Worst World Cup Moments

No. 3: The Sven Kid

To be honest, if I did a World Cup best moments list, this would make it on there. But I’m doing a worsties list so this will have to do. Some things are just too good to leave out.

It's easy to forget now (or remember and sneer about it), but England fans were actually pretty excited about the team from about 2001 – 2004. Aside from the awesome shirt we had from 2001-2003 (pictured), this was down to the appointment of Sven-Goran Eriksson as manager, and the heralding of the so-called golden generation of Beckham, Scholes, Gerrard, Ferdinand, Campbell, Owen and... erm... Emile Heskey. OK, so some were more golden than others.

Anyway, England went to the 2002 World Cup full of optimism. Sven had turned the team around and got qualification (courtesy of a late Beckham goal against Greece) from a tricky group, the highlight being a 5-1 win away to Germany. Things didn't quite go to plan in the run up to the World Cup, Gerrard and Gary Neville pulled out through injury and Beckham only just made it after breaking a metatarsal bone in his foot.

Spirits were still high though. Perhaps too high. For one child in particular.

No, that kid was not naturally bald. Nor did he need glasses. He had his head shaved and wore the glasses to look like Sven-Goran Eriksson. Whether he's a legend or an idiot I will leave for you to decide.

The Great White Hype

Director: Reginald Hudlin
Writers: Tony Hendra, Ron Shelton
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Goldblum

Released: 1996

Seeing this film at the cinema was one of the great cinematic experiences for me. Not because the film was that good, but that our gang were the only people in the room. The film was shown in the smallest screening room anyway (screen 10 – out of 10 – I think) but having only 5 people attend on opening weekend was still pretty lame.

It meant that we could mess about. Everyone immediately lay across about 4 seats. Food and various other items (including shoes) were thrown around. We climbed up at the back and could look into the projection room. It was quite small and there wasn't much in there. Not even a seat.

"Off the Ground" by Paul McCartney (released three years earlier) was playing on the stereo in there before the film started. I'd heard this album before (I got it out from Leek Library) and it wasn't very good. The title track was strong but the rest of the album was weak. We found that if you smacked the wall with your hand you could make the CD jump. Kind of added a hip hop edge to Macca's dad rock.

I don't really remember that much about the film and I've not seen it again since. I think Samuel L. Jackson was in it as a Don King-type character and that guy from that film (you know the one) was a white guy fighting a black champion boxer in a hyped up bout. I think he had beaten the champ when they were amateurs and the champ hadn't lost since, so fight fans were getting bored. Or something. The champ won in the end though.

Cinema staff popped in occasionally to keep an eye on us as the film was playing, but we had already gotten bored of messing about by the time the trailers started so there wasn't much for them to see, though we were all still lying across several seats at various locations around the room. Being mischievous is tiring.

I'd recommend only watching this film under similar circumstances.

Rating: ?

Glastonbury 2014

I won't be attending Glastonbury this weekend as a fan, but I will be playing there with my band. Not really, but I wish this was the case. I think playing in front of 200,000 people on the Pyramid Stage would have been the perfect comeback gig for us. Our previous biggest ever audience was one, if you count only humans, and three if you also include cats. And that one sole human was the younger brother of one of the band, and he was only allowed to hang around because we were using his instruments. And we were playing at his house. It might have been slightly unfair if we didn't let him stay.

I'm not sure where we would have been on the bill if the Eavis family had booked us. We wouldn't be as high as Dolly Parton obviously (no-one is), but we'd be above Metallica at least. The fact our band had no name might also cause problems as no-one would see us on the posters or anything, there'd just be a gap where a name should be.

Instead of us, the assembled throngs will have to put up with Arcade Fire, Robert Plant, Pixies, Warpaint, Blondie, St Vincent, Lykke Li, Gabrielle Aplin and Goldfrapp. It's your loss people.

Worst World Cup Moments

No. 2: Rivaldo

Like many players, Rivaldo could dive and feign injury at will, but he outdid himself at the 2002 World Cup.

In Brazil's first group game against Turkey, Rivaldo had just scored a penalty in the 87th minute (wrongly awarded - see 4:37 in this video - the foul was clearly outside the box) to give Brazil a 2-1 lead, and leaving Turkey with only 10 men.

As the game went into injury time, Rivaldo engaged in a bit of time wasting at a corner. Hakan Unsal ran over to kick the ball to/at him...

