I began 2010 by wishing everyone (except fascists) a Happy New Year and a promise to blog my reflections on the naughty decade in due course.

Well, that will have to wait for another time, but here - thanks to my identi.ca memory aid - are my reflections on 2010.

After recovering from hiccups, speaking in tongues, a hangover the size of every Xmas and New Year and forced communication with O2's customer service drones, I went back to work and set about the urgent task of building a snowwoman in the front garden.

This was my equal opportunities response the the much celebrated #SnowCock (replete with massive snowballs) of Glossop erected by Tim Dobson and friends.

Heaven snows he's miserable now

Snowwoman somehow ended up transgendering into #SnowMorrissey until he inevitably lost his head, prompting a lyrical tribute from the similarly all-white and undead Andy C.

Just as life imitates art, 'real' life inevitably imitates life online. Perceptively and spookily - leaving aside the evidence of my maniacal online rantings - Andy C was concerned for my mental health.

If I'm honest, my most recent mental breakdown occurred somewhat earlier. Without wishing to go into too much detail and bore anyone with my personal troubles, I had been speaking with a psychotherapist since September 2009. After a few sessions, she expressed her concern that I might be 'bipolar II' and asked me to see my GP in order to get a referral to a psychiatrist for an assessment. I felt pretty shocked to hear this as I'd never considered that I might have had any hypomanic episodes (let alone needed to see a shrink) even though that might have explained some of my problems.

In tears, I told my GP what my psychotherapist had said, and thus I began my own pharmaceutical research into the effectiveness of anti-depressant medications to give me some respite (my GP's word) from my heightened and unstable emotional state. My GP also referred me for a psychiatric assessment.

Mightily relieved finally to have spoken to someone about my difficulties and for allowing myself to ask for help, I felt as high as Jesus on the mountain for forty days and nights. Looking back now, it's perhaps significant that my identi.ca output during this time was the highest it's ever been (according to Michele's Denticator - unfortunately it only shows the last 12 months, so you will have to take my word on that). Interestingly, my output last month, since I've been feeling better and like my 'normal' self was just as high if not higher:

I also increased my long-form blogging output, with a serious intent to try to write more regularly and have some fun in doing so. Perhaps significantly, my first post during this high period was about mental health.  I wrote eight proper blog posts in those forty days and nights including:

A rant on authority and the War of Terror

A tribute to Manchester United and my Mum and Dad

A reminiscence piece I originally wrote in 1989 about my time stuck in a blizzard on Longs Peak, Colorado

An Ubuntu fanboi article

Another reminiscence piece, this time about a childhood incident

And a frankly bizarre post about a blue tit

It had taken me nine months to write my previous eight proper blog posts and almost five months to write the next eight. I wrote only one in the two months reviewed in this post while I was feeling so physically and mentally ill. Between May and December 2010 I wrote another fourteen.

I crashed down to earth only three days and six thousand unpublished words after my spur-of-the-moment decision to write a fifty-thousand word NaNoWriMo 'novel' in thirty days. Like all the other novels I've started, this one remains unfinished, although I did get past page four on this occasion. All of this was while I was working full-time. Mild insomnia helped.

Man flu

Just like in 1994, 1999 and 2004, I felt myself slowly burn out as Xmas approached and by the time #SnowMorrissey had melted I was feeling too depressed to work or do anything else other than go to the doctor's surgery. My GP doubled my anti-depressant dose and I later self-diagnosed the new but familiar sharp stabbing pain in my lower right side under my ribs as pleurisy for which I prescribed myself Lemsip Max. The previous year I'd had a similar but worse pain with frightening shortness of breath, which only cleared up after a month or so using an inhaler.

Less perceptively and spookily - and admittedly without the benefit of a stethoscope, cheeseometer or any medical training - Andy C was less concerned about my physical health. Less is more.

