Let it lie

As Vic Reeves might have said in his heyday, Sir Alex seems unable to let it lie - reading the news on various websites this morning, it seems he's still wittering on about the Man U - Arsenal match last weekend, now apparently trying to get Henry in trouble for an alleged knee to the head of Heinz - clearly trying to get some sort of redress for the punishment of Van Nistelroy for what was a clear, and typical piece of nastiness by an unpleasant individual.

Sir Alex needs to just let it go, and accept that Man Utd are past it, and that whether he likes it or not, the title is probably going to London this season - unless West Brom put together a late run...

If it's 3-0 it must be Preston

So Forest go 3-0 down at Preston, contrive to have their top scorer sent off, then with ten men and ten minutes to go score two goals in two minutes - but just fail again - that's football I suppose, and it's back into the relegation places after the other crap teams scrape together a scrappy point or two.

Highlight of the week has been the ongoing spat between Forest manager Joe Kinnear, and the overlord of the Evil Empire that is Sheffield Utd, Warnock the Bad, manager from the middle ages, opposer of anything that smacks of sophistication, advocate of cheating, and referee influencing, and bizarrely, now a columnist for the BBC Football website - until now I've never complained about what the BBC do with the license payers money, but you have to ask yourself, Warnock, what's that all about eh?

Still, I suppose cheating is an integral part of top class football now ...

Tramp The Dirt Down

Listened to a newly purchased CD the other day, an Elvis Costello Best Of, from the Warner Bros Years, (had to spend some birthday vouchers) and enjoyed listening to Tramp The Dirt Down, from the 1988 Spike album, which I hadn't played for a long time.

Forgot how much I am looking forward to Thatcher dying - it must be soon now - if stupid Mark her son was to get banged up in an African prison for his part in an attempt to unseat an African government, that might just finish her off - this is assuming she has an ounce of humanity and cares about any living person, which I somehow doubt.

As Elvis himself said: 'had murderous impulse about wretched, vandalistic, vindictive ruling regime in england' (circa 1988).

Buying The Presidency

Came across this from The Guardian, today which I thought was most amusing and promises hours of fun:

It's the fundraising, stupid

How do you buy the US presidency? One cheque at a time. And one fabulous site, Fundrace.org, has created a detailed database that lists the name, address and occupation of every individual who has contributed money to political candidates or parties. And the amount, of course.
Best of all, it's searchable by broad address or name. If you live in the US, by far the most fun is to be had by typing in your zip code and watching the secret political leanings of your neighbours appear before your eyes.

If you live outside the US, then try looking up famous names. Unsurprisingly, George HW Bush (retired) of Houston, Texas gave $2,000 to George Bush. One Madonna Ciccone Ritchie (entertainer) of New York gave $2,000 to Wesley Clark.

And if you felt - as so many of our readers have - that the Guardian has needlessly limited its potential impact of the US election by focussing its letter-writing on Clark County, Ohio, then fundrace.org could serve as an immense mailing list. Just type in a random postcode in a swing state - you can search for codes here - and off you go. Remember, be polite.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/

http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php

Enjoy

Frogs on their last legs

Up shit creek without any frogs!

Frogs have been leaping across the front pages of a number of newspapers over the last coupla days, as we learn that the planet is pretty much doomed - apparently, and to nobody's great surprise, most frogs will be extinct any time now, and this is serious since they are particularly sensitive to external factors, and changes to their environment - unlike, say, George Bush, who, along with corporate America couldn't give a shit about the environment, unless his little friends stand to make money out of it, by sucking out some oil.

An analogy which I like here is that of canaries being used down coalmines, as an early warning system to alert miners to poisonous gases - the dying frogs are absorbing all the crap in the waters of the world through their thin skins - they're a wakeup call for a sleeping world, with a rhino-thick skin.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=572318

Hungry Like The Wolves

All quiet at ForestBlog HQ.

