Part Time Blogger...

Well that's that then. My easy peasy, standing on my head, so untaxing that I've been able to write two novels and a play in two years, job has come to an end and I've had to enter the real world. This means that as of now my blog will be a lot less regular - I'll still post news on my fledgling writing career and my opinions on anything and everything, there'll just be a larger gap between posts.

I hope that you will continue to log on and check out whatever's new and that you don't get too frustrated when your comments aren't displayed as quickly as they are now. Anyway, fingers crossed that I don't get the sack from my new job before I've paid the mortgage off and I'll see you later.

Writing News

Still no word from anyone about 'Special' - which means I'm still unsigned if anyone's interested - but no news is good news in the literary world (or maybe I just made that up!). I'm also thinking of entering the Daily Mail's Debut Novel competition but am undecided at present - I'll let you know.


I've received a request to cast my 'expert' eye over the first draft of a debut novel from an aspiring and talented author I know. The novel in question, 'On the March' is a fictional account of the experiences of four young lads when they join the army in the early nineties and is chock full of references to the culture of the time - Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Ecstasy etc.

Personally, If I was in possession of my own publishing company or literary agency then I would take a good look at this and market it along the lines of 'This is why Prince Harry goes off the rails sometimes' just as the furore over his non active military career reaches it's peak in the tabloids - mind you I'm biased!

If anyone in the trade does want to contact the author though then let me know.

Ps - On the march is a term used by us northern types to describe the custom of necking cans of lager en-route to the bus stop for a night out, thus maximising drinking time - Young Harry may well substitute the lager for Cristal champagne and the bus for a chauffeur driven limo but I bet he still does it!

SHEPHERD OUT

Below is a link to an article by True Faith Magazine - it encapsulates the situation at Newcastle completely and should be read by all right thinking Mags.

http://www.true-faith.co.uk/html/Features/shepherdout.htm

The fat pikey's had enough of our cash - let's not give him any more eh?

Moving to the Beat...

My story - 'The Invisible Man' has been accepted and displayed by the very prestigious (and top quality) 'The Beat' Ezine.

http://the-beat.co.uk/

Feel free to go there and see my name on the front page - if you'd like to comment on it (positively of course) then all the better.

The times they are a changing...

News just in...


Newcastle get £133m buyout offer

Billionaire businessman Mike Ashley has launched a £133.1m ($263m) offer for Newcastle United football club. The offer came after the retail entrepreneur said he had bought a 41.6% stake in the Premiership team from Sir John Hall's family for more than £55m. Mr Ashley said his firm St James Holdings Limited (SJHL) had bought 55.3 million shares in the club at 100 pence a share. He added that his offer priced the rest of the club's shares at the same level. Earlier this year Mr Ashley earned himself more than £900m after the flotation of his Sports Direct retail chain which he set up in 1982. The group runs the Sports World retail chain and Lillywhites, and its brands include Dunlop, Kangol and Karrimor. SJHL added that the offer price represented a 19% premium on the 84p closing price of Newcastle's shares on Tuesday 22 May.

This means that Shepherd will either sell up or dig his heels in. If he decides to stay then he may find that Mr. Ashley objects to his pathetic attempts at leadership and removes him from the chairmans office.

Either way the countdown has started - obviously aided by my series of hard hitting articles! ... TAXI FOR SHEPHERD!

Spot the Difference...

Alan Oliver of The Newcastle Evening Chronicle has been accused by many supporters of being simply a PR man for the current chairman of the mighty Magpies. I couldn't possibly comment on this, however, I thought you may like to have a look at the following excerpts from articles written by Mr. Oliver.

Written by Alan Oliver on Mar 6 2006 when Mr. Shepherd was ignoring fans views on who should be the next manager of Newcastle and talking up Glenn Roeder (the cheap option!).

Those fans who have had a little wager on Sam Allardyce being the next manager of Newcastle United know what they have to do today - tear up their betting slip.
The bookies make Big Sam third favourite behind Martin O’Neill and Roberto Mancini, but there is no way the United supporters will want to see their team playing the way Bolton play - even if it’s another 50 years before they win a trophy.
In fact, it’s a good job Alan Green, the Radio Five man who called Bolton’s football ugly and fell out with Allardyce, wasn’t at St James’ Park on Saturday.
Ugly? That was almost playing Bolton a compliment. It was joyless, brutal stuff, especially compared with some of the one-touch football United played at times.

And just over a year later when Big Sam had been given the job and thus endorsed by Mr. Shepherd.

Written by Alan Oliver on May 17 2007

I remember Bolton beating United at the Reebok on the last day of October in 2004. It was Graeme Souness’ first reverse as United manager after seven wins and a couple of draws.
Souness came across to me just outside the United dressing room and started bleating about Bolton’s tactics.My immediate reaction was to think “well, you are paid £2m a year to come up with ideas to combat whatever tactics opposing managers may throw at you”.
The Bolton brand of football has been perceived as functional, physical, long-ball and unattractive.Allardyce’s response to those jibes was always the same -If Chelsea played that way, it was fashionable. If Bolton followed a similar path, it was grubby.

Never bite the hand that feeds you Alan eh?

Everything is average nowadays - Part 2

Trying to buy a normal cup of coffee anywhere without using the words latte or mocha; Football being as far removed from the working classes as politicians are; Pedantic council officials; The man who stole the pensions of millions of hard working citizens being rewarded with running the entire country; People with nicknames like 'Disco' or 'Daz' for beating me at the dream team game - pair of nobs; Them twats who DELIBERATELY go to the 'Basket only' or 'Ten items or less' queues in the supermarket with too much in their basket/trolley and think they're above the rules; Ruth Kelly; The cult of 'celebrity'; Modern Art (Anthony Gormley excepted); 'Reality' Television - lazy, braindead shite; Continuing articles/stories/revelations about an overprivileged woman who never had to work a day in her life and died in a car accident ten years ago - get over it; Students again (particularly the ones in Oxford who jump off the bridge every May Day); Litterbugs and gumdroppers; People who cross the road to walk two steps in front of you and then proceed to look round all nervous as if you're going to mug them, causing you to speed up and get past them when you really can't be arsed; Being made redundant from a job that was easy enough to allow you to write two books and maintain a blog.

They all boil my piss!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

Honestly you turn your back for five minutes and everything happens at once.

The Good

Sam Allardyce has been appointed manager at Newcastle United. There are a few people spouting the usual media led cliches about the long ball game etc. but make no mistake about it, thanks to Freddys 'inspired leadership' we are deep in the shite and as such he is the best manager we could have got. He will bring organisation, resolve and character to a dressing room that is as spineless as it is mercenary (Owen agititating for a move - twat!) and he'll introduce intelligent tactics designed to nullify and upset whoever we're playing against. The timing is correct for once as well, I suspect more by luck than design as our chairman isn't known for his forward planning.

I've been offered a new job starting straight after my current one becomes redundant so I've told our lass she doesn't have to start shopping at Netto's or Aldi's just yet!!

Scarecrow Magazine/Ezine have accepted 'Blagger' for publication - I'll post a link to them when it's on display.


The Bad

The abuse Glenn Roeder suffered, both at the match and on various forums, before he went was not necessary. Glenn was one of us, he had the good grace to go without holding the club to ransom (unlike his predecessor - the scottish fraud), he saved this club from relegation when he took over from Grim Shitness and he was obviously denied transfer funds by the fat pikey when he needed them most. He goes with my good wishes for the future.

Charles N'Zogbia, Obafemi Martins - both refused to play for the club against Watford for various reasons. I don't care what those reasons were or how they seek to explain themselves, they (along with Dyer who has previous for this as well) can just f**k off now.

Mr. Shepherd has used the appointment of a new manager to hide the fact he is putting up season ticket prices - Using his favourite pet local reporter he managed to spin this as good news by saying that if you renewed your ticket in the next few weeks the price would be frozen but after that they would go up. Newcastle United have the most expensive ticket prices outside of London, a number of clubs that finished above Newcastle in the league actually REDUCED their prices, the television money received by clubs is about to increase massively to the point where they could give tickets away for free and still not lose money - yet ours are going up. I wonder what sort of dividends the major shareholders will be getting this year?


The Ugly

The Wallsend Ultras - now that's ugly!

Holiday...Celebrate...

Right then lads and lasses,

I know my nonsense is now required reading for all you intelligent types (and the Wallsend Ultras) but I'm off to Greece tonight. As such this blog is now officially on holiday for a week or so, apologies to anyone who wishes to comment on my various rants/stories/shite but they won't show until I'm back to moderate them.

In the meantime, amuse yourselves by checking out some of my website links, buying stuff through my Amazon search box and clicking on some of the adverts to peruse their wares - who knows I might be able to afford the holiday if you do it enough!

Incidentally, I'm being made redundant from my job on my return so any employers who'd like a witty, urbane and damn handsome looking chap in their company feel free to let me know.

See you later.

Oh Yeah - SHEPHERD OUT!

The irony of it all...

