The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 10

It would be untrue to say that I no longer love the game, perhaps I am disillusioned, for the term fantasy football is somewhat misleading. It's as if I have awoken from a dream and am groggy, reluctant to accept that the dissipating fragments of unconscious rememberings are just that; a dream. Maybe at the beginning (when we were winning) there was something illusory and fantastical, in whose impetus, I was swept along, making me think maybe this is one of those times when the nice guy won't finish last.


Alas, as the crowd gathers in the town square and the masked executioner sharpens his blade, the baying throngs, armed with lettuces and tomatoes, await my arrival. (Why is it the hordes always throw salad?). For it is surely only a matter of time before the axe falls and my dismembered head is left to rot, impaled; a monument to failure.


I have done all I can to focus my attentions elsewhere, engrossing myself in charitable works, such as donating some of my precious hair to the Bald Foundation and I have weaseled out of my weekly sticks and stones exchange with the national media. I have ignored the provocative and salacious headlines the tabloid editors bait their hooks with and have tried to reassess my priorities, to re-engage with the training ground, to communicate, not with defensive derision, but to speak the ethereal universal language of football. But these distractions are fleeting, and invariably I find myself alone in my office, slouching into depression, gorging half a dozen Tea Time Express cakes, washed down with a bottle of single malt.


Oh the life of a top-flight fantasy football manager is anything but wondrous! The lads sense my weakness. To them, I reek of vulnerability and it will take more than Jo Malone Pomegranate Noir Bath Oil to reaffirm my status.


When I was a boy in secondary school, my physics teacher told me that I was too honest for my own good. It is only now I am grasping the tenet of his message. For I am not the only manager whose results are poor, whose team is grossly under performing. But for all my skills as a manager, the one I do not possess, is the one for which I have the greatest need; that of the illusionist. No rabbits from hats, no mirrors, smoke, no distraction.


For example, take Hodgson at Liverpool, he had several of his players shave their heads, and instead of focusing on their results and performances, people spend their time wondering if this is the baldest team in Premier League history. Wenger at Arsenal will complain about the hue of a particularly bright traffic light on the way to the ground in the wake of a defeat and no one talks about his flawed transfer policy and team selection. Everton have 18 points from seventeen matches but all David Moyes has to do is say: "Look I'm ginger" and the press feel so sorry for him, they talk about the wonderful job he's doing under such difficult circumstances. Mark Hughes' Fulham team have won a paltry two games all season, but all he has to say to ease the media scrutiny is, "at least I'm not Spanish or Italian."


Perhaps this sounds like sour grapes. Or apples, maybe. The truth is I am envious of those with the ability to deal with the intrusion and the maliciousness and hit it for six. The best I can hope for at the moment is a risky single and hope I don't get run out.


You see, the media are like a dog who bounds down the street after a ball you only pretended to throw. By the time they realise, you've long gone. In this game, you either lie or you hide.

*

Disclaimer: Some animals were harmed during the failure of this economy

One mid-summer's evening, some years ago, as the sun dragged its feet and the air tinged with the sweet fragrance of heather and gorse, I trekked through the peatland of Glenveagh, when out of the corner of my eye I saw one.


It was a rare sight to find one in Donegal, or most places outside Leinster for that matter. Now, of course, they are gone from the wild. Their numbers dwindled at such an alarming rate, that even the introduction of draconian conservation measures came too late.


A mere five years ago, to countenance the disappearance of such magnificent beasts from our land was anathema. But there were those few who voiced such concerns. They were called unpatriotic. They were laughed at. "Extinct? Sure they breed like feckin' rabbits," said one politician. "Some parts of Dublin are infested with the bloody things!" said another.


Now the last Celtic Tiger, held in captivity for the past two years, tamed and toothless, is to be released back into the wild, to fend for itself; the cost of feeding its insatiable appetite prohibitive. There, it will be ravaged by predators not native to these shores, here to feed in the lush habitat once occupied by Celticus Tigris.


There is much debate as to the fundamental cause of the Celtic Tiger's extinction. For certain, some were slaughtered amid rumours of maimings. Stories surfaced of unprovoked tiger attacks in suburban areas, concentrated in the greater Dublin region. Soon people were advised to stay indoors, avoid any contact with the animals and under no circumstances should you feed them. Pictures of the victims of such attacks appeared in the papers , baring horrific injuries.


Community based coordinated retaliations were soon conducted throughout the country. Thousands were killed in a matter of weeks. Police clashed with packs of roving hunters, but many in uniform had not the heart for the fight. They too, like many Irish citizens, suffered great loss and pain.


But even as video footage of ferocious attacks emerged, the government continued to trot out the party platitudes; "these animals are safe and are in no way a danger to the people of Ireland." But without the constabulary to enforce this delusion, the fate of the Celtic Tiger was doomed.


After all this time, we are no clearer as to the underlying cause; why did these once subservient beasts turn on their masters? Were we ever their masters at all? It's hard to make sense of it all. As one fella put it:

"Ireland is like an ocean-liner sinking because there's a hole in the lifeboat."

El Clásico

If football teams are a reflection of their coach, then what must José Mourinho have seen when he looked in the mirror this morning? On the basis of Real Madrid's performance versus Barcelona last night, or Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid, as the British media like to refer to them, perhaps it was a gorgon staring back.


There are of course obvious limitations when defining a team, or for that matter a manager, by the result of one game. But if that is to be the fate of The Special One, it is of his own making. Since taking the job with Los Blancos he has attempted to get under the skin, or perhaps more accurately, to get into the head of his Catalan counter-part, with the full spectrum of mind games at his disposal.


Real Madrid spent most of the first El Clásico of the season chasing shadows, though to expand the metaphor, more like apparitions, as the manner in which Barça outclassed Madrid will haunt them, one would think, until the return fixture at least. Those rare occasions when Real did get close enough to make a tackle, the result was usually a free-kick to the home side or an advantage from referee Gonzalez, whose rugby-like interpretation of the advantage rule inhibited Real's disruptive tactics (also deployed by Internazionale under Mourinho in last season's Champions League) and prevented Real from regrouping or reorganising their (high) defensive line.


As the game progressed, Madrid's players resorted to kicking, elbowing and shoulder-charging their opponents, and toward one another cast accusatory petulant gestures which became Real's only means of expressing themselves in the face of such humiliation.


Sergio Ramos, who prior to his sending off could have walked for a swipe on Andrés Iniesta, should face a lengthy ban for the circumstances which finally led to his dismissal. His tackle on Leo Messi, in which his team mate Lassana Diarra was collateral damage, was an assault. The subsequent scuffle and hand-off to the face of Barça's captain and spiritual leader Carlos Puyol was further evidence of Madrid's embarrassment.


