Lowlife 75 – Onward & Downward

Onward & Downward

By Dominic Horton

Since I took voluntary redundancy two weeks ago my ability to come up with nonsense for this column seems to be severely diminished, which is the opposite of what I expected as I envisaged that the new, exciting life that I would be leading would mean that I would have no end of things to write about. The reality thus far has been that my time has been filled with decorating and general home improvements, looking after my dear son Kenteke and watching the World Cup.

Nestor Pitana's comb over, by request of Toby In-Tents

In fact, occasionally in life proper I find myself having nothing to say and sometimes at the Flagon & Gorses I just sit and happily listen to the pub talk and balderdash of my fellow inmates without being able to add anything to the banter, mockery and small talk. Mind you, it has been said that an Englishman is happy with a pint in his hand and without a thought in his head and I certainly think that there is a grain of truth in that. Last week I sat through a whole two hour meeting of Cradley Heath Creative without virtually uttering a word as I had nothing to contribute. The other members of the group must have thought that I am either a mute or an imbecile, which is obviously not the case, well at least the former isn't anyway.

The irony is that when I used to play football I was very vocal on the pitch and one of my qualities (arguably my only quality) as a defender was to organise the back four and the team around me. Kenteke once asked me, “What were you good at when you played football Dad, were you a passer, a dribbler or were you fast or good in the air?” To much puzzlement on his part I replied, “I was good at shouting son.”

Carlos Valderrarma

To my mind listening is one of the most consistently underrated skills in life. A conversation is an amalgam of listening and talking but most people are keen to do the latter but not the former, some more noticeably than others. Occasionally you see two people on a bus or train chatting away to each other where neither party is listening and often they both talk at the same time. It is almost like a verbal duel to see who can get the most words out before the end of the journey.

Some people find it impossible to keep their trap shut and most of these types call up radio talk shows and commandeer your eardrums for an unrelenting battering of ill thought out rhetoric and opinionated poppycock. Five minutes of exposure to such radio phone-ins would be enough for any prisoner of war to break with the name, rank and number routine and to volunteer all and any military secrets to the enemy. One assumes the interrogator would be a good listener and would not be too busy telling the prisoner his opinion as to who will win the World Cup to actually hear what the prisoner said.

I have even questioned whether I should carry on writing this drivel at all and whether it has simply run its course but then two things happened to stiffen my resolve and to fire my enthusiasm. Firstly, on Sunday in the Flagon & Gorses Arthur Chedeurvalie lavished great praise on Lowlife and thanked me at length for writing it, which I greatly appreciated. Secondly, a man speaking on the radio, who writes a blog about teaching, stated that in his view blogs have a fairly short life cycle. I thought, “I'll show you pal” and I determined to keep Lowlife going for years and in this impassioned state I immediately dashed to the PC but after a few minutes of staring at a blank screen no words came. I revised my thought to, “I'll show you Pal …....... tomorrow or the day after that, just not today.”

Carry On's Kenneth Connor

Italy coach Prandelli

Despite being a keen football fan I usually resist from writing about the subject in these pages as I can think of few things more tiresome than me banging on about the benefits of the diamond formation or whether Christiano Ronaldo is better than Lionel Messi. But due to my wordlessness (which ironically according to my spell-checker is not a proper word) out of desperation I am going to have to write a few words about the World Cup, which hopefully will be less irritating that ITV's coverage of the competition, though I can't promise that.

ITV's chief irritant of course is the blundering buffoon Adrian Chiles, who is as about as suited to sports broadcasting as my crony and landlord of the Flagon & Gorses, the Pirate, is to being head of public relations of the Temperance Society. Contrary to reports, the various protests that have been held by the Brazilians have not been a reaction to social conditions in the flavelas and poor areas of Brazil but have been organised as a reaction to Chiles being in their country and in the hope that the authorities will see sense and unceremoniously send him packing.

My view is that it has long been ITV's mistake of trying to replicate the superlative football coverage of their BBC counterparts instead of following the approach of Sky Sports with their no nonsense broadcasts. Ed Chamberlain, Martin Tyler and Alan Smith are not going to whip anyone into a heightened state of excitement but their treatment at least lets the football speak for itself. Despite trying to be stylish Chiles and ITV's football broadcasts are as cheap and tacky as a gift purchased from a souvenir shop on Blackpool seafront. And the sight of Chiles wearing a Kiss-Me-Quick hat would be enough to clear the Copacobana beach in five minutes flat.

Even more ludicrous than ITV's coverage of the World Cup was the sight of the Iran coach Carlos Queiroz wearing a scarf in the sunshine and heat of Curitiba during his team's dire goalless draw with Nigeria, where his star player, Fulham's Ashkan Dejagah, was bold enough to mask his thinning hair by crafting it around his head to hide the bald patches. By hovering above Dejagah's head prior to kick off the TV Cameras did him no favours as they exposed the desert areas of his barnet for the watching billions to see.

Dejagah seems to have started a fashion as during the Russia Vs South Korea game Argentinian referee Nestor Pitana entered the arena shamelessly sporting an out-and-out comb-over. My guess is that he had entered a World Cup sweep stake with the other officials where the winner was compelled to referee a match with the hairstyle of a former World Cup star of the losers' choosing. Unfortunately for Pitana, the officials chose Bobby Charlton and not Carlos Valderrama.

Of course all England fans were disappointed at losing to Italy in the opening group match but I found it hard to take the game seriously as the Italy coach Cesare Prandelli is a dead ringer for the English comedy Actor Kenneth Connor, famed for his roles in the Carry On films. I half expected the BBC's Gabby Logan to pop up on the Italian bench and say, “ooh you are saucy” to Prandelli before her brazier snapped to reveal her bouncing breasts.

To add to the comic tone of the evening England's physiotherapist Gary Lewin, in a great act of irony, dislocated his ankle in the frenzied celebrations that followed Daniel Sturridge's equalising goal. Some thought that as Lewin is a physio he shouldn't have needed any medical assistance. Mind you, if someone had suggested to Lewin that he should treat himself he would most probably have hobbled straight to the players' lounge for a few pints and medicinal brandies on the house.

Given the time of the kick-off (0200 hours) of the Ivory Coast Vs Japan game the cheapskates at ITV thought that no one would be watching so they could not be bothered to employ a co-commentator, not even Clarke Carlisle. I found myself nodding off during the match and this reminded me of Saturday nights as a schoolboy at my Grandad Tom and Nanny Edna's house, desperately fighting to stay awake to watch Match of the Day. In those days before Match of the Day we watched The Benny Hill Show and when Hill used to do his set piece of chasing scantily clad women around to saucy saxophone based music my older brother, the Albino, and I would run round and round Nan and Grandad's sofa like headless chickens, which is reminiscent of the way Spain played against Holland in their opening World Cup game.

Spain's unexpected capitulation in the competition shows that all good things come to an end and maybe that is the key to why this column will endure as it is far from good but generally a load of disjointed bunkum. So for now at least dear friends I will soldier on, onward and downward as ever.

© Dominic Horton, June 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.