Richard Keys & Wisdom Teeth

Bloody Z-Shaped Blocks

Richard Keys and Wisdom Teeth are two things that I thoroughly dislike at the moment  I'll start with the Wisdom Teeth seen as, although more painful, it most certainly is the lesser of the two evils. Somewhere in the period between Boxing Day and New Years Eve I found myself thinking, "Have I flossed correctly? I feel like there's something stuck in my teeth at the back..." this soon progressed into, "Is my gum itching?" which eventually morphed into, "AHHHHHHHHHH!! I want to rip the left hand side of my jaw out!!" For anybody thinking it, YES, I am a little old for a Wisdom Tooth to be coming out they supposedly grow through between the ages of 17 and 25 (for those that don't know, I'm 32 (just turned)). See the thing that displeases me about Wisdom Teeth, well there are two things, they are that firstly they are THE most redundant parts of the body since the appendix and tonsils (both ticking time bombs that I've managed to evade thus far). I know that the reason we get them is because in days of old our dental hygiene was so bad that we'd have lost a few of our Adult Teeth by the time they came through thus meaning there would be space for them and they would actually serve a purpose as replacement teeth. So basically what you're saying is that we're paying for our ancestors' poor dental care. Not good enough in my books! We should have either evolved to not have Wisdom Teeth or our ancestors should have had regular check ups and flossed every so often. I mean how hard is it to go to the dentist say once every 6 months? Even if they can only get you an appointment smack back in the middle of the day meaning you have to have a half day holiday or longer lunch break. I reckon the Slave-master would have let my ancestors have a half day once every 6 months (too close to the mark??), I mean it's not as bad as the legal minimum 20 days that our employers now need to give... I'm going to stop with the slave jokes now, they're probably making you feel a little uncomfortable and they have nothing to do with Football, which this blog generally has everything to do with. The second thing that I don't like about Wisdom Teeth is their tendency to come out at ridiculous angles thus ensuring that they'll cause some sort of pain at least and if you're really unlucky (I was) an infection. It's like when you used to play Tetris and you were waiting for that one long thin line of four blocks to clear a load of lines. It'd always be Z-Shape, Z-Shape, Z-Shape the other way round, Square, Z-Shape, Inverted L-Shape... and before you knew it, game over (and at game over the next block column would show that the next one due down was the long thing four blocks that you'd needed all along, bastards)! Send me down a Wisdom Tooth that fits the space in my gum damn you!!

Back onto the subject of Football, yes I do love a random, slightly humorous, rant but as mentioned before, this blog is generally about Football. The other thing that is recently developed a disliking for is Richard Keys. See the thing is I remember Keys as a slightly hairy, affable presenter on TV-AM in the 1980's, yeah I'm THAT old (see my age previously mentioned), but years working as the main Presenter on Sky TV's football shows have turned Mr Keys into the offensive and (dated) opinionated beast that we know today. But why do I care? Well I didn't until recently, I'd heard about the controversy and how others had felt about he and his sidekick Andy Gray, but although slightly intrigued I'd hardly given the two of them a second thought. That was until recently. I've know for a while that since being unceremoniously dumped by Sky after numerous 'incidents' the pair were presenting a radio show on Talksport. As I work Monday to Friday 9 to 5 in an office I'd never really had a chance to tune in. But in my current job I can listen to the radio (through headphones) while working, so a few months ago I tuned in and have been doing so every Monday morning between 10 and 12, mainly out of curiosity. What I found when I tuned in was what I'd expected to be fair, Keys and Gray spouting the same rubbish about the Premiership being the best league in the world in the face of any overwhelming facts that proved otherwise and taking great pleasure in latching onto any negative facets that other professional football leagues in Europe may have in an attempt to belittle their credibility. For example most weeks Keys takes great pleasure in reminding listeners of the points deductions that some teams in Serie A have been given for various scandals. I'm not condoning cheating or saying that the clubs in Serie A are whiter than white, I'm aware that there are all sorts of questions that are continually asked with regard to the conduct of officials and the decisions that the bigger clubs get that go in their favour. This wasn't even enough to put my nose out of joint either, I just rolled my eyes and said to myself, "Ol' Keys and Gray are at it again..." When they had a representative from the Society of Black Lawyers on the show discussing the growing pandemic of Racism in Football and a plan for a Black PFA, although I agree some of his points were a little off the mark, Keys and Gray had some questionable points on the matter in my mind. Still, I thought to myself, "They're on the radio doing a show, and they're entitled to their opinions, which some people may agree with." What got me though was when a few weeks ago when Keys had another jibe at "Foreign Football" and I, as many other listeners do, wrote a tweet out in response to Keys' comment... but for some reason Twitter wasn't predicting his user name for me (it should do so for everyone I follow)?? So I searched for the @tSKeysandGray, their username, to check that I was still following them, and discovered that I had in fact been blocked. For what? All I've ever tweeted is stuff on European Football and once a response to the suggestion that the Society of Black Lawyers was in itself an exclusive/divisive organisation. That response being that they exist as there are lawyers of ethnic backgrounds that feel that they are at such a disadvantage due to their ethnic background that they need to be represented through a collective body. And that we should be questioning why we need such a body in this day and age rather than whether they are exclusive. Or words to that effect. Is that blockworthy? I feel as if I've been wronged! I feel like Charlotte Jackson (but not as hot)! I feel like Nelson Mandela, actually I don't, the Mandela thing was definitely not as trivial, but it makes me want to sing, "Freeeeeeeeeeeee Nelson Mandela Travis Newton!!" So here it is, I've been blocked for 19 days to my knowledge (I discovered I was blocked on the 17th of December 2012), I'd like to be freed from my @tSKeysandGray twitter incarceration so I'm going to make a deal out of this until Keys, who claims the account is just his and nothing to do with Gray (that's right Andy, my beef isn't with you), unblocks me. He probably wont even find out about my one man campaign and therefore I'll be blocked forever but as you guys that know about the European World Cup found out in the summer, I can run and run with a joke forever! Even when it no longer seems funny!

19 days...

PS Would you smash it??

PPS The Mark Langdon segment of their show on a Monday morning is really good. Mark is not to be tarred with their brush (I have no beef with you either Mark)!