the wonderful england

jack

jack

jack

jack

a nice little bit
numbs the face,
floods the brain,
swells the tumescence so
freakish friday follows
blurred thursday, getting
nothing done, hitting
refresh
refresh
refresh, waiting
for this stupid, articulate, inspirational, deluded, competitive,
charming man
to make it memorable
before you can eat,
then it's out and about on streaky streets,
all bubble underswell of jutty buttock
and unexpected item
in the bagging area

jack

A widely known aphorism contends that insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Perhaps, then, this particular definition of madness cannot be applied to me. After all, when I armed myself with a brolly and schlepped down to Loftus Road last night, I was fully alive to the possibility of a QPR defeat at the hands of an unglamorous visiting team (Rochdale this time), not least because of last season's debacle when Port "fucking" Vale of League Two rocked up in West London and came away victorious.

I didn't go to the Port Vale game but it was, by all accounts, a pretty dire evening for QPR supporters. I was however, among the collection of just 5,260 souls who witnessed the Rangers' home defeat to lowly Leyton Orient in August 2007. So I do have personal experience of an early rounds League Cup capitulation to unfancied opponents.

Even a win at the earliest stages of English football's least well-regarded 'major' competition can feel a bit flat. At the home of QPR, these games have been all about spending a late summer evening in the South Africa Road stand or the Loft, looking out at the swathes of empty seats over on the Ellerslie Road side of the ground. Four-figure 'crowds' are guaranteed, even with tickets being sold at a lower price than is charged for a league match. So the club elects only to open two sides of the stadium to home supporters. The travelling contingent, usually numbering a couple of hundred or so, spread themselves out in the School End. Players' shouts can be heard clearly. Individual supporters' voices carry eerily around the ground. So it was last night.

It had rained relentlessly for most of the day, so an umbrella was needed for the trip across town to Shepherds Bush. Thankfully, the precipitation had abated by the time I emerged from Wood Lane tube station.

Low attendance notwithstanding, with twenty minutes to go before the kickoff, the length of the queue for tickets for the main South Africa Road stand looked very long. I judged that I would still be lining up as the ref brought his whistle to his lips. So, despite the distinct possibility of another downpour, I plumped for a spot in the Paddocks. For the uninitiated, this is an area of uncovered seating at the base of the South Africa Road side. I reasoned that the umbrella could be deployed in the event of another downpour, but kept in mind that it would doubtless afford imperfect protection from the elements. London in August is about changeable weather, but mugginess tends to be a feature, so your correspondent was clad in a lightweight suit. Rain, rain, stay away, I thought. Piss on me another day (ideally a day when I'm all oilskin-and-sou'westered up).

Well, I did not get pissed on. But I could have got pissed off, not only by the defeat which ensued, but also by the manner of that defeat. If I'd really cared about the match, that is. Which I didn't. I know that the main mission this season at QPR has to be avoiding relegation back to the division out of which the team worked so hard to climb. So I accept that continued progress in the League Cup is probably best avoided, given the added danger of picking up costly injuries and suspensions.

I do not need the benefit of hindsight (in the form of reading manager Neil Warnock's post-match comments) to state without real fear of contradiction that QPR did not try to win the match. First team players such as recently signed striker Jay Bothroyd and talismanic playmaker Adel Taarabt ran around fairly listlessly, presumably just working on their match fitness and staying out of any situations likely to cause injury. The performances of others in the side simply added further further evidence for the contention that the Rangers have a woefully thin squad, with generally inadequate replacements waiting in the wings. So all this talk of 4-5 significant signings in the next few days is very welcome. I'm particularly keen to discover if midfield controversialist Joey Barton is really going to be sporting a hooped shirt soon.

A weird aspect of the game was the appearance on the pitch of two of yesterday's men. Martin Rowlands, once the club captain, turned in a very poor performance in the no. 38 shirt while the once much-loved wing wizard Lee Cook drifted all over the pitch with the number 37 on his back. Not registered as members of the Premier League squad, these two former QPR stalwarts must both be facing an uncertain future. It's dispiriting to see former fan favourites out of favour like this, and I'm not sure what point there was in picking them for this fixture. Although both would presumably be happier getting first team football at a lower level, neither did anything that would have won plaudits from any visiting scouts. If there was indeed no real intention to take this fixture seriously, I would personally have preferred to see more lads from the youth set up getting a game.

A couple of young hopefuls did make it onto the field of play last night - Harriman coming on at right back when first teamer Bradley Orr was withdrawn; the industrious but largely ineffective Bruno Andrade playing out wide. But neither truly shone and it still feels like a long, long time since QPR successfully brought a youngster up through the ranks and into a stranglehold on a place in the first team.

