Uppal in Arms (Again)

Alright? Alright at the back?

Followers and long-term readers of TRAROTL may remember that a few blog posts ago (scroll down, you'll find it) I expressed my displeasure at the Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West, the Rt. Hon. (Arf!) Paul Uppal MP. If you want daily critical analysis of the Uppalster, obviously Voley is your man, but once again Uppal has infuriated me so much I just cannot let his ignorance and stupidity slide. He's not the only Tory MP who's caught my eye in the past few days, mind. In the case of Mark Pritchard MP, I'll get to him at the end of this post. But how about Nicola Blackwood, eh lads? Eh? Eh? Know what I mean?! I wouldn't mind showing her my Black Rod, geddit?!

I'm not black, just to clarify that one.

ANYWAY, yes. Paul Uppal. On Wednesday our leader, David William Donald Cuthbert Pontesbury Blythe Cameron made a statement on "Hackgate" before answering any questions (lol) that were fired in his direction. Let's see what question the great man asked our leader, eh?

'There are very few places in the world where the leader of the Executive would subject himself to two hours of questioning.'


Really, Paul? I heard someone say the other day that all of this furore is our equivalent of Watergate. Now, I don't know whether it's that big or not, but it's pretty damn big right now, isn't it? It's seen a 160 year old newspaper brought to its knees. It's seen the (pretty scary) revelation that very, very senior people in the Met are incompetent, and perhaps worse (please don't sue me). It's seen Rupert Murdoch turn up to a Select Committee/episode of Tiswas. It's seen Rebekah Wade-Brooks leave News International.

You know what I'm saying? Now when it comes to Cameron, the pressure is on a little bit, due to his (rather cosy, it seems) relationship with Andy Coulson and everything that's entailed. As the top man, it was absolutely right that Cameron faced the questions of his peers (even if he dodged most of them) and it's absolutely right that he rode it out for as long as it took. Two hours? That's hardly a ridiculously long period of time, Paul. 'Very few places'? We all know the naughty boys of the world's political stage - Gaddafi and Mugabe and President I'm A Dinner Jacket and those lads - but most countries have accountable leaders. I think 'very few places' is a tad OTT. Anyway, let's have a gander at Uppal's question:

'One thing that shames our democracy, though, is that there are elements in the House that seem to want to make political capital out of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.'


Now I don't want to criticise Voley, but in his post about this nonsense, I cannot believe he missed this. It's basically left an open goal for me, yet one that's made me very angry. Because what Paul Uppal is thinking when he says this - and remember that this man represents 60,000 people - can be simply boiled down to this:

"This is good. I now have an opportunity, live on TV, in front of my exalted leader, to make petty political capital out of petty political capital."

Because that's what that is, no? Just sheer, blatant hypocrisy. "They've shamed our democracy with their political pettiness!" he cries, whilst shaming our democracy with his political pettiness. Once again, I'm left astonished by this man, and not in a good way.

And as for the question? There simply isn't one. Now I know I'm stressed at the moment, and I know I haven't slept much recently, but I find this pretty fucking poor. Once again I'm left reading something from Paul Uppal and thinking "Dude? Really?" before getting pissed off with him. Happily, I'm not the only one, as Margaret Curran, the Labour MP for Glasgow East wasn't too impressed either:

'May I ask the Prime Minister, in all sincerity, to dissociate himself from the comment of Paul Uppal?


Naturally, Dave duly dodged that question.

One final thing - I was reading a VERY interesting webpage the other day which listed and detailed MPs remunerations and sponsorships. Did you know that Diane Abbott receives £800 for every 'This Week' appearance? Or that Ed Miliband was sponsored by Lord Sugar in the lead-up to the Labour leadership election? If you fancy a browse yourself, it's here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?d=2011-07-06

It was perusing that page that led me to this interesting little titbit about Mark Pritchard, the MP who stands in my constituency:

Payment of £500 for article for News of the World newspaper, 1 Virginia Street, London E1 9XR. Hours: 5 hrs.(Registered 24 January 2011)

Having not hassled the letters page of The Sloppy Star for a wee while, I thought firing off a quick, rather smug letter based upon this information was a good idea. Sadly, it seems the editorial people don't agree - letter was sent via e-mail on Monday, at the time of writing (Friday) it has not been published, and I suspect it won't be considering how Conservative leaning the rag is. But I shall not be silenced! Here is the letter in full. I'm tempted to write another version and send it to Mr Pritchard directly in the vain hope of a reply.

