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Posts Tagged ‘birthday’

Today’s piffle loves the smell of Dulux in the morning

Woo-woo. Dum-chum de-de de-de de. Woo-woo. Please allow The Mill to, er … Dum-chum de-de de-de de. Woo-woo. Something about driving a tank when the bodies stank. Dum-chum de-de de. Woo-woo.

For reasons that aren’t immediately clear, this morning the Mill feels a little different about the biggest story in the history of not-that-big stories painfully overinflated by righteous and self-serving gusts of hot air heated solely by the heart from hot air generated by pure hot air.

Whereas yesterday The Mill felt itself ranged squarely shoulder-to-shoulder, cheek-to-cheek alongside Cheryl, handsome dancer Derek, the dirty-looking blonde one from Girls Aloud and the perfumed-handkerchief-dabbing moral arbiters of the filthy red-tops. Today it has started to feel a slight dilution of its frothing indignation towards the world’s most evil left-back.

The Mill suspects it has something to do with this morning’s Sun. One of these people going about their business in a French medical clinic is behaving really quite strangely. But which one?

“ASHLEY Cole refused to say sorry for betraying Cheryl yesterday after the Sun tracked him down to a swish sports clinic in south-west France. We asked him the question the whole nation wants to ask: “How could you?” But the shaken Chelsea star could only reply: “I just can’t talk about that.”

“Cole, having treatment on his broken ankle at the clinic in Capbreton, a seaside town near Biarritz, tried to hide behind an exercise machine when challenged by our reporter. And wearing a supportive sandal on his injured foot, he hobbled away on crutches after refusing to comment further.”

The Mill asks you. You get the bleeding Eurostar. You blag your way in through the gates. You then accost a weeping man on crutches and distract him from flexing his toes repeatedly while listening to sad power ballads on his chrome-plated iPod. And all you get in return is a polite refusal to discuss the most traumatic few days of his life.

Also, there’s this:

“LOVE rat Ashley Cole has blamed his mother-in-law over his marriage break-up. He told pals that life with Cheryl went downhill when her mum Joan, 50, moved in to keep an eye on her.

“A source close to Ashley was last night reported to have said their sex life dwindled to virtually nothing.
They added: ‘It’s a bit of a passion killer to have your mum in the house.’”

The Mill was rather surprised to read these words and would like to extend a personal invitation to Joan Tweedy to infiltrate The Mill’s own dank and cobwebbed crawl space in the eaves of fashionable .Co.Uk Integrated Towers in London’s horrible Kings Cross any time she fancies it. Blurry mobile phone photographs of The Mill’s ancient, sodden, mildewed sewn-in smalls are available on request.

Meanwhile in the world of almost non-existent actual concrete flimsy football tittle-tattle the Mirror says Arsène Wenger is “keeping tabs on” the 18 year-old Ajax starlet Christian Eriksen, who has been recommended by Dennis Bergkamp.

Arsenal have also given a trial to the 17 year-old Icelandic whiz-kid Ingolfur Sigurdsson, who plays, sadly, not in goal for, but in midfield for Knattspyrnufelag Reykjavikur. Robin van Persie is going to be fit for the last six games of Arsenal’s “title push” according to Bert van Marwijk, who says: “I spoke to Robin on the phone last week and he is improving all the time and feeling better. You can hear it in his voice that he feels he is improving.” Hopefully this involved him saying at some point “I feel I am improving”.

Wayne Bridge is “in turmoil” over his expected England call-up this weekend. He’s still too cross to kick a ball around next to John Terry, because Terry had sex with his ex-girlfriend, who had previously split up with Wayne Bridge, reportedly in part because of his own “philandering ways”.

Next week: fur singlet-clad Wayne Bridge drags woman through village by her hair because that shirt’s not going to iron itself. Roberto Mancini says his job is completely safe. “I don’t feel under pressure at all,” he said, speaking from beneath a small nest of antique stain occasional tables.

Neil Warnock is being “coy” over whether he’s about to leave Crystal Palace. “Can I deny speculation about going to QPR? No,” he said, before taking to the stage to sing “Happy Birthday Mr President” in a strapless ball gown while making a range of creepily child-like cooing kissy kissy noises.

In the Daily Mail Hull’s Kamil Zayatte says he’s going to leave in the summer. “I see myself at a bigger club than Hull. If I could land a move to Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea it would make all Guineans proud of me,” he said, making all Guineans feel at first amused and slightly protective and then perhaps even a little worried. In an EXCLUSIVE it turns out Bridge will refuse to shake hands with Terry when Man City play Chelsea this weekend.

The Mirror also reports that Rafael Benítez was asked why he’s so fat by Romanian journalists yesterday. One cheeky scamp asked: “Mr Benítez, the last time I saw you was at the 2005 Champions League final, and your, erm, silhouette seems to have changed since then. Why is that?”

Benítez replied: “It is the stress of having to answer so many questions from the press. Thank you and goodnight,” before clearing the soup bowls away, and going into the kitchen to flob in the beef Wellingtons. Jermaine Pennant has been sent home from training by Real Zaragoza after arriving late for the third time in two weeks. And the Portsmouth defender Dusko Tosic is going to leave on a free transfer having never played in a league game, which is probably all for the best.

In the Sun Ryan Babel has “vowed to knuckle down after a heart-to-heart with boss Rafael Benítez”. Babel said: “I have had a good talk with the manager and I know what I have to do.

“That is what I am going to concentrate on. I just have to try to be patient, keep working hard and doing my best.”

Landon Donovan has “hinted” he might like to make a permanent move to Everton. “I think it’s been an incredible experience and away from football, the people have been extremely nice,” he said, implying that English football might contain people who are something other than “incredibly nice”.

