The Diary

23 August 2008: All things Toffee And Stokie,Plus A Bit Of Nuclear Physics Chucked in As Well!

As I pen the opening words of this column, my roving gaze meets our conservatory den, now completely awash with what feels like the remains of an entire rain-forest, both handwritten and printed. Some of it?s connected with this particular Friday offering, while the rest forms part of a written OU assignment I?ve yet to finish: a complete and utter stramash of scientific papers, textbooks, handwritten notes, kitchen sink, flushing toilet ? the works, in fact. The main problem is severe lack of desk space, something I hadn?t really bargained for; any day now, I?m bound to encounter a Japanese soldier who?s yet to suss that the war ended more than 60 years ago. As long as there?s no hari-kari involved when I break the bad news, mind, then all my floor-strewn gubbins should stay blood-free and pristine. Touch wood.

But that?s nothing compared to the chaotic aftermath of my other half?s efforts to discover his inner Gordon Ramsay: ever since the close season started, he?s been experimenting in the kitchen, and the learning-curve has been a pretty steep one. Mind you, to be scrupulously fair to the lad, he has been coming forth with some excellent creations, these past few weeks: a pretty damn good lasagne, for starters, and his take on chilli con carne is ?bloody bostin? too. Once I can persuade him to start swearing a bit when immersed in increasingly frenzied stirrings of all those blasted pots and pans, I can then truly behold The Finished Product. Until that happy day dawns, my fingers will positively itch to take over, but not wishing to go into ?back-seat driver? mode, I?m keeping well out of it, and only interfering by invitation; now I know how doctors feel when colleagues minister unto their own immediate family.

So that?s a pretty concise resume of all matters Wright, this week. But what about Albion-related matters? The big topic of the week, naturally enough, has been the club transfer-record-smashing purchase of midfielder Borja Valero from Real Mallorca for a cool 4.7 million squid. My initial reaction? ?Oh blimey ? not ANOTHER midfielder?? But this guy?s very classy, and a typical Mogga capture, too ? well comfortable on the ball, apparently. $p Those who saw our recent friendly with the Spanish side should know, as he turned out for them that day. Said our leader today, on the club website, ?From a footballing point of view, he possesses many of the attributes I like in a player??great technical ability, weight of pass, (has) excellent work rate, and an eye for goal?.can link up the play from back to front,??enhance the already excellent midfield options we possess?.? With Mogga so fulsome in his praise for the new recruit, right now, he?ll do for me! Grear - now can we have a striker, please? Just two more thought, though. Will ?Im Indoors celebrate our new signing by focusing his new-found culinary expertise upon the creation of tapas, I wonder - and can we have a new striker now, please?

Our opposition tomorrow is Everton, and by one of those strange coincidences that bedevil this column from time to time, as I write, His Nibs sits well and truly entranced by a TV rerun of an early episode of the old BBC Scouse cop classic, Z Cars, and complete with iconic theme music, too. Which, also coincidentally, happens to be the very same tune played by the Goodison Park outfit as their players run onto the pitch. It?s a folk song, really, but the Beeb have always played it sans lyrics; briefly, the story depicts the various adventures of a Liverpool lad called Johnny Todd who, as the song says, ?Took a notion, for to cross the ocean wide?.? Funny, though ? I haven?t heard the ?proper? version performed in yonks. Perhaps I?ve been listening to the wrong folk music?

The main thing Everton have going for them is a seeming dogged refusal to surrender themselves to the razzmatazz and chronic over-hype that constantly bedevils other outfits at this level. Even now, it?s essentially a family club, very much redolent of days gone by, despite all the modern trappings Goodison now enjoys (endures?). That?s why a trip there always comes gift-wrapped with a bit of nostalgic pleasure for me ? but not for very much longer, it would seem. The smart talk on Merseyside these days is all about their proposed relocation to new premises in nearby Speke: a ghastly thought, that, the deadly deed ?that dare not ? erm ? ?Speke? its name?, in short. Sorry.

Seriously, though, it?s an alarming development; go there, and straight away, that grand old Merseyside club will be instantaneously robbed of something very precious indeed, its very heart and soul. Please, please, Toffee-people, DON?T DO IT!

As I remarked in my last posting, I was greatly heartened by last Saturday?s Emirates Stadium performance; although we left the field of play totally devoid of points, there were an awful lot of positives about our performance that day. In total contrast to previous occasions when The Stripes have entered Library premises, despite the home side threatening to run amok after their early strike, try as they might, they couldn?t do better than that single solitary goal.

That?s why I?m pretty upbeat about what tomorrow might bring; that, plus a brief foray into the wild and woolly world of their own supporter websites conveying with it the joyous news that they?re relishing tomorrow?s trip down the M6 about as much as most people do a rectal examination. (Unless you just happen to be one of those strange folkies who derive sexual kicks in abundance from rubber-gloved fingers probing where the sun don?t shine, of course?.)