Substitute Alvaro Arbeloa, whether through a spectator's pent-up frustration or a coach's instruction had only one intention on arrival, and within minutes Messi, who was the focal point for much of Real's aggression, could have no doubt as to the nature of Arbeloa's role in the game.


Though it is still early in the The Special One's tenure, if Real Madrid are made in Mourinho's image, on the basis of the Clásico, perhaps José should get a few more early nights.

*

Optics

 ALTERED FOR COMEDIC PURPOSES

Is this a possibility of things to come? One may argue in light of Taoiseach Brian Cowen, and finance minister Brian Lenihan's joint press conference to announce cap-in-hand as official government policy, or as Vogue magazine might put it: In Ireland this winter-season and every other season thereafter, for the foreseeable future; blue is the new green. 


They are here, armed with brushes and paint to rebrand Ireland, the Emerald Isle, Pantone Reflex Blue. Or so it seemed as the two Brians, or Brian², stood shoulder-to-shoulder, well not quite, but perhaps they are practitioners of the Kahlil Gibran model of unity - "and stand together but not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart." D'uh, don't you read philosophy? The Brians do. But it's not brains the Brians lack. Is it?


Perhaps when I refer to either one of them in the singular, I should use the expression square-root-of-Brian. Though that could generate some erratic and contradictory results, as in this case, Brian is a variable.

NOT ALTERED IN ANY WAY

So while the marionettes please their new masters by painting the postboxes blue (RGB: 0, 51, 153), maybe it's not so bad. After all when Jon Hague tweeted this:

"Breaking News. Steve Jobs is to buy Ireland to solve the debt problem. It will be rebranded iLand."

I thought of this:







Chin-up folks, things could be worse.

*

Saving face should not be a priority for Brian Cowen. But it is.

We could almost sense it coming. Disparate pockets of grey would shuffle, zombie-like, toward some intuitive focal point. Hands trousered, eyes darting suspiciously as the diminutive, slumped shoulders and slouched back of australopithecine secondary school students, suddenly erect, surge forth - a milieu of scuffed black shoes moshing; arms akimbo, widening one's frame with a full-back's mentality; no one will get by me today.


And so it went, for six years, the daily barrage, like Pamplona, where we were the bulls and the runners; all for a seat on the bus. If by some calamity (a slip on a discarded buttery corned-beef sandwich perhaps) you found yourself at the back of the mob, the assent to the second deck, knowing that there are no seats, was reminiscent of a dead-man walking. Still you whisper your plea to some hard-of-hearing deity, begging for some cataclysmic occurrence to postpone the fate that awaits you. As you trudge upward, the imperceptive din of sixty school boys envelops you. You stand, fixed to the spot by merciless eyes, like headlights piercing a dense fog of John Player Blue. They feed on the futility of your own perfunctory glance up and down the bus, so as you traipse back downstairs, you are stalked by a disharmonious chorus of heckles, jeers and projectiles. That such inane banalities pierce your acne riddled hide, is proof, if it were needed, that such slurs are merely a reflection of your own pitiful weakness.


I was embarrassed , but you take your medicine. On another occasion, toward the end of the school term, a bunch of us were sitting around, the usual sort of to and fro, though perhaps more jovial, due to the onset of the summer holidays. As was the tradition, the guys would sign each other's shirts before we went our separate ways. Over time this evolved; initially we wrote funny messages, eventually it lead to ripping the pockets and collars off. On this particular day though, as the bus weaved its way along the Greenhills road, the lads who get off at Kilnamanagh gathered their things and began the slow migration downstairs.


I don't recall seeing a wink or a nudge, nor was a word or look exchanged. It seemed to me to happen organically. The guy who got off last, like an antelope separated from the herd, was set upon by ravenous hands, focused on his trousers. In a repetitive motion, inversely imitating the starting of a chainsaw, half a dozen hands or more tore his pockets and began to rip his trousers off. Money flew through the air and amidst the sound of cackling hyenas and rolling change, this poor guy - paisley boxer-shorts and milk-bottle legs - stood at the head of the bus, aghast, clutching his torn garment with a look of complete humiliation. In that moment there was nothing to do except meekly get off the bus.


In the last few days there has been an abundance of reports and analysis detailing the impending bailout (high-interest loan, if you prefer) that Ireland is being strongly advised to take from the ECB and IMF. Echoes of 1916 reverberate amid talk of a threat to our economic soveriegnty. This morning (18th November), with the arrival of the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, we now know with certainty that the government, treating its citizens with contempt, lied for days about policy regarding our economic recovery. The reason is at once simple and pathetic; embarrassment. Brian Cowen is trying to save face. Six billion Euro of cuts in December's budget, hundreds of thousands unemployed and state funding due to run-out in June and still the Taoiseach's disdain for the Irish public manifests itself in cheap political double-speak. The word that springs to mind is optics. The red-face is anathema to this government. Not their legacy, their PR.  But Cowen's position is ridiculous. He is the boy on the bus holding his trousers up. There is no saving face. What's done is done. He must take his medicine and with his tail between his legs, traipse downstairs and exit through the middle doors of political life. It's all he can do.

The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 6

It's never easy being the manager of a top-flight fantasy football club. Injuries, contract disputes, dressing-room bust-ups and media battles with players, other managers or your mother-in-law can cause you to forget why you love this beautiful game.


For the majority of the season thus far, two linchpins of my defence have been unavailable for selection. Michael Dawson and Thomas Vermaelen are crocked; and coupled with Glen Johnson's own injury problems, subsequent lack of form and therefore inevitable demotion to the bench, I have for some weeks now, selected a team where 3 or 4 of my defenders could not play (one of the many paradoxes of fantasy football).


The club's medical team worked around the clock to restore Quannegowes to full strength. The team doctor, Jin Ju Ma - actually he's a homoeopath, but gets ansty if you point that out and rumour has it,  he has a black belt. I have been unable to confirm this, as usually he wears a long white coat, but basically his excellent posture frightens me - continually revised the return date for both Vermaelen and Dawson. The former, initially responded well to treatment - a rigorous regime of echinacea drops and good vibes.


In the case of Dawson though, we saw no improvement and even administering snake venom and ground tiger penis made no difference. Though in obtaining it, three of Dr Ma's staff lost their lives. Or maybe they were arrested? Either way, the club had to make a sizeable donation to London Zoo to keep it out of the news.


