中国女人！请不要上老外的床（新东方校长俞敏洪夫人写）

I can't remember how I came across this article but I seem to recall that there is a link to it on Sammyboy. The original article is in Chinese but some cracker translated it to English. Unfortunately, his standard of English is shockingly poor. For the benefit of my readers, I have taken the trouble of 'recycling' his chopped-up rubbish into something coherent. However, if you are a masochist and wish to torture yourself, you can read his translated version.

Chinese women! Please don’t get into bed with foreigners.

If you ask a foreigner why he came to China, he’ll usually tell you: “Because I admire China’s long history, wonderful culture, the stunning scenery, the breakneck development, the amazing changes.”

But I tell you, apart from the very few who are sponsored by the government, and those who are backed by large companies, the overwhelming majority are here for two reasons:

- They can’t support themselves very well at home, or maybe even can’t support themselves at all.
- They come for the Chinese girls.

One afternoon, me and my friend (a French girl), were returning home from eating out. We were at the entrance of our place of work. Far away opposite where we were standing, an old guy was collecting rubbish and pushing a small cart. At this point the French girl poked me, “”Did you see that?”

“See what?” I replied, bewildered.

“In front of you.”

I then discovered that the old guy was a foreigner. His hair was long, dirty, and messy. No wonder I thought that he was just a garbage collector. The cart in front of him was not for carrying rubbish; in it was a baby of mixed parentage. I then noticed a young, beautiful, and statuesque Chinese girl was beside him.

The French girl giggled, “Why do Chinese girls do this?” She was laughing because we were discussing this ‘issue’ during our meal. Actually, I’d already heard stories about this kind of foreigners with Chinese girls, but I’d never thought anything of it. Before my eyes, however, was a sight too powerful to ignore: a gorgeous Chinese girl with an old, ugly, dirty, short, bald, and shrivelled foreigner, and their baby in a push-chair.

The French girl wouldn’t stop laughing - I had no idea why she was laughing like that - and at that moment, as a Chinese, my self-respect was affected deeply.

Several days later, I made three decisions:
- Tell everybody the ugly truth about the foreigners I know.
- Inspire the Chinese people to rise up and stop Chinese girls from fawning over foreign men.
- Research on how foreign women look at Chinese men so that I could use the knowledge gained to help Chinese men attract foreign women.

To address the issue. My first act was to go with my colleagues to interview some white women who live in China and who have never had a Chinese boyfriend. More importantly, we wanted to go and interview those who had dated or married Chinese men and invite them to tell us the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese men. I know that foreigners who fit this description are few, but luckily, I’ve already met several.

Taking a more systematic approach, we also handed out a questionnaire to these white women, to get them to describe how they view Chinese men, and try to find out who are the five most charming Chinese men that they could think of. This research will answer for me these questions:

- Are foreign women interested in Chinese men?

- What do the single foreign women in China want most from a foreign man?

- What can Chinese men do to make themselves more attractive to foreign women?

- What kind of Chinese men are most attractive to foreign women?

- What kind of foreign women go for Chinese guys?

- How do you meet foreign women?

- In public, how does one approach a foreign woman?

- When did China become a heaven for foreign men?

John is one such example. Not long ago, I met him on the street, holding hands with a Chinese girl who is taller than him. Introducing himself, he said that his Chinese girlfriend works for the Home and Motors Company.

John is an American, 42 years old, and 1.67 metres in height. As he was a university dropout, he couldn’t get himself a decent job. After living in Africa for a couple of years, he heard ‘get rich quick’ stories of many Americans in China, and decided to come to China. Although he was not yet familiar with life in China, he managed to get himself an English teaching job in a small town in Jiangsu.

John wasn’t happy. After a couple of months in Jiangsu, he came to Shanghai to look for work. He stayed in a cheap hotel for 12 yuan a night. I met him there. That day I met with a foreign friend for a meal. As I saw them chatting, I thought she knew John, so I invited him over to our table. I didn’t know they had just met.

When we were ordering dinner, John ordered a pretty expensive dish,. My friend asked him in English, “The thing you ordered was pretty expensive. Do you intend to pay for it yourself?” John carried on like a kid who’d been caught doing something naughty. I saw him racking his brain. I told my friend in Chinese not to worry and then in English, told him to continue choosing.

After that, because of work and other responsibilities, I quickly forgot about him. The next time I saw him, he told me that he’d found an English teaching job in a school in Shanghai. I didn’t talk to his girlfriend, but I could tell that she looked down on Chinese people. Looking at her background, I was tempted to think, I bet she doesn’t know that her American once relied on other people to buy him dinner. This is rather too similar to a fairytale. It’s obviously manmade, and after making it up, a man goes and lives it.

Also, on a Shanghai bus, I spotted a typical American street-hood with a young Chinese girl. And in broad daylight, he put his hand under her shirt and started feeling her breasts. After ten minutes, the Chinese girl clearly wanted to say that her breasts had had enough stroking, but unfortunately her English ability was rudimentary at best.

A taxi driver told me that once outside a famous bar, he met a black man with both his hands aound a Chinese girl. Originally, he thought that she was a working girl so he wasn’t bothered, but they ended asking them to drop her off at the dormitories of a famous college. He was shocked.

It’s been reported that, a hospital in Beijing received a AIDS patient, an American businessman who confessed before dying, in the preceding weeks in Beijing, he had been with six Chinese women Further investigation, revealed most of them were respected intellectuals.

This kind of foreigners can’t find jobs in their own country. They use their status as foreigners in China to get money, chug beer, and chase women. Their only hobby is criticizing China. Some diplomats even use their position to have their way with Chinese girls. Some even publicly say, “My identity can get me any Chinese girl I want.”

China, do you know, you give foreigners too much, way too much, and in return, foreigners do nothing but look down on you. You should call them something even they are not used to. Call them white trash. I also want to take this opportunity to officially tell these foreigners. “Don’t congratulate yourselves too much, you’ve only had the flesh of Chinese girls, not their souls nor the best of what they have to offer.”

Recently, a joke has been doing the rounds on the Chinese internet sites about a foreigner seeking marriage in China:

A 47 year-old foreigner signed himself up at a Chinese marriage-agency but for a long time there were no inquiries. Then suddenly one day, he received two marriage proposals. The foreigner was shocked. Investigation revealed that one of the staff at the marriage agency had put his age at 67.

