Stewart was an amazing
person - A wonderful husband, a fantastic brother, a loving son and an
adored uncle. He was also a brilliant friend and colleague and will be
missed by so many people. His family are determined that his death will never
be in vain and are doing their part to beat bowel cancer for good. We are fundraising for the Bobby Moore Fund
which is part of Cancer Research UK and specialises in research into bowel
cancer. If you wish to donate to the
fund, you can via https://www.justgiving.com/Geraldine-Smith3
.
If you haven’t already
done so, please read the article which appeared in the Daily Record and learn
from Stewart’s story that you must never be complacent. It makes grim reading for us, his family,
even though we were beside him throughout his ordeal, or battle; call it what
you will. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/heartbroken-widow-geraldine-smith-raises-3452997
His wish was that The Grambler
should continue after his death and I have been happy to oblige. Welcome to The Grambler, the most
ill-informed blog you are ever likely to see. Read on and enjoy…
Dear Mr Gimlet,
You think you’re so brilliant with your little teasy questions! Well here’s one for you, you bighead. In fact it’s a double teaser for you, so
stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Cleverpants. If you’re so clever, answer us this - In 1892
Everton left its home ground and moved to Goodison Park. What was the name of the ground they left and
what was the name of the club that was formed that year and plays there
still? Bet you don’t know, smart****!
Yours with kindest regards,
Anne Field and Lee Verpuhl.
It’s started.
The time when those vagabonds and wasters we call ectaws start telling
each other how ‘ebsolutely wunnnnderful you are dwahling’ is upon us. Yes it’s awards season. The Golden Ball awards or something took
place last week and all the luvvies were out in force telling anyone who would
listen how ‘wunnnnderful’ it all was.
The award for the best pretending went to Eddie Redmayne who pretended
to be Stephen Hawking in some flick called The Theory of Everything.
I predicted as much as soon as the film was
released; I just knew that the guy pretending to be Stephen Hawking would
win. Why was I so sure? Because it always happens. Anyone pretending to be someone with a
disability always wins. It’s true. John Mills in Brian’s Daughter played someone
with learning difficulties – Ker-ching! – Oscar. Derek Jacobi as the stuttering Clavdivs in I,
Clavdivs – Ker-ching! – BAFTA. Peter
Sellers as the simple Chancer in Being There – Ker-ching! – Golden Globe. Daniel Day Lewis as Christy Brown in My Left
Toe – Ker-ching! – Oscar. Dustbin
Hoffman in It’s Raining, Man – Ker-ching! – Oscar. Tom Hanks in that godawful film Forrest Chump
– Ker-ching! – Oscar.
Now I’m going to write something really
contentious here. They shouldn’t have
won. Any of them. I mean, it’s not exactly good acting, is
it? Firstly, they hardly have any lines
to learn and secondly, all they have to do is act a bit daft. Blimey, Daniel Day Lewis just had to be able
to wiggle his big toe [I think there was a bit more to it than that. – Ed.].
It’s all down to the movie people pretending they
have some sort of conscience; a conscience that falls short of actually casting
disabled actors in starring roles. So to
assuage (That’s a good word, must look it up) their collective guilt, the
luvvies all say how ‘wunnnnderful’ and ‘mwarvellous’ some ectaw is at
pretending to be disabled. Patronising
b******s!
Talking of patronising bs, do you remember
Christopher Reeve? He played the man of
steel in the four superman films of the late 70s early 80s. His career was effectively ended by a riding
accident when a fall from his horse left him paralysed from the neck down. Obviously, after that, his chance of any
acting roles was pretty well non existent.
However, a TV remake of Hitchcock’s Rear Window gave him a role that
could have been tailor-made. He plays a
tetraplegic who can do virtually nothing so relieves the boredom by indulging
in a bit of voyeurism and witnesses a neighbour being attacked by her
husband. He reports it to the police who
question the husband who is then released.
Reeve’s character then hears a bloodcurdling scream and the wife
disappears…etc. etc. Why am I bothering
telling you all this? Because Reeve won
a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance. As I said, patronising bs.
Changing the subject slightly, do you recall a
film called The Bone Collector? The plot
revolves around a forensics expert trying to find a serial killer whose
‘calling card’ was to remove a shard of bone from each of his victims. Reviews were scathing, calling it formulaic
tosh. The main character, played by
Denzel Washington, had a severe disability; he was tetraplegic. Paralysed from the neck down, he had to rely
on machines and a nurse. Why am I
mentioning this? Is it because it bucked
the trend and its portrayal of disability didn’t win any awards? No. It
is because the story goes that the role was written especially for Christopher
Reeve. It made sense as a vehicle for
Reeve; there are very few roles available for an actor who is so severely
disabled. Why was he not given the
role? Perhaps he turned it down
realising just what a clunker of a film it would turn out to be. However, if he had taken on the role, you can
bet that he would have been showered with awards from the patronising luvvies
in Hollywood.
The theatrical business doesn’t like disability,
of course. Ten per cent of the
population is disabled in some way. How
many disabled actors are employed in Hollywood?
Less than one, probably. The
exception was Christopher Reeve, but he was there because that riding accident
had caused his disability. Would
Tinseltown have been interested in him if he had always been disabled? Of course not.
Have you heard of actress/comedienne Francesca
Martinez? You would probably say that
the world is full of two types of people – able-bodied and disabled. Or if you are a Hollywood exec – able-bodied
and able-bodied playing the role of disabled.
Francesca Martinez sees it differently, and more correctly, when she
says, ‘The world is full of two types of people – the disabled and the
not-yet-disabled.’ Spot on.
