Phones 4 A Fool
Topic: levers
I forced myself into buying a contract phone the other day. A wise choice when you consider, that every phone call I’ve made in the past month or so, has been while standing on a particular patch of grass in the corner of the back garden, regardless of whether I’ve been caught up in rain storms, hail storms, hurricanes, or plagues of locusts. The simple fact of the matter is, that it’s been the only, and I mean the only place within a five mile radius where I’ve been able get a phone signal good enough to enable me make a phone call that has lasted more than ten seconds before cutting out. I can’t even get a signal in Tesco of all places. This coupled with the fact that we have no landline, means that unless I was seriously considering becoming a total recluse, I would have to purchase a phone under an operator, that would allow me to make a call even if I wasn’t dangling a hundred feet in the air from the nearest phone mast.

And so alas, I waved a sad farewell to Orange after 5 years, and three phones, one of which I’ll admit was more like a breezeblock than a phone. My friends would constantly mock me about my phone. Although I still believe they were secretly jealous, as everyone knows a mobile phone is directly proportional to a man’s penis. And, boy did they have some big penises in the 1980s!

Anyway, as far as mobile phone companies are concerned, I’ve held something of a long-term burning dislike of Vodafone. This of course has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of their phones, or their ability to deliver service to their customers. But has everything to do with them sponsoring Manchester United.

Like the majority of football supporters the world over, I hate Man Utd with a passion. Again, this is mostly down to their success and dominance throughout the 1990s, and has very little to do with the actual team. You see, in football as in life, success breeds’ contempt.

And so being a Man of principle, there was no way on earth that I would ever sign myself up with Vodafone. Not a chance. No, if I was going to choose another mobile operators then of course it was going to be O2.

O2 have for the past three seasons, been the proud sponsor of Arsenal football club. A match made in heaven, I’m sure you’ll agree.

If I’m being honest, I wasn’t in to football at all during the 1980s and most of the 1990s. Football to me meant standing around in defence on a damp drizzly pitch during P.E. lessons, while the goalkeeper dug himself several very large holes right along the goal line. And no matter how deep he would dig them, it was still inevitable that we would be on the receiving end of a 36-0 thrashing. It didn’t help that I was also shit.

Football just didn’t hold any interest for me. Neither watching, nor playing it.

Then I went to University, and it all changed. Well, not quite, I was still shit at playing, and I would later become a member of one of the worst five a side football teams ever to grace this earth, but alas I feel tha should be a story for another day.

In 1997 I attended the University of Salford, home of the behemoth of football, Manchester United. Now it was while attending University that I first discovered the delights of the student union, which a) served beer (something I like my peers back home, had grown accustomed to drinking down the local pub on a Friday night), and b) showed wall to wall football. Unless you opted to become a recluse and stayed in your room for the next three years, there was no getting away from it.

And so it was during these nights in the union bar that my passion for football was finally ignited, and a long held tradition started by my Grandfather of supporting Arsenal football club, was finally passed on to me. And thou, the heavens opened, and I became bathed in a heavenly dew of golden sunlight, and I could hear Angels singing…

Now the fact that Arsenal went on to win the league and cup double in 1998, was merely a coincidence, I assure you. I’d like to think that even if they’d have barrelled out that season and been relegated, I’d have still been swayed by the romance of the Red and White Army. On the other hand, if you want to call me a hanger on, or a glory hunter that’s up to you. At least, I’ve seen the inside of Highbury.

Anyway, supporting Arsenal while living in Salford was not a particularly bright thing to do. Especially when your watching Arsenal play Manchester Utd in a local pub, full of United supporters. If for example, Arsenal happen to score, you do not scream, “yes” at the top of your voice. And if you so happen to be greeted with the reply “f*****’ cockney c***!”, you vacate the premises as soon as possible, because you do not want to still be in the pub if for example Arsenal happen to go on to win that match 1-0. This of course, did happen, and to make matters worse the game was being played at Old Trafford, when Arsenal’s Dutch winger Marc Overmars put the away team in to the lead, resulting in a town full of extremely angry Mancunians (or maybe that should be Chinamen) looking for blood.
Well, anyway, they got there own back a year later, when I had to endure days of mental torture as they took the Premiership, FA Cup, and European Cup. Believe me, there is nothing worse than being repeatedly jabbed in the ribs by a female United supporter the moment you’ve just lost out on the Premiership title, like I was by Lucy Ettridge that fateful Sunday afternoon in the Union bar. But then, Utd were playing Spurs on that final day, and I should’ve known they wouldn’t want to do us any favours. Basically because we’d crapped up and lost to Leeds at Ellend Road in our previous fixture, we now needed to win our final game against Aston Villa, and hope our other mortal enemy Tottenham Hotspur could hold United at Old Trafford. Well, of course they bloody couldn’t.