An independent survey recently confirmed that Chinese women don’t marry foreign men for love. It also discovered, the average age gap between a Chinese woman marrying a Western man is 10.5 years. 13% are of entirely different generations - a full 20-year age gap. It is reported that the record age gap for a Chinese-foreign marriage is 54 years. On the day they were married the American man was 82 and the Chinese girl was 28.

Incidentally, I recently saw a joke in an American magazine. It goes like this: “A man in his eighties took his pregnant wife (in her twenties) to the hospital. The doctor gently asked him if it was possible that the baby could have been someone else’s. The old man replied, “No way, I can perform miracles. Once, when my wife and I went hunting with one of her boyfriends, I used an umbrella to point at a deer, that deer just dropped dead there and then.”

I don’t know if that Chinese girl will get pregnant, but it definitely makes one respect the human capacity for creating miracles. You might have achieved something, but you’ve lost the most valuable thing: self-respect.

Needless to say, the instigators of these ugly foreigners’ success are the Chinese women. But for these women, most of whom have never been abroad, their brains are full of fantasies. So, today I want to take this opportunity to tell them the truth. If you’ve found true love, I congratulate you and wish you luck. Personally I say, if it’s true love, then no matter what troubles the future brings, it’s worth pursuing.

Nevertheless, I also want to warn you. Firstly, Chinese women seek marriages that are stable. However, in developed Western countries, the divorce rate is around 50% and for inter-racial marriages, the rate is even higher.

Secondly, I find it highly unlikely that the foreign men of today can give Chinese girls true love because the first ingredient of true love is respect. And in the eyes of foreign men, the image of Chinese women has already been ruined by that minority, It’s already changed. They are now the world’s most open, most forward, least careful, simple-minded, half-witted, stupid and easy girls. It’s very hard to believe that any man would give true love to this kind of girl. I only have one example, I heard an American say he was looking for an Asian girl who was a combination of maid, cook, and sex worker.

Maybe you’re only after money. I understand you and I don’t blame you. But I want to tell you, before committing yourself, you should be certain of two things: i) Is this foreigner really rich? (I know many foreigners in China are not rich.) ii) Does he want to marry you? If he doesn’t marry you, then his wealth will have nothing to do with you.

Maybe you want to travel abroad. Again, I don’t blame you. But before you commit yourself you should be certain of two things: i) This foreigner wants to go home. The outside world is generally wealthier than China, but it’s certainly not heaven. The dangerous part is, many foreigners in China don’t want to go home, because they can’t find decent work at home,, let alone any work. They don’t want to go home to return to that idle, lonely life. Ii) Does he want to marry you? If he doesn’t marry you, then you’ll never acquire the right to settle in his country.

My colleague’s neighbour’s daughter married a Japanese mountain farmer. The neighbour often says some analogies in front of my colleague “Now we don’t care about money. 100,000, 200,000 is a small number.” But, my neighbour replies, “Do you know if your daughter’s really happy in Japan? Chinese people are obsessed with face. They will always tell the good news, and keep the bad news under wraps. Some years ago, a Chinese TV show interviewed a Chinese girl who had married into a Japanese farming community. From lively, vibrant, colourful Shanghai to the remote, cold hills of Japan, the Chinese girl could only express disappointment and helplessness.

Maybe you’re after sex. In Australia, a female author, Miss Shi, has written, “I have a girlfriend. By Chinese standards she is extremely open, a woman of vast sexual experience. The first time she was with a wWstern man, she felt an extreme pleasure. She told me over the phone that the feeling this Western man was so good that she wanted to marry him, and I calmly told her, “8 out of 10 western men are great in bed, 2 out of 10 are average. 2 out of 10 are awful.”

By saying this, Miss Shi really stirred the pot. Swathes of Chinese men came out of the woodwork to defend themselves. This topic had been discussed in our local newspapers over several months, it’s even spilled over into parts of the international media. Apparently, this is a very sensitive subject for Chinese men.

Granted, this 2/10 figure was subjective. What are Chinese men really like in bed? I did my own investigation.

This time my subject was not Chinese women who had married Western men. I wanted to ask white women who had married Chinese men, or had once had a Chinese boyfriend. I bluntly asked them one question,: what are Chinese men like in bed? They bluntly replied, very good, some even said perfect. One even responded with a question of her own: “are Chinese men not confident in their own sexual prowess?”

I should continue my investigation. After I have finished my research I will make my findings public.

I’d like to tell everyone, the latest research on sex shows that, a woman’s pleasure in bed does not depend on the man she is with, it depends on herself. This research goes to show, a woman’s failure to enjoy herself in bed is usually the result of her own suppression of her own spirit. As long as women can raise above this repression, then they can be as happy and carefree as men in bed, perhaps even more so. This research proves that the real reason Miss Shi’s friend experienced so much pleasure the first time she was with a Western man was because of what he represented to her allowed her to let go of her repression.

The most recent studies have shown that men and women have similar responses to sexual stimulation. Previously, it was believed that men depended on visual stimulation and women depended on atmosphere and ambience to prepare for sex. This had been used to explain why men like to watch porn. But visual stimulation can also arouse women, even to the point of orgasm.

I can tell you, Chinese men’s problem is not physical, it is psychological. What is Chinese men’s biggest problem? Lack of sexual technique. Western men’s advantages are that in both urban and rural areas, they have sexual counselling and treatment clinics,, and an open attitude towards sex,. If they have a problem, they can seek support. To use an inappropriate example, an old lady who has cooked all her life is not as good as a young chef, because professional training is so important.

I call upon you to eliminate all of these ugly foreign men. Some of you might already be blaming the Chinese women, but aren’t we all responsible for creating this situation for the ugly foreign men?

The kind of women who are only after money are everywhere in the world, in America they are called gold-diggers. In other parts of the world, these kinds of women are looked down upon. It’s only in China where they are respected and envied. This society, which mocks poverty but not wealth, is responsible for creating them.

An American Professor of Chinese, who has an incomparable love of Chinese history and cherishes Chinese culture, took her husband to China. But after not very long she decided to return home. “Every day my husband was surrounded by Chinese women, Some didn’t even bother disguising their excitement. In order to preserve my marriage, I decided it was best to return to America.” This American professor bemusedly stated, “Back in America, I read a Chinese novel from the eighties, the novel is full of women and their lovers who are not careful and accidentally have a baby, and end up having to throw it into the river.”

I also don’t get it, we’re all Chinese people, but in a short twenty years, our attitudes have changed so much.