Sir,


The allegations against the 'News Of The World' have made for depressing reading over the past fortnight. From a murdered schoolgirl to victims of terrorism, there were, allegedly, no depths to which this deplorable rag wouldn't stoop to when hacking into phones. These revelations have been brought to light recently, but the allegations against the paper on this subject have been simmering for at least two years now. How interesting it is to read then that Mark Pritchard MP received a payment of £500 for an article in the paper registered on 24th January, 2011 (information taken from TheyWorkForYou.com http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?d=2011-07-06) - just two weeks after it had suspended associate editor Ian Edmondson over the hacking allegations! I trust Mr Pritchard will be giving this money to charity, if he has not already done so?

Editing Does Not Get Tougher Than This

Hallo folks. I know I haven't blogged for a while, but right now nothing is really jumping out at me in terms of what I can write about. As you can probably understand, so much has already been written about the News International saga - and by more intelligent folk than myself - that adding my voice is a bit pointless. So, let's have a change of pace. I try to mix things up here at TRAROTL, so instead of lengthy blocks of text, how about we all sit back and enjoy a nice video?

I don't really watch 'Masterchef' - I'm more of a 'Come Dine With Me' man, to the chagrin (great word) of Cynical Ben. But I've seen enough of the programme to know that this is pure, pure genius - particularly the last 20 seconds or so. Now, good luck getting it out of your head...

Uppal in Arms

If you're a long term reader of this fine blog, chances are you also read the tremendous blog by professional Stoke City fanatic The Plashing Vole. Ever since the General Election, you may have noticed that Voley has had it in for the newly elected MP for Wolverhampton South West - his constituency - Mr Paul Uppal MP, a Conservative.

As the tirades began, I mostly ignored them. Voley is a rabid leftie, and I took his rants to be exaggerations - portrayals of Mr Uppal which were unfair and inaccurate and at times callous. Nevertheless, I was curious about the Uppalster, so I went to the (excellent) 'They Work For You' website and signed up to e-mail notifications about the great man. This basically means that when Paul Uppal asks a question or makes a speech in the House of Commons, I get an email the next morning notifying me of the content. You can do it for any MP you like, and it's cool, providing you're a nerd like me.

Here's the kicker. On Thursday morning I received an email because yer man from Wolverhampton had asked a question at Prime Ministers Questions the day previously, the full transcript of which can be found (and laid out really well) here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-06-22b.313.5#g323.2

It's perhaps fair to say that this question did not please me greatly. Here it is:

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister demonstrated his strength of character in talking about multiculturalism. In view of the fact that I have a Christian first name and a Sikh surname, I try to combine the best of my traditional Indian values with my core British values. Does he agree that we can learn a lot from our Indian partners in this respect, many of whom define themselves by their nationality first and foremost, regardless of their ethnic or religious background?

With all due respect to Paul Uppal MP, what a bucketful of shit that is. A thorough fisking of it can be found here but the thing that angered me about it was that Uppal seemingly felt the need to ask this probing, thorough and intelligent "question" at PMQs. Seriously. For folk like myself, who are interested in politics but not overly so, PMQs is pretty much the one time we have to watch the Prime Minister answering questions on the big national issues of the day. Some MPs don't focus on the national side of things - they highlight an issue in their area, or a note-worthy constituent of theirs, and that's fine. Uppal does neither. What he does do is ask a question which doesn't actually make a great deal of sense. I'd love to know what "core British values" are.

