The Pain of Underachievement

It is now official. The Roeder-Shearer revival is well and truly over. This was confirmed with yet another capitulation, this time at St. James’ Park to a Liverpool which has rediscovered their scoring touch. It did not help that the beanpole managed to head in a goal only after 10 minutes. And again Stevie G proved our nemesis again, just like Rooney of Manure, scoring shortly after half an hour. However, Toon heads did not droop and the lads battled on. Parker swung in a good cross which was headed in by Ameobi five minutes before half time. Game on. We have cut the deficit to 1 goal.
What I did not count on was the Boumsong horror show. How on earth can this total waster play for France when his positioning and reading of the game is totally of schoolboy standard. He miskicked the ball which allowed beanpole to steal a march into the penalty box and desperately trying to salvage the situation, the French jerk wrestled beanpole to the ground, right in front of the referee who duly sent him off and that A#$ had the cheek to cup his face in disappointment. Up stepped Cisse to score the resultant penalty and put the game beyond us.
Perhaps we simply got what we deserved. We just weren’t at the races. At the rate our defence keeps cocking up with no solution in sight, there is no way we can win anything. Sigh.

Now I will continue my ranting about my little trip to Hong Kong. After my last visit which practically sucked big time, I was pleasantly surprised by what has changed since I last went there. The airport (HKIA) is as good as Changi and is certainly able to give our airport a run for its money. And the standard of service is even better than the crap kind you often get in Singapore retail outlets. I must say that Hong Kong sales execs are so glib and attentive to detail that they really impressed me with their service. No wonder the government is anxious to raise service standards in Singapore. The hellish days of snobbish sales staff in Hong Kong look dead and buried. In any case, wifey bought tons of clothes and of course I was honorary porter for about well the entire duration of the trip. The MTR system too is impressive and it is really easy to get around Hong Kong. Taking this little trip to Hong Kong has really opened my eyes as to the kind of competition we are now facing for the tourist dollar. Even we still do not wake up from our complacency, we will definitely be left behind.

Dear friends, if you were wondering what happened to me for the last week or so, I have not gone into hiding after the Toon got turned over at OT. I was away in Hong Kong for a few days and boy am I astonished at the strides that this SAR has made the last time I was there.
I can still vividly remember my first trip to Hong Kong, perhaps I did not consult the almanac then because I went in December and boy was it freezing cold. My butt almost got solidified. To compound a most wretched situation, the PSI then must be near dangerous levels because I came down with a cold that afflicted me for the whole trip. It really sucked.
So it was with a sense of dread that I looked at the weather forecast this time round… cold, freezing… about 10-15 degrees celsius. But this time, that evil flu bug ain’t getting me down. This trip to Hong Kong was fulfilling not just in the gastronomical sense but it also opened my eyes as to why we need to be on our toes all the time.
First, the gastronomical bit. For weeks before the trip, I have been pestering my wife about the need to satisfy my desire to eat roasted goose, which is hardly found in these parts. The only ones I have eaten are in some Peach Garden restaurants during lunches and I never forgot those succulent pieces dripping with the juices sealed in by those charcoal fires… yum. This time, I got to satisfy my craving on the very first day in Hong Kong and I was totally taken aback by their portions. Unlike stingy hawkers in Singapore who slice the meat so thinly, here you get huge thick slices of meat on a mountain of rice which of course I could not finish. I could almost feel the weird stares of those fellas in the restaurant.. they must be thinking what’s wrong with this man who cannot even finish his plate of rice? i was thinking to myself: either Hong Kong men have big appetites or the rice and goose must be dirt cheap. What the heck it does not really matter, I got to eat my roasted goose. Frankly speaking, the guide book by 8 days gave us lots of tips and we quite slavishly visited some of those places. We went to the dim sum place recommended by 8 days and to our horror, it was still packed at 11 am. What??? And it was one of the saddest parts of my eating journey in Hong Kong. After washing my cutlery in the bowl with the hot tea, we settled down and my better half ordered a fish head for ME! For the life of me, I have never even eaten parts of a fish remotely close to its head and now I must finish this fish head. Apparently she misheard the waitress about fried fish or something. So I braced myself as I began to dissect that head in front of me, trying to dig out whatever meat there was. Some people say the head is the best part, but after this I beg to differ, why do I want to spend so much time picking through bones, jaws, skins, eye sockets and the like to get to the meat. Blah. After that, we ordered the lotus paste buns, which really were as good as they were recommended in the guide. The secret I think was the salted egg yolk inside which added a most unique flavour to an otherwise boring filling. I am no fan of lotus paste, but this changed my perception. Lastly, we ordered chee cheong fun with prawn filling and it was really good, quite unlike the Singaporean version. After waiting like eternity for the har gau and siew mai, we decided it was time to leave and quite simply this sojourn into a traditional tea house ended in a most unsatisfying dim sum experience, something we decided to make right before the end of the trip and we ended up eating dim sum in the airport before our flight home and that set us back 40 bucks!
We also bought some egg tarts from this place frequented by former governor Chris Patten who claimed that the tarts were to die for. We bought four and the crust I must say was very different from the ones in dim sum. It was hard, not fluffy or flaky but the filling was rich, definitely not those cheap skate types. That’s about all I can say at this point on the eating journey which you can tell isn’t much. Will keep you all posted on the next lap, the shopping experience and the lessons it holds for us.