The ball hit Rivaldo in the thigh, only for Rivaldo to take a dive clutching his face, as shown quite nicely in the video above, all set to some lovely hip hop music. Result: Hakan Unsal was sent off and Rivaldo would forever be associated with (pointless) cheating.

Worst World Cup Moments

Seemingly every newspaper and website in the world is having a series on the best or most important moments from World Cup history right about now. I can't compete with that, but I can mention some of the worst.

No. 1: Diana Ross

At USA 94, Diana Ross was the main attraction of the opening ceremony. An odd choice on many levels:, she’s not the kind of artist that I think many football fans would have liked (especially back then when football was a lot less female friendly than it is now) and her star was seriously on the decline by then; she hadn't had a top 10 album in the US since 1980 and a top 10 single since 1984. 19 of her previous 20 singles had even failed to chart in America at all.

Anyway, at one point in the ceremony, Diana was meant to kick a football into a goal, only it didn't quite go to plan. She spannered the ball hopelessly wide, made worse by the fact the goals fell apart as if her "goal" had broken them. Ever the pro, she kept on running and singing. And by singing, I mean lip-synching; and quite badly too, she doesn't even bother holding the microphone to her mouth much of the time. She does sing the odd bit over the backing tape to be fair though as the show goes on.

You can watch the whole 8 minute Diana Ross section of the opening ceremony by clicking here. You can also see her nipples poking through her top quite prominently towards the end of her performance too, if you're into that kind of thing.

Love Shack

It's the summertime now, which is a perfect excuse to listen to 'Love Shack', perhaps the defining cultural achievement of the 20th Century.

One time in High School, there was a drive to reduce the amount of lost property, so teachers would read out lists of lost property items at the start of classes to try to find their owners. One German lesson, Herr W (our teacher) read out a list of the usual items (gloves, scarves etc) with little response, until he mentioned a 'Love Shack' 12” picture disc single. After a brief silence, about 10 kids all put their hands up claiming it as their own. I think only 'Love Shack' could have had that kind of effect on a class of apothetic Generation Xers. And yes, I was one of those 10 kids.

World Cup Fever

The World Cup got underway yesterday in Brazil with the hosts beating Croatia 3-1. The first World Cup I can remember is Mexico 86. (I can't say for sure but I think it was held in Mexico in 1986.) I was only 7 at the time, a young innocent, probably listening to The Smiths, REM, Throwing Muses, like most people did at that age and at that time. I was probably still into David Bowie then too, but secretly thought that his recent stuff wasn't as good as his 70s stuff, though didn't want to tell that to anyone else because I was just happy to see Bowie alive, happy and successful. He deserved it.

Just before Mexico 86, I had a bit of an accident. Playing football in our back yard on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I needed to go to the bathroom, so I ran to our back door, and tried to shove it open, thinking it to be ajar. As it happened, the door was shut and my hand went straight through one of the 1960s style glass panels (in 1986) leaving my wrist cut open and shards of glass stuck in the wound. As my mum didn't drive and my dad was playing golf (and was unreachable), my mum had to take me to my nan and grandad's house (a couple of streets away) to try to get a lift to the hospital. They weren't in either, nor their neighbour who we knew (who was also my godfather). I had a green and white tea towel wrapped around my wrist, soaking up the blood. In the end, some guy in my grandparents's street who happened to be outside washing his car offered to drive us to the hospital so that I could get my wrist dealt with.

The end result of this was that for the start of Mexico 86, I had my right wrist stitched and bandaged up. Coincidentally, star England striker of that World Cup was Gary Lineker, who had his (left) wrist bandaged during the tournament (see the picture above). This led to inevitable comparisons in the playground; fortunately, I was quite the goalscorer in those days and my Lineker-like appearance and goal-hanging made me a feared lunchtime goal threat.

England eventually lost in the quarter finals to Argentina, who went on to win the tournament. My wrist bandage was eventually removed, but it had served its purpose. My class's team (with me as star striker) went on to win a six-a-side tournament that summer too, proving me more successful than Gary Lineker that year, who won nothing, other than the World Cup's golden boot award for leading scorer and a multi-million pound transfer to Barcelona.

Celebrity Golfing Anecdote

I went to the English Open golf tournament at the Forest of Arden one year (on the Thursday of what I would guess was around 1996 or so) with one of my cousins (called Kenny G for the sake of this post) and some other people. Aside from hearing the radio station BRMB for the first time (heavily advertised on ITV at the time), I did manage to come away from the day with two celebrity golfing anecdotes, just the thing every raconteur or bon viveur needs for those occasions when you are talking to golf fans, or at a golf club.

