Literally used to mean: this is not a metaphor.  Now, literally means: I am really serious about this metaphor and I really want you to listen.

talking about this quote on Obama.

Sadly, he’s right.
But that doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to ridicule people for using the new definition.

Previously, we’ve had Man U (who they?) and Spurs coming over for the annual Vodacom Challenge in the English off-season, but according to the Sowetan, it could be the Mags this time around:

“Negotiations are at an advanced stage between the organisers and management of Newcastle United. I think an announcement will be made in a few days’ time,” said a source involved in the negotiations. “The organisers are also toying with the idea of getting Tottenham Hotspur back in the tournament because they are going back to its original format of four clubs, but the appearance fees asked by the English teams are massive.”

Hmm… “a source”.

Anyway, this comes after Cape Town “lost out” on being a host city for the upcoming Afcon tournament, citing a lack of guarantees about costs and a lot of other political nastiness. Grant Pascoe, Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events and Marketing, was on a local radio station at that time suggesting that the city would at least be likely to host one of the Vodacom Challenge matches.

Putting those two unsubstantiated claims together and doing some rudimentary calculations, I have worked out that Newcastle are going to be playing in Cape Town sometime in the next couple of months and my hopes are now raised just high enough to be completely dashed.

Ha’way the lads!

Because:

Greater Manchester Police are investigating a scam in which victims were conned into handing over hundreds of pounds for a bag of potatoes.

The story, which I spotted on BBC News, using the keywords “Manchester”, “Potato” and “Scam”, leaves us tantalisingly short on detail.

Police say at least four people have been approached by two men offering to sell them a laptop or iPhone.

One man paid up to £1,400 and walked away with a rucksack full of potatoes. Other victims received bottles of soft drinks.

Crime, and being a victim of crime, is a terrible thing. It’s in no way a thing to be ridiculed.

Except perhaps, when instead of getting an iPhone for his hard earned £1,400, the victim walks off with a rucksack full of potatoes. Which, it should be noted, would be equally good at displaying Flash content.

How can this have occurred? I can only imagine that there was some sort of hypnotism involved.

You are feeling sleepy…
You are feeling restful and sleepy…
When I click my fingers, you will awaken and believe that this rucksack full of potatoes is an iPhone worth £1,400.

And then, when they get home and the spell wears off, they have to go down to their local police station and report that they thought they were buying an iPhone, but actually, they ended up with a rucksack full of potatoes. And the police have got to keep a straight face. Jeez.

Still, it could be worse, I suppose. They could have ended up with a handful of Blackberry.

I mentioned previously that his sense of humour was impressive. And now he’s missed out on the 27 Club, there’s really nothing to die for anyway, is there?

First off, 1. FC Köln v Bayern München. Bayern aren’t the team you want to face in your final league game of the season, especially when you’re struggling to avoid relegation. And when the visitors led 4-1 with seconds to play, the Köln fans showed thei disapproval thus:

(Another pic here). Obviously, the ref had no option but to take the players off, the game was (technically) abandoned and the result stood, much like the lines of riot police and stewards across the centre of the pitch for almost an hour afterwards.

But of course, it’s England that has the hooligan problem.

Meanwhile in Spain, Real Madrid were coming from behind to condemn home side Granada to a nervy last match next week. The result of this was an ugly brawl between Granada players and the match officials at the end of the game, including a bottle being thrown at the referee by one of the players. Can’t blame the fans for that one, although the referee had to leave the pitch under the protection of three riot shields. In all my years of watching footy in England, I’ve never ever seen that either. Although it seems fairly common in Spain – who could forget the UEFA Champions League encounter between Real Madrid and Barcelona last year, when exactly the same thing happened.

But of course, it’s England that has the hooligan problem.

And the beautiful game, as played in South America, is actually far less beautiful when you look more closely.

I’ve seen players injured on the field of play before, but rarely does the trainer have to come on and treat the player while riot police protect them from objects thrown from the crowd. And by “rarely”, I actually mean “never”.
Police in England don’t use rifles and rubber bullets to disperse angry fans, like they do in Brazil (World Cup 2014, anyone?).

Yes, England has certainly had it’s fair share of problems with hooliganism in the past. But that reputation should be left right there, in the past. While there are problems occurring regularly in other leagues around the world, English football has been free of any major trouble for many years now.
Maybe it’s time that FIFA sorted out some of the other “big” names in world football before accusing English fans of being troublemakers.

There was a bizarre route to my discovering this band – the brainchild of Sam Duckworth –  but we can leave the sordid details behind, because the new album “Maps” is out on Monday and I’m going to go (to my computer) and buy it.

Here’s The Real McCoy from that forthcoming album.

And if you liked that, you can download it for free.