I would like to know, the ones who give special attention to foreigners, especially the Americans, are they these same women? I can understand the American President’s visit to China being in the headlines, but everything else is taking it a bit far isn’t it? Don’t forget, the more fuss you make over them, the less fuss they might make over you.

Here, I am appealing for one thing: stop Chinese women from surrounding Western men. I am deeply aware that as an individual, my power is miniscule, so I want to encourage everybody to rise up: if you know any young Chinese girls who have opportunities to meet foreign men, please feel duty bound to show them this essay.

If you married a foreigner, bravely stand up and tell your sisters: your life abroad is actually lonely, repressed, painful, and homesick. If you are the parents of such people, don’t boast about your daughter’s life bound to this sluttish moneybags existence.

If you are a translator, under no circumstances get emotionally involved. Our translation of the names of foreign countries shows that we subconsciously have an inferiority complex to them. We translate the word America into “beautiful country,” whereas our Japanese neighbours translate it into “grain country,” a much better translation! If your imagination is vivid, don’t think of America as a perfect country, or a beautiful country, think of it as a grain production base.

If you work in an international company, don’t look up to foreigners. Foreign affairs are not all big affairs. Have a better attitude towards your own fellow citizens - foreigners come and go. Don’t forget, the food you eat is cooked by Chinese people, the clothes you wear are made by Chinese people, your salary is paid by Chinese people.

If you work in sport, don’t let foreigners earn Chinese people’ money. Most importantly, don’t welcome foreign thugs like Tyson into China again.

If you work in an insurance company, don’t look at foreigners differently again, treat them the same as your compatriots.

If you work in positions of authority, please be less corrupt. The corruption is the main reason for the bad atmosphere in our society, and this is your responsibility.

If you are an economist, don’t just think about your vested interests, don’t just think about powerful people. Say a few words for the man on the street please.

If you are a policy maker, do not get wrapped up in self-interest. If the mountains are bald, the water is smelly, the air is dirty, the dust storms are rising, and every day morals are declining., if nobody cares, and social harmony is lost, if the suffering are left for dead, then what does your power really count for?

If you’ve earned yourself some money, be kind. Have some morals in the way you spend it. Don’t be greedy and materialistic. Contribute to society.

If you are a doctor, please save people’s lives. Do your job ethically. Don’t let the angels in white die in your hands.

If you are a lawyer, respect the law. Don’t use your power to prey on innocent people.

If you are a film-maker, don’t waste all of your money on crowd-pleasing. Make some films about Chinese girls who turn down foreign men, or Chinese men who hook-up with Western girls.

If you work in dentistry, please recommend a decent toothpaste for the Chinese people. Today’s Chinese people rely too much on primitive methods of oral hygiene.

If you work in advertising, please have less of these disgusting words like “royal”, “noble” “elite”, “successful” and “luxury.”

If you serve as a role model for young kids, please impart to them a sense of shame. When I was young, my mother told me, clothes may be tattered, but will never be dirty; people may be poor, but will never be downtrodden; wealth cannot be prostituted, conviction cannot be destroyed, the head can be cut and blood can flow, but life is precious, love is even more valuable. Why don’t today’s children hear such speeches?

If you are a Chinese woman, hold your head up high. If you are a Chinese man, straighten your spine. In this world, there is an unalienable truth, if a person doesn’t respect himself, he will never achieve the respect of others. This is the same for both country and race.

A Kind of Afterlife

A friend of mine, whom I haven’t seen since university, called me last week and asked me out for slop. Being blokes, we shot the shit about specs and towards the end of our conversation, a thought occurred to me. I asked him if he was peddling insurance. He said yes. I told him I already had insurance and therefore could not help him. He was fine with that but insisted that it wouldn’t hurt to just come out for slop.

Then a few days ago, I ran into an old friend. He left the military last year and is now an insurance agent. The majority of ex-regulars either join some government-linked engineering firm as technicians or become insurance agents. The reasons are simple. Despite whatever achievements you had in the military, nobody ‘outside’ really gives a damn about them. (Welcome to the real world – it sucks!) This is what you get after spending the golden years of your existence serving the nation: your experience and skills are simply non-transferable and your efforts are unrecognized by most prospective employers. The worst part is that you picked up few useful skills (if any) in the military and you are out of touch with the real world. As a regular, you do the same shit every day. You laze around when you get the chance. You are paid to do simple things like attend parades. You soon start to think about how glamorous it is to wear a tie to work, work in Shenton Way and do ‘intelligent’ jobs like office work, but you never realize you have been living like a plant in the greenhouse all the while. The outside world is result-driven and your mistakes can result in a loss of bonuses and in some cases, immediate dismissal from your job and a black mark on your resume. You have to tax your brain to find ways to meet some company objective. When you fall sick and return from illness, you will find a large pile of work on your desk and a hundred unread emails in your mailbox.

Unlike in the military, there is no such thing as taking MC ‘for fun’ or when you ‘don’t feel like going to work’. You have no canteen breaks and you certainly do not get paid a decent salary to stand in some ‘change of command’ parade or attend some ‘pride day’ or ‘army family day’. You can slack and screw up but it is unlikely that you will be sacked. You begin to think that you are too good for the military and that you are getting ripped off and underpaid for contributing so much. This is true for many regulars but there are also those who are paid the same salary for doing a bloody 8 to 5 job which mainly consists of packing parachutes from Monday to Friday in some air-conditioned room, the monotony alleviated by two canteen breaks at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m! It is little wonder that so many regulars cannot even pass their annual physical fitness test!

Where was I? Oh yes the skill relevance. Big government-linked firms are always hiring technicians and unlike their competitors, they recognize to some extent your military experience. An army mechanic can easily land a job as a technician or mechanic in one of these companies as long as he does not talk rubbish in his interview or ask for the sky in his wage demands. For the rest who want to wear a tie, insurance and sales are popular fields to go into. Why? Because they do not require any experience or qualifications! For example, all you need to apply for an insurance job is just four credits in your ‘O’ Levels and to qualify, you just need to pass two computerized tests. If you can make it in sales or insurance, everybody gains. If you can’t sell anything, too bad. The company loses nothing by giving you a try and then dismissing you if necessary, when you fail!

Seriously, if you want to be a military man, you should strive to make it your career. There is no point realizing that you can’t cut it when you are in your late-twenties and then correcting your mistake by going into a different field. You would have lost much precious time and it is always painful to start all over when you are jaded and battling hard to find positives in your wayward existence.

