Fiendish Games

Just found out that NBC has cancelled "My Name Is Earl", as it was down to a mere six million views per epidode from its peak of 10m+.

Though I think the series had plateaued in terms of innovation and character development, it was still a masterful ensemble piece and I will miss it, especially the character of Randy, superbly portrayed by Ethan Suplee.

Apparently the producers tried to get the series picked up by another network but it would have required them shaving $1m from each episode's budget, which would have meant cutting back on the staff. While it is enjoyable to see the cast of characters move in and out of the action (as per The Simpsons) I could cheerfully have lost all of the characters except Earl, Randy, Joy and Crab-Man if it meant the series was saved.

Yes, I know this means sacrificing the pulchritudinous Cataliina but she is a bit of a two dimensional (ahem! Not physically, obviously) character. I'd rather feature Ralph Mariano, the third member of the criminal gang which Earl and Randy used to be in.


Ralph

Oh well, perhaps there will be a film, though it's unlikely, given the cult status (rather than nationwide popularity) of the series. Then again, if Hollywood can finance what seems like a dozen Silent Bob movies, many of which featured Jason Lee (Earl), it is not beyond the realms of possibility that it would contemplate an Earl film.

Keeping with the theme of feeling and being bloody old, here are a couple of random comments I heard recently from young things that really made me feel my age.

"Oh and my mate ended up snogging some 40-year old bloke," she said, with evident horror.

"The TUC? Which union is that again?"

"When was Thriller released? OK. I wasn't born then, but I remember being really scared when I first saw it."

Expect more of these to be added as time goes (quickly) by.

Of course, having only consumed about 20 pints of beer and two bottles of wine over the course of the week-end of my birthday, my Scouse friend Paul Oakes readily agreed to my suggestion of popping out for a swift pint at 10pm on Sunday.

We'd pretty much visited all the really good pubs in Hertford, so I thought I would take him to a nice little pub on the Hertford/Ware border. Unfortunately it only served Greene King ale and although Greene King is a real ale brewer Mr. Oakes has decided that its products need to be vetoed because the company buys up other brewers, keeps their pubs and shuts down their breweries. The fact that 16 new breweries have started operating in the UK already this year, a number far greater than the breweries that Greene King has closed down, is neither here nor there so far as Mr. Oakes is concerned. All breweries must last forever.

(FYI, according to Wikipedia - so the info is probably wrong - Greene King has subsumed Morland, Ridley's, Belhaven and Hardy & Hanson's.)

So we exited the Royal Oak and headed for The Angel, in Ware itself. Same thing, nothing but Greene King.

With the McMullen brewery based in Hertfordshire, there are no shortage of McMullen pubs in the vicinity so we ended up at The Victoria, a canalside pub with two bars.

Oakes proceeded to explain, possibly at excessive length, to the barman why we had bypassed two pubs to get to this one, and the barman nodded politely.

Round about 10:45pm, which presumably is 15 minutes after closing time on a Sunday, the barman surreptitiously sidled up to Oakes and said: "You know what you were saying earlier on about Greene King being bad for the pub business? Well, I think the same thing about smoking. It's killing pubs in this country [must be the passive smoking]. Do you mind if I have a smoke?"

Oakes had no objection, whereupon the barman locked the door and said we were welcome to have another pint. I thought he was offering a freebie, but we had to pay for it. I did get a free packet of crisps (I was driving so could not have another pint), so I can't copmplain.

Mext thing I know, out come about 5 ash trays and everyone in the pub except the dog (a bulldog) and me & Oakes proceeded to light up like it was 1999. Presumably if the dog had been a bassett it would have had a fag too*.

So, the Sunday ended with us enjoying a lock-in, something I have not experienced since the early eighties, having started - now I think of it - with me, Oakes and Rob Thomasson standing outside the Old Cross in Hertford at ten minutes to twelve waiting for the pub to open. It opened late, at five past, by which time we were gone (beers waiting in the fridge).

Bloody liberal licensing laws have taken all the fun out of boozing down the pub.



* For the benefit of any American readers, I should explain that bassett hounds - or was it beagles? - were traditionally used in scientific tests on the effects of smoking. I presume I don't need to explain that the term 'fag' means something different in Britain to what it does in the US?

