I’m a creature of simple pleasures. Just the other day I guffawed into my Cheerios on hearing that ‘World Cup Team’ is a faultless anagram of ‘Talcum Powder.’ Equally amazed was I, to discover that ‘eleven plus two’, as well as sharing the equivalent numerical value, has the same compound of letters as ‘twelve plus one.’ Brilliant. Like, I say- it doesn’t take much to get my innards frothing like a tube of Mentos in a Coke can. With this in mind, then, cast your looking balls on the footage below for a dose of absurdity at its most refined. It will, if nothing else, help you forget all about Scott chuffing Parker…ahem.

What? I’m bored.

Let’s not kid ourselves: this summer interlude has been an almighty carry-on. The minute a crumb of transfer gossip lands on our table and looks to have the slightest hint of juice about it, the trail almost as quickly runs dry again. It’s like Levy’s spent the break in the Atacama Desert; poking around in the sand, sifting through he dust, on the look-out for that ambrosial spring that just isn’t there. The cupboard is bare. Or at least that’s how it seems. Allow me, then- while things are so quiet- to whisk you back to a time when some serious business was going down in the hood. May 5^th. Eastlands. Gulp…

What I said before: “All roads lead to Eastlands. As much as we’ve tried to ignore it and concentrate on the games at hand, this elephant’s been in the room for sometime now; crouching in the corner, lampshade plonked atop his head in a hopeless attempt to blend in and go unnoticed. We had a feeling it’d be a big one. All the drumming of calculators and fluctuating, wafer thin goal margins had convinced us of that. But now it’s finally here, in the full light of day with the rest of the challengers smoked out on the hard shoulder: it could scarcely be any bigger…

…By Thursday morning we could wake up- apart from a hangover which could well be declared terminal- with the knowledge that Spurs can plunge no lower than fourth. Beat City and we’ve done it. It’s ours. Eight months of slogging it out with our Champions League pursuing counterparts and we could secure the whole caboodle in ninety minutes under the gradually dwindling light at Eastlands. You simply couldn’t write such drama. Sheer madness.”

What you said before:

“I’m incredibly envious; I’ve spent the day a complete mess. I feel all over the place. I’ve really coasted at work today doing very little other than checking football websites and generally trying to reign in my obsessive behaviour. I keep veering from feeling we’ll smash ‘em, to thinking the wheels will come off in spectacular fashion. Got any valium?” Kaybee.

“For years this match will be known as the Thrill-er in Man-chester. Not quite as snappy a title as the Ali Foreman rematch in Manilla, but the match is bound to be as hand-bitingly tense. Just wait and see.” Trembly.

“I want to see all out attack tonight, just go for it Ossie style – Attack, Attack, Attack Attack Attack! COYS!” Sambo.

“We invented the glory game now go out there and f*cking show the world we still own it! COME ON YOU SPURS!” JamieSpurs.

“Stand up an be counted boys ! COYMFS” Spiritual Advisor.

“This is it, isn’t it? This is our time. Time to put aside our doubts and assume a place with the elites. Time to be the club we all know we should be. Indeed, time for heroes.” SeattleSpursGuy.

“All fingers, toes, limbs and other extremities are crossed. I’m not going to be sitting comfortably for this… *reaches for valium*” Jonny Panther.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Manchester…

What I said after: “This is a different Tottenham to the one that has consistently crushed my spirits throughout the nineties and beyond. We seemed to have escaped that dooming sense of irony which followed us everywhere we went; Viera didn’t score, Fulop didn’t thwart us, Adebayor didn’t slide fifty metres on his knees to bogle in front of the Spurs fans. Nothing of the sort. We didn’t get overawed by the sense of occasion: we bloomin’ well rose to it. Like Peter Crouch ascending through the night sky like a salmon in a superhero’s cape. Just beautiful.”

What they said after: “Tottenham last made it into the European Cup in 1961 and had never before clinched a place in the top four since the inception of the Premier League. Harry Redknapp was appointed manager at White Hart Lane as recently as the autumn of 2008 and has achieved this transformation largely with the squad he inherited, even if Crouch is a potent addition”     The Guardian.

What you said after:

“I need to have a lie down after that, but could someone please scrape me from the ceiling first? A performance of awe and wonder that everyone should be very proud of. A fully deserved result from a glorious performance, I was completely disorientated by the gall we displayed in that second half. Absolutely fantastic!
We dared: We DID!” Jonny Panther.

