The nerds will rise again

There's a lot of it about, you know. As you've surely noticed, the beauty and fun are being sucked out of football by the New Seriousness — no, not a Starsailor reunion, but the inappropriately close watching of games, as propagated by those who believe spodliness to be next to godliness. The official SIATVS line on this, in concert with others, is to decry it with all our not inconsiderable might, as we've made abundantly, devastatingly clear. Now, it's the turn of Fisted Away's Nick Dunmore to have his say, by way of a certain band of Mancunians. Singalonganicknmark!



The grotesque pedants stalk the land
And deep down inside you know everybody wants to like Big Paper
Hands send tweets to famous apes
Male slags, male slates, pass completion rates
Water carrier now grim thoughts
The whole country is post-Graeme
Echoes of the past


All hail the new seriousness!
Insidious maelstrom, cook one


And all hard-core fiends
Will die by me
And all decadent sins
Will reap discipline


New seriousness!


This is the grim referee
The snap at the end of the straw
With a high 6+5 quota
Your star karma, Jim


New seriousness!
New seriousness!


The conventional is now experimental
The experimental is now conventional


It's a dinosaur tackle
A pteradactyl debacle
In N1 a drunk is sick on Rob Smyth's star on York Place
Ha-ha ha-ha
Vintage strips take off in Britain's black spots
The Guardianistas run for cabs
This I have seen


New seriousness!


In Britain the scream of real-ale pumps in a gastropub
Your stomach swells up before you get drunk
The bars are full of male slags
At 10:35 they play "National Shite Day" once


Why don't you ask your local team's winger how many corners he took today?
What do you mean "What's it mean? What's it mean?"?
"What's it mean? What's it mean?"


New seriousness
New seriousness


Hail the new puritan
Out of hovel, cum-coven, cum-oven


And all hard-core fiends
Will die by me
And all decadent sins
Will reap discipline


New seriousness
New seriousness


New seriousness
New seriousness
New seriousness
New seriousness
New ser...ious...ness


New seriousness


I curse the self-copulation
Of your lousy fanzine collection
New seriousness says "Coffee table WSCs never breathe"


New seriousness
New seriousness
New seriousness
New seriousness
New seriousness says...


New seriousness
Teymourian!
New seriousness
New seriousness
New seriousness

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Mark E. Smith on Ramsey and Shawcross: Gymwork cops stalking the streets-uh

I've been tempted to write something about the Aaron Ramsey/Ryan Shawcross "coming together". Alas, every time I try to publish my thoughts on it, an error message flashes up: PERMISSION DENIED: YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO END IN TEARS, FREDORRARCI. Which is fair enough.

I can, though, pass on the opinions of others. I was delighted last night to receive a voicemail message from my old whist pal Mark E. Smith From Out Of The Fall, which I relay to you here:

---

Uh ... thing fucking work— Ah, yaright, Fred, 's me, Mark Smith. Ah, just calling about that, uh, dog of yours ... and, uh, 'cos I've written a song about that thing with Shawcross and the Welsh lad and, uh, just thought you might like to hear it, you being a fucking Gooner and 'at, youknowworramean. 's not finished or owt, but (inaudible) dead good, I reckon. I'll sing it for you now, haven't got the band with me, like, but I'll just sing it. My singing's getting really (inaudible) (laughter) (cough).

This is a warning from—

—Fuck, forgot, 's called "Playground Letraset Forgiveness Compact", right...

This is a warning from the Potteries!
Beware the gymwork cops stalking the streets-uh
Boer War scar tissue and Charles M., Charles H. induction-uh, certificate-uh
Remember: when your skull gets smashed with truncheons of propriety:
You are to blame-uh!
In the Big Sam disciple courtroom showroom abattoir
The man with the prawn cocktail Molotov breath says:
You are to blame! You are to blame-uh!
You asked for it, sunshine-uh!
Don't come running to me with your broken-uh
LEG-uh!

...duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh, nuh...

HARK AT THEE! HARK AT THEE!
Alimentary rumble of brain shrapnel halfwits
Cling to the scalpel like doctor evil Übermensch rotating the rack-uh
Rotating-uh
The RACK-uh!
He's a good lad, though
His tears fill the reservoirs all across the land
And keep the water bills down-uh
Britannia, prison yard, crap, hobnail, press conference
Hiroo Onoda emerges from the jungle and says:
That's how it's always been-nuh!

...then there's, like, a kind of guitar bit after that, right, and then it's...

Cast signed in playground Letraset forgiveness compact-uh
Cast signed in playground Letraset forgiveness compact-uh
Cast signed-uh, in playground-uh, Letraset-uh, forGIVEness compact!
You are to blame! You are to blame-uh!
Cast signed-uh, in playground Letraset forgiveness compact-uh
Know your place, son, know your place!
You are to blame! It's your fault! You are to blame!
Cast signed in playground-uh
LetrasetforgivenesscomPACT-uh!
That's how it's always been-uh!
Cast signed in playground Letraset forgiveness compact-uh...

...and that's all I've got so far, so, uh, anyway, hope you're keeping well, and, uh, the dog ... sorry about that, hope he's, you know, alive an 'at, so yeah, I'll (inaudible) ... ta-ra... Read more...

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On-uh, foot-uh, baaaallll-uh

Found this while perusing the Toob for material related to The Fall, who are my new thing, it appears. It's Mark E. Smith talking about football on something called Goal TV from 1994. I'm not totally sure what Goal TV was, but it may have been the name given to one of those themed nights BBC Two were fond of doing around that time. (There certainly was one dedicated to football, I remember.) There's a great, if brief, bit of classic George Best footage in there too.

Of course, this is not the only Smith/football crossover. Here's the quintessential example, featuring Ray Stubbs describing something as "ace", which just doesn't work:



As for the music: here's a couple of choons, the first introduced by Tony "Anthony" Wilson in typical fashion:

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How flair is punished

The Fall, 'Kicker Conspiracy'. Ta to Nick Dunmore and Webbie.

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