Guess the Footballer: Easy

So, England are out of the World Cup, getting beaten by a Croatia side who simply had more guile and experience than them.

As predicted, I am ambivalent about this loss, largely because my main draw for supporting England spent the majority of the tournament warming the bench (at least Gaz had Phil Jones to keep him company).

Also, I despise Jamie Vardy and will never quite forgive the British press (especially a certain football journalist who I used to be on quite good terms with #cryptic) for affording Vardy a free pass for racially abusing a Japanese man.

These same football journalists wrote mini-tomes about racism when Suarez and Terry did it. And to me, an east Asian, the silence from the hacks after Vardy’s choice word selection is a pretty clear sign that the British media don’t think racism against east Asians is problematic.

By not acting, the British press was complicit in the racism that I have suffered and continue to suffer.

That being said, there was a certain spark in the England side of the 2018 World Cup that was a joy to watch at times, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get swept up in the momentous occasion of us winning our first penalty shoot-out in an international tournament since 1996. There's also something to be said for seeing the country unify over a common cause, especially when the weather was so gorgeous too.

In the final, I’ll be supporting France, a decision that I'm not ashamed to admit that is largely driven by aesthetic reasons.

This is not just a photoshoot. This is an M&S photoshoot.

Happy Hump Day, readers! The World Cup starts tomorrow, and I am officially pumped.

Despite me supporting France in the 2018 World Cup as I did in the 2016 Euros (with my second teams being South Korea, Japan and Croatia), and me following the England national team with the same emotional whiplashing (not-so-subtle plug of a sick Miles Teller film, there) of love and hate that I had for them in the 2016 Euros (because of that racist Vardy), I will of course be keeping a beady eye on the exploits of my national team. How can I not, when Gary Baehill is in the squad?

The team had their official photoshoot yesterday, kitted out in a rather dapper, and more than a little tight Marks and Spencer three-piece-suits:

Couple thoughts on this photo:

Restaurant review: TGI FRIDAY'S (Covent Garden)

I've been to several TGI Friday's across the UK (Reading, when my family and I were checking out universities, Bath when I was there doing my undergraduate degree and Leicester Square just for an impromptu delicious meal one evening), and it's a chain which I have never been disappointed with.

Last Tuesday, me and three others were dithering over where to get dinner (Belgo was being suggested as an option, but I wasn't enamoured with it when I'd visited Belgo three years ago) in Covent Garden when I clocked a TGIF, confident that that represented a much better option.

And of course, I wasn't wrong. We were served by a bubbly waitress, who asked us if we were celebrating anything. Although it wasn't the cause of our get-together, I had just passed a critical PhD landmark, and one of the people I was with mentioned this. I didn't expect that to lead to anything, but she very kindly gave me this gorgeous and delicious slice of cake for my troubles!

A Silent Microaggression.

You know, for a newspaper who loves to lecture their readership about racial stereotyping (in a case of timing you couldn't make up, just four days ago they ran this hectoring piece about Asian stereotypes), you'd think they'd bother to learn the difference between Japanese films:

The caption pertains to A Silent Voice. Yet the image is a still from Your Name. I guess all Japanese animes look the same to Guardian sub-editors.

Perhaps of Guardian writers focused on say, actually doing the research they're paid to do, rather than preaching piously or shagging about, they wouldn't have made such a mistake. Just suggesting.

This isn't the first time they've confused two compatriots, with embarrassing circumstances. In their tribute to the passed away Cruyff, they published a photo of Rob Rensenbrink:

No wonder The Guardian are begging for money now. #FakeNews

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Bonus graphic, from The Evening Standard, which perfectly encapsulates my confusion on how Isabelle Huppert's icy tour-de-force in Elle lost to Yellowface Felicia dancing like she had two left feet:

I’m so Thirsty (You already know).

When I’m not whining about how terrible the music in La La Land was, I like to sample a wide range of food and drink. My brother, graciously, shares this passion, so when he was back home over the Christmas holidays we basically raised Tesco and just bought whatever drinks we thought looked pretty.

Here be photos of and brief thoughts on said buys!

Pious BAFTA grandstanding is exactly why I won't be watching the Oscars this year.

I didn't do too well in my BAFTA predictions, although at least I beat my performance last year, where I barely got anything right (as it was on Valentines Day last year, I took it as a sign that Carol would win the categories it deserved to win. That delusion).

Fantastic Virtue-Signallers and Where to Find Them. I heard JK Rowling is retrospectively writing yet another Harry Potter spin-off, about Professor McGonagall's uncharted secret past, where she had a Chinese girlfriend. Emma Stone is favourite to get the role of said Chinese girlfriend. 

Review: PRIME BURGER (Kings Cross)

My best friend Anna and I were absolutely famished after drinking some wine today, so unfortunately we weren't in a strong bargaining position in terms of discerning for decent places to eat. As we'd met at St Pancras train station and didn't want to travel too far, we settled for Prime Burger, thinking you couldn't go too wrong with a burger. I was wrong; this place runs Tommi's Burger Joint close for one of the worst of its kind in London.

I had the Classic chicken burger, which, just like the one I'd had at TBJ, was horrendously undercooked; the meat was a suspicious shade of pinkish white. Oh dear. The menu promised 'onions', but I don't count one infinitesimal sliver of onion, clearly stuck in as an afterthought 'onions', and the lettuce was haphazardly applied and an inspiring addition.

Small mercies came in the form of the chips, which I wolfed down, because at the front of the counter (where you collect your order), there was malt vinegar, which I doused on my chips like a pyromaniac ought to douse kerosene on  Wolf of Fleet Street certain Guardian football writers' Audis. I absolutely adore malt vinegar with my chips, and don't understand why there wasn't a container of them on every table, rather than just one at the front.

Then again, I don't know how they could have charged £11.05 for that ensemble above, when the burger was paltry, unedifying and poorly presented.

For five pounds less, you can have an actual chicken burger from KFC (you know, one with flavour). Do it. Your stomach - and bank balance - will thank you.

Grade: D-

A compendium of my restaurant reviews can be found here. If you would like me to review your restaurant, drop me an email at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com and I'll see what I can do.

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As mentioned in the introduction, I had an ace meet up with my girl Annabung today. Here we are (quick OOTD!): -

Earrings: Accessorize

T-shirt: Hollister

Cardigan: H&M

Glasses: Twiggy for Aurora

Fantastic Oscar-beggers and Where to Find Them.

Glaring mistake is glaring. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, starring professional awards-chaser Eddie Redcarpet, is a 12A, not a PG. Frankly, a PG certificate wouldn't be enough to contain all of Eddie's Oscar thirst and all of JK Rowling's virtue-signalling hypocrisy.

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The BBFC replied to my email on Someone to Talk to, by the way. It's a lot more satisfactory a response than the one they sent me about So Young 2 Never Gone:

Dear Emma

Thank you for your email.

BBFC classification decisions are made in line with available research and our Classification Guidelines which are a product of an extensive public consultation process. This process is repeated every 4-5 years and over 10,000 people contributed to the creation of the Classification Guidelines 2014, which are available here. 

They state that: 'Portrayals of potentially dangerous behaviour (especially relating to hanging, suicide and self-harm) which children and young people may potentially copy, will be cut if a higher classification is not appropriate. '

The level of detail depicted in both films with regards to the suicide attempts is permissible at 12A. However the suicide attempt in Two Days, One Night is shown to have little in the way of consequences. The lead character is shown to gag but otherwise does not seem to suffer any ill effects. She looks serene and healthy in her hospital bed and the doctors seem unconcerned about any possible long term damage. The scene is therefore better placed at 15.

In contrast, the character in Someone To Talk To is shown weak but recovering in hospital. Suicide is not presented as an attractive option and so this content is permissible at 12A.

The references to suicide in Someone To Talk To start early in the film and occur throughout, becoming part of the theme of the work. They were not considered to be a 'spoiler' in that it's not an issue that suddenly and unexpectedly comes up later in the film. Also, given the prevalence of the references - which are not simply an isolated moment or element in the work - it was necessary to warn people about them, even more so because this is a 12A film on which parents may want clear advice.

We have an FAQ about spoilers on the black card on our website which explains our policy http://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-bbfc/faqs#insight-spoiler You may also be interested in Podcast Episode 20 which covers how the BBFC approaches classifying self-harm and suicide http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/podcasts/bbfc-podcast-episode-20-classifying-self-harm-and-suicide 

Yours sincerely

Joe

 BBFC Feedback Team

From this much better, detailed email, I've inferred that the BBFC spend more time on a query if you complain that the film should have been higher than it was, as opposed to lower. The speed at which they respond to you is almost halved, too - my So Young 2 Never Gone email took exactly 2 weeks to reply, the maximum time they stipulated, whereas this took just 8 days.