So at this point I've got Uppal's card marked, but sadly worse was to follow. Last week I was lounging around watching tennis when a tweet caught my attention - Tory MP Mark Pritchard was going against his own party/leader in trying to get a ban imposed on circuses employing wild animals as part of their shows. I flicked over to BBC Parliament instantly, not because I was particularly interested in circuses, but because Pritchard is my local MP and seemed to be stirring things up a bit. I proceeded to sit and watch the debate for about 90 minutes, as it proved to be rather more interesting than I thought it would be. During that time I witnessed:

a) Several Conservative MPs congratulating Mark Pritchard on his involvement with the debate, and agreeing with his viewpoint.

b) A very thoughtful and intelligent speech from Caroline Lucas.

c) A speech from Zac Goldsmith(!) where he put on record how he was pleased David Cameron had stepped down and allowed the debate to be a free vote.

d) A cross-party consensus on the issue.

During these speeches, I spotted the great man himself, the Uppal, sneaking into the Chamber. I suddenly got excited. Would he speak on this issue? Would he join Zac Goldsmith (still can't believe that) in subtly criticising his leader? Would he join everyone else in agreeing with Mark Pritchard on this issue? Well, the answers are as follows - Yes. No. No.

Those are fine words, but will the hon. Gentleman explain to the House why the Labour party did not do something about the issue when it was in power?

And now I know that Vole is right. Because this is disgustingly cheap political point scoring from someone who should know better. I appreciate politics is a dirty game sometimes, but at that moment in the debate, there was no need for an interjection as snide, unintelligent and pointless as what we see above. Mercifully, as we can see here (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-06-23a.548.0&s=speaker%3A24886#g579.0) Uppal was soon slapped down by Labour MP Gavin Shuker. There we have it folks. That's the mark of the man, right there. When even the poshest of posh Tory boys can admit that his leader is worryingly wrong and contributes successfully to a debate, Paul Uppal barges in with his finger pointing with nonsense that helps precisely no-one.

Will I ever blog about Paul Uppal ever again? Probably not - I know someone who will, and they do a better job of it than I ever could. But the more blogs like this which can be found when a person googles his name, the better, quite frankly. People of Wolverhampton South West - when the election next rolls round, don't tolerate this man's rubbish any longer.

MOAR Letters!

No small talk. Let's rattle on through some more bonkers letters.

===========================================================

What a wonderful wedding.


As mentioned last time, I've taken these letters from papers over the last month or so. This one is from May 11th so we're on the William/Kate wedding here. I'm sure you realised that already but hey ho.

A handsome prince, an accomplished and beautiful bride. Our Queen and Prince Philip looking happy and immaculate. 


I did not watch it, but from the pictures I've seen it looks that way. I'm pleased for William and Kate, I really am. Thankyou, Peter Hollingworth, for writing in this lovely letter about a lovely wedding. I like this letter a lot, so far, and as long as you don't do something mental like use the Royal Wedding to shoehorn in a criticism of the EU, I'll be with you every step of the way.

Lots of ordinary people in the congregation with foreign royalty and leaders of the Commonwealth countries - and not an EU representative in sight.


I give up, I really do. This is like the "Nick Clegg's fault" thing which went around Twitter a few months back, except this isn't tongue in cheek. This is horribly, nightmarishly real.

It's just started raining here. THAT'S YOUR FAULT, ANDRE AGASSI!

A truly British event and a day to be remembered.


So you shouldn't be moaning. By the way, wasn't Clegg there? And wasn't he an MEP?

Why can't our MPs realise it is time to change tacks and to get back with the Commonwealth we created, before Heath turned his back on it.


Bring back the Empire, what I always say. Sort out these funny chaps with a right British slap, what!

What made him want to be a good little European? Was it his own way of getting his own back on General de Gaulle who, as President of France, not only said "No" to our first application but added: "The British people will never be European". Now most under 60-year-olds think they are European - their passport tells them so.


Anyone still trying to work out the connection here between this guff and the wedding? Anyone? Bueller?

