Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 24 January 2007

24 January 2007

Good morning jobseekers! It's Devious Deviant Diary from downtown Dottingham delving into the detritus of the Darlington disappointment and driving a decidedly dodgy Daihatsu through the desperate days leading up to the Fentydoom's D-Day.

What's a meta for? Hey! Gotta no respect?

Town's December descent has mystified many. No points, no goals, no hope? The reason is obvious: they had a rubbish Christmas party. They've seen Alan's magic tricks before and slumped into a slough of despond when he got his handkerchief out. Or did Positive John tell them there is no Father Christmas?

Let's move on, as middle managers are fond of saying when they've been caught up in their own inadequate knickers. January, sick and tired, you've been hanging on me. You young people, you just don't know, do you. Have you never heard of Pilot? Back in the day we had proper winters with proper snow and no-one complained because they had to wear a coat. Get a grip, it's winter, we're not Middlesex mediatartlets, we don't panic. Are you listening there at the back of the Pontoon?

News of Leyton/Luton's Michael Reddy is as thin as the snow on the ground, but never think Buckley III doesn't plan ahead, for we have the replacement already. Non-scoring, non-playing, non-League Tony Thorpe's on loan until the end of the season and, to throw more salt onto the frozen path of hope, we have Simon Grand forever, or eighteen months, whichever is shorter. In teletext-speak we've secured him permanently, unlike that ship off Devon, or the advertising boards above the main stand. I would say we used guy ropes, but the blessed OS might think we've signed him on loan on a tentative six-month deal.

For those hull-bent on searching out a Town goal, there was a 9am pitch inspection for the reserve game at the Pooper-Scooper Stadium of Balls. Clad in an Stalinist overcoat, the official announcement was "This Game Will Go Ahead". You see that's what a shiny new stadium bring you - absolute certainty that reserve games will happen. Respect!

Drifting south and through the ether, the sound of Scunnies bores on. I don't know about you but Scunthorpe's new manager seems to me even more irritating than Laws. The irrepressible Mancunian enthusiasm translates as crass cockiness when it reaches the filling station at end of the A180. Wasn't that in Douglas Adams' first draft? Remember people of the land of Scun, pride becomes a fall. The greatest moment is merely the start of the slide into the molten pit of misery.

Haven't Boston been dissolved yet?

And finally, pop pickers, who pays the ferryman? Last month I got a text telling me that the drummer from Gerry and the Pacemakers had died. And now there's no Pappas no more: Denny Doherty, deceased. The 60s are literally dying. At least we still have Town. Don't we?

Who knows what tomorrow brings. It's impossible to say, but normal Guest Diary will eke out the globulets of gristle upon which he will chew for your edufactional infotainment.