The lesser-spotted Ewarwoowar

Having digested this witty and erudite blog, which one of the people in this video of perverts tennis fans is a gentleman by the name of Ewarwoowar?

Blogfriends

Firstly, a massive happy birthday to Cynical Ben. He's a git, but he's my git. It's also Zoot Horn's birthday - the coolest man in the Black Country.

Secondly, huge thanks to Ewar and Dan. They ran a sweepstake on the World Cup, and I won - despite not supporting Spain. They just called in with my prize, and I must say that they've done themselves proud. Everything a gentleman-about-town might want is in the box - a shoe box decorated with Panini World Cup stickers -  (or, everything Ewar and Dan didn't want). Plus an England flag.

(They apparently have a great new 'project' in the pipeline, so look out for it).

So:
The Loon, by Tapes n Tapes
The Dead 60s by The Dead 60s
The Killers' Sam's Town
About What You Know by Little Man Tate
The Best of the Secret Policeman's Ball Part 2 (from The Guardian)
A Stereophonics sampler from The Sun, packaged in a West Midlands Police recruitment box.
A Daily Mail cover-mounted DVD of Relative Values, a notoriously bad film.
DVDs of John Motson's Greatest Ever Matches of Football and Mark and Lard's Football Nightmares
Graham Betts' Greatest Moments of Football book ('22 of the Classic Moments of FOOTBALL')
A. M. Homes's This Book Will Save Your Life
Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth
H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds
Naked Camera 3 DVD
Paddy McGuinness Live DVD ('Free Ringtone worth £3 - SEE INSIDE FOR DETAILS')
Gary Lineker's Favourite Football Stories (perhaps my favourite)
and a packet of table tennis balls. Of course.

Ben is going to be sooooo jealous. I'm a fortunate man.

Tony Pulis, Class Traitor?

I return from my union meeting with another job - co-signatory on the funds. Not, unfortunately, a great opportunity for embezzlement: last year we bought a kettle.

I've had sport on my mind today. Last night I went to the university's fencing club, desperate to hit someone, only to find that it's been abolished by the students' union without regard for the democratic niceties: the union's disgraceful financial incompetence and slavish devotion to the university's management trump such details. It's a real shame: before I resigned as coach over a year ago, I acquired £5000 of new kit for them… sigh.

Later in the evening, I declined the opportunity to manage the England junior team for the School Games - I'm already the Games' Welfare Officer for my sport. Maybe next year.

Then, Ewar sends me a link to a very amusing and ideologically correct blog entry on my beloved Stoke City. You can tell it's clever and true because Ewar, blinded by his hatred for anything leftwing, describes it as 'bollocks'. In this piece, the author explains why the manager's defence of Ryan Shawcross's devastating tackle is 'pernicious' because it seks to explain the actions of the worker on an individualistic level (intention to hurt, in this case) rather than in structural terms (i.e. the system requires potentially dangerous behaviour because the alternative is to lose): it's classic Marxism. Stumbling and Bumbling earns a place on my blogroll for mixing football and Marxist politics.

Books, sweet, sweet books

The five day book drought's over. Emma presented me with a sports book that even Ewarwoowar won't have read - Michéal O'Muircheartaigh's bilingual memoir of Ireland and being GAA's most famous commentator.

Also, I called into The Works today and accidentally bought five of the six special Bill Amberg designed Penguin Classics special editions, in soft loose leather with a box (The Great Gatsby, A Room With A View, Brideshead Revisited, The Big Sleep and A Picture of Dorian Gray). They're absolutely beautiful and a snip at £6.99 instead of £50. I just need Breakfast at Tiffany's to complete the decadent set.

Popular Culture rears its ugly head

Ewarwoowar, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular culture, is on about children's TV today - nostalgics should head over there. I didn't watch much, but must admit to enjoying Press Gang on many levels.

That's by the by: what I meant to mention was that Ewarwoowar directs our attention to Garfield Minus Garfield. I always hated Garfield - one-joke nonsense. Someone has a lazy, greedy cat. Garfield Minus Garfield, however, is wonderful. Without the recurrently lame punchline, there's a minimalist, Zen-like and even poignant quality to his owner's life which is entirely lacking in the original. Is this one of the rare cases (perhaps Cheers/Frasier) where the 'remix' or pastiche transcends the original? I definitely think this qualifies as art.

Something else to annoy Ewarwoowar

Quick break between meetings. Further to my comments on police behaviour, here's a much better writer looking at the big picture: George Monbiot. It's turning into quite a big story.

(Sorry, Ewar, I'm only teasing you!)

Backsliding

OK, I didn't plan to touch Plashing Vole until Monday (even God rested on the 7th day), but the computer's on and constructive alignment theory doesn't appeal one little bit. Maybe later. Instead, I've read three books this weekend (a biography of Melita Norwood badly written but highly informative), Adam Roberts's Swiftly (riproaring but also thoughtful steampunk SF with a side-order of weird sex), and Mary McCarthy's The Groves of Academe, a slow novel about a seedy academic trying to disguise his inadequacies as political and personal honour. I am a fan of campus novels, though real life as an academic is much less interesting than the fiction. Perhaps a book that went 'lectured, marked, marked, slept, drank too much, went home alone as usual, marked, marked, marked, lectured, died' wouldn't fly off the shelves.

Stoke lost to Fulham yesterday, as I suspected would happen. We still need a few more points to guarantee safety, but it should be OK (congratulations, FINALLY, to Ewarwoowar for predicting a Stoke result correctly). Meanwhile, Tony Pulis is replicating our middle-table form at the London Marathon. Triffic!