It was heartening, then, to notice that among the avalanche of good news coming out of the club this week, new club Chairman Tony Fernandes is emphasising the importance of establishing a proper, well-funded youth academy. Is QPR finally in the hands of someone with a principled, sensible vision for the long-term future of the club? Time will tell, but the early signs are encouraging, not least because of today's very welcome confirmation of a reduction in matchday ticket prices and refunds for season ticket holders. New CEO Phillip Beard, a key Fernandes appointee, I think, is making all the right noises about the club rebuilding the bond of trust it needs with loyal supporters. Under Flavio 'boutique club' Briatore and Bernie 'I don't give a shit' Ecclestone, it felt that the club's owners saw its long-suffering fans as an inconvenience - peasants that they wanted to price out of the ground and replace with higher-spending types. Taken to its logical conclusion, that policy could have condemned QPR to a slow death.

The sudden optimism of this new Fernandes era is, I guess, the main reason that more people at last night's match did not voice disapproval of the poor performance. That said, a number of people in messageboardland have attested to feeling cheated by paying £15 to watch what amounted to a practice match. Me? I felt pretty relaxed about. It was better than watching telly or working late at the office. At half-time, I got to have a little nose around at the workings of those flashy new digital advertising hoardings that seem to be the norm in the Premier League. I got to hear an elderly steward reminiscing about the days of a single teaspoon being chained to the counter of a wooden tea hut at the ground. I also enjoyed some of the singing from the small but boisterous Rochdale contingent. Of their efforts, my favourite was their description of Bothroyd as "just a shit Emile Heskey." Simple pleasures. It got me out of the house.

That said, just to prove I'm not bonkers, that was definitely, definitely the last early-rounds League Cup fixture I'll ever attend. Unless it's free. Or unless I'm feeling a bit bored the next time one is played at the Bush.

jack

jack

jack

jack

jack

Saturday afternoon was, in microcosm, like the seven day period of which it was a part: a discouraging start, a few twists and turns, then concluding with a very satisfying flourish.

Rewind seven days. QPR supporters were trudging away from Loftus Road, their side's first Premier League fixture for fifteen years having ended in heavy defeat to a fit, well-organised Bolton Wanderers outfit. Booing boomed from some sections of Loftus Road, with chants aimed at board member Flavio Briatore.

Within days, it had been confirmed that Briatore and the majority shareholder Bernie Ecclestone had finally relinquished their interest in the club after weeks of speculation. The new man with a controlling stake is Tony Fernandes, a Malaysian national whose business interests include low-cost airlines, hotels, financial services, prepaid mobile phone services, movie production, concert promotion, a Formula 1 team and his home country's professional basketball league. Having initially voiced a note of caution about Fernandes, I've been encouraged by the noises he's been making about possible player signings, about ticket prices and about openness towards supporters.

So the week leading up to yesterday's fixture at Goodison Park had been going pretty well.

Saturday afternoon also came to a satisfying conclusion after an inauspicious start. Having heard on the internet grapevine that the Everton match was to be shown at the British Queen on the Uxbridge Road, I fancied watching the game among fellow Rangers fans. This seemed preferable to the other options that came to mind - watching on a tiny laptop screen or in an Old Street boozer decked out with Arsenal paraphernalia. So I schlepped over to Shepherds Bush, emerging from the tube station during a squall of unseasonably cold, hard rain. I was soaked by the time I made it to the pub, getting there just as Luis Suarez was compounding the Arsenal's misery with Liverpool's second goal. An Irishman in Liverpool colours was perched on a bar stool and gleefully pumping a fist. I hoped this was not to be a bad omen: a London side losing to Merseyside opponents.

For those who have never been there, a few words about the British Queen. This is a pub that has decidedly not succumbed to the rising tide of poncification that has washed over so many other Shepherds Bush hostelries. The Defector's Weld it ain't. The Goldhawk it is not. The Stinging Nettle (i.e. the sadly renamed former Bush Ranger)? No, the BQ is most assuredly dissimilar to any of these. No high-priced posh nosh in here. No ironic styling. No BBC types looking down their noses at noisy football supporters.

I made my way to a good spot in front of the TV and got to work on the first pint. Before long, though, it began to look as though the trip might have been wasted. For reasons that remain a bit obscure, the satellite signal did not come online until nineteen painful minutes into the match, during which time the assembled drinkers had resorted to checking the score on their mobile phones. Well, you can do that while being dragged around Brent Cross, Bluewater or Westfield, right? Nice though a pint of lager is, you don't need to make the effort to get down to the Bush just to keep squinting anxiously at your Blackberry.

