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The Strange Tale Of Mike Ashley And Ancient Aliens

10 years ago
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The wife has been off on her hols for a while so I’ve been watching more than my usual quota of TV.

On the History Channel I have come across a series that I thought was possibly a remake of Fawlty Towers, but its actually called “Ancient Aliens”. Though it’s just as funny.

Fascinated by it I just can’t flick onto the next channel. It grips me like Vinnie Jones would grip….. well you know what I’m talking about.

For those who have not yet had the dubious pleasure, the whole Ancient Aliens series tries to convince us that life as we know it could not have evolved to the point we are currently at without a vista from extra terrestrial beings who visited earth thousands of years ago and showed us how to design a tin opener and make round rocks.

It’s full of classic quotations like “they look like extra terrestrial runways but I was in the Air Force 6 years and they could never support the weight of any aircraft I ever saw”.

So this particular ‘sceptic’ thinks that an Alien spacecraft, designed and  built hundreds of thousands of light years away, using alien technology would have the same characteristics that we would see in something designed by McDonnell Douglas in the 60s??

They even refer to religious scriptures suggesting that reported heavenly visions were actually aliens in spacecraft. Apparently Moses got the ten commandments from ET and the burning bush was a close encounter.

The Pyramids, The Nasca lines of South America, and even Stonehenge are just too technologically advanced for their time so the only plausible explanation is ‘aliens’.

Of course there is not a single shred of evidence to support this theory, in fact the theory exists simply because of a complete lack of evidence – it’s just the way that a select group of loonies have chosen to interpret the facts, if you can refer to them as such (that’s the facts, not the loonies).

The whole thing is pure speculation.

Jim Carrey got it right in Dumb And Dumber when he asked if there was any chance that Mary would fall for him.

She said about one in a million.

SO YOU ARE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE

A bit like what you read on most blogs.

As if Newcastle fans don’t have enough to concern themselves with it appears that bloggers (and let’s not confuse this particular species with the press) have their big wooden spoons out and are loosening up.

To clarify – the ‘press’ are usually recruited from well educated, qualified individuals who have no moral compass and think that ethics are just around the corner from  thuthics.

The majority of Bloggers on the other hand are almost the same, just without the education and qualifications, and with added broadband and a bluetooth keyboard.

Recent events sum up the mentality of the majority of this species.

The Toon recently got together with fans and held the Fans Forum.

For years we have been complaining that the club don’t involve the fans. So here it is.

Very little from bloggers saying what great progress this is.

Very little mention of the full published minutes.

In fact hardly anything positive at all.

Instead we get garbage like ‘Mike Ashley Plans A Slap In the Face Of Newcastle Fans’.

It was even worded to be vague. Does he plan to slap the fans, or are we talking his plans being a slap?

Here, a blogger with delusions of journalism claims that Mike Ashley’s intent to not sell and keep us in the Premier League is somehow shameful and that we should be chasing silverware at the expense of everything else.

Of course we knew he was not going to sell because he told us that – oooh back in 1926 after his initials efforts to offload failed – but we have for some reason decided that he is again trying to sell.

Oh yes, now I remember – a few months ago some blogger heard what was possibly a fart from one of Ashley’s cats and decided that meant that Ashley was selling if the price was right. Really? Wow, that’s news.

I’d sell my wife if the price was right. Fortunately, she’s not back for a few days and never reads my crap anyway, but everybody has a price.

Ancient Aliens or what?

Actually the price is VERY negotiable!

Back to the plot. Timmy has fallen in the well and Skippy has been sucking lemons again.

Did we learn nothing from our little sojourn into the Europa Cup?

Did our injury list not register with some? The only leagues in which we finished anywhere near the top last season were the injury leagues. We lost almost 500 days (50%) more to injury than any other club, with almost twice as many significant injuries than half of the rest of the teams in the Prem.

Was our brush with relegation not enough of a warning?

Yes – I’m sure we would all like to see a trophy, but do we really want the price of that silverware to be even the remotest possibility of relegation?

How many would like to see Colo out for a month or Ben Arfa back on the physio table in the Michael Owen Wing so we can have a crack at the League Cup?

Vuckic or Dummett? I think we could maybe cope.

Yes yes yes. If we had spent another 30 million on players we would have a bigger squad, we’d have higher wages and bigger debts ……….

Personally, I’d prefer we stayed in the Prem and built up some funds. Whether it’s to buy better players or simply pay off Ashley’s loan – I don’t really care. I’ve waited 44 years to open the trophy cabinet – I can wait a couple more.

Of course the moaners will come out and say that Ashley is just a greedy b**tard and only wants the money. Errrr – yes. Isn’t that the idea? Of course you will all claim that he’s going to run away with it and sit on his yacht in the Med, drinking Champagne and scoffing Ferrero Rocher, but there is no evidence at all to suggest that is the case. We just don’t like Ashley, so we whinge.

I’d think that at worst he is likely to pay off some of the interest free loan that is currently keeping the club afloat.

Others have complained that last season we were looking at top six and finished bottom quarter, and that this year we are only aiming top 10.

What happened to our ambition? It’s called learning from your mistakes and Expectation Management.

Yes – we only got one loanee over the line in the summer but in January we chartered and filled a full carriage one way on the Eurostar.

Wonga took a slating because basically we didn’t take the time to understand what was going on. Turns out Wonga are actually a nice bunch who pat little children on the head and buy flowers for your granny. Fancy that!

But of course Wonga were never going to win this one.

We whinged when the stand was renamed to ‘St James’ Sporting Directly by the Park’. Then we complained when Wonga gave us back SJP.

After all – they were just trying to buy our vote!

Wonga, who had purchased the naming rights to the stadium, were entitled to paint WONGA on the roof in letters 50ft high, visible from space, and chose not to. Can you imagine it? Who’s going to turn that down?

All sounds very Monty Python – “Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!”

We even complained when Wonga funded the return of the ‘iconic’ SJP gates because obviously they were just trying to “buy” our vote. Again.

Apparently the gates were ‘lost’ on Sir John Hall’s estate at Woolsington. As lifetime Emperor of the club how the hell do you lose something like the gates? I bet he had them on the entrance to his Man Cave!

So we praised Sir John and criticised Wonga.

Ashley – as ever – finds himself in the same boat, up the same creek, and lacking similar instruments of propulsion, as far as the fans are concerned.

Does Ashley pay for advertising Sports Direct around the ground?

The answer is no.

Of course Newcastle don’t pay interest on the money he loaned to them, but again and again that counts for nothing and he’s entitled to nothing back in return.

From interest on the loan alone he’s probably 35 to 40 million down, while on investment potential he’s 150 million plus down.

Yeah. You’re right guys. The greedy b**tard!! Only interested in MONEY!

If there was ever a point to this article (and I’m not even sure that there was when I started) it might be that we should stop just listening to the bloggers and maybe form our own opinions.

How many of you have actually read the minutes of the Fans Forum Meeting? No – I don’t mean the edited highlights from NUST. The real ones.

Get on the club site and read the actual minutes.  Good reading that gives you an idea of what they are trying to do.

And it actually makes sense from a business point of view.

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