It's a funny old game

Apologies in advance Tennyson, I'm going to spend a fair bit of today's post talking about a soccerball match. I do feel a tad guilty, I know you don't much care for Association Rules Football, and you left such an AWESOME comment after last night's last post. But hey, you can't please all of the people all of the time, so I might as well please myself. As it were.

I was planning to give you a write up about last night's adventure, but my memory of the actual events is a little bit hazy, and one or two things happened that I'd rather not go into directly. Fortunately, I've just watched a footy match on TV that could easily serve as an analogy for my experience at last night's Halloween party with Dan, which in turn could end up serving as an analogy for my life.

I woke up this morning feeling dreadful. I had a stinking hangover and my body ached all over. I felt like curling up into a ball and crying. The only thing that I had to look forward to all day was watching my beloved Notts Forest on the box. I know all you non-footy lovers out there will think that there's too much soccer on TV. And, in a way, you'd be right. But it is a rare day indeed that I get to see Forest from the comfort of my sofa. It usually happens just about twice a year, much like something else highly pleasurable that seems to happen to me with the frequency of an equinox.

Forest were playing away from home and had travelled to play the much fancied Cardiff City. A team going through some sort of renaissance at the moment, after years feeling sorry for its self, out in the winderness, they could once again become a force to be reckoned with, a good deal of investment has been made in the club and it seems to be going from strength to strength.

All the talk before the game was about how impressive Cardiff are, leaving Forest as an admired but unfancied underdog whose past glories are but a distant memory. The game started at quite a pace, the wet conditions adding to the zip of the ball. For all the pre-game chatter, Forest were holding the ball up well, they seemed to command the lion's share of possession. It was, however, Cardiff who looked the more likely to score. They looked powerful up front, they knew where the goal was. Forest were tight at the back, but lacked any kind of penetration.

At the midway stage, it was honours even. Neither side had scored. The pundits' view was that Forest had played the better game. They were unlucky not to have been awarded a penalty kick, sometimes when you're playing away from home, you don't get those close decisions.

The second half continued in much the same vein. The visitors were clearly on top. For some reason though, the Forest management decided that they needed to up the ante. They were on top and now it was time to go for the kill. Up until this point they'd been playing with an additional man in the middle, bossing the centre of the park. The manager withdrew the tricky attacking midfielder and brought on menacing target man.

With more space created in the middle of the park, it was Cardiff and not Forest who seized the advantage. Sweeping up field majestically the forwards combined to score a classic goal on the counter attack.

Cardiff were full of pomp, the home crowd in lusty voice were singing them on. They were ahead by a goal and threatening to score more with heir tails well and truly up. But Forest did not capitulate, true there were a couple of shaky moments, but the man in charge altered the tactics accordingly. They got back to doing what they do well. They were knocking it about, tidy little interchanges. It was impressive stuff, but they could well have been just flattering to deceive.

Then it happened. All good things come to he who waits. A fresh pair of legs came on up front, the ball bounced in front of the home team's goal, there was a fortunate bobble and handy deflection, and the visitors struck. That's all it took. It was half a chance really, in the dying seconds of the game. We'd already player over the allotted time and were running on pure fumes. GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Newsdesk, you beauty, I didn't need asking twice I can tell you that for nothing. There were a tense few moments before the final whistle, but I hung on, like Forest, and secured the result. I went home happy. I would have taken that result before the game. But in the cold light of day, when we look at the league table, Dan is still riding high, heading for automatic promotion. All I can realistically hope for is a place in the play-offs.

I have no idea what her name was, but I do remember her telling me that, anatomically, a woman's mouth is identical to a man's.

It's a funny old game.

Right, I've got to go now and watch the X-Factor results. Now my sweepstake band Miss Frank have left the competition. I have decided to support John & Edward. I feel they're the only act that I can empathize with.

Laters potaters!

Barry (the fox in the box) Newsdesk

Going Dutch

People often say that we Brits have quite a lot in common with the Dutch. We’re both big footballing nations, both with a background of problems with violent and nationalistic football supporters. We both have a history of embarrassing colonialism, we both still have royal families, although they’re pointless (at least ours draws the tourists, though), and we’re both inherently conservative politically. The mistake is often made of viewing the Dutch as liberal hippies because they have a policy of tolerance to soft drugs and prostitution in Amsterdam, but actually that’s wrong.

The other thing we have in common with the Dutch is Center Parcs. You may not know it but Centre Parcs was actually invented in Holland, in the 1960s. It was a successful operation there for twenty years until it opened in Sherwood Forest in 1987. Today, according to the company literature, Center Parcs “has become synonymous with the provision of an exceptional short break experience in a forest location.” They’re nothing if not specific.

Anyway, let me tell you what I think Center Parcs is synonymous with, having now been there. Center Parcs is synonymous with one Barry Newsdesk getting BACK IN THE SADDLE. And I’m not talking about one of those cheap mountain bikes you see the smiley people riding in those adverts (the adverts lie about lots of stuff, by the way, readers), I’m talking about what my anagrammatic friend Mr Coleman might describe as “Hip enema? Ok. Ow!”

If you’re interested in the kind of leisure activities we got up to, then check out the center parcs website. It’s all on there. But if you’re interested in the kind of pleasure activities we got up to, well…

What can I tell you readers, after dinner on the final night me and Gill wondered back to our cabin. We’d got on really well during the meal, although she insisted on talking about what a great guy Roger is. But I was the bigger person and I didn’t let it bother me. Instead I did what you’re supposed to do when women are talking; I listened. I listened attentively and I asked pertinent questions at sympathetic intervals. These questions served two purposes. First, they allowed me to subtly prove that I was listening and second they enabled me to encourage her to further open up to me. In more ways than one.

It was brilliant. We shared a bottle of wine, and got them to give us another one to take back to the cabin. I didn’t try and hold hands with her on the way back to the cabin, but we were very close together. And the mood wasn’t spoiled by the big argument that was going on in the cabin opposite ours as we went in the door.

Back inside, I whipped out the new portable speakers that I’d bought for my iPod and enlisted the help of my trusty trio: Mr M. Gaye, and the brothers Ernest and Julio Gallo. Boy, do those three know how to get a girl in the mood!

At this point, readers, I will employ something that us writers like to call ‘Authorial Distance’. This is something that we use to pull back from a situation, as if a camera were panning away. It gives the subjects of the story their privacy, while leaving readers in no doubt as to what is happening. It was used by Jane Austen quite a lot, when she wasn’t wibbling on about men having “an fine countenance, some twenty thousand a year and an estate at Blitherington.” Amazing what you can remember when you’re in full romantic flight.

Anyway, this much I’ll tell you. When all was said and done (half way through What’s Goin’ On? But it’s been a while) and I politely enquired as to her enjoyment, she sighed and said “it was just like it always was.”

Check me out! I’ve still got the moves. I must have tired her out because she fell asleep straight away. So I put out the light. I even took her shoes off for her.

Gill was really quiet on the drive home, but I guess, like me, she had a lot of thinking to do. I’m sure I speak for us both when I say it kind of took us by surprise. Still, I feel really good, people.

Peace and love BN