Anyway, I sometimes wonder what became of Lucy. We did stay in touch for a while after graduation, as she moved back to Bury, and I came back down South, firing emails at each other from time to time, as the mood would take us. The last email I sent was probably about a year ago. It bounced back as a recipient unknown, so I assumed she must have moved on. I do wish I’d tried more with Lucy while I had the opportunity, unfortunately I was too busy being a dozy git to pick up on the fact that she was actually interested in me. By the time of the Spurs incident, my chance had long passed, and she was dating some bloke who looked like one of the dancers out of boy band Five. I say dancers, as you wouldn’t have thought for a second that any of them could actually sing.

Anyway, despite her Five fixation, she did have some taste in music, and an obsession in the Manic Street Preachers that has only been matched by one other person I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, that of Simon 'Spanky' Shaw. Anyway, I tried an Internet search on Lucy a while back and what got returned was a transcript of an interview her and her sister had conducted with a local Manchester band tipped at the time as being the next big thing. Now if it had been 1992, I could’ve built this up as being someone really exciting like Oasis, but unfortunately it was 1997, and Britpop was already in it’s final deathrows, about to be engulfed by a sea of Spice Girls. As a result I have no idea who the band was, and the accompanying photo taken of her and the band really doesn’t do her any justice at all, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t reproduce the link here.

But, if you’re out there Lucy, give us a call (lever@fsmail.net).

I feel I may have strayed from the point somewhat, and got horribly caught up in my own poigniancy and limitations when it comes to women.

So, where was I? Ahh yes! And so it would surely have been somewhat hypocritical of me to buy a mobile from Vodafone. Wouldn’t it?

To tell the God damn honest truth, I was seconds away from signing up with O2, when I realised I had no ID on me. No ID, no phone. So I was forced to leave that day empty handed, and returned to my patch of grass at the bottom of the garden.

But, that night I couldn’t sleep. I was haunted by phantasms and demons, whispering to me, “buy a Vodafone”, “you don’t need to buy an O2 phone. Thierry will love you just as much even if you buy a Vodafone”, ”Go on, buy a Vodafone, and give all your money to a Fat American Businessman, who knows nothing about football”

Or, maybe that was just my housemate.

For those, not really into football, and I feel there may be a few of you out there reading this (although I’d be somewhat surprised if you’ve actually made it this far), the Fat American Businessman in question, is Malcolm Glazer who bought out Manchester United over the Summer months, much to the disgust of many of the clubs supporters, and somewhat hilariously plunged the club into millions of pounds of debt.

Anyway, in the style of the 1980s children’s cartoon series, Danger Mouse, I’m going to end this piece on a cliff-hanger, because to be honest, I feel I may have gone on long enough, and if I choose to complete this little ‘run around’, it could well be another month before I can dispatch this piece to the ‘servers’ (which I believe may well be the modern day Internet term for ‘printers’, or on the other hand I may just have made that up).

Anyway, cue voice over:

“Will levers give in to temptation and sell his soul to the devil? (chances are in fact bloody likely, as this whole piece has been set up for that purpose, I mean it would’ve been a bit of a con, if I start part two, with “well in fact I opted not to bother, and just bought another Orange phone as I liked standing in the garden and peering through the bathroom window, as we somewhat bizarrely have our bathroom on the ground floor at the back of the house”). “What did become of Lucy Etteridge?” (alas, I feel this will not be answered). “What amusing incident in Oxford hastened the demise of levers second phone?” “Find out in the next thrilling episode of, Danger Mouse!”

Da da da da da da da da

He's the Greatest!

He's Amazing!

He's the Greatest Secret Agent in the World!

Danger Mouse!

Power House!

etc...