Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 1 June 2007

1 June 2007

Going cold turkey for five days and then getting a massive hit of news, as provided by my deviant friend to you yesterday, must have been a shock to the system, gentle reader. Pass the valium on the left hand side, for today we return to what we consider now to be normal in this dull doldrum between the seasons of our lives. Tonight England play Brazil and the BBC has cleared its entire schedule in anticipation. Leonardo had already reached a noisy Rome airport by 8:30am and the BBC radio man couldn't wait any longer to get his views on Beckham. The rumour that Martin Paterson is to be auctioned live on Flog It! has no foundation (yet), and Lord Buckley has a digital watch.

The Independent, whose editor continues to curse the political vacuum which has consumed England since Blair decided upon a seven week farewell tour, is reduced to running a piece about dialects. Cod Almighty of course, published its Grimmo Dictionary back in 2004, and still gets feedback from readers suggesting new words. Stitherum was the last one I saw commented upon, but, like the faintly risible Indy article, this word is by no means confined to Grimbarians, but is old Lincolnshire dialect. As your Guest Diarist doesn't actually come from Grimsby I can know this. Grimbarians, and Meggies of course, can only know the slang words they know until they move away. But before I am enveloped completely in this linguistic swamp and start to sound like Donald Rumsfeld crossed with a Gainsborough folk group I need to stop this stitherum and move on to that crucial third paragraph.

Here it is. And the best we can hope for it to recycle some tosh from the Grinsby Telewag. Its lead news story tells of the impending arrival of a food recycling factory in Stallingborough. This means out-of-date food gets burnt to make electricity. I suppose the idea of giving it to poor people to eat is right out of the question. And food is mostly packaging these days anyway, so burning it makes some kind of sense. It's a thermal cracker as Frank Carson would say. On the sports page there is an article about the striker hunt which is so comprehensively recycled that I cannae be bothered with it. And Lord Buckley tells us that he wants a second keeper very badly. And that he has spoken to three chaps already.

So we can look forward to Carragher at full-back, the return of that midfield quartet and two strikers in Owen and Smith who have each scored about once in the last eighteen months. Bound to win then. See yer.