Watching the footie will never be the same again!

Superb artwork from Allan Cavanagh of https://www.caricatures-ireland.com

My Dad died.

I have seen many people lose parents, siblings, friends and even children, and the most tragic losses are the ones in which there lingers something unfinished. As the minutes ooze from the time of death, that lingering becomes malingering, and pain follows close behind.

Dad made it easy for me, because he had been so unwell for so long, I had time to tell him everything I wanted to say.

And oy, he put up a fight! Year after year, Dad grumped and exploded his way through procedures, operations, scrapings and inflations.

Towards the end he lost his joie de vivre, but never his sense of humour, although my mother, his rock, his redeemer, and a great force of nature, mentioned how she sometimes missed the sound of laughter.

Watching somebody you love head slowly lethewards erases from your mind the image of the person they once were. When I think now of my father, all my mind offers is a weak old man in much discomfort, fed up with life, yet absolutely unwilling to die.

Naturally, I do not have to scrape much dust from my memories to see Dad as a younger man, and as I do, my heart races a little faster and a smile comes to my tear-sodden eyes.

So I am very happy to have told him what I thought of him, before he went.

A few months ago, he was sitting in his armchair next to my mum on the sofa. I had to be tactful, because despite the Jewish spirit, my parents' home and behaviour is quintessentially Olde Englishe, like the marmalade.

Hence to avoid melodrama, I had to tread carefully when trying to explain to my father that he had always been my inspiration.

To that Octogenarian these words came as a surprise; one which I had anticipated, and thought might fire his spirit and confidence a tad.

I told him, in front of Mum, that he had been my inspiration throughout my life, in two different ways.

At a most vital level, I appreciated how hard he had worked, how many decades he had climbed into his car at 7.40 am, and driven off through the dirthy sludge of London's constipated commute, all the way to Soho, where he worked all his life for Pearl and Dean.

At weekends he ran a small chain of three record shops, until one of his managers did the dirty, and sent the business down the pan.

From my privileged and relatively cushy life, I am in awe of how hard Dad worked, so that we might enjoy the upbringing we had.

His was the last generation that would ever enjoy the 'job for life' culture, but even so, I embarrass myself when I think of how few hours I have to spend earning money each week.

 

Somehow, back in the early 1960's he earned enough money to take all five of us on holidays to Europe every other year, with trips to Devon and Somerset in the intervening summers.

"Thanks Dad!" I told him. "I didn't appreciate it when I was a kid, but I do appreciate it now."

My mum spluttered out that she thought that was very nice, and my Dad did something with his mouth that showed he was grateful.
But then I looked over, into his eyes, and I sent them a twinkle.

"There's another way you inspired me, Dad. Your mountains."

Remember all your books from the 1930's and 1950's about the conquests of Kachenjunga, K2 and Everest? They all had the same kind of tan cloth covers, and were packed with photos and maps and tales of these great mountaineers, walking around the Annapurna Circuit and reaching for the skies.

Well, it took a while for me to realise it, but all my travelling; the way I've lived my life; it's down to you.

Didn't cop on when I was a teenager, because all that hitching just felt so good, and looked to me a million miles from the life you lived, and the one you wanted for me.

But when I went off for my first roundy-worldy jaunt in 1984, you whispered 

'Say hello to the mountains for me!'

and it all made sense.

Yes, in that instant I understood why I was who I was. I knew that your spirit of adventure was kindled in me; that the boy who read those books gave birth to another who could go and see them; that the greatest thing about a sprit of adventure is that it helps you live your life less dominated by fear.

So thanks Dad! You worked your arse off so that I might have a good childhood, and you also lifted my eyes, my horizons and my understanding of ambition, so that when I felt happy in my life, I might know that I was a success."

What I didn't say to him then, but do now, was that unfortunately, I don't think you ever enjoyed the same self-confidence that you helped build in me.

You were a possessor of great charm and unquestioning generosity.

You taught me how to appreciate fine wines, how to carry myself in any situation, and always assured me that while fine things were alright, you could never beat the pleasure and honesty of a pie and a pint.

Wherever I have been in the world, we always had time for the Chelsea.

Remember that time when you were almost unconscious in hospital, and the Special One came on the TV in your hospital room?