When the signal finally came, the picture was patchily pixellated, freezing and bumping in a most distracting manner. Each time the action fuzzed back into view, this was greeted with a lusty cry of U RRRRRRRRRsssss. You would have thought the Rangers had scored. They hadn't. Not yet.

Picture quality causing concern at the British Queen

Soon, thankfully, the picture became clearer, with audible commentary in English, despite the coverage coming courtesy of a Norwegian channel. It was immediately striking that the travelling QPR supporters were in better voice than the home fans. So our lot were outsinging the Scousers. Could the team do their bit and really give the away fans something to shout about?

The British Queen crowd were getting a first look at QPR's away strip, a reasonably inoffensive orange and black number. While some may talk in terms of it being 'embarrassing' that the Rangers are the lone Premier League side whose shirts do not carry a sponsor's logo, I think it looks pretty good, not least in the case of the hooped home strip.

As the action unfolded, I was fearing another defeat. Everton's Leighton Baines was a useful choice for fantasy football managers everywhere last season, a fullback able to bag good goals from dead ball situations. So it was an early test for the Superhoops when Baines stepped up to take a free kick from a dangerous position. I feared the worst, briefly entertaining dark visions of a successful strike leading to an avalanche of unanswered scoring for the home side: the after effect of watching the previous weekend's capitulation at the hands of Bolton, no doubt.

The men in orange prepare to defend a Baines free kick

But it didn't go in, and there were signs that QPR were going to be better organised and harder to beat in their second Premier League outing of the season.

Around twelve minutes after we finally got a watchable picture on the TV, pandemonium broke out in the British Queen. Admittedly helped a bit by a static Everton defence, our magical Magyar was defying any critics who felt he might not make the adjustment to Premier League football. Buzsaky offered a useful pass to Tommy Smith, who duly delivered a nice finish well beyond the reach of Tim Howard, who had, inexplicably, turned up to play in some kind of crazy camouflage outfit.

Oh joy unbounded. Grown men running the length of the barroom to enter beefy bear hugs. This is what goal celebrations might be like at Loftus Road if we had any legroom. Legroom? At QPR? Preposterous. Perhaps we might get some when uncle Tony and his pals buy us an 80,000-seat mega-dome on the site of Television Centre.

The t-shirt slogans say it all

Smith's sweet strike was, according to the stats at the Sky Sports Centre, one of only two shots on goal from QPR, with Everton having six times as many attempts. The home team's attempts, however, all came to naught, with the Rangers prevailing to bag their first three Premier League points. Even the wearer of the rosiest-tinted specs, though, would have to admit that QPR had at least their fair share of good luck on the day. Messrs. Cahill and Beckford were wasteful in front of goal, making life easier than it might have been for the excellent QPR 'keeper Paddy Kenny.

Come on U RRRRRRRRRRRRsssssssssss

Man of the match, for me, was our grey-haired ball winner Shaun Derry, whose name was sung loudly at the British Queen and at Goodison Park. Although QPR did enjoy the rub of the green at times during this match, Derry's timely interventions were so often crucial. Another Rangers man making the adjustment to top flight football, it seems. Age shall not wither him.

The afternoon, then, ended happily. The rain had passed, the sun was out, and the Rangers were on the up, with points on the board and the prospect of reinforcements joining before the transfer deadline. An upward turn in the always twisty-turny life of QPR and their supporters.

U RRRRRRRRRRRRRRssssss

The sun shines on the Uxbridge Road, on the British Queen and on QPR supporters everywhere

jack

jack

jack

jack

Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March is a fat novel: over 500 intricate, dense pages; stuffed with rich, picaresque detail. My copy is even fatter, bloated by my son's drinking water, which leaked from its bottle and into the book when they shared the dark space of a Ben 10 backpack.

jack

jack

jack

jack

Every policy introduced by the Government will be a success. There is no question about that.

A question one might meaningfully ask is around which particular policies will turn out to be the most successful ones. But to doubt the overall success of the Coalition's strategy is pointless. It is succeeding and will continue to succeed. This is true across all areas - health, education, law and order, finance. EVERYTHING.

Of course, being able to gauge the success of any strategy depends wholly on understanding what that strategy is intended to achieve.

So what is the Conservative-led Government of the UK trying to achieve?

It is trying to protect and strengthen the hegemony of the ruling elite. It is trying to facilitate the transfer of wealth from the pockets of ordinary people to the balance sheets of corporations and high net worth individuals. Thus far, unimpeded by the token resistance of the weakling Liberal Democrats, the plan is well underway and showing good early signs of success.

jack

a hot girl's t-shirt slogan is
LIFE IS SHORT, SO IS YOUR PENIS,
my porcelain pistols
squishing your pudge around and you
never miss what you
never had
in hole of world

do not smile at strangers'
diamante knob-plugs, just
eat acid,
see god,
and look at pictures
of abandoned swimming pools thick
with grit, knotweed, loss,
and of
botched body arts

jack

Phone calls from abroad this week often begin with the caller asking me if I'm alright, if my family are OK, if everything's fine. The callers, of course, are referring to the disturbances and looting which broke out last week here in London and across a few other towns and cities in this England.