But if they look at a map they will see that the nearest point of the European continent is 22 miles from us across the sea.


I know I say this every time, but this must be the shittiest thing ever written. TWENTY TWO MILES! OH MY GOD! Can you even IMAGINE that distance? Wow, mainland Europe is SO FAR AWAY.

We can't afford the £45m plus which we give Brussels every day, nor the 70% of laws being imposed on Parliament by Brussels. Get us out. I enjoyed being British again.


Peter Hollingworth
Harborne, Birmingham


And you are writing into The Shropshire Star because......?

===========================================================

So that's why we're in Afghanistan...to kill Bin Laden.


Well, there's a number of reasons we, and others, are in Afghanistan. These reasons are valid and I completely support the troops that are out there. Bin Laden? Well, as a key member of Al Qaeda, he was always going to be in the firing line (literally). I have slight reservations about how he was removed, but I understand, with some regret, that Army boys don't mess about. In the long run his death doesn't change anything, really, but it was a powerful, highly symbolic moment.

I see, how clever. I thought it was to give democracy to the Afghan people, to control the cocaine market and put two fingers up to the Russians. 


You thought right! Well done. The influx of nasty drugs from Afghanistan and it's neighbours (nudge nudge, wink wink Pakistan!) presents the biggest danger to our young people, in my opinion.

So that's why British troops have died, revenge for 9/11. I see, so Obama can be re-elected.


Dude, you've now given us six possible reasons for why we're in Afghanistan. You were correct with...I'mma say three, with the Obama thing a tad cynical but probably true.

It only took them four years to plan and execute the killing of the most wanted man in the world.


Quick summary of this letter: "It is a disgrace that troops were in Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden. What took you so long you muppets, why didn't you kill him STRAIGHT AWAY?!"

I know we should have invaded Zimbabwe and got rid of dictators. Not played up to them like Libya, Pakistan and most of the Middle East.


I've addressed this before, so I shan't again. But, John, please please please tell me how we could have/can invade Zimbabwe. Please do!

Clue: You can't.

Yet we must obey our masters, the Americans. They know best.


John R Brown
Shrewsbury


I dealt with you last time - I remember the name. Will have to keep an eye on you.

===========================================================


Now is the time for the Conservatives to demand Mr Cameron call an election.


?????????????????

It is quite obvious that this country can no longer be governed by a coalition.


?????????????????

We must remove Mr Clegg and his Lib Dems. No more immigration. No more EU. No more windmills.


GT Inwood
Shrewsbury


Fuck windmills. I'm serious.

I was stopped by a man in the street the other day, doing a survey on the threats of society. On his list of options he had: Drugs, climate change, terrorism, global pandemic, nuclear weaponry, the EU (naturally). I realised then that he was a complete amateur.

"Windmills" I softly said to him, as I handed his clipboard back to him without ticking any of the boxes. "Windmills" I repeated, before turning and slowly walking away.

===========================================================

One more letter for you now, and I've deliberately left this one till last. If anyone has ANY idea what the living fuck this is all about, please, leave a comment below. If you can, you're a better person than I am. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you....this.

One has often wondered how Dr Samuel Johnson, the eminent lexicographer, managed to compile the wonderful dictionary.


This is a very fair point - seriously. When you sit and think about it, what a staggering achievement. How DID he do it? It's a real shame that when I see his name, I automatically think of Robbie Coltrane and that Blackadder (III?) episode, instead of the man himself and his fine, fine achievement.

The term happiness is a state of mind and the word utopia enters our picture.


The term 'happiness' is a state of mind....okay, right....and the word 'utopia' enters our picture...

Not entirely sure about the second bit, but go on.

Numerous citizens "ate" political correctness as a base for a form of reasoning, drawing comparisons to the days before New Labour's Human Rights Act - a misconception surely?


Emyr Davies
Wrexham


Is it me? Am I being thick, and just not getting that?

I've read that letter about 15 times, and I'm still none the wiser. Congratulations Emyr, you've silenced me. Answers in the comment box please.

