Football Crazy, Football Mad

I was really scaring my friend Devs last night as I screamed throughout the Champions League final. Despite opening the scoring, Arsenal, following the unfortunate sending off of their goalkeeper, were eventually worn down by the self-belief of Team Barcelona led by Ronaldinho. Henry blames the ref, but what about the chances he squandered? At this level, every chance counts, and he can shoulder some of that blame after missing two golden opportunities.

I felt sad for Arsenal, as everyone knows that this could be the last game for Henry who looked decidedly cosy post-game with Barca goalscorer Samuel Eto. Eto looked like he was speeching Henry to join the new holders of the Champions League Cup. Ronaldinho didn’t score one of his amazing goals, but was instrumental in making chances and continually driving the game forward in attack. Special mention to the man like Henrik Larsson, Swedish international, former dread turned bal’ead whose late entry to the game set up the Barca goals that crushed Arsenal’s European Champ dreams.

Certain Arsenal man are so hurt, they're trying to get out of bets by saying they never shook my hand. There’s just no honour these days.

I do go deep occasionally on the old footie, but what do you expect. I grew up on an estate (Hovis music in the background peppered by gunshot) where the most expensive toy you had was a football. Everyone grew up kicking ball. Most of my friends were boys, and the girls I grew up with played football, 24-7. We used to have games with other blocks, and no day was complete without a kickabout until your mum screamed across the block that it was time to come in. When the World Cup came around we played our own version with everyone fighting to be Brazil. No one wanted to be England.

Adil and Chukri my Moroccan neighbours had the silkiest of skills. Sadly in his early twenties, Adil had a heart attack and died while playing football in Morocco. A slight teenager, he'd been weight-training intensely for a couple of years and completely transformed himself.... His brother went on to become a professional goalkeeper. Jimmy McClure, was one of my earliest boyfriends, you know the type you don’t even kiss, but you just argue with in the playground. He was the black Kevin Keegan, tiny with a massive 'fro, and ran rings around everyone. Him and my other friend Lawrence were so committed when they played one of them would cry if they lost, and this was just in the block.

West Ham were my childhood team, I will shamefully admit that it was purely because I liked the colour of their strip, Claret and Blue. Luckily for me, I never ventured to one of their games, not sure I would have been that welcome back then. My friend Pam whose Dad owned the chip shop near QPR used to take me to the games, Antonia took me a few times to Arsenal, where we used to drink Whisky miniatures in the Clock End to keep warm in the cold, and I also went to Wimbledon a few times and saw Vinnie Jones and the Crazy Gang. I schmoozed at Manchester United’s ‘Field of Dreams’ as a guest of their financial services PR’s, and trekked to the Maracana Stadium in Brazil to watch the local derby, but the boys who were s’posed to organise it (aka cock it up) got the time wrong and the game was done when we got there.

Next month sees the start of the biggest football event in the world, the World Cup. I'm planning to ‘freelance’ my way through that month, as I plan to be in close proximity to my sofa and non-widescreen TV.

Anyone care to join me?

War...What Is It Good For

Last week a British woman soldier was killed in Iraq when the helicopter she was in command of was shot down. This week a female Special Constable was stabbed outside her home and died on the night of her third wedding anniversary. Reports in today's Guardian suggest she was disarmed and stabbed with her own kitchen knife.

I believe that women should be in the army and police force if they wish to be (I sure don't) and face the same dangers as their male counterparts, but why all the furore when they're killed in the line of duty? Surely as a soldier you are aware that at some point you may be called upon to go fight for your country, and that you may not return? No one wants to die, but again, no one forced you to sign up.

When I was at The Observer newspaper, I had the grim task of researching the deaths of all the British soldiers killed in the Iraq War, all 98 of them at the time. Some of the stories were very painful to read. Soldiers who left behind pregnant wives, or who were coming to the end of their tour of duty. Lots of teenagers who came from depressed towns with high unemployment and had little choice but to join the service, with others following in their parents footsteps. It's great fodder for newspapers ready to create martyrs which grab headlines and shift papers. The comparison is easily drawn between the way our newspapers parade the dead soldiers, and the suicide bombers whose video messages surface following their atrocity. Each revelling in the martyrdom of the slain.

I feel a certain amount of sympathy for them and their families, but also despair at the tone of the coverage. Yes, Iraq is a dodgy war, but like Muhammad Ali, each soldier has the opportunity to be a conscientious objector. Ali spent some years in prison because he refused to fight in the Vietnam war which the US lost. Soldiers are not invincible, or X-Men, they are simply human. And it is highly likely that some of them will die in action. Why do people sign up for army life if they don't expect at some point to be dodging bullets?

How Ya Like Me Now

Was having a bit of a shoe problem when getting ready for my graduation. Shazby had ruled the red vintage peep-toes as too outre, and I'd sold my black Prada courts because they were starting to give me some Hammer-time toes .

I decided on a brown patterned wrap dress, and pale pink Poste Mistress suede courts with a grosgrain bow on the side. Forgive me for sounding like an episode of Sex and The Absence of Black Folk in the City, but it's the little things that make a difference.