Six days later, after a brief investigation with her stethoscope, my GP confirmed my pleuritic self-diagnosis, signed me off work and prescribed my some antibiotics for a chest infection, too. Unfortunately, she didn't have a cheeseometer either. I started to feel a bit better, but a cold winter's night a week or so on and the pain returned. Perhaps understandably, I was generally feeling more and more miserable, too.

At least everything was running smoothly at work during my two weeks absence.

'It's just a slice of cheese'

I went back to work on 1 February feeling much better after United had made City wait another year at least for their first trophy since 1976 and after setting in motion Arsenal's annual implosion.

Seventeen days and an x-ray later, however, I was in Accident and Emergency with a suspected collapsed right lung. After a blood test to make sure I wasn't suffering from a heart problems I went home the same evening. The following day I developed a strong desire to punch Nicholas Winterton in the face. Repeatedly. And regularly. Say every ten minutes. Coincidence?

Pull yourself together

By now, I'd lost touch with Reality, defending homeopathy. I'd lost hope, despairing at James Robertson's inevitably futile struggles to print and use his own postage using only Free and open source software. I'd lost my humanity, calling Basil Brush impersonator Richard Cutts a demented glove puppet for agreeing with me about Nicholas Winterton.

Three weeks before my x-ray, I'd phoned the local mental health trust to find out what had happened to the referral letter my GP had sent them back in September 2009, four months earlier. They helpfully told me that I wasn't a priority for treatment because I was working and, therefore, apparently OK. I asked them what did I have to do in order to become a priority? Try to kill myself? They offered me an appointment the same afternoon.

Naively, I assumed that this would be an appointment with a psychiatrist. After waiting for an hour behind the locked doors and shatter-proof glass partitions of the Community Mental Health Team building that kept the professional healers and helpers apart from me and rest of the presumably perceived as dangerous local community it serves, it turned out to be an appointment with a nurse who scribbled a few notes on a scrap of paper. He then produced a copy of a letter dated the same day that he claimed had been posted to me the day before inviting me to a meeting with a psychiatrist in two weeks.

Three days before my x-ray, I met the psychiatrist. I made an extra effort to wash my hair, shave and put on clean clothes to make myself look less like Jim Ignatowski.

He sat in front of me reading my notes as if for the first time. After a couple of uncomfortably silent minutes he said 'You're not Stephen Fry bipolar.'

I suppose I should have been relieved about that, but my immediate reaction was confusion - how could he possibly know? All he had asked me was 'Would you like a coffee?' He didn't even ask if I wanted decaf, sugar or milk and yet he was magically able to undiagnose me without conducting any blood tests, x-rays, scans or other measurements of the balance of chemicals sloshing around in my brain, which is the current unproven theory of choice among the medically inclined.

We had a bit of a chat. I asked for psychotherapy on the NHS as I could no longer afford to pay privately. He recommended that I keep taking the medication even though I complained to him that I felt worse than ever after four months on them. I was finding sleep difficult, yet felt tired all the time, couldn't concentrate properly, had a dry mouth and sometimes felt my mood change from OK, to tearful, to agitated, to angry and even to suicidal in the space of a few hours.

I told him I'd washed and dressed specially for him. He laughed and said that was good, because otherwise he'd have had to section me under the Mental Health Act (have me forcibly detained in the mental health unit of the hospital). He rounded off our meeting by suggesting that I should pull myself together and get a life (not his exact words, but my honest interpretation and not far off). As I bid him goodbye and was closing the door to leave he asked me if I had any plans to kill myself.

I decided to stop taking my medication. Within ten days I successfully predicted England's abysmal failure in the South African World Cup.

Look out for more cheesy Twenty Ten goodness next week as I march on into March and explain the cheesy references....

If England's game against Algeria had been a Wimbledon tennis match, the two sides would still be at it today with the Dutch Master Johan Cruyff declaring it the greatest example of Total Crap Football ever played.

Both sets of players would be awarded (honorary) knighthoods for their part in simulating Barnsley versus Grimsby Town at a freezing cold Oakwell on New Year's Day in the late 1990s/early 2000s and no doubt the two managers would be encased in marble as a living testament to their obduracy.