“Well that’s not too bad is it? You know what, I think that was pretty much perfect. Crouchy with the goal. Love it. He’s big, he’s white, he won it on the night!” Aran.

“F*ck! I need to get home for a lie down now! What an atmosphere. Love you Spurs but….. F*ck 4th…. We want 3rd now…. I need a lie down (4 days sleepless nights) I just love everyone at this time…. I….. Need to lie down. GLORY GLORY TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR” Stevie Rhea. Speaks for us all.

“Glory, glory. I’ve just finished watching the parade of missed chances on Sky Sports News and I have to say I’m glad I didn’t watch the game live. I’d be lying dead on the floor with a smile on my face right now. Thank heavens they finally found the back of the net. I’m almost more relieved than elated.” Longwell.

“Ridiculously drunk, riducilously happy. Whatever Abbie does to Crouchies nether regions tonight he bloody earn’t it. Dawson simply has to go to SA and Ledley is a f*cking freak of nature.”  Spud.

“Didn’t make it into work today…”  Day of the Triffics pt. 2

And I’m spent.

New York, New York. Sinatra told the world he wanted to be a part of it; Tottenham quite happy to parachute their troops just south of it and get their hands on some pre-season Tupperware. And we were awfully close- an extra goal or two and ‘Arry and the chaps would be jetting home with the more than just walnut tans- the likes of which you’d normally find bottled in Danielle Lloyd‘s medicine cabinet. The Challenge of Gotham City is over. And the prognosis makes for interesting reading.

Robbie Keane. Player of the Tournament. On first glance at our double-return-fare hitman and you’d guess he’d been sleeping rough for the last few months. In the woods. Eating nothing but tree bark like some kind of grizzly wild-man. Thirty going on retired. Peel off a few layers, though, and things are not as they seem. He almost- almost- looked interested. Sunday’s peachy little number was even met by the open arms of beaming team-mates- who appear to have warmed to the idea that Uncle Bob might be hanging around for a while. Gawd help us.

Alan Hutton and Jermain Jenas’s efforts over the tour have earned pretty guff appraisals. One such review wasn’t even constructed with words- just a smear of faeces at the foot of the page. I’m worried for them. I am. Some form of witness re-location programme might be in order. Perhaps to a balmy little cul-de-sac in Solihull where the angry man on the street can’t hurl the contents of their pockets at them.

As well as knocking up a few stamps on their passports, the younglins have been getting decent hours in. Obika amongst the goals in New Jersey- a moment he confirmed to a US reporter to be his best of the season. It being July, we might all have arrived at the same conclusion. Elsewhere, Adel Taraabt reminded us, if only in flashes, why we’re still a little reluctant to let him squirm through the net. He does look awfully good at times. Real Madrid will no doubt be faxing over the contract details as we speak.

Fo-shizzle.

By the time this post bombs its way down the tracks of the internet autobahn and into your living rooms, Tottenham’s ungodly hour tussle with the New York Red Bulls will have long since finished. With the crystal ball still collecting dust in the loft I shan’t risk any muddled predictions. The very least I can hope for- sat here, at the time of writing, with two beer cans sellotaped to the side of my head awaiting kick-off- is that  Terry Henry gets a damn good booing. Also, a curious part of me is interested to see how many years Robbie Keane has notched onto his belt since last Saturday. Word from our man in America is that he’s maturing like an old nectarine left on the back porch in forty-degree heat. I hereby dub him… The Badger.

Untold wealth to any New Yorker who can provide a match report for those of us destined to wake up tomorrow morning with QWERTY imprinted onto our foreheads- instead of any recollection whatsoever of seeing the chaps in action. I think I still have a signed England shirt knocking about somewhere- if, of course, you’re in need of a new rag to dry your paint brushes with.

No. Wait…come back.

Back to the present. Or is it the future? Or. Um. Well, I’ve confused myself terribly there. Ah, yes. In other news, we still haven’t signed anyone yet. A half-baked potato emerged in the tabloids yesterday- for all of twenty minutes we were linked with the ever-so-slightly-past-it, Raul, before it became clear that his future, despite being in conractual limbo, lay elsewhere. Schalke 04 the thinking man’s port of call, although my guess is he’ll just bury himself up to the ankles in the centre-circle at the Bernabeu- like a re-potted plant- and spend the rest of his lung-breathing days there. Like, forever.

