglian. I can't read, and I can't write, but that don't really matter; 'cause I'm a Norwich City fan and I can drive a tractor. By the way, the pigs all escaped unscathed (otherwise Youthlarge would be booking tickets for baconpalooza).

"Britannia's God of War"

Happy Trafalgar day, chums. Nelson, among his other deep impressions on British society, had a huge impact on poets (the title of this post is Byron's description of the late Admiral) and other artists. The timing and nature of his death made him a natural draw for the romantic poets. His 'heroic' passing helped provide the bedrock of self-assured patriotism that marked the more extroverted bombast of Kipling and his peers writing at the end of a century of British ascendancy that Nelson had helped kick off. The influence of Nelson and his navy can still be felt in everyday life and the mundane; his image is used to sell insurance in England with no less gusto than music hall stars used to belt out "Hearts of Oak" to Edwardian crowds.

Therefore I thought I would mark this 200th anniversary of his greatest victory and his death one last time this week by reproducing the latest effort by Britain's Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, a poem called "What Have We Here?" that reflects on the endless fascination with Nelson that for many Britons begins in the moral clarity of childhood, when our side can do no wrong and the enemies of yesterday are always evil.


WHAT HAVE WE HERE?

Dad got home late, and I never heard the gravel
Or his door-clunk in the drive-through,
Still less his shoeless step
As he crept to perch on my bedside.
‘What have we here?’
It was a Yeomanry day or used to be,
And not even the thick whiskery cloth
Of his battle-dress trousers
Could blunt the edge of a Ladybird under the covers.

Nelson, dad.’ He squared his shoulders.
The order was: no reading after lights out,
So I was caught cold – like the polar bear
I’d just seen dispatched
In the pack-ice off Spitzbergen.
On the other hand, Nelson was England’s darling.
I’d seen that too, in the cock-pit death-scene
With Hardy’s kiss on my forehead.
Dad checked a page, before his weight lifted and went.

I fell at once into a dream of Victory –
How she wallowed through Biscay,
With her battle-tatters smoking –
Then gave my signal for a change in nature.
At which she side-stepped her Channel lane,
Shimmied over the Hampshire hills,
Caught the surge of London,
And made fast to a spire of Westminster
Overlooking Trafalgar Square.

With that, the famous brandy barrel
Burst its ropes at the main mast,
And the man himself slithered out
Crumpled and glistening as a baby
But perfectly fit again.
He proved this by scaling the column
A grateful nation had raised for him,
And leaned on his coil of rope to wait
For as long as it took to stiffen into stone.

Next morning, with dad in his city suit again,
I woke in time to snaffle his Times at breakfast
And rolled it into a telescope
So I could show him my grasp of history.
‘What have we here?’
This time of course I couldn’t answer.
The thing was pressed to my blind left eye,
And supposing I’d said ‘Your face’
He would know I was only inventing things.

© Andrew Motion, October 17, 2005.

Tonight We Gorn'tuh Party Like u's 1805 (Bor).

Its a local party for local people. Are you local?