(1) At the practise putting green, bearded New Zealand golf sensation Frank Nobilo was being filmed. I managed to position myself at all times so that I was always in line with the camera and behind Frank. I don't know how much of it they showed on Sky Sports* but I would have been there in the background too. If you happened to tape that day's golf, please watch that day's entire play then e-mail me and let me know if they showed any of that footage. Thanks.

* Interestingly, all the camera equipment I saw that day was (former?) BBC equipment where the BBC symbol was still clearly visible beneath the Sky Sports stickers/logos.

(2) At one point, Kenny G and I followed Colin Montgomerie around for a while, as he was probably the main man of European golf at the time. Needless to say, I was suitably impressed by how far he could smack the ball. Also, at the time, he seemed like the tallest person I had ever seen in my life, but Wikipedia says that he's only 6ft 1in, so unless he's shrunk a lot since then I was probably just imagining it. Either that, or people from Staffordshire are like hobbits compared to the rest of the world. Anyway, after one hole, Kenny G and I thought we would get a move on to the next tee to get a good spot. I found myself walking along talking to what I thought was Kenny G but was actually just a random stranger, so I stopped to look for him only to have somebody walk straight into me with such force that it knocked me to the ground. I looked up sheepishly to see the one and only Colin Montgomerie helping me back up as it was he who had knocked me over (I bet you didn't see that coming). He saw the funny side about it and apologised. Whenever people would say he had a bad attitude etc I would always tell this story to show him in a better light.

I think you'll agree these are two dynamite anecdotes, fit for any occasion. Please feel free to steal them and use them for yourself. If you need more information to make the stories more convincing or watertight (in case anyone starts asking questions about the whether it actually happened to you, for example), then let me know, I'll be happy to help.

Jumping On The Fashion Blog Bandwagon

I already jumped on the food blog bandwagon, and if there's one type of blog that's more popular right now, it's blogs about fashion. So, I'm going to teach you all about what it takes to be as stylish as me, starting with footwear.

Everyone should own some Doc Martens shoes/boots. I've been wearing the "101" boot (pictured) lately, available for £95 from Amazon, though I got them at the Brassington Bros shoe shop in Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent) for about £85. They're not as sleek as the classic Doc Martens boot, but I got them to double as a fashion item and my winter shoe of choice, in case I have to fight my way through lots of rain and snow, which I do as I live in England. I also like to wear some thick woollen socks with Doc Martens for extra comfort and squishiness.

Converse are also a must (quelle surprise). I've currently got some hi tops in "noir" and "ecru" (yellow) and low tops in red and white, though the white ones have faded and gone slightly yellow. The hi tops are typically around £55 and low tops around £45. Having (UK) size 11 feet can make buying Converse a bit of a nightmare as it limits the choices available to me, even on Amazon.

Everyone likes a bit of glamour occasionally, which is why I own some silver shoes. Yeah you read that right. They're slightly faded now, but they still shimmer and sparkle, and that's all that matters. I got them in Primark a couple of years ago for about £10. Bargain of the century.

Having some nice black and brown shoes for more formal occasions/outfits goes without saying, though I'll say it anyway. This is the more boring part of the footwear area, but needs must. You can buy them just about anywhere, you don't need my help.

2013 Favourites

Film

This is an easy one as I've only seen one film from last year, 'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa', which, fortunately, is as good as one might expect.

Games

2013 was a stellar year for games, the Wii U (woo hoo!) had its first full year and the PS4 (mild yay) and Xbone (boo!) were released. The stellar 'GTA V' ruled sales-wise, and though I haven't finished it yet, I would say it's a lot better than the disappointing 'GTA 4' and is a lot of fun. Another "AAA" title that was a lot of fun was 'Assassin's Creed IV'. At first, I thought it an improvement on 'ACIII', but I've since replayed 'ACIII' and I actually think that III is better than IV. The multiplayer on 'ACIV' is astoundingly good though, easily the best of the year for me. Talking multiplayer, that brings me to the very disappointing 'Call Of Duty: Ghosts', which had a piss poor single player campaign and quite a lame multiplayer, which ditched objective game modes in favour of pure killing, and improved the hit detection to the extent that as soon as you get hit you're dead (and vice versa). It plays into the hands of campers and is much the worse for it. 'Batman: Arkham Origins' was another fine (if more-of-the-same) entry to the series, and featured multiplayer for the first time, though that's quite hard to judge as it is virtually impossible to find a game when you go online. PS3 had 'The Last Of Us', which was very good, both in single player and multiplayer, though it's not quite the masterpiece some people make it out to be. Wii U had some of the best games of the year, the amazing 'Super Mario 3D World' being the best, featuring insanely brilliant and varied level design and probably the tightest controls of any game this year. 'Lego City Undercover' was another incredibly fun game, easily the best Lego game I've seen or played. Wii U also had the promising looking 'Wonderful 101' and reamkes of 'Legend Of Zelda:the Wind Waker' and 'Deau Ex: Human Revolution', though I haven't got around to playing them yet. The best game of the year though was unquestionably 'Animal Crossing: New Leaf' on 3DS. I've already put in over 200 hours playtime into the game and will undoubtedly put in lots more. The 3DS had a stellar year though I didn't get around to too many of the other great-looking games ('Fire Emblem: Awakening', 'Pokemon X and Y', 'Luigi's Mansion 2', 'Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins', 'Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D', 'The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds' to name but a few!) as I spent so much time as mayor in my town (called Hyrule) in 'Animal Crossing'.

