Real Cruelty in Imaginary Gardens

Is real. Thanks to the majesty of Virgin One, the genii that brought us the documentary about mechaphiles, essentially grown men who wank off on rusted bonnets, we get to see an actual documentary about a woman who is fully and completely in love with the remnants of the Berlin wall and the Eiffel Tower. And not in some half-hearted, uncommitted fashion – this lady was quite happy to publicly hitch up her smalls and rub herself damp upon the horny steel rivets of Paris’ most famous landmark. And there were kids present and everything.

Any kind of rationality for such activity was explained through through the woman’s admittedly hideous past of sexual abuse perpetrated on her as a child. But she could have at least had the decency to become a serial killer or something. Formulating sexual relationships with structures is just weird. Not in my name.

Any sort of sympathy that might exist when considering someone who is clearly desperately mentally ill was dissipated after her visit to the Checkpoint Charlie museum in Berlin, where she deemed it acceptable to compare her own personal suffering as something of a pariah to a level beyond that of the entire East German population stuck starving behind the wall for almost half a century.

It is a uniquely American form of narcissicism that brings a person to such a bizarre place – the American Dream dictates that anything is possible, including shagging buildings. It is a fallacy; the promise is that anyone can do anything, whereas in reality hardly anyone can do anything. And at the end of the day, it’s a fucking tower made out of steel.

I’m off to give Centrepoint a rimjob.

It was absolutely no surprise whatsoever that Manchester United brushed past Southampton this afternoon, reaching the fourth round of the FA Cup, with the ease of someone smearing some snot on the back of a seat on a bus. In the run up to the St Mary’s meeting, Southampton fans and the media had eagerly adopted the revisionist tactics employed by, amongst others, Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds, and most of England in 1996 and steadfastly ever since. People derive comfort from past glories, no matter how distant and increasingly irrelevant, as if consistently concentrating on the past will make the future turn out better. It’s the same principle as trusting psychics – anything is possible if you believe in bullshit.

This time around it was lowly Southampton FC’s admittedly rather extraordinary victory over the Red Devils at Wembley in 1976 that had everyone gazing back through time misty-eyed. That time, a young Bobby Stokes banged in an offside winner to send the Cup down the M27 for the first and only time in history. Could, pundits and idiots asked furiously, that happen again in 2008, albeit in the third round? Of course not. While a division seperated the teams in 1976 as well as today, the Saints are a team in free-fall, while Manchester United, albeit facing a tough title battle, have Dimitar Berbatov, Wayne Rooney et al on their books. There was only really ever one outcome.

Having said that, Southampton found themselves significantly hamstrung early on (not just because of not being as good as their opponents) after striker Matt Paterson was sent off for a two-footed tackle on Vidic, and then Mike Riley awarded Man Utd a dubious penalty, claiming David McGoldrick had handled in the area. So the young team got schooled, and it finished 3-0, with Berbatov taking a lot of time to get his bum out and slap it in the face of the Saints defence, in football terms at least.

The youth of their team is one of several vast problems facing Southampton. Today’s first eleven had the combined age of 260, with only Chris Perry and goalkeeper Kelvin Davis being over thirty. Now, having a team essentially made up of kids works well if you’re the Goonies, or the Lost Boys, or the Mighty Ducks, or the fucking Breakfast Club, but not when you’re a team mired in a dirty great relegation barney. The astoundingly hopeful predictions made by the local Southampton press, idiots fans and precisely no-one who knew anything, that the young team, under the “Total Football” leadership of affable but out-of-his-depth manager Jan Poortvliet, would be challenging fro promotion this season now sound nothing more than the babbled lunactic visions of madmen. Which they were.

And, of course, January brings with it the flinging open of the transfer window. And this means any of the Saints squad with a modicum of talent and ambition will be hightailing it out of St Marys and onto pastures new. The desperately cash-strapped club will be forced to scrape together any pennies they can before shuffling off miserably to the corner shop for a can of special, before repeating the sorry cycle all over again.  Although it’s looking increasingly likely this repetition will be taking place in League One.

The decline of a team who were once one of the longest serving in the top flight, who cheated death (well, relegation) thrillingly for many seasons, before looking like stabilizing in mid-table and then suffering the inevitable crash into the Championship, can be traced to the opening of St Mary’s in 2001. Leaving behind the beloved Dell, where I had sat in the front row level with the centre circle for five happy years, where I had seen the Saints put six past Manchester United, where I had seen Patrick Colleter end Gustavo Poyet’s career and where, somehow, I had seen both Francis Benali and Carlton Palmer score goals, the Saints relocated to their new 32,000 capacity new digs. Digs that they have never filled, and probably never will. With the team prostrate at the bad end of what is basically the second division, St Mary’s has become a tired, tumble-weed strewn financial mistake. You can find dozens of these brick-built errors in the run down parts of medium-sized cities across the country. Just ask Derby.

The future looks bleak. The squad clearly needs experience in order to survive, but the club needs cash in order to survive. And that’s the way it will go. Things look, er, fucked. Perhaps revisionism is the best option after all. I did watch Matthew Le Tissier lob Peter Schmeichal once, after all. Yeah. Fuck reality. I’m off to watch the first five minutes of the Le God documentary “Unbelievable” – it’s a montage of his greatest goals set to “Unbelievable” by EMF, and it’s the greatest three minutes and thirty seconds that exist in the world today. And as a Southampton fan, it’s all I’ve got left. So pity me.

On a lighter note, during the commentary of today’s match on Five Live, jolly farmhand pundit Ian Holloway did, talking about Dimitar Berbatov, say that “if the ball was a girl, she’d love to go home with him tonight.” Which did then conjure the image of the Bulgarian genius plunging joylessly into the matchball whilst snorting a line of coke off its withered, leathery back.

War, earthquakes, assassination, global financial catastrophe, kidnapping, subterranean rape, corruption, broken magnets, mis-judged phonecalls and Chinese Democracy. It’s been one hell of a fucking terrible year (apart from Chinese Democracy. And some fella called Obama).

Enjoy yourselves.

JANUARY – Hollywood wunderkind Heath Ledger dies of an overdose in a hotel room. This fact is made much worse because of the fact that Ledger was undoubtedly The Greatest Actor Of Our Generation. A posthumous Oscar is instantly suggested for his portrayal of The Joker in “The Dark Knight”, released later in the year. Fomer Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in an explosion. This fact is made much worse because of the fact that Bhutto was undoubtedly the The Greatest Former Prime Minister Of Pakistan Of Our Generation. It is a fucking bleak month, cheered up only by the emergence of a new Portishead album. Oh, hang on…

FEBRUARY – The annual Oscars ceremony manages to cheer everyone up slightly by adopting the audacious tactic of not being a massive load of old bollocks. The masterful “There Will Be Blood” and “No Country For Old Men” pick up the big gongs, while the worthy enough “Juno” snatches Best Original Screenplay for former stripper Diablo Cody, who has a name like a disturbing sex toy. Prince Harry is withdrawn from active service in Afghanistan after details of his deployment are leaked by an Australian newspaper. He returns to the UK, but everyone breathes a sigh of relief that the army actually had the tin nuts to send him out there in the first place, rather than leave him behind because the Taliban said they’d try and kill him, unlike all the the other soldiers, whom they regularly try to trombone ragged. The New York Giants win the Superbowl, and every single person in Britain gives a shit.