And if the first round of group games were like pure-grade heroin cut with shavings of Clive Tyldesley and smuggled past England's Robert Green at UK border control, I have to admit that I overdosed, taking up to six hours a day for more than a week.

After an early rush of excitement, I fell into a deep reverie induced by triple daily doses of drab defensive displays before finally lapsing into a tactical coma, waking up just in time for this Sunday's World Cup Final showdown between England and Germany.

Having beaten the USA in the knockout stages, Fabio Capello must be delighted that his masterplan has come to fruition and England are within 90 minutes of lifting the Jules Rimet trophy once more.

A valiant effort, all the more remarkable as we have scored only two goals in the process of knocking out the most powerful nation on earth (truly, an us against US game if ever there was one), the tricky North Africans and then the smallest footballing nation at the Finals, Slovenia.

I take my hat off to Fabio and his men and will go on to eat it for dinner, too, as I was convinced we really didn't have a hope in hell of seeing this dream come true.

As a tribute, I offer my exclusive guide to The World Cup On Drugs for your viewing enhancement:

Alcohol

Preferably beer and lots of it. Great for encouraging your team's hard men to go in for dangerous two-footed tackles on opponents. Can really make you feel good for 90 minutes, but then you can start to get heavy-legged and risk missing vital goals while you go for a pee. Can also leave you feeling tired and miserable for days afterwards if you're over 40.

Undoubtedly the football fan's favourite tipple, alcohol can make even France versus Uruguay seem like the most compelling game of end-to-end football you've ever seen. OK, maybe not even alcohol can do that. Which is why you might consider some slightly more risqué alternatives.

Cannabis and marijuana

If you smoke or otherwise consume enough of this, you won't care who wins as long as you have plenty of chocolate and crisps. Not a good idea to try ordering a Chinese takeaway while watching either of the two Korean sides, either, unless you want bean curd noodles with prawn cracker soup and a meat cleaver in your head for being a cheeky bastard.

You may find yourself laughing uncontrollably at the little Mexican and Japanese players (but see LSD, below) and at some of the many comedy commentating double-entendres and other funnies such as:

Bougherra goes in hard on Butt!

He's got Eggiman on the face, there.

Messi leaves Shittu trailing in his wake.

Pantsil's off!

Bong.

Amphetamines, ecstacy and cocaine

In theory, you might think any of these stimulants would be great for staying alert during the opening round of games, but as your brain processes information faster so these interminable games begin to last forever and - as we all know - you risk irreversible catatonia. Try explaining that to your mum and dad when they come to visit you in hospital with tubes coming out of your every orifice and some new ones you didn't have before.

If you must, make sure you're down the pub with your mates and you should have a great time spoiling everyone else's enjoyment of the game with your incessant yabbering. This is what all BBC and ITV commentators take before live games. You have been warned.

LSD and magic mushrooms

Hallucinogens. Watch football and expand your mind. Sounds too good to be true! Discover the meaning of life during the national anthems and spend the rest of the day communicating with the God of the Vuvuzelas or hiding in the cupboard under the stairs fearing that you are about to be abducted by giant lizard-men disguised as tiny insects working for your local council's refuse collection team.

Either way, it will be a life-changing experience. When watching Japan or Mexico, be prepared to spend the entire game marvelling at how small their players are and how big the opposition is. Whatever you do, you will need to read the sports news the following day in order to find out what happened.

Heroin, morphine and other opiate derivatives

Can make you feel like you won even when you lost. I try to stay away from these as a general rule at least until the latter stages of the competition. Then, as an England fan, they can be useful to sustain your enthusiasm in between games after the first knockout round and the quarter finals and before the final itself.

Long-term use is best left until after the tournament is completed or avoided all together. Warning: death is a likely outcome whether you use heroin or not.

Well, that's it. Please remember that none of this is to be taken seriously and do not try this at home, children, even if you're an adult.

Last season I was very pleased with my August predictions for the 2008-09 English Premier League. OK, I admit that I was a couple of points out with Liverpool's lead at Xmas. But still, extremely satisfying.

To give myself more chance of being right this time, I procrastinated long enough for almost half a season to pass by before gazing once more into the stars and discerning what the future holds for clubs both big and small.

Of course, living in London with all its big city lights, I can't actually see any stars in the night sky. So please forgive me if this season's predictions don't turn out to be wholly accurate. So, instead of gazing into the stars I'm going to beta-test looking through my beer goggles (courtesy - appropriately enough, as it turns out - of Stella Artois and Carlsberg Export).

Now, what can I see.... Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a reflection in my window?

No. I think it is a red dwarf. No. I see it now. It is a small man with a red face. No, it's not Sammy Lee! He's not that small. He's scribbling furiously in a notebook. It looks like a list, a Xmas list perhaps?

'Allo, 'Allo! Who's this?

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="512" caption="Rene notes down the order - Champions League and FA Cup for starters, four years of nothing for the main course, finished off with a second helping of nothing and a Europa League place, please."][/caption]

Wait. No. It's not the fat French waiter Rene, it's his Spanish cousin Rafa:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="324" caption="Just a perfect day; drink sangria in the park... Just a perfect day; Problems all left alone. Weekenders on our own .....it's such fun.... Just a perfect day; you make me forget myself. I thought I was someone else .....someone good. "][/caption]

I see that you are troubled, Rafa. You were loved in Liverpool and now you are loved in Manchester. I believe that the Bolton Wanderers job maybe available to you soon (it's in Greater Manchester), although Mark Hughes is more likely to get that job. Gary "Mystic" Megson predicted that his own team would be relegated in 2009-10 (sorry, I can't find the link to prove this, although I'm absolutely 100% sure he came out and said this publicly before the start of the season), so I don't see how his Chairman can stick with him any longer now that there is a quality manager available. And you, too, Rafa. You, too.

And Alan Shearer will become the new Liverpool manager under the guidance of Kenny Dalglish.

Hmmm... everything is getting a bit foggy. Smokey, even. Smokie! "Head Over Heels in Love":

You make me a stranger that's what time can do baby you mean ev'rything to me darling there's no danger for all that we've been through that anyone could love you more than me.

KK. How romantic! Kevin Keegan will make (another) sensational return to English football management as... Magpies' boss aka Notts County's Big Club Chief Team Selection And Coaching Press Conference Officer. Terry McDermott (who else?) will be appointed as his Assistant alongside Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle, Graham Taylor, David Platt, Ian Wright, Gazza, Sol Campbell (Gazza's straight man), Gareth Southgate, Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle, Terry Butcher, Paul Ince, Winston Churchill, Maggie Thatcher and Carlton Palmer. You have to think (and look) outside the chocolate box for stuff like this.

Seriously, though, it is all getting a bit hazy here. I see a smoking man. No, I'm wrong again. It's so cold here that my woolly hat has fallen down over my eyes. It's Benny from Crossroads!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="288" caption="The cold conditions were not good. He couldn't even start a small fire to keep himself warm."][/caption]

No, of course, it's not. It's Carlo Ancelotti, silly!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="187" caption="If you think this is cold..."][/caption]

Will Carlo go the same way as Big "Phil" Scolari? Let's hope he doesn't go the same way as Carlo Cudicini. Xmas and New Year, the half way mark in the English League season is a bit of a crossroads for most teams. Plenty do well in the first half of the season only to fade in the second and vice versa. Some continue to be crap all year long, while occasionally others stay true to form for the duration. Chelski are the only team that can truly stay true to form and win (seeing as they are and most likely will be top come the New Year).