It was only after two months had passed, when Michael came to my office one lazy Monday morning, that I discovered why his treatment was failing to produce any positive results. You see, Dawson had avoided going to see Dr. Ma because a couple of the lads had told him that the doc was a homeo. Being an upstanding footballer and homophobe, I should have realised sooner.


We had gone from first in the tables to sixth and my assistant, Doughnut, implored me to bring in a replacement. Easier said then done. At a fantasy football club, you can't simply buy another player. Not without letting one go. That was a decision I was not looking forward to making.

*

Another month went by and our descent into mediocrity was complete. Week after week, we fielded nine, maybe ten players, if we were lucky. There's only one thing that hurts a manager more than his team's rapid decline down the league table; and that's a kick in the nuts. So you can imagine how painful falling into relegation in Mayo South (Div 3a) was. (For those of you, without the requisite anatomy, think of a Brazilian wax, where the strips are pulled off very slowly and the adhesive is dried-on casserole. You'll get no, what would a woman be doing reading this? jibes from me. I'm a twenty-first century man and realise that lots of broad-backed lesbians like football). 

After lengthy procrastination, and to Doughnut's relief,  I finally made my decision. I'm not going to get into the whys and hows, or the whens and wheres or who did or did not eat my Twix , but needless to say, we had a going-away party for Michael Dawson. He was pretty pissed off about getting the boot and didn't attend himself but Tea Time Express provided a life-size chocolate replica. A sponge of such verisimilitude, that on three different occasions, attendees commented on how quiet (and tanned) Michael was. I didn't correct them.

The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 5

It was a Thursday, last August, I remember it being a Thursday because Thursday is the day when Lars Medelsvensson comes to give me his renowned Geriatric Massage (it's all he knows and besides, I'm quite brittle) and I remember this particular Thursday, as Lars finally returned my copy of  How To Stop Repeating Yourself And Influence People. I had just rolled over onto my stomach and put my face in his hole when the phone rang.


It rang for some time before I answered it, my daughter had changed the ring-tone to a voice message my wife left, nagging about semen stains on her new Gianni Versace designed sofa, (manufactured by the Italian furniture maker Gregori Salotti, which she compelled me to mention), as at the time one of the lads, having had a misunderstanding with his missus, was crashing at ours. Like all good husbands, I have, over time, built up a certain immunity to my wife's more berating inflections.


When I finally did pick up, I recognised the voice immediately. The unctuous intonation, the unmistakeable rapidity of agent speak:

"AlrightGafferit'sbeenagesHow'sthekids?How'sthedog?How'sthewife?SorryaboutthesofaSendmethebillYouknowhestilldoesn'tknowhowithappened..."

The slimiest, slickest of all football agents, Paul Stretford, who makes the Exxon Valdez look like a soggy bruschetta, who makes John C. Calhoun look like Martin Luther King, was on the blower, and already, I was wishing I had let it ring out.


After a seemingly interminable ten-minute conversation, I slowly put down the phone, as if it was fine china, my senses askew. Lars looked at me and knew something was wrong, he began to furiously massage my temples, and slowly, I came back to reality. Again he asked me what had happened, "what did he say?" though this time the apprehension in his voice was unabated. I looked at him, directly, the words seemingly finding alternative exits, because he was still waiting for me to say something. Craning, to make audible my incoherent whispers, I replied, "you heard me." The colour drained from his face and (forgeting the techniques he had leaned from my book) again repeated "they're fucking with Sir Alex. There's no going back now."

*

The following morning, I arrived early at the training ground. Unsurprisingly, my secretary informed me upon my arrival that several fellow managers had called already. She asked, innocuously, what they could all possibly be calling about and I, untypically enraged, replied that I was organising a leaving do for Bolton's mascot, Lofty The Lion, who was taking early retirement following an incident with Fulham's Billy The Badger.


It seems I wasn't the only one whom Stretford had called and after an hour or so of conference calls, Gmail Chats and Twitter DMs there was a definite split between those who were terrified of SAF and would support him and those of us who despised him and wanted to see him burn. Ian Holloway, firmly in the former camp, immediately went on the tele and robustly defended SAF or Furious as he is commonly known. His impassioned and robust championing of Furious, basically called for a return to what amounts to player slavery, he "belongs" to Man Utd and so forth.


The rest of us just sat back and watched it unfold. Schadenfreude the Germans call it.


As the manager of a top-flight fantasy football team, it is difficult for me to empathise with SAF in this situation. The maximum I can sign a player for is twelve months and every season I partake in arduous contract negotiations, where agents act as power brokers, and inflate and fuel the megalomaniacal tendencies of the modern player. It must be remembered that only thirty-five years ago players had no freedom of contract and only fifteen years ago players had no freedom of movement, even after their contracts had expired.


Holloway and his ilk should remember this before they call for their players' rights as E.U. citizens (and workers) to be curtailed.

Liverpool Crisis Predicament

What must be most worrying for Liverpool supporters...(Ahem!). Sorry, let me start again. What must be most worrying for supporters of Liverpool Football Club is manager Roy Hodgson's contention, in the aftermath of a two-nil defeat to Merseyside rivals Everton, in the 214th derby, is that this was the finest performance of his 17 game incumbency.

"[T]he second half was as good as I saw a Liverpool team play under my management, that is for sure."

There are two possible reasons why he made this statement. He either believes it, or as a man under (unprecedented?) pressure, he is attempting to use language to build momentum for his team, endeavouring to give them a starting point come Monday morning. If one accepts the former assertion and takes this statement at face value, then surely one must concede that it is a worrying foreshadow cast across Liverpool's season. If this is the best his team have played all season, and yet, were comprehensively beaten by a team who habitually finish below The Reds domestically, the performance alone can offer little solace.


However, if the latter - that he is using language in an attempt to redraw LFC's landscape - is more likely, is it possible to analyse his post match comments and from them deduce Roy Hodgson's state of mind and the performance thereof? One may dismiss the significance of such post match sound-bites, but as in all language, they are revealing.

"We didn't score goals and Everton did but I refuse to accept that we were in any way outplayed or any way inferior."

Not only are Hodgson's comments somewhat delusional, but increasingly contradictory. It is incongruous to suggest your team were not inferior against opponents who beat you comfortably (there are, every season, results which belie the performances of one or both teams, but this was not one of them), but in the following statement the Liverpool boss begins, yet again, discordantly:

“We are not trying to disguise this is a predicament, or whatever word you care to use. For any team to take six points from eight games at the start of the season is a predicament, maybe you argue being Liverpool the predicament is even greater. We do not in any way try to deny that." 

