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Just a quickie from me today to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

I broke a personal record this year. For the first time ever I bought all my presents before Christmas Eve. Yep, I got them on 23rd December and missed the Christmas Eve late panic which has characterised all my previous Christmases. One year I didn’t buy my first present until 3.30pm on Christmas Eve. Not so this year! I sat there smugly on the morning of 24th December and looked at a full collection of wrapped presents. Good eh?

The thing is, Christmas shopping doesn’t get any easier just because you do it earlier and take your time doing it. It’s still a very difficult exercise choosing presents for the same people each year. In fact as each year passes it actually gets harder because you can’t just consistently buy people the same thing year in, year out. (Actually that’s not true. You can. And I do)

And do I think for one second that any of the recipients of my prezzies this year will think “Ah isn’t that nice of Freddie - he must have really taken his time choosing this present” any more than they thought “that lazy git Freddie only spent 30 seconds choosing this” last year? I doubt it.

At least if I had steamed round the shops at 4.45pm this year I would not have wasted 15 minutes of my life staring at the best sellers shelf in WH Smiths firstly in disbelief, then with a growing sense of despair.

Every year all these grasping little toads who are in any way “famous” crawl out of the woodwork with their crap books. Just how many books have Jordan and Jamie Oliver published for christs sake? The amazing thing is people actually buy them!  I suppose it should give me hope really. As long as people continue to be drawn to poker, in time some of the people who buy these books will start sitting at the tables I play at. And I can’t seriously have anything to fear from a person whose bookshelf contains the like of “Fern – My Story” can I? 

Just take a ganders at the books which actually made the best sellers list and you will see why I left the shop in a state of despair.

Firstly there are your self styled messiahs, eg your Richard Bransons, Cliff Richards and Jamie Olivers. Then there are your raging egomaniacs, for example, cheeky chappie (read vainglorious berk), that is Jamie Oliver (again), a man so self centred he has a monthly magazine titled……“Jamie”.  Eurgh, please please please just GO AWAY YOU HORRIBLE PEOPLE! I’m just amazed Tony Blair didn’t finish his memoirs in time for Christmas because it’s most unlike him not to cash in. 

Then there are your good old fashioned, shall we say “paranormally gifted” authors, for instance “Control Stress with Paul McKenna”, the sinister balding hypnotist, a sort of 1990s version of (a slightly less creepy) Derren Brown, who can help anyone who suffers from stress with this amazing book. Much in the same way he had a cure for all fat people this time last year. 

What about weirdo Dennis McKenzie, who wins this year’s award for worst taste book with his masterpiece “Being the Soham Psychic”? Seeing as this case was solved by good old fashioned police work like following up clues and relying on physical evidence, and absolutely not by using his “psychic” skills, the mind really does boggle as to the point of this book (although not to the quality of the author’s character).  And seeing the Soham case was in 2003 it has taken Mr McKenzie 6 years to tell us of his psychic prowess.  Don’t expect him to be releasing “Speed Psychic” any time soon.

Then there’s your “boring” list, headed this year by Jenson Button and ably supported by Ant and Dec. And not forgetting your titles where the subjects are so utterly famous their titles just contain one name. Suffice to say I did not purchase “Ozzy” or “Cheryl” for Christmas. 

Then there is your “repetitive” genre: there were two in the best sellers list which had been churned off the Andy McNob conveyor belt of tedium. Or “Katie and Peter – Too Much in Love – the inside story of their breakup”. I love the way they plug the “inside story” bit as if there was a solitary atom of information in the book which was not already in the public domain.

And then there’s your endless cookery books. Jesus wept! One day I will make an enormous bonfire of cookery books, on which I will toast one slice of cheap white bread on a fork and eat it dry. Delia “12th man” Smith has a couple out of course and Jamie Oliver’s latest is “Jamie’s America”. It seems that Jamie’s opinion of himself has grown so massive America now belongs to him. Not to be outdone, in Gordon Ramsey’s World Kitchen the poppers sniffing adulterer stakes his claim to the entire WORLD. 

Someone please tell me where to find the title “How I danced on Jamie Oliver’s grave drinking champagne”. And why isn’t there a book out called “Ross Kemp in Afghanistan – Shot up the arse” ?

One day I will just lose it completely, pull everything off the shelf, ransack the shop and rip everything to pieces. And while people gawp at me in pity and disbelief I’ll actually be the one taking the moral high ground, foaming at the mouth protesting “but you’re the ones who BUY them!” It will happen, mark my words. With this thought in mind I had to get out of there before I propelled myself through the glass display cabinets. 

Next year I think it would be safer to shop on the internet. It would put a bad vibe on Christmas if one of my family had to come down to the loonie bin and sign my release form on Christmas Day.

Anyway, it’s not all bah humbug from me. I do actually have a little bit of Christmas cheer for you. So without further ado, here it is, my little Christmas gift to you all.

As you know, Manchester City manager Mark Hughes was justifiably sacked after drawing three million premiership games with his array of expensive yet low quality mercenaries. To take his place, in came Roberto Mancini who won 3 league titles with Inter Milan.  And this got me thinking. 

You got the wrong Inter Milan manager.

Of course they did. They should have got Jose Mourinho instead of Roberto Mancini. Clearly Man City want to win the Premiership. They also have unlimited funds to go with their ambition. So why not just get Mourinho?

You CAN buy the premiership. It is a fact. Chelsea did it with, er, Jose Mourinho. So why haven’t Man City appointed him instead of this Mancini character? There is no way that Jose Mourinho, had he been City manager instead of Mark Hughes, would have blown £200 million and be in the same position City are now. No way on earth.  Mourihno has even expressed a desire to return to the Premiership and I reckon he is serious about this because he will want to show that Chelsea made a mistake firing him.  Surely City must have tried to move heaven and earth to get Mourinho to join them? Of course they have.

By my completely unscientific reckoning, the chances of Man City having NOT approached Mourihno are less than 10%. And this means Mourinho has blown them out. 

Why would he do this? Well the only logical reason I can think of is that he is going to go to Man Utd and that by joining City he would jeopardise the Utd job. In fact there are some rumours that it has already been agreed he will take over from Fergie. So what price  is this turn of events? Well Jose Mourinho is actually a 5-1 shot to be the next permanent Man Utd manager with Victor Chandler.  And I reckon that is a steal. The fact Mourinho did not take the City job this week should make him nearer even money.

The future’s bleak. The future’s red. It means that Utd will be as detestable as they ever were, perhaps even more so, lazy journalists and inane morons will continue to say that Mourinho is a “breath of fresh air” as if they invented the phrase and Utd will win the league every year.  

It’s a disaster. But there’s nothing you can do about it so you may as well earn a few quid. Yes you might have to wait a while. But Fergie is 70 and how long will he go on for? Some think he will jack it in when he overtakes Liverpool’s record of 18 League titles. Man Utd also have 18. The bet could cop this year.

So why not? If they do appoint someone else, the chances are by the time they do it you’ll have forgotten the money you laid out.  That’s the best thing about long term bets!

Merry Christmas.

This entry was posted on 9:58am Friday, December 25th, 2009 at 9:58 am and is filed under FreddieMays, Online Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. By commenting on this site you agree to abide by our terms and conditions.