The recent bankruptcy of General Motors has reminded me of how alien the cars looked to me on my holiday in California last year. Especially weird looking were these squat boxy arse-ugly vehicles that looked like truncated Securicor vans or, perhaps, army personnel carriers.

Ugh.



Turns out these things are called Hummers, they do about 10 yards (sic) to the gallon and, yes, they are made by General Motors.

There was some sort of motor trade show being held while I was in the States – I think it was sponsored by the Detroit League of Undertakers or something – and I was gobsmacked to hear in news coverage of the show that a Ford pick-up truck, the model name of which I can’t remember (F-150?), is the best selling car in the world.

Really? This came as a surprise to me, and was another reminder that one cannot extrapolate one’s own personal experience and apply it to the rest of the world. In any given week in the UK I see, at most, two pick-up trucks (usually Japanese models), so, had you asked me where the Ford F-150 ranked in the global sales league I probably would have said: “I don’t know, but definitely not in the top 50, probably not in the top 100.’

Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

I don’t really understand the popularity of the pick-up, however. Surely it only appeals to builders, farmers and other types who have bulky things they want to transport and who don’t care about them getting wet?

I know, it is a very naive view to believe that people choose their cars on the basis of practicality. It’s like asking lager drinkers to choose their brews based on taste rather than how expensive it is. (£4.50 for a pint of Peroni in London now; £4.50! It is being marketed as a premium brand with a bick feck-off dispensing tap. I do sometimes wonder whether an ale brewer should experiment with a reassuringly expensive pint of bitter priced at, say, £4.99. ‘I’ll have a pint of Gullible, please.’)

I am guessing that driving a pick-up identifies you as an outdoorsy, sporty, down to earth kind of a guy who collects bags of cement as a hobby.

Contrast that with the reputation of white van drivers in Britain, a class of people who are generally regarded as being too bigoted and disrespectful of other drivers to make it as taxi drivers.

It's been waning for some years now but I had thought my interest this season in football had diminished beyond the point of no return. Then something like this happens and threatens to reel me back in.



If it weren't for the fact that number two son has really become interested in Spurs over the last year or two, I'd probably not bother to watch Match of the Day.

How has number two son's interest in Spurs come about, given that I spent the first dozen years of his life trying in vain to interest him in football? It's all down to Football Manager, the computer game, so far as I can tell.

Weird.

I have three boys and they've never been particularly interested in football, but I am probably judging them by my own obsessive interest which lasted from the time I could walk to about the time I finally gave up hope of making it as a professional footballer (round about the age of 34).

I can still vividly recall the time England achieved what probably still ranks as the luckiest of * 5-1 victories, against Germany in a World Cup qualifier. "Come in and watch this!" I said to my sons who were, inexplicably, playing out in the street on a warm summer's evening instead of quaking nervously all the way through an England international match. "You'll never see this again for as long as you live, England stuffing Germany at football."

Not in the slightest bit interested. No historical perspective, I suppose.

Unlike me. I watched the 1966 World Cup Final between England and West Germany in a cafe in Spain, where the English were outnumbered about three-to-one by the Germans, and the Spanish didn't seem too keen on us winning either. It was tough on a young kid when England went one-nil down and I had to go for a walk to relieve the pressure.

Not as bad as England-Poland 1973, of course, but I digress.

Remember that European Cup Final where Liverpool were 0-3 down at half-time and being embarrassed by a cocky and complacent AC Milan? The first five minutes of the second half convinced me something extraordinary was about to happen and so I called down the boys from their bedrooms. "Come and watch this! Liverpool are three-nil down at half time in the European Cup Final but they look well up for it in the second half. This could be the greatest comeback in the history of European football."

If only I had been a member of Betfair back then.

Not one of them came down to watch the match with me. Far too interested in MSN Messenger.

So, should I let Spurs back in my life? I'm probably going to have to, because number 2 son wants to start seeing a few live matches, and what's £70 spent on 2 hours of frustration, despair and tribulation in the company of 36,000 foul-mouthed deluded maniacs to a man of my means?

* England really should have been 0-2 down at half-time and buried.