Latest news with #GrouchoMarx
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump, Juventus and thinly veiled contempt
While Football Daily didn't get where it is today by performatively flip-flopping over various issues depending on which way the prevailing political wind is blowing, it would be fair to say Football Daily did get where it is today by performatively flip-flopping over various issues depending on which way the prevailing political wind is blowing. Like Groucho Marx, the world's most daily football email has its principles and if you don't like them … well, we have other ones. Those familiar with its work will be aware that Fifa is no different, but has still come as something of a surprise that having for so long publicly (if a little hollowly) purported to be against injustice of any kind, world football's governing body abandoned its planned campaigns against racism and discrimination across the opening three days of the Copa Gianni being staged in the USA USA USA. Following a backlash, some pithy slogans were rolled out on Wednesday, albeit seemingly on the proviso that this token gesture would be for one day of this month-long jamboree only. While the dimwits who think politics should have no place in football will view Fifa's non-stance as a victory, it is difficult to imagine what they made of Wednesday's delegation of Juventus representatives at the Oval Office, where assorted players, staff and suits were forced to stand behind Donald Trump as he briefed his favoured correspondents on a possible attack on Iran, a bizarre soliloquy regarding the bodycount in the American Civil War and how 'bigly' the crowd at Juve's Copa Gianni match against Al Ain would be a few hours later. With Gianni Infantino gazing adoringly from his basket in the corner, the 47th president of the United States of America also tried unsuccessfully to bait some or all of his visitors into making transphobic comments. Showing all the enthusiasm and joie de vivre of captives in a hostage video, a group of players including USA USA USA internationals Weston McKennie and Timothy Weah looked on with a mixture of thinly veiled contempt and … no, just thinly veiled contempt. Speaking after Juve's win over Al Ain later that evening, Weah stated that he and his teammates had been forced into participating in this tawdry photo op by their employers. 'It was all a surprise to me, honestly,' he sighed. 'They told us that we have to go and I had no choice but to go. I was caught by surprise, honestly. It was a bit weird. When he started talking about the politics with Iran and everything, it's kind of like … I just want to play football, man.' Previously an outspoken critic of Trump's disregard for black people among his myriad other shortcomings, McKennie stayed silent on this occasion but, if looks could kill, the midfielder would almost certainly have been bundled out of the office by the president's secret service detail. Elsewhere in Copa Gianni, Manchester City got their campaign off to a winning start against Wydad AC despite losing Rico Lewis to a late red card that simultaneously looked very harsh and entirely justified, while Merseyside's most famous Hispanophone made his eagerly awaited debut for his new side in their draw with Al-Hilal. 'It's an incredible day for me to make my Real Madrid debut,' cheered Trent Alexander-Arnold in his post-match interview, speaking in his native tongue on this occasion, presumably out of fear any Ice goons lurking nearby would be so impressed by his proficiency in Spanish that he might end in the back of a van being ferried to a detention centre. 'Many question why our national team is in this situation and why there is a lack of talent, one reason being the losses due to piracy. All the money that is lost every year is not invested in the youth teams and in the growth of our young players, a major issue that has led our national team to face many difficulties … We are already far behind the Premier League and La Liga. If we continue like this, we will finish behind the Germans and we will end up being at the bottom of the table [of Europe's top five leagues] together with the French' – Serie A chief suit Luigi De Siervo reckons pesky Italian fire sticks are the reason for the Azzurri's decline, along with sticking in a drive-by on Ligue 1. In other news, Gennaro Gattuso has been presented as the national team's latest manager. I struggle to see how Burnley could have been dealt a rough hand by the giant super-computer at Premier League HQ (yesterday's Football Daily). Admittedly I've not counted up every fixture next season, but I'm pretty sure they'll play the other teams twice just like everyone else' – Simon Riley. I'm a bit behind on reading Football Daily so I've only just seen the photo of Phil Parkes from Monday's Memory Lane (full email edition). It's quite the throwback to a simpler time – you'd never catch any club, let alone one as well-versed in C0ckney rhyming slang as West Ham, letting one of their players pose with a pony, in case anyone saw it as the perfect analogy for how they've been playing under Graham Potter' – Ed Taylor. Re: yesterday's Quote of the Day. Daniel Levy says: 'We've won a European trophy but it's not enough.' Turn his TV off. Few solid players left but it's not enough. Few leaders that'll really step but it's not enough. Say Spurs bigger than myself but it's not enough. Am I getting on Mr Levy's ... Yeah, somebody gotta do it' – Daniel Stauss. Please send your letters to Today's winner of our letter o' the day competition is … Daniel Stauss, who gets some Football Weekly merch. We'll be in touch. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here. Welcome back to hell, and listen to Emma Powell read Rob Smyth's Forgotten Story of Manchester United v Galatasaray in 1993. Sheffield United without Chris Wilder? Even when he was managing Middlesbrough or Watford, and Paul Heckingbottom was in charge, the club still felt like Wilder's. His second spell, including a relegation battle fought in vain, and May's Championship playoff final lost so narrowly to Sunderland, was not as successful as the first, but the 100% Blade departs as club legend, a manager on the level of a Neil Warnock, a Dave Bassett, a Harry Haslam. One of the final straws came when the club's new, Stateside consortium owners asked Wilder to use AI scouting methods. That was always unlikely to fly. The end soon came. 'Leading this team over 300 times will remain an incredible part of my life,' sobbed Wilder. The new man? Rubén Sellés, who you may remember as the manager of crisis clubs Southampton, Reading and Hull. 'We need to embrace data and new technologies, but the most important thing is not to forget the football essence,' he roared. Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappé has been admitted to hospital with acute gastroenteritis, where the club say he will 'undergo a series of tests and follow the appropriate course of treatment'. The Tripoli derby between Al-Ahly and Al-Ittihad in the Libyan Premier League has had to be suspended after fans stormed the pitch, with the referee and other supporters being injured. Al-Ittihad's bus was set on fire, the club said in a statement, while Al-Ahly blamed what it called a 'provocative act' by one of Al-Ittihad players for the trouble. The presence of banned performance-enhancing substance meldonium, found in Mykhailo Mudryk's system, and confirmed by a B sample, could lead to a four-year ban. 'As this is an ongoing case, we are not in a position to comment further at this time,' tooted an FA statement. England's brave boys are through to the quarter-finals of the European U-21 Championship, despite losing 2-1 to Germany. Slovenia's defeat to the Czech Republic means Lee Carsley's kids limped through to face Spain on Saturday. Wales head coach Rhian Wilkinson has revealed her 23-strong lineup for Euro 2025 on top of Yr Wyddfa in Snowdonia, and it includes Sophie Ingle after she recovered in time from ACL-knack. Hernán Crespo is back in the game, baby, as São Paulo coach for a second time. Gerhard Struber is back in the game, baby, as Bristol City head coach. New Chelsea striker Liam Delap and Arsenal teenager Myles Lewis-Skelly lead the list for the PFA young player of the year award. Bournemouth full-back Milos Kerkez, former Cherries defender Dean Huijsen, Arsenal winger Ethan Nwaneri and Aston Villa midfielder Morgan Rogers complete the six, with Phil Foden and James Milner cruelly overlooked for this year's gong. New Spurs boss Thomas Frank intends to build on Ange Postecoglou's Bigger Vase triumph and turn them into 'serial winners'. And to the Fun and Games in South America Dept, where Brazilian Série D outfit Humaitá have set a new club record after just seven paying fans turned up for their 2-2 draw against Manauara. There's a treat for you in the latest edition of our sister email, a big interview with Netherlands midfielder Jill Roord courtesy of Tom Garry. Get it launched! Football Daily's campaign for real football is happening. Get it in the mixer, feed off the knock-downs? Sadly not. We're going to see longer passing mostly, writes Ali Tweedale, because teams have worked out that playing out from the back gives opponents more chances. A proper plan is needed for those left behind as Copa Gianni gifts its riches, writes Nick Ames. How the USMNT values diversity, even in the Trump era. By Sanjay Sujanthakumar. And the Rumour Mill picks over the latest gossip, including chatter relating to the future of Viktor Gyökeres. Gabriel Batistuta skips clear of a sliding Lizardo Garrido during Argentina's final-round stalemate with Chile during the Copa América in July 1991. The rain poured and poured in Santiago, where Argentina returned two days later to beat Colombia 2-1 and top the standings, sealing glory.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Patrick Spencer: Suspended Tory MP denies sexually assaulting two women at private members' club
An MP has denied two counts of sexual assault allegedly carried out at a private members' club in central London. Patrick Spencer, who represents Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, is accused of cupping the breasts of two women over their clothes at the Groucho Club in August 2023. The 37-year-old confirmed his full name and date of birth before pleading not guilty to the offences at Westminster Magistrates' Court. Politics Hub: He is due to appear at Southwark Crown Court on 14 July. Spencer was suspended from the Conservative Party and had the whip withdrawn after the charges were brought. Read more from Sky News: The politician was first elected to parliament last year with a majority of 4,290. Lawyers acting for the MP have previously said he "categorically denies the charges" and would defend against the allegations "robustly in court". The Groucho Club, on Dean Street, opened in 1985 and became a renowned meeting place for A-list celebrities and others, including actors, comedians and media executives. The club was named after the comedian and actor Groucho Marx, who reportedly once said he would refuse to join any club that would have him as a member.
