Latest tit in the rack is Sludge Rogers II who has decided to quit rugby after the 2007 World Cup, which he is now almost guaranteed not to get selected for, and return to the NRL to play for the Titties. Here's a photo of Mat looking really happy to be wearing the least inventive new jersey in the history of football. Blue and yellow? Why didn't anyone think of wearing that combination before? Presumably some marketing-led bollocks will be trotted out about the azure blue representing the Queensland sky and the yellow the golden sandy beaches... insert hurl here... but as argued above, if they really want their new local constitutents to accept them, the Gold Coast concern should have gone with a colour scheme which is a bit more appropriate or representative of the local environment. The Weak suggests a combination of fake tan and greenbacks. And they should definitely play in white shoes. Keith Williams would have been proud.But back to Sludge II and his 'return' to the Goldie, where he spent his teenage years as a boarder at pretentious rugger-bugger production facility The Southport School. The real reason for Sludge II's departure from union is that it allows him a tactful departure from residing in the Shire, where he can't seem to walk down the street without some hapless local wanting to stop him to talk about his old man Sludge I. Fair enough. So Sludge II will pack up his family and move north - his family being former Jeans West clotheshorse and Channel V set decoration Chloe Maxwell, and their son, Max Danger Rogers. No shit... that's the kid's name. Yes folks, 'Danger' is his middle name, quite literally. Dual international father or not, that kid's going to have the piss taken out of him at school something fucking atrocious...
Cheats never prosper
Except in Formula Fun where they get multi-million dollar contracts from their employers and world titles gift-wrapped from the governing bodies. The Weak's Fred Alonso was thoroughly nobbled by dodgy Italian stewards at the Wog GP last weekend, when he was demoted to tenth place on the grid after allegedly 'blocking' Ferrari muppet Felipe Massa's final qualifying lap. The fact that Massa didn't actually get within 100 metres of Alonso during aforesaid lap didn't appear to faze the stewards in their quest to eliminate our Fred from contention. Anyone know the Italian for 'rort'? Alonso's Renault proceeded to blow up ten laps from the end of the race, handing the retiring (if definitely not shy) Michael Schumacher the perfect opportunity to score a bucket of points and close Fred's world championship lead to 2 points.
So did Fred cop it sweet? Did he bollocks. "In Formula One, there are commercial and political interests," he said. "We are talking about the most successful driver in history and a little bit of help has never gone amiss. "Quite often they go over the line of what is acceptable and it is inexplicable." He said he had briefly considered flipping off the race entirely, in protest at the stewards' bullshit decision to demote him. "You think about not racing, but it goes away quickly once you put your helmet on," Alonso said. "No-one is going to believe the penalty I was given for a long time to come. The excuse they (the stewards) gave was far from honest. It isn't good for our sport." He added: "I was 100 per cent sure that I could win the race from anywhere on the grid, to keep on scoring points and finish in front. What I'm sure about is that he who laughs last, laughs longest."
We'll see who gets to crank out the 'Muhahahaha' evil-genius-style' at season's end. Our money is still on the young fullah.
Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, you big-chinned wurst-eating tool
So to Schumacher's retirement and his likely legacy. He will undoubtedly retire with more wins, poles and championships than any man preceding him; he will probably retire with this year's title under his belt as well, the way the FIA are carrying on - not only with stunts like demoting Alonso in qualifying in Italy and Hungary, but banning the trick 'mass dampers' which Renault developed to combat the weird gyroscopic oscillations of the big balloon-shaped tyres F1 cars use as a historical anacronism (try and find another racing series worldwide which runs on 13" diameter wheels - even Brocky's fully-sicked-up Lada from 15 years ago had more impressive rims than that.) The FIA banned the mass dampers as they considered them a 'movable aerodynamic device' - slightly odd as they were not movable or aerodynamic, although one presumes they could be called a device - while when Ferrari were turning up to races earlier in the year with flexible rear wings that bent out of shape to produce less drag in a straight line, the powers that be were suspiciously silent.
So what can be objectively stated about Schumacher?
1. He was fast.
Self-evidently.