"Mou mou mou rinho!" you spluttered, as you entered consciousness.

But my favourite of all time, was a year ago last Spring, when we were all standing round your bed in Intensive Care. We'd nearly lost you in the ambulance, and had been discussing how to cancel your big 80th birthday party.

Unaware of where you were, or how close you had come to death, your first words as you opened your eyes:

"Who's ordering the wine for the party?"

You couldn't understand why we all fell about laughing. Your spirit was so strong it will live forever amongst us.

I love you Dad. I love you very much.
God knows, I'll miss you.

 

©Charlie Adley

16.05.2008.

 

Unpredictable, astonishing and appalling: Chelsea are back to mirror my life!

With a little dust precariously settled after the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea, this colyoom stumbles disconsolate once again towards the truth that football (the 'English game') is a metaphor for life.
If you do nothing but defeat all your enemies, then your victories will feel increasingly meaningless and shallow. To truly know the value and excitement of winning, you have to know what it is to lose.
If you win all the time you have no hope; there are no dreams left unfulfilled. All you are left with is the dread of loss, whereas if you lose often, your dreams of winning grow all the time.
Before the arrival of the Special One at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea FC offered their fans all that life had to offer.
They would destroy Manchester United at Old Trafford, and three days later lose ignominiously to a team of part-time herring fisherman from a hamlet in Norway whose goalie was blind in one eye.
Regardless of whether managed by Hoddle, Vialli, Gullit, or the original Tinkerman, Claudio Ranieri, Chelsea never fielded the same team week to week, played one day with passion, commitment and flashes of dazzling brilliance, only to offer for the next game a performance damnably lacklustre and dreadful.
Each glamorous manager bought international superstar goalscorers to Stamford Bridge, who, having donned the blue shirt, became instantly unable to find the net ever again (some things never change).
Following Chelsea before Mourinho was excruciating, infuriating, exhilarating and inspiring.
The former because an ethos of inconsistency permeated the entire club.
The latter because life is like that: scattered with rare and beautiful victories, besmirched by ugly shoddy shabby times and most importantly, completely beyond our control.
Then came the Russian billionaire, who hired the Portugeezer, and immediately everything changed.
Suddenly Chelsea were entirely predictable.
Almost impossible to beat, they were Premiership Champions two years in a row, whilst picking up an FA Cup, and two Carling Cups on the way. There were two Champions League semi-finals and a double-header against mighty Barcelona that some consider the most exciting European game ever played.
Mourinho picked the right players. He made daring and impressive tactical substitutions, and kept his players out of the English tabloid papers by gushing forth a constant torrent of apparently mad and egocentric nonsense for the gutter press to feed upon.
Something of a genius, something of a despot, it was no surprise that he failed to get on with the post-Communist fascist who was his boss.
Although I have enjoyed the last three years, I am not inordinately sad to see him go.
All that winning became a strain. It didn't feel quite right, and the football was rarely stimulating to watch.
As football reflects life, so my team should have erratic, flawed, passionate yet talented players who do their best, will not always win at the expense of style, and accept their fate with dignity.
Chelsea have never been a dynastic club like Manchester United, who suffer a joyless search for perfection. The Blues are more like you and me: living on the edge of uncertainty, aware that change is the only constant, relishing the good times, and learning from the bad.
My only deep concern for the club I love rests with Chelsea's Russian billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich.
We all sit and shout at the TV and tell our mates what we would do if we could boss the team, but we realise that in the real world, the Manager knows best.
Blinded by power and wealth, misguided by sycophantic Yes-Men, and drowning in his own vanity, Abramovich decided he knew more about football than Jose Mourinho, the man who won the European Cup with a team from Portugal; the man who did not lose a single home league game throughout his entire tenure at Chelsea.
If Abramovich continues to play 'God' by deciding what he thinks is best for the team on the pitch, Chelsea will crumble and die within a few years.
But now, with Mourinho gone, what will happen?
We might win and we might lose. Once again, Life and Chelsea are back on the same track, and it feels good!
In purely commercial terms, Roman Abramovich has scored a massive own goal by sacking Jose Mourinho, but ironically, in the process, he gave me back the team that mirrors life as I see it: ever unpredictable, often astonishing and sometimes plain appalling, Chelsea came back to me. (The Snapper, however, is still in mourning.)

