Last season Newcastle were relegated to the Championship. This year, barring an almost miracle, both their fellow North-East teams, Middlesboro and Sunderland, will go down too. Possibly even Hull which is not far… well, up north somewhere. Though Newcastle look destined to return. But for the 3 months of no football, there’ll be no North East team in the Premiership. I know, who cares, right?

The clubs from ‘up there’ are being systematically replaced by teams from the South. Not, like, London, south, but from the real south. Two years ago it was Bournemouth, the seaside town of my childhood, and now Brighton, the other one, (and the only ‘seaside resort’ possibly in the world with no fucking sand), have just gained promotion to return to the lofty heights of the Premiership. Good luck to the Seagulls. I wish ’em all the best (which is giving us 6 points) and give them 6 months. Ok, you can’t actually go all the way down in that time but you know what I mean.

But talking about food (???) some ‘food psychologist’ (yet more ????) has been shamed. Shock, horror!!! But this dude is like a big prof at the lofty Cornell University in New York. Who published the results of a test in 2007 that found that claims made on the food packaging make people think it tastes better. So carrots “which make you see in the dark!!!” taste better than ‘Waitrose essential: carrots’. And “low fat, low sugar… caramel” will be ranked as better flavoured than normal caramel. Which is made from fat and sugar, ironically. Presumably the ‘low’ means just a smaller pack, who knows.

He was found guilty of ‘p-fishing’. Getting loads of data, all totally meaningless, and looking (with a very big computer) for anything that is statistically valid. Any two variables that can be found to be greater than 5% chance of not happening randomly and there you have it: the new law of gravity, the ‘proof’ of the pudding, in this case literally. Which just goes to show what a load’a twaddle almost all statistics is.

Another statistic is that John Terry is 36 years old. So Chelsea are putting him out to pasture. With the cows. Probably cows that gang up on people. But JT doesn’t want to stop playing footy. And he can’t manage yet. So we all look forward to seeing him next year warming the bench at Hull. Maybe Bournemout. Possibly Leyton Orient.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx