Herman Hessian

ouch ! today marks the 3000th consecutive day that Juventus have been reigning champions of Italy (since 06.05.2012) - puts it in perspective a bit !

three rounds of matches left in Serie B this season - and it's all up for grabs Benevento are up as champions by a country mile, with any one of Crotone, Spezia, Pordenone or Frosinone joining them in the second automatic promotion place at the bottom, Livorno are dead and buried with any two from eight joining them in going straight down, with a further two clubs potentially being dragged in to the relegation play-offs Pisa who currently occupy the last promotion play-off place could find themselves in these relegation play-offs, and pescara and juve stabia who are currently in these two potentially vulnerable spots could yet make the promotion play offs - only two of the twenty clubs currently know their fate with any degree of certainty - talk about things going down to the wire !

fairly good turn out around the MAPEI for a game behind closed doors ! and i momenti salienti della partita:

magnificent - not enough greenies etc...

no-one fucks up hoops like Rovers (though to be fair, I quite liked these shirts - might even own one...)

A S Roma - harking back to a kit last used in the late 1970's and the bloke on the right is ????

OK - let's try this for size - post a vexing matter which is causing you consternation, something with a straight choice between two options, and let the P&B cognoscenti weigh in with their considered opinions until consensus is arrived at - no more than 24 hours for each 'topic' for starters: you have a fixed budget of let's say £1000.00 to spend on your weekend's entertainment at a secluded retreat of your choosing are you going for: a) cheap supermarket canned lager, vin de plonk and the most luscious, sensual escort imaginable b) the very finest beers and wines that money can buy, and a dirty old slapper there is no third way - it's one or t'other....

you'd think it counter-intuitive to bring any US-based duo in to this equation, but I watch a lot of ESPN streams of the Italian matches, and Mark Donaldson and Matteo Bonetti are pretty much second to none; Donaldson's 'play by play' role is unobtrusive and spot on when required, Bonetti's knowledge of the game is excellent and - crucially - they have a real enthusiasm for the games and know when to introduce an element of humour; that's not the 'ladz ladz ladz' banter arseholery either, but just a couple of comments which are usually regarding players' past indiscretions or the like - again, exhibiting their appreciation of what's going on; I actively seek out the ESPN streams for games now, rather than the deadpan, going through the motions dirge on Premier Sports or the other regular Serie A coverage - highly recommended !

results from the last three rounds of the Serie C playoffs: Juventus II 2-0 Calcio Padova Carpi 2-2 Alessandria Renate -1-2 Novara Potenza Calcio 1-0 Triestina Monopoli 0-1 Ternana ====================== Carpi 1 - 2 Novara Bari 1 - 1 Ternana Carrarese 2 - 2 Juventus U23 Reggiana 0 - 0 Potenza Calcio ====================== Reggiana 2 - 1 Novara Bari 2 - 1 Carrarese ====================== so - Reggiana v Bari on Wednesday evening (22/07) for the last promotion place to Serie B, at the MAPEI stadium which Reggiana share with Sassuolo, as their regular season points per game record was marginally better than I Galletti (in a marginally stronger division). common sense dictates that it's going to be a tight one - both sides conceded less than a goal a game throughout the season - so I'll go for the home side by the odd goal in seven - 4-3 Reggiana after extra time, cards galore....

manage to maintain a modicum of respectability by retaining the general hoopiness on the back for the most part, though I think a white 'square' with red numbers would work far better pleased to see it paired with red shorts (also with the grey detailing) - just needs to have red and white hooped socks too, now; a definite improvement on last season though as ever - a sense of relief that they have managed another new kit without arsing up the Magnificent Hoops given some of the previous shit-shows which have been foisted on us... with shorts...

i really feel for poor Grant McCann after that capitulation against a team of demotivated players, fearful of their professional and personal futures, going through the motions at the end of an already bizarre and now largely irrelevant season - i really do the c**t

i'd always thought their name came from the golden wheat colour on their throat - very impressed to find out not that long ago that it's actually a PC version of the original name which was 'white arse' they were also considered an edible delicacy in Victorian times, and shepherds on the south downs would trap them in their thousands as they reached the very end of a 3000 mile northward migration from Africa:

grand start to the day s'morning watching this beauty quartering the field out the front of the house... and in other news - i'm not sure what a dog's dinner might consist of, but I know what a cat's breakfast is...

leaving Serie C via the relegation trap door are (notionally at this stage) the following nine teams girone a) Gozzano, Pianese and Giana Erminio girone b) Rimini, Ravenna and Arzignano Valchiampo girone c) F C Rieti, Rende and Bisceglie but of course, relegation for these teams hinges on their being any appropriate replacements for them coming up from the madhouse which is Serie D, and adjustments following the usual spate of insolvencies, points deductions, hissy fits, resignations and entirely random decisions which characterise this time of year; I can only imagine the carnage this time arouind will be more widespread than usual with clubs going to the wall for obvious reasons...