Back to the star gazing. It seems inevitable to me that Ancelotti will be sacked as Chelsea manager in January or February 2010 after a run of bad results, injuries and loss of form, possibly affected by the African Nations Cup. He will be replaced, on a temporary basis, by... Avram Grant, who - after a highly successful if short spell at Portsmouth - will guide the Rent Boys all the way to second place in the Premier League and the Champions League Final, before being replaced by World Cup quarter-finalist Fabio Capello.

With sufficient use of smoke and mirrors (and beer) Avram Grant could be mistaken for cold-blooded-killer-with-a-heart, Léon:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="213" caption="The haunted look necessary for any unsuccessful football manager"][/caption]

But not really.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="460" caption="Avram Grant makes a great effort to wear the hangdog expression of someone who knows he is truly beaten, yet he always maintains that irritating little smirk of someone who just can't believe he is in the job he is in"][/caption]

Still lots of smoke. It is The Smoking Man!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Ancelotti, fired for too many draws"][/caption]

But I've already foreseen his future... look... it's...

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="338" caption="I didn't see it. If the referee says he was smoking then he was smoking. But I didn't see him smoking so therefore he wasn't smoking in my view."][/caption]

...Arsène Wenger!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Life... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. You're stuck with this undefinable whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast, the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits, filled with hardened jelly and teeth-crunching nuts, and if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left... is an empty box... filled with useless, brown paper wrappers."][/caption]

After another season of failure (if you call third in the League, FA Cup Semi-Final and Champions League Quarter Final failure), everyone's favourite southern, French whinger will say "Au revoir" to Arsenal... to take up the reigns of the England football team.

Who will replace Wenger at Arsenal, I hear you (or a voice, somewhere) ask? Easy! What is the one name missing from the list of people joining Sven Goran-Eriksson's project? Apart from John Barnes. Or Tony Adams. Yes! Lucky Guus "Gooner" Hiddink!

My final prediction for today: On Saturday, 6 March 2010, Wolverhampton Wanderers are scheduled to host Champions Manchester United at Molineux, the weekend before United play the second leg of their Champions League tie with AC Milan. The previous weekend Wolves are away at Bolton and then away again at Burnley the following week. I don't need to gaze into the stars to be able to confidently predict that "Irish" Mick McCarthy will select a team of ball boys and tea ladies for this game (which they had no chance of winning anyway) while Sir Alex Ferguson in a manner that is leading some increasingly to question his sanity will pick an eleven comprised entirely of Old Trafford match-day stewards (who, of course, would otherwise have the day off), bar Wayne Rooney. Admittedly, Lord Ferg's injury list will have got longer by March. Not only will he be without eight of his first and second choice defenders he will also be without three goalkeepers, fourteen midfielders and six forwards. Rooney is the only surviving recognised first-team player available for selection and, naturally enough, Fergie plays him in goal (he still scores a hat-trick, saves a penalty, gets sent off and fractures all his metatarsals kicking one of the Wolves' tea ladies' trolleys on his way to the tunnel. He later apologises, but is immediately blamed by the press for England failing to win the World Cup. Little Mickey Owen sneaks on to the plane instead.).*

* Giles Smith wrote a mildly amusing article for The Times along similar lines. This final paragraph of mine is not intended to copy or in any way infringe on Mr Smith's copyright or authorship of his own article. I had the idea first, or at least round about the same time and certainly before I had read or Mr Smith had published his piece, I swear, but I didn't have a deadline or a financial incentive to write it. And, really, he hasn't thought his through properly. He has a car park attendant and the box-office manager playing for Wolves, when we all know that in reality they would have to work in their normal jobs that day to deal with the crowd. You could say the same about the ball-boys, of course, but they are practically on the pitch anyway and they can still fetch the ball when it goes out of play.

It's often the case that what in one sense is an undeniable strength can at the same time also be a real or potential weakness. English football's great history and tradition raises everyone's expectations, yet the English football team must compete on an increasingly commercialised and sophisticated international playing field. We have more fans, more money and more "foreigners" in our game than any other country, so it's no surprise that when things don't go to plan, everyone feels quite upset and let down. And the media does its best to blame anyone and everyone.

