Then Saturday Comes… the half decent football blog

A special non-football related christmas blog

Like most of Europe I am taking a winter break from football.  For you weirdos who don’t like the beautiful game, ici voila the first non-soccerball blog.

THE LATEST MISADVENTURE OF WACKO JACKO

Tabloid godsend Michael Jackson hit the front pages again this week, after his biographer claimed he was dying of a rare lung disease.

Ian Halperin said that unless an emergency lung transplant can be organised, the end could be near for the self-proclaimed King of Pop.

I personally always thought the King of Popping Children’s Cherries was a more apt nickname for the aging leper.

As with any Jacko story worth reading, it seems to be nonsense, and the star’s representatives quickly moved to rubbish the claims.  The latest from Camp Jackson is that he is as well as a man with a melting face can hope to be.

But celebrity deaths are as much of a Christmas tradition as naff jokes, the Queen’s speech and an X Factor ‘karaoke with a key-change’ being number one.  I am aware that some of the less morbid readers of this blog don’t tally up festive deaths, so for their benefit I have finally codified the ‘Matthew Reville Top Five Yuletide Trips To The Crypt’.

5. Dean Martin (1995)

Rather ominously for Jacko, Dino died of lung cancer on Christmas Day 1995. The Rat Pack crooner had a decent innings before croaking aged 78. Perhaps Dino would have survived longer had he never ventured into boxing.  Fighting as a welterweight,  Martin lost 11 of 12 matches before stopping.  Probably for the best.

4. James Brown (2006)

Some said that Godfather of Soul maintained his mirthful persona because he had sold his soul to the devil in return for the gift of eternal youth.  However, when he popped his clogs at Christmas 2006, the Dorian Gray-like claims were replaced by a realisation that he was just loaded up on crack cocaine most the time.  Don’t believe me?  Check this out, and tell me it doesn’t remind you of Retun of The Chef.

3 + 2. Nicolae + Elina Ceausescu (1989)

In at a joint 3rd/2nd place comes the Romanian festive execution of the tyrannical Ceausescus. If you’re not familiar with Nicolae & Elina you should wikipedia them.

Their decades of genocidal rule finally came to an end in 1989, when they were killed by firing squad.  Alas, the film crew missed the execution since the gunmen were too eager to exact revenge, and started firing too quickly.

1. Charlie Chaplin (1977)

The film legend met his maker on December 25th 1977, but that wasn’t the end of his slapstick adventures.  In what reads like a precursor to Weekend At Bernie’s, his corpse was stolen by a small group of Swiss mechanics in March 1978 in an attempt to exort money from Chaplin’s family.  The plot failed, the robbers were captured, and the body was reburied under two meters of concrete to prevent further attempts.

My prediction for the Christmas Death of 2008?  Well, as long as it’s not Barack Obama or Bobby Robson, I’ll be a happy chappy when I’m digging into my Christmas pudding on Thursday.

POPE BENEDICT SPREADING THE MESSAGE OF LOVE

Not one to avoid the tough topics, lets have a look at what ‘God’s Rottweiller’ has got to say to bring festive cheer to the billions who look to him for spiritual guidance.

“The church demands that the order of creation be respected.  The nature of the human being as man and woman must be protected.  Gender theories have led to man’s auto-emancipation from creation.  Rain forests deserve our protection, but mankind does not deserve it less as a creature.”

For anyone failing to read between the lines, Benny is saying that gayness is as big a threat to humanity as global warming.

I’m not going to get into a boring debate about whether homosexuality is right or wrong.  Everyone has heard both sides of the argument so much that you will be dogmatically one way or the other by now.

What is more interesting is why the leader of the Catholic church has chosen the festival that is supposed to be about hope, love and community as a platform for spreading hate, fear and terror.  It mirrors the kind of antiquated one-sided rhetoric that the west so regularly blasts Islamic clerics for using.

This quote would be lambasted in the media if it was made by a Muslim (…embarrassingly I don’t even know their equivalent of the Pope).  However, everything I have read about Benny Boy’s rant has included the obligatory “Christians don’t think homosexuality itself is wrong, just the intercourse part”.  To me, that reads like the standard homophobic buffoon’s defence of “I don’t have a problem with the gays… so long as they don’t do it in front of me”.

All of this nonsense takes away from the righteousness of Judo-Christian’s self appointment as global moral watchdogs.  It will also add an unneccessary conflict from within Christianity, just as it is losing the battle against it’s too biggest rivals, Islam and atheism.

Why didn’t he just do what John Paul did and just say “hope you have a good one dudes. Peace and love and all that, smell ya later”.  Now there was a Pope you could rely on for festive fun and frolics.  Enjoy this video of him famously batting away a pidgeon… what a guy!

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Over Christmas we all have to spend time with our families (except for Totto Revs, who is galivanting in Thailand or somewhere stupid).  However, I’ll suspect that a lot of the time ‘spending time with your family’ actually means staying in the house just so you are physically near to them.

Thankfully for this blog, that means more people will be going onto Facebook and therefore more people will click on the link I whore out at the top my profile page.  Our of respect for the platform that grants people access to this blog, here is a selection of the best of my facebook mini-feed over the last few weeks.  Many of you may be surprised to see how well connected I am.

Sarah Palin joined the group “Support The Gravina Island Bridge” 2 years ago

Sarah Palin is now friends with John McCain 4 months ago

Sarah Palin left the group “Support The Gravina Island Bridge” 4 months ago

Sarah Palin created the group “I hate the bridge to nowhere” 3 months ago

Sarah Palin is sad that she lost the election 😦 but by golly I’ll be back in 4 years 1 months ago

John McCain and Sarah Palin ended their relationship 1 month ago

John McCain is chilling out on his ranch 1 month ago

Simon Cowell created the event “attention seeking morons chasing a dream they never worked for, but treat it like if they don’t win the competition their life is over and they may as well as kill themselves” 6 months ago

Alexandra Burke, Eoghan Quinn, JLS, Ruth Lorenzo and 1,750,000 of your friends are attending “attention seeking morons chasing a dream they never worked for, but treat it like if they don’t win the competition their life is over and they may as well as kill themselves” 5 months ago

Simon Cowell is millions of pounds richer thanks to a karaoke contest edited with montages… kerrrrrrrrrching 🙂 25 minutes ago

Madonna and Guy Richie are no longer in a relationship 3 weeks ago

Madonna is going out with the ladies tonite!  xoxox 3 weeks ago

Alex Rodriguez wrote on Madonna‘s wall 2 weeks ago

Guy Richie added the Scrabulous application 1 week ago

Paul Gadd is just popping out for a walk 3 hours ago

Paul Gadd added 60 new photos to the album “my gang” 1 hour ago

Paul Gadd is attending the St. Martins Primary School Nativity Play 30 minutes ago

Paul Gadd poked Tom Daley 20 minutes ago

Paul Gadd is no longer on Facebook 19 minutes ago