Dadblog

Some time ago, we were driving to Norfolk with another family, and we stopped for petrol just north of Cambridge. I got out of our car, and one of our friends got out of their car. We filled our tanks with petrol, and walked towards the shop to settle up.

At which point she paused, and her face fell. For a moment, she looked really, really upset, almost close to tears. She looked at me, smiled and made a joke of it, as the English do: “well, that was worth the struggle.” She nodded towards the newspaper stand, and there, nestled among the latest news and sports headlines, was a woman wearing nothing more than a thong and very high heels, her back to the camera, leaning forward, and leering back towards us.

Ah yes. The Daily Sport. Always there to ruin your day.

I remember when Loaded first came out. I remember being quite excited by it - it seemed fresh and subversive and disruptive and, despite its deliberate lowbrowedness, seemed to have been put together by people who really knew what they were about. The early episodes were hysterical. Even the semi-naked women seemed daringly original, almost counter-cultural. We sat in our metropolitan ivory towers and congratulated ourselves on our post-modern self-awareness. Loaded was discussed at dinner parties, and any woman who dared to suggest that, actually, it might not have been an enormous step forward in terms of mutual respect between human beings was smiled at condescendingly and invited to recognise that we were all equal now, luv, and this was just the market responding to that new found equality by resurrecting dolly birds in panties.

Problem was, the women were right. Because Loaded unlocked the Pandora’s box of soft porn. First, the existing men’s titles - Esquire, Loaded, GQ, Arena - started putting pouting babes on their covers. Then new titles came along: FHM, Maxim, Front, Bizarre, Nuts, Zoo. All of them pushing up the ante, until eventually you could walk into a service station and at least a quarter of an entire wall would be dedicated to tits and bums (as my picture illustrates).

So I was delighted to read today that, finally, the newsagents are going to do something about this. There’s a new voluntary code which means the titles will be put “out of the sight of children.” Which is a bit weaselish, because what it means is “further away from our eyeline, because we find it offensive, but we’ll use kids as a proxy.” But it’s a start, and if a few of these odious little rags go under because of it, all well and good. Now, if we can just get the Sport out from among the newspapers and on to the top shelf as well, normal, decent service may be resumed. Some hope.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been busy. But I thought I should adopt a predictably controversial tone by saying that I saw V For Vendetta today with my son, and we both agreed it was pretty bloody brilliant thank you very much. After the critics failed dismally to warn me off Match Point, they failed dismally in their description of this movie. It was moderately faithful to Alan Moore’s original tale, it was intellectually stimulating in a way mainstream movies just never are, and contrary to the sneerings of the broadsheet literati, Natalie Portman did a very good job, and was backed up by a bunch of Brits doing very good jobs indeed, notably Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry and Tim Pigott Smith. There were some stunning set pieces, very little Hollywood silliness (some, of course, but not much) and dialogue rich in Shakespearean quotation and not a little wit. It was so good that I almost forgave the Wachowski brothers for Matrix II and III. Almost, but not quiet. No film’s that good.

Because every now and then someone speaks to you, directly and perspicaciously and excitingly, and you get a whole new perspective from a person who isn’t even paid for doing it. Take Shuggy’s Blog, for instance, on the secular state:

Given that the alternatives have been either religious wars where the winner controls the state and enforces religious conformity or the Soviet model, which attempted the elimination of religion, I think a greater appreciation of the human benefits of a state that makes the crucial distinction between a crime and a sin is called for. Because although they profess to hate each other, those who are currently touting “security” as the “real” liberty and accuse anyone who opposes this repressive nonsense in the name of the WoT of being soft on terrorism are working in unconscious concert with those sneering at the very suggestion that the Danish cartoons touch apon an issue of genuine liberty and who scoff at the secular state as if it were merely some dispensable bourgeois contrivance that allows the uneven publication of race-hate. Perhaps future generations will wonder how quite so many people came to be so careless with our freedom - and conclude that liberty in this age, like so many before it, often faces its most severe challenge from the well-meaning.

