So farewell then Brian Clough 1935-2004.......










It is a sad day for football and one cannot underestimate what this man achieved in football. To win a league championship with a small provincial team like Derby and then do the same twice with Nottingham Forest is remarkable enough.



To win four league cups is more than most other managers ever achieve, but to win two back to back European Cups is unrivalled and to do that with Nottingham Forest is absolutely miraculous. Don't forget this is the equivalent to todays Champions (sic) League and is the biggest prize in club football in the world!



It was sad to him end on a relegation note but unquestionably his drinking had taken its toll and the sharp mind had been blunted considerably (if not the sharp tongue!) Those last images of him in 1993 before his enforced retirement with his bloated face and blotched, spotty, wretched complexion, a giveaway sign of the soon to be irretrievably poisoned liver, were sad indeed. But his liver transplant last year and his total subsequent abstinence from the sauce had transformed him. In recent interviews he had looked hale and hearty, almost fresh faced, with the sharp tongue still there but complemented by a warmer, more engaging person...a man who knew he was lucky to be alive and was happy in his dotage to play the part of retired ex-legendary manager and current Dad and Grandad. His stories are legendary, both from his friends but also from himself.



My favourite Cloughie quote? That would be this....



"I'm not the best manager there is, but I'm definitely in the Top One".



It is a huge tribute to the man that he was known even to those who never watched football or even like the game. He was a personality, an eccentric and a deeply principled man (a real socialist through and through), and a man who never let the riches and fame change him. His favourite meal was always quoted as Fish and Chips in the paper. Football, and I would argue the country as a whole, is a little less colourful for the loss of one of it's greatest men. RIP, Cloughie. Later, GrocerJack  

So Farewell then………



Just a brief post about the demise of my alter ego ChelseaBoy. I thought it might be a good idea to spin off my sports stuff, especially around footie and golf to another blog but to be quite honest I don’t have the time to do it justice and every time I posted to it I felt guilty about not having time to post to this one.



So from now on this blog will include my sport related rants as well and ChelseaBoy is now sat firmly with other failed experiments, making friends with 8-Track tapes, the Squarial, Betamax videos, the Sinclair C5, Concordski, British Rail’s Tilting Trains and The Earth Centre in Doncaster (were they really serious about thinking people would want to see this?)





If you get the chance, have a look at Casino Avenue today from the link on the left. The cartoon Inspector Sands has posted had me laughing out loud in the office this morning. It sums up just what I think of the twats who spent the day protesting in London about the forthcoming ban on fox hunting, and the knobbers who decided to invade the floor of the Commons. I know the country dwellers think people don’t understand them but let’s face it in this high tech age we must be able to come up with more humane ways of controlling the fox population. Even shooting seems humane, although after the incident this week with the youngster in Devon it might be more dangerous for people than foxes. I’m a countryside dweller now and most of the people I know are either completely ambivalent about the alleged sport, or want it banned. Hardly anyone thinks it’s acceptable these days. Another point is that we live in a representational democracy and the MP’s who voted are the elected representatives of their constituencies and that’s the way it is. These knobbers are now talking about breaking the new law and hunting anyway because they’re “not hurting anyone else” to quote one of the protestors interviewed on the fabulous 5Live (a former Olympic Medallist whose name escapes me).



How interesting will that be to see how the police and courts deal with them? If they get off lightly or are ignored then think of the interesting other laws that people might ignore! Perhaps we can ignore speeding offences “where no-one else is hurt”, or allow public Cannabis consumption and dealing, after all they’re not hurting anyone else either, especially after having had a joint. After hours drinking is another good one, after all the only people being damaged or hurt are the drinkers.



I’m sure you lot can think of more laws that we could all start breaking on the basis of not hurting anyone else….cant you?





More later, GrocerJack

Pain - Please go away (part 2) …….



This will only make sense if you have read the posting below, so go ahead…I’ll wait here until you’re done.



She came back and explained that all X-Rays are routinely checked again at the end of a shift and upon examining mine the Senior Junior Young Doctor had asked what ward I’d been sent to! Doctor Chris Evans then (presumably) said I’d been sent home and then the Senior Junior Young Doctor had then explained or shouted to him that when someone’s leg is shown to be detached from the hip by 6 inches and a shard of bone was visible, having been broken off at impact from the socket of the pelvis, that usually meant something serious. Effectively all that was attaching my right leg to my body was muscle, tendon and skin! I did see the X-Rays later and even a medical moron like me could see just how detached things were. So it was a dislocation and a fracture. As the ambulance guys wheeled me into the hospital I lay there thinking what I would do if I got hold of Dr Chris Evans again…but even then I just kept thinking about the nurse and my missed opportunity…..damn…….there I go again!



