My Cultural Life - The Bik Bik Boo

What's Up?

Apologies in advance, but I'm going to talk about football. I'll be as vague as possible, but it's been on my mind. This time last year, after a shit season, my team, Tottenham Hotspur, won a European trophy and all was right in the world again. Except it wasn't; we had a shit team and no one was prepared to admit it. So it's no surprise that this weekend Spurs are playing the final game of the season needing at least a point to ensure they're still in the Premier League next season - to fail would be catastrophic for Spurs fans and hilarious to everyone else.

Two people I'm close to have asked independently of each other whether my current anxiety problems might be down to how shit my football team is. I'm sure it isn't helping. 

The thing is, over the years, as well as supporting Spurs, I've picked up other football teams. There have been times in my life where I've been a voracious follower of other teams; I'm not a supporter, as such - there is one exception we'll get to - but teams that have a significant interest in because of all manner of reasons. I'll explain, as best I can...

Northampton Town - having spent a large portion of my life in Shoesville, I couldn't help but class the Cobblers as my second English team. The thing is they're dreadful a lot of the time, none more so than this season when they finished last and got relegated into League 2.

Brackley Town - Huh? Why? I have no connection to the place. I've been there three times in my life. The thing is Northants isn't exactly awash with footballing teams and after the downfall of Rushden & Diamonds (who I often went to see) and Kettering, following another County team became hard work. Brackley were in the Conference League North, two rungs below the football league. They always finished in the top 6 and always lost in the play-off. Last season they won promotion to the National League and had a really good start to the season and in January they were 11th and looking safe. They got relegated back to the Conference League.

Wigtown & Bladnoch FC - my current home town club and a puzzle, because none of my Scottish friends are into football or know much about the recent history of the toon's fitba club. The thing is in the years before we moved here, they had recently won the league twice, but despite following the team since the 2017/18 season, a W&BFC win was rarer than rocking horse shit. Sometimes they lost by double figures and every season they finished bottom of the league, usually with fewer than 4pts. This season they finished second from bottom - it's an improvement.

I also look out for Wrexham results as a result of following the TV show that conveniently is reviewed below. They had a great season in the Championship, but fell, short by goal difference, of making the (now very controversial) play-offs. So, I got very little joy from any of the teams that I keep an eye on. It's been a shite season all round for all of my teams. Except...

I know I've told this story before, but who's going to stop me? When the Hall family returned from Canada in 1969, we spent a few weeks at my Nan's and my uncle Robert asked me what team I supported, I told him and he made a remark about my dad not supporting anyone. Dad was ambivalent about football and came from a largely Arsenal supporting family, my mum's family were all Spurs fans - shades of Romeo and Juliet. Anyhow, my dad chimes in with "Your grandad, my dad, came from a Scottish background and my family have always had a favourite Scottish team, maybe you should have one to."

So, I got the sport pages out and looked at the then two Scottish leagues and was promptly told that I had to support either Rangers or Celtic, because everyone did. I was having none of that, I was going to pick my own team. How true my memory is obviously probably not important, I was simply lured the the team at the bottom of the second division table. Stenhousemuir. The Warriors, who play at Ochilview Park. I had to be part of this fabulously named team somewhere in Scotland.

Following Stenny has been about as arduous a task as you can imagine. A bit like a footballing equivalent to Sisyphus. They always finished in the bottom four. The odd time they didn't, I'm not sure if I just imagined it. They won an incredibly Mickey Mouse cup in the 1990s, but I think they were playing pub teams and amputees. Then about six years ago something happened, they almost got relegated out of the main Scottish Football league. That would probably have been the end of the club, but they had new owners, with a progressive idea and the following season they made the play-offs. They failed, but hey, these were heady heights for my other team.

Then the unthinkable happened; they won Scottish League Two and by a canter. The thing is to try and give you an analogy to compare it; it's like a Tipping Point contestant going on Mastermind. They were going to get eaten alive. Last season instead of struggling, they snatched a play-off place, but lost again in the semis. Stenny, it seems, had become a stable League One side. Who would have thunk it? 

Then, this season, they missed out on the title by two points and faced another play-off. Local rivals Alloa Athletic stood in their way, but the difference in class won through and Stenhousemuir will be playing in the Scottish Championship next season (and needing a new manager as the old one has gone to Ayr, who will be playing Stenny next season). 

They will obviously get annihilated next season and be lucky if they can avoid relegation straight back down, but they're a good team, for their level, and the ground only holds about 800 people, so they can't go further up the ladder without a proper ground. But these are unprecedented times in my 57 year relationship with this club from the Central Lowlands of Scotland and I might even get to see them play next season.

The Ending

So... after a number of years, most of them wandering around in circles with lots of swearing and extreme violence, The Boys is over. That's about it, really. It's over. Not everyone lived happily ever after, but most of them do. I do have one question though and hopefully it won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it; if they had the ability to create a supe who can replicate Soldier Boy's power and also rob supes of their abilities, why didn't they do this five years ago? Why twat about with all this immortality bollocks? I know at least one of my friends is a big fan of this show, but, you know, he's pretty much wrong about this lame duck load of rotting mammal intestines.

Step Away From the Creepy House

This week in Widow's Bay, Mayor Loftis investigates his friend, the reverend's suicide and ends up taking some extremely potent magic mushrooms in an attempt to see if he can go on a spiritual journey of discovery to find out what the man of God found out on his own mushroom trips. Matthew Rhys is fantastic in an episode that is basically two minute snippets of the bits he's relatively compos mentis in. Like last week's extraordinary 'possession' story, this is a great bit of storytelling that is both funny and, yet again, disturbing. Loftis's son continues to slide off the rails and we get the first clues about why the boy is so angry and why he can't leave the island. This is a fantastic show and, of course, it's from Apple TV+.