****

On a slightly more literate note, by now the winner of the Man Booker Prize will be known, and the winning author will be showered with fame and wealth.
Indeed, each writer on this year's Booker Shortlist is guaranteed to sell several thousand copies of their nominated novels.
However, it's worth taking a quick look at the numbers of those books sold before they were nominated on the Shortlist.
While über-scribbler Ian McEwan's novella 'On Chesil Beach' had found its way into a respectable 99,660 homes, Nichola Barker's 'Darkmans' had sold less than 500 copies.
Two of the other shortlisted books had sold less than 900, and quite amazingly, 'Animal's People' by Indra Sinha had made it onto the list despite having sold only 231 copies.
231 copies? Is that all it takes to catch a ride on the Man Booker Prize Express?
Once you've flogged a few to your mates, your family, and the barstaff at the launch; put 20 in a box in the attic for those yet-to-be-born grandchildren who will be oh-so grateful for your foresight, you'll have flogged 250 copies.
So why would anyone want to try and write fiction? Clearly, it's not for the money. Sure, the above shortlisted books will now make their writers rich, but it is, after all, a short list.
Personally, I think we scribblers are just a bunch of nutters who need to write in order to function as vaguely acceptable human entities, and some of us are better at it than others.
But if you only need to flog 200 copies to make the Man Booker Shortlist, there's hope for us all.
So the next time somebody tells you they are writing a novel, hesitate for at least a second before you gush
'Oh wow! You'll be loaded! Remember us simple folk when you're a gazillionaire!'

Double Vision

Caricatures Ireland

How will the capitalist, the communist and the fascist settle their football scores?