One notes the use of the words you and predicament in the above quotation. Hodgson himself chooses to use predicament, which insufficiently describes LFC's position. He uses it again and both times follows it with the accusatory use of the word you. The you Hodgson refers to is most probably the media, (but critics in general too), and is perhaps an attempt to establish a siege mentality in the dressing room, an us against the world state of mind, often a powerful psychological and motivational tool at a mangers disposal. José Mourinho is perhaps its finest exponent.


But in this instance, Hodgson has chosen the lump hammer instead of the chisel. The players know they are playing badly. On that basis, they also know the criticism to be justified. There is nothing to be gained by the manager's insistence that Liverpool face a predicament and not a crisis. 


He bookends the last statement with a declaratory we're in deep shit, but we are facing the challenge head on, when stating that the team are not 'disguising' or 'denying' the task in front of them. But that is exactly what he is doing. An analyst might refer to this as classic denial. "You may argue, being Liverpool, the predicament is even greater."


Hodgson's Liverpool are in a critical condition. His statements neglect the reality. His team lack cohesion, his players lack belief, not in themselves, but in his system, a system which has marginalised Fernando Torres. They are as leaderless on the field as they are in the dressing room. Joe Cole has yet to deliver anything other than huff and puff, while Alberto Aquilani continues his end of last season form on loan at Juventus. Paul Konchesky, has demonstrated that he is a poor replacement for the promising youngster Emiliano Insua, who has proven to be no more culpable on Liverpool's left flank than his vastly more experienced and higher paid usurper. Christian Poulsen is quite simply dreadful.


Hodgson's remarks are disingenuous. I am not suggesting he is a liar, merely that pressure and resultant stress warps our view. The scale and importance of the Liverpool's manager job is not measured by a 7th place finish last season (what would Liverpool supporters give for that this season?). Liverpool managers must contend with the infinite echo of the past. The tradition of success, the lionised predecessors and tragedies engrained in the psyche of the club inflates the position of LFC beyond market value or league position. At Anfield, reasonably or not, you are expected to win.


Hodgson's pallid team are a reflection of his inconsistent tone and uninspiring language. 'To get a result here would have been Utopia,' said the Liverpool manager following Liverpool's first derby defeat since 2006. 'I can only analyse the performance. There is no point trying to analyse dreams.'


It is comforting to know that Roy does indeed dream. In analysing his own performance, perhaps Hodgson should, in future, encourage his players to dream; to break the bonds of fear that his own unimaginative and meek tenure has fostered.

Are Ireland Trapped?

In the wake of such capitulation - not a surrendering of the heart but of the mind - having borne witness to the collapse of the established playing system as a viable winning (or as the emphasis suggests, not losing) option when playing teams of the highest seeding, there was, in the fleeting afterglow of Aviva, as the phoenix, a thought arisen from the ashes of despair, a moment when one allowed oneself to dream; of another way.


The withdrawal of Kevin Doyle, through injury, fostered an environment which allowed this embryonic notion to fully form.


McGeady infield off strikier Fahey-Whelan-Gibson Coleman to right-back O'Shea to centre what's that young left-back's name?4-2-3-1 4-3-2-1 4-2-2-1-1 4-1-2-2-1...


Wait.


The withdrawal of Kevin Doyle. Through injury.


Drop Robbie Keane? Play him deep?


And then it was gone. Kevin Doyle, a cliff face pummelled by two seas; on one side, his team mates, barrage him, in wave-like relentlessness with mediocrity, and he enacting Bethsaida, converts these bankrupt, frightened punts into field position, set pieces opportunities, go-forward momentum and above all sweet relief. From the other side he is kicked, elbowed, kneed, pushed and pulled; a great big fixed target. Is it any surprise he is injured?


Robbie Keane cannot play the solo role. Nor can he, in my opinion play a deeper role - akin to Gerrard under Benitez - as his style of play is that of a predatory striker and thus his runs are always away from the ball and towards goal. He is not a link man nor is he a creator. Failing that, can you drop your captain and record goalscorer? Can you leave out a player of his quality, when quality is what we are crying out for? Probably not.


Is it worth jeopardising the stability that Trapattoni has brought, that his system has brought, to an Irish team that was desperate for stability, in the wake of successive deteriorating campaigns from Kerr to Staunton? Probably not.


So four-four-two it shall remain. Trapattoni argues the aforementioned system is the one best suited to the players at his disposal. Perhaps it is, but is Il Trap picking the right players to best extrapolate from his conservatism, a way of retaining possession thus alleviating defensive rigours, or an attack strategy focused on creating rather than being hostages to fortune, relying on opponents' back-line errors - which become increasingly unlikely when Shay Given becomes your play-maker-in-chief - and the extent of your rival's defensive duties is heading away, long straight balls,unsophisticatedly launched in the general direction of Richard Dunne?


The problem I have with that is; he's not picking the best players available to him. Players that would improve the unfashionable, two in the middle, two up-top routine, such as James McCarthy and Andy Reid, are not in the squad. Ireland's formation causes the wide-men, most recently McGeady and Lawrence, to come infield as reinforcements for the outrun central duo.This invites opposition full-backs to circumvent the midfield, attacking with impunity, safe in the knowledge that O'Shea and Kilbane offer no threat of their own. Kilbane, who became such a liability at left-back in the World Cup qualifiers has been neutered, and as an attacking outlet, he has been sacrificed in favour of positional certainty, as if he zonally marks our left defensive flank the whole game, regardless of how it is actually unfolding.


At right-back, in green, John O'Shea is a different prospect to the one we see turned out weekly in Manchester red. At centre-back, where he has played well with Dunne for Ireland, he offers us more footballing ability than St. Ledger and is quite simply a player of higher calibre, even at centre-back. Drafting Coleman to the right is a more penetrative attacking option. As earlier stated, left-back is a genuine weakness and has been for some time. That Trapattoni failed to meaningfully examine alternatives, is a black mark against the Italian. His selection policy belies his expertise, in midfield for example, Paul Green is not international standard. Technically he is as poor as he is positionally.


For a team like Ireland, the belief is expounded by some, that success must come at a cost. The price we are asked to pay is football.


All that's left to ask is: what is football worth to you?

THIS IS AN AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED RESPONSE

Dear [insert name here], thank you for your comment. As a full-time professional top-flight fantasy football manager, Mr. Pronounced_Kwan does not have time to respond personally to all correspondence. However if you would like to include a photograph of yourself and your measurements, he may be glad to get back to you.