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Finally, look who blocked me on Twitter:

Not the first time Jamie Vardy's been abrupt to an east Asian person, now is it?

(admittedly, a lot of my festering anger at this whole affair isn't just the fact that Vardy racially abused a Japanese man. It's the fact that he racially abused a Japanese man and esteemed football writers who purport to care about racism, like Henry Winter and Daniel Taylor, wrote sod-all about it).

#ByeFelicia

Film review: SOMEONE TO TALK TO [一句顶一万句] (Liu Yulin, 2016)

A couple get married, full of love and hope for their future together. Several years down the line, they barely speak a word to each other. Around their anniversary, one discovers the other has been cheating on them and filled with murderous rage, revenge becomes their raison d'être as they do everything they can to ruin their spouse's life.

Actually, I'm not retelling the plot for Gone Girl, but Liu Yulin's debut movie Someone to Talk to. Adapted from the 2011 Mao Dun Literature Prize, 一句顶一万句is an economical yet intimate look at what happens after the love has gone out of a marriage and feelings of resentment at having one's heart broken fester.

Niu Aigo (Hai Mao) is the jilted husband, who tries his best as the patriarch of the family, but unfortunately his modest earnings as a cobbler and simple vision for their future aren't to the pleasure of his wife, who has outgrown him, and has an affair with the wealthier local wedding planning magnate. The film is considerably less kind to her, and rightly so, given she makes comments that make her seem like a  right gold-digging shrew. Woman knew her husband was poor when he married her; she doesn't get to screw everything up when that slowly sinks in.

In only his second film role, Hai Mao is just wonderful as a man who, after being wronged, is all affront and sharp edges, until self-realisation (and a few convenient plot machinations) give him the self-realisation to let go and become a stronger person for it.

His character essentially goes through all five stages of grief through the course of the film, and in doing so, exhibits some spiteful colours. But it's a testament to Mao's humane, heartfelt performance that even at his lowest points, you're rooting for this guy to pull through. His character was reminiscent of John C. Reilly in Chicago, another pitiable cuckold, and it's rare that cinema not only focuses on the person who's been left behind, but the person who was left behind happens to be male.

Someone to Talk to also features a subplot about Aigo's older sister's ill-fated online dating adventures and how she eventually settles, because, as she matter-of-factly states, 'I'm 39. I couldn't get anyone younger'. This kind of pragmatic, frank dialogue makes Someone to Talk to by far the most honest Chinese film I've seen this year (although there's not much in the way of competition).

Liu Yulin directs the story in such an unfussy, natural manner, with a working class Chinese town as the backdrop, I was invested in the plot in a way other films with more frills have failed to achieve. One scene, where Aigo angrily takes his frustration at his wife gallivanting out on his young daughter, carried genuine pathos and was far more powerful than anything I watched in yesterday's manufactured, sappy, The Shite Between Oceans.

I like a good revenge flick a hell of a lot more thanas much as the next person. Films like Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo contain scenes which imbue me with sadistic wish fulfilment at various men who have wronged me. I myself can nurse a grudge for quite a while, although my modus operandi is significantly less bloody and a tad pettier than anything Amy Dunne or Lisbeth Salander confect; that bellend Stefan who racially abused me over a year ago is immortalised in my Fantasy Football team name, 'Stefan is a Kuntz'.

But there's a lot to be said for Someone to Talk To's more forgiving approach. 

Someone to Talk to is a sincere and profound look at loneliness and the multifaceted nature of marriage, elevated by the magnanimous treatment it gives its protagonist. It illustrates how toxic holding onto past transgressions can be, not just to oneself, but to those that we love. Ultimately, it encourages the protagonist and the audience to look beyond, not behind.

Perhaps it's time I, like Aigo, made like Elsa from Frozen, and Let It Go. Good news for Wasteman, Watford fan and The Wolf of Fleet Street, then.

8/10

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If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other ones, which include a fair few Chinese movies.

Review of five instant noodles

For me, one of the most memorable parts of Amy Dunne’s mordant ‘Cool Girl’ diatribe in Gone Girl was when she declared ‘because Cool Girls are above all, hot." This comment is delivered in relation to how she kills herself in order to stay a lithe, desirable size 2 (UK 6/8), to little appreciation from her perfidious husband, Nick.

