friday on monday

As promised, a friend of this is my england has been happily pimping out this site's poesy wares at her own place. Thanks, thanks, then to Emily, the multi-coloured webimatrix of Beared Eloise for giving space to 'a good friday', a little piece first aired here a while ago.

There's plenty of other stuff to have a look at over there. So do have a look.

brent cross

represent

Upstairs, my son is letting us know that he refuses to sleep. Then the food comes: two main course Indian ready meals, plus rice plus a side dish. All for eight quid as the imminent second dip into recession even has Waitrose frightened. It is alright, and beer helps. On television, a series of needy people get up to sing, trying to prove they have the X factor. One of the women is a large creature. A big slab of body. A long, masculine face. She belts it out. She has a voice. Lights are flashing and all that. The crowd like it. The judges feed back, all saying good things as she smears a mascara tear across the painted acres of her cheek. She's determined. She really wants it. She's going to work so hard. "I might joke around", she says, "but I'm serious about this competition". Tulisa speaks up. "You're doing it for all the real women out there," she opines. "You're keeping it real. You're representing all the ladies." The audience clap and cheer. The people are moved. All around the country, ten million hefty housewives swell with pride as their champion in fantasyland delivers giant blows from the deadly arsenal of vocal chord, lung and sass. "You're putting it DOWN, momma," encourages Kelly Rowland. I eat more curry, drink more beer, pass wind and climb the stairs to the study. My wife fast-forwards through the adverts.

in florida

stripes of treasure coast sunlight
beeping your barcodes, you're
driving without satnav
through a census-designated place,
and turning
on the cracked, crunchy dust
of a strip mall's lonely lot,
and in a baleful bathroom at the budget inn,
you're fighting the five signs of shaving irritation
and pacing to where
they have beer
as cold as your girlfriend's heart

yet more bearded lady love

For the third time, a snippet of poesy from this is my england is going to get shared via the arty Bearded Eloise site run by our friend Emily.

In June, Emily accepted 'teenage wanker'. In July she accepted 'she wore:'. I'm now told that 'a good friday' will be appearing on Emily's site on Monday. Have a look at the rest of the stuff over there in the meantime, why dontcha?

going down by the riverside

When this is my england last turned its attention to the beautiful game and to the twists and turns of this organ's favourite team, the short article, a preview of the away tie at Fulham, concluded by expressing a long-held reluctance to predict the outcome of any Superhoops fixture. Just as well, really. Because, as it turned out, any prediction I might have made would have been wildly off the mark. While an away defeat against a Cottagers side looking for a much-needed first win of the season was always a distinct possibility, such an abject collapse of a previously decent-looking QPR side did not seem likely.

One prediction that was included in Saturday's preview piece was a heavy hint that writing a full match report could be a struggle. The reason given was the likely beffudling effect of sunshine, good fellowship and alcoholic beverages. All of these were indeed in abundant supply. Moreover, I've always found matches harder to follow from a behind-the-goal-and-quite-high-up viewpoint. So that particular prediction has turned out to be accurate.

Behind the goal and high up at Craven Cottage: all hell about to break loose

So the this is my england report on the match itself can be boiled down thus:

• QPR played very badly
• Fulham were decent
• It seems meaningless to rate individual QPR performances - no one had a good game
• It was nice to see Jamie Mackie back in the side, returning, finally, after last season's bad injury, coming on as a sub in the second half

Another prediction that was on the money concerned the abilities of the two sets of supporters to generate some noise. A thumping win was not enough to rouse the genteel home fans from their seemingly habitual state of quiet contemplation. The Rangers faithful, on the other hand, just seemed to get louder and louder each time Paddy Kenny picked the ball out of the back of the net.

At half time, with the R's down by just the three goals, I wondered if a respectable result might be possible. A draw seemed out of the question. A win seemed beyond the realms of wildest fantasy. But perhaps a goal? Maybe a resolute second-half rearguard action to prevent further scoring by the home side? Giddy thoughts, then, of just a 3-1 defeat, were briefly entertained during the half-time break.

But no. Just before the hour mark, Fulham's Andy Johnson completed his hat-trick. "Four nil down, we don't give a fuck, we're QPR and we're staying up," roared the away supporters. Yet another re-purposing of the old 'Tom Hark' tune. Before too long, the same song was ringing out still louder, with the words 'five', then 'six' substituted for the original 'four'.

That so few of the singers headed for the exits before the final whistle speaks volumes about the defiance and good humour of many of our club's fans. Much, too, was made of that contrast in the ways in which the home and away fans were expressing themselves. The usual taunts, then, from the Rangers faithful - "You're supposed to be a home"; "Six nil and you still won't sing" etc.

Fulham was also accused of being "a ground full of tourists". A trifle harsh, perhaps. That said, for those QPR fans in the Fulham's extraordinary 'neutral' section of the Putney End, the presence of large numbers of silent Asian and European visitors (some wearing bits and pieces of Fulham memorabilia) fuelled the enthusiasm for that particular song.

Another song that got an airing used the ever-popular 'Go west' tune. Call me puerile if you will, but I could not help smiling at the away supporters' off-colour reference to Craven Cottage's nasty Michael Jackson monument. 

The funny thing is, this was not nearly so bad a day out as you might suppose. The result was horrible. But the response of the home supporters was a world away from what I'd experienced at Elland Road almost seven years ago, on the day that Brian Deane scored four of Leeds United's six goals against a hapless Rangers side. Then, my little party had been repeatedly taunted by junior Yorkshiremen while trudging away from the ground. I experienced literally none of that on the streets of SW6 and in a pub where fans of both sides were mixing after the match.

The weather was much better this weekend, too. Almost too warm, if anything - queuing for a drink on the Fulham Palace Road was sweaty work. The black humour of the defiantly noisy singsong, too, was enjoyable in its own way. As a pal and I walked away from the Cottage, watching a few home fans nipping into smart and pricey houses in nearby streets, we both agreed that, weirdly, the afternoon had somehow been more enjoyable than it might have been had the Rangers suffered a narrower margin of defeat. A case of laughter in the dark, really.

Looking ahead, the next fixture looks crucial. QPR will entertain a struggling Blackburn side at Loftus Road. A decent win and we're back on track, putting the Fulham result behind us and dismissing it as just one of those bad days. But if the Rangers contrive to lose - or even get only a draw - things could look different and the recent mood of optimism may be sorely tested. Because after that seemingly benign home tie against apparently poor opposition comes a much more challenging run of games - Chelsea, Spurs and Man City are up next. Crikey.

U RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRsssssss

NUMBER CRUNCHING

Apropos of Private Eye No. 1298 (30 September - 13 Oct. 2011), the latest issues contains two particularly good examples of the organ's 'Number Crunching' feature:

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST...

On 20th September, this is my england name-checked a favoured organ of this organ, when observing a new application of a device much favoured across the quality spectrum of the great British press - the use of 'fruity girl' pictures to illustrate otherwise potentially dull news items.

The name-checking was of Private Eye, whose scribes never tired of the annual joke of pointing out how the newspapers always illustrate their stories about the relentless upward surge of A-Level and GCSE pass rates with eye-catching pictures of appealing teenage chicks.

this is my england was surprised to notice the same approach to photo selection being taken by the 'papers when reporting the ongoing attempts by Essex County Council to evict the occupants of illegally occupied plots at a travellers' site at Dale Farm near Basildon. Even in this context, readers of some rags were treated to an eyeful of youthful blonde totty. 

That this was a surprise, felt this is my england, was down to how travelling folk are usually portrayed by our press and many of their readers:

But surely we're all supposed to hate gypo/pikey/diddicoy scum, aren't we? Isn't it positively mainstream to discuss them in terms we'd never dream of using with reference to any other minority? I would have thought, then, that flagging up the existence of teenage totty in their midst is unwise in the extreme. It might stimulate some level of sympathetic feeling for the people of the road.

Imagine the delight experienced here at this is my england global HQ when the September 30th edition of the Eye was purchased and this was found:

Private Eye & this is my england: spot the difference

it's like yeah she's kuhMURN

So I'm sitting on a train down to London and the only space available puts me among three teenage girls who have boarded somewhere further north. It is impossible not to hear their conversation. One of them, especially, is loud.

As well as peppering every sentence with the word 'like' (often pronounced approximately thus: luhrk), they have developed a peculiar drawl constructed from excessively prominent glottal stops and really strange vowel sounds. Much of what I hear is impossible to transcribe accurately. But here is an attempt to explain how several words sounded. Capital letters indicate an unusually heavy stress on a usually unstressed syllable. Rather than use phonetic symbols with which not every reader will be familiar, an attempt has been made to use common spellings that tend consistently to convey the same sounds in British English (RP variant). The one exception is the use of the symbol ʔ to represent the glottal stop.

Some of what I heard:

kitchen = kiʔCHURN

little bit = liʔurl BUHR

girl = gahrl

marathon = maraTHURN

nothing = nuhFURN

coming = kuhMUHRN

In general, it was striking that the last syllable of any given utterance was unusually extended and over-emphasised. Is this particular element now a feature of youthful, seemingly-confident speech generally? I'm sure I've heard it in the voice-overs of adverts for products aimed at young people.

It wasn't especially hard to tune into (i.e. understand), but it was exceptionally unpleasant to hear. I can only describe the effect created as being to convey the impression that the speaker is displaying a peculiar personality composed of laziness, boredom, arrogance, mockery and apparent over-confidence (but really  excessive self-consciousness). Somewhere along the line, a trend-setter among these youngsters has displayed some of these speech characteristics and then been aped by her friends. Over time, I'd guess, these features become more and more exaggerated as it steadily becomes impossible to fit into the group without sounding like this. But to an outsider, of course, it sounds really odd.

It seemed clear that these kids were the offspring of comfortable middle-class families. So this curious microlect they are constructing is not the supposedly slovenly speech of youngsters that some would deride as 'chavs'. It is to be hoped that they can switch out of this way of speaking when needed. It wouldn't serve them well in the workplace.

one for the neutrals?

