MARKETING, PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND COST

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George Carlin

ZONE OF SELF-FACILITATING MEDIA NODES

Mbia fined, QPR mugged off

On Monday, tweets from the Twitter account of QPR's Stéphane Mbia seemed to indicate that the player was keen on a return to Olympique de Marseille and that he was stupid enough to say so via such a public channel. This was followed by press reports to the effect that Mbia's account had been hacked. Then came a further tweet from Mbia's account to the effect that the account had not been hacked. Right now (Wednesday lunchtime), this latter remark remains on the player's timeline. As promised, QPR have investigated the matter and taken action. This just in from the club's press man:

So we are to believe that even now, Mbia cannot log into his supposedly hacked account and remove the remarks written by some third party? Well, I know what we would have said at school on hearing such an obviously false story: CHINNY RECKON. BENNY BULLSHIT. FANTASY ISLAND.

What's really happened, then, is that the idiot Mbia, caught out like a naughty child, refuses to do the decent thing and admit what he's done. So the club has to give him his deserved rap on the knuckles but pretend it's for allowing his account to be hacked rather than for his real offence (i.e. mugging the club off by announcing publicly that he wants to return to his beloved l'OM). Ridiculous. Farcical. Only at fucking QPR.

more on (moron?) Mbia

Perhaps this is a feeling entirely alien to the kind of thick-skinned sociopaths writing for our nation's tabloids, but some of us can sometimes feel a bit uncomfortable when really laying into the subject of some particularly angry piece of writing. Yesterday, for example, this is my england featured a particularly heated piece about what appeared to be the moronically insensitive behaviour of QPR's Stéphane Mbia. The Twitter account of the error-prone Cameroonian had issued remarks indicating that the player wished to leave Loftus Road and head back to Marseille. 

Having dashed off a piece written in haste and in anger, the reason for feeling uncomfortable here was the lurking fear of having somehow been taken in. What if Mbia's Twitter account had been hacked? What if the player's feelings for our club and respect for our fans were, in fact, unimpeachable? After all, this is the guy who picks out some deserving-looking kid to receive the gift of a shirt at the end of many matches. This is the fellow in whom some fans feel they have seen a hard-working exception to the general disinterestedness of the Rangers team. Oops? Shame-faced retraction of angry blog post needed?

Well, that started to look possible when The Guardian's Dominic Fifield claimed his 'paper had had contact with Mbia:

Yet Mbia, when asked to explain that follow-up, claimed he had not written the messages. "I do not know how this happened but someone must have got hold of my login and password because I did not write these things," he said when contacted by the Guardian. "This was not me. I did not write the tweets, and I have made people at the club aware of that. I saw the messages this morning and spoke with the club about them, but now I see there are more appearing in my name."

In light of this, it's hard to explain the latest from Mbia's Twitter, written just this morning:

Translation: "I want to deny the rumours of hacking on my Twitter account."

Some people might want to contend that this latest message also comes from a malicious hacker. But that's hardly likely, is it? It doesn't take long to reestablish control of a hacked Twitter account. So if Mbia's account had been compromised, the player would, surely, by now have had time to delete the offending tweets, write his own clarification and worked with the QPR media team to untangle this messy situation.

So the feeling here is that not only did Mbia write the original messages but he must have also lied to journalists at The Guardian and then decided to revert to the uncomfortable truth. So it's looking rather as if that as well as being a pretty useless player and a shamefully disrespectful twat, the (hopefully soon-to-be former) Rangers man is a rather confused person. A bit of a nutter, it seems. What are the chances of another club wanting to part with good money for such obviously damaged goods? It's a worry. Add it to the QPR worry pile.

Stéphane Mbia: MORON

Writing about QPR this season has been a pretty dispiriting business. This accounts for the lack of Rangers-related output here at this is my england over the last few months. Many a depressing game has been attended but not been written about. It's just been no fun at all. That said, some sort of bitter rant is on the cards and will doubtless appear here before too long.

In the meantime, yet another piece of dismal social media misuse on the part of one of our players cannot pass without brief comment. Here (in a since deleted tweet) is Stéphane Mbia making it clear that he'd like to return to Olympique de Marseille:

Surely it is be hoped that he gets his wish. Why should we remain saddled with players who are too fucking stupid to be subtle about having no regard for our club? It's not even as if Mbia is much of a player anyway. All that money just to totter around like a daddy longlegs on roller-skates, giving away game-changing free kicks and rolling around like a play-acting tart when an opponent breathes on him? No thanks. With any luck, we've seen the last of this waster in a hooped shirt. If not, perhaps anyone reading this might want to give him an appropriately warm reception at the next couple of fixtures - fixtures rendered meaningless by the ineptitude and gutlessness of Mbia and his pals.

that OCD cleanathon thing...

... it gets a grip of some people, doesn't it? on their hands and knees at all hours, scrubbing the floor, polishing the banisters, removing every speck of dust from every stick furniture. OUT DAMNED SPOT. RUB, DON'T BLOT. and all that. some kind of obsession. cleanliness is all. the devil is in the dirt. well, as far back as March, there were signs that this nervous condition was gripping our man stu (the mischief-making stickers and stencils maestro of Camden). further proof of this can now be seen on stu's rectangle of choice. all he bangs on about these days is clean this and clean that. the poor chap's been driven to distraction by the destruction of his art. now he's expressing this frustration via the medium of dirty van (complete with CLEAN ME finger daubs):