All right, mates? How am I? Don’t ask! What a flippin’ HELL of a week your little mate Craig’s just had! What? Beyond flippin’ belief! Don’t take my word for it, mind. Oh no. Just have a butchers at these excerpts from me diary:
SUNDAY:
3.32am: Flippin’ HECK! Woke up, staggered out of me bed, had a pee, went to the lav, couldn’t pee for some reason, slapped some water on me face, groaned like flippin’ billy-ho, went back to me bed…guess what? The flippin’ alarm clock had only gone off at 3.32! Three-Thirty-flippin’-Two!!! I get up at 8, me! So that really got me in a hell of a bad mood, straight off! So I got up anyway – cos I couldn’t get back to flippin’ sleep, could I, and, on top of that, some joker had peed right by me flippin’ bed! – and I made meself some breakfast. Or rather I would have done if the flippin’ missus had remembered to get some MEAT in the flamin’ fridge! Nothing in there but flippin’ Yakult - tiny flamin’ ‘bio-friendly’ yoghurt POTS! Yes, POTS! That’s not the worst of it. These pots, right, they actually admit on their label that they are friendly to BACTERIA! Yeah! I am kidding you not! ‘We like bacteria. Oh yeah, we’re in favour! Ding-Dong: Who’s there? Bacteria? Oh, lovely, do come in! You brought some rancid yoghurt with you? How kind! Thanks very much for visiting! Do come again!’ I mean, absolutely MENTAL! So, naturally, I chucked them all out. Crash – in the bin. Dust down the hands, get on with life, right? Then the missus - finally - comes down: ‘Hey, Luvver, where’s all me pro-bacteria Yakult pots?’ ‘I chucked ‘em out’. ‘You bloody bleedin’ bastard! [Slap!] Go and get me some more pots! [Slap!] NOW!!!’ So, at half past eight in the flippin’ mornin’, just when I’ve settled down to eat me flippin’ toast (!), I have to get in the flippin’ car and drive to the flippin’ shops to get some more of these flippin’ POTS!’ I mean: flippin heck! You can imagine the scene, can’t you – there’s poor old Craig, arms outstretched, just like on the pitch, shouting: ‘Flippin’ HECK!’ Hell of a day!
MONDAY: Unbe-flippin-lievable! Got to Melwood, right - I’m in a right old mood for starters – and Fabs – Fabio Aurelio – comes up to me, pats me on the back and says in front of all the other players: ‘Hey, Craig, you remind me of a Brazilian!’ Flippin’ heck! Dead chuffed I was! But then he goes and says: ‘Yeah – a short-haired twat!’ Flippin’ flamin’ idiot! Oh, yeah, everyone had a good laugh at old Craig! I was flippin’ FUMING! Rafa was laughing too, though, so I had to keep schtum, like. Did all the training – absolutely disgusted with some of the decisions during the five-a-side, but bit me tongue – then had a quick shower. Nearly went in to the Gaffer to question a couple of his five-a-side decisions (I was about a yard Onside on both occasions!) but thought better of it. Life’s too short. Went home, watched Diagnosis Murder (my favourite TV show by a long, long, way), went to the kitchen, nearly slipped on some yoghurt from one of them flippin’ bio-friendly pots that the missus had spilt on the flippin’ floor – she never cleans up that woman! - and went straight up to flippin’ bed. Didn’t even watch Deal or No Deal. What a flippin’ awful day!
