The Arch Bastard of Cunterbury....

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury is having a laugh, right? 

"I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling because it doesn't look as if justice is seen to be done."

I'm sorry? It doesn't look as if justice is seen to be done? In your view, you mean? How dare you foist your pathetic moral dogshit on the rest of us. If you want to talk about justice, perhaps you should ask the countless thousands of people who've been killed as a result of Osama bin Laden's extremist hyperbole. How many people have been forced to suffer in bin Laden's name. Powerful enough that he and people like him are able to brainwash human beings into blowing themselves up because they'll be rewarded in heaven. Yes, Rowan, even they're victims, too.

Osama bin Laden was without any shadow of doubt the leader of Al Qaeda, an organisation responsible for the murder of innocent men, women and children on an epic scale. Frankly, the fact that the killing of an unarmed Osama bin Laden makes you uncomfortable makes me feel sick. Have you conveniently forgotten the people who had a choice of burning to death or jumping a thousand feet to their deaths on 9/11? Have you forgotten about the 30,000 or so people, civilian and military, who've lost their lives in Pakistan because of this man? Have you forgotten about the London and Madrid bombings, Bali, the USS Cole, Glasgow and Stockholm? Please.

I have no interest in your religion nor any other. I don't discriminate upon a religious basis because to me they're all utter shite. It always appears to me that regardless of your faith and your denomination within that faith, you each use the same God to tell the next man this his views or his morals are wrong or that he's less of a man than you are. I struggle to find any relevance in religion whatsoever because of the half-arsed verbal diarrhoea that perpetually dribbles from the mouths of all religious leaders, but today, Rowan, you've taken the biscuit.

Keep your ridiculous moral dilemma to yourself. It's not about whether or not you think justice has been done, or whether it's seen to have been done. Why don't you ask the families of bin Laden's victims if they think justice has been done? Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things if one utter bastard of a man is picked off and 'buried' at sea? Really?

To me, your appearance gives you away, you scruffy bastard. A wire brush, a bottle of Dettol, a beard trimmer, some nail clippers and a bloody good barber might be enough to sort that bit out. Sadly it appears that whatever damage has occurred to your brain is irreparable.

   

Who Do These Cunts Think They Are?!

Well, I'm sure you can imagine my total DISGUST at receiving this today.  Honestly, this sort of correspondence gets you nowhere. Fast. 

Graham White Solicitors. Solicitors my arse. I faxed them a nice response. See below. Thought I'd share.

 

Mr James O’Hanlon

15 Xxxxxxxx Xxxxx

Xxxxxxx

Xxxxx

WD19 6XX

Graham White Solicitors

Manor House

Lavender Park Road

West Byfleet

KT14 6ND

Your Ref:

Dear Sir

I write to you regarding the above account and in response to your letter dated January 19^th 2011. I have attached your letter for your reference.

I would have liked the opportunity to speak to one of your call centre minions but sadly despite having tried 5 times this morning and experiencing a wait of over 10 minutes on each call, I have given in and decided to use the fax machine in the all too likely vain hope that a human being might actually have the decency to pick it up and do the right thing with it.  If I'm honest, listening to your hold music droning on and on was begininning to have a profound effect on my will to live.

Now, to the matter at hand.  You allege that I owe £222.79 to the Talk Talk Group.  You are completely and utterly incorrect in your allegation given that the full amount was paid on January 10^th 2011.  This payment was made directly to AOL Broadband who, should you wish to contact them, will confirm the payment for you. I’m sure if you dig a little bit deeper with AOL they will also tell you the reasons why payment was made directly to them, and not to your company.  When you have contacted AOL and received the necessary information, I require that you update your records immediately.

