Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 20 June 2006

20 June 2006

During my time off from Cod Almighty duties the Diary took the opportunity to look around a little. I went down to some dark places. I saw some scary things. Things that make you doubt your own sanity and wonder whether there's any point carrying on. Things that make you wonder whether planet Earth might not be a better place all round if the whole of humanity were suddenly wiped out, such are men's folly, blindness and wilful depravity. Then when I'd finished looking at the messageboard on Town's official website I watched Big Brother and cheered up no end.

Sorry, anyway, that you have been without not only the Diary but the entire body of this website for the past couple of days. It's not our fault! We had a massive email from the server people saying it's not their fault either, and trying to say whose fault it was, but I sort of switched off after the first few words, uncertain whether I was reading English, double Dutch, xml, C++ or just plain gobbledegook. Maybe that was the idea, eh?

Fortunately, very little seems to have been happening in my absence in the DN35 postal code district - the one exception being Steve 'Steve' Mildenhall's departure from Blundell Park and subsequent arrival at the Huish one. The Western Daily Press has today revealed that the grace of My Lord was being sought by an amazing 13 clubs - possibly because his performance in the play-off final was made to look even better by the shite served up in front of him - and he was "bombarded with calls" from managers yesterday even as he headed down to Yeovil to do the dotted line thing. It is to be hoped that the former (sob!) Town keeper's car is equipped with a hands-free kit of some description, since the law is now very clear about the use of mobile phones while driving - even for a man of Mildenhall's quick reactions.

Season tickets are on sale for the Mariners' third consecutive season in the bottom division, and it will come as little surprise that the club is claiming that sales are going really well. The official announcement of excellent season ticket take-up is now recognised by Town supporters as an annual ritual, as much a part of the British summer as Wimbledon, food poisoning and fat, sweaty crimson men walking around with no top on.

The Diary and the Cod Almighty server are not the only ones returning from an extended break, as new GTFC team manager Graham 'Rodgers' Rodger is back and can be expected to show his pale, eyelinered face at Gulliver's any Tuesday night now. His comment "I never liked the sun that much anyway," is the highlight of a long interview given by Town's gothic coach to Mariners World today, which otherwise tells us little we didn't already know. Rodge is clearly a more articulate man than his predecessor, Russell 'I Could Get Any Female Off The Street' Slade, but his MW debut seems to achieve little more than stating the obvious, with a double "no easy games" cliché and an observation that the areas of the squad most in need of strengthening are the ones that are weakest. This may be unfair, as deeper insights may have been lost beneath the constant buzz and crackle of the fiver-from-Mad-Harry's microphone used by the club's premium web service - assuming it wasn't 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' or 'She Sells Sanctuary' playing in the background.

There'll be more from the Diary tomorrow then, God and WWWserver willing. It's nice to be back!