French Connection (formerly known as London Connection)

OK, here a few quick thoughts from this week:

- No blockbuster at the NBA trade deadline… That’s poor. Well, at least Celtics GM didn’t screw it so I guess, like in real life, sometimes it’s just better to stay put…

- Huuuge interview with José María García in Spain – censored by our state television – with hard attacks on good ol’ “Anzar”, Florentino… The usual stuff. Interesting interview, definitely worth listening to.
It’s a joke that RTVE censured this interview, stating it contains “insults to third people”, when every day in Spain, there’s pro-independence politicians, amongst many other c*nts, doing apology of terrorism and claiming terrorists (who actually MURDERED people and didn’t just tell stories in a freakin’ interview) should have their jail sentences revised, etc. … and no one censures this stuff and what is worse, seems to give a crap about these things… What a shitty nation! Let’s move on…

- Fulham lost on the weekend 0-4 at home in an FA Cup game against Tottenham… They played poorly, were poorly managed as well, but the end result was too hard… My thoughts on the game:
The keeper (I think he is Polish) is a bundle of nerves, he makes you jump out of your seat at least 3-4 times a game because of the insecurity he transmits. The centre backs (Christanval + Knight) were a train wreck – a NIGHTMARE!!! Radzinski is washed up, Davies is just poor and slow and never finishes anything, so Fulham basically wasted two wing players in this game. The only guys who stood out a bit were: Volz (he still is sh*t but his effort was OK), Helgusson (the Icelandic guy who is a true fighter and even though he’s not tall seems to win every header) and Queudrue, the Frenchman who looked terrible in my first game at the Cottage, but has slowly turned into my favourite player on the team: consistent, good strike with his left foot and plays with some bollocks!!! You couldn’t ask for much more at Fulham…

- As for the rest, not much action this week… Oh, yeah, went to the pub to watch Barça-Liverpool the other day. Bad loss but whatever… it was fun, as we had some pre-game action at Ben’s place on his X-Box 360: Barça-Liverpool, of course. Like in Düsseldorf, when my mate Jon, and sometimes Pau, used to come over and we would do the pre-game matches on my PS2 and be always late for the actual game, hehehe… Thinking of it... those were some of the more enjoyable moments in Düsseldorf... PS2+Rum+sobrasada+MK2... :)

Labels: The Ramblings

OK, a few random carnival thoughts:

-I’m really in the carnival mood, although in London it’s sort of pointless as I will presumably end up having some drinks in a posh club in Mayfair or some random bar in South. Ken tonight which in essence is the anti-carnival atmosphere by default!
-Nevertheless… I created my “Karneval” folder on my mp3 this morning. I am sure I was the only bloke in the tube listening to Brings and co this morning, which invariably led me to think at one point, standing on the platform at Earl’s Court, that I may be a weirdo… but I was enjoying my tunes too much to give a crap, so… And now that we are actually talking about German songs, I think the time has come to establish my All-Time Best “German songs for when you are partying in Germany” chart, I mean, there’s questions in life that definitively need to be answered with indisputable authority and this is one of them, and it was about time to address this issue! So here’s my very personal recommendation of the 10 most enjoyable German party songs. Feel free to add your comments, even though I won’t probably take them into consideration, as I know what I am talking here, lol:

10 Viva Colonia / Viva Bavaria (the Starkbier-Oktoberfest version) & Superjeile Zick (A carnival classic… the lyrics almost sounds Dutch although it’s “koelsch”) – couldn’t leave either out of this list as they are too “must play” carnival songs…
9 Westerland (An all time super classic from the good ol’ Erasmus days)
8 Wahnsinn (Hölle, Hölle, Hölle) (Cheeeeeeesy but megafun, especially the version with the chorus, hehe)
7 Pure Lust am Leben (An optimistic song from some Chavy Bochum group of the early eighties “Geier Sturzflug”, have a look here so get a better picture of them. Utterly hilarious!!)
6 Drink doch ene mit (Best carnival song ever, hands down!! I get the goosebumps here… Talks about an old bloke who wants one last beer and doesn’t have the money to pay for it but eventually gets invited to join the people inside the bar – touching!)
5 Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann and a rather rare English version, wow!!! (Nena at her best... she f*cking kicked a$$... its so “Neue Deutsche Welle”…)
4 Zu Spät (Die Ärzte... Girl breaks up with singer, who in the refrain says something along these lines: “But one day I will take revenge, I will break all girls’ hearts, I will be a star and you’ll be longing for me but then it will be too late, too late…)
3 1000 und eine Nacht (Another mega-classic from the Erasmus days brought to us by Matthias Reim... superdupersong that tells the story of a guy and a girl who have been friends since they were kids and one night, the 1001st, “zoom” they kiss and well…)
2 Bayern (Die Toten Hosen musically bashing Bayern München, aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
1 Über den Wolken (The Dieter Thomas Kuhn version is the funny one, this video is the original version by Reinhard Mey... I still remember myself singing it from A-Z on Altweiber in 2005 in the düsseldorfer Altstadt, going BONKERSSSSSSS “… schillernd wie ein Regenboooooooooooooooooooooooooooogen”, while everyone was giving me “what the heck?!?” between funny and confused glances… I know it by heart from my school, Switzerland summer camp days… Oh well, I’m getting carried away again…)

Honorable mention: 10 nackte Friseusen (Micky Krause), Aber bitte mit Sahne (Udo Jürgens), Herbert Grönemeyer (he’s big in Germany... Männer is cool, also the live version of Bochum, which always seems to turn in one of those kicking-a$$ performances...), Denkmal (Wir sind Helden, love it…), Jeanny (Falco), Terra Titanic (Peter Schilling… the video looks really weird actually… I remember we even listened to this song on our way to the football Eurocup in Portugal in 2004. … And my mates were Spanish, go figure!)

And not to forget: Gib Köln keine Chance!

- On a random note: I just found this Game Boy “World Cup” review (a game from the early 90’s) in Spanish. If you ever played the game, read it, it’s hilarious, the guy analyses every single detail… CRAZY!

Labels: Random stuff

... so the first ever ex-NBA player "came out". The "Man in the Middle" (good title for his book, he was the center and... certainly must have felt a bit like the man in the middle...), an Englishman, John Amaechi, declares himself gay in his biography and heavily criticizes his former Jazz coach, Jerry Sloan, a c*nt anyways, as I´ve always thought... On a random note, he was the NBA player to score the first points in the new Millenium. This excerpt is quite fascinating if you ask me. At least the chap had the boll*cks to stand up for his exuality in his book... Now everyone will start making bets on who´s guy on what team, hahaha... Nowitzki??? I think Dirk could be gay, same goes for Boozer... just a few random names I am throwing out there... :P

I just hope they end up with a player of that caliber in the draft as well (Oden or Durant). May I ask for a bit of the "luck of the leprechaun for once"... please?

I would also recommend "The last king of Scotland" for those you haven't seen it... Trepidant historical movie, fictionally setup to give it the "extra bit". Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin is awesome. Probably one of the better Hollywood actors of the... past decade? Although he's not been given half the credit he deserves... maybe this year at the Oscars...

Labels: The Ramblings