Last night's nerd togger - righteous!

Attacking

I've held off LNNT since Nerd12 came out but last night's was too ace to keep to myself.
I've found myslef bumping between divs eight and seven.
Was two points off promotion to div six once with three games to go but lost all three and got relegated.
I tend to bounce straight back though and L story S last night found myself needing a point to stay in div seven. My opponent was Santos and they, like that Russian lot Eto'o plays for, are tricky fast little buggers.
I've only been Everton on live nerding up to now so I never play United, Bayern and the like, but these two seem the pick of the teams at Everton's level.
Anyway I went one up double quick thanks to Osman, but they hit back with three quick goals - each one a lesson in idiocy from nerd Tim Howard - to put me 3-1 down with 25 nerd minutes gone.
So I went for it and switched to my legendary 3-1-3-3 formation (above), with Coleman and Baines either side of Jerjelka, a midfield of Fellaini, Drenthe (left), Osman (right), Cahill pushed forward, and Saha, Anichebe and Magaye up front. Late on Bilyaletdinov comes on for Osman or Drenthe, with Cahill going in their position and him centre, because he's ace at long shots.
I'd hardly had a shot before making the switch but from then on I was all over him with Fellaini pulling one back with a crisp low finish from the edge of the box right on half time.
Second half I blitzed the 'mother' with two goals in 10 nerd minutes. First a Saha header from a Baines corner, then Mugaye slithered through to crash home.
By now my opponent was sliding in all over the show - first rule of nerd togger, don't lose your rag - and I was dancing through at will. Cahill picked up a loose ball on the edge of the box, spun his marker and smashed home to make it 5-3 to Captain Cool.

Thus far and no further

Seriously, just fuck off

Five pounds fucking 50 for a pint of lager! That was the astonishing deal I was bummed with on Saturday eve. I was meeting Mrs Biff for some grub in Shoreditch's trendy 'Shoreditch' and had 20 minutes to kill so nipped for a quick pint.
Found some gaff called the Redchurch Bar on Redchurch street. Looked okay inside, quite dark, lots of deep red furnishings. Gang of girls to the left as I went in, couple of blokes to the right, few people scattered around the back by the bar, to which I headed.
One pint of Sierra Nevada lager ordered and the fella drops the price bombshell on me, prompting the now customary 'how much?!'
He repeated the price and all I could stammer was 'why?'.
And it's a fair question - what possible business has anyone asking £5.50 for a pint? They've not even paused to admire the view from £4 a pint mountain - which is outrageous anyway - they've just hurtled on, busting straight through the previously-theoretical £5 a pint barrier and landed plum 'twixt a flim and six pounds UK.
I bought it like because I didn't want them thinking I was poor or a mingeo, both of which are true.

Fold

The thing with this gaff was, the crowd didn't look particularly well off or even very 'Shoreditch'. And there was at least one student in (I heard him talking about his course) so how can he afford to sup there?
This comes tepid on the heels of being charged £8-odd for a pint of Peroni and a small Baileys at the Hen & Chickens by Highbury Corner - a scandalous amount for two drinks but a bargain compared to the Redchurch deal.
These places are supposed to be - at least nominally - neighbourhood establishments but they're charging the sort of prices people who've visited Scandinavia come back weeping about.
Presumably it's an aggressive move to ensure people like me don't go in places like that. Well that's fine, but eventually more people will start thinking, is this really worth it?
I've lived in London 11 years and I'm braced for the price of most things but if we're seriously saying that a tenner might not be enough to secure two pints then the whole thing's gone to shit. This should be hover-packs-for-all in the future, not here and now.
Anyway the grub at the Hoxton Furnace was dead on - pizzas were v tasty and passed the fold test. Rubbish picture I know. The service was pretty hopeless though. Slow drinks, slow bill, not a huge deal but a bit wearing.

