Cod Almighty | Diary

It could have been me, everybody knows, everybody says so

12 November 2021

BOTB Diary writes: The Duff Guide to Aldershot: Aldershot – or Oldershit, as the English policeman from 'Allo 'Allo would doubtless call them - are having a tough season. We've lost three on the trot without scoring. Something has to give. (Tony Butcher has written a rather more comprehensive guide for us - Eds)

Talking of the FA Cup, have you notice that Salford are on TV again? What infuriates me is that this is a microcosm of the way the world works, hiding in plain sight. Salford are, let's face it, a pretend football team, a rich man's train set, a student with a loaded dad living amongst the common people for a laugh. They are on TV not because their tie is an enticing one, or because they have a huge fan base who will be interested in their game, but because the camera crew might see someone who used to play for Man Utd in the stands and it will make them feel like they've got a job on Super Sunday.

It's the fame effect, and it is responsible for a lot of ills in society. It is why Ted Bundy used to get marriage proposals, it is why business plankton like Alan Sugar are venerated and respected, and why some people were sad when Prince Philip died. If your face is familiar you are treated as though you matter more. The human race has a terrible tendency to be sycophantic and reverential to those who don't deserve it, and no matter how hard I shake people who have never met the Queen but tell me she is lovely, you can't break into the hard-baked lickspittleism.

A rather sleazy story from Peter Hook's autobiography sums this up well. New Order were doing okay, and after gigs Peter Hook and Barney Sumner would go and chat up members of the audience, sometime successfully, sometimes not. During one particular tour they appeared on Top of the Pops for the first time. After the next gig Hook recalls that the backstage area had a queue of over 100 young women apparently desperate to meet them. They were the same people in the same band, but they'd now been on the television once, and that imbued them with astonishing powers of attraction.

John McAtee is back in training, or, as GTFC Twitter puts it, he has "returned to the grass." What has he been on in the meantime? That soft rubber stuff they put around the swings in a children's playground? Why can't people talk normally anymore? When did "having a drink" become "taking on water?" If I were to go to the pub and tell my wife I was going to be "taking on beer" she’d kick me in the leg. In natural history this tendency has taken hold as well. Butterflies used to feed on flowers, now they are referred to as "nectaring".

And don't get me started on restaurant menus. When did every food item have to have at least one adjective? Vanilla ice-cream has now to be referred to as Hand-Churned Ice Cream with Madagascan Vanilla or some such bollocks. I once saw a bottle of water in Tesco's with the words "hydration for the whole family" printed on the bottle. I'm not sure this is a world I want to live in.

I can remember visiting Aldershot twice, both times in the company of other CA diarists. We all live in the same house, you know, like the Beatles did. One of the games was a 0-0 draw. I have a feeling that one end of the ground had no stand but did have a barrier, like the kind of one that might prevent a motorcyclist going down a public footpath. In the second half me and the other diarists wandered down to this barrier and found ourselves a few feet from the action and able to hear every word spoken by the players, which were mainly, er... pithy. I also remember it was in a park with nice flowerbeds. Did I dream the whole thing? Even if it was real, Aldershot are still one step up from Salford, being a proper football club and not a stain on football's nappy.

Still, we have to try and beat them. A YouTube commentator described the current Shots team "as the worst he can ever remember". Please, please, don't give them any confidence by playing eight centre-halves or something. Please get three points, Town. Please warm my little heart you Mighties. Right, I'm off for some hand-cut sandwiching and to take on some tangy American diet coke.

Seeeeya.