Other than sharing a clumsily-crafted 'I told you so' that numerous Twitterati have aimed at our Deputy Prime Minister of late, this is my england has thus far refrained from making any comment on last week's big news story. This has been noted by a friend of the site, Mr. stu bags, who has, in contrast, been out and about offering a personal reaction to what happened on the streets of our capital.

stu, as discussed here earlier this month, is the person responsible for the stencils-stickers-and-more activity on a whitewashed patch of an outer wall of the Camden Housing Office on the corner of Eversholt Street and Crowndale Road. stu's response to the recent upsets was to paste up six pictures of the trouble, each bearing the stencilled slogan 'WE HAVE A PROBLEM'. He then walked up the street to buy his dinner. In the twenty minutes he was away from the scene, his pictures were removed. So no photo, I'm afraid. "I wanted to make a statement for ALL to see....PICTURES and PUNCHLINE," he writes. "Obviously someone didn't agree....SO it's PUNCHLINE only":

jack

taut, tan body bursting with health
like bangers in the pan,

spiky nails/heels/mind/voice
screeching up the wooden rails
to bedfordshire:

wide awake
on the late train,
clutching at the throat
of your night out
and your bag
marked prada:

(basic bitches wear that shit
so I don't even bother)

jack

clicking the shutter at a broken mirror,
I see death's head in a bowler hat,
a lady in a skirt made of raincoats,
the rubber umbro diamond,
and a crystal chandelier
in a council flat

clicking the heels in the stainless steel passage,
I meet little and large
in overalls and name tags:
you're a lickle smurf, large tells little,
you're a batty boy, little tells large

clicking the keys at a cashpoint
that wants money for africa,
I remember a mouth that reminds me of crumb saying
turbo tango makes me foam myself,
and I ride the escalator behind and below
big legs,
proper calves,
wooden heels,
muscular butt,
and three souvenir bears
for just thirty quid

clicking tongues are all
annie, that's my only lighter,
seriously,
and
who's watching the store,
and
who's mopping
the betting shop floor

jack

Since noticing and writing about June's YouTube phenomenon Tonje "Crappy Housewife" Langeteig, this is my england has tentatively established online links with both the Norwegian chanteuse and with some of the supporting cast in her memorable spoof Europop video.

The lads seen throwing improbable dancefloor shapes in the lovely Tonje's promo clip rejoice in the stage names Big J and Little T. The former seems to be Jitse Jonathan Buitnik (the apparent supremo of the blonde songstress's management firm, Stalker Management Norway). The latter would appear to be a certain Trond Kanstad Kvalvik. Now, in what Buitnik described to me in a recent chat as "a pause gig", put together while "far bigger projects" are incubated, the two rapper-dancer characters have emerged from Tonje's shadow with a musical offering of their very own. This rejoices in a title that may court the disapproval of what so many people love to call 'the PC brigade'. The number (What's The Difference Between a Homie And a Homo?) is brought vividly to life in another Stalker Management lo-fi video special, featuring crazy antics on the golf course and the same bad-boy costumes we came to know and love in Tonje's promo. Also present is a burqa-clad female. To my eye, it doesn't seem to be young Tonje under those robes. Mr. Buitnik, who seems to enjoy mysteries, would not confirm the identity of the woman in purdah. Nor, frustratingly, would he reveal whether the delectable Ms. Langeteig is planning to dazzle the world anew with her unique blend of snarly delivery and catchily bonkers lyrics.

So, while Tonje fans wait for news, and while speculation grows about the next Stalker Management project, let us, in the meantime, enjoy the work of Big J and Little T:

jack

the wonderful england

Blog Archive

Labels

Monday, August 29, 2011

87 Uxbridge Road

tab ends

none of us ever

Friday, August 26, 2011

a good friday

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

wally with a brolly

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

SCARY

Sunday, August 21, 2011

looking for funny faces

villiers street

blow that thing

REBOUNDING SUPERHOOPS

Saturday, August 20, 2011

mishmash

Friday, August 19, 2011

hi-tech hackney

NeMO

fat fatter

Thursday, August 18, 2011

TO LET

sweet toof

WHAT IF?

success

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

filthy desires

WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

prada

clicking

homies and homos: the difference

I CAN'T CONCENTRATE