Samsies

One of my friends recently claimed that he knew which team Adolf Hitler backed in the English Premiership, and pointed me to a series of video evidence to back his claims up.

Rumour has it that Hitler had a soft spot for that entertaining outfit from the white half of North London whose policy is to win games by outscoring their opponents and themselves.

This totally explains why he shot himself in the head in his secret bunker in 1945. An act most Spurs fans would probably have contemplated at one point or another in their lifetime.

The proof is in the pudding:

WARNING: Not funny if you understand German, of course.

* German for “Come on you Spurs!” in case you were wondering.

An actual conversation between a parent and what must have been at most a 5 year-old boy at a crowded Japanese restaurant during dinner.

Son: “Daddy I don’t want to eat this, I want to drink Purple Yakult!”

Father: “No. The agreement was that you behave yourself and eat your food on the table or else you go home.”

My dear parent, I don’t think 5 year-olds understand the concept of what an “agreement” actually is.

If they did, we’d sent one to Ramallah to broker for a peace agreement in the Middle East instead of George W Bush.

Apologies to have taken so long to write about my recent trip to UK.

There’re just too many pictures (all 900 over of them!) to resize and sort out, and yet so little spare time or energy to do so.

I’m still sorting them out, about two-thirds through. Give me some time and I promise to write about my trip within the next week.

It is certainly not inspiring when the home page of the airport you are traveling to in a few days’ time displays a disclaimer such as this:

It’s times like this that I’m grateful that we run a tight ship around here on this little red dot.

Wish me luck at Heathrow this Friday!

Yeah, next week, it’s London, baby!

There I was, doing my ironing near the kitchen area some days back when the unmistakable strains of that 70s disco tune Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love) by The Stylistics from my living room wafted into my ears, momentarily drawing my attention to the advertisement on the google-box.

I wished I had continued with my ironing.

Because what I saw for the next 30 seconds or so was a long-haired, svelte figure preening, posing and sashaying in front of the mirror; pouting, tossing toying looks my way and clearly flirting with the camera.

Problem was, that figure belonged to no woman. It was Japanese pop star Takuya Kimura. And he’s a man, oh yes he is.

What scared the hell out of me was that I actually found myself momentarily attracted to him when my attention was arrested by this particular Gatsby advert for your regular, run-of-the-mill hair bleach.

Wonder what women find attractive about him - he looks and behaves like a girl, for God’s sake!

What’s so sexy about someone who is not terribly far away from someone from your own camp?

PS: A search on YouTube threw up a number of spoofs on these series of Gatsby ads. Be warned though, the actors/actresses are all erm … fugly. And unabashedly not shy.

( originally uploaded by metro.co.uk )

… because of this man, Tony Henry.

Apparently, our dear friend’s rendition of Lijepa Nasa Domovino (Our Beautiful Homeland), the Croatian national anthem at Wembley on Wednesday was tackled quite flawlessly by the British Opera singer even though Henry doesn’t speak any Croatian at all.

Flawless, except for the little verse “mila kuda si planina”, which roughly translates to “you know, my dear how we love your mountains” in English. A verse Henry mangled into “mila kura si plannia” during his gusto interpretation in the rain.

Errr … which actually means “you know, my dear, my penis is a mountain” in plain ol’ English.

The conspiracy theorists are saying that Henry’s alternative interpretation of their national anthem before the game helped soothe the nerves of the Croatian players, enabling them to run at at will at the helpless English and beat them 3-2 to send the Three Lions tumbling out of Euro 2008 in utter disgrace.

Thank you very much, Tony, looks like they should sack you too.

* Sources: News @ Metro.co.uk and Ananova News

( image originally uploaded by IllaIllaJuanitoMaravilla at Football365 Forum )

You do not play a 4-5-1 formation when you say that you “will play for a win”.

You do not tinker with the lineup for the penultimate Euro Qualifier, replacing an experienced international keeper low on confidence with a rookie with much less.

You do not keep playing 2 midfielders whom you, and just about everyone else right down to the cleaning lady know cannot play together in the same lineup for a game of such importance.

You do not revert back to the stupid formation of 4-5-1 that didn’t work for 45 minutes straight after your team scores 2 goals under 10 minutes to equalize with an effective and familiar 4-4-2 formation, thinking that you can hold the counter-attacking Croatians to the bare minimum draw you need to qualify for Euro 2008.

Your team do not deserve to be in Switzerland and Austria next summer, mainly because of your tactical naivety.

You do, however, deserve to be sacked soon.

Get out.

Spotted some weeks back: they’re finally opening up a decent bookstore in the East!

Borders @ Parkway Parade coming your way on 23 Nov 07.

I no longer need to drive down to always-crowded Wheelock Place to get my book fix. Yay!

“At 1-1, I dreaded the worst. It was unbelievably tense and in the end, I could not bear it. I slipped into the bathroom and did not watch the last 10 minutes at all. It was excruciating. I heard the boys cheer twice. The first was for the shot that hit the post, the second was when Israel scored. That is the fine line between success and failure.”

- England’s sorry excuse for a manager had the audacity to miss the goal that saved him from the sack -

I know a lot of my mates will give me stick for this fortuitous combination of results over last weekend that got the Three Lions out of jail. For now, at least.

The pathetic English did not deserve such luck, and I won’t be surprised if they put on their usual humiliation skit and lose to Croatia on Wednesday at Wembley, handing qualification for Euro 2008 back to the Russians on a platter.

And you, Mr McClaren, had already crossed that fine line a long, long way back. How can anyone attribute failure or successful when you have to depend on others to control your destiny?

Save yourself from further embarrassment and resign, regardless of qualification or not.