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| Does anyone have a U and a T in this font? |
In a list of the most repugnant individuals currently
employed to make face in the mediasphere, it is difficult to know where,
precisely, one would rank – and ‘rank’ is absolutely the mot juste – that astronomically repulsive twerp Piers Morgan, a man
who truly does believe he farts cologne. It’s not important; he’s up near the
top – which is where any self-respecting elitist is happiest.
The most recent phase of Morgan’s journey unto repugnance – or
what he calls his career – has seen
him become a much sought-after opinioneer, first in Blighty then La-La Land, parping
highly-remunerated ideas that come after us all through the ether and lodge
themselves in the brain, later to be blurted out as our own: “Liiike, I fink
vat…” Some people call it ‘mass entertainment’.
Like all cynically populist-yet-elitist right-wing figures –
and as the editor of News of the World,
he will have had ample practice at that posture – Morgan has to work quite hard
to keep the sneer of contempt from his mug, something that the deadly combination
of Twitter and his own limitless vanity will, I suspect, make increasingly
difficult. (Although, given that his roughshod ride over celebrity privacy
whilst on Fleet Street paved the way for our elevated culture of bin-emptying,
knicker-sniffing, pap stalkers, I dare say he giveth nary a shit.)
What has any of this got to with football, you may wonder? Well,
if you pipe down for a minute, I’ll tell you.
The FCF’s Hollywood
correspondent, Murdoch Burdock (stress on first and second syllables respectively,
naturally), brings news of Morgan ‘repositioning’ himself, false nine-style, as
a football pundit. Not content with being final arbiter on Britain’s Talent –
and certainly, we have been strongly tipped for medals in shooting and fencing
at this year’s Olympics – he is now to be found saying stuff like “Mixer!” and
“Good knock!” to a flummoxed American audience.
It would be easy to poke fun – and Lord knows I’ve gone out
of my way not to keep abreast of his
career (I think I accidentally caught 10 minutes of some arrant pre-US ‘documentary’
on Marbella’s nouveaux riches) – but
the top of my head, and some brief research, tells me he has a prime-time CNN
show, in the old Larry King 9pm slot, and that there have been a few faux pas of late. For instance, a Tea
Party politician called Christine O’Donnell, the acceptable face of bigotry, walked off an interview
because “he would not stop talking about sex,” and he infamously got
the gender wrong of a recently deceased comedian, Patrice O’Neal, to whom
he was attempting to pay tribute (grief-surf). Chris Morris was nowhere near
either incident, Burdock reports.
One would expect all this of an imbecile, particularly one
as shallow and deluded about his place in the world as the toerag formerly
known as Piers Stephane Pughe-Morgan, but that hasn’t stopped him from turning
his unctuous gaze toward O jogo bonito.
Credentials? Well, apart from slotting easily into the niche
of ‘vituperative Limey’ (see: Mrs Robinson, S-Cowl), apparently Piers is an Arseho–
…I mean, Arsenal supporter – which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense:
he probably once had to review Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, however intellectually stretched; he certainly epitomises
the post-Sky gentrification of football already skewered
in The Fast Show; and he would thus have
eenie-meanied a team when the glory still spurted from the Henry-Bergkamp
axis.
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| Piers: proof positive that Britain doesn't Got Talent... |
You’ll not be surprised to learn, assuming you don’t already
know, that Piers has a history of gushspouting footballistically on Twitter. During
the recent Arsenal versus Man United match, during which Andrei Arshavin was
roundly booed for, er, being told to go on the pitch by Wenger – a decision derided
by Robin van Persie, too, remember – as replacement for tyro winger Alex
Oxlade-Chamberlain, widely regarded to have been the Gunners’ best player at
that point, Morgan flicked the following spunk-gobbet at his Twitter Clarice
Starlings: “I’m speechless. Never seen a worse substitution in my time as an
#Arsenal fan. Shocking. And for Arshavin???? Nonsense, Wenger. NONSENSE.”
Burdock’s sources confirm it was all this football-related chatter
– and maybe also the fact that we’re all so fucking dumb that we’ll tune in
just to see how shit he is – that got him a job as guest pundit on ESPN.
Imagine! It would be like having Ruby Wax or Jerry Springer commentate on the
cricket. Anyway, the professional lasher-outer promptly tweeted of his new
expertise, doubtless assuming there to have been a ceasefire in Syria out of
respect for his epochal appearance or hoping the Twitterati would blow smoke up
his ass and feed him grapes. Of all people, wee Michael Owen – who, despite the
ongoing fizzle-out of his career, does exist –
took virtual umbrage and defended Football’s territory from such impostures. Man-to-man,
not zonal.