No more inflated bladders and onion bags. Soccer all gone upriver for a few blessed months, with neither a World Cup nor a European Championship to fill the lock.
The back pages of Redtops will be filled with speculation on transfers and all the usual managerial sacking Hoo-Haa, but I will be taking a breather.
August will be round again soon enough, when the Community Shield season opener will be between cup winners Chelsea and league winners Manchester United, and we'll all be deja-vuing like there was no tomorrow.
This comes from a Chelsea fan, a happy Chelsea fan whose team, at the time of writing has both cup and manager intact.
I originally became a Chelsea fan simply because they were my Dad's team, and he took me to Stamford Bridge. Blood is thicker than water, and as I stuck with the Blues through thick and thin, relegation and promotion, there grew a deeper bond between myself and the club.
Over the decades I realised we were not the same as other clubs. No matter which idiosyncratic character is at the managerial helm; irrespective of which super-egoed players sporting bizarre haircuts and glowing reputations wore the blue shirt; sometimes despite and sometimes because of who owned the club at any particular time; permanence and consistency as a way of life had no place at Chelsea FC.
We are and always have been the Flash Harry superstars; mere Flash-in-the-pan success merchants; flashy with money and fashion and flashy with cars and birds.
On the pitch, Chelsea always had players who were capable of flashes of brilliance. Nothing that lasted, just a 'good cup side', which is a nice way of describing a team which capitulates to minnows, but might turn on the style against the big teams, on their day, when they could be arsed.
And then came Abramovich, Kenyon and Mourinho, and everything changed.
For the first time in their history, Chelsea were consistently beating the little teams as well as the big teams, home and away, week after week. It might not be pretty, but it's bloody effective, and along the way there are flashes of brilliance just so that you know you're still watching Chelsea.
Sure United and Arsenal are a lot prettier, but all they have to offer is a cantankerous purple-faced Scot and a melancholic delusional Frenchman.
We at Chelsea can offer the full Shakespearean drama, in which the players play only small parts, distant generals out in the field, occasionally appearing in cameos when their contracts are up or another vat of transfer money is to be made
Scene: Forum on stormy day: Enter Kenyon, dressed in white silk toga, the capitalist money-maker, who is also a self-avowed lifelong supporter of Chelsea's major opponents, Manchester United:
"Dollar double cook up some trouble... two giants of their Kingdoms come. All powerful are they within their own realms, and yet, without me, they have nothing (cackle). For all his power the Russian Bear needs my face to talk to our people. He needs my shoulders on which to launder his great wealth. And as for that Portuguese fascist, the pompous piratical pri-"
As Kenyon rambles, Mourinho approaches, somehow looking so good in a simple yet stylish brown tunic with gold and blue armoured trim. Sneaking up on Kenyon, he talks quietly into his ear from behind:
"And me? You say I need you too? Truly if you think that you delude yourself more than I do when I throw away medals into the crowd. I do not need either of you, you fools. I can go today and be welcomed by millions in any Kingdom in the world."
"And so you can my handsome moody and most mysterious Iberian pally boy, but the world today is a vile and unnatural place. The Communist Bear is strong, and even richer today than any capitalist, so for you to stay here you must please the Russian. Now take my advice (cackle cackle) you will never win Mother Russia 's heart by trying to make her look foolish."
"I do not need to make him look foolish. He does it very well by himself."
Enter Abramovich in flowing purple robes, with dancing ladies in entourage.
"Hail Money Manager man and Man Manager man. Hahahahaaar! I forgot your names again, but hahahahaaaar, it does not matter, because I am all powerful and can have you drown in a bath filled with boiling borscht should the whim attract me! Hahahahaaar! Did we win the Champions League yet?"
Chelsea have always been uncomfortably big yet brittle, brash yet belittled too often.
As one after another English Premiership team is bought up like the latest fashion accessory by foreign magnates of extremely dubious pedigree, should I fear for the future of my team?
During the games of the latter half of last season, Mourinho started to sit holding his left arm up against his chest, rather unnervingly resembling Dr. Strangelove and his efforts to restrain his Heil-Hitlering arm.
Kenyon is a slimy Iago slithering sycophantically from leader to leader, while Abramovich has built a fortune on the back of broken peasants, and will quite possibly get his full comeuppance when Putin is finally removed from power.
My beloved Chelsea FC will survive all these dodgy geezers along with their dark and dismal dosh. Diving up and down in fortune and fortunes, greatness will always ebb and flow from Stamford Bridge.
Attracted to the aforementioned flashiness of the club, gifted players and great characters have always entertained Chelsea fans on our road to oblivion and back.
Dazzling talents from Jimmy Greaves to Gianluca Vialli, from Ruud Gullit to Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke to Gianfranco Zola have graced the Chelsea shirt. Great team players like John Terry, Chopper Harris, John Hollins and Marcel Desailly have stayed the course while others have come and gone.
How will Chelsea's triumvirate of massive male egos finally settle their differences?
How will the capitalist snake, the communist capitalist and the charismatic fascist settle their scores?
Perchance we need to return to great theatrical tragedy, where by the final act the stage is inevitably strewn with bloodied bodies.
Enter John Terry, Frank Lampard, steam rising from their first team strip:
"Gaffer! Gaffer! We won! We bloody won, just like you - oh bloody 'ell Lamps! Looks like we're too late!"
"Yeh, JT! They'll never know now! It's a blue day!"
cadley1@eircom.net

Criminal celery, tattooed mountain women and other journeys into absurdity!

