Swede Jesus

I got to work the other day to find an ominous pdf file waiting for me in my Inbox.

"Campbell’s Essential Notes to Footy" the title barked at me. I opened the document with a mixture of excitement, and cold hard fear.

As it turns out, our mate Magic had recently joined an Aussie Rules Club in Strasbourg; and Campbell in his infinite wisdom decided to scribble down eleven crucial laws of Football in a notebook (complete with Stick Figure diagrams), and then scan said pages and send them to Magic, as well as a select few others.

I was one of those lucky few. I printed the document out, read it thoroughly, then put it in a safety deposit box so that I could one day pass it on to my Grandchildren. The document is too dangerous for me to reproduce in it’s entirety online, so I will just quote Rules 8 and 9 which were two of my favourites:

8. There must always be a carton of beer in the change rooms for the end of the match.
9. If your eyes aren’t watering, there is not enough Deep Heat in the rooms.

Inspiring stuff, and a pressing reminder that the 2007 Football Season is now upon us – Round One kicks off today.

Unfortunately, I am stuck on the other side of the world to my Southern brothers, so I wont be joining them at AAMI stadium for random yelling and plastic cups of West End Draught.

But don’t you fear, gentle readers, as I’ll be getting my Footy fix at Clapham Common tomorrow afternoon. The Wandsworth Demons will be playing a practice match against the Landskrona Bulldozers, a team from Sweden. I hadn’t heard of this team, so decided to do a little investigating on the web. Wikipedia had this to say:

"The Bulldozers were formed in 2006 and are playing in the Skåne local league.
Their principle claim to fame is that they have the worst guernseys in the history of Australian Rules Football. A fine concoction of green, blue, pink, orange and brown. Vomit-inducing at best."

Wow. What a fucking lunatic choice of colors. This discovery only inflamed my curiosity, so I decided to investigate all four teams of the Skane League. Apologies for the miniature size of the pictures, that’s how big they were on the site I ripped them from.

LANDSKRONA BULLDOZERS

Our little vomit inducers, whose team emblem is a Bulldozer proudly displaying both the team’s gorgeous colours, and their long proud history (Est 2005). That’s what happens to a vehicle when you let Hunter S Thompson paint it.

GV REBELS

A pretty decent team emblem consisting of two crossed pistols, brought to life in furious gold against a shocking purple background. Once again a psychotic choice of colours. You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten a jar of Magic Mushrooms and watched Landskrona play the GV Rebels. Supposedly it resembles a rainbow getting gang raped by other rainbows. Or something.

MALMO RED EYES

The Port Malmo team likes to play Footy, and apparently worship the Norse God of Conjunctivitis on their days off. A football shaped eyeball, fuck what a creepy emblem. It reminds me of that glowing eye monster that perved on Frodo and Bilbo in Lord of the Rings.

HELSINBORG WEST RAPTORS

Last but not least, the Helsinborg Raptors. Their emblem consisting of a Raptor plucking a footy out of the air. Except not really.

I’m no expert on Paleontology, but I have seen all three Jurassic Park movies, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a fucking Raptor. In fact, I’m dead certain it’s a fucking Pterodactyl. Oh well.

And that’s the Skane league. My god, what lunacy. With only four teams in the league, they could have easily gone with a simple selection of colours and emblems. Instead, they decided on a magical fucked up mystery tour of Demons and Sorcery.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no actual Football involved at all, and the Skane league consisted of a bunch of dudes kicking a Kinder Surprise around inside a Sauna.

The poor bastards have been surrounded by Gorgeous Swedish women for so long that they have all lost their fucking minds. God bless the Skane Aussie Rules League.

Wake Up Ya Bastards

Walk into any Supermarket or Service Station these days (well, you don’t have to walk, you can run, hop, or crawl on all fours squealing like a pig – but walking has always worked for me) and you will no doubt have noticed the large quantity of high-caffeine beverages on offer to the average modern day consumer. Red Bull, V, Shark, Relentless, Jolt. A cavalcade of high octane potions whose sole purpose is to give us a little energy boost our own apathetic personalities can’t provide.

Let’s be honest, we all need a pick-me-up every now and then and this stuff is the perfect antidote. But be warned people, high caffeine soft drinks are not to be toyed with. If you’re younger than 12, or older than 62 you shouldn’t be drinking it. People who have high blood pressure should stay away. And if you’re pregnant, forget about it. Digest just one can of Red Bull and your unborn child will burst out of your sternum and start performing skate board tricks in front of everyone. (Medical fact).

For the rest of us, it’s perfectly safe. (Provided you do not drink more than five cans a day, in which case you face the risk of heart failure).

But it’s not only the soft drink world that has carved out in a niche in the “wake-up-mutha-fuckas” market. Franchise Coffee Houses are spreading across the planet like an epidemic. Currently there are ten new Starbucks opening up every second in London alone, and if that figure seems a little high, it’s because I just made it up. (God I’m a slack prick, why can’t I be arsed googling my statistics?).

I’m certainly not complaining about this Caffeine Revolution, if it wasn’t for coffee and Red Bull I’d spend most of my life in a dribbling coma. If I ever win an award (for, I don’t know, Best Supporting Scowl) and have to make an acceptance speech, caffeine will be the first entity I thank. The second thank you would be to all of the drunk Heterosexual girls who kiss each other at night clubs and parties. People like that make the world go round and simply don’t get the recognition they deserve.