TUESDAY: Got a phone call, first thing in the morning, from Robbie Savage – again! – begging me to have a word with John Toshack on his behalf: ‘I’m still piggin’ good enough to play for Wales, Craig, you know that, Craig! So tell that piggin’ idiot Toshack to pick me. Go on - I’m no trouble, me, you know that, Craig. I’m as good as gold, me. Come on, man, pull your finger out and help me, you piggin’ idiot! Oh yes, Craig, and tell him I’ll only come back if he piggin’ well makes me captain!’ He thinks of me as a sort of father figure, does Robbie: a wise old head on young shoulders, with no neck. Cool as a cucumber, I replied: ‘I might talk to him, Robbie, and I might not’. Then I put the phone down. That showed him. I’m a bit of a psychologist, you see. I know what to say to get the right reaction. Robbie’s a good lad, really. In fact, we often talk about investing in a trout farm together when we retire. He’s as daft as a brush, though – he keeps asking how the trout will be able to survive on a farm when they’ve got no legs, aren’t particularly known to co-exist peacefully with pigs, and need lots and lots and lots of water! ‘Haven’t you heard,’ I ask him sarcastically, ‘of this new-fangled gadget called, ahem, “a water hose�’ ‘Oh,’ he goes, all blushing, like, ‘you know everything, you do’. What a ludicrous twerp! Anyway, I sat down after that to have me breakfast – nice bit of meat - and a quick read of the paper. Then the phone went again. It was Savage: ‘Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, you pathetic piggin’ midget!’ Slam, click, brrrrr. Unbelievable temper that lad has. Got me really angry he did. Don’t worry, I got my own back soon enough. Phoned up Domino’s: ‘Hello,’ I said, putting on a stupid girly accent, ‘This is Robbie Savage, the controversial footballer with the long gaylord hair. I’d like fifteen large Texan BBQ pizzas, ten large Hawaiian pizzas and five rounds of garlic bread, please, delivered to Wales manager John Toshack’s house. Tell him they’re from me. Ta very much!’ Absolutely crackin’ prank! Then I went in for training. Kept getting whistled for offside – it’s doing my flippin’ head in! Had an absolutely superb lunch at Salif Diao’s place: Pousse Spinach with avocado, crumbled Roquefort cheese and pine nuts, followed by cooked meat and then Scandinavian Iced Berries in a hot chocolate sauce. It turns out that Salif’s always wanted to be a proper gourmet cook, see, but at his other clubs the football always got in the way, so now he’s in his element. Absolutely first class! Didn’t do much for the rest of the day. Watched Diagnosis Murder in the afternoon. Absolutely brilliant as usual – real quality telly. Then Deal or No Deal and off to bed. Woken up at 1.30am by Robbie flippin’ Savage: ‘Craig, man, you’ll never believe it – John Toshack’s just been on the phone to thank me for sending a light snack round to his place! Don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, but he said he was so touched he’ll consider me for the next squad! What a piggin’ great result!’ Absolutely flippin’ gutted. I sometimes think the whole flippin’ world’s gone mad.
WEDNESDAY: Went to get some meat out of the fridge for me breakfast…and it wasn’t there! The missus had only gone and thrown it in the bin! ‘It was past its sell-by date, luvver. You need to be careful – it breeds bacteria’. Then – this is God’s honest truth, right – she goes and drinks another one of them flippin’ pots of bacteria! I tell you this for free – I cannot understand women! They are 310 per cent nuts! Went out to an antique shop in town and bought a cracking old painting of a really fat sheep – oh yeah, I’m a sensitive lad, really, me, I know a bit about art – and then went on to HMV to get the new Elton John album (not bad, not great, but it didn’t irritate me, so that’s a result). Played Newcastle at Anfield in the evening – sure enough, it all kicked off, and everyone was out to get old Craig, but I stood up for meself. Just when I thought it was all over, as I was going down the steps, I heard Terry flippin’ McDermott call me ‘ref’ as I went past! Well, I wasn’t having THAT! I went over to him – he was standing near the ref – and said: ‘Who the hell are you calling “ref�’ He said, bold as brass, like, ‘The ref, you idiot,’ and looked away! I said, ‘One, I am not an idiot, and two, my name happens to be “Craig,†you flippin’ IDIOT!’ That showed him. I walked off – well, sort of jogged, actually - all casual, like, with him shouting and screaming behind me like an absolute mad man! ‘Ref!’ he was screaming. ‘Ref! He’s a nutter! Ref!’ Absolute idiot. Got home, sat in front of the telly, turned on the VCR and found that, by an unbelievably stupid mistake, the missus had videoed Midsomer Murders (which I flippin’ HATE) instead of Diagnosis Murder! Absolutely flippin’ furious I was! I reckon all that Yakult stuff is rotting her brain!
