The Irish: pushing their luck

I'm not going to entertain for a second the idea that Sepp Blatter isn't anything less than a bloated ball-bag of a man with less to say than a toaster. But the way the Irish have chased the dragon's tail following Gallas' farce of a goal has been nothing short of a disgrace.

Today has seen Liam Brady, the Irish assistant coach, deriding FIFA for their laughing at the proposal to have 33 teams at South Africa - them being the 33rd, of course. I'd say a chuckling session is the best that window-dressed stand-up joke of an idea deserves. Of course you can't start adding teams in after qualification, regardless of the circumstances. Otherwise I'd want Iraq in for the ever-so-slightly unfair situation of war, fought between a militia minority and another country on their back door step.

Or how about going back 24 years and reliving the 1986 quarter between us and the cheating Argies? I'm pretty sure Peter Reid could handle the beach ball-esque Maradona of today - Shilton could concentrate on punching his smug little face instead of the ball this time round.

How can anyone who professes to love football entertain this delirious rot? Controversy is one of the best parts of football. To remove it is to remove the Monday morning outrage, the half-cut arguments and heated press conferences. There'd be no point to Roy Keane at all. Video technology works in tennis, for example, because bad decisions detract from the game. Controversy adds to football; a richer, denser affair with multiple personalities (especially if Andy Goram's playing) and rivalled passions.

Call me a febrile conservative but I don't want five officials, either. It takes away from one of the true beauties of football: that we can all play the same game, on the same pitch with the same equipment (ref included) whether we're sweating out a hangover on a Sunday morning or flip-flapping round Patrice Evra. The only advantage of having five officials I can think of is that Neil Warnock will think he's just downed a bottle of Stolly every time he sees three fourth officials on a moan.

So hard luck, the Irish. You did well but you came up short. Unfairly. But life's unfair (you'd know better than most). Just take lines from your national coach Giovanni Trappatoni, a guy who's seen it and done it with just about evey team this side of the Euphrates. Through all the red mist, the pointless moaning and the even pointlesser political projections, Signor Trappatoni simply said, after the game, "It wasn’t up to Henry to say I touched it with my hand. He cannot say ‘excuse me referee, I handled it’, the responsibility is with the referee." Then silence.

Football is a sport. If you are going to carry on raging, Irishers, take it out on the seeding. That is a f**king disgrace.

Hola! And the revolution...

First off, I completely agree with the BBC's reckoning that last night's El Clasico was about as clasico as it gets. English clubs beware - with the sort of short-passing and movement displayed by both teams, the likes of Messi, Xavi, Ronaldo, Kaká et al could be running rings round most of the Prem's central midfield duos come the Champs League latter stages.

Secondly allow me to air a massive gripe with the writing fraternity. I really want to write a book. I've got ideas I don't think are completely crap and will enjoy spending the coming months planning and penning something I'll be proud of with any luck. Yet I'm certainly no literature buff, and when I read some Guardian column about fiction I gulp so hard my nuts hurt. 'Polemics' this; 'stratified approach' that: what's wrong with writing a bloody good book?

If, in the extremely unlikely event someone fiddles around in their spare change pile to publish my rot, I'm stuck with some po-faced hack from some under-selling broadsheet, what do I say? Do I play out some semantic epic? 'This book was an unenviable juxtaposition of the pedanticisms of the witterydoodah poolambulative corpolationistics....' Or do I just tell the truth? 'To be honest the biggest factors hampering my writing were alcohol, work and Pro Evo.'?

Surely there's a place for punk in literature nowadays? Are the days of Kerouac, Burroughs et al lost forever? I bloody hope not. Now do I play Messi on a blue or Bojan on a red...

The start of a new era

I've given up on the old blog. I mean, I gave up on it a long time ago. I'll probably give up on this one too, given my rubbish track record at keeping up-to-date with blogs. - it's difficult enough to keep up with the one I write for work.

Still, having this job has opened my eyes to a load of things; not least ancient history. I may come across a dullard but it really is fascinating reading about ancient Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia and the like every day. I even took a week out to visit Luxor last month, which was amazing. The world's biggest museum? Playground, more like - actually, make that a bloody hot playground.

Still, I've made a list of all the ancient 'stuff'' I want to see in the coming years, some more likely than others:

Meroe, Sudan
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Terracotta Warriors, China
Mesa Verde, USA
Colosseum, Rome,
Nineveh, Iraq
Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan
Petra, Jordan
Mada'in Saleh, Saudi
Samarqand, Uzbekistan
Borobudur, Indonesia

I think that just about covers it. I've got the chance to see Meroe this Christmas amazingly, which I can't pass up, surely. When does it become out of order to spend Christmas away from the family? I'll be 24 by then; most 24-year-olds from Dartford are already seeing their kids through the 11-plus.

Anyway, I'm not wearing elbow patches just yet so here are a couple of REALLY COOL BANDS I'VE HEARD recently:

The Weakends
Comet Gain
and, of course, White Lies.

Speak Monday, when I'll have a load more interesting stuff to tell you, and show you how I can actually use computers now.