Given that Amy is generally perceived to be a murderous psychopath, I probably shouldn’t pay this line too much heed, but for some reason, it’s really resonated with me, and as such, I’m trying hard to watch my weight. 

The first step towards losing weight and eating healthier was to stop having so many lunches at McDonald’s. A substitute I explored was easy cook noodles, and thus, here are my thoughts on five different types I’ve sampled recently.

Morrisons BBQ Beef noodles 85g, 25p

There was nothing barbequey or beefy about the taste of this, I’m afraid. The noodles came out stale and tasteless, and even the liquid it was boiled in didn’t have any particular flavour. The very cheap price signals to me that this is predominantly marketed at students, although if students eat this before a night out, the lack of nutritional content means their stomachs will be insufficiently lined pre-heavy drinking, and it could well result in them chundering out their dinner. Considering how it purports to be one of the more filling of the four (total calories: 466, apparently), it doesn’t do what it says on the packaging. 2/10.

Morrisons Mild Curry flavour noodles, 85g, 25p

Gar. Another ghastly Morrisons creation. As with its predecessor, it has thin noodles that tasted of nothing and a sauce which didn’t taste remotely of curry (at least they spoke truth about the ‘mild’ part, mind). The mild curry flavour noodles purports to have 458 calories in the entire bag and it did make more of a dent on my hunger levels than the ‘meal’ from the day before, so I’ll give it +1 mark for that. 3/10.

Nissin Demae Ramen Spicy Noodles 100g, 45p

Unlike the two Morrisons travesties, the Nissin Demae Ramen noodles were deliciously thick and unrepentantly eggy. The sauce the pack yielded had flavour too! Whilst it wasn’t the burn-your-tongue-off levels of spiciness that the bright red packaging might lead you to think/dread, it was sufficiently hot to satiate my need for spiciness. What’s more, this bag came with a sachet of the sauce as well as sesame oil, which gave the meal a welcome kick. Plus, you’ve seen my cooking – you know how much I dig my oil. 8/10.

Newgate instant snack shot noodles sweet and spicy 67g

This Lidl product weighs less than the three easy cook noodles I’ve appraised so far, and as such, is lower on calorific content. On the bright side, the dried flavouring that came in a sachet for those other three, which could lead to a slight mess, was embedded in the noodle here, meaning you could avoid any pouring mishaps. The noodles here came in a strange angular shape, and were even thinner than Morrisons ones, but had more noodle length to atone for it. After you’ve finished with the noodles, I’d recommend re-filling the bowl/mug with boiling hot water, because the solid flavouring is concentrated enough to make a nice brew out of it. Not that filling, but tastes good whilst it lasts. 7/10.

Ko-Lee Taste Sensation Classic Chicken flavour 85g, 28p

For just 3p more than the two disappointing Morrisons own brand noodles, you can get this in the same store, and it’s much more filling and appetising. As with the other Chinese-style noodles, the Nissin Demae, this also comes with a small sachet of sesame oil, as well as a pack of dried flavouring that far exceeds the quantity in any of the other four noodles assessed. The resulting liquid brew is a nice concoction for you to savour, which redeems the (once again, common to Morrisons) thin, bland-tasting noodles. 7/10.

Common to all of these five products was a real ease to use, as the names suggested. You're supposed to boil them over the hob, but I found putting half the amount in my Chelsea mug and applying hot water to it, as pictured below, was just as effective, and saved considerably on the washing up!

Film review: TRISTANA (Luis Buñuel, 1970)

Tristana (Catherine Deneuve), a recently orphaned God-fearing beauty, is given sanctuary by her new legal guardian Don Lope (Fernando Rey), a crusty old womaniser who hates religion, sympathises with the underbelly of society, and likes to backpat himself for being so anti-establishment. Much like the character Rey played in That Obscure Object of Desire, he develops an infatuation with the female lead, and it’s not long before he’s thrown caution to his wind regarding taking Tristana under his wing, choosing to take her under him instead.

From some of the other Buñuel titles I’ve reviewed, it’s evident that the man has got sex on the mind, but his depiction of Don Lope’s carnal instincts and Tristana’s grudging acquiescence to them in this film are surprisingly PG-rated (although, given the mature themes and disturbing imagery in this film, I thought the MPAA awarding this film a PG-13, made more sense) and visually restrained. The unsettling, Woody Allen-esque relationship is portrayed with a few fleeting shots of Tristana impassively getting undressed, before the scene ends. Surprisingly subtle for Buñuel, but it suits the atonal style of the film, and its messages about the double-standards of religious Spanish society.