Here is the charming exchange from what soccer experts and
media observer observers in those parts of the YooEssEh? where clichéd mobsters still
go about their nefarious business are already calling “Soopoib Sunday”:
PM: 2 hours till
I’m live on air as expert pundit re Chelsea/Man Utd for @FoxSoccer – be afraid
@WayneRooney @RioFerdy5 @themichaelowen
MO: pundit maybe
but please, you, an ‘expert’. Do us all a favour
MO: only in America
PM: careful
Benchwarmer, or I’ll have to focus my expert eye on you to America
MO: And that’s
the problem in this world. Clueless people like you somehow get in a position
to talk about something
MO [cont]: they
have no clue about in front of millions of people. Football is full of it.
PM: thing is,
Benchwarmer, I’m more likely to score a Prem League goal than you these days.
Miaow.
I’m not sure of any ‘previous’ – there are only so many
minutes in the day; only so many Prozac this side of intensive care – but note his
delightful facility with the put-downs. Heart-warming stuff. Lovely, cute
bullying. The kind of man you’d want your daughter to marry…
Not content with picking a rumble with one cherubic
favourite of the Mums of Middle England, Santa Banter (as he’s known to the
Mexicans who clean his pool) then got embroiled in a spat with Gary Lineker, one
that seemed to develop from the previous tête-à-chest between Owen and Morgan:
PM (straight tweet):
Fox are airing Chelsea/United match on main network today, before Superbowl.
Giving Americans the chance to watch some real football.
GL: Shame we
don’t get Fox here. Would be intrigued to watch your analytical tactical input.
Could be quite something.
PM: I’ll send a
tape. They call me ‘Lineker with looks and brains’ over here.
GL: Must be down
to your stunningly successful football career.
As is the way with Twitter, this then prompted a multi-sided
exchange (slebs and plebs alike), for which we probably require a
three-dimensional format in order to represent it adequately. Nevertheless, the
meatiest part of said subsidiary ding-dong(-ding) was a spat between Piers and –
I kid ye not – Lord Sugar, the latter having chimed in that Morgan’s punditry
was “embarrassing to say the least” (Lineker: “Surely not?”), the former
defending himself against the accusation that the Arsenal fans hate him, to
which Sugar retorted: “deluded again, maybe hate is wrong word, they just think
you talk double barrelled boll…”
And he was like
“Everyone hates you, Peez”. And I was like, “Like, you best, like, fuck off,
yeah?”
Lineker then suggests getting the pair of them on a MOTD spesh
as pundits. As you’d imagine he would have been had the offer been to carry out
a liver transplant, Piers, predictably, is up for it: “Let’s see who’s Top Dog,
Shugs”.
So far, so banter…
Perhaps drawn by the licentious description of “erudite
entertainment,” he then posted a
fawning blog on his Fox Soccer punditry (tagging Sugar, Lineker, and Owen
in the tweet), at which point he’s again gently teased by Salt ‘n’ Lineker,
before it all then prrrrroper kicks off, blud, ya get meh:
GL: You must have
been up all night trying to find that blog
PM: They’re
flooding in. Expecting the BBC to be in touch very soon.
GL: Spoke to the
powers that be at the BBC and they are very interested in you… Staying in America
PM: I just spoke
to the powers-that-be at CNN & Fox. And they said: ‘Gary
GL: Ah well,
there’s always the rest of the world
PM: I currently
air in 200 territories / countries – how you getting on? #SmallPondMinnow
GL: I think the 2
world cups I played in probably edged that.
PM: Hmmm. Next
time you’re in LA let’s stroll down Hollywood
Boulevard
GL: You asking me
out on a date.
PM: Yes. Mwah x
PM: We actually
have a lot in common. Neither of us has ever won the World Cup, European
Championships or Prem League/1st Div.
GL: Or have a
golden boot… Oh sorry Piers I forgot I’ve got one in the attic
PM: Ah yes,
here’s the fabled ‘golden boot’ in action [he
posts a link to Lineker’s
penalty miss vs. Brazil in 1992, one that would have equalled the England
GL: I have no
recollection of those images, didn’t fake them did you? [Deft use of satire from Lineker here, alluding to the Leveson Inquiry]
[At this juncture, a
mystery racehorse owner from Chester
MO: No surprise
to see you have been on Twitter a week and Big Breasts has already started
spouting his rubbish at you.
GL: I know, bless
him. You can tell all he ever wanted to be was a footballer.
PM (to MO): Did
you give Noddy’s pal tips on how to take penalties, Benchwarmer? [Link
posted to Owen missing an open goal against Barcelona
MO: Don’t need to
lardy. He scored 48 goals for England
PM (to GL): Of
course, you’d never fake images – now would you, ‘National Treasure’? [bizarrely, he posts a link to GL
in latex for a crispvert]
GL: You should
see me now I’m working out.
Aside from the obvious question (whether Morgan had some
flunky at hand to trawl YouTube on his behalf), you have to marvel at the abject
peurility dribbling from Piers’ gob – truly, we are living a new Renaissance. I’m
sure he never browbeat anyone, ever, for failing to be sufficiently patriotic when
at the Screws or Mirror (research assistant is off sick today; will have to leave
this as conjecture for the time being), so mocking Lineker for missing a
penalty seems slightly cheap and dishonest.
