Ironic, that. I-R-O-N-I-C.
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

You know, some of our lower middle classes wouldn't recognise irony if it jumped up and bit them in their useless coccyx . Which is an astonishing fact considering the format was virtually invented in Blighty. Which is why too many of them have to be lead to the water and then have their heads dowsed in it before they can learn how to drink. Such is life among the mortgaged plebes.

In the lead up to the Manc game a prime example came when allowed-out criminal tory Jeffrey Archer got banged up in Lincoln Slammer after he went on forbidden sherbet at a tory MP's house. And then typically went and did it again over lunch with some locals, including a screw and a bizzy. Apparently the man has the brain as well as the looks of a hog. Mary Archer promptly appeared in a TV interview looking unfragrant and full of wide-eyed surprise. Not. There's a lot less to that gangster's moll than meets the eye, especially (but ESPECIALLY) when she wears her demure dimpled whimper. Of course she knew absolutely nothing about all those scams and lies he was up to over the years. And of course if some guest of HMP from, say, Kirkby had been in the same situation she and the Daily Telegraph would have protested his innocence and ensured he got equal media coverage. Oh aye yeh.

Meantime, our extreme right wing press (i.e. virtually the lot of 'em) suddenly went as socially conscious over dear Jeffrey as the "new" tories, to say nothing of various semi-detached mentalities attaining the kind of trembling bottom lip they used to call "wet." Funny that. No, I mean really funny.

Excuse me, but I found it all side-splitting. I wanted to send the incarcerated one a helpful copy of one of the tory manifestos he used to help write. You know the sort of thing: "Hang/shoot/torture/transport to Oz anybody who gets a parking ticket, especially if they are on the dole which they are scrounging anyway." All of which means he'll probably be the next tory prime minister. This is called I-R-O-N-Y. You have to spell it out for some dickheads.

Parallel with this came news of John Major's affair with Edwina Curry. It conjures an image of a spectacled hamster shagging a demented rat. You just couldn't write the script. But of course the humour quickly stops when you realise these are the very people who lectured everyone about something they called "family/Victorian values" while destroying the lives and aspirations of a generation of, er, families. You can't get much more Victorian than that. Away in the background mad senile harridan Thatcher is probably still helping her bandit son avoid extradition to the USA on Victorian values racketeering charges in, of all places, l'il ol' Cook-Out Enron Texas. Funnily enough, Major was "lecturing" in Dallas last week. Then again, why be surprised? The only more appropriate place would have been Jeb Bush's Florida.

When the whole lot of them are dead I may dig up their bones and piss on them. That's assuming the same kind of barrow-boy mindset hasn't stuck yet another generation of brave young men and women in harm's way and diverted attention to yet another of their loony wars. But not in my name they won't.

Friends, we cannot lampoon and deride these certified humourless crooks anywhere near enough, and that includes the same Melledrew Tendency types who have attached themselves to The Beautiful Game. Like the French, some of them wouldn't or couldn't laugh if they saw a chair walk. I'd send them all to Brittany but there's far too many of both types scaring the countryside there already. Bang 'em all up in Lincoln Slammer I say. And if it gets too full, fit a mezzanine in each cell and double up. Whip them twice a day and feed them cold gruel filled with mashed weevils. Introduce rickets in those awful ticky-tacky mortgaged dormitory suburbs. Then get up in the morning and do it all over again. I tell you it's the only thing they understand. This too is I-R-O-N-I-C.

What wasn't ironic was The Duke's two splendid opportunist midweek goals in the Worthless Cup V Junior Sheepshaggers. Which makes him our youngest ever first team scorer in a major competition. He isn't however our youngest ever player in a first team match. That honour belongs to fifteen years old Andy Penman in a Floodlit Cup game against the pinkies at Castle Dracule two hundred years ago. But young Rooney continues to demonstrate, as the great Harry Catterick said, that the good ones always stand out. You don't need to listen to some loud mouthed goon with a tenuous connection to a pub Sunday league to recognise them. Gawd save us from a world full of those half-arsed self-styled "coaches." But you already knew that.

The Duke's two goals vouchsafed the Melledrew Tendency their allowed-out-twice-a-month-in-a-straitjacket spell. Aren't these people, well, sort of, you know, downright nutty? The kid finally goes and scores a couple and they're off and running, frothing at the mouth as usual: "The hysterical fans are calling him a messiah!" or "The club are going to sell him after winding everyone up about him!" All of which is a load of standard curmudgeonly bollocks, especially when Moyesy went and advised England not to select him too readily.