A Welcome Back?

Now in its fifth season, Welcome to Wrexham has always been entertaining considering it's about a football team owned by famous actors. The show has always managed to walk the line between sport and human interest with aplomb and the people who make it know exactly how to divide the football from the rest of life. The new series arrives after Wrexham's first disappointing end to a season for four years, having narrowly missed the chance of promotion and play-offs by one point. The thing is most people know this, the show is for those people who follow Wrexham but are not necessarily fans of football. It does what it says on the tin and it always does it well.

Dead Horses?

I don't really care how politically incorrect it is to like Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, I've always thoroughly enjoyed either Top Gear (when they did it) or The Grand Tour (or Grand-ish Tour as this 'best of' show is called). The first of three 90 minute specials probably has more LOL moments in it than most of the comedies I've watched in the last 12 months, unfortunately there were lots of bits I'm not that bothered about in the later two parts, but I still think it's good fun and it's missed (by me).

Bad Shite

I'd heard it was bad, but I didn't expect it to be as bad as it turned out. The finale of Good Omens was dreadful and even more like an absurd pantomime than either of the first two (full) series. Michael Sheen and David Tenant returned as Crowley and Fell and this time they were saving the universe, or were they creating it? I don't really care because it was a load of shite. I'm not sure I ever enjoyed any episode of this show, there was so much time between each segment I couldn't really remember, but this was just sentimental twaddle and thankfully I'll never have to suffer it again. Good Omens? Good riddance, more like.

Not Normal

I had really high hopes for Bob Odenkirk's 'new' film* Normal, all the trailers I saw made it look like a movie that I'd really like; but, oddly enough, every trailer I saw made me think it was going to be a completely different film. The story is difficult to tell without spoiling the entire thing, but Odenkirk plays a temporary sheriff in the small Minnesota town of Normal, which seems just like every small town in any American state, except it isn't. He first starts to notice something strange on the first day he starts and things get weirder the longer he's there. There's a few 'cameos' from famous actors, I've put quote marks around the word because they're not really in it for very long despite getting big credits and there are some genuinely bad edits in it. It's a Ben Wheatley movie and I've never been a huge fan of his work, but this is enjoyable enough, yet I felt there could have been so much more. 6/10
* I say 'new' but this film was made in early 2025, got a limited film festival release in the following summer and literally disappeared for a year.

Strange Neighbourhood

We're almost half way through the new Netflix series The Boroughs - a kind of Stranger Things for geriatrics. Alfred Molina plays Sam, a recent widower, who had agreed to move to a retirement village with his wife, before she died and now he doesn't really want to do that, but can't get out of his contract. Unhappy with being dumped on The Boroughs by his daughter and her husband, Sam has some strange encounters in his opening days at the private town, but nothing prepares him for walking in on his neighbour being 'assaulted' by a strange, almost alien creature. It's clear that some people working at The Boroughs are well aware of what is going on but there's a conspiracy of silence, so Sam and some of his new found friends decide to investigate. It's not a bad start and suitably strange enough to keep me interested (I got the impression the wife wasn't terribly enamoured by it, though). 

A Rock & A Hard Place

Jon Hamm's Andrew Cooper is slowly being forced into a corner. His ex-wife is causing him grave concern; his daughter is in trouble with the law; his son is mixed up with the daughter of Owen Ashe (James Marsters) and that's really bad because Coop also has the talons of Ashe fixed firmly into him. This week, Your Friends & Neighbours returned to its original premise of Coop robbing his neighbours to finance his lifestyle, except, yet again, that goes horribly wrong and he comes to a terrible, debilitating realisation - he needs to get out of his life. Sadly, with his daughter in court, his wife facing escalating problems - legal and health wise - and his sister having just quit her job and moved out of his house, Coop doesn't know which way to turn. Cue yet another unexpected ending, with just two more episodes to go in this season. I think I know how Coop will get out of this...

Mankind be Damned

We've reached the penultimate episode of this season of For All Mankind and it's heating up nicely for an explosive finale. Mars is under attack from a special forces team put together by the M6 nations; these troopers are not playing and the death toll is going to be horrendous - they don't care who they kill to regain control of the Happy Valley base. Alex takes centre stage, but hanging around him like a bad smell is a link to his grandfather's past in the shape of Gordo Stevens' granddaughter, who is fighting for the M6. Meanwhile on Titan, the search crew has found what they were looking for but it seems the search for extra-terrestrial life is alluding them, again. It's being set up for something big... actually two somethings: the battle for Mars and the discovery of something that will change the way mankind thinks, forever. 

What's Up Next?

I can tell you what else has been stressing me out and giving me anxiety - my pub quiz. Thanks to the amateurs running our local pub, the changes they wanted to implement - moving the starting time back an hour, despite them moving it to 7.30 initially because punters wanted it to be earlier - have caused me nothing but hassle and next Friday's May pub quiz looks very much like it will be my last...

I love doing pub quizzes. It's a vocation I discovered late in life and wish I'd been able to do it much earlier in my life. Over the last year, we have created an immensely popular quiz, with a waiting list EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. This month we have five tables available, a total of eight teams have pulled out, five of them for the summer because of the later start time. The decision to try and hope that the pub makes more money from staying open for food for an extra hour or so has bitten them on the arse and has left me in a position where I'm not going to give myself all the stress and anxiety any longer.

It's never been broken, but some people on the pub's 'management committee' have been committed to fixing it and as a result, the pub is probably going to have to find someone else to do a pub quiz for them. The last two 'guest' quiz hosts saw their charity quizzes over run by more than an hour and people walked out before the conclusion; so maybe the pub can persuade one of these people to take up the reins? 

Therefore next week's blog will be lighter than usual, because for possibly the last time, I will be hosting a pub quiz...