There's such a lot at stake, now. It was "only" sixty years or so ago that the Football Association, which is now grieving over the financial loss of failure to qualify for Euro 2008 and stating that qualification for Euro and World Cup Finals is a minimum requirement of the team manager/coach, actively prevented the national team from taking part. It's "only" forty years or so since we won it. As it happens, Sir Alf Ramsey, like "Second Choice" Steve McClaren also failed to qualify for his first Euro Finals in 1964.... We have a long history and fine tradition of coming up short against the rest of the world, so it's not as if it's anything new or that we should be surprised about.

The problem with English football has been documented in the press as being anything from too many foreign players, too much money, expectation of fans not matched with reality, players and coaches not good enough, not enough passion or care, too much passion and not enough technique, too much pressure and fear, too much drinking and not enough team spirit. The reality is probably that all of these factors are important to a lesser or greater degree.


As Sven-Goran Erikkson points out managers often buy overseas players because they are cheaper on average than their English or British counterparts. That's also why so few of our players play abroad - because there isn't the money to pay them, not necessarily that they aren't good enough. Beckham was and arguably still is good enough to play for Real Madrid.  That's why there are "too many" foreign players.

So part of the problem may be that the players get paid too much? But that is not the players' fault, just market forces, mainly to do with Sky TV money and, er, the FA, who contract with them for Premier League (the same FA which hijacked the Football League) and England rights. What this means is that the very best English players - who are on a par at least, with the very best players in the world - are paid significantly more. This is why Arsene Wenger has so few English players in his squad, not because they aren't good enough, but because they are too expensive.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that we are repeating what happened in Scotland during the Graeme Souness era at Rangers - he bought lots of foreigners in, Celtic and others later followed suit and the Scottish national team suffered as a result. I'm not the only one who thinks that England are the new Scotland.


The recent Scottish revival has surely been due to Rangers and Celtic developing a core group of home-grown players to complement their foreign signings. And I'm sure that a lot of their England based players can't wait to get a game for Scotland after watching too many games from the stand or playing for less successful clubs!

At Club level, Arsenal are successful in part at least because they have a salary structure which prevents them buying "overpaid" English players, but keeps team spirit up - see how much better they are doing without the overpaid Henry! Same with United to a different extent. Fergie's discipline is what he buys by paying top wages and Ince, Kanchelskis, Beckham, Van Nistelrooy and Keane are all examples of players who  reached their sell-by dates, for the team's eventual benefit. Chelsea pay everyone top wages, of course, while my guess is that the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle, Spurs and any other under-achievers get the balance wrong between wages and value.



But there's more to it than that. Michael Owen says that the players can't cope with the pressure of playing for England now, not that they don't care. Although at some point we have to admit that other teams are sometimes better than us, that would certainly explain some lacklustre performances and results. Where does the pressure come from? The fans? The media?
My opinion is that the fans want England to win and if they can't win to play well trying. The media just want to sell stories and their marketing strategy is the time-honoured sensationalisation of even the most mundane non-news (Steve McClaren under an umbrella. OK, so he looked a bit daft, but, if he kept dry and we'd won...).

So, we lost to Croatia. What we should all have been saying, was congratulations to Croatia on a deserved victory and let's support McClaren in  rebuilding for real this time instead of picking on every little thing and waiting for him to fail. Things looked good against Russia and Israel, he stumbled across a "system" (Gerrard and Barry) that worked. He was unlucky with injuries, but should have been given longer.

Big Phil Scolari?

Reading Big Phil's words of wisdom I think we got off lightly. Surely Scolari was an accident waiting to happen - an unfortunate cross between Glenn Hoddle and Ron Atkinson?

But congratulations to the English media for bullying this guy out of the job before he even accepted it. As for the FA, Big Sam and the rest should now withdraw their own interest. The massive salary aside, who in their right mind would want to work for these cowboys?