May Cause Offence

It’s been a long week. One of those weeks that are somehow longer than other weeks despite still only containing seven days of twenty-four hours and the normal composition of five weekdays and a weekend of two days. However, it has mainly been a long week because I have been going to bed later, due to the absence of college the next day, and waking up early to revise. Yes, revision – that hounding concept that means, without sleep deprivation, one will miss the summer because, in sunny in March and raining in August England, the end of the British summer coincides with the end of the A-Level examination period – the last week of June.

But, the summer is not the only thing that falls victim to revision – my so far daily output of blogs has done, too. For a short while I felt guilty that I was no longer analyzing the Premier League and international football in general, daily: however, in seeing that all has continued like before – Saints are still leaving it right until the end of the season to reveal which division they’ll be in next season, Joey Barton continues to divide opinion and Roberto Mancini is becoming the umpteenth manager to interpret every minute movement or utterance of Sir Alex Ferguson as a mind game – the feeling didn’t last long. Therefore, until the examination period is over – June 22nd for me – I cannot guarantee any particular turnover of ramblings, rantings or righteous articles.

I can tell you now, though, that Manchester United, Southampton, Charlton and Swindon will win their respective leagues and Barcelona will win the Champions League. I’ll be back just in time for the knockout phases of Euro 2012, however, I’ll miss the group stages and therefore I’ll inform you now of England’s results: France 2-0 England, Sweden 2-2 England and England 2-0 Ukraine. It’ll get us through by one point, five points behind group winners France on nine out of nine: however, we’ll then crash out to the winner of Group C – Spain.

Until then, and in between sporadic and random blogs I will undoubtedly post, I leave you with three things that have encapsulated my day.

1. Every now and then I contract an illness that has me believe that I will die – without a shadow of a doubt. Last night such an ailment descended upon me and there are three things that I consider potentially to blame: the weatherman telling me that it was going to snow or at least pour down with rain in a  torrential manner, just for neither to occur leaving me entirely overdressed for twenty-plus temperatures; yesterday’s haircut that was unwarranted and more a symptom of my constantly changing views of what constitutes attractive and thus left me with grade one hair at the sides and back failing to keep my ears warm; or my diet that had, until today, constituted of MacDonald’s, Subways and Fish and Chip shop meals, since Sunday. The resulting life-threatening disposition has taken a hold of me and I am therefore currently suffering from man flu.

I am not enjoying my potentially fatal bout of man flu as it makes my face ill – literally, my face feels ill. Almost hurt. The rest of my body, neck down, is still as perfect as it always has been: however, that bit where perfection stops and my nape begins is the very start of where I feel like I have been nutted by Pepe Reina. Firstly is the soreness created by dry lips, so dry that they make Fernando Torres’ dry spell look suitably moist. Then there is the copious amount of phlegm my body has deemed necessary to produce and I consider superfluous and therefore left to dispose of in the most manly ways possible. You can understand why my mum is therefore required to make me cups of tea every half an hour and reassure me that I am not dying. I am yet to be convinced.

2. In remedying my terminal illness, I have played ample amounts of FIFA, in between revising Mergers and Acquisitions of course. Whilst my surge up the Head to Head Leagues has continued to excite me and entertain me for numerous hours, playing Anzhi Makhachkala does not. I understand that whilst I am playing as Southampton F.C (a three-and-a-half star team) I will continue to face the possibility of playing the Russian Manchester City (four star), as their rating is within half a star: however, frankly, they are the team used by Pseudo-Russians. I’d happily place money on less than 10% of the people playing as them are from Makhachkala.

It may seem irrational that such a trivial matter is causing me such angst, but those who play as Samuel Eto’o FC are not only Pseudo-Russians, but pseudo-footballers. Giving the ball to Samuel Eto’o and sprinting past Jos Hooiveld is not footballing wizardry and therefore it does not warrant elaborate celebrations, four replays and and subbing said Cameroonian off at 85′ just so you can give him your own standing ovation. You are as much of a footballer as Emile Heskey is and you disgust me.

3. One thing I am unlikely to do tomorrow is face Anzhi and their many mercenaries online. One thing I will be doing, though, is catching a ridiculously early train to London and then a ridiculously packed tube to Camden to record a music video. I’m rather excited, yet slightly subdued, all at once. While the music video will be synced to an already recorded track that I feature on, I would much rather appear to be rapping in the video and not mouthing the words due to my aforementioned case of face-AIDS. The fact I haven’t listened to the song regularly ever since I recorded it back in July doesn’t help the situation. Therefore, I will be listening to it on repeat during the train journey tomorrow. If I make it home alive from Camden, I will post the music video on this site in due course.

Thanks for reading, babies.