All the fans and club have done is properly noted just how much outstanding promise the boy has, as has anyone who has seen him and who knows and loves the game. It isn't rocket science. Previously when the club DIDN'T do this, the same Tendency people were whining about how we missed out on other young Evertonians. Which is why no less than eighteen agents have been sniffing around the lad already. Given the Tendency's peculiar mindset one can only assume the agents too are "hysterical" or on a wind-up mission for no apparent reason. See, these people are never happy unless they're unhappy or trying to make everyone else unhappy with them. Odd, weird people, on the whole best left alone to stew in their own poison.

Fact, the fans and the club have to do nothing but do what they're already doing through Moyesy. That is, treat young Rooney sensibly and within our means. The rest is up to him and his family, as it should be, as it was with Ball and Jeffers. They made their respective choices and disappeared almost without trace. This is called freedom. The Tendency on the other hand aren't far off disappearing up their own rectum in a whirlpool of twisted self indulgent fish wife gossip. They'll never learn. Shaking your head, you have to wonder if they have ever smiled or understood anything except the ringing in their own heads.

Match night on The Bus to Prawn Sarny Land, Red Geoff was suffering from ringing in his head on account of civil service redundancy and the kind of broken heart we all have to endure at some time or another. In pursuit of protest at the former, he and a union colleague went to see Ruth Kelly MP and, all issues considered, as they emerged they consulted each other's notes and asked, "Well, would yer?" Apparently yes they would. Fending off the broken heart will take a good deal longer. And as for that Jeffrey fuckn Archer…………I wouldn't give a plug nickel for his survival if Geoff's emotional turmoil leads him into his company.

I don't know whether it's due to Seasonal Affected Disorder, but ugly fans' behaviour is beginning to resurface in patches. As The Bus made its way to the ground in Manchester a Happy Al's double decker bus in front of us sported a collection of hateful loonies in the top deck back seat. Out of the window they dangled a banner reading "MUNICH '58. WE ALL HAVE TO DIE SOME DAY." As their bus crawled through the traffic they were engaged in shouting at passing pedestrians and Manc motorists. You didn't need any imagination to guess what they were shouting. An outraged motorist finally stopped behind it at a set of traffic lights and snatched the banner down. When we got to the car park The Bus was parked behind it. We promptly went and told the driver (who couldn't have known what was happening), and then we went and told the nearest bizzy. After the match, it had disappeared. I hope they are in hell till it freezes over.

After the match sets of dicksplats from both clubs howled like animals at each other. Maybe it's just the time of year. If it's the start of a return to the bad old days you can count me out……………………permanently this time. The game won't be worth having if we can't isolate and get rid of the majority of these pigs.

I used to love going to Old Trafford, as I did to every game everywhere. But there's no denying either the present aura of commercialism is slowly strangling the spectacle. At OT the pitch is surrounded by loathsome revolving G14 ad hoardings. Every time play gets near one of them it spins up with a different set of consumerist bollocks. How the hell can that ADD to the spectacle?

Quite rightly, our team was unchanged from the Fulham game. Moyesy's attempt to get shape and pattern into the team so far follows a logical pattern. There's something quaintly old-fashioned about it. Of course it is thrust on him by circumstances. I daresay if we were flush with dosh he'd be up to his ears in expensive subs muck.

It was an interesting first half. We had two really good efforts on goal, one from a central, close-in Gravedigger free kick which flashed narrowly over and the other a SuperKev shot just off target. The Mancs had more chances without looking in total control, looked slightly nervous in fact.

For the first ten-fifteen minutes we gave as good as we got but then they got back into it and as expected started knocking it around really well. With the exception of Veron, that is. He's a strange player, in and out, never totally convincing like Scholes and Butt. During this phase our own midfield is best described as "gallant." It was encouraging though because we really were trying to play footy. Every now and then we'd burst out of defence and you could see the Mancs were worried as they scurried back to cover one of The Rad's runs or to deflect one of SuperKev's dinking little back headers…………which he won all night and tormented them with.

Meanwhile, Tony Hibbert and Beloved Lard Arse had virtually neutralised Becks and Giggs, inevitable odd scare apart. No small feat, that. In the centre, Davey and Joey were simply magnificent, pure joy to watch as they got to everything first on the edge of the box. Behind them, Wrighty didn't put a foot or hand wrong. Alas, our distribution wasn't so hot even though we made up for it with some quite neat triangular short passing moves.

Pembo had a poor game wide left, The Gravedigger was as infuriatingly staccato as ever and Twin SlapHead was mostly stranded in defensive duties. However, Li Tie continues to display superb one touch passing ability which would really flourish in a better midfield. A pity he didn't get much chance in this game to show off his long passing ability too. As we know, it's like that when you're up against Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt.

Towards the end of the half it seemed obvious we would survive their hot spell and so it transpired. Eventually it petered out in the last quarter as the Mancs ran out of ideas. They were fought to a standstill. But our midfield lacks truly creative players to take advantage of such a phase. We certainly had enough of the ball to do something effective. Unfortunately this will always show up dramatically against leading teams. For now, Moyesy's infliction of greater fitness is holding the line satisfactorily.