A night time meeting with point-hungry Wolves and a desolate Forest, beckons; not a pretty site - I predict a bit of a scrap over a few morsals of skill, and limited excitement. I'll still be watching on TV though.

In America, another scrap between two teams with limited ideas to offer - Democrats and Republicans. Hopefully it won't go into an extra time fix again. For pithy and pointed comment on what's going on media-wise in the run up to the US Elections, I recommend:

http://cutto.blogspot.com/

Enjoy

Dawson's Creaking Bones

Well, groin in fact - can groins creak do you suppose?

At last some good news. Well, goodish. Dawson to play some part against the Wolves - possibly Hamlet or maybe Little Red Riding Hood. And what was the name of the main character in White Fang?

I suspect though, that it's goals we need - various 1-0 defeats, and all those draws, suggest that if we could score more than zero, ideally two more, then we might be in with a shot of winning. And of course, as my crack team of football researchers have found, three points is much more than one, and loads more than zero.

Welsh-English Segregation

In a move which smacks of apartheid, some Welsh Lanaguage group - Cymdeithas yr Iaith - is suggesting that towns in Wales should be banded from A-C according to their Welshness. Presumably, having unsuccessful football & rugby teams, will be a prerequisite, as will having male voice choirs, a dragon or two, and a bunch of daffs.

And the education spokesman for this group is the wonderfully named Ffred Ffransis. Ffew!

No more Speed for Wales

So, Ryan Giggs was 'ill' again - perhaps he had the sniffles, or maybe forgot to pack his lucky hot water bottle, or possibly just couldn't be bothered. Sir Alex probably told him to have a rest ready for the next Man U match.

The choice of the next Wales manager appears to be between John Toshack, (whom all the players supposedly dislike cus he's dissed them & Hughes a few times recently), and Gary Speed, the Hughes-anointed successor to Sparky, and apparently the players' choice, if Savage is to be believed. Whatever the name equivalent of onomatopoeia is, Savage is surely the most appropriately named footballer. And what's going on with his and Bellamy's hair?

As you will have noticed I am avoiding the subject of Forest, because there's not a lot to say.

Wales sinking below the waves

Poor old Wales eh - what was it - one shot on goal in the whole 90 minutes, but hell, at least they were plucky - reverting to type - never mind the quality, feel the pluck! I guess Mark Hughes is getting out at the right time. Still, at least they've got their rugby!

And on to more important matters - where in Germany do we want to be based for the World Cup? I'm thinking Dusseldorf might be nice, or possibly somewhere like Strasbourg, which has the advantage of being very near to Germany, but not actually in Germany - France is so much more civilised.

Steve Earle touring in November - hurrah

Joe Kinnear searching for new strikers. In Norway and Denmark. Hmn. The word workmanlike comes to mind. Or is that three words?

International Rescue

Another International Break to the rescue, another crisis at Forest - well, the same one in fact, punctuated by a long full stop marking the death of Brian Clough, and the win over West Ham was clearly whatever the opposite of a blip is, ie a positive blip.

Maybe a few more defenders will get fit during the break, although I suspect Forest were nearly back to full strength defence-wise for the match at Millwall. Given the reputation of Millwall fans, and their skirmishes with Hungarian fans last week, it was mildly amusing to hear Joe Kinnear's assessment of the match on Sunday, which was that Forest 'murdered 'em' !

What would really help, would be for David Johnson to kick the ball into the goal a couple of times, ideally in the same match. That would be FAB...

Brighton Rocks.

So we can't even beat Brighton now, and the win against West Ham was clearly more about emotion than any sort of turning the corner moment. On the way home from Nottingham on Sunday afternoon, I was already working out where in the table Forest would be after convincing wins against Brighton and Millwall, instead of my normal perusal of the results of the other bottom teams, to make sure nobody else won.

As Gordon Strachan was saying on TV today, ten matches in is usually a good guide to where teams are probably going to be for the rest of the season - so, a dire struggle against relegation it is then...