It is all truly desperate, craven stuff. And behind the playground
nastiness is the brazen smugness of Morgan – evidently, he thinks he’s now a
player, a man of influence, maybe an icon. He has probably given his penis a
nickname. He must be hoovering up gigantic quantities of boliviana to maintain such exorbitant levels of strutting narcissism.
Did I mention he is friends with Kevin Pietersen?
Anyway, like the true staminabeast he is, Piers promptly left
his braying school chums to stuff $50 bills in the cunts of Russian strippers*
and pootled on back to Twitter, where he found the eco-house-dwelling son of
Neville Neville, fresh from a shift of proper
punditry on Monday Night Football.
Neville was ready. He’d decided to get tight, not let him turn, and generally
show him on to his weaker side, at which our ever-loquacious, zeitgeist-riding hero
offered this contribution to the social media site’s gemütlichkeit:
GN: Self-praise
is no praise
PM: Not much
danger of any form of ‘praise’ in your case, Ratface
GN: Don’t need
praise. I’m not insecure. Hope this move is permanent to US
PM: I’d invite
you out to Hollywood
GN: Happy in Lancashire thanks Piers. I’d invite you to Lancashire but you’d only end up chopped up inside some
meat pies or eating them
PM: You should
try a few pies, Ratface – fatten yourself up a bit. The Worzel Gummidge look is
a bit last year
GN: Was
widescreen tv invented for you. Is that life stories thing still on?
PM: I know one
thing Ratface. You in High Def TV is the nearest thing to Dante’s Inferno I’ve
ever seen. Life Stories back in 2 months
GN: Got any
guests that don’t cry and we actually know on this series? #scrapingthebarrel
PM: By the way,
who fights your battles for you now – since Uncle Roy fell out with Grandpa
Alex?
PM: Why don’t you
come on? Bring Uncle Roy to hold your hand for you if you’re too nervous
GN: I’d like to
see you interviewing Roy
PM: It’s the best
– my Chief Bodyguard is Patrick Vieira. Your [sic] remember him, the one who
sent you running to Uncle Roy every 5 minutes?
GN: Was that the
night we won 4-2 while I was supposedly bricking it? Don’t believe myth Piers
he squirted a water bottle!
PM: At least he
had a bottle – you used to lose yours the moment Vieira clapped eyes on you
GN: You been
watching MU v Ars for the last ten years. We did alright on the physical front
I felt. I Never felt uncomfortable. [It’s
unclear whether the capital N is a deliberate pun on his name or a typo caused
by that letter sequence always bringing the upper case out of him]
Cerebral stuff, this dribbling, splattering Twitterhoea. It’s like Baddiel and Skinner’s History
Professors. “See that mug? That’s you, that is”. Edifying, it is not. One
can only hope that HMCR don’t allow the oleaginous parper back in the country. Let’s
face it – and this is the only
absolute precept you should ever hold
– anybody who describes anything as a bit “last year / month / week” quite
frankly deserves to be shot before their pathetic neurotic bilge infects us
all. Now is the new then.
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| And spiritually, I'd add... |
OK, right, so we’re all agreed that, not to put too fine a
point on it, he’s an absolute throbber. Good. All the fish in our barrel are
dead.
Now, given the hyperspeed at which Slebdom works (I mean, @AnfieldCat already has over 50,000
Twitter followers), we could soon have made-for-TV career swapsies between
Piers and Arsène Wenger – entirely plausible given that Le Prof started to
consult Piers pretty regularly on footballing minutiae shortly after this
August outburst of his (five months before the aforementioned tweet about
The Ox): “Wenger signing ANOTHER kid for big money? When will he realize we
need experienced defence, not more young strikers #Arsenal #Chamberlain”. Uncanny
foresight.
Anyway, on this job-swap show, Wenger would go out to “a
built up glamorous area” and interview vapid ‘entertainers’, while Morgan comes
and manages Arsenal – or “Woolwich Arsenal” as he insists on calling them – for a season. The results would be hilarious.
I imagine Piers would turn half the Emirates into a giant corporate lounge for
the various neo-aristos with whom he fraternises, their easy and spontaneous creation
of famebience captured by a special
camera and beamed over the big screen whenever the match is in a lull. To make
them happy. Happy and inferior. And happy about their inferiority. Furthermore,
the rest of the stadium would have the already steep price of their tickets
hiked further, he would build an imperial box (as seen in Roman coliseums)
where the Arsenal bench used to be, and potential new signings would be forced
to do a 7-minute slot of keepy-uppies in front of Morgan at Cobham, at the end
of which he – and some famewhore-for-rent – would pronounce an inconsequential
verdict, most of the words being sucked straight up his nose. Finally, whatever
the problem, he would chuck some money at it. Literally.
Right, I’m off to commit suicide. Ciao.
* This image – the apparent misogyny of which is expressed from the POV of the probable worldview of Morgan
’s circle of ‘friends’ – contains some
artistic licence. Not unlike Piers’ punditry.
Originally published by The
FCF
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