The Guardian, the thinking man's paper

Good post

You can't polish a turd though

www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2012/may/19/joey-B*****-qpr-violence-renaissance-man paints a rather different picture. People are free to make up their own minds.

"The Queens Park Rangers midfielder had certainly taken a lot of people in before the most conclusive evidence yet that his reinvention as renaissance man was a deception. A pretty good one, in fairness, given that B***** can be charming and eloquent and hold his own in any company. But a deception, nonetheless."

"He has been rumbled now and there will be little in the way of public sympathy when the disciplinary panel plays the video of his red card last weekend, sees the face of a man who has spent too long in the hurt business and concludes that someone this dedicated to violence merits one of the longer punishments ever handed out."

"In many ways, the wiry 21-year-old is a throwback to a different era," I wrote at the time. "In a game of inflated egos, declining moral standards and the depressing widening in the gulf between players and supporters, an hour in his company actually feels refreshing." Sometimes in this job there are things you read back that make you wince."

"Then the pre-season trip to Bangkok when a 15-year-old Everton fan was slapped across the face and the journalists who witnessed it were shocked by the scale of B*****'s temper and where it nearly took him. Very soon everyone in football knew B***** had a fuse like Tommy deVito's, Joe Pesci's character in Goodfellas. Treat with caution. Don't, whatever you do, call him funny."

"Then we came to City's end-of-season dinner in 2007 when B***** had started to think of himself as the most important member of the team only for Richard Dunne to win the player-of-the-year award. Staff at City are convinced this contributed to what happened two days later, when B***** attacked Ousmane Dabo from behind, punched him to the floor and then carried on hitting him even when he was unconscious."

"Forgive me then for never fully going along with the B***** roadshow and all the talk of a reformed character, when you never had to wait too long before the next round of malevolence on Twitter or threat of menace."

"A personal theory is that B***** craves attention, maybe born out of insecurity. The violence is one thing, but it is made even more unappealing by the fact that his default setting is self-justification and denial."

"More spite and settling of old scores. You quickly learn with B***** it's never his fault. And for a while, the deception almost worked."

Excellent point. Glad you bothered to read the extract.

"B***** attacked Ousmane Dabo from behind, punched him to the floor and then carried on hitting him even when he was unconscious".

But forgive and forget eh? Move on. He's enthusiastic. He's great. He really has changed.
Until the next time. 
And the next.

Take That and " re light my 🔥," come to mind. ( I totally refute the fact that I listen to aforementioned group 🙂)

Reading epping's post from the grauniad, I was reminded of someone I encountered in my first meeting with a group and this 'delightful' young lady's words were to me were, "I've got a short fuse - don't light it." Rings true with a certain newly appointed manager.

If City appointed him the same people lapping him up would be loving it and telling everyone that B***** and City suit each other down to a tee. Few would
Be saying “but he talks a good game though doesn’t he?”. People are convincing themselves that they like him simply because Wael has given him a job. That’s how thin the margins are. It’s so false and I for one won’t let my opinions and principles be swayed by what Bristol Rovers do.

The sports coverage is OK.
As for the politics and ever present bias, it's no better than the Daily Mail.  

If it's a problem to you Bas just add 10 years on to the dates, the points being made will still stand.

As for that Chaplain character, bring that debate on any time, his guide book is a cavalcade of immorality, so I'll take no lessons in what's right or wrong from anybody just because they are insane / vain enough to believe that they have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe.

Basically the Guardian going way way back, used to have a fair few spelling mistakes that often weren’t corrected in the early prints. So the nickname “grauniad” is a bit of dig at that. It’s a private eye joke.