Deneuve and Rey, two of Brunel’s favourite collaborators, prosper under his direction. As the eponymous lead, Deneuve alchemizes Tristana’s spirit effortlessly. At the beginning, she is a carefree, wide-eyed young girl who just wishes to honour her mother's love of pray. By the end, and not altogether surprisingly given what she has been through,  as her character develops, she is a resolute and cold-hearted, and absolutely God-less.

It’s evident that she’s repulsed by her legal guardian’s grabby hands (not the first time a Guardian's been handsy, amirite?), but she grins and bears it in a disquietingly silent manner. As in Belle de Jour, Deneuve portrays her character taking everything just accepting what comes to her under a façade of equanimity, which only leaves the audience more tantalised about what she’s really thinking.

Fernando Rey portrays a monster with more than a small touch of Humbert Humbert. Tristana is an unusual story because it’s not so much a case of Stockholm Syndrome, as the woman coming back to take revenge – revenge by mistreatment – on the man who so impulsively, selfishly, debased her. And her interpretation of the best kind of justice is to simultaneously be with him (in legal union) and not be with him (in emotion and physically).

The central dynamic between Tristana and Don Lope is fascinating. Despite the fact that he defiled her and she rightly resents him for taking her innocence, this is juxtaposed hatred is with her inherent Christian grace towards him, which consists of gratitude for taking her in when she was destitute, as well as a giddy sense of triumph later when he gets older and more pathetic, and she, more beautiful. These emotions come together to create a cocktail of power that she lauds over him.

Buñuel is known for his surrealist elements, but that was the component I liked least about Tristana - Don Lope’s decapitated head swinging from a bell was off-beat but now looks dated. Tristana also lacks the moments of playful levity that The Diary of a Chambermaid and That Obscure Object of Desire had, rendering it a more straightforward piece of storytelling, although in doing so, it doesn't quite reach the peaks of those two titles. Finally, the fact that the film was shot and set in Toledo, Spain, yet the characters speak French, is a tad jarring.

It’s not the best spin on Lolita in a film I’ve seen - that would be Sam Mendes’ incredible American Beauty, but, like That Obscure Object of Desire, survives the test of time well in its astute dissection of gender politics and the blurred, and often confusing, line between love and hate. 

Buñuel  for all his seedy voyeursim, understands that sex is just as much about emotional control as it is about physical lust, and his detached, capable direction, Deneuve’s suitably frosty performance (quite literally, given the film's aloof coda) and the compelling story make for a bizarre, but thoroughly watchable experience.

7.5/10

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If you enjoyed this, all my film reviews are collated here.

I'm a poet and I know it.

As you may have gleamed from my review of Suicide Squad, I didn't think too much of Cara Delevingne's performance which her father bought her. I even wrote a poem about it:

I may have spent quite a large chunk of last weekend Snapchatting friends videos and images of me whining about Delevingne's Razzie-worthy acting. Because it's not like me to go on about things, now is it? (On a completely unrelated note, do you remember in 2013 when The Guardian ranked Eden Hazard 100th in the world? A HUNDREDTH I TELL YA).

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By the by, the BBFC responded to that insufferable e-mail I sent them. As you'll notice, I basically got fobbed off with a generic response. They even included links to the guidelines. As if I haven't studied those and memorised them off by heart! The BBFC is like, my specialist topic, yo!

But oh well. I'll just have to let bygones be bygones and accept Too Young 2: Never Gone as one of the titles the BBFC rated 15, that I think is a dubious 15.

Suicide Squad, for all its talk of 'sustained threat', proved to be a bit of a bubblegum 15 in the end (I found the threat in the 12A-rated 10 Cloverfield Lane more intense). But I am grateful to the BBFC for awarding it, because it meant there were no kids in the audience, and I got to see it in relative peace.

However, I believe there was an oversight at the BBFC when they compiled their short insight. It's 15 for 'sustained threat, moderate violence' but they forgot 'strong horror'.

The horror in question being Cara Delevingne trying to act. 

Hottest Footballers in Euro 2016.

According to my more-than-a-little dubious definition of male beauty, of course.

 10. Aaron Ramsey (Wales) 

I simply can't use a recent picture because that peroxide blonde job doesn't do him any favours. I prefer his hair colour when it's natural.