A Male Animal Rants

The Shite Times reports that low-income men are having difficulty getting local specs to be their girlfriends. This is hardly surprising, considering how materialistic our local specs are. One sorry sod, who has a vocational certificate and earns only $1,300 a month, bemoans the fact that specs just aren’t digging into him. While I do not blame the specs - $1,300 is really pathetic – they can be too demanding. There was a quiz last year in which local specs were given the photos of three men (Choice A was the best-looking of the lot, Choice B was average in looks, and Choice C was ugly) and asked to rate them in terms of attractiveness. Choice A naturally was given the highest score, followed by B and then C. The quiz-givers then displayed their salaries: Choice A earned around $2,300, Choice B earned $4,000, and Choice C earned $8,000. The specs were then asked to rate them again. Not surprisingly, Choice C (the ugly one) received the highest score and Choice A got the lowest – a complete reversal of the results. Despite what they claim and how vehemently they argue, it is simply indisputable that sgspecs are money-grabbers and materialistic vain-pots. And you don’t need a quiz or sociological survey to reveal this fact. Sgspecs go on ad nauseam about ‘girl power’, ‘female equality’, ‘equality of the sexes’, ‘Ms Independent’ and all that bollocks, but it is only too apparent that they are insecure and yearn to be taken care of by an automatic teller machine who dispenses cash and Gucci bags. If they are really so confident, they should not pick their partners on the size of their cash flows. How about buying expensive gifts and opening doors for their men for a change? Instead of talking the talk, it would be nice if sgspecs remembered to walk the talk.

Local specs have a maddening tendency to denounce all foreign, or more specifically Asian women from poorer countries as god-diggers, whores, and vixens who are after our money. While this is true in many cases, such blatant generalization is unreasonable and does not befit our local specs, many of whom have high education and impressive professional credentials. Before they point an accusing finger at their foreign counterparts, they should look themselves in the mirror and ask if they are not dissimilar to those they criticize. What is the difference between a spec from China or Thailand who chooses to marry a local bloke to improve her economic circumstances and a sgspec who only goes for local blokes who earn a higher income or a laowai , who is perceived as being richer? Both are motivated by money! Gold-diggers from poorer countries may be less educated and as a result, they are denied many opportunities to improve their economic straits and social status – at least they can use this as an excuse for their mercenary ways. In contrast, many sgspecs are well-educated and have high earning power. Some enjoy promising careers and a few are even high-flyers. I am sure they are capable of looking after themselves, an ability no doubt enhanced by the critical thinking and intelligence their education affords them. What excuse then, has the sgspec for relying on men? Before criticizing foreign hussies for their despicable ways, maybe they should put themselves in their sisters’ shoes (no stiletto heels for these poor wenches, unless provided by the wallets of their sugar daddies) and honestly ask themselves if they will do the same thing (which, in essence, they are already doing). After all, judging by the cloying manner some sgspecs adopt around laowais, I dare say that they are no better than some Vietnamese hussy walking the streets of Geylang!

Sgspecs are losing market share to their Asian sisters and it is not difficult to understand why this state of affairs has come to pass. Sgspecs’ inability to understand market and customer preferences means that they have failed to erect an effective barrier to entrants to safeguard their market space. Mistakenly believing themselves to be highly attractive due to their education, they have overlooked the fact that high education is of little relevance to the needs of their customers (local blokes) and in some ways, a high education is an unwanted commodity that only serves to lower their market attractiveness. Most modern specs demand their men to be more educated and earn more money than they do. Given that many females these days have at least tertiary education, they are effectively pricing themselves out of most of the market. In addition, a high education does not improve a spec’s ability to be a supportive, caring and gentle girlfriend and in some cases, it may even make her think that she is some kind of rare and protected breed, causing her to adopt a ‘princess attitude’, demanding this and that from all males and not just her boyfriend and throwing little bitch fits and melodramatic tantrums to get her way. We blokes are indoctrinated from young to look after our mates. Even though our mates may earn more than we do, it does not really matter for most of us. (I leave the gigolos out.) We do not expect to live off our women anyway.

Esteemed works such as The Satanic Bible recognize that the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Few things beat the joy of knowing that your loving girlfriend or wife is taking time and effort to prepare a scrumptious meal for you. Such a simple gesture is very endearing indeed. Sadly, many sgspecs do not even know how to whip up a decent meal, preferring to eat out or rely on their maids or mother to cook for them. Many women are busy with their careers but surely it will not kill them to cook once in a while to pamper their men. A man will not be motivated to go home when he knows that all he gets every time is some slop prepared by the maid or worse, no slop at all. Instead of making themselves more attractive by learning to do some feminine chores, they disguise their inadequacies by criticizing us for not knowing how to do the housework and that we aren’t independent! Incredible! We males go through at least two years of army training, during which we suffer through countless stand-by-beds* and area-cleanings. We know how to mop or sweep the floor, windows, and even the ceiling. We know how to wash our own muddy clothes and we can do it without using a fucking washing machine. And we definitely know, at the very least, how to cook a packet of instant noodles or boil an egg, and wash the utensils afterward – no thanks to our outfield training – and to say that we are incompetent around the house is simply disgraceful! The same cannot be said for some of our ‘precious and delicate specs’, who will complain of melting in the sun when they have to walk from one bus stop to another!

As I have stated, what blokes really want is a caring and supportive girlfriend. Of course if possible we would like her to be beautiful. (We always get stick from females about this ‘shallowness’. A spec who seeks a rich bloke for a husband or boyfriend is exercising her goddamn prerogative. A bloke who asks for a pretty girlfriend is a shallow bastard. Double standards, double standards…) If sgspecs cannot satisfy our needs, we have to seek alternatives in the form of cnspecs, vcspecs, and myspecs! If we are being despised by our own women, some of whom now prefer Europeans and Americans, it will be unfair for us to retain our brand loyalty to a brand that does not reciprocate our loyalty and provides us with no customer satisfaction. Just look at Nokia. They have been losing market share and revenue to Samsung and Apple, and Chinese manufacturers because they are stuck in their own bubble and are making little effort in making their products more appealing to their customers. To borrow from Nokia’s CEO, Elop, sgspecs are like a man on the platform of a burning oil rig in the middle of a freezing ocean. However unappealing the icy waters may be, he has to jump. It is time that sgspecs appreciate the situation they are in and take measures to make themselves more attractive to their customer segment. They shouldn’t think that there will always be laowais for them to hook up with. The reality of globalization means that many foreign competitors will find it easier to enter the market. They will have attributes which are superior to sgspecs’ and traits which are more attractive to both laowais and locals. For example, specs from Vietnam and Thailand are prettier and more submissive. Chinese and Hong Kong specs, although materialistic, are smarter and prettier. Sgspecs, do not think for a moment that you are the centre of the universe or that your degrees and your careers and your cars and your ability to speak English make you irresistible. The world are catching up and it is time for sgspecs to go back to basics and truly understand that despite what the trash columnists in Cleo, Her World and all the fucking rubbish fashion mags say about what guys want, we are really simple in our needs: a caring and supportive girlfriend. (Of course, being pretty is an advantage but not a must - sounds like a job ad, I know.) We definitely do not like a high-priced spoilt princess! And if I may inspire some hope in sgspecs, the majority of local blokes still prefer a sgspec for their girlfriend. The ball is in your court, ladies.