IF YOU ARE A MAN: DISREGARD 

The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 4

As a top-flight fantasy football manager, you may scoff, or roll your eyes, or bang your head against your keyboard on reading my weekly whinge, comparing my lot, to that of my material, reality-based contemporaries. My problems rank lowly on the wider social scale, I grant you. But plaiting players' trimmed pubic hair, in order to reduce the escalating sweeping-brush re-weaving costs, is a thankless task, and I think you will agree, a valid gripe.


Some amongst my peers, who snobbishly refer to themselves as actual managers, claim to envy me and my kin. They point to the guaranteed 100 million we spend at the start of each season, but overlook how every August, we must rebuild our squads from the ground up and have no money to facilitate the day-to-day operating costs of a top-flight fantasy club - I pay my players with Tea Time Express cakes. The Chocolate Sandwich being the most coveted.


Football folk love to complain - fans, managers and players alike. Just last week, one of the boys came to my office seeking my council. Admittedly, we got off to a bad start, as he walked face first into my glass pane sliding door (I like to give the impression that I'm one of those managers, whose door is always open, but in fact I can't stand most of the whiny brats). Once the smelling salts had done their work, he proceeded to unburden himself   - "I can't bring myself to make love to my pregnant wife, my dog keeps trying to lick my balls. Should I let him?.. blah, blah, blah." In the great tradition of King Solomon, I recommended he smear some Pedigree Chum on his wife's knickers and stop being such a tightwad and splash out on a hooker. You can't always put others first, I told him.


Some ten minutes later, having resuscitated him for the second time, I decided to put one of those marks, that folks who live in high-rise apartments, put on their windows to stop birds flying into them.


By now, most of the lads had gone to join their International squads, in preparation for the coming Euro 2012 qualifiers. With this lull in activity, I decided to settle back in my Concorde Executive Chair - with eight-motor pulsar massage system and built-in happy-ending technology - and occupy myself browsing the web (ahem).  I had only just set the massage control wand to my desired configuration, when the door slid back and Doughnut, my assistant, threw a copy of The Sun down on my desk. I thought it was just another instance of him anticipating my every need, until he thumbed through the paper, past page three and settled on an article with the headline:

"I feel sorry for Gillett 'n [sic] Hicks"

My heart sank (and that wasn't all), as my mind grappled with the words, Harry Redknapp and columnist. As I scrolled deeper and deeper into this repugnant bilge, from; "[a]ll they seem to have done is plough a fortune into the place and they stand to lose a fortune when they sell it," to the concluding piffle; "I'd love to know what the two Americans have done that is so wrong," every shard of his credibility disintegrates, until it is nothing more than a toxic pulverulent, to be greedily snorted by the moronic footballing status quo.


All this from a man, who has left in his wake, category 5 shit-storm levels of financial destruction, from Bournemouth to Portsmouth and back again. Some of you out there will see this as nothing more than a personal attack. Some of you may point to 'Arry landing the Nintendo Wii commercials at my expense (by falsely claiming that it was he who first introduced Wii Fit training regimes at club level, when I had done it at Quannegowes the season before) as the catalyst for this tirade. The Swiss Ramble is far more comprehensive and analytical in its determinations. For those of you who love football (and have an IQ above 75) I urge you to reject the unquestioning, vegetative and asinine tabloid culture that blights our understanding and the development of football in this country.

The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 3

The world of top-flight professional football, my world, often resembles the school yard. My mother used to say, "boys will be boys" and accepting this adage is vital, unless one enjoys reclining and blubbering, at £200 an hour, at the club brothel (the club also charges us for the use of the psychic and tarot facilities).  Over time one learns not to register surprise at the sordid depths the boys plunge to when trying to outdo one another in the my turd is bigger than your turd stakes. But of all the perversions of this life - the idiocy, the greed, the grotesque wealth - nothing dismays me more than the most abominable of school yard characters, that of the bully. 


It was only a matter of time before Arsene Wenger reached his breaking point, in a fashion akin to the Michael Douglas character, 'D-Fens' in Falling Down. Le Professeur snapped during The Gunners' draw at the Stadium of Light, where he lashed out, in a tirade of slender finger pointing (some reports suggest he went as far as poking), at the fourth official in the wake of Sunderland's late equaliser. Now it doesn't take an empathetic prostitute to notice the tell tale signs of a man on the brink. Psychologically that is.


This is the point in our drama where the audience hiss and boo, as stage-left, the villains of the piece enter. Sam Allardyce, a long-standing foe of Wenger's and Owen Coyle, relatively new to the big leagues and perhaps concerned for his celebrity, in a seemingly coordinated attack, put in a headlock, noogied and wedgied the Frenchman. (Sue, the club's solicitor, insists that I make clear I am speaking figuratively. Ms Yuras doesn't do metaphor).


Coyle, in the wake of a failed attempt to overturn the red card Gary Cahill received for a tackle on Marouane Chamakh, called Wenger a 'two-faced whinger.' Cahill's suspension, coupled with injuries to Vermaelan and Dawson have left me with only two fit defenders for the game this week. Coyle's defence at the hearing was that Cahill's two-footed lunge at Chamakh was as a result of him slipping on a banana skin placed in his path by Wenger. Coyle taking his role seriously even trotted out the timeless, if he's got something to say he can 'say it to my face.' 


Allardyce, who this week stated he 'enjoys jousting' with Wenger, hit-out with this observation:

"Arsene has most of the media in his pocket now and is almost - almost - affecting the officials so that you can't tackle an Arsenal player." 

Almost? So Big Sam is saying that Wenger is not affecting the officials. I'm sure the irony is not lost on most of you that this, by Allardyce, is his own attempt at manipulating referees. 


I am using this forum to jump to the aid of Arsene, not just because, I have three of his players on my books. Nor because he is capable of having a conversation without including the phrase, "pull my finger." And not because, like him, I am an educated man (I have a degree in Retail Floristry). Whatever you think about Wenger, he is an articulate, thoughtful guy and football all too often celebrates stupidity. 


As an Irishman working in England, I am cognisant of the insecurities of domestic managers, relating to their mistrust of their foreign counterparts. But we are not here to take the testosterone out of their not-so-beautiful-game. Craig Burley, on Radio 5 Live, complained that he has tired of Wenger "whinging" about tackles his players receive - because if we're not careful the good ol' leg break will disappear from our game forever, Craig?. 


