As we hurtle through another week of squandered opportunity before the inevitable breaking of our collective spirit over the back of apathy/the Tories/your mum, news drifts in that the moderate Blues are to get shut of Tim Cahill.
A lot of people will be saying how Cahill is one of the few recent players to really 'get' what it is to be an Evertonian, and they may well be right.
But they love him at Millwall too - and it went both ways - remember when he scored against them in the FA Cup?
What I liked about him was the goals he scored, so I've gone off him lately, and the opportunity his being a Blue afforded me for getting in the match for free.
I used his name to get press tickets for Everton matches in some of Europe's most exotic fleshpots: Liege and Fulham spring readily to mind.
They were heady days but, like Cahill's powers, they've faded into the background. He's not been the same player for a couple of years now, despite a mini-resurgence when Nikica Jelavic came in. But then no one could keep up that level of effort and not slow down a touch.
The timing is right if he does leave, but it does feel like the end of an era at Goodison. Cahill represented David Moyes' philosophy more than any other player he's signed. Extremely hard working, a bit of a wanker on the pitch, very effective and versatile.
He's getting out just in time to avoid the inevitable abuse that he'd have got this season too.
It's telling that Leon Osman is David Moyes' most-used player. He is the manager writ large on the pitch - good to a point but can't cut it in the big games.
Osman has never really turned up in the derby - Moyes, only occasionally.
We need change at Everton - everyone can see this - but what's the point of getting some billionaire in to fight for the crumbs that fall of Manchester City's table? That way lies ruin. Everton need a complete overhaul. The way the club approaches everything must change.
Moyes is bulletproof at Everton but this conservatism is holding us back - the idea that if he leaves the whole thing collapses. That's a risk but it's one we need to take. Bill Kenwright, of course, will do nothing as he's in thrall of the manager. As he was the previous one until it was nearly too late.
Here's what won't happen: Kenwright thanks Moyes for his time and gets in, as it was rather eloquently put after Saturday's collapse, 'some foreign bloke'. It's glib but bear with me.
He then says, we've seen the future and it's Athletic Bilbao - the way they press all over the pitch, the way they are all comfortable on the ball, the way they play without fear. This is what we want for Everton.
The club should say that this will take a while and we may be shit for a few years - but then we're pretty shit anyway - but we have absolute faith in this vision. It is the only viable option for Everton.
Evertonians will accept Everton being shit - we're used to it now. But I think we'd all like to see a new young, vibrant Everton. We had a young, vibrant manager but unfortunately he's become stale.
Look at the teams who've wiped the floor with us in Europe over the last few years - the way they all play. Fast, quick passing. And then look at us.
This patchwork squad building model is never going to really cut it - but it's largely the only option open to the manager at present. So we change and have every player at every level of the club playing the right way. Comfortable on the ball and aggressive. The way Bilbao played against United - leaving them looking like a lumbering dinosaur - was exhilarating.
I don't know how we go about this and I have no idea who the manager to do it is, but there should be people at the club constantly working on improving us. If not, why not?
Saturday's routine loss doesn't have to be for nothing if it kick-starts a complete revision at Everton. Of course it won't though, and wouldn't it be just like Everton to go to Old Trafford on Sunday and get shrugged aside ahead of more patronising words from Sir Alex Ferguson?
Nil satis nisi optimum (unless we play Liverpool or in any kind of big game).
BANG! And so the mask finally slipped to reveal the ugly, twisted, ugly, toothless, pale, ugly, a-bit-like-Darth-Vader-without-his-hat-on face of the Liverpool supporter.
So much has been written about Luis Suarez and the rest of those oiks we shall waste no more time on them here. For it is at the coal face where the really interesting buggers are to be found.
A world of slaveish cultism, banners, badges, meetings, videos and general all-round dingbattery.
And I for one salute them. I'm an Evertonian and I have many (three) chums who support Liverpool, each of whom I would trust with my own nutsack, should the situation demand it.
But it's the collective that I can't be doing with - never could, never will. Such a self-satisfied bunch of blowhards.
For convenience I'd chuck my pals in with this crowd of halfwits but I'd know, deep down, they were okay. Then came Suarez and the whole thing collapsed.
One of my most trusted inner circle (yes, YOU Ben, you potherb) started trotting out the party line. That Patrice Evra had lied/been rude/something and poor innocent Luis was innocent - it's a line that John 'bellend' Aldridge was trotting out on BBC Five Live at the weekend.
Even now, despite the verdict and apologies, there are still some Kopites clinging to the wreckage, with their fingers in their ears, screaming. Snot running down their faces, eyes wild with hate, thrashing against the world (their mums, mainly) at the sheer injustice of it all.
Sky TV, the BBC, Yanks (not those ones, THOSE ONES), Manchester United, the media in general - have all incurred the Kopites' wrath as they bounce around their crusty sock strewn bedrooms writing on the internet (yes, just like this!) about reports and declaring that they have read the reports and understand the reports better than some poxy QC and what the hell are we going to do about it well we'll show them.
All their self-manufactured 'goodwill' (other clubs' supporters probably didn't hate them, just thought they were nobheads) built up over years of flags and scarves and singing shit songs has been destroyed at a stroke.
