Iggy Pop Convinces No-one To Get Swiftcovered

Not a new year resolution to get on here again, but just a perfectly natural any-time-of-year resolution to stop wasting free time playing flippin' online games. What a loser. I must remember I have a lot of free time until February, but that does not mean I am not allowed to do anything productive. Quick Fire Pool is not productive, even if I'm on the high score list (I'm not, I just said that to make a joke).

Saw City lose to Portsmouth tonight (undeservedly - counter-attacks that fast should count as a form of cheating), the most interesting thing was the East End singng "we hate Setanta". The game was being broadcast live on Setanta. (For the uninitiated, Setanta is a paid subscription sports channel, I think the resentment comes from the price-to-games-shown ratio, seeing as Sky Sports is pretty similar but is treated with something approaching reverence. Or maybe people just don't want to shell out twice, and Sky got there first.) It is kind of brilliant subversion of what is expected of us as fans. Nick Hornby or Garry Nelson, I can't remember which, touched on the idea that the fans are essentially part of the product that TV is buying, and that consumers buy from TV. What can you do when the product revolts in this way? Fuck all, for now. One day it will be a offence punishable by lifetime ban to insult the sponsor.

I read 'A Confederacy Of Dunces' over Christmas. It is really amazing and brilliant, but I recognise Ignatius in my self now everyday. J.K. Toole must have done so also, which makes it more brilliant I think.

Second Ever Football Post

Bleurgh. This time regarding Wembley loss. I don't think football could make me cry, but it did come very close on Saturday. A sort of success beckoned that is not guaranteed to happen every lifetime (see Rochdale's 34 years without promotion or even relegation), and it is hard to not to get caught up. It is weird to pay to feel so crap, it is sickening to hear 40,000 people feel absolutely and truly jubilant. Wembley is tainted (until The Bumblebees play there).

There is always next year. But next year will be crap, I think everyone secretly knows that - sometimes this year is all you get. We went from being 1 game away, to being 46 games away, and that seems like a pretty huge jump backwards. Luckily I will be in Oxford next year, so I can watch us fail from a numbing distance.

By Far The Greatest Team

I literally never write about football. And I don't really intend to make a habit of it (probably). But it is a really brilliant sport and if you don't like football then I still don't think it is very good just to say 'bleurgh' whenever it is mentioned.

Bristol City are the team that I support. They are currently doing better than they EVER have in my lifetime. Their amazing run of success has sort of coincided with me not really going to watch them anymore. During their third-tier years, I was a season ticket holder. I think I went to every home game for three years, as well as countless away trips to what Bill Bryson refers to as "northern B-towns" - those innumerable industrial outposts that make up most of Lancashire.

Anyway. I've put in the graft, is what I'm saying. And although I've only been to about five games this season, Bristol City are my team and this success makes me happy. We are six games away from our second consecutive promotion. I have probably just jinxed it. In fact, we seem to be on the verge of letting it slip through our fingers. (Is it possible to write about football without drowning in a sea of clichés?) So this is just an advance warning that if we do indeed fail at the final hurdle(s), this may become less blog more rant.