Inside sport

One of the unexpected highlights of this week's trip to Center Parcs came on the way home.

We stopped off in Penrith for some lunch and to pick up some meat from Cranstons, a butcher's shop that comes highly recommended in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Book of Meat.

We parked up in a car park that adjoins Penrith FC's ground and, before we left for home, I thought it was worth taking a pic, given that someone had sprayed Penrith FC RIP on one of the exit gates. I presumed there was a tale to tell.

What I didn't expect though was for the caretaker/secretary/general man-about-the-ground to come bounding out of his office and invite me inside for a look around. What a treat.

It turns out that the 100-year-old ground is due to be demolished to make way as part of some kind of town centre improvement scheme and that Penrith Town (as they are now known) are being relocated to a 'state-of-the-art' 1,500 seater stadium elsewhere.

My new friend on the inside seemed less than enthusiastic about this state of affairs. Like me, he's sad that these creaking old stadiums have been almost eradicated from the map of British football. OK, they're virtually falling down of their own accord but you've got to say stadiums like this have a character that the Reebok and the Riverside and others like them will never possess.

Teacher's pet

You know the drill when you're planning for a day at the races. Racing Post over breakfast, top up with a bit of insight from one of the redtops during the day, fish around for a few tips on the internet, take a look at the horses yourself in the paddock and then watch the odds lengthen and shorten at the bookies on the course itself.

Only by exhausting all these routes can you rest assured that you've covered off all the angles and have enough information to place your 50 pence each way.

Alternatively of course, you could just follow the example of my good mate Des McDonough (he of the not so Crucial Three) during our trip to Haydock last night.

Diamond Des has never been to the races in his life. In fact, I don't think he's even placed a bet before, which was apparent in his approach to picking horses. In the second he plumped for Schoolboy Champ, a complete outsider with neither form nor hope, purely on the grounds that he himself is a schoolteacher. 20-1 in a six horse race. He didn't even back it each way. What a clown.

Yep, it won.

BBC interview with John Barnes

I picked up this interview with the new Tranmere manager today. I quote: "There are no bad footballers. I don't care what people say."

Oh dear, Barnsey. You're new round these parts aren't you?

Home grown

We braved angry bees for our first attempt at strawberry picking this weekend. When we arrived at Kenyon Hall Farm, Todd (the bloke who runs it) warned that six of the 12 people who had ventured into the fields that morning had come back with nasty stings.

Not be deterred, Sam and I headed on up to the top field. Sure enough the bees were out in force and whizzing around our heads but they let us pass unchallenged, mostly.

The bigger concern was that most of the strawbs are still a week or so away from being perfectly ripe. We had to root around a bit to get a decent punnet of big, red, juicy ones.

I was made up when we got back home though. We took one of the few strawberries from our own garden that was ready to eat, divided it four ways and carried out a quick taste test, comparing our own against the farm-grown version.

The result? Kenyon farm's are tasty for sure but the Hugreenie version got 4 votes out of four. Get in!

Paris Hilton's new best friend

So, is it goodbye or good riddance? The papers seem fairly united in their assessment of Ronaldo's move to Real. Yep, he's a first class prat on every conceivable front (Paris Hilton? What on earth is he doing?), but the boy can play football all right.

Personally I'm glad to see the back of him, standing as he does for everything I hate about modern day football and celebrity.

His departure does raise one mouthwatering prospect though. Keep your fingers crossed that Man Yoo draw Real in the Champions League at some point next season - and that Rooney is fit.

Shrek owes Ronaldo big time for getting him sent off in the infamous Winkgate match, but Alex Ferguson did a great job in getting Rooney to count to ten when the two met up for pre-season training a month later.

There'll be no such consideration if they line up on opposite sides for their clubs next year though and don't be surprised if, Taggart being Taggart, Ferguson ends up egging Rooney on to get his revenge once and for all.

I can't wait. Rooney will eat Ronaldo alive (perhaps literally) and, for once, even seasoned ManYoo haters will pat him on the back when he does.

Don't blame yourself

There's an unbelievable amount of self-flagellation on display across the North West today. Otherwise sensible people are tweeting, blogging, texting, phone-in-ing in droves to register their own personal shame in the BNP nabbing a couple of seats.

"This morning I'm ashamed to be British/from Manchester/living in the north west/a human being/alive etc......". You know the rest.

Folks, it seems to me that the wrong people are getting the blame.

It's not the Labour Party's fault, nor the Tories, nor the Liberals, nor is it the fault of decent people who voted for other parties. Contrary to perceived wisdom, I don't think abstainers are to blame either. Keeping another party out is not a good enough reason to positively support anyone else, if you ask me.

I don't even think it's worth getting in a pickle about the antics of Griffin and his nasty little gang either. They're beyond redemption in my view and we can be hopeful that Damnation Slumbereth Not where they're concerned.

No, the responsibility for this dark day in British political history lies squarely with the people who caused it - those who deliberately marked a cross next to the British National Party on their ballot paper.

No one else is to blame for this - and they know it. They know they've done wrong. That's why you can't find them.

Think about it. Have you bumped into any BNP supporters this morning? Have you heard anybody defending them? Do you even know anyone who has ever voted for them? No? But there are 120,00 or so in the North West alone, apparently. You must know someone. Where are they all?

I reckon they're in hiding, guarding their sordid little (quite big actually) secret, shielding their racism from friends, family and work colleagues, too cowardly to admit their own prejudices to anyone or anything except the ballot box.

Forget about the BNP. In the world of real politics, this ridiculous party is unlikely to have any say in much at all when it comes down to it, and they're impotent without a degree of public support anyway.

Think instead about the real enemy in all of this - the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who, even when there are no mates to impress with their bravado, even when there's no one there to shock by being deliberately contrary, even when there's no one there with them in the ballot box who they can frighten with wild threats, go ahead and register their hate in secret.

I heard Peter Hain this morning claiming that BNP voters had been conned into believing the BNP was actually not a racist party.

Nah, I don't buy it Peter. BNP voters know what they're doing and the right minded majority should confront them, if they can find them.

Do run, run, Ron

Much as I would like to see Jose Mourinho in charge at Prenton Park, I can't believe Tranmere have sacked Ronnie Moore.

What's he done wrong? I've mentioned before that losing out on the play-offs to Scunthorpe (with two minutes to go) was hardly a disgrace and that Moore had done well to get us so far with his collection of lower league/reserve team misfits.

Listen, Ronnie Moore is no managerial genius but, given the crap budget and rubbish club that we are, I don't know who Peter Johnson thinks is going to do any better. I've been a big fan of Hamper man for not pulling the rug under Rovers' feet financially, but I reckon he's put his neck on the block here. If he doesn't free up a few quid for whoever is our new manager, then his decision to sack a man who got us to 7th position for under a fiver will seem ridiculous.

I have heard via a friend of a friend that Rovers have been talking to Robbie Savage about something or other. I cannot imagine what interest either party has in each other. Maybe Birkenhead is binning the idea of a football club and is investing all its efforts in building a diving team.

Ronnie, you're better off out of it.

Travel costs

So, did you vote then?

Yesterday I heard some dingbat complaining about how people and businesses importing foods were suffering due to the exchange rate. He actually cited the high cost of shipping mange tout to the UK from Somalia as evidence of this terrible problem.

Mange tout? Somalia? What on earth are they doing? I know of at least one back garden in Newton-le-willows that's got some ready to eat already. It's not that hard to grow for goodness' sake.

Apparently it's all about customer demand. People want and expect strawberries in December but get upset when the cost of a ridiculous number food miles forces a price hike.

My heart bleeds.

Usually at this point I would dive headfirst into an Ear I Am Rant, but instead I'll console myself that this ridiculous situation validates the choice I made in the ballot box yesterday.

Apology

In a blog post dated 2 June 2009, Ear I Am incorrectly attributed a good joke to @trimmtrab.

In a post entitled Quality Tweets, it was claimed that the trimmster had come up with the one about a new pair of running shoes for Extreme Catholics, adidas opus dei - with spikes in the inside.

Ear I Am now accepts that this claim was entirely without foundation and apologises unreservedly for any offence caused to Mr Trab or his family.

In fact, the gag was invented by The Marple Leaf, who Ear I Am is delighted to confirm is a very funny man indeed.

Shteeve McLaren

The BBC News has posted a video of last night's grilling of William Hague by Jeremy Paxman on its website. Paxo asks him the same question lots of times, just as he did to Michael Howard all those years ago. Great stuff.

I was going to emded the video into this post to amuse Ear I Am readers, but then I had a better idea. Remember that interview with Steve McLaren when he adopted a Dutch accent for some reason? Any exshcuse for another listen.....

Quality tweets

I've not really got into the whole #followfriday thing on twitter. I think I'd exhaust the list of my absolute favourites within a couple of Fridays.

However one bloke I've got to recommend is the tweeting genius @trimmtrab. His bio describes him as "Non league footie fan, occasional whinger, collector of trainers, wearer of fine fashion, wish it was still the 80s." but he's much more than that.

While Michael T, Neil T and I were larking about before Awaydays on Friday, we tried to recreate the front cover of the original Sampson novel (Michael has since carried the pic of our trainers on his blog). Of course there was no way @trimmtrab was going to let us have all the fun and he has since sent a message with a twitpic of him wearing adidas London. What a legend.

His thoughts on terrace retro, football casuals and the like make him a 21st Century successor to those great footy fanzines of the 80s if you ask me. The End in 140 characters or less.

If you do start following him, I would recommend you make sure you look back through his twitterstream and catch up with all his thoughts to-date. It's well worth it. One particular favourite was his request, as a catholic, for a special edition pair of running shoes called adidas opus dei, with spikes on the inside.