And now, as the discussion finally moves on from Suarez and Evra, there are still a few, a select, dainty few, still raging, emboldened by the smouldering internet news that one of their top minds has found a video of the ghost handshake which shows Evra's arm wasn't out enough to be engaged.
Remember the episode of the Simpsons where Bart writes 'insert brain here' on the back of Homer's head and he spins round and round and round trying to see it and at first the family laughs but then it becomes awkward? Well this is just like that.
The worst thing that could have happened for normal Liverpool supporters was the agitators believing their press - that they got rid of 'dem Yanks'. No. You didn't. You're not some highly politicized force, you're noisy irritants.
And why do you all have to call it 'Libboobuborrblub' when you're clogging up the airwaves with your self righteousness and appalling clothes? We know what Liverpool refers to in this instance. No one's watching wondering what all this has to do with Liverpool chamber of commerce, or 'synagogue'.
Take this bundle of joy. He goes by the handle Skrtel Power and he's clearly vexed about Manchester United and Evra. Ooh he's vexed. As is his right as a consumer (who watches the games on the telly). But look at his room - there are pictures of footballers on it. This is a man of voting age.
This is the new, 'empowered' supporter. It's not exclusive to Liverpool but they do seem to attract them. A few years ago, Evertonians used to think of the Kopite collective as balloons but, like cockroaches and spiders in one's house, you could share the space as our worlds needn't clash.
That's changed now because some of them - and it seems like a fair number - think they're some kind of 'force for good'. Their protest marches against Tom Hicks and George Gillette - and I'm not knocking anyone who can be arsed doing something like that - will become the Kopite equivalent of the Sex Pistols at the Screen on the Green.
But the truth of it is, as a group: You take yourselves ridiculously seriously, you should shut the fuck up, and you wear bad training shoes.
That said, the world can look forward to seeing what the Kop banner random word generator throws up in support of Kenny Dalglish and ratboy Suarez. 'At the end of a storm there's a golden sky' was one being suggested on the Red and White Kop gentlemen's discussion forum. It's good because, apart form anything else, there isn't, even.
Some dingbat tweeted this today: "Hither Green people: DECENT LOCAL PUB ALERT!! The Lord Northbrook near Lee station. Completely refurbished & familyfriendly. It's lovely!" I feel compelled to respond. Take your children, your buggies, your piles of fucking toys, your colouring in books ('oh Josh and Hetty are so creative!' 'Yes, so's my Jacasta. Don't pull Max's hair, darling') and sod off. It's a pub - it's for grown ups. I don't bring a bag of cans down the nursery. Hardly ever. Because it doesn't fit. No one wants to hear your precious little angels until they have developed something approaching an indoor voice. Kids have two settings - loud and off. They are unsuitable for public consumption. No one cares if they can walk or talk or play the recorder or ride a bike or do joined up writing. We can do all that for ourselves.
You sit there all smug with your JCB prams, taking up the corner - yes, you always wodge yourselves in the corner - with your ghastly 'work in progress'.
All the lads have long fucking hair - you think it's you allowing them 'personality' but singularly fail to grasp that you're schooling them in conformity. These uniformed little toy soldiers are racing up the same track as their vapid parents.
You with your Sunday papers and your friends all sitting there, dead from the neck up, desperately looking round the table for something, anything to tell you this is all worth it, and wondering which one of them you could fuck.
Sandals and shorts in the summer, Gola fucking trainers and scarves in the autumn - coalition-tolerating, dribbling halfwits. 'Family friendly' pubs are an abomination - they should be WIPED OUT! You gave up fun for kids, why poison the rest of us? You've had it your own way for long enough and it's about time we pushed back. Next time you see this shower, plonk yourself down in the middle of them and swear and fart as if your very sanity depends on it. Because it just might.
Had to include this emailed response from a chum: 'A local cafe near me has felt the wrath of the mumsnet crew as well. The cafe put up a sign saying that the regulars were being driven out by screaming kids running about the place. All they said was ‘you can come in but you need to ensure that your kids are kept under control for the sake of other customers’. From the reaction of the parents you’d have thought the place had arranged a sex offenders coffee morning. Bellends.'
I was in your place on Saturday with my girlfriend and we both had pizzas. Mine was the Italian sausage one and hers was parma ham. They were both very tasty but the bases were simply too thin to function. This is, I feel, a fundamental problem with the pizzas. The middle bit - radius of about three inches - was just mush. Any attempt to pick up a full slice was sheer folly as this middle bit just collapsed, dragging the cargo of the whole slice with it. So I had to eat the middle bit with cutlery - my face burned with shame - before eating the outer half slice by hand.
I mentioned this to a waitress as we were leaving and she said they're supposed to be eaten with a knife and fork. I batted this aside, insisting that pizza should be eaten by hand - at the very least it should be an option.
Thin bases are the only way to go but the problem with the ones we had - and it's happened every time I've been in - is the base is just too thin to pass the fold test. This is where you pick a slice up, fold it in at the edges and the rest of the slice stays erect. There may be a couple of centimetres droopage at the end but that's acceptable.
The pizza was among the tastiest I have ever had but, because of the base, it was rendered merely adequate - a 9/10 effort becomes a 6/10 disappointment.
That said, the pilsner is ace.
