eight thirteen twenty one

Friday 29th August 2008 9:01 PM

One, two, three, five. It sounds like the punch-line of a drummer joke, but is in fact, part of the Fibonacci series, a mathematical sequence wherein every number is the sum of the preceding two numbers. The series determines the spirals of sunflowers, snails and pine-cones and also leads us to the golden ratio, with which, if we've got time and some sticky-backed paper, we can build a golden rectangle.

Pythagoras used to build golden rectangles out of hippopotamus hide and massive bits of stone, and used the series to determine the cement to sand ratio in the mortar. Centuries later, Leonardo Da Vinci took the remains of those mysterious rectangles, and using the irrationality of the golden ratio, made them into a helicopter. The series is so immersed in function and beauty that it's no surprise to me that 1-2-3-5 is the only true and right formation for a football team to adopt. I think the England team should look like this.

James

Richards A.Cole

Gerrard Mum Barry

Bentley Rooney Owen Me Young

Yes, Fabio Capello! I urge you to spurn the boiling madness of religious fundamentalism (4-4-2), reject the cold stupidity of crass materialism (4-5-1), and instead seek enduring truth and equanimity in the sacred rhythms of the natural world (2-3-5).

In this satisfyingly pyramidal England line up, I've given my Mum the nod over Rio Ferdinand and preferred myself to Frank Lampard, but I would stress to Fabio that it's the formation, not the personnel, that's most important here. Having said that, even though it's a big ask, if picked, I think me and my Mum could do big jobs. She's got bags of biscuits, and with my punning skills, I think I could open up Andorra's box.

Posted 9:01 PM | 190 Comments | Permalink

i ran em all

Monday 18th August 2008 10:53 PM

Although I think drug-use in sport is generally deplorable, this weekend I was delighted to see the Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt, take time out from the 100 metres final at the Olympics, to roll himself a small joint during the last twenty metres. Although technically illegal, I saw it as an injection of rare humanity into the increasingly boring buttocks of the Olympian beast-machine, and anyway, in my opinion, the laws on marijuana should be relaxed, and if it's decent stuff, really relaxed.

Meanwhile, in his hermetically sealed, space-age, one-piece swimsuit, Michael Phelps roars like a muscle-filled, fibre-glass walrus, the inevitability of his victory a fact as inescapable as one of his farts. There's a dramatic conflict going on here, between the flatulence produced by his diet, and the swimsuits reluctance to allow it egress, that I'm hoping to explore in my latest film, called 'Escape to Victory', starring Michael Caine as stomach acid and Sylvester Stallone as a twenty-five egg omelette.

The real story of the week for me was Alf Tupper's sensational gold medal win in the 1500 metres. Alf's been funding his Olympic stay by working nights at a local engineering company, as a welder, and on the way to the stadium he fell asleep on the Beijing underground and missed his stop. He had to run half a mile to the stadium, stopping only to eat double fish and chips, and by the time he got there the race had already started. Having no time to change, he joined the race in his heavy, hob-nailed working boots, and despite the class-prejudiced taunts of Lord Coe and his pals, won the race in a world record time.

Alf Tupper, a nineteen year-old welder, lives with his Aunt Meg in Greystone, and because the house is one-up-one-down, sleeps on a mattress on the kitchen floor. Out of his weekly wage of twenty-five shillings he gives her twenty-two and six and keeps half-a-crown for himself. Meanwhile, Frank Lampard earns two million, eight hundred thousand shillings a week and probably has his own bedroom as well. Bloomin' toffs!

Posted 10:53 PM | 178 Comments | Permalink

how green is my gathering

Friday 15th August 2008 4:54 PM

On Saturday I'm casually scheduled to do a gig in Sunny Jim's solar-powered cabaret, at the Northern Green Gathering, somewhere near Ripon, and in anticipation of some awkward questions from the green police, I've been sorting out my defence.

In the last few years I'm aware that by taking a couple of flights to Malawi and Kenya I've deepened my carbon footprint considerably, although it was only after much consideration that I decided to go by airplane. My initial thought was to go by space-hopper. On some of the early models the ears are closer together, and it makes for a really comfortable riding position, but ultimately they're too slow, and to be honest, a bit too bouncy for my liking.

In the every-day-to-day reality of my ecological kitchen-sink drama, I always try to use Ecover cleaning products, ever since I had a conversion on the road to Domestos. I found out that not only does Domestos kill germs, but it maims, tortures and humiliates them first, whereas Ecover just asks them nicely if they wouldn't mind leaving. Even though this all takes place on a microbiological level, you can't underestimate the value of small acts of kindness.

FIVE DAYS LATER

I needn't have worried. No defence needed. From Yarm, York, Worksop, Widnes, Morecombe and Dewsbury we came, regular, cherry-topped tofu cheesecakes, creamed from the soya milk of northern suffering. It's 4:30 am in Banjo Bill's Jam Tent, and there's a robust young woman in a fur bikini, with theme-park hair and para boots, belting out an indecipherable, but in-tune song to the accompaniment of a pulsing mass of fiddles, accordions, saxophones, guitars, drums, trombone and a curly-haired Chas on miniature Chinese pump organ. There's a non-profit old testament prophet, who by the sturdiness of his stick could be from Dewsbury, dancing with a keen, polyester novice from Pontefract, and by the look of things I think the no-smoking rules must have been relaxed. Give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me.

After such an invigorating and wholesome week-end of simple pleasures, I find it hard to imagine why anyone would go to the bother of invading another country, when you could just as easily go there on a cycling holiday. If you feel you must possess another nation, I suggest doing it by e-mail. On Monday, for instance, I got a bit grumpy after reading about Huddersfield Town's disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Stockport, so in the afternoon I decided to annexe France. To be fair, it could have been anyone, I just wanted to lash out. I e-mailed the French government and told them that I'd annexed them, but was granting them complete autonomy, and they were to carry on as though nothing had happened. I haven't had any MIG jets strafing the caravan this week, so I presume I must have got away with it.

Posted 4:54 PM | 281 Comments | Permalink