As the saying goes, cheats never prosper and how true it was when the actors of Stamford Bridge could not replicate their Oscar worthy theatrics at Camp Nou. Barcelona had the genius of Ronaldinho to thank for crushing any lingering hopes of the Special One of clinching another European crown. Perhaps it does show money doesn’t always buy success.
Arsenal managed a shut-out of Real Madrid and put paid to their hopes of getting something out of another wretched trophyless season. Pool’s misfiring strikers made the team pay the ultimate price by getting beaten by Benfica. So that’s the end of their reign as champions of Europe. Now our hopes lie with the Arsenal…

I would like to make an appeal to all anti-Chelsea fans out there to condemn the rampant Oscar theatrics of the Chelsea team under the directorship of the Special One. Their play-acting is giving the game a bad name and I really hope Barca will whip their butts at the Nou Camp. It’s about time someone shuts that Portuguese geezer up. Reminds me though of Man U many years ago when they were the team everyone loves to hate. At least Fergie can breathe better now since Mourinho has taken over his mantle as Public Enemy No. 1.

Saturday’s round of matches brought a host of controversies in different stadia throughout England. First, Chelsea continued to hone their reputation as the new team that everyone loves to hate, stealing that ‘accolade’ from Manchester Utd. They eked out a hard fought victory at the Hawthorns and an Ivorian joined the Dutch actor Robben as one of the new candidates for the Oscar. Clearly Robson made his feelings known by mouthing a four-lettered expletive which is best left to your imagination. The Special One followed up with a barrage of his own. Of course the Blues won but really nobody loves them except their fans. That I am quite sure.
The Arse also finally turned up at the Cottage and ended the superb run of 8 victories out of 9 home games. Although it appears to be business as usual, perhaps this year could be a case of too little too late because their archenemy Tottenham strengthened their grip on fourth place by defeating Blackburn by the odd goal in 5. The pathetic Mackems which are already doomed finally axed their manager today, perhaps they should have done it long ago, who knows they might have gone on a winning run like us. In hindsight, perhaps Souey ought to have been sacked after Wigan…
Now back to the Bolton game. I could not watch the whole match because my wife’s host from Germany was in town for a visit. She is here almost every other year for a simple reason - to flee from the snow that envelops large parts of Europe. After wolfing down a Turkish meal and being served by a waitress who didn’t speak English, we had a long conversation with this German lady and half the time I was trying to decipher what she was saying. The problem here was that I have forgotten most of it. Sigh…
When I got home and switched on the TV, I could not believe my eyes - Newcastle 2 Bolton 0 - that was 48 minutes. I thought the Trotters would be difficult to break down but here it was the Toon whacking the living daylights out of Big Sam’s team. Apparently our little Peruvian has done the business again with a brilliant freekick and a Shearer header was helped into goal by the opposing goalkeeper. Again at times the passing of the team bordered on the magical, compared to the dour fare served up by Souness. When Shola scored in the 69 th minute, I screamed with ecstasy. Job done, the defeat at the Reebok avenged. Although Kevin Davies replied soon after and spoiled the clean sheet, it was still a victory to savour. 6 games with 5 victories. When was the last time we heard this of the Toon?
I cannot help but look forward to the next game at OT, traditionally our burial ground. But with this new found confidence, who knows? A famous victory for the Toon is not beyond the team. Hpway the lads.