Music

My favourite album of 2013 was "The Stand-In" by Caitlin Rose, a rockier effort than her brilliant debut album, not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I also liked the latest Neko Case album (which goes without saying), the title of which is too long to type. The album I listened to the most last year was probably "True Romance" by Charli XCX, which still gets heavy rotation on my stereo, and is really very good. Laura Marling's fourth album "Once I was An Eagle" was another stellar effort and "Silence Yourself", the debut by Savages, was fantastic too. Of the hyped albums of the year, I enjoyed Haim's debut "Days Are Gone" quite a bit and Lorde's "Pure Heroine" too.

Podcasts

Greg Proops's "The Smartest Man In The World" is probably my favourite of 2013, a kind of improvised stand-up show full of anecdotes, rants, politics. Richard Herring produced some good work again this year, with a show from the Edinburgh Fringe featuring chats with other performers as well as some stand-up, and another from the Leicester Square Theatre, which is another chat-based show with (mainly) comedians. Also providing a conversation based podcast (I didn't want to use the words chat or talk again there) was Jeff Garlin, whose show "By The Way, In Conversation With Jeff Garlin" featured interviews with some of his friends and favourite performers. It doesn't always hit the mark, and it can get a bit awkward when he sucks up to the guests (though to be fair Jeff does address this and is unrepentant), but is very interesting nonetheless and he gets some big name guests and people you don't get long interviews with too often, such as Larry David. "The Bugle", with Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver, continued to be excellent into its fifth year as did Kevin Smith and his army of podcasts (in their seventh year!), of which "Hollywood Babble-On", a fairly bitchy review of the week in entertainment with Ralph Garman, is probably my favourite. Just lately I've got into "Call Chelsea Peretti", featuring the aforementioned Chelsea Peretti (I love saying that name), a comic and writer (on shows like "Parks and Recreation" and "The Sarah Silverman Program"). The podcast is kind of weird and surreal and features Chelsea taking calls from listeners and rambling on about various other surreal things. It might well be the most brilliant thing ever, I'm not really sure yet.

Radio
The ever excellent 'Sound Opinions' continued in fine form last year as ever, as did BBC 5live's 'Fighting Talk', though the show has taken a downturn since host Colin Murray left in the summer to be replaced by a revolving panel of hosts (when will the BBC learn thi is never a good idea?). Also on 5live is 'Daily Bacon', the channel's entertainment and interviews show, which relies on good guests and generally has someone of interest on the show, fortunately. As ever though, my favourite radio show is 'Hawksbee and Jacobs' on talkSPORT, a humorous weekdaily take on the world of sport (is weekdaily a word?) which is always excellent. And funny.

TV
Got to be honest, I didn't watch much TV in 2013, though I did see some good stuff. 'The Americans', strangely shown on primetime ITV, was a very enjoyable (American) cold war thriller, and showed where 'Homeland' went wrong when it started to focus on the Brody-Mathison romance and less on imminent terrorist threat. 'Arrested Development' was the main reason I started subscribing to Netflix last summer and was very good, if a little inconsistent (the shows needed a little editing I think), but Netflix was where I found the best show of the year, animated comedy 'Archer', an American parody of espionage movies (James Bond in particular), which focuses as much on office politics as it does on real politics and is much the better for it. I've only seen Season 1 of 'Breaking Bad' and up to Season 3 of 'Eastbound & Down' or I'm sure they would have joined the list too.