Transcript:
My favourite JFK conspiracy theory?
Well, where to start?
How about Umbrella Man…. a man with an umbrella looking shady (!) who blew a poison dart out the end from sixty yards away with pinpoint accuracy? And what the hell was a bloke doing with an umbrella on such a hot day, eh, answer me that? (I mean, yeah…he might have been creating some shade for himself with the brolly under the hot Dallas sun, I guess, but this kind of umbrella stuff actually happened…in England, on Waterloo Bridge, in 1978. Poison darts and umbrellas and all. Genuinely.)
Let’s not rule out Lyndon Baines Johnson either. Wait. You mean the vice president? Yeah, him. The vice president who was two cars behind in the motorcade and would obviously benefit from the actual president being killed. In fairness, he couldn’t have just taken out a gun and shot JFK himself, what with all the crowds and stuff, but you know who could? The driver William Greer could. Yup. He could. So obviously LBJ could have struck a deal with Greer who, if you squint at the Zapruder footage, stick it in the wash, burn it, play it backwards and then watch something else, you can just about make out Greer reading into the glove compartment and taking out…. ah, forget about it…
And what about Babushka Woman? After all, what possible motive could she have for being elderly, wearing a headscarf and taking pictures of the president while he passed through the city? She surely cannot be ruled out.
And then there’s Lee Harvey Oswald…in deep cahoots with Cubans, Russians, communists and possibly even Umbrella Man, Babuhska, LBJ and William Greer all at the same time. Or maybe, like he claimed, before Jack Ruby went and performed arguably the century’s most rash decision, Oswald was simply a patsy - there to conveniently and simply…well… be there, in the wrong place at the wrong time to take a hiding for the benefit and pleasure of a bigger, murkier, nameless and faceless juggernaut.
…not entirely unlike Forest’s role on Sunday. Or at least, that was how it felt as the weekend approached. From big TV’s perspective, the title race was getting rather spicy, and it was really all about City apparently trampling their way over the prone body that was now Liverpool and standing smugly next to Arsenal, with a big knowing grin.
But it was different for us. We may have been a pasty for most of the watching millions, but at least, it would be nice if we kicked up a fuss, spoke out and made it difficult for the immaculate machine.
And we did. We gave them a game. We made them sweat a bit. They got a bit ruffled. They fell out with other and got all stroppy about the pitch. (The pitch, Pep? It’s a pitch mate. Come on mate…grass innit.)
Short of chalking up a miracle, the performance was perhaps the best reasonable outcome we could have expected. Yeah yeah I know 1-1 last season and all that but you don’t see Haaland have a shocker like he did last time here twice - it just wasn’t going to happen again. So to not just get them worried and stay in the game, but to be an actual attacking threat while keeping them at arm’s length was pretty satisfying.
No, it wasn’t a win and we didn’t even get a point. But we did come away with the belief that we could play football quite well again. Which given the next three weeks, was pretty welcome. And Ola Aina metamorphosing into a version of Stuart Pearce with a ballet certificate was doubly welcome.
Oh dear listener. It’s nearly here. The first of two fixtures that have elicited a silent Munchean scream within me since the fixtures were published. Bramall Lane. They’d love it - LOVE it - if they could make us squeal, wouldn’t they? It’s going to take every single sinew being strained to its most extreme to come away with something. If any sinews are not snapped and hanging out of socks by the full-time whistle, I’ll be…not angry…. just a bit disappointed.
It’s going to be a brutally long week, and an even longer and brutal Saturday.
But until then, not so much of a patsy after all. Not Patsy Cline. Nor Patsy Kensit. And not even Patsy Parisi.
But something meaningful and purposeful on our own terms.
For now, at least…
Until Saturday comes, at least…
And it’ll come…. stuff will happen between now and then - this is Forest after all - but Saturday is…. well….may well be definitive. A win would be akin to a truly magical bullet.
Forest 0-2 Manchester City 28 April 2024