Wednesday, May 12, 2004

There can be only one

The polls have closed and the votes have been counted, and at last we can announce the winner of the Scaryduck Movie Quotes Poll, the authoritative better-than-all-these-shite-ones-organised-by-national-newspapers vote on the issues that really matter. No chick-flicks. No poncy art-house. We are only concerned with the one, true medium of cinematic genius: drunken bloke.

So, it hardly comes as a great surprise to find that the greatest movie line of all time came from the lips of a dragged-up Terry Jones in The Life of Brian, with his Shakespearean utterance on the futility of life and the fragility of the human condition. Or maybe he was just playing for laughs:

"He's not a messiah. He's a very naughty boy!"

In second place comes Richard E Grant's "We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here and we want them now!" from Withnail and I; while third came Belushi and Aykroyd's "It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. "Hit it." from The Blues Brothers.

All these movies are jam-packed with memorable quotes, so I get the impression you lot were voting for the films rather than the quotes themselves. At least Pretty Woman didn't win. There may have been deaths.

Another, rather more inspired, vote soon. When I get my act together.

Gratuitous swearing department - annual report

Oh, for the love of Leslie Ash's fish-lips, they've gone and appointed a Football Chants Laureate, some so-called football fan who is in charge of researching and writing new football chants. The world's worst poet, Andrew Motion, was one of the judges, and gave this idiot ten grand to go and get on with it.

The Chants Laureate, as Sweary Lyle puts it, is a fucking stupid idea, and for one very good reason. He's not allowed to swear or be offensive to other teams. Now pardon me, but the entire point of chanting at football matches is to swear and be as offensive as possible, and the entire chants laureate idea reflects some sort of fictional vision of 1950s schoolboys with duffel coats and a rattle, which is, of course, complete bollocks. We would have kicked their heads in for a start.

Football chants are, by their own nature, spontaneous, and the thought of some clever dick sitting at home writing down non-offensive rhymes to DJ Otzi's "Hey Baby" almost makes me glad that the guy's had to grow up with the trauma of supporting Birmingham City.

Where would modern football be without this little number, for example?

My old man said be a Tottenham fan
I said fuck off, bollocks, you're a cunt (you're a cunt)"


...described by scholars and social commentators alike as "a tough, uncompromising view of hierarchical conflict in a disjointed familial environment where the younger generation rejects the taken-for-granted standards of the paternalist power structure. However, one cannot discount the realist argument that the father may actually be a cunt."

So much for Freud.

"The wankers Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope
The wankers Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope
The wankers Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope
And this is what he said: FUCK OFF!"


"A challenge to the world view of Papal infallibility and the inclusive nature of the Catholic Church in the face of pre-conceived ideas regarding masturbation, within the social confines of a third-rate football club managed by a kerb-crawler."

The day the so-called Chants Laureate comes up with something to rival this is the day I buy a season ticket for the Spurs, of which there are a plentiful supply.

Any official attempt to raise a happy-jolly atmosphere in football grounds is doomed to failure. Even Arsenal this season held a fans' day in which a specially-selected forum (a bunch of wazzers from Islington called Tarquin), came up with "The Arsenal Ditty". This was printed onto red A4 paper and left every seat in the ground at great expense. 38,000 paper airplanes later, and frenzied public address appeals to "Stop it before somebody loses an eye" the idea was quietly dumped.

I bet he can't even do the "You're shit - Aaaaaaargh!" thing right.

The Scaryduck Archive

No comments: