TOP 3 NON-PREMIERSHIP ADVERTISING HOARDINGS (w/e 11-09-11)

Is anyone reading this, or has this been an 18month-long excuse, just to stay up late on a Saturday night?
Does anyone care that the BBC has a 'no commercial advertising' policy, yet every weekend, Match Of The Day gives over nearly two hours to punting Barclays Bank, McDonalds, Budweiser, Nike and BetFred?

No worries.
As the summer break has just finished, this week's theme is 'holidays'.
(I'd like to dedicate this to Colchester United's celebrity supporter, Luke Wright, who is currently on tour in Australia and China)

CAMPBELLS CARAVANS - Preston North End

WALDEGRAVES HOLIDAY PARK: MERSEA ISLAND - Colchester Utd

HAYCOCK HOTEL - Peterborough Utd

A Little Bit Of History Repeating (Part IV - More War, Sex & Recession)

I watched the slug crawl across the carpet, my eyes still hazy from the caustic vapours rising from my mouth.
I couldn't tell through the bloodshot, whether this morning's temperatures were spiked with window frost or condensation?
The tinny voice in the clock-radio on the floor confirmed frost.
And an announcement that several thousand public sector workers were to lose their jobs.
Color Me Badd then sexed-up sleepy Wiltshire without our consent, followed by GWR FM's looped infomercial on AIDS, sandwiched perfectly with Salt 'n Pepa talking about sex. Again. Baby.

Swindon. March. 1991.

The single bed was cold, yet heavily indented, and wet.
Was that sweat?
She was certainly a big girl if I remembered correctly.
No.
It wasn't legacy.
It was condensation. She had obviously left a lot earlier.
She'd also scrawled her telephone number on my mirror, in lipstick, and circled it in a defiant flourish.
A cosmetic loveheart that looked more like an arse.

Dodging the fag butts and used condoms, and kicking over a heavily fingerprinted glass of Thunderbird, I stumbled to the dressing table and tried to remove Revlon's greasy message.
This month's paltry wage had already been spunked on three successive nights out, and I was now in desperate need of Windolene.
I switched on the portable black & white telly and fiddled with the blu-tack+coat hanger aerial.
It was 8-27am.
And we were still at war.

I'd been made redundant three times since Saddam had invaded Kuwait, and both sides were now hurling missiles at each other indiscriminately.
Was this the beginnings of World War III?
Was this even a war?
The comics I had read as a child never featured saturation bombing or scuds.
Dresden and Guernica were never considered battles or combat.
Just fuck-off punctuation marks.

My head pounded with unsuitable empathy.
The guy who rented the upstairs room had switched on his Montego's engine and left it idling while it defrosted.
This was a less than salubrious area of town, and I couldn't help thinking how trusting he was. The car was worth less than a tenner but the cost of a barrel of oil had just reached unprecedented heights.

The slug had stopped.

I made the decision for the second time that week, not to go to work.
What was the point?
My commission-based job wasn't paying any commission, and there was little I could do about it.
A typical day would involve punting out-of-work accountants into a soul destroying void of joblessness.
I was in 'recruitment'.
And I needed a new career.
And I also badly needed to pay my £30 a week rent.
I was an itinerant temp without baggage.
Or a car.

By 9-30am, Cheese had arrived unexpectedly.
He had important news. A mutual friend from back-home had been involved in a near-fatal car crash, and was critically ill in hospital.
Cheese took one look at the crimson coloured mirror, another look at the slug on the carpet, and said "Come on. We're getting you out of here".

We sang Oleta Adams all the way along the M4.
We arrived in Surrey before Hannah Gordon had begun introducing the guest artist on Watercolour Challenge.
I offered Cheese a fiver for the petrol, and he laughed.

You can reach me by caravan
Cross the desert like an Arab man
I don't care if you get here
Just, get here if you can......

TOP 3 POSTER BOYS/GIRLS FOR GB OLYMPICS 2012 w/e 04-09-11

The more I'm forced to watch Mo Farah run, the more I fall in love with distance-running on the track.
And when looking at the starting line-ups, who could fail to see the ironies, however small?


About five years ago, Mohammed's closest rival was Jesus.
Jesus Espana (of Spain), would often match Mo stride-for-stride in the 5000 metres.

Now Farah relies on the quicker pace of Galen, to help him reach his goal.
Galen Rupp, Mo's training partner, is as much a part of the Essex Beagle's track success, as was his recent move to America.

And it's always good to see an Irishman in the mix;
even if his name is Craggy.

Craggy Ireland finished 14th in the World Cup Athletics in Daegu this evening.
Jesus crossed the line in front of the Irish, but still finished 11 places behind Mohammed.
Galen ended up 9th.

This pleases me.
On so many levels.

Carry on entertaining.

*Galen is both the name of the evolution-sceptic hero and the omniscient doctor in Planet Of The Apes.