Killing Two Birds

Just a quickie for you this time folks. If you roam around on the internet a lot then you may have seen this already, but if not then it's worth a watch. It appeals to me as a hopeless romantic greatly:



Of course, if you follow my relatively new Tumblr page, you might have seen it already! Yes, I have a Tumblr account. I'm still trying to figure it out, and it will never, ever be the priority compared to this blog, but for stuff too little for here and too big for Twitter, it's perfect. I don't update it that frequently, but feel free to check it out over at:

http://thefallandfalloftimlovejoy.tumblr.com/

See what I did there?

Writers Gonna Write!

Dear readers,

Something truly staggering has happened. Over the past few weeks, my local paper The Sloppy Star has been inundated with bafflingly barmy letters - and I mean inundated. I don't use the "I" word lightly, don't you worry about that. Now, if you're a long term reader you'll know all about the letters page and the bonkers correspondents, but in the past few weeks the volume of said scribblings has increased dramatically. It's actually quite awe-inspiring, but also rather fucking scary. In one particular edition, there were eight stupid letters to marvel at. 8! EIGHT! IN ONE PAPER! That's....I mean....wow.

I like to be a good and responsible blogger, so every letter of the magical variety I saw, I saved the paper. Thus my room now looks like the awkward bit in your local library where they stockpile old newspapers, but it's these sacrifices I make which enables this blog, TRAROTL, to once again retain it's crown as Britain's Most Beloved Blog, as voted for by Blogger Insider magazine readers*.

I've lost count of how many letters I have to analyse for your reading pleasure, but I suspect it's getting close to 20 now. Naturally I shan't be covering them all in this blog entry - I'll spread them out over the next...say...3 years or so, but before I drown in print, let us make a start.

*May or may not be real.

==========================================================

Calm down dear it's only a Coalition which is falling apart.


Not really. Not yet.

"How can I stay in power?" said Cameron. "I know, we'll have a vote."


Hmmm?

AV, first past the post or name out of a hat. "Name out of the hat", that's the one said Cameron, "My name on every vote," said Cameron. A wonderful idea, dear.


John R Brown
Shrewsbury


A promising start, I think we can agree?

==========================================================

At the time of writing this letter, there is much confusion as to whether Osama Bin Laden is dead or not. 


This letter is taken from The Shropshire Star of May 9th, 2011, exactly one week after Bin Laden was shot and killed by US military. There wasn't any confusion about Bin Laden's status then, nor is there now. Dead, isn't he? As dead as a Dido.

Dodo.

There is much finger pointing at other countries involved, including Pakistan and it can soon escalate into another war. I am not aware of the procedure in other countries, but it may be a useful exercise to ascertain if there have been any children registered with a bin Laden as the father in recent years since 2002.

This is unintentional genius.

Nurse: "Do we have a name for the father, to put on the birth certificate?"
Mother: "Bin Laden. Osama."
Nurse: "How lovely. And what does Mr Bin Laden do?"
Mother: "International terrorist, warlord and overseer of a violent and fundamentalist group consisting of a multinational, stateless Sunni army which strives for global Jihad."
Nurse: "I'll just put 'Political Campaigner' on the document itself, so I will!"

That conversation took place in Ireland, judging by the last sentence.

I am saying this because there have been reports of his death since then.


Which were false.

Speaking of which, there should be a death certificate issued. However, like Barack Obama's birth certificate, it could take up to three years to find.


Trevor Mytton
Shrewsbury


Sigh. http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

==========================================================

In the first-past-the-post contest of female hats at the royal wedding, Mrs Cameron was the clear winner.


Letter taken from Tuesday May 10th, so you can see that, much like the first letter, these unfunny idiots are taking every opportunity they can take to crowbar in references to the AV vote of a few days previous.

Her choice was original and outstanding. The PM has real class for a wife.


I should hope so, considering her background which is, shall we say, "privileged".

Fred Phipps
Minsterley


That's it? Seriously?