09. Kyle Lafferty (Northern Ireland)

I don't usually like tats on a chap, but I'll make an exception for Kyle.

08. Matts Hummels (Germany) 

hello, sailor

07. Cesc Fàbregas (Spain) 

I never admitted to finding him Cescy when he played for Arsenal or Rob Brown's team, funny, that.

06. Jan Vertonghen (Belgium)

In the premier league, he's one of the slyest bellends around. But something about his face resembles that of Nick from Zootropolis. Which I mean as a compliment, of course.

05. Vedran Corluka (Croatia)  

I could just get lost in his eyes. And he's willing to play on with a face full of blood, too. Hero.

04. Hugo Lloris (France) 

The finest beard in football since Jamie Redknapp. And I adore his Gallic charm.

03. Eden Hazard (Belgium) 

Belgium's captain has the 100th juiciest bum in the world as ranked by The Guardian. A health hazard, if you will.

02. Antoine Griezmann (France) 

Dat face is a freaking work of art. Jean-Pierre Léaud's character in Les 400 coups is now no longer my favourite Antoine.

01. Gary Cahill (England) 

Sun's out, gun's out, mofos.

REVIEW: Daria van den Bercken: Handel and Scarlatti at the Keyboard

Two weeks ago I visited Kings Place for the first time. Up until then, I’d been avoiding this venue like the keyboard warrior that I am, as it’s very close in geographical proximity to where The Guardian headquarters are, and, naturally, I’ve had some beef with more than one Guardian football writer. So for my own safety, I’d decided it best to stay out of there way. Hahaha. 

Anyway, I grew a pair and manned up, because I wanted to watch a piano concert. I’ve been to my fair share of orchestral concerts, both amateur and professional, but never actually watched a solo pianist of any kind live, so what better way to start than at Kings Place @ 90 York Way, a very reasonably priced venue in King's Cross to let up-and-coming musicians exhibit their many and varied talents. 

The musician in question was Daria van den Bercken, and she certainly knew her way around a piano. Her fingers dextrously hit all the right keys, she was comfortable with the music, and her passion for Baroque music was clear; she wasn’t just playing the notes (and what difficult notes they were!), but making the pieces come alive. As a violinist and a guitarist myself, I always enjoy listening to sad pieces more than happy ones, and her performance of Sonata in C-sharp minor, K 247 was on point; the use of dynamics would surely have made Scarlatti proud. 

In fact – and I feel churlish for saying this – but it was probably van den Bercken’s overzealous passion for Handel, Scarlatti, and their life stories, that let the recital down a little. Before playing the piano, she gave us a brief history of the musical beef between Handel and Scarlatti, which was fair enough. But then, after playing Handel’s Suite in E, HWV 430, she picked up the microphone again, to tell some other musical anecdotes which might have been interesting to her, but weren’t too fascinating to me, and, judging from the impatient looks on the audience faces, weren’t too much to their liking either. I mean, to lay a setting for the pieces you’ve chosen to play is prudent. But to throw around non-sequiturs that are more about your development as a pianist rather than the two men who’s pieces are headlining, is meandering, bordering on narcissistic. 

That said, I really did enjoy listening to her piano-playing. The piano is an instrument I’ve always struggled with, and I have the utmost respect for people who can play it, and play it well. Daria’s talent, confidence, and musical panache were clear. I would be interested in seeing how she fares with romantic and modern pieces too. I just don’t want the 45 minutes of one-woman-show that gets tacked on with it. 

Grade: B

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Some other photos I took from Kings Place...

The night Peter Crouch-ed and Bern-ed.

In series 1, episode 17 of Glee, Mr Schue tells Quinn Fabray, of the trials and tribulations of high School: “A couple of bad decisions and you go from the top to the bottom”. He could just as easily have been talking about football. For Spurs in the Champions League, Peter Crouch was one of their star men; where he has disappointed in the league this season, he has more than made up for in the big European platform with goals against the likes of Inter and AC Milan, some of them pivotal ones (he scored the winning goal against AC Milan that was the difference between the two sides). In fact, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that, yesterday, going into the first leg of their quarter final clash with Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, he was just as integral to Tottenham’s plans as their wing wizard Gareth Bale, whom the Spurs manager Harry Redknapp had valued at £80million.