2012 Poster Boy - Mo Farah

2012 Poster Girl - Hannah England

Runner-Up - Perri Shakes Drayton

**I researched the names 'Perri', 'Perry', 'Mohammed' and 'Mohamed' on the internet.
As Mo's Somali name is Maxamed Mow Faarax, it seems inconsequential whether there are two 'm's or not.
The correct spelling of Perri depends on whether you believe the BBC or the Guardian, Wikipedia or Google, Channel4 or Nike.

TOP 3 NON-PREMIERSHIP ADVERTISING HOARDINGS w/e 04-09-11

It's Gus Poyet's week.
To be fair, his football club are looking good for promotion to the Premiership, despite keeping his sponsors fairly local.
What the good inhabitants of Hove & Shoreham will make of a world made of international airlines and Thai brewers, nobody really knows?


BURT FAMILY BUTCHERS - Brighton & Hove Albion

SOUTHERN PILING: SPECIALIST PILING CONTRACTORS - Brighton & Hove Albion

BRIDGE GROUP: FABRICATORS OF CATERING EQUIPMENT - Bury

TOP 3 NON-PREMIERSHIP ADVERTISING HOARDINGS w/e 28-08-11

I make no apologies for re-posting Rotherham's vacant advertising space.
What more do they have to do?!
Play-off finalists last season, top of the league & unbeaten, moving to a new multi-million pound stadium, and home to the Chuckle Brothers.
Why will no-one advertise at their ground?


ADVERTISE HERE: TEL 0114 223834 - Rotherham Utd

COLCHESTER SKIP HIRE: RECYCLING FOR THE FUTURE - Colchester Utd

THE FIREWORK EMPORIUM - Ipswich Town

Just Another Bit Of History Repeating (Part III - 1984)

Lyme Regis. August 1984.

I'd only agreed to come, if they'd agreed to driving-lessons.
I had no reason to doubt them.
But fuck, I was bored.
The last-minute deal, summer holiday-plan, resulting in Spain, or at worst Greece,
had been hastily replaced by a safe, home-fires vacation, in Blighty.
Mum & dad had grown up with the blitz and bombs, real ice-cream and bicycle rides in the country.
Abroad was still very foreign.
And it was safer therefore, and ultimately more enjoyable, on home shores.

Dad was constantly on edge with regard to the Middle East.
He'd spent a lot of time there, peace-keeping on behalf of the rest of us.
Mum, having worked in the Benghazi Library in the 60's, was equally sceptical.
After the shooting of WPC Fletcher, and the Libyan Embassy siege,
dad, Thatch, mum and Ronnie Reagan all went a bit gung-ho
(the latter taking it all a bit too far, a couple of years later).

So, I was stuck in Lyme Regis in 1984.
And I was horny.
Lots of doublespeak, and very little sexcrime.
Mum & dad were still a bit edgy with the new-age business crowd, taking over the tea-shoppes with their arty things, and their homegrown produce.
I was intrigued by the fat woman with no bra.

Daily, we enacted a favourite routine;
a walk, a cream tea, back to the caravan for a pretend shower;
pub, another pub, fish & chips and back to the caravan again.

An English family holiday, prior to the concept of 'stay-cation'.

I tried to get pissed on the shandies my father proferred.
I made roll-ups from the ash-trays I dutifully offered to empty.
I wanked in the caravan-park toilets, and I wished I was at home.
Or in Torremolinos.

The telly in the clubhouse bar was full of Arthur Scargill and the police and disturbances.
The jukebox in the games room was playing 'Two Tribes' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
The formica tables were littered with cockle-less polystyrene cups, and grubby pots of Saxa white pepper and malt vinegar.
And I was a mess.

I was emphatically in-tune with Billy Bragg, the miners, the GLC, and Red Ken, and the Smiths and CND & everything.
I bought The Clash's 'Sandanista' and voted in a Smash-Hits Reader's Poll concerning Nicaragua.

But I just wanted to have sex.
Lots of it.

With every girl I fancied.
(And quite a few I didn't)

And there wasn't any of either, in olde worlde Lyme Regis.
Just pickled eggs, warm beer and fossils.

In the morning, I stuffed a pound-note into my jeans, and walked to the campsite shop.
I bought a copy of the Sunday Mirror to find out exactly where Libya was.
And a copy of TitBits.

TOP 3 NON-PREMIERSHIP ADVERTISING HOARDINGS w/e 21-08-11

Bit of a slow week.
The missus' been ill, and I had to do a Joe Pesci on a rabbit.
Unless someone complains, I ain't gonna feel guilty.


ASHWORTHS: MENS & KIDS SPORTSWEAR - Accrington Stanley.

CHINA ROYAL RESTAURANT - Scunthorpe Utd.

CAPITAL TAXIS: 43-43-43 - Exeter City.