Then Doctor Death came and saw me. He was Spanish, although I never held that against anyone before this guy tainted my view for a while. His hair was jet black and he was young but with a morose look that suggested he wasn’t over-enamoured with his job…or in fact his lot in life. Anyway he proceeded to tell me that my operation was scheduled for 13:00 and it was a good job I hadn’t eaten………



“But I have…I had breakfast and a cup of tea”



His dark features darkened even more and then he flipped…..”Why you do this? You have operation booked! People have been moved for you to have this. Why you be ignorant?”



I was in pain so my tether was already close to the end.



“You patronising wanker….you fucking c**t…” said I…”You bastards send me home with a smashed in fucking leg, don’t call me until the next day and then have the bollocks to have a go because I fucking ate before an operation I didn’t even fucking know I was going to have!”



Or words to that effect. There might have been one or two more swear words used, but I lost it as big time as possible considering the pain I was in. He was unfazed and then went into a tirade about how selfish and stupid bikers were, before telling me how many decapitated bodies he dealt with from motorbike accidents, or the amount of serious brain damage he saw. According to him I was lucky to be alive. I found out later that his bedside manner was similar to everyone, thus the nickname Doctor Death. It takes all sorts I suppose.



Anyway the operation was delayed by another 7 hours and so I was left on a trolley, alone in terrible pain until they came to fix me. Strangely enough the Doctor doing the operation was a double of Gary Lineker! I started to think that perhaps this was a Twilight Zone Hospital where celebrities got to fulfil their Doctors and Nurses fantasies on real people. In my mind the pretty nurse had started to resemble Linda Lusardi….but maybe that happens all the time.



The operation was successful but I had a six week stay in hospital (with truck loads of other stories that I will tell later) in traction which included the Christmas period as well followed by six months on crutches. The Consultant (who thankfully didn’t look like a celeb) said I must have had a very high pain threshold and that in normal cases where a dislocation occurs for more than 12 hours a condition called

Avascular Necrosis can occur. Basically the blood supply to the bone is cut off or depleted during dislocation and if this occurs for long enough the bone dies. I asked the obvious question of whether it comes alive again once the blood is restored and back came the answer…which was No! The bone would then crumble and the only resolution was a hip replacement. I was 32 for fucks sake! Apparently hip replacements only last 10 years and you can only have two of them, not because of the cost, but because after two there isn’t enough bone left to secure it to! Anyway, that condition didn’t happen thankfully, but I was also told that I would increase my chances of arthritis by about 85% and that risk had increased from the moment of impact and not from the negligence of the hospital. The shard of bone from the accident had been left in my leg because it meant cutting muscle to remove it and that may have caused more damage than leaving it there.



And so, the pain I now have could be something totally different. But it could be arthritis although I imagined that to be a dull constant pain combined with difficulty moving and perhaps the odd “grinding” sensation. It may just be the shard of bone having moved into a not so friendly location – the equivalent of the old “shrapnel in the leg” excuse. All I know is that it hurts and the Ibuprofen seems to be having less effect every day.



I’ll put up with it for another 2 or 3 weeks, doing the bloke thing of ignoring it and hoping it just goes away. But then, if it hasn’t I’ll have to bite the bullet and see the Doctor. Thus my call of

Pain – please go away.





More later, GrocerJack

Pain - Please go away (part 1) …….



I have a pain in my upper right leg, near the hip but also just down from that. It hurts to



Stand Up

Walk

Run

Lean

Lay on my right side.

Sit with my legs crossed



Eleven years ago I had a motorbike accident in which a wayward driver decided to plant their car in front of my moving bike. I had a choice of



1.) Ditching the bike or

2.) Hitting the car and flying over the top.

3.) Building a time machine and going back in time to stop myself taking that route home or flattening the car tyres so they couldn’t make that journey



Not being Dr Who or even one of his lovely assistants ruled out Option 3. Had I been Olga Korbut I might have taken the second option and flown over the car, done a triple pike, with a somersault culminating in me landing on my feet, shouting a chorus of “Tada!” and flashing a cheeky smile at the cameras and judges.



But I wasn’t the delightful Ms Korbut, or a clone of her. So I took option 1 and ditched the bike. I was doing around 50 at the time so it fucking hurt when I hit the deck. I remember screaming like a girl (sorry girls but you do scream!) as the pain seared through me, and the shock and fear hammered home. I rolled into the opposite lane and opened my eyes in time to see the wheel of the oncoming lorry stop about 5 feet from my head.



In that one instant my previous typical young bloke sense of immortality disappeared forever. From that moment of impact I would start to think frequently of my lucky escape but also of the thought that one day I would shuffle off this mortal coil like everyone else. It changed my life.