Unfortunately, the big occasion got to the big man. In eight minutes, Peter Crouch made two rash tackles. The first, on Sergio Ramos, was misplaced and mis-timed. The second on Marcelo, when he was already on a yellow, was downright stupid. Even as – what I consider to be – the biggest Crouchie fan in the world, there is no justifying his two idiotic tackles. He rightful sending was essentially the catalyst for Tottenham’s implosion at the Bernabéu. At that point they were 1-0 down, but with almost three hours ahead of them, had everything to play for. The match ended 4-0 with the return leg at White Hart Lane next Wednesday (of which my younger brother will be attending as his 13th birthday "present"), looking like nothing more than a formality. In the space of eight minutes, Peter Crouch went from hero to zero.

Even with the best will in the world, I cannot find any ways to justify Peter Crouch’s two awful tackles. All I can do is examine them and attempt to delve into the black hole that is a footballer’s mind – and try to explain them. The first element, I think, is the psychological. Before the game, Peter Crouch had been talked up, down and all around by various members of the English and Spanish media, not to mention Real Madrid players themselves. Former Arsenal player Emmanuel Adebayor said of his fellow lanky striker, “When I was playing in England I always loved a lot of Tottenham players, especially Peter Crouch”. The much-maligned Togo striker completed an acrimonious move north of London to Manchester to play for Man City, and was in the side that lost to Spurs on the 5th May 2010 in what was dubbed as the “Fourth Place Showdown”, in which Crouch gave his counterpart Adebayor a masterclass in how to maintain possession, pass to teammates, and above all, score. Yet, yesterday, Adebayor hit the net twice, and played majestically, whereas Crouch walked after 15 minutes, so there is no question who came out the winner this time round.

Elsewhere, where Adebayor talked Crouch up, former Chelsea defender and Mourinho faithful Ricardo Carvalho took particular glee in talking the 6’7” striker down. He claimed that Peter Crouch “was easy to play against.” Whether he genuinely thought that, or he was just trying to psyche the England man out, we’ll never know, but he certainly succeeded in unsettling Crouch, because those words clearly had their impact; Crouch is by nature a mild-mannered footballer who doesn’t make a habit of making rash tackles. Yet he dished out two tackles yesterday that would probably have made Nigel De Jong shudder. There’s a sort of grim humour in thinking that Mourinho still hasn’t ended his constant mind-games, but the chants of “Tonto!” directed at Crouch by the Real Madrid fans obviously aren’t totally inaccurate; Carvalho played Crouch like a five dollar banjo.

It’s a massive shame because as I have mentioned, it’s hardly as if Peter Crouch as been setting the premier league alight with his scoring this season. He has played very well with Rafael van der Vaart, no doubt about it, and he has provided the majority of the Dutchman’s assists in the league, but Crouch invariably would have wished to scored more himself; many Spurs fan often question why Crouch plays so much and Pavlyuchenko so little. The Champions League is (was?) the one platform where he truly shone this season, scaring the majority of defenders senseless with his unusual frame and playing style. That he has done so much for Spurs in the CL this season will instantly be forgotten. It is irrelevant that he was such a huge factor in putting them in the Quarter Finals, because it is also he who has almost single-handedly prevented them from progressing further. The Guardian gave his performance against AC Milan in the first leg at the San Siro a 9/10, a score they very rarely dish out unless in the face of true excellence. What did they give him for his performance last night? A two. And the sad thing is, that was being generous.

With Tottenham staring at the bleak pit of Champions League exit and facing an uphill battle with Chelsea and Manchester City for the two remaining Champions League places in the premier league, the only way Peter Crouch can go from here is up. That’s the thing about football, it goes hand in hand with failure, with wrath, with moments of madness. But it is also ten-a-penny with redemption. As Stuart Pearce demonstrated with his penalty for England in Euro 96, the road to personal atonement lies in football. I began with a quote from one of my favourite shows, Glee, so I’ll end with another quote from another one of my favourite shows, Sex and the City. Our protagonist, Carrie, has just embarrassed herself hugely in tripping up on a catwalk, in front of hundreds of people. She has a choice, run away and hide, or get up, and proudly get on with it. She does the latter. Why? Because, as she reasons, “When real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep walking.” In 1990, Stuart Pearce fell down. In 1996, he pulled himself back up. Now it is up to Peter Crouch, and Peter Crouch alone, to do the same.

She flies like planes.

From the cover of an issue of The Guardian a while back -