Funster in 'da house'

Then it was off home and a chance to marvel at this idiot's shoes - he was being loud and wacky, even by East London Line standards. I think he was foreign.

Stapes and Browns, where's all the fun

Mayhem

It's easy to forget, under this new insanovision Coronation Street, that Fiz's family used to be funny, and Chesney was very cute.
This was before that small mole started trying to get out of the end of his nose.
But gone are the knockabout larks of yore - even Chez's mate Kirk's been dragged into the abyss lately.
This is a family that, off the top of my head in the last two years or so, has seen Fiz convicted of murder - for which she's just been bailed pending appeal (!) - for a crime she didn't commit. Okay so she might have covered up the body - or was that the other one? But the actual killing was done by her (now late) husband John.
That's Stape, who has killed one person (Charlotte the Smash robot) by caving her in the head with a hammer - whose body, actually she was still alive at this point, he dumped in the rubble caused by a train wreck outside his gaff - and let another (Colin Fishwick) die in his house, before burying him under the knicker factory floor, so he could continue living under John's name, thus allowing him to teach.
The reason he couldn't teach - his old job - under his own identity is he had an affair with a schoolgirl (Rosie) and then kidnapped her - can anyone remember why? So he nicked Colin's identity.
While in prison for at least some of that, and diagnosed with acute mentalness of the cranium, he and Fiz get married. Outside of nick John gets a stalker, and L story S, it's Charlotte.
John and Fiz have a kid which develops a hole in the heart, John also kills Colin's mum to stop her shouting after he confesses to her what he's done (up to that point).
Then Fiz nicks the mum's legacy, meanwhile John is pretending to Charlotte's parents that he (as Colin) was going to marry Charlotte. Chesney susses it so John holds him and Charlotte's parents hostage in the basement for a bit until Fiz - who STILL won't turn John in - rescues them. At some point in all this John had stopped taking his mental pills.
But before that John gets a job digging holes for Chesney's girlfriend's dad Owen - he's only about to dig up Colin! Luckily he gets Fiz to help him sling the body in the canal.
After that she rescues Chesney and the parents before the police turn up and John then nicks his and Fiz's baby. Fiz then gets run over, John comes back the hozzy, gives her the kid, goes to the roof, falls off it and disappears.
Then he comes back a bit later and kidnaps Rosie again before crashing his car with her dad Kevin in hot pursuit. John then dies in hospital but not before he videoed a confession supposedly exonerating his wife of all crimes.
As of last night Fiz was still in nick, but about to be bailed. She's been found guilty of one murder and possibly she got done for nicking the old girl's money, although that bit seems to have been forgotten.
While in nick, Fiz has been accused of being a grass, had her baby threatened, grassed, and bashed the woman who threatened her baby.
And just to round things off about two weeks ago they (the government?) gave the dog Schmeichel (a great Dane - I only just got that) cancer. The dog. Got cancer. This is how you want to get people watching, ITV?
He died last night, but only after Chez had nicked the money his bird's dad had given her to pay the rent, which was late so a bailiff came round, on vets bills and medicinal bonio and the like. Was the rent really bailiff late though?
I think that's about it. Now, is it just me or does that all seem a little far fetched?

Onwards and crudwards

Gone (he isn't mentioned anywhere here you know)