Look, I'm no expert on writing letters, but I can't help thinking that a letter into The Shropshire Star, lest we forget, should at least try and cover a minimum of one of these areas:

1) Something about Shropshire
2) Something of national interest
3) Something which contributes to an ongoing debate/issue, either locally or nationally
4) Something amusing
5) Something interesting

With that in mind, I'd mark Fred's letter as 0/50. Quite some achievement.

Let's have one more for now. I think I can cope with one more as long as it isn't from my long-term arch nemesis, Val Duncan.

==========================================================

The Greek bailout...get a life.


Oh Val. This relationship is only going to end one way, I fear - a duel to the death at Reichenbach Falls. A nice literary reference there for my highly sophisticated readership.

Do you really believe "we are reluctant, but we will do it anyway" will cut any ice?


Sorry....me? Me personally? Well, Val, errm...well I suppose that's just the way it is, isn't it? They use the Euro, so I suppose it's financially sensible for the other Euro using nations to buck them up a bit. But thanks for asking, appreciate it.

You are on a slippery slope to nowhere.


Fucking hell, that was just an opinion off the top of my head. Lay off a bit eh?

Think about it.


Right.

Major is an irrelevant force.


Major? Wait....JOHN Major? John Major, Prime Minister between 1990-1997? Are you....what?

Blair is toxic.


Tony Bliar - he lies about EVERYTHING - is "toxic". WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

Brown is toxic.


You've done that one.

Clegg is toxic.


Everybody is "toxic". We get it. This is like a karaoke rendition of Britney's song "Toxic", only sung by a xenophobic lunatic.

Miliband is a national joke.


I think this is a tad harsh. Nevertheless, WHAT in the name of bejesus are you talking about? What is your point Val?

Now the country has its sights set on Cameron.


?????????????????

All of them are leaders who sold their country out - they trashed our laws and imported foreign laws illegally.


After a slow and bizarre start, Val has settled down and has resorted to her safe ground - the EU is shit, we should tell Europe to fuck off, foreign laws blah blah blah. She'll carry on this theme for a little while longer.

They wrecked the economy and sold everything off to Europe. They got us involved in unwanted (and expensive) wars. They sold off our gold reserves. They gave money we didn't have to countries with more reserves than we have and fed the insatiable EU. They bailed out a currency we didn't use. They gave money to educate foreign children while putting our students in debt. All of them are traitors to the British people.


Vintage Val! But here comes an odd change of tack.

The country has sussed out what is going on, just look how the last party leaders were got in.


This is a very odd statement, but luckily Val doesn't just ditch it and move on, she proceeds to dig herself a big hole in trying to explain it. We're going in, folks!

Clegg was pushed onto the dumb Lib Dems. It took the Communist unions to push Miliband into place. And it took AV to put Cameron in over David Davis.


Right.

a) Nick Clegg wasn't exactly "pushed onto" the Liberal Democrats. He stood against Chris Huhne in an election determined by party members.

b) I dislike trade unions - a debate for another day - but to describe them as 'Communist' is facile. Mind you, it is a shame they interfered in that election. If they hadn't voted in Miliband, just think! The leader would have been....Miliband.

c) The Conservatives do not use AV in their leader elections. You are an idiot and I hate you.

Let's move on!

All of them were placed to weaken and destroy their parties and the country for an EU takeover.


Long term readers will understand that this isn't satire - that Val isn't a comic creation dreamt up by a mate of mine, or myself. It COULD be a wind-up - if it is, it's sensational. I fear it isn't though.

Only the party faithful are too dumb to see it. The rest of the country are far more intelligent.


At this point I, and I suspect you, are thinking "Let's wrap it up now eh Val love?". Not yet my friends, she's got more!

But the country will redress the balance and when it is ready it will pull down the coalition and vote an anti-EU party into power. Look around, it's already starting to happen across Europe and it will happen here. The EU is a busted flush and the country will make sure all of you fall along with it unless we get a vote to come out of the EU. You can't win this one...


Back to me again, are we?

600 against 60 million is very poor odds.