MARCH – The Queen opens the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, which is a massive and unqualified success.  Heather Mills McCartney proves herself to be the inevitable huge twat we all suspected during her grim divorce with The Fireman. She is awarded £24 million pounds and irritates everyone, which apparently then means that it becomes perfectly acceptable for wankers on “Mock the Week” to take the piss out of her for having one leg. People trying to wrangle a laugh out of Simon Weston’s face or Stephen Hawking’s amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are given shorter shrift. Something weird is going on to do with banks…

APRIL – In a bumper bonanza of a month for concepts of family solidarity, Austrian Josef Fritzl admits to imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth in a basement for 24 years and fathering her seven children. Fritzl claims that he was “born to rape” (incidentally also a Springsteen B-side) and blamed it on Hitler. It is one of the few things that have ever happened of which Hitler is almost entirely innocent of. In the UK, Karen Matthews is accused of kidnapping her own daughter, and stashing her under a bed with a gameboy, in order to snaffle the reward money later on. It is perhaps the worst plan ever conceived, enlivened somewhat by the fact that Matthews’ boyfriend, Craig Meehan, is subsequently accused of possession of child pornography. He turns up to his court hearing with a baseball cap, a Manchester United away shirt, and a massive erection. Action star Wesley Snipes is sentenced to three years imprisonment for tax fraud, in by far the greatest news story of the year. Albert Hoffman, the supposed inventor of LSD, thinks he can fly and jumps out of a window to his death. Actually, he dies of a heart attack. He is 102.

MAY – Genial TV buffoon Boris Johnson is elected the Mayor of London, despite arguably being a corrupt racist, causing everyone to squint a bit and go “what?”. His first act once in office is to trip over a stage. In a solid month for political corruption, Silvio Berlusconi becomes the Prime Minister of Italy for the fourth time, despite being a demonstrable gangster, and in Zimbabwe actual despot Robert Mugabe refuses to recognise a democratic election voting him out of office. His opponent, Morgan Tsvangarai, contests, and receives death threats. An earthquake in Chinese province of Sichaun kills more than 60,000 people. It is a shitty month.

JUNE – In a more light-hearted month, former England football superstar Paul Gascoigne is sectioned. For the second time. Sales of hilarious fake tits plummet. Illinois senator Barack Obama wins the Democratic Presidential nomination. It proves to be a mistake; Obama vanishes without a political trace. Al-Qaeda bomb the Danish embassy in Islamabad, still banging on about those cartoons that were printed ages ago, reminding us all just how much of a bunch of fairy-tale believing cunts they all are. In the UK, the period of preventative detention without charge under anti-terrorism legislation is extended to 42 days. The number of bullets that armed police are allowed to shoot into the heads of innocent Brazilian plumbers is also increased. Robert Mugabe strongarms his way back to power in Zimbabwe. 

JULY – “Missing canoeist” John Darwin and his wife are jailed for six years apiece for deception, after their plan to fake Darwin’s death and flee to Panama with the insurance payout, turns out to be based upon an obviously made up lie worthy of the Matthews clan, but with less light-hearted Disney charm. Rafael Nadal beats Roger Federer in a nail-biting Wimbledon men’s blah blah blah. Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic is arrested. He now has a lovely beard and a thriving alternative therapy business. A nearby tanning salon owned by one Pol Pot is also shut down.

AUGUST – Georgia takes the bizarre step of flexing its puny military muscles and having a pop at the Russian territory of South Ossetia. Strangely enough, the Russians overreact slightly and pound the Ossetian Georgians into dust. All out war is avoided; although no-one really knows why. The Russians come out of it looking like vicious cunts, the Georgians come out of it looking like stupid vicious cunts. The Olympics begin in Beijing with a dramatic opening ceremony, that turned out to have involved a miming child and some CGI fireworks. Idiots get their knickers in a twist about this, clearly forgetting that China might have slightly more to answer for than an upset young girl and some colourful imaginary explosions. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt effectively flicks the v’s at the entire world by scoffing some chicken nuggets and then shattering the world records for the 100 and 200 metres, even though he slows down at the end to glance contemptuously at those eating his dust. The rest of the Olympics is boring bullshit, although it is nice to see a fourteen year old diver called Tom lose miserably and get slagged off by his older diving partner, who really should have known better. Celebrity paedophile Gary Glitter returns to the UK after serving a jail sentence in Vietnam for indecently assaulting minors, causing the Facebook faithful to spend their days concocting elaborate ways in which to torture him to death. The noble tabloid paparazzi follow him all over the country, presumably in case he starts raping children willy-nilly. The same consciencious paps track the every move of Barry George after he is finally cleared of the murder of TV newsreader Jill Dando in 1999. They take photos of him eating a kebab and going to the shops, presumably in case he starts shooting celebrities in the head on their own doorsteps in what look suspiciously like contract killings ordered by Serbian warlord nutters called Arkan willy-nilly.

SEPTEMBER – The Fins attempt a shot at America’s high school shooting crown after a gunman kills 10 students at a school in the town of Kauhajoki. He posted a video of his threats on YouTube days earlier, proving the website has a use other than looking at the evolution of dance and women falling over. Finland has the third highest private firearm ownership in the world, after the United States and Yemen. And no other distinguishing features. Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher is pushed over on stage in Toronto, causing millions to punch the air in happiness, before watching the footage and realising that he almost got fucking killed. The Large Hadron Collider is switched on at the CERN labratory in Switzerland. They are searching for the Higg’s Boson, which will prove the existence of God or something, and is not simply the second string quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. However, the LHC has to be switched off after it inadvertently creates a black hole which destroys the universe. And only Bruce Willis can stop it. Something weird is DEFINITELY going on with the banks.

OCTOBER – Two twats phone up an old man and the country goes absolutely fucking insane. “Manuelgate” does, however, cause newsreading uber-fitty Emily Maitliss to say, on Newsnight, that “my pussy is haunted”. Causing everyone to reason that, well, they probably definitely still would. A brutal civil war erupts in DR Congo, but everyone is far too distracted by the plight of an actor and his idiot granddaughter to care. That and the fact that DR Congo looks like the name of a racist witch doctor character in a sit-com from the 1970s set in the colonial West Indies, based around the repeated failed attempts by said doctor to light-heartedly sexually assault the plantation owner Colonel Silverspoon’s flighty daughter Fannietta. Or something.

NOVEMBER – In possibly the only genuinely good news of the year, Barack Obama is elected as President of the United States of America, the first ever half-white commander-in-chief.  Scenes of unbridled joy across the nation and the world are tainted only by the knowledge that George W Bush still has seventy days left in charge. Lewis Hamilton wins the Grand Prix championship, in what turns out to be the most boring event that has ever happened, anywhere, ever. After thirteen years and as many million dollars, dreadlocked madman Axl Rose finally releases “Chinese Democracy”, which is correctly regarded by all and sundry as The Greatest Album Of All Time. Hang on… The James Bond franchise proves that Axl doesn’t have the monopoly on disappointment by releasing “Quantum of Solace” which is an interminable load of boring old shit. It turns out the banks have been fucked for ages and the planet is mired in global recession for the foreseable future. If only someone had mentioned it.

DECEMBER – Beloved UK purveyors of tat and sweets Woolworths announce they are to shut down as the financial crisis displays absolutely no Christmas spirit whatsoever. OJ Simpson is imprisoned for 15-33 years for obviously and definitely being a murderer. Sorry, I mean a robber and a kidnapper. War erupts in the Middle East; Israel completely boss the Palestinians, while in a bizarre and unexpected move the US condemns the democratically elected Hamas party. Channel 4 demonstrate just how fucking edgy and subversive they are by having their alternative Christmas message delivered by Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a man who leads a regime under which homosexuals and rape victims are put to death. Nice one, Channel 4. You massive, massive cunts. Alexandra Burke wins X-Factor with a version of Leonard Cohen’s pop dirge “Hallelujah”. Her mentor, Cheryl Cole, is now the nation’s sweetheart, with everyone seeming to forget the time she punched a black bathroom attendant in the face and called her a “jiggaboo” because she tried to stop the Girl Aloud stealing some lollipops from a toilet. The banks are proper fucked. 2009 looks decidedly bleak.

Happy New Year!