The second half was more even with chances at both ends. The Rad nearly caught the Baldy Snail Eater with a quick shot but he reacted well. All the time, SuperKev was winning those little headers, the ones calculated to drive any defence crackers. You have to say a lot of the team's improvement is down to the way SuperKev/Rad now engage the enemy anywhere they can find them. Then Unsy clipped another free kick just wide of the post. The Mancs missed two good chances when Becks hit the top of the bar with a sort of chipped lob and the Ugly Cheesehead bladdered one over when it was a lot easier to score. All the time we were getting more and more into the game. Even Unsy and Tony got forward a couple of times. Maddeningly, our final ball in the last third of the pitch was almost always mediocre.

So Moyesy brought The Duke on in place of The Rad with a quarter of an hour left. This was exactly right. Almost immediately he stuck one through for SuperKev but it was slightly overhit. Then he did one of his expected twist and shoot efforts but didn't get hold of the shot. Then he went twisting through on our left and left two defenders on their arse before he slipped at the last minute. Then with ten minutes left he slaughtered a centre back with pure muscle and twisted inside a full back with sheer pace and just failed to hit it hard enough to get beyond Barthez's right hand at ground level. It would have been an amazing goal for a sixteen years old against one of Europe's foremost teams full of international defenders.

With four or five minutes left we were still on for a win, albeit having rode our luck. Then we let in a scrappy goal, then a penalty, and then a goal which wouldn't have happened had Davey still been on the pitch instead of in the dressing room, sent there by a homer of a ref if ever there was one. The relief amongst the Manc crowd was obvious. It was a ludicrously scoreline.

Back on The Bus nobody was at all despondent. It was generally agreed that the Mancs are three goals better than us. But they weren't on the night and no mistake. We could, maybe even SHOULD, have won this. It was nothing at all like other games against these in recent years, including our narrow two goal loss at GP last season. This time we gave every bit as good as we got. It was a lousy way to lose and everyone sensible in the stadium knew it. The Mancs got the shock of their lives.

So now we have to get ready for the Gooners. Our midfield V theirs? Erm, next question please.

Since I started this week's ranting diatribe on irony, I will so finish. As the bearer of a stiff upper lip I have to be fair. I must admit we English are not the only dealers in irony.

Previous midweek, Walter Annenberg died in the USA. The odds are a peon like you won't have the first clue who the corpse was. Well, amongst other things he was once Ambassador to the Court of St. James and…………………well, let the tale be told much better in an extract from an April 9th 1970 essay in The New York Review of Books by one of my heroes (or heroines, if you're rabidly anti-homosexual), Yank gadfly Gore Vidal:

"For instance hardly anyone suspected that something funny was up when Nixon appointed Walter Annenberg as ambassador to England. Yet any student of Nixon mischief ought to have known that he would somehow manage to apple-pie the bed of Harold Wilson's Socialist government, which had sent as ambassador to Washington (in anticipation of a Humphrey administration), one John Freeman, former New Statesman editor who had written unkindly of Nixon in 1960. That's just the sort of thing Dick remembers as he surveys those crises which make up his past with an eye to fixing any wagon that ever ran over him: but with sly rather than vindictive wit; with the boffo laugh, not the mean curse.

Before Annenberg was appointed, lovers of Nixon wit were making up lists of possible ambassadors. Dean Acheson? His bland dismissals of postwar England were a high qualification. Claire Booth Luce? Always good for a wisecrack. H.L. Hunt? This was my choice. A distinguished anti-Commie, he carries his lunch about with him in a used brown paper bag. But then came the news that Walter Annenberg had been inked.

Nothing was known of Annenberg except that he published a couple of bad newspapers in Philadelphia (no great laughing matter) and his father Mo had gone to the clink in the thirties for tax evasion (an event which forced my right-wing Washington family to overcome their anti-Semitism long enough to acknowledge that, Jew or not, Mo was busted because he had the guts to stand up to the Antichrist FDR). But one prison sentence does not a Nixon joke make. There had to be more to Annenberg than his father's ill luck. Yet a first look at him revealed nothing remarkable (that is to say risible). Very rich. Powerful in Pennsylvania politics. Gave a lot of money to Nixon's campaign (how much is a mystery). Was a friend to Dick in the dark days. All in all, a perfectly unqualified appointee on the order of the late Joe Kennedy. Could it be that Funny Dick had let us down?

Two months later when Annenberg presented his credentials to the Queen of England the world realised that Nixon had done it again. He had, very simply, launched the most brilliant clown since the late Bert Lahr. But as every impresario knows, it is not enough to book a clown into a palace; infinite care must be taken to show the comic at his best. Although Nixon is not known to have initiated the BBC's coverage of Annenberg's meeting with the Queen, I am sure the CIA had a hand in it. The performances were much too outrageous for the BBC; the comedy too carefully polished.