Right, time for some birthday people. Anyone famous born on January the 24th? Of course there were… Hadrian 76 (brickie),
Frederick II 1712 (fireplace maker – known as ‘The Grate’), Ernest Borgnine
1917 (robot number 9), Desmond Morris 1928 (zoologist who discovered the
combover), Bernard Matthews 1930 (he’s bootiful), Ray Stevens 1939 (streaker),
Aaron Neville 1940 (Phil’s brother), Neil Diamond 1941 (geezer), John Belushi
1949 (blue brother), Adrian Edmondson 1957 (not so young one), Jules Holland
1958 (groovy f***er), Nastassja Kinski 1961 (bless you) and Shaun Maloney 1983
(hobbit).
Well, I’m afraid nobody in there can provide us
with a toon to gramble. Sorry Jools. However, a sad event took place on this date. We lost one of the greats from the musicals
(you know, those things I hate). Yes, it
seemed that if you wanted a decent chanter in your film musical in the 1950s,
your man of choice was Gordon Macrae who died on January 24th 1986. From 1949 to 1956 he starred in Look for the
Silver Lining, Tea for Tea, The West Point Story, On Moonlight Bay, By the
Light of the Silvery Moon, The Desert Song, Three Sailors and a Girl,
Oklahoma!, Carousel and The Best Things in Life Are Free. After that; nothing. He continued to do stage work, but his film
career just seemed to dry up. I think we
should celebrate old Gordon, with a gramblerised version of one of his songs. But, which one? I think the title song to one of his many
films fits the bill nicely and there is even the chance to insert a
bowel-related lyric…
We were grambling along
Itchy poo, itchy poo
on Moonlight Bay
Itchy poo, itchy poo
We could hear the voices
grambling
They seemed to say,
"You have grambled her
heart
Itchy poo, itchy poo
Now don't go 'way"
Itchy poo, itchy poo
As we grambled love's
sweet song on Moonlight Bay
Onner moona lighta
bayyyy…
Ahh, they don’t write ‘em like that any more.
[Thank goodness for that. – Ed.]
Let’s get down to the serious matter of grambling,
shall we?
What happened last week? We won.
Yay! Again.
Yay! We still didn’t win the big one. Oh.
But we did win. Yay!
So you said. Four out of five of
The Grambler’s predictions came up. Yay!
Give over, will you? And the fifth
game was that close. That
close. Read on my little grambling
chums…
Tottenham
vs Sunderland – Prediction Home win
Result –
Tottenham 2 Sunderland 1
Yay!
Spurs
took a third-minute lead through defender Jan Vertonghen, whose deflected shot
beat Sunderland goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon.
Although
Jermain Defoe failed to score on his Sunderland debut,
the former Spurs man won the free-kick which led to Sebastian Larsson’s
equaliser.
However,
Tottenham secured a 2-1 win which thanks to Christian Eriksen’s 88th-minute
winner.
Result – Middlesbrough 2 Huddersfield 0
Woo hoo!
Lee ‘Lily’ Tomlin put Boro ahead early in the second
half with a superb shot from outside the area.
Town pressed for an equaliser, but when keeper Alex
Smithies came up for a corner, Tomlin broke to wrap it up.
Lee Tomlin complains that he doesn’t earn enough
to get both arms totally plastered in tattoos.
Result – Watford 5 (yes 5)
Charlton 0
Whoop de doo!
Craig Cathcart fired the hosts ahead before Troy
Deeney doubled their advantage with a cool finish after Gabriele Angella's high
through ball.
Odion Ighalo slotted in from close range just before
half-time and later headed in Daniel 'Useless' Tozser's corner.
Tozser himself added a late fifth with a curling,
25-yard free-kick to complete a torrid day for the visitors.
Result – Aberdeen Dundee
3
Ooh! ‘It the bar!
David Goodwillie [Another unfortunate name. – Ed.] fired
the Dons into the lead after seven minutes.
But Jonny Hayes' penalty gave the Dons hope and Ryan
Jack stabbed home a late equaliser in a furious finish.
Can you believe it?
Aberdeen
Peterhead vs Stirling
– Prediction Home win
Result – Peterhead 2 Stirling
1
Yay, I suppose.
Rory McAllister equalised from the penalty spot
following Ross McGeachie's foul on David Cox.
James Stevenson's low, left-foot finish gave the hosts
all three points.
That’s it my little gramblerinis; at least we made a
slight profit. 99 pees. Any road up, let’s get on with this week’s
predictions, shall we?
It’s FA Cup weekend again. I believe FA means something different to its
stated meaning; I think it means there are FA games for The Grambler to select
from. We are up to the fourth round now
so it doesn’t interfere quite as much with fixtures as the previous round
did. Thus we have 40 games in the
Scottish and English senior leagues taking place this Saturday the 24th
of January at 3pm . Which five has The
Grambler selected for us?
Game – Result – Odds
Hearts vs Falkirk
– Prediction Home win – 4/9
Right, the bets have been placed (10 x 20 pees doubles
and 1 x 20 pees accumulator) and if all go as predicted by The Grambler the
Bobby Moore Fund stands to gain…
£7.88
…Not really worth standing for, is it?
And now… It’s teaser time. Last week I asked you who was the only
Premiershit player whose surname was made of letters that correspond to Roman
numerals. The answer was Nemanja V(5)
I(1) D(500) I(1 again) C(100). Did you
like that? Well, whether you did or not,
here’s another…
What English player won his first four England
And finally, Cyril?
And finally Esther, I am indebted to the Huffington Post for this poster
for a film that was mentioned earlier…
Happy grambling.
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