Having said that, would I go for a sgspec? NO.I am only interested in specs from Hong Kong, Taiwan or China. Most local specs do not appeal to me and some of them are quite repulsive. I like beautiful women and local specs are generally inferior to the aforementioned specs in terms of looks. If you insist that these foreigners are gold-diggers and only interested in money, let me ask you: because of their monetary requirements in a prospective mate, aren’t local specs materialistic as well? Let me use an analogy. Nokia phones and iPhones have the same basic functions. They allow you to text-message and make calls, and may break down just after their warranty periods have expired. You know that you are paying a steep price for the Nokia or Apple phone you purchase and are therefore in a way ‘overcharged’ and ‘screwed’ by both companies, but you know that the iPhone lets you surf the internet, play Angry Birds, use Google Map, and download all kinds of fun stuff from iTunes whereas the Nokia phone gives you a lousy interface (you need to navigate through layers and press a few buttons before you get to the application you want), a Ovi Map that does not work, applications you never need, unplayable ‘bouncing balls’ and ‘racing cars’ games and a boring Ovi Store, any reasonable person will choose a iPhone over a Nokia phone. (To digress, I am getting rid of my Nokia phone and getting a iPhone. (Bye bye Elop, hello Jobs!) Likewise, I am given two materialistic wenches to choose: a sgspec (not pretty), and a cnspec (pretty) and I know they are screwing me for my money, of course I will take the pretty one! I am not daft!

To round it up, if you are a Shitholer bloke and cannot get a local spec to be your girlfriend, do not feel sorry for yourself. You have lost nothing. If you are a foreigner who likes sgspecs, please take them all. You have my gratitude.




* Stand by bed - In the military, this is an inspection of the barrack’s cleanliness by a superior, which is usually done after the poor soldiers or recruits have spent a few hours or more on cleaning the barracks until not a single speck of dust remains on all surfaces. Given that the barrack is not in a clean-room, this is an impossible task and the inevitable failure leads to punishment, usually in the form of harsh scoldings and press-ups ‘sessions’ but can also include re-stand by beds, the awarding of extra duties and confinements.

Chaotic Thoughts

According to a local tabloid, surveys show that 40% of young people lost their virginity before the age of 18. This marks an astonishing 100% increase, from the 20% score found in a similar survey a decade ago. It is heartening to know that our young people, who are often criticized for being apathetic, have answered our regime’s call for greater efforts towards increasing productivity. Surely, the future of our nation is in safe hands.

In Toffeeweb news, President Gaddafi has been spotted in a fish and chips shop at Goodison Road. Everton chairman Bill Kenwright, affectionately known to his Evertonians as ‘Billy Bullshit’, ‘Kenwrong’, and ‘Kenshite’ is said to be in takeover talks with the soon-to-be ousted Libyan president.

President Gaddafi is keen to invest his ill-gotten gains from his 42 years of totalitarian rule of Libya. He also brings to the table his expertise in silencing dissidents - a skill much valued by the increasingly beleaguered club chairman.

A source close to Gaddafi says that this is ‘a match made in heaven’ and ‘a historic landmark in the relationship of two great countries’.

There is this bloke who keeps asking me on Facebook about the effects of stretching and adrenaline rush on physical performance and the prevention of injuries. I don’t get what this joker is trying to do. I have already explained to him what I know, and he still asks me more questions. He should also brush up on his reading comprehension skills; he asked me on what I have already answered. I am losing my patience with him. Maybe I should refer him to Doctor Soo, and not necessarily for the purpose of helping him improve his medical knowledge.

A Few Thoughts

On Friday an ex-gulag mate went on Facebook Chat and invited me to his wedding. This dreary ceremony will take place on the 15th of May and will feature other ex-gulag mates and friends and relatives of the happy couple. Why are people so eager to tie the knot? My friend is 27 this year and his wife-to-be is probably a bit younger. I feel a bit sorry for him but for his sake I shall take the trouble to attend his rites.

My left ankle was slightly twisted in a tackle yesterday. I really should thank my mates for leaving the defending to me and hanging me out to dry. Unlike the expatriates we have, Shitholer males do not play contact sports the right way. In my esteemed opinion, you have no right to be playing a contact sport when you fear being roughed up, and you have certainly no right to play team-sports when you cannot be arsed enough to support your teammates. The only sports most Shitholers can probably play to some level are in most ways 'elitist' or 'comfortable': golf, pool, and bowling. Pathetic.

A bloke, whose old man used to own the convenience store down my block, recently married a vcspec. Now he is a proud father. Word has it that his old man was desperate for him to carry the family line and seeing that his lowly-educated son might have difficulty getting a sgspec for his wife, decided to take matters into his own hands and arranged for a marriage (read: daughter-selling transaction) with some peasant family in Vietnam. I do not begrudge the bloke - the son, not the father - for getting a wife in this manner. He has his own needs and our local specs can be quite.... choosy. However, this sort of thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It is modern-day slavery. The spec has got little choice but to go to a strange country, allow her cunt to be invaded by a bloke whom she has no real feelings for, bear his child, just so that her family can have a bit of dough and existence for them is for a while at least, more tolerable.

Back to this vcspec, she speaks Mandarin, but not English. In this English-speaking shithole, I do not think she can get a decent-paying job - I use the word 'decent' loosely, as our meager wages have been stagnant for a decade, no thanks to our trade union, which is in reality a supermarket - and being lowly-educated (my assumption) certainly does not help her one bit. Their family relies on her husband's pittance of a salary and the savings of the old man, which contributes massively to their maintenance. Had it not been for his old man's sponsorship, the poor bloke might have had to take his pleasure with a lady of virtue every now and then.