I have made mention of 'The Wallsend Ultras' in the recent past and been accused of unfairness towards those JCL's but the following story may shed some light on a division in their ranks and my antipathy towards them and their ilk.

On Saturday seven of them met at their pre-match pub for their usual round of Babychams and spritzers. Six of them were wearing the new, designed by a blind West Brom fan, home shirt. The only one not wearing the new shirt was roundly abused by the others but bravely stood his ground against a sea of razor sharp and incisive critcism - 'Hoo man whors ya short like ya tramp' etc. etc.

Two hours later, feeling a little tiddly after numerous Martinis, the Wallsend chaps joined the rest of the crowd in singing 'Shepherd Out' and 'Sack the Board' - oblivious to the fact that they had just prolonged his regime by GIVING HIM FORTY QUID EACH!!

Nobheads!!

PS - Special mention to Gook for being the only one of the seven with a brain and a special 'you need a punch in the face' award to Nick the Nashman, aka Turkey for queueing up from midnight to get the shirt!

Writing Websites...

Following on from my Toon links post I can recommend the following for anyone of a literary persuasion.

http://www.britlitblogs.com/index.php

http://www.writersdock.co.uk/

http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/

http://hodmandod.blogspot.com/

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/

Happy reading (and writing).

Everything is average nowadays...

Fat people in tracksuits;Johnny come latelys disagreeing with my views on Newcastle United and football in general;Call Centres - bastards;Being taxed until you squeak;Cockney neighbours with loud dogs;Plastic policeman;Real policeman;Lying, cheating, two faced, hypocritical politicians;Jamie Oliver (that's for Daz);The Newcastle Evening Chronicle;People who get in my way at the supermarket while they dither over which processed pile of E-numbers to feed to their ill-mannered ungrateful offspring;Wankers who slow down excessively when a speed camera appears up ahead;Charvas;Twats who send them stupid chain e-mails that promise death and destruction if you don't forward them to at least ten other people;Students

All parcels of shite!!

Toon Websites...

I've recently linked this blog with the excellent 'Black n White and read all over' and suggest you take a look if you're of the magpie persuasion. In fact, just in case you can't be bothered to look down the page for my links section I'll present you with the cream of Newcastle United interwebbery right here...

http://www.blackandwhiteandreadallover.blogspot.com/

http://www.true-faith.co.uk/html/main.htm

http://boards.rivals.net/default.asp?sid=893&p=16&forumid=5689

http://www.nufc.com/

Have Fun!

Writing News

I found out this morning that unfortunately 'Special' didn't make the shortlist for the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger award BUT I did get a swift reply from an agent I contacted yesterday asking to see my work as it 'sounds interesting indeed'. The agent in question (very well established and reputable) also gave me a bit of advice that was very helpful.

Fingers crossed!

Kieron Courtney Dyer

• Kieron has been at Newcastle United for the best part of seven years and in that time the number of really good games he has had can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
• He is twenty eight and a half years old and we are still talking about 'potential'.
• He has been involved in numerous off the field incidents that involve alcohol, young women and tabloid front pages.
• In 2004 he refused to play on the right wing for Newcastle United as requested by his then manager Sir Bobby Robson (the next week he played on the left wing for England)
• In the same game when passed the captains armband by a withdrawn Alan Shearer he threw it on the floor
• He is reported to be on a weekly wage of between £50k and £80k
• He had an on field fight with team mate Lee Bowyer leading to them both being sent off.

In short he is the archetypal premiership footballer, average in talent but big on hype. He is very fast but then so was Road Runner. In a season when Newcastle have performed, in the main, spinelessly and without pride, our manager saw fit to make this waster captain of OUR team. He responded to this in the manner we all knew he would, he was anonymous apart from giving the ball away to the opposition for their winning goal.

Alan Oliver in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle (or the daily Shepherd as it is known amongst fans) states today that he thought the decision to make Dyer captain on motivation grounds was 'fair enough' and then opines that the player would not pass a medical in a big money move and so will remain a Newcastle player next season.

Right, so he's not fit enough to play for a big club but we'll keep giving him bucketloads of cash for the privilege of seeing him walk idly round the pitch in a black and white shirt next season?

The number of fans who have told me they have had enough of the way the club is run was worryingly high before Mondays capitulation but the mood worsened considerably when the team were led out by a bling merchant who isn't fit to wear an armband only recently vacated by Alan Shearer.

Does Roeder have the first idea of what he's caused by this action?

Kieron Dyer captain of Newcastle, Jesus can this season get any worse?

Stop the Spin - SHEPHERD OUT!