I rather enjoyed reading your letter which advised me to ‘take notice’ of your ‘intended litigation’ and that if I am in any doubt as to the seriousness of ‘this situation’ I should seek independent legal advice.  Obviously the ploy of trying to frighten people witless will work with the ill informed, but I ask you to ‘take notice’ that I haven’t been working in the debt recovery industry for 11 years without learning a thing or two.  I’m not sure that your regulatory authority will be altogether pleased with the threatening tone of your letter, so I have taken the opportunity to fax a copy to them. Perhaps they will advise you of any changes they believe you need to make regarding the glaring clarity issues that exist in your correspondence, the most surprising being that you have threatened the seizure of my personal assets by Bailiffs on what is an unsecured alleged debt and before you’ve obtained any court judgment.

With the above in mind I give you notice that should I receive any further correspondence from you regarding this issue, I shall regard it as harassment and will report you to the necessary authorities in order that you cease.

Your Ref:

Furthermore, I’ve taken the opportunity to do some research about your company and found that you have a rap sheet trailing back over a number of years.  People comment that calls and letters go unanswered, Subject Access Requests go ignored and that you are perpetually in breach of the Data Protection Act.  None of these issues put you on a very strong footing should I decide to use the correct channels for the reporting of such things.

There is a question mark as to why your company is called ‘Graham White Solicitors’. Could it be that you wish to share in the decent reputation of the Graham White Solicitors in Bushey, Hertfordshire, who, by coincidence, happen to be my Solicitors? (The same Solicitors who, by the morning of Tuesday 25^th January 2011, will be in possession of all of your correspondence to me to date)  Is Michael Sobell of ‘Graham White Solicitors’ the same Michael Sobell who works for Hackney Council?  If so, do Hackney Council know that he seems to have his fingers in an awful lot of sticky pies.

In summary I wish to reiterate three points: 

The amount you allege I owe has been paid in full.

Should I receive any more threatening correspondence from you it will be passed to my Solicitor who will make a harassment complaint against you in the Court, and you will be reported to your own Regulatory Authority

Any collections agent you send to my door will be guilty of trespass, has no legal right of entry, and will be reported to the Police.

I require that you provide me with written evidence that this matter is now settled, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours

James O’Hanlon

Stick that up your arse and smoke it. 

In all fairness...

I feel terrible for Aaron Ramsey. I really do. A serious injury like he has sustained is a dreadful thing, there can be no argument. But...

And there is a very large but...

I feel dreadful for Ryan Shawcross, too.

When all things are equal, you have to look at the facts in the harsh light of day. There is much wrong with football, and we could harp on about video replays and the offside rule for years. You may think that this is about to be some psychotic anti-Arsenal, anti-Arsene Wenger rant, but read on, for you may be surprised.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I'm afraid I fall on the side of Stoke City manager Tony Pulis when it comes to when and where someone should air them. It's not right that immediately after a game - even if it's a dull 0-0 draw - that a microphone is shoved under a manager's nose. The questions are invasive and designed to get a reaction from managers and players, and that can't be right. We accept that people say and do daft things in the heat of the moment, so would it not be a better idea to allow the heat of the moment to pass before asking a manager what they think about the latest wrong decision or dodgy tackle?

Probably.

But we all know that is what happens. Managers know it. Players know it. And we as punters know it. We love it - it gets us talking. So, on to my points.

I'm going to start with Rafa Benitez, the odd man of Liverpool. It seems to me that after every game he is critical of something. The thing is, he dodges the issue at hand with what he clearly considers to be his charm and wit. I think he brings the game into disrepute by sarcastically not saying very much at all. 'Everything the referee did was fine'. Why say anything at all if you don't mean it? Would he like to be treated like that? To have every move scrutinised and criticised to such an extent that eventually he was unable to do right for doing wrong? He's fortunate in that he has so far managed to maintain support from the terraces, or he'd be out on his ear. History, of course, is firmly in the past. The attitude that there is somehow some God-given right to success because of past achievements is wholly unacceptable, and that's the very attitude he puts across.

The facts at Liverpool are really quite plain. It's entirely down to Rafa Benitez and his clearly not so good management skills that Liverpool are only hanging on to fourth spot by the skin of their teeth. Allowing Xabi Alonso to leave was a disaster. That was a mistake, Rafa, and everyone makes them. Even you.