Anyway, this spec stays at home all day long to look after her baby. She has no friends here. She does not go out to town. She is merely a child-bearing machine cum maid cum bed partner, compelled to satisfy the needs of her husband and his family at the expense of her own. I feel sorry for the poor girl. I wonder how she really feels. I can never understand why people who claim to have compassion can also claim belief that there is a kind and loving god, a power who rewards the just and punishes the wicked. Where is this deity? Is it dead? If it is not, what has it been doing? Is such an entity worthy of worship? The answer is simple. There is no god, and if there is, we ought to commit deicide.

FA Cup 4th Round

FA Cup 4th round result:

CHELSKI: 1 EVERTON: 1

(0:0 after full time; Everton 4:3 on penalties)

GO TO THE HELLS YOU OBNOXIOUS TWATS FROM LONDON!

Rants are Back!

Spurs beat AC Milan in the San Siro last night. It just gets better and better for the London club in their maiden season in the Champions League. Pienaar starred in this historical win and he certainly enjoyed it after suffering at uninspiring Everton. Although there is still much to play for in the return leg, Spurs fully deserved their victory. They have demonstrated yet again that when you go out and attack, there is always a chance to win. Please take note, Moyes. 'Arry' face may resemble melted wax, but his team is much more entertaining than your dour, cumbersome, and negative Anichebe-driven joke of a football team.

Moyes out. Holloway in.

Chicken and his wife were watching some local variety show when the lady commented, 'Why are your [country's] artistes so ugly? How come even these people can be artistes?' My friend immediately thought of me, smiled, and replied, 'If only The Philistine were here! He would have agreed wholeheartedly.' With that, they laughed and probably continued to gawk in wonder at the unsightly creatures on the telly.

Such an intelligent woman! Chicken is one lucky bastard.

Fuzz Car messaged me on Facebook Chat: 'SSOF. Why you never picked up my calls?' (For the uninitiated, SSOF stands for sek si or fan, meaning in Cantonese, 'eat shit shit rice'.)

I thought he was a bit rude and I went one better by ignoring the pathetic failure of a man and a disgrace of a xtian, this time on Facebook.

Another reason why I am going for foreign specs. Look at the teachers they have! Our teachers? The whole lot can go fly kite!

The Last Books of H.G.Wells

The Last Books of H.G. Wells contains H.G Wells’s last two works: ‘The happy turning: a dream of life’ and ‘Mind at the end of its tether’. Although they are only as long as pamphlets, their power to captivate is not diminished in the least. The mood in these two pieces, which is in stark contrast to the other, is simply fascinating.

‘The happy turning: a dream of life’ is cheerful and filled with optimism. Taking a secret path, the protagonist meets Jesus of Nazareth and begins a conversation with him In a matter-of-factly manner, the reputed Son of God narrates an comedy of errors in a ridiculous odyssey that culminated with his crucifixion and subsequent deification.

Delightfully blasphemous, the narration will outrage religious fundamentalists and leave atheists chuckling at its irreverent humour. The best part of the pamphlet, for me, is the ‘A hymn of hate against sycamore’, in which Wells curses at the hated sycamore in Biblical prose. Rarely have I read a rant so funny.

Nihilistic and depressing, ‘Mind at the end of its tether’ is shocking in its incoherence and fatalism. Written in the third person, the pamphlet is more a product of Wells’s denial of his impending demise than it is a serious work of literature. Convinced that mankind is going extinct and that ‘there is no way out or round or through’, Wells argues his view vehemently by bombarding his readers with meaningless rhetoric. He soon realizes his initial arguments make no sense, starts anew and expounds on evolutionary principles and warns of the dangers of ‘gigantism’. Despite his feverish efforts, he fails to convey fully the thrust of his arguments and as a result, the rest of the pamphlet descends into barely disguised desperation.

His natural optimism shines through the bleakness in the end, however. Wells makes a heroic and ultimately futile stand in the last sentence of this work: ‘…that small minority which will succeed in seeing life out to its inevitable end.’ Whether this line reflects his hope for a medical miracle or an acceptance of his terminal condition we will never know. ‘Mind at the end of its tether’ is surely the best eulogy ever penned by an author for himself.

To conclude, The Last Books of H.G. Wells is an emotional roller-coaster. One story elevates you to the Elysian Fields and the other plunges you into deepest Tartarus. Truly wonderful!

Rating: 4/5

Bamboo Goalposts

Join Rowan Simons as he recounts his two decades in China and his struggle to teach its masses to love The Beautiful Game. Inconceivable but true (and not without irony), the football revolution has swept to every corner of the globe – except the land of its inventors. Indignant as only an Englishman could be, Simons sets about his own football revolution in a country where it was illegal for more than ten people to congregate for even sports without official approval.

More than just being ‘another football book’, Bamboo Goalposts charts China’s sociocultural and economic evolution and the catastrophes which have prevented Chinese football from taking root and flourishing. Simon’s frustration is all too palpable as he fights what is often a lone battle against the incompetence of sports officials and the antipathy of the Chinese people towards the sport. Although Bamboo Goalposts is depressing in parts, Simons’s optimism and British wit pull the book from the chasm of despair and injects it with such verve that it becomes irresistibly compelling.

Unlike many foreign writers on China, Simons is not a mere dabbler; he immerses himself heart and soul in his adopted culture. His insight into the Chinese way of life will astonish both Chinese and laowai readers in the way his determination to bring football to China is inspiring to all.

Bamboo Goalposts is a must read for all football and China aficionados. Go get it today!

Rating: 5/5

A Few Sexy Commercials

Time for some sexy commercials!

Random Jabbering

Despite being offered an improved contract, Pienaar had decided to leave Everton for Spurs. While some fans are criticizing him for his apparent lack of loyalty, I cannot blame him. If your company (gulag if you will) is going nowhere and a rival company which is on the up offers you a job with better pay and perks, would you choose to stay? As far as I am concerned, Pienaar had been a consummate professional during the time he was with us and I wish him well.

If the blame game is to played, the finger should rightly be pointed to our despicable and incompetent chairman and his equally despicable and incompetent cronies on his management team. Why is it that despite ‘looking for investment 24/7’, Everton has not found a rich benefactor or investor to take us forward while ‘lesser’ clubs like Sunderland and Villa continue to outspend us? The only additions to our squad are loanees and it seems we have to sell before we can even borrow. This depressing situation does not bode well for the club. In a couple of seasons we may be vying for the title in the Championship. It is hard to love Everton, even harder to want to love it.

The Student and I met with the Praying Mantis Master’s wife two weeks ago. Over slop we discussed the viability of her husband setting up a martial arts school in this shithole. The lady told us that during the first year the master would come over and teach a group of dedicated students. They will practise on their own for a few months each time until he comes back.

I was not convinced about this model but she was confident of its chances. She said that they have been doing quite well in Australia and with the population size and growth rate in Shithole, they should have no problems getting students. Moreover, they will be offering classes to all age groups and people with different intents and interests. I suggested we draw up a business plan first before staking it out. In business, nothing is certain. A model which works in one country does not mean it will work in another. They are counting on their customers to be proactive and enthusiastic on their own and my experience setting up atheist groups have taught me that people are inherently lazy, selfish, and unmotivated. The teaching of different martial arts to many age groups, customer types, and so forth is essentially a mass-customization strategy. Without sufficient resources, it is simply impossible to be implemented. They also neglected to look at the costs and marketing.

Although the lady assure me that the first year is a ‘testing’ year so no expenses would be incurred, then what about the airfare of the master and the rental costs of training grounds? With regards to marketing, they did not seem to have any plan in place. While they may have won many trophies in Australia, how will they measure up to their competitors, which are made up of new age gyms and traditional martial arts schools? I don’t know if the Student feels the same way, but I dare say he will just plough on ahead. He is idealistic and not realistic. Unless they come up with a strong business plan, I am not going to invest too much of my time (assuming I do deign to do charity work here) into this venture.

Day by Day Armageddon Beyond Exile

The second book of the Day by Day Armageddon series continues the tale of a ragtag band of survivors of a post-zombie apocalypse.

Written in diary form, it describes with vivid details the struggles of the protagonist, a U.S. naval officer, and his band as they seek to survive in an increasingly bleak world swarming with new and dangerous threats. Radiated zombies and raiders blight the desolate landscape; the remnants of military vie for power, and the need for supplies grow ever more desperate. With every turn of the page, the reader is assaulted by the desolation of the ravaged landscape. The narration brilliantly conveys the hopelessness and fear the protagonist feels as he fights his way across miles of zombie-infested wasteland.

Although the military jargon may confuse non-military readers, its inclusion imparts flavor. A U.S. naval officer himself, J. L. Bourne puts his military knowledge, tactical mindset and imagination to great effect, creating realistic scenarios beyond the ken of many would-be zombie writers.

Although an absorbing read, Beyond Exile pales slightly in comparison to its prequel in terms of sheer adrenaline pumping action. The story gets awfully slow at certain points; the tedium perhaps an unwanted effect of drawing emphasis to the mental turmoil the protagonist suffers. Bourne is a relatively new writer and he will improve with practice. I cannot wait for the release of his third book: Into Dragon’s Maw.

Rating: 3.5/5

Derby Day Draw

The Merseyside derby:

SHITE: 2 EVERTON: 2

Trailing by a goal in the first half, we came back in the second half and battered them. Moyes grew a pair and started with two strikers. Cahill, Pienaar, Jags, and Saha were unavailable and fucking Dalglish still can't get a win under his belt.

The Shite will win NOTHING this season!

A Couple of Good Cats

I saw this darling while waiting for my friend.

This kitty can be found down my block.

First Post of 2011

Last Saturday my mates and I played football in NUS. A group of Vietnamese students challenged us to a game. We accepted and duly lost. They were prepared to get stuck in and we were not.

It was always going to be difficult. My mates, who are not known for being physically fit and mentally competitive, were outrun, outthought, outfought, and outclassed from the first minute. I yelled at a couple of my mates and they were not too happy with me. They probably thought I was being too serious about a ‘friendly’ kickabout. Well, our Vietnamese opponents were also being ‘friendly’ but that did not stop them from battling as a team and battering us. Our tackling was virtually non-existent. When it came it was half-arsed. Too often I found myself defending against two or three opponents without my teammates showing even the slightest inclination to fall back and help out.

It could have been a humiliating rout; my heroic efforts turned it into a mere loss. If any women were watching our game, they would have concluded that Shitholer males are pathetic. Two years in the army and a bunch of young lads could not even play a football game without huffing and puffing like they are going to suffer an asthmatic attack any moment. A few years of playing together and they play like they barely knew one another from Adam. More than a few years of kicking a ball around and a few cannot even execute a pass farther than five metres without bungling the job.

In conclusion, Shitholer males are physically weak and I have no intention of being associated with that ilk.


My wayward friend Fuzz Car told me he is going for a job interview at some semiconductor firm next/this Thursday. He wanted to know what questions the interviewer may ask. I gave him a few pointers and he replied saying that he ‘knew’ this and that. If he had known these things why did he ask me in the first place. Seriously, knowing that some of his church mates are professionals, it might be better for him to consult them. Chicken said that our friend ought to be re-educated and I could not agree more. What have they been teaching him? I guess that since he is a carrot to Thai whores it is a reasonable assumption that his church mates have been treating him the same way.

The Holy Land is the best place for slop, as Chicken and I discovered long ago.

Forget about the French and Italians! The Chinese are the best cooks!

Predator

I am going to terrorize my prey.

Going Random

Several Premiership games were cancelled in the past fortnight due to the deep freeze. Word has it that it is the worst winter in fifty years. Perhaps this is a sign that the world is ending soon and the next generations may well be the last of a civilization that will soon be reduced to dust. No big loss there. Nature would be better off without this particular parasite.

Chicken told me that one of his colleagues injured himself while lifting a tow bar. This pathetic specimen slipped and scraped off the skin off his hand. For a staff sergeant to make a hush of such a simple task is laughable. My friend’s next statement was sobering though. He said that while we dismiss local specs as inferior, they are not wrong in their criticism of us either. “If they were on the scene, “ he went out, “What would they think of us local guys?” He had a very good point. I refuse to be associated with my ilk.

My martial arts practice will only resume after the Chinese New Year. This leaves me with little opportunity to practise my skills, for the area in my neighbourhood is not secluded enough. It is hard to concentrate when some riffraff and stray animals are gawking at you with a noticeably lack of intelligence. Maybe I should join XH, assuming his master allows it. This arrangement comes with its own difficulty, as our styles are as disparate as day and night in many ways. I will have to locate some dark location.

