Elegy for Paul the Octopus

Nearly won a competition with this, but it was proxime accessit, so a shame to waste … the subject is the octopus who allegedly picked the winners in the World Cup Final matches

Did you, Paul, predict each ball,

To pick each winning nation?

Or tensing tentacles, was all

Your skill prestidigitation?

No matter if it was a sly trick:

We still salute you as a psychic.

                          *

Among the mystics, Paul, your star is

As high and bright as Sirius:

Uncommon octopus vulgaris,

You left us half-delirious.

Rune-reading: there is nothing scarier,

Lost titan of the world’s aquaria.

                             *

And yes, dear modest cephalopod,

Though you could have scooped the pools,

We mourn you as a demigod

As you leave us, grieving fools.

Nearly caught by the scam

There you are, minding your business on a Saturday morning. You’re intelligent, or like to think you are, and you know what you’re doing, you think. You aren’t going to be caught out by the world beyond your computer, which is a bit slow, but hey that’s life.

The phone rings. It is an associate of Microsoft calling you, because his company, a partner of Microsoft, has been asked to contact customers who have a fault on their computer. He can prove who he is, and he gives you a number to call (02032867078) and an address, too, 119/121 Westbourne Grove, London W2 4UP.  He is called ‘John Abraham’. He has an accent somewhere from the Indian sub-continent, and he directs you to various entries in your registry which say ‘Warning’ or ‘Error’. ‘More than 20, oh dear, oh dear.’ His company is the one who made the faulty part and has undertaken to fix them for their partners, Microsoft.

He has my address.

This is the kind of alarming image you are shown when you search ‘eventvwr’. It is in fact absolutely normal:

Help, my computer is dying (not)

 

I am asked to go to e-prosolution.com. There are banner headings, one of which reads Hello! We are professional team of Software designers and we would like to share our with you! (sic) But I don’t spot this until later, of course. John Abraham is speaking very quickly, and sometimes incomprehensibly. He also fails to connect me to his site, because (the machine says) my firewall is blocking it. He calls his supervisor. His supervisor gets me to use Firefox. Bingo. I can give him access to my machine (his supervisor is speaking even more speedily), and he can fix the error, which a virus has made endemic in the whole world. It’s Saturday and I am tired. They are going to take forty minutes to fix my machine, but we’ve only just managed to connect.

Hello, what’s this? It’s a payment screen. All I have to do is to pay them £169. Incredulously, I ask them if they’re joking. But they’re not. They can fix in 40 minutes what local agents will take hours and shedloads of cash to solve.

I ring off and contact The Geek Squad. They may be partners with Carphone Warehouse (hmmm) but they are by far the best support network there is. ‘It’s a scam,’ they say.

It would be irresponsible of me to ask you to ring John Abraham (see above) and give him a piece of my mind.

Newcastle 5 Sunderland 1

“Niall Quinn said that the team “owes its people” following the dreadful display at St James’ Park, which saw Sunderland tumble to their heaviest Tyne-Wear reverse for nearly a quarter of a century”  (Newcastle Journal)

Is it me, or is this an over-reaction? Also, is it a quarter of a century, or ‘since 1955′ (BBC Radio Newcastle)?

I decided to spend Mourning Sunday not listening to the game, so I could watch the game on TV later on. I did not look at my brother’s text (surely news of a hat-trick by Sunderland’s Darren Bent?) But you can’t escape. I made the mistake of logging on to look at an email, and found that Steve Bruce (Sunderland’s manager) had already emailed me his profound apologies via the SAFC web-site.

By chance I’d also (rare event) had my hair cut on the Saturday, the first time outside the South-West. But you can’t travel to Devon just because you like the person who cuts your hair. The new trim passed off without tears.

Monday morning at work in Gateshead. There are four Sunderland supporters out of 70 staff at work, one of whom is in denial. There is a handful who don’t go in for football. That left me vulnerable to about 50-55 others. It started on the ground floor (‘I’m only talking to you out of pity’), and continued up through the other two. Suggestions that my hair cut in penance were rife. ‘Wait for the replay: you’ll look like Yul Brynner,’ added another.

But the winning jibe? ‘You support Sunderland? No wonder you’re a creative writer.’

I love it up here.

P.S. But Steve Bruce should be replaced by Martin O’Neill asap.