And according to Goal.com Kansas City Wizards wizard Luis Gil has been signed by Real Salt Lake.

“Real Salt Lake provides a prime environment for the development of young players,” says the excitable, blazered wise-cracking, golf-playing, sample-carrying, Cadillac-driving, wife-flirting, squirtie-water-flower-wearing overly friendly American man in a suit Garth Lagerwey.

“The dream of venturing on to the Rio Tinto Stadium turf will surely inspire Luis to work hard every day in training. We have a talented, veteran team and we have no expectation that any young player will easily crack our championship line-up, though our hope is that Luis is eventually able to earn minutes in the years ahead,” he added, sounding like a demented alien.

ArsenalChelseaAjaxHull CityLiverpoolCrystal PalaceQPRBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk

Today’s gossip fears for the family line

The Mill is nothing if not a traditionalist. Rumour runs deep in its blood. Cut the Mill and it bleeds rumour, not to mention also crying for ages until it sneezes snot everywhere and threatening to, like, sue you and then pretending it can’t walk properly or even sit down even though you only cut it very slightly on its upper arm and purely for demonstrative purposes. Innuendo is in the Mill’s genes. Manipulative gossip festers beneath its toenails like an unexpected soft white substance that can be gently scraped out with a sharpened matchstick and then furtively deposited on the rear lip of the bathroom radiator in your girlfriend’s parents’ house in a surprisingly enjoyable moment of covert vandalism.

The Mill’s father was a piece of suggestive graffiti daubed on a railway arch wall. The Mill’s father’s father’s father was a ticker machine spewing early Victorian news wire gossip across the sawdust and porter strewn floor of a Cheapside tavern. Great-great-great-great grandfather Mill was a town crier’s bell-end. There are salacious Egyptian hieroglyphs in the family and even talk of a particularly ill-founded cave painting.

Still, the Mill is nothing if not a modernist. The Bosman ruling. Other rulings. The ruling that means you can snatch talented children from a Slovenian tower block forecourt five-a-side pitch. All of these have been the Mill’s daily bread in recent times. But still, there are mornings when, perusing its newspaper sheath, the Mill does feel a stab of longing for a return to the days when nobody was allowed to really do anything so there was no point making up stuff about highly promising Maltese defensive utility men because football gossip extended no further than a the vague possibility two years from now Liverpool might pay £30,000 for a very thin Scottish centre-half.

Mornings such as this, for example, when the front page of the Times features a large picture of Tony Blair doing a Prince-William-rapping-style gesture and saying “I’m your man” and trying to become president of Europe because you get a bulletproof car and stay in hotel suites that have a sweeping vista over the dusky Bruges cityscape.

But thankfully the Mill is nothing if not professional and rarely strays from a steely sense of purpose. So, in the Sun today, Liverpool are keen on buying 21-year-old Valencia left-winger Juan Mata, who will look quite good in the Carling Cup, score a goal against Bolton, then for some reason never really play much and quietly disappear back to Spain before popping up three years later looking awesome in the Europa League for Atlético Madrid or Fiorentina. “We want Valencia to recognise his true quality and it’s not just a matter of money,” laughed his father Juan Sr, making a sarcastic “puking” gesture and holding up a hand-written sign with the words “it is all about the money”.

Also Pepe Reina is about to be “locked into a fresh contract”, ideally one with an invigorating smell of cinnamon and freshly baked bread and not just a vaguely sickening chemical odour intended to convey a temporary sense of freshness which fades very quickly into a lingering stench of fags and something that might be old leather upholstery and might be vomit. Reina will get £90,000 a week.

Elsewhere, David Villa has fired his agent. Manchester United are “on red alert”. And Anthony Edgar, who sounds like an influential early 20th century literary critic who, although outwardly stern and fiercely respectable, ended up secretly marrying his infant cousin, has had to go back to West Ham after the Football League refused to extend his loan deal at Bournemouth.

In the Mirror, Phil Brown is “on the brink” because Adrian Pearson, who used to be Hull chairman and then went to Derby is now about to become Hull chairman again. There’s a big picture of Phil Brown looking, as ever, like your really embarrassing midlife crisis divorced dad who now has a 21-year-old dental hygienist girlfriend and never really remembers your birthday but occasionally shows up and performs an awful cringemaking stunt like theatrically breaking down in tears in a motorway service station, or serenading you over the PA at your school sports day, before bursting into tears again and whizzing off in his rubbish souped-up Rover and not showing up again for another six months.

Mike Ashley wants to rename St James’ Park the Wispa Gold Arena or the GoCompare.com Stadium in return for money. Brazil midfielder Sandro is keen on going to Spurs. “Tottenham’s interest is extremely flattering,” he says, although he might just be being polite. Watford want to extend their loan deals for Henri Lansbury who, let’s face it, isn’t really going to make it, and Tom Cleverly of Man Utd who the Mill has never seen play but who has a good name.

Two men called Levi Kushnir and Balram Chainrai, who the Mill hasn’t made up and are apparently real, want to buy Portsmouth. So that all sounds fine then.

In the Mail, Sven-Goran Eriksson has “moved to quash rumours” Hans Backe will be his puppet. “I am not going to be hands on,” he said in a Margaret Thatcher voice, waggling Hans Backe’s head amusingly from side to side. And Jeff Powell says Alex Ferguson is “a raging ball of anger”, and also the best manager ever.

In the Times, Tony Blair wants to be, you know, president of something. Something big.

And according to Tuttomercatoweb, Milan want to swap Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, who was quite fashionable a few years ago on the internet, for Fiorentina’s Adrian Mutu.

LiverpoolValenciaBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk