Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 2 October 2003

2 October 2003

A bloke called yesterday from the garage where Mrs Diary's car is being repaired, wanting to know why the damage was clearly on the door when the insurance form said it was on the "quarter panel". Those who know me best could guess that I have no more idea what the quarter panel is than I know why Norwich Union buggered up the form. Bloke From Garage nevertheless expressed great amusement at this when he later spoke to Mrs D. But why? I did not request him to distinguish between defining and non-defining clauses. I would have been mightily impressed were he to have expounded upon the subtle art of subject-verb agreement or the semantic dangers of the dangling modifier. Why, then, is the Diary expected to have grasped the finer details of automobile repair, when the purpose of my existence on this planet is to find news about Grimsby Town Football Club and rewrite it in a vaguely entertaining style?

Now if I appeared to have no idea of, say, who is the manager of GTFC, you would all have grounds for complaint. If I were to write something like "Town manager Tony Crane is beginning to prove he's a good signing for the club" then you would quite rightly demand my guts for garters. Yet this is how the BBC Humber website is squandering your licence fee today - unless of course the professional mardy-arses of North East Lincolnshire have got their way and Paul Groves is indeed out, with Town's 'towering' Yorkshire centre-half being the only man on Earth except Mat Hare willing to take his place.

What do Clive Mendonca and Lauren Laverne have in common? Apart from the Diary worshipping the ground they walk upon, I mean. That's right - they're both from Sunderland. And so are Mavis, a thrilling indie/pop/punk/emo outfit who are to bestow upon the aforesaid Clive an honour seldom bestowed upon former footballers for Grimsby Town FC by naming an album after him. The band have opted to christen their second long-player Mavis vs. The Mendonca, possibly in tribute to the player's tremendous hat-trick for Charlton in the 1998 first division play-off final, which consigned the Mackems to another year of slugging it out in the Nationwide with the likes of Grimsby. The album is released on, er, hang on - I've always wanted to sound like John Peel - where's my piece of paper? - on the highly respected Toddler Records on 27 October. Ace!