To business. What we saw at Sames' Park on Saturday was Everton's problems simply nutshelled. Can't score goals, can't defend, tippy-tappy it around a bit in the middle to no great effect.
The excellent executioners bong website says we're only three points worse off than the same stage last season, when we went on to finish seventh.
Yes we are, but we're also really shit. I mean, needing-a-priest-to-get-out-of-it shit. We seem incapable of regularly getting the ball and some of our players around the opposition box - it's one or the other. Jack Rodwell's goal shows what can happen if you get people forward.
At the back we can't keep crosses out, and this is where we're letting goals in from. Maybe it's because the full-backs aren't getting any protection - I don't know.
Let's not dignify playing Seamus Coleman on the left with any discussion, but generally he's been poor this season. He works had, and yes he was cheap, but he isn't very good. Running fast is great if you're strictly in the running fast business, but he isn't. He's in the controlling the ball and doing something with it business.
On the other side Royston Drenthe is clearly lively and quick and actually a good player, but he's also an idiot.  Prone to wander in, leaving Leighton Baines - our one truly excellent player - on his own. With Drenthe you probably have to budget for one major cock-up a game. Like if your mother was a hen.
Generally the problem seems to be we're going out hoping to get something, rather than forcing things. David Moyes has always been a reactive manager with Everton - rarely changing things early, even if we're playing shit. He's also been generally a conservative one, favouring 4-5-1 most of the time.
It worked well while we had good players but now we don't. Louis Saha - and it's an abject dereliction of duty to leave your team relying on him for goals - is isolated in most games or ends up going out wide to pick the ball up, leaving us with nowt up front.

Goal!

Newcastle had two up front on Saturday and it meant that our centre halfs couldn't settle, whereas we are content to sit back and defend from the halfway line. This can work but wouldn't it be better to have some pressure further up the pitch?
This formation got the best out of players like Mikel Arteta, Steven Pienaar and Tim Cahill, but two of those have now gone and the other one is struggling for form.
Cahill's not scored for Everton since - you'd think this would be easy to find what with that internet and all but it isn't. I think it's about a year. Anyway, coincidence?
We look like a team struggling, not just for form, but for confidence. If we concede one everyone knows there's little chance of us scoring two.
Look at how Newcastle defended on Saturday, they did just enough most of the time. Like against Manchester United we never really looked like scoring - there were few occasions where you'd think, he should have scored.
Newcastle look half-decent but that's about it, we look slow and knackered. They had more than enough for to keep us out.
Moyes has obviously been dealt a shitty hand on transfers but he has to get on with it because if this team gets stuck down the bottom I doubt it has the quality or the oomph to get out of it.
Moyes seems to send them out looking to keep it tight until half time and go from there. He needs to send them out to attack because lately we look like we're hoping to draw, and it isn't working.

This week's top search terms

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Ever wondered how other right-thinking individuals end up on the website that lets men breathe out and scratch the bits that don't scratch themselves?
Here are this week's top search terms which landed, well you get the idea:
happy festivus
night club
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Nick in here, a celebration

Can you guess?

I work with two fellows called Nick. They're both idiots but main Nick has an incredible capacity for blather - one unmatched in any human animal I have encountered.
Steve Martin's rant at the fat fella out of Uncle Buck whose name I forget could have been written for Nick.
Anyway, presenting this week's Nick in here gold (all material is from him, where a conversation ensues it is marked accordingly).


'As soon as you stop looking for something you always find it dont you?'


'If he's having a fag break hell be outside having a fag wont he?' 

In conversation with other Nick: 
Nick: 'I can't believe its November already.' 
Other Nick: 'It is.' 
Nick: 'It's incredible.' 
Other Nick: 'I know.' 


'It's amazing, isn't it?' (This didn't appear to be aimed at anyone or anything)


In conversation with me: 
Nick: 'Bless you.'
Me: 'That was a cough, it doesn't count.'
-An hour later-
Nick: 'Bless you' (barely audible, behind his hand and facing into the corner after I sneezed)
Me: 'What?'


'I wonder how much time I've wasted...' (Tailed off at this point - a cry for help? UNHEEDED)


'I've watched every episode of Smallville.'


'I went twice. But in the end I just put it under the door. Ha ha ha!'


In conversation with other Nick: 
Nick: 'She goes and moves her car every couple of hours.'
Other Nick: 'Who does?'
Nick: 'Sheila.'
Other Nick: 'Why does she do that?'
Nick: 'It's the meters. A few people do it.'
Other Nick: 'Oh, the meters.'
Nick: 'Yes.'