Sky News
4 days ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Patrick Spencer: Suspended Tory MP denies sexually assaulting two women at private members' club
An MP has denied two counts of sexual assault allegedly carried out at a private members' club in central London. Patrick Spencer, who represents Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, is accused of cupping the breasts of two women over their clothes at the Groucho Club in August 2023. The 37-year-old confirmed his full name and date of birth before pleading not guilty to the offences at Westminster Magistrates' Court. He is due to appear at Southwark Crown Court on 14 July. Spencer was suspended from the Conservative Party and had the whip withdrawn after the charges were brought. The politician was first elected to parliament last year with a majority of 4,290. Lawyers acting for the MP have previously said he "categorically denies the charges" and would defend against the allegations "robustly in court". The Groucho Club, on Dean Street, opened in 1985 and became a renowned meeting place for A-list celebrities and others, including actors, comedians and media executives. The club was named after the comedian and actor Groucho Marx, who reportedly once said he would refuse to join any club that would have him as a member.
The Guardian
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Brian Glanville was fearless, witty and hovered in the press box like Banquo's ghost
Brian Glanville, who has died aged 93, was what Groucho Marx might have been had the old master of the one-liner shown any interest in football. I doubt if the greatest soccer scribbler of them all – the London-born son of a Dublin dentist and an Old Carthusian expensively educated in literature and song – met Groucho (Brian knew a host of famous people), but their exchanges would surely have blistered the paint off the walls. Nobody swore so elegantly as Glanville, who hovered in the press box like Banquo's ghost, the gathering's invisible conscience, ready to deliver a scathing observation, relayed, sotto voce, to a nearby colleague like a chorus baritone in one of his favourite operas. Sitting behind me in the Tottenham press box during one match, he leaned forward to remark – apropos bugger all – on the future of the then struggling young Sunday Correspondent: 'It has the smell of death about it.' Garth Crooks, who was sitting next to him, was as bemused as he was amused. The joy of Glanville was, perversely, best experienced when he was at his most vitriolic. He loved football as few others could ever do, but he detested many things about the modern game, most vehemently commercialism and corruption, and let the world know it at every available opportunity. For most of his working life, those opportunities came around every Saturday afternoon for the Sunday Times in a golden age of football commentary as he went joke for pithy joke with the Observer's Hugh McIlvanney, Jim Lawton of the Express, and any other of the frontline heavyweights. Glanville, like many of his contemporaries, did not often bother with quotes from the principals, but he littered his work with references that showed the depth of his cultural interests. When he derided the efforts of a lazy full-back caught napping on the goalline as, 'alone and palely loitering' he was briefly impressed that I recognised it as a line from Keats's La Belle Dame sans Merci – followed by the inevitable put-down: 'Did poetry in your school, did they?' No pity there, then. It was part of what made up the Glanville we knew and loved. He was fearless – and feared. If that implies arrogance, so be it. But it was a price worth paying to hear and read the string of witticisms that lit up his work. He would pursue a story or an opinion to the end of its useful life, such as in the Lobo-Solti match-fixing scandal of 1972-73, when he wrote a series of stories under the banner of The Year Of The Golden Fix. When colleague and longtime friend Michael Collett said to him: 'Brian, I reckon you've made more from the scandal than they did from the fix itself,' he replied: 'You're too facking right I have.' He did not let many earning opportunities pass him by and hoovered up all sorts of stories for Gazzetta dello Sport (he lived in Italy for many years) while simultaneously reporting on a match, major or minor. I recall one international at Wembley when he interrupted the chatter to inquire: 'Anyone hear the results of the rowing from Nottingham?' There was an Italian competing. He wrote and spoke across several mediums – books, plays, occasional commentary, film and radio scripts – upsetting listeners in a 1950s BBC play about Hendon's Jewish community in north London, where he had grown up. It did not seem to bother him. Brian was at his happiest when looking in from the outside. As a scriptwriter, Glanville left us with many pearls in the incomparable film of the 1966 World Cup, Goal! When his beloved Italy went out to North Korea – a shock on a par with Vesuvius, in his opinion – he put in the narrator's mouth the memorable aside: 'So Italy go home to their