Alan Coleman

I try to trade Celebrity Big Brother for Match of the Day at home, Mandy of course is having absolutely none of it, and quite rightly so. For she knows full well that despite my protestations I’m as interested in the banal daily happenings of the freak show as everyone else. Not that I’d know because I don’t watch that kind of thing, but this is quite probably the best BB yet. When I say best, I mean the most entertaining in terms of the boundaries between goodies and baddies being clearly defined.

I reckon C4 couldn’t believe their luck as the show polarised into two sides in the style of a south coast pantomime. Let’s look at the baddies first. A smug politician with links to Saddam Hussein, an aggressive American basketball player with studs in his face and a manipulative cross dressing bitch. Could it really get any worse? The tabloids must be falling over themselves. Compare them to the white side. A harmless Welshman from a novelty rap band, a good looking young singer and a sweet fun loving girl from Essex.

Everyone loves a story of good and bad and that’s exactly what we have here, a modern fairytale of the young, pretty and innocent battling against the old, ugly and bitter. A simple combination that roots reality television safely into the 21st century.

The dark side is led by the impossibly bad George Galloway, whose insanely arrogant nature fails to cover his acute jealousy towards young people. This is a man who has been arrested while campaigning against nuclear weapons, who stood up to Tony Blair and who single headedly humiliated the American political elite. All of that is now wasted as he morphs into one of those balding blokes down the pub who people no longer want have sex with. A tedious and egotistical bore that uses his socialist activities of yesteryear to claim the superior high ground.

And what of Pete Burns, whose self centred nature does little to appease his grotesque physical appearance. The only reason the white side don’t stand up to him is because he hides behind a mask, a face that scarily refuses to show any emotion amongst the hatred. How he must feel looking at Preston, Chantelle and Maggot, all likeable young people with their lives ahead of them. And Dennis Rodman? He easily falls into place as the aggressive sidekick who is led by the others. Galloway and Burns suffer from intellectual snobbery, the worst kind. But worst of all, the three of them are bullies.

Great television that can only help quicken the pace towards the inevitable Armageddon that awaits us.

Colchester United beat Port Vale at the weekend to go top of League Division 1 – We are top of the league! We? It didn’t take long for the closet Col U fans to start worming their way out of the woodwork now that things are looking up at Layer Road did it? I can hardly claim to be a fan after spending only a handful of Friday night games on the Barside during the early nineties, but I did feel a small surge of pride on opening the back pages of the Mirror on Sunday.

The way things are looking at the moment, the Championship teams of former European Glory will be travelling down the A12 at the start of next season. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Even better than that, the U’s might even be jumping teams like Leicester and Millwall who are fast approaching relegation. I pass Millwall’s Den on the train through South Bermondsey sometimes, and it does look like a nice little staduim. Which is a word that couldn’t really be used to describe Layer Road, which resembles a couple of sheds in the middle of an Army married quarters estate.

Picture it now, the start of a new season for the Leicester away fans, gazing over billboards for Stanway Double Glazing onto that soaking pitch on a wet Wednesday evening. How distant the days of Red Star Belgrade or Martin O’Niel.

But hey, onwards and upwards for the White and Blues, it’s about time they had some success and good luck them.

I arrived back from holiday on Saturday to the headline, “Celebrity Big Blubber”, and despite my dislike of The Sun you have to give credit for a good headline where it’s due. I immediately got on the phone to my brother to fantasise about the most ridiculously politically incorrect solution to the problem of whales in the Thames.

His solution is as such:

Simply invite a Japanese whaling schooner, flying a Confederate flag and with the crew dressed in fluresacent jackets, to roar up the Thames and harpoon the beast in front of the thousands of adoring parents and children. Then simply drag the animal backwards through the Thames barrier.

My addition:

Replace the captain with Cliff Richard or Penelope keith and the crew with hardened football hooligans who will wear Chelsea tops, Stone Island jumpers and Burberry Caps whilst continuously swiging free Stella Artios. The empty cans will naturally be flung over board with not a second thought. The schooner would be fitted with an outrageously loud public address system that will blare out Angels by Robbie Williams at a deafening volume. Tony Blair would oversee proceedings from an enormous plastic throne on the Embankment, laughing hysterically and thumping his chest repeatedly whilst pointing at the crew, who by that point would have worked themselves into a crazed frenzy of violent euphoria.

The above is of course an utterly ridiculous fantasy in black humour that thankfully would never be feasible in such a civilised society, due mostly to the fact that a whaling schooner is to big to get under Westminster bridge.

Hopefully this would serve as a warning to the whale community that the Thames is for Debris and sewerage, not for attention grabbing stunts aimed a gaining a part in yet another outrageously tedious Disney movie.

Job done.