....And for that reason, I'm out.

Just a few days until Christmas then, this will probably be my last post of the year.
Firstly, I'd like to wish all of you out there a happy Christmas and good new year, and I hope you get whatever it is you really desire the most as your christmas gift. I'd also like to say "Thank you" to the followers and readers of my blogs, I've no idea why you read my ramblings - but I'm very grateful that you do.
Finally, -and I realize that this isn't really the thing to do- but when you're full of food and a bit drunk on Christmas Day, try and have a bit of a think about those who aren't as lucky as you.

Have a good time and stay safe everyone, Fizz. xx

The EDL

That's the English Defence League, if you're wondering. In the past few years, various far right groups have sprung up -mostly in the old Soviet Bloc countries and Russia itself- a few have even gained various minor forms of political office but mostly they were dismissed as racists with unnecessarily short haircuts and a bad attitude, you know, "if we ignore them, they'll go away" And by and large, they did go away, or at least, lost interest in their "cause" and faded into the background.
Great. All is well in the world.
Well...........no.
The far right has been experiencing an upturn in popularity in the past 18 months or so, with groups in Italy and France -whilst not being exactly what you would call prominent, they have definitely been making themselves heard, and making themselves known. And most worryingly, they've been gaining support. Which leads me to the EDL. When I first heard of these guys, maybe 18 months ago, they presented themselves as a non-violent organisation opposed to extremism in all it's forms. Sounds good, doesn't it? Ok, I had misgivings about the name and use of overly patriotic/nationalistic imagery -but I thought, you know, that was just me (I'm never one you could accuse of being overly nationalistic, I think it's a silly concept, frankly).

The reality of the EDL is somewhat different. Here's a member opposing extremism in all forms, and without the slightest hint of irony in his actions.

These idiots are nothing more than a rebranding of the old National Front, Nick Griffins foot soldiers.
The sad thing is, people are supporting these "people" and their actions, whether that's due to economic pressure, peer influences or good old fashioned stupidity, I don't know.  But if you're out there on the interweb and happen to run across this, look at that picture and ask yourself if he's who you want to associate yourself with.
Oh, by the way, there's also a Scottish Defence League. I won't be joining. They probably wouldn't want me anyway.

Not even a hint of comedy

Liz Hurley and Shane Warne

It's a bit of a strange one, isn't it? It's like Angelina Jolie dumping Brad Pitt and then hooking up with Willie Nelson. Or Keira Knightly professing her love for Michael Gambon. Something's not quite right here.
International supermodel and Austin Powers' squeeze going out with slightly chubby hair implant enthusiast. It doesn't make sense well, not on her behalf anyway-it makes perfect sense for Shane-o, if you forget for a minute that he's married.
What state is Liz Hurley in that she's with Warney? Surely she could do better than him?
I'm guessing that this'll end horribly -and very publicly- quite soon.

I have to go now, I'm waiting for Gwen Stefani to call.

"Bowled Shaaaane!"

Everton

As much as it pains me to say it, as things stand right now my beloved Everton are, to be frank, shit. On saturday we drew 0-0 at home to Wigan. Wigan for gods'sake! We dominated most of the play but couldn't score, Louis Saha seems uninterested, Jermaine Beckford isn't really good enough, and Yakubu, well he's Yakubu. Slightly......erm....rotund, lazy and half arsed -except for a couple of days a season where he looks like a cross between Didier Drogba and Zinedine Zidane- it looks like he wants out. So then, the simple answer is to buy a striker, a really good one. Well yes, it is. But there's one small problem. Everton don't have any money. Nothing. Nada, not a bean or a pot to piss in. Nothing.
So then, we are going to have to sell some players -plenty of candidates, Johnny Heitinga, the Russian with the unpronounceable name and the Yak- to buy one or two, or get in a loanee of some sort. Great.
Maybe we can convince Man City to let us have Carlos Tevez if we give them all 3 and any spare change Chairman Bill can find down the back of his Technicolor Dreamcoat. Yeah well, it's as realistic as Liverpool wanting to swap Torres for him.

Stop grinning, fool.

Short thoughts

Just in case anyone out there is unaware that the UK is currently in the midst of some quite cold weather, here's proof that even way down south in the -comparably-tropical-to-here- parts of the country that not all is as it should be.
Yesterday the RSPCA was called on to free a swan that had somehow managed to get its feet frozen to a driveway in London, a cow which had fallen over in Leighton Buzzard, and a horse trapped in 4 feet of frozen water in Lincolnshire. Oh, and 200 people have died in a landslide in Colombia, but that's nowhere near as newsworthy as a few cold animals, obviously.

"Where's Colombia?"

The world's 2nd most stupid football club has sacked their manager. The manager that got them back into top flight football on a shoestring budget. The manager that currently has them sitting reasonably comfortably around the middle of the premiership, the manager  that the players came out and pledged their support to. It's fine sacking a manager if the owner wants to, that's his choice. The unsavoury thing here is that the clearly held off giving Hughton a new contract to save themselves a few quid in severance payments. Classy as ever.

A pair of typical geordies

Now, not normally much occurring on Radio 4 -or any radio channel for that matter- but when a man with the startlingly appropriate name of James Naughtie makes an on-air gaffe concerning the Culture Secretary -a man called Jeremy Hunt, well, that get's my attention.

"Jeremy what?"

Press "play" http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/audio/2010/dec/06/james-naughtie-jeremy-hunt-radio-4

The World Cup

As you may or may not know, yesterday England dispatched the Prime Minister, David Beckham and an unemployed man from London called Billy to beg Fifa -an organization that isn't even slightly corrupt- to let them have the World Cup. It didn't go well.
Russia will be holding the 2018 World Cup, much to the chagrin of said trio.
Even by their own low standards, this was a poor show for an England team, who have pulled off the impressive feat of crashing out of a World Cup eight years before it even starts.
The British press haven't taken it particularly well, most of the headlines being along the lines of "WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAAAAAAAAAAAH"

In somewhat associated news, Australia weren't awarded the following World Cup either, as Fifa decided to give it to a collection of sand dunes in the Middle East. Which was nice.

"yeah, it's this size"