In The Loop, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 & FA Cup

It's the Oscars tonight which will undoubtedly be offering a vigorous industry reach-around for Bigelow's ode to testosterone or Cameron's poetic synopsis on how "WE SHOULD LOVE THE EARTH AND STUFF YEAH?". The BBC being the fantastic channel it is offered up it's nominated sweary classic In The Loop. I almost spat out my mash potato when Malcolm Tucker uttered "What is this? The shitting forecast?" in the first scene. The insults only got ruder and cruder throughout. It is essentially The Thick Of It with some added Americans but I don't think anyone's complaining. Great movie, but the only thing that could win a Brit an Oscar is a plasticine man discussing cheese with his pet dog.

After panicking about whether Swapgame would send me a game on time I woke up in a hungover daze on Saturday to find Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sitting under my letterbox. I also found some bills. But that was a whole lot less rewarding or exciting. There is one tempting comparison to make about the game. But I'll resist. So started with the single player campaign which in a nutshell is you and a small band of troops are on a mission to single handedly save the world. You do this via shooting people in the face with guns, tanks, helicopters or even by crushing a building on to them. Obviously onto the face. It all works great and everything but. It's just like Call Of Duty. I don't know which came first or whatever but, it's very similar. I tried to give the multi-player a go but I couldn't connect or I got kicked before it began. Maybe they knew I was a newbie. Still a bit of single player to go (only one twist so far) and no multiplayer but so far so good.

In between all the face shooting there's been another plethora of football on ITV. Which is obviously a mixed bag because it's great to see it on terrestrial but when did Gareth Southgate become their key pundit. At least they've not let Andy Townsend have his fucking computer, that was worse than Andy Gray and his insistence on showing us that wingers will go down the wing for EVERY FUCKING TEAM. Cheers Andy, it's bad enough hearing you take the piss out of Newcastle every time I play Fifa 10 anyway. Anyway very briefly, Portsmouth did well, Fulham v Spurs was dull as hell, Villa had one hell of a comeback after being shown up by Reading and Chelsea did just about enough in another pretty dull game. Here's to Arsenal's uphill task on Tuesday then.

Fahrenheit and A Bit Of Football

I can sympathise with the story in this game given that I barely remember buying it. It was one of those late night eBay bids that seemed like a good idea. I then completely forgot about it until I logged on to my barely used other e-mail address and found out that I'd won the auction and needed to pay for it. Which was nice. So it arrived today (was hoping that Assassin's Creed 2 would be with it, but alas it was not) and I gave it a little whirl. The story I reference at the start is that the game begins with you clearing up a murder you committed. But you don't know why you did it and from there on in the mystery begins. I say from there on in, I'm assuming the mystery begins as I'm not that far in. It's a bizarre little crumpet so far, which is like an adventure game with none of the leaping about and lots of quick time events, conversations and opening cupboards. I'm drawn in though, purely because there's not much else like it. Even now 5 years on from it's release. Apart from the DVD set up of the game which was royally ripped by the massively flawed Alone In The Dark reboot. Anyway, I'll see how I get on with it. Although I think Assassin's Creed 2 will push it on to the back burner.

I don't often chat about football which does belay the love I have for the sport. It certainly is worth mentioning the fantastic performance of Reading against Liverpool on Wednesday night. It was a proper FA Cup match, David v Goliath and Reading were the only ones who really turned up. Rafa is, rightly so, in a fair bit of trouble. Should he go? Yeah of course he should. Looking at the Liverpool team sheet these days is like looking at a team like Porto's. Loads of average European players who barely deserve to be in the team they're playing for let alone an international squad. You just can't see them turning it round either. Worrying to say the least. Finally, here's my accumulator for tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Chelsea
Man Utd
Birmingham
Tottenham
Blackpool
Ipswich
Nottm Forest
Leeds
Bournemouth
Celtic