There’s been times this season when it looked like we couldn’t win a carrot. Arsenal were the team to beat and Rooney was on his bike. That’s not a metaphor, by the way. And now look where we are. It never rains but it pours, as the saying goes. You go months without discovering a single conspiracy theory and then nine arrive all at once. That’s how Lizard Wenger must feel at the moment. Caught in a web of weirdness so unlikely there simply has to be people pulling the strings. First Shake Man Sewer pays off Bolton to let Stoke leather them five-nil. This has the unintended side-effect of giving Arsene a false sense of security when the Invincibles (lord help us) go to the Reebok. There was the outlandish finish at the Emirates against Liverpool, the ref giving penalties like a drunken sailor. Being told to “piss off” by Kenneth Dalglish on world television. And the Spurs comeback at the Lane saw plastic bottles bouncing like ‘70s superballs. Make or break time at Bolton, despite a penalty miss, saw the Trotters walk all over crybaby Cack Wilshere and his whingeing friends. If only Chelsea could provide such epic flopping, we’d be parading the trophy round Manchester already. Oh, wait…only city are allowed a parade, I forgot. Apparently United haven’t done enough for the image of Manchester around the globe to deserve one.
Of all the planets in all the galaxies in all the parallel universes, why did I have to be marooned on this one? Chicharito’s ancestors predicted the current Age would end on December 21, 2012, and the symptoms have been deepening for a while. city winning a semi-final tells me the end is nigh. That those clowns are in a cup final is a major indicator of the coming global cataclysm. If the blues are winning on the big day with seconds remaining, get ready for a fucking big meteor shower 18 months early, ‘cos some things just aren’t meant to happen. As we approach 2012 we should expect a ton of mass extinction documentaries and other lovely stuff pertaining to the apocalypse. We have entered a period I call the Time Radius. The Time Radius is a kind of backwash we are passing through and it affects things in hideously crude ways. Cover versions of good songs by shit bands, for instance (see “Ever Fallen in Love With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?” by Fine Young Cannibals or “Dock of the Bay”, by Michael Bolton). All the remakes of films like Willy Wonka, The Italian Job, Jason and the Argonauts, Planet of the Apes – absolute and utter piss. Fact is humanity’s hit a wall somewhere up ahead, or at least our collective unconscious has, and our creativity’s washing back over us and latching onto old ideas and deciding it’s OK to recycle. But it isn’t. When a species or an entire Age hits its limit, you will see Hilary Duff singing “My Generation”, or Manchester city qualify for the FA Cup Final. It’s very strange, and very wrong. It means we are going extinct.
Then again, maybe this world ain’t so bad. There must be planets out there with truly abysmal conditions. There’s probably one where every living thing agglomerates into a single gigantic erect tongue of slime every 26 thousand years, to tower beyond the upper atmosphere when a neighbouring planet passes by so it can lick its surface and fertilise the other in an act of cosmic cunnilingus. Panspermia, they call it. I imagine that would be almost as bad as supporting city. Especially if you were down where all the phlegmy cannon fodder was, rather than up at the tip, doing the business with the superior DNA. Speaking of which, we could do Blackpool a huge favour if our title is already won when we play them last game. I like the Tangerines. If only ‘cos they’re called the Tangerines. Right now it’s looking like the three W’s are going down; Wolves, West Ham and Wigan. Hopefully the pie will survive, but not at the cost of a tangerine. One person who didn’t survive – in the cruel world of internet warriorhood, that is – is Darron Gibson. Dgibbo28’s epic Twitter fail is old news, but it serves as a solid demonstration by United fans that, though we’re #winning the league, there’s no room for complacency. Or shit players. Perhaps Dgibbo28 expected to receive a cyber arse licking from his army of adoring fans. If so, this confirms that he and those who rate him suffer collective delusions of slurpiture. To earn a global anus tonguing from the internet you’ll have to do more than kick a ball quite hard and inaccurately, Dgibbo28, you arrogant cringemonger.
While we’re on arrogant, with the upcoming United tour of the USA, I foresee myself organising a night out with Wazzaroon08, Giggsy and Chicharito. It’d be brilliant, stumbling home with Wazza and Pea, plus the bloke my missus would probably leave me for in a heartbeat….fucking hell, you could do me a proper favour there, Ryan, lad. Only joking, of course. Thankfully there’s no value in the market or she’d have fucked me off years ago. Me and Gibbo are brothers in that regard. Being married ain’t easy, and those of you who are wed know the score. It seems there’s three-month shagfests with slags you meet in pubs, or else there’s marriage. That’s the choice, as far as “relationships” go. There’s one night stands, obviously, but they don’t count. And then there’s wanking.
Wanking, as 100% of you know, was revolutionised by the internet in approx. 1997. Many of you never really went for hard copy wanking tackle; nudie books just didn’t agree with you. Too easy for yer mam to find it, slipped inside that Stranglers “No More Heroes” album. Barring the odd nicked one, or some rain-sodden discovery in a derelict house when you were 8 years old, paper-based stimulants were off the menu. I remember a cartoon on a stairwell wall in Cowper House, Kersal back in the ‘70s. It was a drawing from inside a woman’s body, with an erect knob emerging from a slit with a smiley face on the end, and the knob was saying, “It’s nice in here!” It wasn’t a bad cartoon cock, as cartoon cocks go. Some stippling on the bell-end, a few veins, and a fine distribution of spiky hairs on the bollocks, which for some strange reason were also inside the woman. That was childhood for you. Tiny things pleasing tiny minds. The odd discarded rubber Johnny under a bridge in the park was enough to send you into near-mythic delirium. Then you became old enough to have sex and go to football and act the goat. Seen it, been there, done it, etc. By the mid-90s you were 29 going on 50. Bored, shagged out, married and fat. So when the Web hit you with its motherlode of porn, you were like the American Indian in the face of alcohol. You had no resistance to it. Days spent sitting in darkened rooms, pants round ankles or completely off, tugging one’s member violently to an abominable digital compendium of tits, fannies, legs, arses, faces, hair, you fucking name it, sunbeam. It’s OK. I feel your pain. I know how it is to realise you quite fancy hanging old women. Birds with glasses on. Hairy arsed ugly slappers. Fat cunts. Freckled bony sluts. You dirty pervert. Anyway, as a result of this situation, I have developed a fantastic new Web tool for gentlemen such as yourself: The Wank Tracker. Now, I’m aware we’re in the running for a splendid Premier and UEFA Champs double, but forget that. The Wank Tracker is the answer to all your prayers. No longer will you wonder what happened to that life-changing photo set of “Brooke” (“Babes” section, oddly enough) that had you quaking with aftershock-lust all Saint Patrick’s Day, 2000, or that unbelievable redhead (“Moira”) in the lilac panties that almost sent you mental back in the scrotum-draining spring of 2002. They’re gone forever, like ships in the night, but no longer, thanks to my invention. I can see you now, a wad of bogroll at the ready, staring goggle-eyed at the clock in the lower right corner (“Christ, I’ve been at it an hour ‘ere and no joy!”), your town halls about to explode as you frantically hunt for something decent. You’ll never suffer the unrequited Barclays ever again. The Wank Tracker will record those more memorable cuntquests in a spreadsheet, week by week. All your cyber-tugging back over the years, thanks to its Web-based application. No more saggy old emergency pull-offs. Private login, encryption, the monty. You know it makes sense. And then there’s the Wank Tracker Pro, but don’t me started on that. Suffice to say it won’t be cheap.
But back to the Time Radius. The edge of human destiny. Time catches up with everything in the end, even light. Death itself dies, given enough time. Diseases can be passed through time – by genetic inheritance. It’s horrible, but these little glitches in the molecular structure finish us off eventually. Even if your name’s Poly Styrene or Buckminster Fullerene, for that matter. Unfortunately Poly’s recent passing was somewhat eclipsed by heated discussions involving city fans’ disrespect for United’s history and the songs they like to sing about us. That many United supporters had been so moved by the screening of the TV film “United”, despite Matt Busby’s family insisting it was unrealistic and innacurrate, didn’t help; the Bittermen chanted about “Munichs” the very next night at Blackburn. Like Mr. Ferguson once said, “they’re a small club with a small club mentality”. We’re both made of the same stuff, but it seems we just have more. More quality, more trophies, more fans (both local and otherwise) and more class. In short, we’ll always be the Cock of the North and they, by comparison, will always be Manchester Clitty. As we wrap up the campaign, it’s easy to rue the FA Cup semi-final as a treble that got away. Fact is, we’re revving on all cylinders at exactly the right time, and maybe, just maybe, we can do something really special this year. Whether it’s to see magnificent Barcelona, or the mouthpieces from down the road, have a nice Wembley, lads.