Tomorrow, we jolly QPR boys and girls will be marching down the Fulham Palace Road towards Craven Cottage for the first time in a while. The last competitive fixture between the two sides was more than ten years ago, played out by teams heading in different directions. The Cottagers were surging towards promotion to the top flight, while the Superhoops were looking decidedly non-super on their way down to English football's third tier. The season's top scorer was a perilously skinny young man by the name of Peter Crouch, weighing in with just ten goals and gamely ignoring cries of 'freeeeeeeeeeeeeak' from opposition supporters. Who could have guessed then that the beanpole forward would go on to change hands for millions of pounds over and over and over again? Who could have known that he'd still be deemed worthy of a ten million quid fee at the age of thirty?

Those days seem like a lifetime ago - and for young QPR fans that's almost literally the case. Doubtless, a good number of the Rangers faithful packing out the Putney End tomorrow will be enjoying their first ever season of Premier League football. 

A long, long gap, then, between league fixtures between the Rangers and their near neighbours in SW6 - and an even longer one since the last league tie with that other supposed 'west' London side, the Pensioners of Stamford Bridge. The rivalries between these three teams are fragmented in nature, lacking the momentum built up by guaranteed annual fixtures.  The most common meetings between members of this triumvirate are the clashes between Chelsea and Fulham, which have occurred just 72 times. Compare this with the north London derby, which has taken place over 160 times, and the Merseyside derby, which has been played more than 200 times.

As well as being dampened somewhat by the spasmodic nature of meetings between the sides, rivalries between these teams are decidedly asymmetrical at present. However much it may pain fans of both QPR and Fulham to admit it, Chelsea supporters do not, in the main, seem to consider these teams to be among their principal rivals. Blues fans appear to get a lot more worked up about other clubs altogether. In December 2004, Planetfootball.com conducted a survey among supporters of the 92 clubs of the Premier League and Football League, asking them to name their most detested rivals. Chelsea fans chose Arsenal, Spurs and Manchester United while both Fulham and QPR supporters ranked Chelsea as their most hated opponents.

Years of relative prosperity and success at Stamford Bridge had, then, relegated their near neighbours to a rather unimportant status in the eyes of Blues fans. Put simply, QPR and Fulham supporters may 'hate' Chelsea more than they 'hate' each other, but Chelsea fans don't properly reciprocate.

Such, then, is the nature of 'west' London football derbies.

But why, you ask, has the word 'west' been wrapped in inverted commas each time it's been used in this context?

Well, this is because, as many QPR fans would contend, there is only one true WEST London team - the men from Shepherds Bush, W12. The other clubs in the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, this line of argument would go, are huddled close to the river in SOUTHWEST London. This is a fairly tedious matter of semantics, but it amuses some of us.

this is my england will be present at tomorrow's match. But it remains to be seen if a decent report on the day's proceedings can be constructed. More warm, sunny weather is predicted and members of the Defector's Weld elite clique are suggesting a long afternoon of booze and good fellowship - conditions not really conducive to perfect recall of every kick of the ball.

For the ninety minutes of the actual match, the this is my england vantage point will be from the so-called 'neutral' section of Fulham's ground. Eh? What is a neutral section? Well you might ask, given that Fulham is the only club in the country to have such a thing.

A chunk of the Putney End, it seems, is made available to supporters of both the home and away teams and to anybody else who might fancy a match down by the Thames. Given the strong interest in tomorrow's fixture among QPR fans, it seems curious that so few tickets were allocated to the visiting side and that so many Rangers supporters will be seated in this 'neutral' section. On various Fulham Internet messageboards there seems to be a bit of dark muttering about the possible threat of naughtiness from the visitors. So one wonders how many Cottagers will feel inclined to sit among the QPR mob. It really is all very novel. According to Fulham's website, "supporters in the neutral section may wear replica shirts or other items of clothing relating to either team". Gee, thanks. It'll certainly be a different experience to skulking in silence and minus colours among the home fans at grounds including Highbury, White Hart Lane and Brammall Lane. Ah... memories...

Perhaps one shouldn't be too surprised at Fulham's ground having such an eccentric feature. It is, after all, home to one of the most tacky examples of statuary to be found in our capital city. It was with regret that this is my england learned that access to this gaudy piece of tat is not possible from the Putney End. The King of Pop/alleged kiddie fiddler (take your pick) would look good with a blue-and-white hooped scarf.

Predictions? Well, this is my england has a long-held superstition about not predicting the outcome of QPR matches. Instead, let's focus on some of the details:

• Joey Barton vs. Danny Murphy will be an interesting tussle in the centre of the park
• Shaun Wright-Phillips vs. Jon-Arne Riise will be another match-up to watch
• QPR's fans will massively out-sing the genteel Fulham followers
• Fan of each side will vigorously make the suggestion that the opponents' supporters care more about the match than they do
• That said, it will fucking go off big style in the away/neutral end if the Rangers manage to hit the back of the net
• Sunny weather and generous quantities of alcohol will make it an afternoon to treasure

Moreover, let's hope for a good spectacle on the pitch with plenty of witty repartee but no actual fisticuffs around and outside the ground.

U RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRssssss

A pricey day out among 'neutrals'