New Articles on The Daily Dust today

Posted: 19 Dec 2008 05:17 AM CST

Here is the draw for the next round of the Champions League

16 clubs go to the next round, the winners are drawn against the runners up and cannot be drawn against their own leagues:-

Chelsea V Juventus

Villarreal V Panathanikos

Sporting Lisbon V Bayern Munich

Athletico Madrid V FC Porto

Olympic Lyonnais V Barcelona

Real Madrid V Liverpool

Arsenal V Roma

Internazionale V Man Utd

Fergie - I Would Not Sell Real Madrid A Virus

Posted: 19 Dec 2008 05:01 AM CST

Sir Alex Ferguson, finally speaks out after Real Madrid talk of a “Gentlemans agreement” regarding Ronaldo

Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson furiously hit out at Real Madrid in Japan after learning that the La Liga club had told Spanish media that there is an agreement to sign Cristiano Ronaldo next summer.

“You don’t think we’d get into a contract with that mob, do you?” said Ferguson,

“I wouldn’t sell them a virus. So that’s a “No”. There is no agreement between the clubs.”

United will play Liga de Quito from Ecuador in Sunday’s final in the FIFA Club World Cup in Tokyo.

Fergie continued his rant: “I said to (chief executive) David Gill when we sold Heinze that you can bet the Cristiano thing will start up. It did and it will happen again in January.

“We have to ignore it because we can’t keep worrying about them. We need to concentrate on our own form.

“There can be anger in this situation and we can get annoyed. But there’s no point. We know their game. It won’t affect us”

With the draw for the Champions League due later today, Fergie and Utd have other things on their mind, especially as Real could play them next round..

Britain’s Got An Extra Pop Factor And Then Some 2 + 1

Posted: 19 Dec 2008 04:37 AM CST

Peter Kay brings a follow up show based on his reality TV character Geraldine McQueen

Good TV or a waste of talent. The jury is out on this show with the first show flopping after the break.

Back on TV tonight with a follow-up show, Peter Kay shows what has happened to Geraldine since she won Britains Got The Pop Factor..

Although some points are funny, the mock-reality TV gag is so like the real thing, it becomes almost unfunny, still with a Christmas single out (although number one seems to be a no no) and the chance of getting some extra sales this will be a good advert for Kay.

We hope that Peter Kay will drop Geraldine like Simon Cowell would in X Factor and return to some classic comedy like Phoenix Nights.

Tonight, Channel 4 9pm.

The IT Crowd - One To Watch Tonight

Posted: 19 Dec 2008 04:23 AM CST

Fiendface - Jen introduces the guys to social networking

Jen introduces Roy and Moss to a new social networking website, and then finds out why some friendships are best left in the past, some would call Web 1.0.

Great comedy series that is getting funnier, with 600k people signing up to Facebook every day, many people will find this episode the one that gets them hooked.

Channel 4 10pm Tonight.

Shopkeeper’s Jokes Must Stop or he faces Prosecution

Posted: 19 Dec 2008 01:00 AM CST

A shopkeeper in south Wales has been told to stop putting jokes on promotional leaflets for his store or he faces prosecution.

For 10 years, Bob Singh as been adding jokes to the Landmark store’s adverts. One day police came by his store to advise him to stop doing this.

He said: “We’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never had a problem until now.

“I get the jokes off the internet. They don’t target any person or gender and there’s no bad language.

“I couldn’t believe it when three police officers turned up and said someone had contacted them about the leaflet because they didn’t like it.”

Mr Singh put a sign in the front window saying: “We would like to apologise to anyone who may have been offended by the contents of our Christmas leaflet. In future we will try to be more politically correct.”

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The Musical Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Posted: 18 Dec 2008 09:36 AM CST

It’s all Simon Cowell’s fault that Christmas has died

And now, a special comment from our Senior Christmas Number One Correspondant, Ewan Spence.

When I was young, this was the time of year that had you on the edge of your seats. This was the last few days before Christmas, but you had something to distract you from your presents. You had something that was more important. You had to decide who you wanted to be at the top of the charts and claim the Christmas number one.

In those days, those heady days of Paul McCartney, Jona Lewie, Mud, Slade, Roy Wood with Wizzard, we even forgave Shaking Stevens and Elton John. Christmas was a fair and honourable race that everyone in the country all partook in.

Even those who failed in the race, those that many say should have been the rightful winners, were duly rewarded with inclusion on the many Christmas compilation albums and ensuing royalties that let them buy a bottle of wine every year. That was the pact. The covenant. They did the cliches, the sleigh bells, the children’s choirs – we bought into that view, we bought the singles, and everyone knew that Christmas was special.

Until reality TV arrived.

There has been no faster way to devalue the spirit of Christmas than this crass, media driven sledgehammer. After three solid months of free advertising on every single media outlet, the national press, the radio and commercial television, the minds of the watchers have been conditioned to accept the winner as being bigger than The Beatles. The effect lasts about a week, but that’s enough for our Grinch to steal the Christmas Number One.

And our Grinch, Simon Cowell, has had this since 2003. The year before the warning signs were there, as Girls Aloud and One True voice were created to battle each other for this spot, excluding everyone else from the race. We hoped it would be a one-off.

We were wrong.

2003 was to prove the epilogue to a tradition that has run from a time before Noddy Holder’s "It’s Christmas" boomed out across the nation. The Darkness, a last gamble glam group from Lowestoft knew the rules, and penned "It’s Christmas Time, Don’t Let The Bells End."

In a cruel twist, it reached number two, joining the greatest song of all time, A Fairytale of New York in the bin marked "Should have been." And to stick the knife in further, the number one was "Mad World"

Never a truer song title has been sung

The winner of the X-factor has been all but guaranteed the Christmas Number One. It doesn’t matter what they sing, who sings it, or whether they will feature on Now That’s What I call Christmas in ten years time. Do songs called That’s My Goal, A Moment Like This and When You Believe do not speak of family, of friends, or a deeper relationship with the world and the human condition.

They said pop will eat itself. If that’s the case, then Mr Cowell has a Michelin Star atop his Christmas Tree. His chosen track this year is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, and everyone outside of Sony BMG and Syco are hoping that a download only cover of this song, now eligible for the charts, from Jeff Buckley can put a stop to this madness of capitalism from the music industry.

I fear that this will not be enough and our Grinch will laugh all the way to the bank having stolen what was once precious to an entire nation.

(with thanks to Keith Olbermann and Seesmic).