tomatoes.' He also wrote, acidly, of the North Koreans: 'So little known, they might be flying in from outer space.' The film, matchless for its sense of drama and sun-drenched nostalgia, gripped an audience that would celebrate England's lone success at the highest level in the final. The campaign reached an ugly crescendo, however, in the foul-filled quarter-final win over Argentina. Glanville's contribution was that 'it is famous not just for Geoff Hurst's controversial offside goal but the Argentines' dirty tactics, which included spitting and kicking'. That unvarnished assessment came from Glanville's rock-solid confidence in his own judgment. He would listen to an argument, but not often back down. His then sports editor, the late Chris Nawrat, once insisted he finally go and talk to the England manager Bobby Robson (after years of roasting him in print without a single quote). Brian reluctantly trudged off with the paper's peerless photographer, Chris Smith, who would also operate the reel-to-reel tape recorder for the historic showdown. When they returned to the office, Glanville – technically illiterate – said it had gone so well they nearly ran out of tape, adding: 'What the bloody hell am I supposed to do with it now?' 'Transcribe it, Brian,' Nawrat said, surreptitiously tying some twine from the nearby art desk around Glanville's ankle until he pressed all the right knobs and the job was done several hours later. If Glanville listened to anyone, it was his enduring muse. Groucho Marx's wit was never far from his lips or his pen and Brian delighted in borrowing from the great man's litany of smartarsedness in conversation. One of my favourites, and his, was Groucho's quip after suffering some fools not-so-gladly: 'I've had a particularly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.' But any evening with Brian was unfailingly entertaining, a gift even. Another one gone, then, 'home to his tomatoes'. Kevin Mitchell was the Guardian's award-winning former tennis and boxing correspondent
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Liquid Mike Announce New Album Hell Is an Airport, Share 'Groucho Marx' and 'Selling Swords': Stream
The post Liquid Mike Announce New Album Hell Is an Airport, Share 'Groucho Marx' and 'Selling Swords': Stream appeared first on Consequence. Michigan rockers Liquid Mike have announced their new album, Hell Is an Airport. The sixth studio effort is out in full on September 12th, but you can hear the lead singles, 'Groucho Marx' and 'Selling Swords,' below. Vocalist and guitarist Mike Maple revealed that the album's title originated from the idea of airports as liminal spaces. 'Airports are these weird, intermediary spaces that have always made me feel like I'm stuck in limbo. This album deals a lot with themes surrounding feeling stuck and unable to crawl out,' he said in a press statement. 'Airports are stressful and congested and bureaucratic and never sleep; I imagine hell operates very much like an airport.' In a couple of days, Liquid Mike are kicking off their tour of North America. The first seven-date leg is alongside band Drug Church, and starts on May 17th in Ottawa. The second leg is in support of Descendents, with their first performance on July 29th in Charleston. They'll play concerts along the East Coast with the final show set for August 9th in New Haven. See the full schedule below, and get tickets here. Liquid Mike's latest album, Paul Bunyan's Slingshot, was released last February. Artwork: Tracklist: 01. Instantly Wasted 02. Lit From the Wrong End 03. Crop Circles 04. Double Dutch 05. AT&T 06. Selling Swords 07. Meteor Hammer 08. Grand Am 09. Groucho Marx 10. '99 11. Claws 12. Bad Lung 13. Liam Gallagher 14. Hell Is an Airport Liquid Mike 2025 Tour Dates: 05/17 — Ottawa, ON @ 27 Club # 05/18 — Hamilton, ON @ Bridgeworks # 05/20 — Des Moines, IA @ Wooly's # 05/21 — Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon # 05/23 — Indianapolis, IN @ Turntable # 05/24 — Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid Scheme # 05/25 — Covington, KY @ Madison Live # 07/29 — Charleston, SC @ Music Farm + 07/30 — Charlotte, NC @ The Underground + 07/31 — Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa + 08/02 — Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theater + 08/03 — Wilmington, DE @ The Queen + 08/05 — Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Ballroom + 08/07 — Albany, NY @ Empire Live + 08/08 — Allentown, PA @ Archer Music Hall + 08/09 — New Haven, CT @ College St. Music Hall + # = w/ Drug Church + = w/ Descendents and Teen Mortgage Popular Posts First Look at Nicolas Cage and Christian Bale in Madden Movie Drummer Chris Adler Opens Up on What Led to Firing from Lamb of God Morris, Alligator in Happy Gilmore, Dead at Over 80 Years Old Jazz Pianist Matthew Shipp Derides André 3000's New Piano Project: "Complete and Utter Crap" Stephen King's The Long Walk Movie Gets Long-Awaited Trailer: Watch Say It in Ghor: How Andor Brought a Brand New Language to Star Wars Subscribe to Consequence's email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.