Chestnuts such as, "he's not that kind of player" or "there was nothing malicious in it" dilute the agency of players and their duty of care to one another, to at the very least, not threaten the career of a fellow professional when trying to win the ball back. I for one (or two if you count Wenger) believe, in England, more emphasis should be placed on not giving the ball away in the first place, thus reducing the desperation that is prevalent in the majority of dangerous tackles. You know, my mother always said that I was a dreamer. I guess that makes this the stuff of fantasy.


P.S. For those of you interested in a career as a florist, the Retail Floristry program is offered through Mississippi State University (PDF).

The Stuff of Fantasy - Week 2

International week is upon us. This is what it must feel like when your kids all head off to college and your home, in all its emptiness, suddenly feels like a stranger's house. I liken it to the aftermath of a tornado, one moment you are in the midst of chaos, the next, an eerie vacuum. No shouting, no slapping of arses, no pinning Lucas down and farting in his eye and no Pavlyuchenco leading the boys in a chorus of Iron Maiden's Mother Russia. 


As I write this, sitting alone in the vacated dressing room, among discarded bottles of Olay's all over body moisturiser, reflecting on our 42 point haul for this week, again I am left to ponder what could have been.


What if N'Zogbia had played? I knew what I was getting myself in for when I signed him. Only last week, with the aid of a colour wheel, I spent an hour convincing him that our kit was fuchsia, and not bufty-pink as The Sun, that morning had referred to it. But this week our kit manufacturer wanted to try something new and it was the final straw for Charlie.


To some, Ann Summers as kit manufacturer came out of left field, but after long and rigorous negotiations 'Pilot Girl' and 'Gangster Girl' convinced me that ours was a union that would revolutionise the way clubs and their sponsors did business long into the future. I don't know what his problem is, Doyler didn't seem to mind.

I explained to the boys that the benefits are two-fold. Firstly, the reduction in the amount of fabric used to make the shorts is a real money saver and secondly the ladies love it, in fact we are considering a female replica jersey based on a similar principal. 

N'Zogbia committed the cardinal sin in football. He refused to play for his team. I told him that his behaviour disgusted me and that he'd be better off playing for the other side. He stormed out, but I didn't have that luxury - I had a game to prepare for. We went out there and gave it our best. We remain first and second in The League of Gentlemen and Mayo Div3a (South) respectively. The shorts had their good points, for one, the opposition were reluctant to mark us tightly at set-pieces, but some of the boys suffered horrendous grass burns.

As a top-flight fantasy football manager, I don't have much time to socialise. We are a privileged few and among my contemporaries there are those I call friend. In times of need, I am a shoulder or an ear or any other anatomical part they need me to be (though with Rafa it was often one of the latter. Glad to see the back of him, when he left for Inter that is). 

For example, in my post match glass of Chablis with 'Arry, he was very upset. In an interview he had just done with Sky Sports News, the reporter had referred to him as a 'wheeler and dealer' to which 'Arry promptly told him to 'f@!k off'. But what the reporter didn't know, which 'Arry subsequently confided in me, is that his wife actually ran-off with a used-car sales man. He told me how on the day she left, his missus wished 'Arry "could've been more like Bob (the used-car salesman)." Ten minutes later the door bell rang and she was back at the front door. Their car had broken down on the way to Bob's house and 'Arry, so hurt, so vulnerable, so emasculated, vowed to be ever the wheeler-dealer, if she would give him a second chance. And as Harold was no more, 'Arry was born. 

We sat together for some time after that, silent but for the occasional sob, digesting his harrowing tale. I asked what he thought of our new kit, and 'Arry slapped me in the face.

The Stuff of Fantasy

Being the manager of a fantasy football team is not all it's cracked up to be. Sure, I get to chew gum until my jaw seizes up and I enjoy the post match managerial Chateauneuf du Pape and cheese as much as the next guy, but it's the work the press don't see, the wet Monday mornings after a defeat at Bolton (poor Bolton, the perennial footballing metaphor for gloom), dealing with a Didier Drogba (or Double-D as we call him, because he's a big tit) tantrum after he's lost yet another arm wrestling match to Kevin Doyle, or luring Scotty Parker into the rain, assuring him that Dapper Dan is not toxic and that his hair is just like Cary Grant's in The Philadelphia Story. Yes, the modern fantasy football manager is part psychologist, part building foreman.


It's fair to say that, pre-season, my focus was not entirely on football. I had to oversee, nay, project manage the construction of new training facilities, on a scant budget, as we squandered most of said allocation on a state of the art telekinetic tattoo parlour, whereby a player can change his tattoos merely by thinking them into being. Not any easy task for most footballers. The thinking that is. It was a precondition of several players when signing for Quannegowes. A modern fantasy football manager is also part blacksmith and must forge a cohesive identity in the furnace of teamwork and hammer out ego and division on the anvil of togetherness.


In spite of these difficulties, week 1 went well enough - 74 points, which meant we topped the League of Gentlemen and were a strong second in Mayo Div3a (South), regarded as one of the more competitive divisions of south Mayo, long the bedrock of Association Football in the Wesht.


Week 2, however, failed to maintain the momentum we worked so hard to build the previous week. Perhaps my inexperience told - it is after all only my second season as a fantasy football team manager - when I missed the deadline by which my team must be submitted; Saturday morning 1130BST. This meant that we lined up with the injured Mark Schwarzer in goal and Roman Pavlyuchenko up front, garnering no points, with the fit again Kevin Doyle occupying a place on the bench, again earning no points. Actually bench is an exaggeration, blanket would be more apt (like I said money is tight).


By the time the players arrive from their clubs, it's all I can do to remember their names let alone find the time to train. One of the players turned up on Saturday in a tizzy, as a tabloid was preparing to expose a dark, potentially career ending secret. You see, Scholesy, as we'll call him for the sake of anonymity, is a fully fledged tofu packer, he doesn't even eat rashers. He was in a right ol' state, so I told him the only thing to do was beat the red tops to the punch. So that morning, rather hurriedly, we arranged a press conference - a few paps and a camera crew - to film Scholesy slaughtering a cow with his bare hands and then feasting on the carcass. You should've seen him go, he used his shin-guard to scoop out those innards with more table manners than most footballers can manage eating their spaghetti hoops with a knife and fork. It was an unabridged success and a great weight was lifted from the Ginger General's shoulders. I like to think I had a hand in his wonderful performance against Fulham, where he scored a 25-yard screamer. Like I said earlier; part psychologist. If Lucas spent less time on Twitter and more time on the training ground he might be in my team, instead it's his job to fold the blankets.


In the next installment of The Stuff of Fantasy I will outline how some of the players took more convincing than others of the difference between fuchsia and pink.