I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance where I removed my own helmet (a precaution to ensure they don’t do any further damage to your skull because you’ll know if it can come off safely and painlessly) where I was ignored for 45 minutes before a nice pleasant and very attractive nurse asked me to remove my jeans. Blimey, just my luck to get a chance like this when I was obviously temporarily disabled. No…….No…obviously it was because of my injuries and they wanted to X-Ray me but at that age (32) and being single that thought would go through any blokes head. I was then manhandled into the X-Ray room after being given some painkillers. After about 3 hours, in excruciating pain, unable to stand or sit, with a broken wrist now heavily strapped I was sent home. The Chris Evans lookalike Young Doctor said that the X-Rays showed a bit of bruising and twisting and that in a week or so after plenty of rest I’d be reasonably mobile again. He must have done 100 hours that week, or maybe it actually was Chris Evans because he was very wrong. I stayed with a (now former) friend who happened to be a nurse. She looked after me, made me comfortable and fed me. I smoked through the night unable to sleep through pain, despite being as heavily dosed with painkillers as was legal without knocking me out. The next day she did me a Bacon sarnie and some tea. It was so nice that despite the pain I followed it with a Sausage sarnie. As I ate, she answered a phone call and the transcript of what I heard was



“……..yes, Jack the Grocer is here”



“Oh…….oh dear……..well that explains why he’s in so much pain then”………



TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST…………….



Later, GrocerJack

Happy Birthday Skank……….



Yup - incredibly my brother hits the big 40 today. Happy Fucking Birthday! Don’t worry it’s a normal birthday greeting for both of us, nothing malicious in it at all. We did not hold the big annual Jack Barbie bash this year mainly because the original date in July was one of the worst weather days this year and everyone would have ended up soaking wet and miserable. Sorry, make that pissed, soaking wet and at least temporarily happy. So our plan was to move it to September 11th when the weather was maybe a bit more placid. Then after returning from Florida and realising the full horror of the finances we decided to cut our cloth accordingly until The Company’s share option comes through later this year and refreshes the parts of the bank account that my holiday managed to decimate. We knew it would be expensive but it appears to have had the equivalent damaging force of a financial Hurricane Charley, tearing its way through the timber framed structure of my savings account and tearing off the corrugated plastic roof that seemed so secure for my accumulated wedge just 3 months ago. Anyway, September was nice for the first couple of weeks, but as Saturday approached we knew the good weather was about to suffer a massive sulk and curl its toes up, shuffling away from its brief sojourn to the jolly old South Coast of Dear Old Blighty. And as it left it decided to leave a pile of gob on us, luckily just a few dribbles on Saturday before the full crap of yesterday. We decided to go with family only for the Barbie and to keep it as a celebration (in part) of Skanks 40th birthday. The weather did its best for us but there were some short sharp showers. However the copious amount of alcohol flowing freely stemmed any negative thoughts on the day, and everyone had a top time.



At one point we had a full rendition of the adults singing along to Roger Waters version of the Pink Floyd Magnificent Octopus that is “Comfortably Numb”. Twice. In fact a good proportion of the music was supplied by the good Mr. Waters and Messrs Page and Plant from my recently acquired live DVD’s, pumped out through the mega TV Dolby window shaking, bass thumping system I bought last year. It was as good as the other week when he came down, but improved by the presence of BigSykes and SmallSykes, along with MiddleSis and LittleSis, plus Grand Master and Raptor (who barely deserves this nickname now so I will seek an alternative). Mind you I was fucking ill yesterday with a hangover not seen round these parts since I celebrated my 40th! It’s not the capacity that’s the problem. I’m pretty sure that we, as older blokes, can drink as much and probably more than a 20-something, with the bonus of not getting slappy with it. No, it’s the recovery period that so badly lets us down. What used to take a few hours to recover from now takes anywhere between 12 and 36 hours before I can consider myself part of the human race again. Even a round of golf was not enough to blow the hangover away and that is very unusual. But it’ll happen again no doubt and the truth is that we never learn, do we?



Pub News…….