Now. Let’s see if this link is wor-

-Zzzzz.

It’s been a daily occurrence in these temperate months since the season’s finale- the whole family huddled around the wireless to catch the latest instalment in the Joe Cole saga. Will he? Won’t he? Might he? Maybe he already has? If we weren’t on the edge of our seat as the potboiler unfolded, we were certainly shuffling close. Yesterday, though, to pie-eyed, fist-in the- mouth astonishment, news reached us that the climax of this particular story had fallen rather flat. Liverpool his flavour of choice. A safe, first-team opportunity vanilla. Wisely, I guess, he also turned his back on the fiscally demented Sullivan & Gold double-act down the road. Whose flavour I can only assume is moth-eaten sock. Whatever the case, he’s out of London and off the agenda. The end.

Meanwhile, a victory for those Spurs fans blessed with the gift of hearing- the tiresome vuvuzela has been declared about as welcome at The Lane as Sky Andrews. Apparently, so called ‘atmosphere’ is still pretty high on the agenda for the string-pullers at N17. Something which the sound of thirty-odd thousand blaring f*ck-trumpets would have designs to ruin. A fearsomely good move, then. Let’s hope the rest of the League are equally foresighted.

Humbug, etc…

As much as I’d like to bounce across the puddle and watch Spurs in stateside-o-vision, I’m not sure my penchant for rocking up at international airports sporting a ‘The End is Nigh’ sandwich-board and thumbing imaginary firearms at security are good ways of getting an invite. No, sir.

Lucky, then, for our resident Seattleite, SSG. Here’s an excerpt from his excellent post earlier today- all the way ringside from California…

“So, there I was in San Jose, Cally-forn-i-a, to watch the mighty men of Tottenham take on the Earthquakes of MLS. There is apparently some sort of club partnership deal in place where Spurs bring over a depleted team of disinterested players, and the Quakes provide a cut up patch of desert scrub and an egg-fryingly hot day for them all to mingle about on while kicking each other with gusto.

I won’t talk about the game too much. If you saw it on ESPN or watched the highlights, eye gaugingly dull sums it up, I think. This was to be your classic 2nd friendly of the year, where our boys were just looking for a run out and stretch of the legs, no damage done, and entertain the locals with a bit of Tottenham flair, but there was another factor that turned this into a sluggish bore-fest.

THE BLOODY HEAT!

It. Was. Hot. Mid-90’s (F) in the stands with temps on the pitch creeping up over 100. Energy sapping stuff. You could tell during the warm-ups the lads were not used to this kind of hot, and did not fancy it much. Several times you could see a move start brightly, only to peter out when their brains started to stir fry from the effort. Not creatures of Summer are our boys. It’s funny a bit; we are no longer an easy touch on a wet, cold night in Bolton, but the searing heat of San Jose is a whole other level of challenge.

Oh, there were some good moments. Townsend has a future if he can find a final ball. Some good balls to Keane and Pav. By far our biggest threat on the day. Bale always looked lively and got up after a really shitty challenge (heart-in-mouth stuff there).

BTW, I believe Bale was wearing a Bra, or some kind of male lingerie thing. I found it vaguely disturbing.

And Luka had some good interplay with Niko and Pav. But the bad moments were more evident. Obika is just not very good; Hutton needs a fast trip to Caledonia; Jenas was mid-season form (back-back-side-side-back) and PSB added a crew-cut and advanced aging to his weaponry of gestures and loud talking. Other than that, nothing too memorable on field.

But I didn’t care. I got to see Spurs in person for the first time. There was goodly number of Yids from the San Francisco Spurs Supporter’s Club. Good ex-pat folks in many cases. I was able to meet a few of them and join in on some singing, but there weren’t enough of us to make an impressive bit of noise. The Quakes fans kept looking at us, as if perplexed by the songs. There some good banter though with some douchebags in Arse kit. Many of them were surprised to hear that a bit of a rivalry exists between our two clubs.

These are my people: Americans.

But hey, good times and an afternoon well spent. Consider it a warm up for getting myself to the Lane!”

**This post first appeared on Harry Hotspur. Original and best.**

I’m encouraging everyone to have a bloomin’ good moan about these new kits. Not that there’s anything particularly amiss with them- bar that repugnant sky-blue number and elements of the navy away which look as if they’ve been plucked from the seat cover of a Focus ST. No, it’s just when the last batch of accoutrement didn’t hit the mark, things turned out rather well. 2009/10 offerings may’ve rendered the wearer’s armpits to resemble a piss-sack, all was soon forgotten once we’d gate-crashed the Top Four and made our own little wedge of history.

So grumble to your heart’s content. I don’t mind if we look like berks. As long as, while we’re doing so, we’re twotting a last-minute winner past Julio Cesar at the San Siro.

It’s often in languorous times such as these that I wish the summer window was more like an episode of Supermarket Sweep. In the vain of those tubby funsters who’re allotted a minute or so to net all the industrial-sized tubs of mayonnaise they can get their paws on, it would be interesting to see managers bestowed a similar licence to bomb around the Continents, nabbing any flavour of the month which caught their eye. You want Fabiano? Well, if you can get your hands on him… he’s yours. In the same instance, how much easier would our lives be if, like those contestants flinging mistakenly snatched bags of lettuce out of the trolley, all our unwanted goods could be simply dropped out at sea and left to the whim of ol’ Mother Nature? As a plan, it’s water-tight. You heard me…

Assuming we could operate in this way, then, who exactly is floating the collective boat this window, and, equally, whose very presence in the squad is dragging it toward the twinkling abyss? A striker seems a no-brainer and ‘Arry has done little to mask his admiration for many of the names proposed. He likes Forlan. He likes Fabiano. He likes autumn-day walks and someone with a GSOH. But how about your good selves?

Who would you like to see trot through the gates at White Hart Lane in the coming weeks, and who would you prefer to see wash up on the beaches at Calais?

The floor, as ever, is yours…

Greetings from flavour country. Planet earth has its collective eye hanging over South Africa and the only thing keeping me up at night is the thought of finding a decent highlights reel from our lots’ jolly on the South Coast yesterday. Balls to Sneijder and Villa- someone’s pierced the hermetic seal on Robbie Keane and we’re back open for business.

Four-nil. Pavlyuchenko with two. Rose with another. Letterbox-rouge tans all round. Bully. I went to a couple of these friendly affairs last year. While they give no clear pointers as to what we might be up to in the following months, they do serve as timely reminders who we’ve still got knocking about the place. Townsend, Obika, Livermore. All phantoms of the pre-season. Enough hullabaloo on a cloudless away day in Exeter- not so much as whiff once the campaign fires up for real. There’s a hope that this season we might get more acquainted. Ridiculous debut strikes against Arsenal are usually good ice-breakers.

The apparel is finally here, too. Well, at least it is in the mind’s eye of anyone privy to the black arts of Photoshop. Autonomy is the name. And it’ll be plastered on some retro-styled finery in a town near you. Have a look. Go on.

Right, I’m off to paint my face a nice tango orange and celebrate the last parp from a vuvuzela that I’ll be hearing until Daniel Levy starts selling them from the back of an unmarked white van on Tottenham Court Road.

I suppose it’s indicative of our nature as impatient, thrill-seeking bipeds, but you almost wish the summer window would play out like it did in the Ramos era. You remember- when players trundled in and out of White Hart Lane like an overcapacity nightclub with a strict one in/ three out policy? Modric, Gomes, Pavlyuchenko, Bentley, all coming one way; half the population of North London going t’other. Sure, the net result was one of disorder, confusion and widespread meltdown, but at least we weren’t twiddling our thumbs with the same fervour as we are currently. At this rate, we’ll all have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before July’s through.

The daily rags seem to have given up on us, too. Instead they’ve taken to bottling last month’s buzz regarding Joe Cole, Forlan and Arda Turan. All of which are no closer to being true as they were then; bar the odd gush from ‘Arry, telling the world and his dog what a fantastic player such and such is before returning to the driving-range to shank another ball in the river. Nothing concrete. Just Redknapp letting us know he’s still with us. Add that to the fact Forlan has come out publicly to deny any such talk of him returning to the EPL, and it looks as if we might have to wait a little while longer before this close-season even so much as twitches.

Still no sight, either, of next term’s new clobber. All the internet leakage of that retro number we saw earlier in the year has neither been denied nor confirmed. There’s rumour of a multiple sponsor deal afoot- one which has Daniel Levy written all over it. Although, hopefully not his actual name written all over it. Or his face for that matter. I vote we just put all our efforts into securing the Findus Crispy Pancake deal and be done with it. Cheese and ham for the home, minced beef for away.

Or maybe just get Facebook to sponsor us.

*WFRF? dislikes this*.