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The season ticket deadline has passed and I didn’t buy one. I’ve been ignoring the nagging reminders like they were a wedding invitation from a distant relative, trying not to think about it and failing. “What do these grasping f****ers want from me now?”
How liberating to actually think, “No, I don’t think so,” and drop the invitation straight into the bin knowing the event won’t be the same without magnificent old me.
Except it will probably be better, no one will notice my absence and those that do will no doubt be grateful for it.
So we gave up work Wifey and I, in the midst of a recession, which probably means we are having a lovely breakdown and are too daft and too far gone to even notice. When I say we gave up work I mean we gave up proper work where someone gives you money for doing something. We are actually working longer hours than when we had jobs. Only now I don’t take a wilful pleasure on being late, obnoxious and lazy.
I am now a full time writer, this is what I do for a living, yes this old bollocks, you can get paid for it. In the last 8 weeks I have earned £3 which I think puts me under the radar of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs which means that I didn’t pay anything towards that f***ing Royal Wedding which is a massive result, as I’m sure you will agree. And like I said, I didn’t want to go anyway. Irrelevant bollocks that it all was.
The bad news for you lot is that I am not going to stop waffling on here. We are off on a World Tour to try and get some perspective and to hopefully chase down other Newcastle fans who don’t go to St James’ Park anymore to see what they think about everything. I’m particularly interested to see how long it takes us to utterly lose all perspective. How long will it be before we sit defeated in ill-fitting and seriously out of date replica shirts, drinking Brown Ale and singing, “Coming Home Newcastle” at bewildered peasant children?
New Furious Book (hopefully)
It has started already, this plot misplacement, we haven’t been to a game for two months and while watching the home draw with Man Utd on a television in the arse end of Norfolk I found myself thinking the booing of Michael Owen was a bit harsh. I rang the editor: “Don’t you think the booing of Michael Owen was a bit harsh?” I asked.
“No,” he snapped. See, I’ve lost the plot already.
Here’s the thing about Owen: do we really think he wasn’t trying when he played here, that if only he had got his finger out we wouldn’t have got relegated? Do we think that he was happier sitting on his sofa watching the horse racing than he would have been scoring goals and winning games for Newcastle United? Freddie Shepherd spent a frightful amount of our money on Owen, more than we could afford, but who at the time wasn’t delighted? When I used to have a job, a sunderland fan, in 2005, said, “you lot gonna buy a striker then, who do you fancy?”
“Owen.”
He laughed in my face in front of witnesses. I shrugged and walked away. The day Owen signed I didn’t even say anything to him, I just laughed right back and it felt f***ing brilliant.
We know now signing Owen was disastrous and catastrophically expensive but he got injured and is not the same player anymore. Shearer could adapt after his injury because he had more to his game than speed. Owen was brilliant because he could get to his own rotten first touch before anybody else, without his whiplash pace he hasn’t got much. If Owen was still the player we paid £16 million for Hernandez and Berbatov wouldn’t be getting a look in at Man U. He isn’t and I don’t think that’s his fault. On the other hand the booing obviously upset him and he didn’t score against us. So f*** him.
I would also like to take issue with the lad who slagged off Obafemi Martins in the last Mag, along the lines of “what, Alan Shearer is the only striker allowed the ‘shit service’ excuse is he? Look at Oba’s goals for us, go on look at them! Watching Newcastle failing to even look like scoring in our 1974 F.A. Cup Final Commemorative Scoreline at Anfield yesterday, wouldn’t it have been nice to have something resembling a striker in white?”
But following my own strict laws about not listening to the opinions of people who don’t actually go to see Newcastle play I have no credibility to back up my argument anymore. And I should f*** off (after all, I don’t even know why we played in white against Liverpool). Well I’m going to. For a year.
Recently we got a rabies injection and had our typhoid updated. Rabies is a course of three jabs which we will enjoy over the coming weeks and then there is hepatitis B. The nurse also had little pop up maps on her computer that showed us exactly what we can expect to die from at our various ports of call. (Ignoring any Al-Qaeda reprisals for the execution of Osama obviously) A ghastly business. And expensive. Well relatively expensive; compared to frothing out your last breath in a Costa Rican shed after being gnawed on by a wild eyed and rabid fruit bat, it’s obviously a bloody bargain at £282 for the two of us.
We have got dates with Mags in New York, Los Angeles and Sydney Australia but what I want from you dear reader is to give me a shout if you are or if you know somebody who lives under a black and white flag in any of the following: New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Chicago, Denver, anywhere in Costa Rica (it looks about the size of Northumberland), Santiago in Chile, Buenos Aires in Argentina, Melbourne in Oz, anywhere in New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. I’ll meet you/them for a pint, stick a tape recorder under your/their nose and tell people how great you are. In the meantime, if the rest of you will buy my new book when it comes out, I would be very grateful otherwise I might not make it back.
I’ll keep you all posted – toodle pip.
Never forget I love you all and good luck.
BF
Get me on Twitter at billyfurious1st or email billyfurious@googlemail.com
Follow the progress (or lack of it) on billyfurious.com
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