My “local” pub (i.e the one in the village) closed last year to be rebuilt. However such was the shithole it had become I rarely drank in there. The governor was an ignorant fat slob, his wife thought she was Bet Lynch, except she was ugly and lazy. The pub was built in 1960, after the original stone cottage pub was knocked down. The new pub was famed for being built in a day. Built in Lady Margaret Road in Southall (one of my former haunts), delivered at 06:00 in the morning on the back of lorry, serving drink by 18:00. It was a pre-fab and the fact it lasted until 2003 is nothing short of a miracle in itself. So, they knocked the old one down and built a new one made out of flint and brick, two storeys, new garden and completely in tune with the architecture and character of the village. It opened on Friday and the crowd in my current pub had the wisdom not to go that night, although I had a sneaky pint (which means two!) on my way home from work. It looks good and is a massive improvement on the old one, but one thing stood out – 2 bar staff? On the opening night? Sure enough down my pub that night we had an overflow of people who had waited up to an hour in some cases to get served. The new governor of the new pub did not even show his face! Even on Saturday when I took GMD and Baby there at lunchtime for a swiftie before the Barbie started we waited 10 minutes, and eventually with no sign of being served and with the new Landlady blanking us, one obviously inexperienced girl trying to take food orders and serve drinks we upped and went to our normal pub for a beer. We were served there as we walked through the door. So, here’s my advice to new pub landlord. Get it fucking sorted or you’ll be empty within a week. You should be very visible now, whilst you try to win back people like me and my mates. You should have too many staff on and then cut back according to your new trade levels. Get the basics right and you have a chance. Otherwise you’ll end up with passing trade and 20-somethings and teenagers spending a few quid before going clubbing. And before you know it the place will be a shithole like before. Hardcore spenders like me and my family and friends will stay where we are, safe in the knowledge that a pub where the governor knows my name, where my Guinness is on the go as I walk to the bar. That’s what running a pub is about, knowing the locals and the regulars. Treat them right and the others will notice this and also come back. Until then, The Governor at my local knows his trade is safe.



More later, GrocerJack

Changing Lanes………



Six weeks ago my work calendar was barren. It was sparse, vacant, empty, a vast desert of un-booked time punctured sporadically by free lunches, or reminders to get important things done (play golf, go to pub, buy flowers for GMD ‘s birthday/anniversary, buy kids presents for birthdays, Christmas Day etc). It was almost unspoilt virgin territory. Now it has changed and bit by bit, day by day it is returning to its former state. Days packed with meetings I don’t want to go to but am expected to attend, reminders to finish some bullshit, raggedy-arse task that I couldn’t actually give a flying fuck about. Since agreeing to manage this new team life is changing from one of virtually uninterrupted loafing into the monster of before, with endless meetings, dozens of phone calls, deadlines, documents, masses of wanky irrelevant emails, projects and initiatives. A return to the bollocks of “swimlanes”, “horizontals”, “process alignment” and my old nemesis “leveraging global synergies”.



I have to devise a plan to contain it all before it spirals out of control. In essence I enjoy the extra stuff to a degree, but having had 6 months of comparative leisure and freeloading time I don’t want to return to the stress-monster I was before. Life is all about balance and I want loafing and freeloading mixed in with stress free team management and peer interaction. So I need to formulate a cunning Blackadder like plan to ensure life doesn’t return to how it was before.



Other than “Quit” all I can think of is “Lie to everyone”. Any other ideas?





More later, GrocerJack

Still mad…….



Yup, still mad, upset and bemused over the Beslan tragedy. Even copious amounts of Guinness could not completely quell the pain of what happened. We talked about it in the pub with the usual cross section of people giving off views ranging from the eminently sensible to the completely barking (Medallion Man) view of nuking them all. This to me is what the pub is about, and is uniquely British. People out for the night, maybe just a fleeting visit, drinking and talking in an establishment where you never know who’ll walk through the door, chatting idly or engaged in friendly (or unfriendly) banter, or as on Friday with everyone talking about the days events and being given the chance to air their view.



Who says people don’t care?



The Governor was most strident in his views, blaming the Russian Government and armed forces, as well as Western Civilization (see below) in general for creating the conditions for terrorism and ultimately contributing to the events and deaths. Of course these are valid (if unsound) points but the 20 minute lecture on how to free hostages had everyone yawning a bit. The Governor is ex-Army, although like a lot of soldiers its always a bit unclear exactly what he did. He may have been a Commando, he may have been a cook but its funny how he seems to be an expert on everything and everyone. A typical British pub landlord then, almost related to the Great British Taxi driver. Whatever, despite this tragedy the atmosphere was what I had come to expect, glasses clinking, people talking and laughing, no music. A beautiful noise indeed, and one rarely heard in today’s modern theme pubs full of loud music (which I LOVED when 20 but hate now I’m old), quiz machines and fruit machines. A sign of age no doubt, but to my view a very welcome one.



And that’s it for the weekend. Just spent most of it decorating, repairing or constructing stuff, like any other henpecked husband and Dad. Over the next few weeks my posts might be a bit sporadic as my exam is due in October and I have a mighty rush to complete the course work, do the last assignment and revise. All this amongst the stress of my new “management” role within the company with a new team of engineers for me to manage makes life a bit more hectic for a while. The obvious upside to this is the extra ideas it will generate (hopefully) and some more corporate gobbledygook bollocks talk to publish.



I read this today – on the point of Western Civilization. When a Western visitor first asked Gandhi what he thought of Western Civilization, apparently Gandhi replied “I think it would be a very good idea!”



Still in comparison to some other civilisations we currently seem to right at the top of the moral tree.



More later, GrocerJack