The perceived problem is lack of new signings, coupled with major doubts over the fitness for tomorrow?s bash of captain Phil Neville, and wunderkind midfielder Danny Gosling. Tim Cahill?s return to full duties following a foot injury is still a month away, and Nigerian Victor Anichebe is still at the Olympics. Injured, too, so he won?t be that much cop when he finally does return in any case.

All that, plus manager David Moyes?s recent downbeat comments over what looks awfully like a complete inability to attract any new blood at all to Goodison this side of the transfer window, hasn?t exactly served to enthrall their troops, of late. They sure as hell appear to have one mother of a morale problem up there. The word from those mean Merseyside streets is, for one supporter website at least, a stonking 3-0 home win for our finest. Yeah, I?ll take that, and with twiddly silver knobs on, pretty please ? but do I have to sell both body and soul to Satan tonight to get my just rewards come three o?clock tomorrow? Essential knowledge indeed.

Team news, etc. from our own camp? We still have new defensive acquisition Gianni Zulverloon ?up our sleeves?, so to speak. All 3.2 million quid-worth of him, but he?s still jet-lagged after recent Olympic games action in China. Will our gaffer risk it, I wonder? Robert Koren and Luke Moore have both recovered from injury, so should be in the Hawthorns frame also, but Clem, still footsore, will dip out until after the next lot of internationals in early September. The ref? Rob Styles! AARRGH! If you have teeth, prepare to gnash them in frustration now! Mind you, if it?s any consolation at all, our toffee-munching chums clearly despise the arrogant little lump of whistling turd just about as much as we do! And was Rob Styles the very same lump of ordure, inflatable variety, that slipped its ?moorings? and caused power lines aplenty to crash in the good old US of A, recently? (No ? I am NOT making it up, honest!)

A FEW BAGGIE AFTERTHOUGHTS?? First off, brief mention of Stoke City, and their distinctly one-eyed (and permanently stiff-necked, I shouldn?t wonder) support, currently working itself into a complete and utter frenzy courtesy happy thoughts of tomorrow?s Britannia Premiership debut, where the Potters ?host? ? if that?s the correct term for something so grim ? our fish-loving neighbours from Villa Park. If I were of the Potty persuasion, I wouldn?t waste my energy, given Ladbrokes? happy announcement that they were paying out on City?s relegation just 24 hours after they crashed to Bolton on the opening day. Were it any other side about to pay the Potties a courtesy call, I?d be rooting for them in toto, but as it?s You Know Who setting foot inside the Britannia Stadium, the habits of a lifetime still remain, sadly. Confused, or what?

Now get out your diaries, all you lovely Baggie people out there, because on September the 10th, something called the Large Hadron Collider comes into being. (Many thanks to The Fart for drawing my attention to this, by the way!) It?s what?s called a ?particle accelerator?, and what a biggie it is, too, costing around the gross national product of a developing nation to build. And we?re one of the countries that paid for it. The circular tube where all the action happens is so large in circumference (27Km), parts of it happily wander back and forth 100 metres beneath the French-Swiss border, and all without a passport, too. Disgraceful. Bet that gets Daily Mail readers frothing at the mouth, if nothing else does.

The idea is to accelerate bits of atomic nuclei to 99.9% of light-speed in that tube, then smash other bits of atoms into them to see what happens. Other particle accelerators have done this sort of thing before, but none as big or powerful as this one, apparently. It?ll tell us a lot about what happened just after the Big Bang, so the egg-heads say ? but our venerable chum informs me there is actually a smidgen of doubt afoot in some quarters as to what species of havoc this particular beast might wreak upon our own world once switched on! Ooer.

Alarming? Too bloody right, blue, so ?acting upon information received?, so to speak, I then turned to the project official website to dig the dirt. Result? Yes, they have looked at the risk of this gismo creating ?hypothetical objects such as vacuum bubbles, magnetic monopoles, microscopic black holes and strangelets (midget black holes apart, I haven?t the foggiest what the other three are either!) and say they find ?no associated risks?.

Mark, though, these (famous last?) words from those responsible for the Hadron Collider. ??If some microscopic black holes were stable, those produced by cosmic rays would be stopped inside the Earth or other astronomical bodies. The stability of astronomical bodies constrains strongly the possible rate of accretion by any such microscopic black holes, so that they present no conceivable danger?..?

?No conceivable danger?.? Didn?t they used to say that about nuclear reactors, once? Forget the official version, I know precisely what will happen. Hasty checking with our fixture list reveals that things get switched on just three days before we?re due to face West Ham at The Shrine. Result? Those sneaky, cunning microscopic black holes will simply defer their entry into our subatomic world until Saturday the 13th of September, and at around 4.55 pm, I shouldn?t wonder.

So at the precise moment Albion are entering time added on for second-half stoppages some six goals to the good, and with Chris Brunt about to take one of his devastatingly-effective corners to nicely set up Ish Miller for an unprecedented Premiership seventh, they?ll promptly pee on our parade by swallowing us up, Hawthorns and all, with a resounding ?gulp?. (One small consolation, though: Molineux will certainly give them a bad dose of food poisoning!) ?They Always Let You Down? indeed, and on a truly cosmic scale, too!

 - Glynis Wright

Contact the Author

Diary Index