Cod Almighty | Diary

Once upon a time in Hollywood

3 May 2023

I'm sorry, am I disturbing your peace?

The Queen's coronation; Winnie's funeral; good old Nobby, good old Bobby; Den doing the dirty on Ange; and now, in colour, a couple of hyper-rich North American teeth-packing glitterati have eventually bought promotion into the promised land of professional football, the old fourth division.

It's what the Beeb is for. Where else, who else would we turn to, to bring us all together for a great shared experience? I do apologise for interrupting your third viewing of the national celebrations of a slow bus trip in Wales.

It's all rather irksome, this media feeding frenzy of fawning. Mind you, we said that last year when they went wall-to-wall goo-goo over Stockport. You couldn't open a newspaper without seeing a maddening picture of Paddy Madden gurning. In Stockport.

We may end up feeling sorry for the Wrexhamites. They are relying on the kindness, and the attention span, of strangers. They can polish their medals and sharpen their smiles, and even amuse themselves playing games for a while, but there's a hard heart beating over at Celebrity Squares FC. They aren't doing it for free, you know, despite the treacly tosh about trusting their intentions. Words are just noise, the law is only interested in what is on paper. Those millions they've loaned are currently accruing interest at 7.25%. If they've no interest in making money why charge interest? Not even The Fentycon had the chutzpah to do that. Remember, Hollywood expects a profit and cuts its losses, ruthlessly. The poor things need to keep on winning or the price of failure may be very, very high indeed.

Hey, that's capitalism for you.

Well, there ain't much a-going on in a-Grimsby these days as we wait for Suella de Vile to float some very dark mental boats with a fleet of luxury cruise liners in the Humber to house all those who won't be staycating in Scampton. Hey, that's democracy for you. It's what we fought the war for, apparently. Which war? And who are we?

We, the people, whose mood grows darker and blue won’t be hanging around town much longer as the final curtain draws closer. Once more before we go to the beach, dear friends, just once more, and one more week before we find out who'll be left in the building. Shall we just wait and see? Put on your earmuffs, words are just noise.

In the meantime why not settle down with a bingo card to watch the Bananarama play-offs as the commentariat invoke the Spirit of 1878 and speculate who's going to be "doing a Grimsby" this year. Your Deviant Diarist counted 11 direct mentions last night, with a sneaky "Holohan moment" thrown in to catch out those dozing off like Barnet's defence. 

Or why not settle down and try out our new quiz thing, specially designed by Mr Miles Moss for your mental delectation. It's gonna be popping up any second now...

Well, it’s something to do while we wait for the comings and goings; you can't watch the Wrexham coach trip every day, you can have too much of a good thing. Except those three play-off games of course. 

I'll be "doing a Grimsby" this wet weekend. There's nothing else on telly, is there?