It appears that many people are catching the flu these days. I am not surprised. The weather in this shithole is about as predictable as a emo woman on premenstrual syndrome. One moment the sun is out, the next a drizzle, and then it is sunny again. Even the sun does not give out as much warmth as it used too. The winds are another phenomenon. Gentle as they are, they chill the bones and with the sun reduced in intensity, it is all too easy for disease to spread. We may yet witness a plague in this shithole. It would be quite….entertaining.

Xmas Eve

While the rest of the world were partying the night away in the city area, Chicken and I spent an hour or so in the Holy Land. The merchandise were out on display, thanks to the fuzz having the good graces not to spoil the festive mood. I noticed that business was brisk. It is not uncommon on other days to see many shoppers but few buyers, but obviously with the year end bonuses and the joy that comes with sharing and giving, consumers were willing to indulge themselves and so boost the economy.

Fuzz Car wanted to join us in the city area but opted out at the last minute. His phone message to us, although short, was straight to the point and betrayed his secret need: “I won’t be joining you. If halfway you want to go to GL (the Holy Land), call me.” This was not the first time he ‘launched airplanes’ on us and it certainly would not be the last. Chicken and I cursed him vehemently. This is a bloke who professes to believe in his invisible sky fairy, goes to his church and puts on an act with the fellowship thing, and indulges in gambling, goldbricking, lying, and whoring. A hypocrite and a pathetic one at that.

Unlike our wretched friend, the staff in the Holy Land stuck to their tasks. They knew they had a job to do and in spite of the holiday, still provided entertainment to needy consumers. I have nothing but respect for these ladies of virtue, who could teach the slackers in the military and government sectors a thing or two about diligence and professionalism.

Chicken and I sat down, had coffee, and shot the shit. He fantasized about catching his boss in the act of soliciting a lady of the night and getting rich persuading him of his worth. We guffawed at the joke, at the same time admiring the statuesque beauties a few yards from us. I would have enjoyed our little chat even more, but for the fact that my stomach was clenching uncomfortably from some slop I ate. I believe it was caused by that horrible swill which the Brain and I had the misfortune to order when we ate at Thai Express. I had been stricken with flu, am suffering a cough, and become more susceptible to stomach aliments. I need lots of Chinese slop, in particular holy meat, to restore me to health.

The Great Escape!

A miracle has occurred: I have escaped relegation! So despondent was I in my belief in my relegation that I dreaded this very day. But no! The Lard and the Almighty Curve had deigned to deliver me from my endless trials and tribulations and by Their Glories – praise be Their names – I shall no longer be compelled to endure hostile scenery and work with retards both garden-variety and functional.

The farewell lunch my gulag mates treated me felt like my last meal. I trudged towards my gulag, trying to delay the inevitable – for it had seemed like a confirmation of my collapse – but I knew I had to face it sooner if not later. I sat down on my seat, worked on some issues, thought of logging on to check, decided not to. And so I tallied, until I decided to get it done and over with and then go to the holy temple to assuage my depression by dumping.

I logged on, but the connection was shaky. Obviously many desperate people were clogging up the system. When I got the page, I realized to my chagrin my password had been rendered invalid. I attempted to reset it but to no avail. I called up their technical support and miraculously someone actually answered the call! I could barely contain my surprise as I told the support staff to reset my password. She said it would take thirty minutes to an hour. I asked her why and she replied it was because they reset passwords by batches! Batches! I had never heard of anything like this and told her in no uncertain way what I thought of their infernal IT system. Of course, since she was quite professional I added that it was not her fault of course. It was just that their system sucks. I thanked her for her help and ended the call.

So I settled some issues and toyed around with my own IT system for a while and about forty minutes later I tried and true to her word, I was able to log on. I went straight to the ‘Exam Results’ button. As the page refreshed, I braced myself. For all I knew it could be a straight three defeats and bottom of the table.

It was not to be! Imagine my shock when I saw that I have escaped to victory! I could barely believe my eyes! Like Iniesta who kneeled and threw up his arms to the heavens upon the final whistle of the World Cup final, there I was, both my arms raised, fists to the ceiling as I leaned backwards in my seat. I looked at the screen again. No. My eyes had not deceived me. Just to make sure, I clicked on my ‘Academic Profile’ and they showed me the same results. My GPA was not too bad either – by the standards of my school my overall grade should place me in the ‘second uppers’ tier.

I printed out my Course Offer Letter; it displays my results for this season. I messaged the Brain of my deliverance. Still shell-shocked, I returned to my seat, stood, and started muttering to myself. My gulag mate, who was sitting behind me, asked me what happened. I told her the news. She offered me her congratulations. I thanked her, walked aimlessly around the gulag, decided yet again not to go to the holy temple, got a cup, walked to the water cooler, filled it with cold water, rinsed my face, and then splashed the water into my stoned face twice. My gulag mate saw water dripping off me and was quite amused. I told her I needed to make sure I was sober. I then ambled to the big room where my other gulag department mates were, and then one offered her congratulations. The other two followed suit and I told them it was a miracle and how relieved I was. When told that I could now concentrate on getting a better job, I said my immediate aim is to sleep the next month away to make up for three years of sleep deprivation. Some new graduates buy themselves gifts, others party away the night. Me? I sleep.

As I have to wait until the middle of next year to receive my hard-earned piece of paper, I will need to write in to get my attestation letter. I do not know how much they will charge me. My ex-senior said she was thinking of attending her graduation ceremony she missed due to work commitments. It is nice to put on that robe but the thought of going to see hostile scenery does not appeal to me. Regardless of my decision, I am delighted to leave that Gehenna with a piece of paper I richly deserve.

Miracle on Saturday Night

A miracle occurred:

CHELSKI: 1 EVERTON: 1

We were negative in the first half, deservedly trailed, but came back roaring in the second half and battered the vulgarians. The excellent Baines weaved past four defenders on the left flank, whipped a cross into the box, Cahill beat his marker to head it back across goal, and Beckford made no mistake from close range. A beautiful goal!

Beckford has been lampooned for missing a host of sitters against Sunderland and West Brom but at least he was enterprising enough to get into positions to squander them. Contrast him to Saha, who looked like he could not be arsed, and I cannot remember the last time he scored. On current form I won't mind if we ship him out and free up some wages.

Despite struggling in the first half, the central midfield pairing of Fellaini and Rodwell recovered to boss the middle of the park. It was a blessing in disguise that the out-of-form Arteta was suspended. Heitinga, who is definitely no Makelele, did not play. We should just persist with Fellaini and Rodwell when we play the Pie-Eaters next weekend.