Well here it is! After month’s of deliberation and lots of umm-ing and ahh-ing, I’ve finally decided to go for it with this blog! The people of Twitter must have known it was coming, though, because it’s been a cracker of a week! Nutters have been falling from space, politicians (more nutters) have been deciding something or other about Scotland, and Mr Hodgson (a nutter’s successor) has been photographed in a very grassy paddling pool in Poland. Exciting stuff. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with the details of the Scotland thing. Heavens, no. There’s no way I’ll do that. There is also no way that I could do that, because like you, I didn’t bother looking into it. Sorry. I’m just not interested in any sort of politics unless it involves our very own floppy-haired, babbling, bumbling Boris.
I think we will start, though, with what was by far the most exciting story of the week: the falling from space bloke (#livejump). This is the news that Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner has safely completed his fall from 24 miles up into our atmosphere, successfully breaking the speed of sound, several records, and reviving the inevitable future use of the chat-up line “I know it must have hurt when you fell from heaven”. Amazing, wasn’t it? Mad, though. I get nervous enough jumping down more than 5 stairs at the same time. Plus, if I was forced into doing something like that, the first thing I’d do is to make sure that the suit was not white, but rather a very dark shade of brown. I’ll leave it to your imagination to think of reasons why.
It must be a pretty incredible feeling; being on top of the world (literally), knowing that billions of people below are all wishing you get back safely - the complete opposite for what we felt towards the last person to publicly endanger himself. When David Blane strapped himself into that ridiculous metal suit and exposed himself to millions of volts of electricity for three days, did we wish him well? Did we hope that he’d get through his ordeal unscathed? Don’t be silly. We hoped he would fry! It must have been demoralising for him, though, because at the moment he was walking into the cage, he had the knowledge that everyone who was watching from around the world had just whispered “die”. What really irritates me, though, is that it was completely safe. In fact, Professor John Belcher (tee-hee) who is 69 years of age, publicly said that the ‘stunt’ was so safe that even he would have done it! Well done David Blaine, well done indeed. The only way his displays can be described as ‘magical’ is because there are still some people in the world who are fooled by it. What Muggles.
Death was a popular theme this week, though, with perhaps my favourite trend being #worstfuneralsongs. People of Twitter, you never fail to disappoint me, for some of your suggestions were first class! Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”, The Jam’s “Going Underground”, Gotye’s “Somebody that I used to Know”, were all brilliant suggestions, but my favourite had to be the theme from “Chucklevision”. Ok, so it isn’t really a song, and it won’t be ironic like all the others, but it will give a perfect opportunity for hilarity during the procession, when those carrying the coffin begin to go “to me, to you”. When my time comes, I’m either having that or, “Return to Sender” by Elvis Presley.
We move on now from a man who died trying to deflating himself to one who looks like all the air has rushed out of him. Roy Hodgson (below) took his England squad to Warsaw for their World Cup qualifying match against Poland, only to discover later that evening that the match had been postponed off due to excessive rainfall. Ridiculous. The stadium has a roof! Officials had apparently decided that there was “no need” to close it though, and I cannot understand the logic in that. Weather forecasts aren’t the most accurate things, but if it says heavy rain, and you’re in somewhere like Poland, then assume it will rain! The only inaccuracy that could occur in that situation would be for the rain to be even heavier than predicted! Honestly. Silly people. Whats more is that when I was a kid, I used to play football whatever the weather! If I had the opportunity to do that now for the money that professional footballers are receiving nowadays, I wouldn’t think twice about it! I’d just pull on swimming trunks instead of the shorts and put new socks on at half time.
Whilst the frustration brewed in the England dressing room, us at home took a different approach, and instead of ranting about the rain (we get enough of that done anyway here in London), we used our time to create rain-related puns of footballers’ names. Hats off to you lot. They’re brilliant. I cannot wait for the day where I might see a line-up consisting of “Stewart Drowning”, “Demba Bath”, “Sergio Ague-row row row your boat”, and my personal favourite, “Emmanuel Paddle-by-oar”.
Well that pretty much concludes my highlights of the past few days! But before I leave you, I’d just like to point out the irony that at the same time #TerribleAdvice was trending today, so was Jeremy Kyle. Just saying. And speaking of terrible advice, the England team have just emerged from the tunnel after Roy’s half-time talk. That’s it from me. Terrah!