Serie C's protracted play-off odyssey gaining momentum now; here are the weekend's second round results (remember, just one game, home team goes through if there's a draw, as they are the higher seeds): Pontedera - Novara (w/o for Novara) Südtirol 0 - 1 Triestina Alessandria 3 - 2 Robur Siena Ternana 1 - 1 Catania Calcio Padova 1 - 0 FeralpiSalò Potenza Calcio 1 - 1 Catanzaro round three this evening (Wednesday) with the following ties: Juventus II - Calcio Padova Carpi - Alessandria Renate - Novara Potenza Calcio - Triestina Monopoli - Ternana that'll leave us with five winners to add to the last three qualifiers (Carrarese, Reggio Audace aka Reggiana and Bari) to make up the final eight teams I'd love to see Triestina get promoted, and fill that magnificent stadium of theirs with some decent crowds, but it's going to be a long shot for them to get close; same can be said of Padova, but I guess most folk will be rooting for Bari (in the unlikely event that anyone gives a flying one, of course)...

if you do feel a bit "death's door'ish" make sure that you put together a playlist for your funeral which has to be adhered to...

it's not good, but it's considerably less irritating than the fancy for covering songs using a quavering, child-like sotto voce version of the vocals and with the music pared right back to the bare minimum required to just about hint at a tune; these are always described by fuckwitted DJ's as 'haunting' versions of the original and tend to be used on adverts for something which is supposed to tug at your heart strings; absolute shite might be interesting if it was done the other way round, mind - I think Crass could've worked wonders with Unchained Melody, and Wattie Buchan would only have improved Wonderful World (cf Sid & My Way...)

Hostage ft. Fritzel & Bobbitt ?

i'm not entirely comfortable with the inference in the last paragraph that the signatories seem to view themselves as the appointed spokespeople for some sort of nebulous, disenfranchised group who have no means to articulate their thoughts and ideas unless said signatories are given the unfettered freedom to do it on their behalf with impunity; I think they'll find that throughout human history voices which have something worthwhile to say have found a way to make themselves heard without the need for advocates, inspired by their own self-interested motives to monetise the propagation of those ideas - even if they are just putting things 'out there' for debate rather than being proponents of one perspective or another; properly public debate is an organic, self-sustaining process - not a commodity to be managed and exploited by some sort of enlightened literati

strikes me that kicking back against it is a method of deflection when folk know they've been called out having been demonstrably in the wrong; it becomes an issue to them simply that they have been cancelled per se - not that they have been cancelled for a very specific reason; it's a clever tactic - keep the debate ostensibly on topic, but move it seamlessly away from the actual matter in hand and make it a 'poor me' issue; they're more concerned with their perceived right to spout bollocks with impunity than anyone is reasonably allowed to be about the fact they were spouting bollocks in the first place....

proper old strawberries were alright - the ones where you could pull out the pointy stalky bit from the middle, and if it didn't come out easy enough then it wasn't ripe enough to eat and you could just throw it at your mates; these new fangled young people's strawberries that don't even have a pointy stalky middle bit are a fucking abomination - freakish, heretical mad scientist shit - same as bananas without seeds in diabolical perversion of the natural order of things (leave it) notwithstanding, raspberries are far superior as they make very much nicer vodka and gin derived infusions than those other despicable contrivances (though even the raspberry must bow down to the damson at its altar here) them two hinnies from strawberry switchblade would've done a turn in their day, mind, though i expect they looked like a pair of badger's arses without all their hair extensions and make up and ribbons and shit...

having one of them should've labelled him as OFTW well in advance of any shooty mentalism...

moderate seethe absolutely the correct response here - just goes to show how untrustworthy the media are

Here's Fred & Rose West's house - 25 Cromwell Street - which serial killer(s) had the nicest place ? peter sutcliffe - looks the nicest so far, and that big shed out the back - would have plenty of room for a couple of chest freezers... Dennis Nilsen - quite like this one - suitably gothic place for murders and stuff,,,