THURSDAY: Well, well, what a complete flippin’ surprise, the papers have gone to town: ‘Craig’s a troublemaker, blah blah blah’. I’m NOT a troublemaker, and if anyone says I am I’ll do my flippin’ very best to get the fecker who said so sacked! Also through the letterbox came the laminated picture I’d ordered of me and Sir Tom Jones at last year’s Eisteddfod (I’m blinking – typical! – but it’s still magic!), and not one but TWO copies of the October edition of Guns & Gunmen – can’t that flippin’ paperboy get ANYTHING right? I wrote him a note, saying ‘I hesitate to admmonish one so flippin’ stupid but you’re an absolute tool!’ Absolutely infuriated later, after I’d put it through HIS letterbox, when someone pointed out that there’s only one ‘m’ in ‘admonish’. Yep, sure enough, the little twit puts a note through my door: ‘Dear Mr Belammy, I suggest U learn 2 spell b4 admmonshiing anyone! LOL! All the best, The Paper Boy’. I tore it up and threw it in the bin with all the empty Yakults. I’m mature now, me, and I refuse to stoop to their level. Read my anger management book for a few minutes, fell asleep, woke up just in time for Ready, Steady, Cook, which was blatantly fixed, in my opinion. I texted Salif about it, in fact, and he told me he agreed but he was rising above it, and that I should too. Talks an awful lot of sense, does Salif, when you get him off the subject of football. Feel quite inspired, so I stay up to watch Celebrity Masterchef, which I felt sure was fixed. Then beddy-byes. What a weird day.
FRIDAY: Breakfast. Just getting the meat out the oven. Suddenly, a knock on the door. It’s the dad of the paper boy. ‘Look, you neckless, feckless feck – insult my son again and I’ll smash your bleeding face in! Oh, and by the way: LEARN TO SPELL!!!!’ What an absolute pratt! Went out to chill for a bit. Bought some meat, some leeks, some mini-pepperamis, some Tizer, a crate of Yakult and a dictionary and got home just in time for Diagnosis Murder (an absolutely cracking episode in which Dick Van Dyke was kidnapped by a corrupt Chilean fitness instructor, who’d slipped traces of arsenic, bit by bit, into the sports-lite Lucozade of his wealthy wife’s marathon water bottles, and Dick, who was already in a hell of a state over his son’s dubious implication in a botched kidney transplant for a vaudeville star - guest appearance from Mickey Rooney - had to tap dance on a jogging machine at a certain very specific rate or else it would blow up!). Absolutely top notch stuff! Then, as if to irritate the hell out of me: Charlotte flippin’ Church! Charlotte flippin’ flamin’ flippin’ Church!!!! What a load of rubbish! Absolute conkers!! I mean, can’t she read the autocue at all? I’d actually go out and volunteer to have it written three times as large on me, but I reckon she’d still struggle to read it. I’d have it even larger, but that would just make me look like I’d been run over by a ruddy LORRY!! And, anyway, hello: I’m a professional footballer, me, not a flippin’ autocue machine! Show some respect!!! What a flippin’ nerve! That stuff doesn’t wash off. Jeez! That girl is an absolute disgrace to Wales! So that was the end of Craig’s telly for the night! Just as I was going up the stairs to bed, however, there was a knock at the door. It was Domino’s: ‘Hello, Mr Bellamy, the controversial footballer? Here are the fifteen large Texan BBQ pizzas, ten large Hawaiian pizzas and five rounds of garlic bread you ordered!’ What an absolutely STUPID prank! I reckon it was the paper boy. Really put me in a flippin’ AWFUL mood, that did. You can imagine the scene, can’t you – there’s poor old Craig, arms outstretched, just like on the pitch, shouting: ‘Flippin’ HECK!’ Hell of a day!
SATURDAY: Just don’t ask, all right? Don’t ask!