Oh, mwah mwah mwah, that is brilliant.

Ah, it warms the heart of an old Manchester United supporter. Simon Hattenstone writes about how Self-loathing strikes the King’s Road Loadsamoneys, as Chelsea begin to face up to the fact that no-one likes them. Not one little bit:

So what has changed in a year to make Chelsea possibly the most despised club in the world? Yes, obviously, there’s money - we came, we saw, we spent, as Caesar would have it. But Barcelona are also fabulously rich. So what else?

Mourinho. We always knew the Special One was narcissism personified, but he was witty with it. At least, he was while he had it all his own way. But now Chelsea have lost a few matches? He won’t talk to the press, he makes pre-emptive excuses (before the Barcelona match he mentioned how many penalties they had won this season, and how many players had been sent off against them. The implication? They were cheats). After the match, in which Asier del Horno was sent off for fouling Messi, he waxed sarcastic about Messi’s theatrics. (Pot, kettle, Arjen Robben anybody?) As for the disgraceful pitch that looked as if it would suit the hard men of Chelsea more than the Barcelona ball players? Last week, pre-match, it was fine. This week, post-match, it is being relaid. So no coincidence there, then?

None of this bothers Mourinho, of course. He is happy so long as they win. But for Boss Abramovich, it’s a different matter. Sure he may have bought Chelsea as his plaything, but make no mistake he always wanted to turn it into the richest football club in the world. The latest Deloitte “rich list” put Real Madrid (with turnover of £186m) ahead of Man United in second (£166m), with Chelsea (£149m) in fifth. Why? Because they sell more shirts around the world. And why do Real Madrid and United sell more shirts than Chelsea? Simple. Because, despite all their detractors, over the decades they have wooed their fans with romance, history and thrilling football.

Hattenstone points out that even when they were universally hated, at least United were playing a recognisably exciting form of the beautiful game, one that left fans breathless and excited and coming back for more. When I read this piece, I thought back to the great Liverpool teams, which I’ve always thought of as being rather metronomic, as Chelsea are. But there, I think something else kicks in: those teams were assembled with honest care and toil and genuine footballing brilliance, and they seemed to represent something rather quintessentially British: the triumph of application and hard work over flash. For me, the core Liverpool players were not Dalglish or Keegan, they were Hughes and Hansen.

What’s wonderful about this is football’s capacity to reinvent itself. No-one can stay at the top forever (something I’m acutely aware of), tradition will always trump cash, you can only ever field 11 players (which means there’s always one spoilt millionaire waiting to leave - are you listening, Ruud), and at the end of the day if the fans don’t buy the tickets and the shirts and the whole shooting match, you’re screwed. Let’s all pray that Supercrook Abramovich is having to write down a few tens of millions before the end of the decade.

How terribly sad: Linda Smith has died:

She established the permanently dissatisfied persona of a woman who had “decided to stay in my late thirties for ever” and created meticulously observed routines about Britishness. Of Christ, she said: “Despite all those blonde paintings, we know he wasn’t English, because he wore sandals - but never with socks.”

When it was mooted that the Duchess of York might be taken off the Civil List and have to make her own living, she imagined her living on a council estate: “I can’t afford shoes for the kids: I’ve had to send Eugenie to school in skis.”

And she described David Blunkett as “Satan’s bearded folk singer.” Remember her this way.

We’re changing in this country, for the better. McDonalds is having to close 25 of its British restaurants:

And there are other troubling signs for McDonald’s. A recent survey by Coutts UK showed that it had fallen in the estimation of children aged 13 to 15. Last year 8 per cent of teenagers questioned ranked a McDonald’s as their favourite food. This year only 1 per cent did so.

Of course, that rather begs the question: what is their favourite food now? But surely it can’t be any worse than the rendered horrors that lie inside the buns of a Big Mac.