Annenberg appears at palace and forgets to remove a funny hat; footmen force him to (early Chaplin this); then he is briefed on how begin the long march to the throne. "We start," he is told sternly, "with our left foot." Starting with the right foot, he approaches the Queen. With that graciousness for which she is insufficiently paid, Britannic Majesty asks if he is living at the embassy. Little does she know she is playing straight to a Nixon joke. Like many Americans who inherit money and evade school, Annenberg has not an easy way with the President's, much less the Queen's, English (Nixon must have auditioned Annenberg a dozen times before he signed him up). At first startled by the difficulty of the question, Annenberg gives a great Bert Lahr Uhhhh. Then, laboriously, he constructs the following answer (like all great acts, this one improves with each airing): "We're in the embassy residence, subject, of course, to some discomfiture as a result of a need for, uh, elements of refurbishing and rehabilitation." Then a perfectly timed reaction shot of the Queen looking as if a cigar has just exploded in her face. Back in Washington Dick must have been on the floor as he watched her try to maneuver her way out of THAT one.

Unstoppable as the premier seg was, Annenberg followed up almost immediately with a speech to the Pilgrims (a group of Americanophile English). In Eddie Mayhoff fashion, he attacked American students as revolutionaries, while praising his friend Ronald Reagan for magisterial restraint. The British were overwhelmed. Nixon had more than paid Wilson back for the appointment of Freeman to Washington, paid him in full with funny money."

I love those "…sly rather than vindictive wit…" and "…distinguished anti-Commie…" bits. Not that Nixon fooled him any, just that dear Gore - yes, he's related to Al Gore - had the intelligence to see one other aspect of a disparate personality. And laugh at it. Humour is just one of the weapons against evil. You know, H-U-M-O-U-R. It's at the root of I-R-O-N-Y.

If you can read properly, I urge you to buy a volume of Vidal's essays. You will be repaid in something worth much more than mere coin. He is the funniest, most intelligent and erudite of what's left of American conscience. Ahead of the pack as usual, it was he who warned his country (he calls it "Amnesia") of the mad evil of people like Annenberg. Later, Annenberg was one of those responsible for funding Reagan's reactionary and ignorant journey through the White House. Interestingly, all the individuals he listed as prospective ambassador have been named, perhaps wildly, at one time or another as plotters in the JFK murder. Pretty good too spotting Reagan twenty years in advance.

And another thing. No shit, Gore Vidal was co-chairman of the People's Party 1970-1972. So he's one of us, not one of them. Pick the bones out of that, my fellow non-war ironists. (09/10/02)

Quotes

Moyesy says: "I cannot believe it. You get lows in football and this is one of the worst. Like the players, I felt sick when we conceded the first after so much effort. We are devastated. We don't feel as if we deserved that. We thought we contained Manchester United for 86 minutes and it looked like being a nothing-each draw. Maybe when I get time to think about it I'll be happy but I'm just thinking about the last five minutes at the moment. I think there's been improvement and the players have done well tonight. I felt we had one of the best chances with Wayne Rooney going through. We had to defend really well, I'm just disappointed because we didn't deserve that. We really believe we should have had more results than we have. The players performed really well, they know that and we'll keep telling them that."

Jogger on Tommy's Booking: "You cheatin bastard Beckham"

Lard: "Sit Down before the drag you out."

Moyesy on Weir: "I don't think he was even going to get his shot away at the end. I'm not going to ask the referee to look at it again. It is up to him. I feel sorry for David Weir because he has barely conceded a free-kick all game and ends up getting sent off."

Ferguson: "That was the best Everton side I have seen in years - maybe since their 1986 team - and the scoreline didn't do them justice."

Team News

The Ikea sisters had it last week and now they have given it to Wrighty and Super. The bug that has been going around Everton at the moment has sent two of our stars home. But they should be fit for Monday.

David Moyes said:“One or two are the players are suffering with sickness and we just need to be careful with that.We don’t think it will affect us on Monday but we will have to check over the next day or two.

David has been delighted with the effort of everyone and he is close from choosing a team from a full fit squad. The only players still out are Pisto, Stevie Wat and Juli.

Moyesy said:“The good news at Everton at the moment is that we don’t have too many injuries just now. Most people are getting themselves fit and they still need match fitness and practice through reserve games, but all the players want to train and they are applying themselves fantastically.”

I think Moyesy will keep the same team that performed so well against Fulham, with Wayne and Dunc chomping at the bit on the bench.

Jogger predicts the team: Wright, Hibbert, Yobo, Weir, Unsworth, Carsley, Gravesen, Li Tie, Pembridge, Campbell & Radzinski