Life often appears to me as nothing much more than a wrestling match with the absurd.
Far from being a bad thing, these tussles, tumbles and teases with the preposterous and incongruous allow me to enjoy my life a great deal more than I would if I was forced to live in a rigid and rational reality.
A bit of nonsense every now and then can put a smile on your face, d'ya'know?
Over the water at my beloved Chelsea FC, while the media stalk celebrity 'Socceristas' Jose Mourinho and Roman Abramovich, there is a fascinating and altogether more absurd struggle going on between the fans, the police, the Football Association and the club.
After each game, the referee makes a report which he delivers to the FA.
As a result of two recent referee reports, the FA has warned Chelsea that they are investigating celery-related incidents, and that the club may suffer sanctions if celery is thrown during games.
Celery? Yes, celery.
Whilst to the uninitiated amongst ye, this may appear strange beyond reason, inside the mind of every Chelsea fan reading this, there now sings a little song.
Unfortunately, the lyrics that accompany said ditty are just a tad crude for this family newspaper, but suffice to say that upon its catchy rhythmic melody rides a suggestion that if the lady in question does not intimately peak as dramatically as she might, a little tickling of her least visible orifice with a stick of celery might just do the trick.
Some might see a football chant. Others merely valuable and imaginative advice.
But now the Law has moved in, and once again absurdity has sewn its seed and taken root on the pitch at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have made a strong statement advising fans that anyone caught throwing the 'popular salad vegetable' could end up being banned from the ground. In the past, English clubs have seen idiots in the crowd throwing coins, in spiteful malicious attempts to injure visiting players.
But whereas that constitutes a physical threat, the throwing of sticks of celery, accompanied by the singing of the song itself, threatens only to make me feel proud to be a Chelsea fan.
Into the super-serious multi-billion pound industry that Premiership soccer has become, we Blues introduce a smidgen of absurdity.
As a club, we may be riding high these days, but we have yo-yoed up and down the leagues, and suffered enough over the decades to know that nothing lasts; that life is absurd and that we have to enjoy it as and when we are able.
Celery is now a banned substance at Stamford Bridge. We been officially warned by Chelsea FC that "The throwing of celery is a criminal offence for which you can be arrested and end up with a criminal record."
And just to help us lose all touch with sensible reality, employing shades of RUC tactics from the bad old days in The North, the club has urged fans who spot other fans doing naughty things with celery to call their the newly-opened Celery Line.
Chelsea FC, who might have exercised a little more wit and restraint, promise "All calls will be treated in confidence.", but by taking the stick between the teeth, they have allowed a wonderful slice of absurdity to cut the austerity of reality.
Can you grass someone up to the police about a vegetable?
Does that mean you have to vegetable someone to the cops about grass?

****

Thanks to one of my favourite annual competitions, we have no need to stray from the wonderful wold of the absurd.
Once again, the estimable The Bookseller magazine has invited libraries, publishers, agents and ...yes... booksellers to submit their choices for the award 'Oddest Book Title Of The Year.'
Ever since 'Proceedings Of The Second International Workshop On Nude Mice' ran away as winner of the first award in 1978, I have been enchanted by the whole affair. In 1985, at the height of militant feminism, the winner was 'Natural Bust Enlargement With Total Power: How To Increase The Other 90% Of Your Mind To Increase The Size Of Your Breasts'.
Personal politics still played a part in the following year's winner: 'Oral Sadism And The Vegetarian Personality', and stayed relevant all the way to 1990's winner, 'Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual'.
Although last year's winner was the robustly original 'People Who Don't Know They Are Dead: How They Attach Themselves To Unsuspecting Bystanders And What To Do About It', my personal favourites are 2002's gloriously titled winner: 'Living with Crazy Buttocks' and 2004's plainly bizarre and brazenly enigmatic 'Bombproof Your Horse'.
Why not join in the fun, and vote for this year's winner at www.thebookselller.com?
Refreshingly, the actual content of the book is wholly irrelevant. All you must concern yourself with is the book's title, and to help you with this, I print below this year's official shortlist.
And before you ask, yes, they are all real, and have all been published in the last year. Choose between:
'D DI Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream: D Di Mascio Of Coventry - An Ice Cream Company Of Repute, With An Interesting And Varied Fleet Of Ice Cream Vans' by Roger de Boer. Yes, you guessed correct. It's an ice cream history of Coventry.
'How Green Were The Nazis?' by Franz-Josef Bruggemeier, Mark Cioc and Thomas Zeller, which offers an environmental perspective on the Third Reich.
'The Stray Shopping Carts Of Eastern North America: A Guide To Field Identification' by Julian Montague is described by its publishers as a way '...to comprehend the complex relationship between (shopping) cart and landscape.'
Let's invite them over to check out the contents of Irish canals for Volume Two!
'Tattooed Mountain Women And Spoon Boxes Of Daghestan' by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie. This baby is self-explanatory, as much as it also completely defies explanation.
'Proceedings of The 18th International Seaweed Symposium' has so many editors I cannot name one, and finally, a rather cheerful little tome entitled:
'Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence' by David Benatar.
Have fun, vote wisely, and never ever forget the wonder and wisdom awaiting those who revel and romp in the absurd.
cadley1@eircom.net
http://doubledoublevision.blogspot.com