2. He made a lot of mistakes.
Much more than any 'great' of the past - mainly if Schumacher had been around in the '60s or '70s (or even the '80s) and had made as many mistakes in those days as he did in an average season these days, he'd have been dead and buried before his second world title.
3. He got by with a little help from his friends.
Not just his team - he had to have an entire team behind him to win, with a teammate hired solely for the role of Team Gimp - but as Fred has pointed out, the governing body is usually behind him as well.
In fact the only time Schumacher was ever in the wrong in the eyes of the governing body - aside from the slap with a wet bus ticket he got for trying to take out Jacques Villeneuve in the title decider in 1997 - was at Monaco this year, when Schumi parked his red council truck in the middle of the Rascasse hairpin to prevent Fred or Look-At-Me-Kimi from taking pole position off him in the last minutes of qualifying. Schumacher was widely accused of cheating and for once the stewards agreed, banishing him to the back of the grid. He had claimed that he had committed a driving error and stalled his car, but noone bought that fresh wheelbarrow of bullshit. "He's just a cheap cheat," legendary 80s F1 ace Keke Rosberg (father of the markedly less interesting Nico Rosberg of Williams) said. "He should leave F1 to honest people. I thought he had grown up. Does he think we are all fools and idiots?" Alonso's Renault boss Flavio Briatore, who guided Schumacher to his first couple of titles, added, "Someone who was seven times a world champion wants us to believe that he didn't do it on purpose - it's fairyland." And then Flavor Flav went back to spading supermodels.
Briatore has taught you well, my son
Schumacher's history of snotting into people in an attempt to win stuff is longer than Chopper Read's rap sheet and we don't have time or interest to go through it here. It's punctuated by the title deciders in 1994 and 1997, one of which worked out well for Schumacher, the other didn't. At Adelaide in 1994, Schumacher sealed his first world title by crashing his car into that of championship rival Damon Hill. Hill later wrote in his book which noone read: "There are two things that set Michael apart from the rest of the drivers in Formula One - his sheer talent and his attitude. I am full of admiration for the former, but the latter leaves me cold."
Oooohh. Cop that.
Now it's fairly easy and requires little trouser to slag someone like Schumacher off when you're safely retired and there's no chance he could, say, run you off the road at 300 kays into the shrubbery come next fortnight's Gran Pree. So what do the new generation of F1 stars think? And would they actually tell you what they think, in the modern age of bland, meaningless, platitude-filled, stage-managed, soundbite-strewn interviews and press conferences? Cue a man who has already been run off the road at 300 kays by Schumacher (lap one, British GP, Silverstone 2003) and probably doesn't give an arse anymore: we present once more for your entertainment, reigning F1 world champion Fred Alonso in Spanish sports weekly Marca, with our favourite quote of the year to date.
"Michael is the man with the most sanctions and is the most unsporting driver in the history of Formula One," Alonso said. "Even Zidane retired with more glory than Schumacher."
We like Fred. Even if he does pick his nose in public.
No butts about it
And on the subject of Zizou (and ludicrous decisions from sports governing bodies), FIFA have decided that it would be fantastic to stage-manage a tearful reunion, or at least an awkward eyes-averted handshake, between Zinedine 'Le Nutter' Zidane and Marco 'Yo' Sista' Materazzi, on South Africa's Robben Island, where some black dude was in prison or something. Someone at FIFA, possibly dickhead-in-residence Septic Bladder, has estimated that a French bloke applying a Glasgow kiss to an Italian bloke's ribcage in response to a lewd inquiry as to the availability of the French bloke's sister is on a par in terms of international significance to the 27 years of incarceration which Nelson Mandela endured while waiting to be made President of Sarth Efricor. This, patently, is bollocks. The dumbest thing is, (a) bollocks or not, given SA's status as 2010 World Cup holder this bollocks will probably occur regardless of how bollock-escent it is, and (b) not even Mandela will complain about it; he'll even turn up and preside over the event most likely. These days Mandela would turn up to the opening of an envelope. Somebody get the man a permanent gig for Christ's sake.
The Doctor is OUT.
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