Premier League: Week 1

A review of the opening round of Premier League fixtures leaves us bereft of any notable conclusions or foresight as to the likely outcome of the season ahead. What determinations can be made have been self-evident for some time. Yet again, Paul Scholes reminded us that he is the the finest English midfielder of his generation. What difference would he have made to an English team at the World Cup, devoid of guile, rhythm or the most basic ability to keep possession of the ball? 

Against Newcastle United at Old Trafford on Monday night, the weight, angle, speed and range of his passing, time and again, turned the Magpies' defence and put the home side on the front foot. If not for some wayward finishing by both Rooney and Berbatov, the winning margin would have been more than the final scoreline of 3-0. Again this year the Red Devils look strong and in Scholes they have a player who can genuinely dictate play from midfield. However this level of dependency on a 35-year-old (36 in November) and an out-of-form Wayne Rooney leaves a question mark over United's chances come, what Ferguson might term, 'squeeky bum time'.

The show piece game from the opening weekend was undoubtedly Liverpool at home to Arsenal. The Gunners, without the talismanic Fabregas, dominated possession but lacked penetration and real attacking purpose. A noticeable change in Arsenal's offensive exploits was their willingness, if not eagerness, to cross the ball from wide positions. This, no doubt, is due to the presence of a more orthodox target man in Marouane Chamakh. 

Liverpool, for their part, began tentatively and were unable to mount enough phases of play to genuinely trouble the Londoner's defence and therefore lacked cohesion going forward. Gerrard, playing in a central midfield role alongside Mascherano, offered more creativity than was served up last season when Lucas Leiva often partnered the Argentine. However, as is so often Gerrard's failing when given the responsibility of central midfield, he lacks the patience and cunning to unlock defences. With every pass he tries to play a killer pass. One of his greatest assets is his unpredictability which in the final third of the field can be key. However in this deep lying role he frequently leaves Liverpool stretched and stuttering as they try to overcome the inertia that blighted many of last season's performances. 

Having said that, early in the game Gerrard played three excellent mid to long range passes onto which David N'Gog was offside. Thereafter, Vermaelen and the impressive debutant Koscielny merely sat deeper and nullified the threat. Joe Cole's league debut ended prematurely after he was sent off for a rash tackle on Koscielny. It was the sort of tackle from a player trying to make something happen having seen the game largely pass him by as Samir Nasri asserted himself over Liverpool's new number 10. Cole will now serve a three match suspension which may give the likes of Alberto Aquilani a starting berth, though it is more likely that Lucas will partner Mascherano with Gerrard advancing up field. Liverpool, as so often under Benitez, showed great character when reduced to 10 men and coupled with an excellent defensive performance, Hodgson's Liverpool played with more fluidity in attack in what has now become Liverpool's standard 4-2-3-1 formation.

In the other big game of the weekend, Spurs were held scoreless by Manchester City, thanks largely to a man-of-the-match performance from Joe Hart, who has usurped Shay Given as City's number one. This game was particularly revealing from a Manchester City point of view. Firstly, we are reminded of Mancini's innate conservatism, setting his team up to not lose rather than to win. Arguably he has at his disposal the strongest Premier League squad of all, though that presents its own problems given the relatively short space of time in which this squad was assembled. The team needs time to 'gel' and whilst they are a collection of superb individuals, a top four finish may be too much to ask this season. 

Tottenham on the other hand do look like a decent team. In Luka Modric, they have one of the league's outstanding talents and one hopes Redknapp is the man to utilise them. On Wednesday night Spurs playing away to Young Boys of Switzerland came from 3-0 down to lose 3-2 in the first leg of their Champions League qualifier. One wonders if they have played their get out of jail free card too early in the season. If Tottenham do manage to overcome the first leg deficit one may also question their ability to successfully juggle both a Premier and Champions League campaign. I say this not merely in terms of the question mark over the quality of their squad depth but also the mental fortitude required to succeed on both fronts. Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool have done this over a number of seasons and is perhaps a skill that has been acquired over time (when the Premier League was not as competitive), and one fears that Spurs' eye may be taken off the ball (ahem, pun intended).

Chelsea began the defence of their title in headline grabbing fashion with a 6-0 drubbing of newly promoted West Bromwich Albion. The game itself tells us more about WBA's chances in the season ahead than it does about Chelsea's. West Brom manager Roberto di Matteo lined his team up in an aggressive 4-2-3-1 formation and if not for the concession of an early goal after a mistake by goalkeeper Scott Carson who knows how the game would have gone. After all, as the mantra goes, 'goals change games.' It was a harsh lesson for di Matteo in his first top-flight match as coach, but if your players are not good enough to compete with the opposition then the system must take up the slack. As for Chelsea, the return of Michael Essien to midfield and a fit Didier Drogba make them formidable contenders on all domestic and European fronts.

The departure of Martin O'Neill from Aston Villa met with mixed responses from Villa fans, with some pointing to Saturday's 3-0 victory over West Ham as proof that O'Neill's structured approach was suffocating. However season after season O'Neill's rigid or patterned approach has borne fruit and it must be noted that West Ham, whilst retaining the services of Green, Parker and Carlton Cole were shambolic. This too will be the season where the question mark that hangs over Avram Grant's abilities as a top manager will finally be answered.

The last word in this piece must go to Blackpool, who pre-season were largely touted as this years whipping boys and a sure thing to go straight back to the Championship. Their 4-0 defeat of Wigan confounded those critics and leaves one to wonder if Wigan are really that bad or if this is merely a continuation of the opposite extremes they displayed last year - good one week, awful the next. The reported bust up between manager Martinez and star player Charles N'Zogbia is further evidence that all is not well with the Latics.

"According to The Irish Times poll of last weekend, [m]ore than 60 per cent did not want Kenny as taoiseach [sic] and 65 per cent said they didn’t want Cowen as Taoiseach." - Vincent Browne.

I'd like to see a follow-up question, such as, "is there any politician you'd like to see as Taoiseach?" If 50 per cent said "no, they're all a shower of b@$!#rds," I would not be surprised. In a poll such as this, the questions asked (or not asked) are equally as important as the answers given. For example, why don't you want Cowen to be Taoiseach? Because of his mishandling of the economy and the banking sector. Reasonable enough. However if asked, why don't you want Kenny to be Taoiseach, and the answer comes back, em...there's just something about him. He seems like a nice fella but...you know... Sarah Carey in the Irish Times is more succinct in her analysis when she says the Fine Gael problem is one of "conveying an air of authority without actual authority."


