Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 18 May 2007

18 May 2007

The Grimsby Town official web site can be a sad, lonely and depressing place to visit. Your Guest Diarist has to dwell on this lonely street from time to time - partly to be able to recount to you, gentle reader, a précis of what is published there, but partly as a guilty pleasure. For the latter I can only apologise. As I write to you Joanna Lumley is reminiscing about her youth on Desert Island Discs, and the Mariners World video showing off the new Town home shirt is endlessly and soundlessly looping in the top right hand corner of my screen. Ooh, she likes Last Christmas, and Beethoven's melodies are so imprinted on her heart that sometimes she thinks she wrote them herself.

There - my devotion to your service has saved you the agony of listening to the velvet tones of Kirsty Young chatting up the fair Joanna and having to face up to the vision of Peter Bore and a young male friend posing provocatively with a Grimsby lass wearing a black and white striped shirt, and seemingly little else. Which of these two vistas caused a melancholy stirring in my loins I will leave you to ponder as I bask in a creamy pool of Nat King Cole until I feel slightly sick.

Fifteen minutes have passed and now it is John Major talking about cricket and the latest Town video has been turned off just in case young Mr Bore started complaining why the girl had to be in the middle all the time and that it was so hot he need to remove his new shirt. A further guilty glance at the OS reveals they are toying and teasing with us again, promising news of a signing on Saturday. In all probability, said Eeyore gloomily, it will be that Ciaran Toner signing up for another season. And if you fancied a last fag at Blundell Park then it's already too late as the law will require it to be a no smoking place from 1 July. As Eddie Izzard said when he played San Francisco after that city introduced no smoking to its bars: "Next it will be no talking, and then no drinking."

The new Town shirt looks very nice from the front I must say. Except for the grisly swoosh which is a constant reminder that this forty quid fashion item was made by someone working all hours God sent in some horrible sweatshop for about ten bob a month. As David Smith says in the voice over: "the little tick says it all, really." It's no good folks, I can't go on today otherwise you'll get me started on the incredibly expensive world that the football fan enters when they approach the new Wembley. This world needs a fairly fucking major kick up the arse and I nominate Sergeant Whittle to do it. Gordon Bennett! It's time I cleared off to mince a few oaths ready for the next time I see you. Ta-ra, and stay groovy this weekend.