I dug up the graduation robe I wore seven years earlier, dusted off my sister's mortar board, and trotted off to Central Hall, Westminster, just opposite the Houses of Shouty White Men, Diane Abbott and a few brown folk. It's only when I get there that I start to feel the shine of graduating. Everyone's looking all fresh, dressed, like a million bucks, parents are skinning teet, and graduands are posing for pictures with everyone from family to the security guards in the foyer.

As I sit in the audience waiting for my name to be called, I think about the hours I put in, the nights I worked until 5am and still made it to my shorthand class for 9.30am.

I recalled the fear of not having a good idea to pitch to David Roper, whose entertainment masterclass on Fridays made your stomach do windmills, as I rode the train 30 minutes before the class started. And the final week of the shorthand tests we had to pass at 100 words per minute. I managed it with just two days to spare. When you're studying with 20-somethings, the majority of whom are fresh out of Oxbridge, failure is a swear word and those bitches were ultra-competitive.

I remembered the migraines which hospitalised me after Exorcist type vomiting episodes, and the virus which left me out for the count for three weeks. My lecturer Paul Dunn gave me extra tuition during his lunch hour to get me up to speed with sub-editing even though his lecture day came straight after an overnight shift at The Times where he was deputy night editor.

Then I recalled the satisfaction when I'd written something which was praised by Linda 'Darth Maul' Christmas, our course director who trained a vast majority of Fleet Streets 'finest' hacks. Linda derived great joy from sending us to a part of the city she picked from the A-Z and telling us to come back with a story. The off-diary exercise was not generally the highlight of anyone's week. And it was not cool to have 'rubbish' scrawled on one of your stories.

It shouldn't really be a surprise as I was always a naturally bright, competitive girl at school. One of my mums favourite stories is one where I chastise a childhood friend by saying: "What do you mean you cant read?!?". But when I was younger if whatever I did didn't come naturally, I moved onto something else. I didn't get maths for years in primary school, so concentrated on English. I got my O Levels without revising, but not the A's. My degree was tough, but there were no final exams. But this time, I had to really study, politics, media law, sub-editing, teeline shorthand, newswriting, and keep going over that shit until it sunk into my dreadlocked head, and do exams at the end. Crap.

So yes, on my graduation day I allowed myself a big swell of pride in my achievements. This gyal from White City Estate. The estate whose address meant you couldnt get into a decent school in West London, only the ghetto school on your doorstep where the deputy head had been stabbed by a bad breed pupil, the school that sent you to do work experience in a nursery when you said you wanted to be a journalist.

But luckily for me I had a mother who taught me my alphabet before I started nursery, and always bought newspapers. It's the little things sometimes that make a difference.

Like taking the time to consider what shoes you're going to wear. I should have taken a bit longer as I nearly popped my raas walking across the stage in them dorothys.

But they did look good though.

Welcome To Jamrock

Jamaica has a new Prime Minister. The new leader of the PNP party Portia Simpson Miller has succeeded PJ Patterson who held the post of Prime Minister of Jamaica for some 14 years. Simpson Miller is the third female political leader of the English-speaking Caribbean elected to office in recent times. There was apparently some criticism of the legitimacy of her candidacy as unlike the other Prime Ministerial candidates she does not hold the title of Dr. However, the new Prime Minister said to tumultuous applause in her inaugural speech: "Each individual is sacred. None is more important than the other. Money should not make one person more important than the other, learning should not make one person more important ... nor should class, colour or gender. We are all equal ...".

What a ting? Who would have thought that the country that brought us "women in ya batty rider" and "eye spy what do I spy, p-u-s-s-y in da tight neegle eye" (memories) would elect a female Prime Minister? Bwoy, big tings ah gwaan fe real. Jamaica has serious problems with unemployment, poverty and crime, not to mention the money it owes the rass teef World Bank, so here's hoping Mrs Simpson Miller will be able to do the work needed to uplift Jamrock, and spread the dollars more equitably among the darker-skinned ghetto dwelling bredrins. As my countryman Bob Marley once sang "time alone, oh, time will tell, think you're in heaven but you're living in hell."

On a completely superficial note, Prime Minister Simpson Miller is 60 years old. Yes that's right, 60! I want some of what she's raatid drinking!

The Graduate

Wednesday morning will see me getting dressed up for a different kind of occasion. My graduation ceremony takes place at Central Hall, Westminster just opposite the Abbey, and right near the Houses of Parliament.

I didn't actually have any idea of where Central Hall was until yesterday when Clarke and I happened to walk past it after walking back from Horse Guards Parade where we and a few thousand others watched the Sultan's Elephant outdoor art performance. The elephant was actually the sideshow to our real mission that day, trying to locate some Krispy Kreme donuts in the nearby Tesco Metro. They were completely sold out. Clarke was gutted, and I was relieved as I wasn't sure I would have been able to stop myself from tearing them from her hands to stuff down my own throat.