600? I'm going to assume Val is meaning MPs here, of which there are 649 currently sitting in the House of Commons. But thinking about it, trying to assume anything Val Duncan means is an exercise in futility - her mind is a strange ol' place after all.

The country has a long memory and a sharp sense of justice. It will take its revenge, be sure of it.


Val fucking Duncan
Telford


Until next time, you deranged nut.

This Is The One (Part 2)

"And so, to tonight. My opinion hasn't really changed since I blogged about the game a few weeks ago. I fancy us to score, at least once. Vidic and Ferdinand will be a strong threat from corners, and if they play Puyol and Sylvinho, that's a definite weakness. I think we'll surrender the majority of possession, and just make sure that Barcelona always play in front of us. Xavi and Iniesta, two wonderful players, can pass the ball around as much as they like, providing they don't play in Eto'o or Henry in behind. And as for the little maestro, Messi - we have to stop the cross field ball that Barca play. If you look at some of their goals from previous CL games, it's a ball across to Messi on the right, who cuts inside onto his left foot and causes mayhem. If Evra has an outstanding game, he can combat Barca's main attacking threat. Team I would pick:

   van der Sar

O'Shea  Rio Vidic Evra

Carrick Anderson Park

Ronaldo Rooney Tevez

I have nothing left to say."

You know that phrase "The more things change, the more they stay the same"? Two years after writing those words on the eve of a Champions League Final versus Barcelona, here we all are again. The experience of last time has burnt me I'm afraid - as much as I want to, I just can't see us winning it. I'm not sure we're as explosive going forward as before, and we certainly don't have the wildcard of Cristiano Ronaldo anymore either. The scariest thing though? Barcelona are better now then two seasons ago - Villa better than an ageing Henry, Alves better than Puyol (at right back), Abidal better than Sylvinho. I think Messi is better now than he was then, ditto for Iniesta. Their side is not only packed with skill and craft, but with experience and know-how. Their manager is young, but he's won this competition before, and he's won back-to-back La Liga titles. Put simply, they are the best club side in the world, and the best side I've ever seen.

BUT! In a one-off game, every team is beatable. Even this one. Blimey, Arsenal beat them a few months back, so we KNOW it can be done. A poor performance from them, and anything is possible. It'll need one hell of an effort from every player, but I have faith in them. And you'd better believe that if any manager can instigate their downfall, it's the great man himself, the heartbeat of Manchester United, Sir Alex.

A game of this nature means that every football fan - particularly those with a Mancunian leaning - has rambled on about tactics and gameplans etc on their blogs or websites or on their podcasts for a wee while now. To be honest, I'm not into that - I just enjoy watching a good game of football. The excerpt above pretty much stretches my interest of football strategy to the limit. As such, I'm not even going to try analysing the game - if you're interested in that stuff, don't bother with me, go straight to Jonathan Wilson or a Man United blog for your nerd fix. But in terms of line-up, I can only see Fergie going with:

van der Sar

Fabio Rio Vidic Evra

Valencia Carrick Giggs Park

Rooney Chicharito

I'm not sure how I feel about that - I'd perhaps ponder dropping Chicha (which would be harsh on the lad) and putting another midfielder in, either Anderson or Nani. It's a shame Fletcher has been out for so long and won't make it, to be honest, as we're a better side with him in it when he's at the top of his game. The problem is, sticking Rooney up top on his own and putting another central midfield player in suddenly makes us seem very defensive. Teams have tried that in the past against Barcelona but they've always found a way through, and you wonder if it's best just to fight fire with fire. Chicha the highest player forward and Rooney putting in a shift when we don't have the ball? Might be a better bet.

But that's enough of all of that. I'm nervous, but the fact I believe we're underdogs makes it a bit more bearable. With football, it's always the hope that kills me. Prediction? I'm going for:

Barcelona 2 -1 Manchester United

Villa, Messi - Vidic

But I just hope it's a great game. The occasion deserves that, and both teams are more than capable. Enjoy the game, and COME ON UNITED!