Um, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, caffeine.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that I'm a chronic insomniac, but I have never been a morning person. I’ve never been one of those guys who gets up three hours before he has to be at work, goes for a jog, comes home and has orange juice and bacon and eggs and watches morning television shows while poring over the Newspaper and maybe tunes into some "witty" Breakfast radio, before heading off to be the first person to get to work by at least 30 minutes.

We all know somebody like that. And if you read the previous paragraph and thought "Hey, that’s me!", then turn off the computer, leave your house and go lie in the middle of the road. Wait there until a car runs over your face, because you’re a prick.

Fuck mornings. Mornings are for old fuckers and kids with ADT.

I’m more of a hit Snooze a dozen times, then leave it to the last possible second before you race through the shower then run off to work. I hate mornings, but there is one bastion that at least makes them bearable: Coffee.

My main source of Caffeine is Cafe Nero, a kind of Poor man’s Starbucks located near my train station. I usually go for a Cappuccino or a Latte. I’d love to say I’m more of a Black Coffee kind of guy, but it just doesn’t have the same sugar high you get from my first two choices.

I go for the largest size they have to optimise the sugar and coffee bean intake. Herein lies the problem, as the large size at Nero’s is the “Grande”. Just like Starbucks, all of their cup sizes are in Italian (or French or whatever) so that the corporate Cocksuckers who drink there can feel all cultured and shit.

But it’s just not possible to order a “Grande Latte” without sounding like a white collar twat. Even if a seven foot Samurai walked into the store dragging a Tiger he had killed with his bare hands, and fucked Miss Universe on the counter in front of everybody; you’d still assume he was a mincing queer if he ordered a “Grande Latte”.

I side-step this problem by pointing at the largest cup and grunting, which is my main form of communication before the coffee kicks in anyway.

Halfway through the cup, the caffeine kicks in and I can feel the doughy mush of brain cells spark into gear.

I write as many pleasant business type emails as I can when the coffee buzz kicks in. Later in the day when it wears off and the morbid banality of the working day kicks in I usually reply to my Co-workers emails with pictures of Burn victims and Car crashes. But the morning is a blast.

Conclusion: Coffee is fantastic kids.



As a side note; I think Kath Een is a great name for a Porn Star. Also: Angela Fever. Coz it sounds like Glandular Fever, and you can't have porn without communicable diseases.

Harry Potter and the Exposed Happy Sack

There’s a controversial new play showing at London’s West End called Equus, which stars Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role. The play includes full frontal nudity from young Radcliffe - That’s right, Hogwart’s star pupil is going to rock out, with his cock out.

A spokesperson for the play said that having a famous child star appear naked on stage has drawn new crowds to the theatre. And I have to agree, because those old guys in trench coats lining up to by tickets - they’re not usually part of the theatre-going demographic.

Equus tells the story of a psychiatrist who gets involved with a disturbed young man who is sexually excited by riding horses, and is also guilty of blinding six of those horses with a metal spike.

I put emphasis on the word disturbed, because getting naked and torturing farm animals is not normal teenage behaviour, no matter what anyone from Port Adelaide tells you.

The Horses will be played by actors wearing metal masks. A shame, as it would have been entertaining to have a bunch of real horses up on stage. Even better idea – hiring actors who actually look like Horses. Who doesn’t want to watch Sarah Jessica parker or Celine Dion get stabbed in the face?

For those of you who still haven’t got the gist of what this play’s plot is, here it is again in layman’s terms: Equus has Radcliffe wandering around with his cock hanging out stabbing Horses in the eyes AND HOLY FUCKING SHIT PEOPLE IS THIS WHAT COUNTS AS LEGITIMATE THEATRE THESE DAYS?

What happened to the days of Cats and Starlight Express? Now we need Bestiality Torture Porn in order for the crowds to think it’s edgy and artsy enough. Although to be accurate, the play isn’t recent – it was actually written in 1973. But those were fucked up times in Earth’s history, and the only good thing that came out of the 1970s, was me.

I spoke to a friend who went to see Equus, and she told me that she spent most of the show crying. Not because the play was moving, but because she was in the front row and her eyes were stinging with Harry Potter’s nut-sack sweat.

Fuck this play.

If the crowds are gagging for nudity and violence, then here’s a better play I just came up with:

“Stabarella”

A quick synopsis:

Stabarella, a milk maid from the Swiss Alps, walks out on stage and drinks half a carton of Kronenbourg. Then she strips naked and spends the rest of the play’s running time stabbing Vampires and Robots in the face with her magical Pitchfork. During the intermission, a Panda will roller-skate on to the stage holding a sparkler in each paw, and Tequila will spray out of the Theatre’s sprinkler system into the crowd while a Sumo Wrestler walks up and down the Aisles playing Enter Sandman on an Accordion. Because if you’re going to make a Bat Shit crazy play people, you might as well pull out all the fucking stops.

Fuck Equus. To think plays like that are showing to sell out crowds, while crucial shows like this one get cancelled.

It’s Criminal.


UPDATE 12/03/07: For further proof that you don't need an eye full of Potter's Vas deferens to warrant compelling theatre, click here. The full name of the play is in the third paragraph, and it is quite possibly the greatest title to ever grace a Marquee.