Now, on to Mr Wenger and what I perceive to be his failings. Wenger's failings are few and far between, but to deny that he doesn't have one huge flaw is just ridiculous. You don't have to necessarily like someone in order to have respect for them. Wenger is Arsenal's most successful manager in the modern era. You have to respect him for his achievements, for the way in which his team plays the game, and for his nouse in the transfer market to some degree. But I find myself rapidly losing respect for him because he sometimes says some patently ridiculous things.

What happened on Saturday to Aaron Ramsey was just bloody awful, and when you witness something like that you have to put your tribalism aside. As I've said, I feel desperately sorry for him. I also feel sorry for Ryan Shawcross. No professional footballer is going to go into a challenge like that with the malicious intent to break someone's leg. We are dealing in split seconds here and I think we'd agree that there was no malicious intent on the part of Ryan Shawcross. His reaction to the incident made it perfectly obvious that he hadn't meant it. Mistimed? Yes. Horrific? Absolutely. Does he deserve to be publicly vilified? Absolutely not.

Serious injury is a part of football. As a Spurs fan I can remember the challenge on Gary Stevens that pretty much ended his career. I can remember John Fashanu's horrendous elbow on Gary Mabbutt. Jan Wouters on Paul Gascoigne at Wembley in 1993. Ben Thatcher on Pedro Mendes not so long back. There are thousands of examples of malice in football, but what happened on Saturday was not one of them.

I do not agree with Arsene Wenger that his players aren't protected enough, and I do believe in coincidence. Arsenal play attractive, top quality football - we'd be utterly daft to deny it. But God knows it hasn't always been that way! I struggle most with Arsene Wenger's habit of publicly slagging off everyone and everything that doesn't conform to his current idea of how the game should be played. For a man who for fourteen years has presided over a team with one of the worst disciplinary records in the Premier League, it is absolutely astounding that he should accuse other players and clubs of kicking his team off the park.

I wholeheartedly stand by this point of view: It is an absolute miracle that, although an immensely talented footballer, Patrick Vieira's behaviour in an Arsenal jersey did not result in him having seriously injured someone. Arsene Wenger would be much more credible had he acknowledged and accepted that. He didn't at the time, and he hasn't since. This is precisely why he is in absolutely no position to take the moral high ground on matters of discipline. Afterall, what's good for the goose?

Wenger carries on about what is and isn't acceptable as if he is The Chosen One in terms of football management. What is unacceptable is that Wenger has consistently defended the indefensible and never offered even mild public criticisism of his own players for their misdemeanours on a football pitch. If you aren't going to do at least that, you have no right to criticise players from other teams, and the constant 'I didn't see it' cop out is not good enough when it's one of your own who is in the wrong.

I can understand why Wenger, Arsenal, and their fans are upset with what happened on Saturday. But just ask yourself this: If one of your boys was half a second late on Shawcross on Saturday, and it was his leg that had been broken in equally horrendous circumstances, would you want your player banned for life? Would you want his reputation being brought into question? Would you want someone with the same clout as Arsene Wenger passing judgement on him?

At least Tony Pulis had the good common sense and decency to come out and give an honest view on the matter, without avoiding the issue by saying he didn't see it.

There are some things that are indefensible on a football pitch. I'm a Spurs fan, but I would never shy away from saying that Paul Gascoigne was a fucking idiot in the 1991 FA Cup Final - footballing genius or not. Moreover, one of the worst tackles I've ever seen on a football pitch was Tottenham full back Mauricio Tarrico's effort against some poor Evertonian a few years back. It's impossible to defend behaviour like that. So why try? But at the same time I accept that accidents happen. Was Luka Modric nobbled deliberately by Lee Bowyer earlier this season? Course not. It was an accident, and accidents happen as often as coincidences.

Everything has to be put into perspective. The managers of our beloved teams are not always right. We'd all do well to make up our own minds instead of standing behind people who have opinions that are so clearly flawed.