There’s more Get Cape. goodness on their YouTube channel. I’d particularly recommend Daylight Robbery, with its parody video (how many other bands videos can you spot?) and The Uprising, featuring British TV presenter Adrian Chiles.

Get Cape cornet and occasional drummer Mikey Glenister is also a member of band The Power of Voodoo, who don’t seem to be very active currently but whose music is still available on their Facebook page – try It’s My Time (free download of that is here).

But I can’t let minor details distract me from this! We’ll sort something out posthumously.
Or whatever the word is.

Because while in London, I will be eating some pizza! Here.

Seriously? A Manx-themed pizza restaurant in the heart of London? I cannot wait.

The Snaefell Diabola “The Hottest Pizza in the British Isles” looks particularly attractive to me, as do the Manannan Vodka cocktails.
Mrs 6k will enjoy the Manx chocolate pizza. And the kids will eat most anything.

And they do queenies. And if you pay with Manx currency, you get a discount.

Colour me hungry.

I’m not getting drawn into this one. Evans was found guilty and, while I understand that he is appealing the verdict, there is no excuse for what he has done and no excuse for anyone to defend his actions or to question the judgement.

However, Ian does make some valid points with reference to the the way that the inexcusable behaviour of a few idiots has been taken to be representative of the whole club.

This case isn’t anything to do with Sheffield United. It is nothing to do with football. It is about a sexual assault.

Those in charge at Sheffield United FC have dealt with the matter very well. At the minute you cannot say this reflects badly on the club, but now we have the danger of a negative media frenzy thanks to the actions of a vocal minority.

The Sky cameras will be focused even more firmly on United and the supporters on Saturday. A spotlight intensified by the ferocity of comments from some of our support alongside the reported tweets of current and former players. Please don’t let yourselves down. Please don’t let the club down.

And he’s absolutely right. But I feel that his appeal will fall on deaf ears. The vocal minority will continue to be vocal and the media will jump all over it.

Thanks Paul

A hugely slanted article in the Guardian this morning informs us that a report recommending that fracking be given the go ahead in the UK is “all but certain to be accepted by ministers”, effectively allowing trial wells to be drilled as a first stage in tapping the estimated 4.7 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in Lancashire.

Still, as one of the comment on the article points out:

As for the risks, I doubt this a good place to gauge them. Mainstream papers are pretty clueless when it comes to gauging the real risks of anything to do with science or engineering.

The fact that the health and safety obsessed “nanny state” in the UK is prepared to go ahead with fracking and for deposits beneath Lancashire – which amount to around 1% of South Africa’s estimated reserves – is further evidence that when the process is considered rationally and independently, without the emotional hubris of the misinformed and misinforming green brigade, sensible decisions can be made. See here for more of the terms and conditions included in the report (the bits the Guardian chose not to report).

There’s a lesson for South Africa to learn here. I just hope Ms. Dipuo Peters is watching.

I wanted to find out exactly how the fixture list is put together and just how difficult a job it is. Needless to say, I spent a large chunk of last weekend in a dark and cool room as my brain tried to come to terms with its most serious case of information overload since I asked my wife to point out my most obvious flaws.

There’s a bit more to it than simply ensuring that The Mighty Blades and the snort-beasts from S6 don’t end up playing at home on the same day:

Putting the fixture list together is incredibly complex – with a whole series of factors ensuring it is an increasingly difficult task.

Just to give you one example; every club is paired with another in regard to when they play their home and away fixtures. This is done for a number of reasons, one being so that clubs like Everton and Liverpool do not play at home on the same weekend.

West Ham, it turns out, are paired with Dagenham and Redbridge. But for reasons of revenue Southend request they do not play at home on the same day as the Hammers as they believe it impacts upon their attendance.

Southend, though, are in Essex, as are Colchester, so they cannot play together on the same weekend. Colchester share stewards with Ipswich so those two clubs also request they do not play home games on the same weekend. Transport links dictate Ipswich and Norwich do not play together on the same weekend either. In other words, when West Ham play at home can have an impact on when a club as far away as Norwich (108.8 miles) play their home fixtures.

And there are 12 other professional clubs in London…

But if you think that that describes the full complexity of the system, think again. Because then you have to avoid fixtures clashing with European games, International friendlies, World Cup qualifiers, English cup competitions, big local events and the like. Then you want to limit the amount of distance fans have to travel on public holidays when public transport options may be limited.

And then there’s the individual requests of each club.

As Fletcher notes:

…it must be an agonising, head-scratching process that slowly strips you of the will to live.

For instance, every time a fixture is changed it affects at least seven other fixtures and can easily impact on as many as 48.

The whole article carefully details the entire process and is well worth a read, even if you’re not a big footy fan.