Voters in Ireland don't vote for a Taoiseach. Polls in opposition are personality contests and Enda Kenny's inability or unwillingness to woo the post-Bertie electorate, is his (perceived) Achilles heel. The electorate is a like scorned lover. That smooth-talking, snake charmer, Ahern, broke our hearts but we still want a bad boy.


Another factor to consider is if 65 per cent of those polled did not want Cowen as Taoiseach and when asked about Kenny, that same question results in a differential of only 5 per cent, one is left to wonder; are these the sort of opinions we should be taking seriously. After all as Vincent Browne went on to write in his Irish Times column of Brian Cowen:

More than any other person, possibly with the exception of Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen bears responsibility for both the economic collapse and the banking collapse. The recent revelation he interfered with the financial regulator in the latter’s attempt to get bank directors to sign statements of compliance with proper bank practice is, itself, devastating to his credibility, that is if he had any credibility left to be devastated.

If Bruton becomes leader the irony of such an outcome is that, as the past few days have shown, he is not nearly as savvy a political operator as Kenny has proven to be. Bruton and his camp have behaved like a teenage boy, who moments after a first kiss with a beautiful girl (way out of your league) clumsily and in a panic (thinking, this may never happen again), gropes her breast, much to her dismay. She gets up and leaves (probably with Kenny).


The Irish Times have a formidable reputation and illustrious history but a poll, such as this, is self-serving. It makes the news and as such undermines their journalistic independence. One could argue that the challenge to Kenny's leadership has arisen because he doesn't sell enough newspapers. He's not box-office enough. Vincent Browne ends his column by writing that no matter what the outcome of the FG power struggle "the charade of what we call democracy would persist." Is it democracy that a poll in a newspaper and the subsequent inflated and reactionary views of some of its journalists, sets the terms by which our (potential) leaders are measured?

BREAKING NEWS.....Ha, made you look!

Perhaps, it was post-election fatigue. Thanks to Twitter my index finger was, for a few weeks, in a state of cat-like readiness and is now permanently crooked, for optimal Twittering. Let's ignore the obvious feline evolutionary oversight; the index finger, and the inability of cats to type (generalisation) and focus on the crux of the metaphor: Tweeting in an illness, not a verb. Tweeting is apprehension. Tweeting is the need to be involved, to be heard, to be retweeted.


Watching the UK leaders' televised debates, I was merely a conduit for information. Through me it flowed, in real time, to the wider world, or to no one. Only later when I reviewed my tweets (does that sound dirty?) of the debates, was I able to formulate an opinion of who the winners were and who the ultimate loser was destined to be. I noted how different my conclusions seemed to be from the consensus. In the first debate, I thought Clegg's staring directly into the camera was creepy, I tweeted as much, but most made him the clear winner. Maybe I'm just not the hypnotising type. Look into my eyes...


I felt completely at one with Twitter during the election. Day after day, zinger after zinger, such as, "Cameron gets egged. Poor guy, last week he got Clegged!" or during the second debate, "Clegg: 'can we move beyond this political points scoring?' Someone should remind him where he is." I was at one with the world, a disharmonious voice in the chorus but a voice all the same. Into the infinite chasm, along with the chattering, tittering, twittering, the insightful and the snide, I cast something of myself. My message in a bottle, in a sea full of them, unsure if mine will ever wash up on some far off shore.


And then there was silence. Near silence. There were whispers and the odd light-bulb flickered into being, to cast a feint hue over the dark and largely vacant recesses of my mind. Perhaps it was a Yeatsian desertion. Perhaps they have all gone on holiday, it is the summer after all and thoughts and words and index fingers need rest.


Daily, global news stories broke. Sky News for example hardly had to repeat themselves from minute to minute as environmental disaster, political scandal and a military offensive against civilians ensured that  'Breaking News:', in alarmist yellow and black, kept us fixated. But I was powerless. All I could do was just sit there....and watch. No tweeting, no blogging, no facebooking. It was like I had gone back to the twentieth century. The pre-socionetworking, pre-fat-ass-ic period. Not quite the dark ages, I grant you. More of a gloaming.


Real people, with real names are so last decade. In another decade's time will this generation of social networkers name their children, @problogger Smith, or Jessica @applejuicesnap Murphy?


The good news is, I am recovering well. I kept my index finger elevated and my opinions to myself and who knows, someone, somewhere may even have noticed my absence. In Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Zaphod Beeblebrox is subjected to the torturous Total Perspective Vortex (TPV).

"When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here."

Sound familiar? Twitter feeds the twenty-four hour news cycle, unfortunately it's a diet of mostly cheeseburgers and deep-fried Mars bars. It's not Breaking News, it's broken.

An Irishman, a Frenchman and a Japanese Physicist walk in to an (English) bar

Yesterday, the leader of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), Nick Griffin, outlined his party's immigration policy. When asked to expand on their manifesto pledge that Britain should be a "non-immigration country," he elaborated, "the doors are going to be shut because Britain is full, we're the most overcrowded country in Europe."


Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme he lamented, "while we'd actually rather today be talking about the economy as the other leaders are going to be, we're very pleased to talk about immigration because what we're saying is what the British people think." All of them? Why bother collecting polling data when you can mind read?


When asked who the doors would be shut to, Griffin responded "to everybody...unless" and then went on to outline some circumstances where immigration would be welcomed:


"We've got a policy to create a whole new generation of British built nuclear power plants... if for that we've got to import a Japanese physicist and let him come here with his family then we'll let them come."


I wonder will people queue all night outside HMV to get their hands on the first shipment of Japanese physicists?


But when asked, what if other countries reciprocate by closing their doors to Britons, Griffin replied, "the last thing I saw, there wasn't a queue of Brits wanting to go to Albania or Somalia." Huh? The former a country whose GDP is 25% of the European average and the latter a country ravaged by civil war.


So to clarify Griffin's position, "Japanese physicists."  Good. "Polish plumbers" and "Afghan refugees." Bad.


Today presenter Sarah Montague countered, "but [British] people might want to go live in France, they might want to go live in Ireland."


"We are certainly not going to shut the doors to the Irish because as far as we are concerned the Irish are part of Britain and are fully entitled to come here. And France doesn't have that many people coming to Britain. The people that come to Britain from France are usually people like the Japanese physicist I mentioned earlier who are actually contributing to our society."


In case you're wondering the phrase to note is "as far as we are concerned."


All this reminds me of a joke I heard once, an Irishman, a Frenchman and a Japanese Physicist walk in to a bar....