The hall is around ten minutes from my house so I may even cycle down in my robes on my bike. Yes, I already have a set of robes which I never quite managed to return after the last ceremony. Oops. And I have my sister's mortar board. How funny would that be? I'd look like something out of a Joyce Grenfell movie, flying down Pall Mall on my old school Raleigh racer in my black robes. Except I don't think there were ever any darkies in Joyce Grenfells movies. They were fun though.

I wasn't going to attend the ceremony, but was kind of persuaded it would be good for Clarke to see her mummy and maybe help inspire her to similar heights educationally. Mama ain't raising no fool. You know all that positive role model stuff.
Unfortunately I found out after I had paid for the tickets (yes paid) that Clarke has exams for the next two weeks, and won't be able to come. Bollocks. So kind of feels pointless me going now. She can look at the pictures I suppose.

It always puzzles me when people say Black people don't have any role models. When I was growing up, yes there wasn't loads of black people on TV, and when you did see someone black you would always phone a friend to say "there's a black person in an advert on ITV", but I remember No Problem, Empire Road, Babylon, Trevor McDonald, Love Thy Neighbour, Rising Damp, Lenny Henry, Zeinab Badawi, and Moira Stuart. And then why do your role models have to be black? I've always wanted to be a journalist, since I was in school. I didn't know any black journalists, but I was fascinated with television news, so looked to Trevor McDonald, Anna Ford, Zeinab Badawi (I remember seeing her driving a Maserati in the 90s, LL Cool J had rapped about them). But my role models came from all races, Depeche Mode, David Bowie, Riyuichi Sakamoto, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Roxanne Shante, Jeffery Daniels, Michael Jackson, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Bee Gees, Salt and Pepa, Public Enemy and many others.

My best friend Shazby was a role model because she was the perfect student (when she wasn't trying to beat me up in French or slamming a locker door into my head) I sometimes wished I could be, but my class-clown tendencies wouldn't allow me to. My natural competitiveness meant I would try to equal or better her grades, but as I tell my daughter Clarke now, she put in the hours outside of school but by my teen years I was preoccupied with music, the youth club, boys, clubs, music and boys. Now my daughter wants to be a barrister like her Godmother, Shazby. Well at least she doesn't have to look too far for her role models.

N.B: The pic is of Joyce Grenfell, one of Britain's finest comedic actresses.

Ashley Does Champneys

Took Ashley Cole (Sore) on a mini-break to Champneys Henlow Grange health spa. It was a 40th celebration for the sister of my best friend. I've known them both since I was 12, where did the fucking time go and how come I'm still broke!

What with the sore on my mouth, and a sleep deficit (due to watching The Soprano double bill the night before) I was surely looking forward to some R and R. Although as I was reminded several times, it was not about me.

I asked Shazby before we left if we were gonna be on some starvation rations, because I would have brought some supplies with me. But thankfully the food was just healthy and well-cooked, three courses, no rabbit food. Plus we had a bottle of champagne I'd smuggled in for Beany before dinner, and some contraband chocolates too.

It's only when you try to relax, that you realise how wound up you really are. As I lay on the table being massaged by Zara (lovely therapist who recommended Elemis products and politely reserved judgement on Champneys ones), my mind raced, thinking of a million different ways of how I would write this up for my blog. In the end, I just tried to focus on the part of the body she was massaging, and kept repeating it in my head to get my mind to stop it ticking over, "leg, leg, leg, thigh, thigh, thigh, cellulite, cellulite, cellulite".

The whole place was an oasis of tranquility. Especially the smokers lounge where the birthday woman encountered another guest smoking the old waccy baccy. Yes. She was smoking a spliff out the window like an old lag in Holloway Prison. At a fucking chi-chi spa. When Beany incredulously called the woman out, as all the other people sat ignoring her in that quaint British way, she said: "I smoke it every day. I can't do wivout it." No decorum.

On Saturday morning Shazby and I decided to go for the burn. We were up at 7.30am for a group Powerwalk. Unfortunately we got there in true black people style, late. They had already set off. Hence we were running to catch them up as they sped off down the road. Once we'd caught up, the walking pace was quite fast. Try as we might Shazby and I could not beat this white-haired old lady that was leading the pack. This woman must have had a bionic hip replacement op because she was walking at some Lindsay Wagner (Bionic Woman for my 80s babies) pace and we never got close to her. My fitness kick ain't looking too good right now. Thankfully she gave the hour long gym circuit workout a miss. I don't think my ego could have taken another beating.

The instructor Marcus was dry like crackers, but he knew his stuff and took us through a challenging workout which left us turned out like a pimp's new trick. Shazby retired but I regrouped with Marcus for the Rocky Balboa finish, a one mile run. Adrien! We had a great time, the birthday girl had fun, and saw her 40th in in some style. Well, I don't know if a mud treatments stylish but it was very relaxing.

Arrived back in London all refreshed and looking shiny and new. So of course I decided it would be a great idea to go to Club D-Illusions, rave until 6am and promptly lose that sheen. I guess I wanted to show it off. In the dark. I was wounded for the next two days.

Is that a fucking spot?