bleungberg.com

Investors, magalomaniacs and economic brains gathered at the Swiss ski resort of Davos last week to warn us that Greece, Portugal and Greece are pretty much fucked, and will drag the rest of Europe down with their economic collapse.

Whilst Bleungberg won’t dispute Greece or Portugal’s economic woes - they were always the weak links due to a lack of proper system in place safeguarding their economies, weak central banks and an economy reliant on very few sources of capital like tourism and minimal fisheries - Spain is nowhere near as bad as the other two.

Yes, Spain’s unemployment is at an all-time high of just over 4m, or 17.4%, and its national debt is huge. But, unemployment has always - always - been high in Spain, particularly amongst the young.

Its national debt has now ballooned to such a scale that is unacceptable to the EU - but what about the United Kingdom’s astronomical debt?!

Spain is in a massive economic black-hole because it chose to invest its billions in renewable-energy research and constructions abroad which do not return profits quickly.

Its banks were left largely unscathed by the credit problems experienced by its rivals in Britain, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Iceland, the US, Hong Kong and Japan.

Instead, they were undone by the property boom which grossly distorted the housing-market, and then failed to be sold off, thus leading to idle new homes and many lay-offs at construction sites.

This came about partly because the frivolous Spanish population started holding onto their capital rather than spending it, coupled with a massive retreat by those poor British expats along the Costa del Sol, causing a property crash.

Yet, somehow, Spain has been lumped in the same sentence as economic basket cases such as Greece and Portugal.

This is grossly unfair.

Yes, Spain’s been a little reckless in the last two decades in letting in immigrants, placing a huge burden on social costs to an ever-increasing and  ageing population, but to compare them to the likes of the other two is not fair on the Spaniards.

Their economy is not going to go under; it’s too big to.

Greedy investors love bad-mouthing peripheral economies in the EU in the hope of making a quick buck from their predictions.

If Spain’s debt is to be defaulted, then it’ll be strictly down to malicious gossiping on the investors’ part.

They tried to do the same with Turkey and Latvia last year, and haven’t yet been proved right.

Yes, Latvia is still in trouble but its economy is of little significance to the wider world, whilst Turkey’s economy has posted strong growth over the last year.

So, when investors predict apocolypse is about to envelop the Iberian peninsular, they are right - but only in the extreme western section: from Porto all the way down to Faro.

Britain, meanwhile, here comes the double-dip…

Although the slippery French cheated defeated Ireland to win a place in this year’s World Cup, they have virtually no chance of regaining the trophy they last won in 1998.

Many blame their coach for being shit. Some blame their players for being rubbish. Many blame that cheatin’ scumbag Thierry Henry for being a smug cunt.

And the one small chance that they have in eliminating one of their fiercest rivals long before the kick-off has already disappeared - and the French football association did nothing about it.

The woman who aborted John Terry’s baby, the vampishly attractive but ’sad-looking’ Vanessa Perroncel, will not now sell her sex-history to the highest-bidding tabloid, says her PR super-guru Max Clifford.

It’s presumed that ‘JT’ has bought her silent in order to avoid further humiliation to his family at a cost of £400 000.

Many had feared that any further revelations would sour the team-spirit in the England camp, and drive an even bigger wedge between former best-buddies Terry and his teammates, notably Ms Perroncel’s former fiance, Wayne Bridge.

Those dopey bastards at the FFF have therefore completely missed out here.

By out-bidding JT for her to sell her life-story, those cheatin’ froggy scumbags could easily destroy England’s central defence before they’d even left for South Africa, and give themselves a bit of a chance during the knock-out stages.

Now, with a gagging order in hand, JT and England can breathe a sigh of relief.

When will the French ever, ever learn?!

England coach Fabio Capello limped into London to sack that philandering, roast-spitting, racist, nightclub-urinating, bottle-throwing, money-loving super-cunt John Terry as England captain, and replaced him with the dim-witted and unintelligent, equally-philandering, drug-cheating, prank-calling, orgy-loving sex tape threesome star and well-known sword-crosser Rio Ferdinand.

What’s wrong with Steven Gerrard?! He got acquitted of affray last year!

If England fails to win the World Cup, the number of people they can now blame is endless, starting with Capello, then JT, then Rio, then Vanessa Perroncel, Eidur Gudjohnsen etc etc etc…

BBC Sport have chosen Guy Mowbray to be their new voice of football.

Good choice.

Here’s coke user Cilla Black at a Haiti fundraiser in Barbados over the weekend….

Veteran actor - and Bleungberg’s favourite of all-time - Rip Torn was found inebriated and armed inside a bank at Connecticut over the weekend. He’d apparently broken into the building by breaking the window, thinking it was his own house.

Rip Torn is 78 years old.

A true legend both on and off screen.

In light of Andy Murray reaching his first Australian Open final, and a fine comeback by Justine Henin, we at Bleungberg have decided to pick our top ten tennis matches of the last decade. We make no apologies for the fact that many of these came a) at Wimbledon or b) during 5am or similar…

So, here goes: (in no particular order)

1) 2003 Australian Open Men’s QF: Andy Roddick beat Younis el Ayouni 4-6, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, 21-19. It went on, and on, and on, and on, and finished at 3am local time. At the end, the two players dropped their rackets and Roddick went over to hug el Ayouni, saying “he’ll never play another match like that and he grew up a lot during that single match.’. He did - the 2009 Wimbledon final against Roger Federer in which he came off worse in the fifth set at 16-14.

2) 2008 Men’s Wimbledon Final: Federer vs Nadal Round 3. Yes, best final ever in terms of quality and drama.

3) 2009 Women’s US Open SF: Kim Clijsters beat Serena Williams, who was defaulted for two code violations. Watching tennis at 4am had never been more fun.

4) 2009 Men’s Autralian Open Final: Federer vs Nadal: we watched this match in Manila, and because it went on for so long, we didn’t have dinner until 10.30pm. Federer should’ve won the match and likewise, the US Open final later that year. Would have been a calender slam…

5) 2006 Women’s Australian Open Final/Wimbledon Final: Henin vs Mauresmo Parts 1 & 2: Henin created history by quitting midway through the second set in Melbourne, thus handing Mauresmo a maiden but unfulfilled Grand Slam title. Critics remained unconvinced, but the stylish Frenchwoman put that right with an incredible triumph against Henin half a year later at SW19. No one doubted her talents again - well, maybe with the exception of Mauresmo herself….

6) 2006 Women’s Wimbledon Final: Lindsey Davenport vs Venus Williams. Live 8 was delayed on BBC1, as the two Americans battled it out in the longest final ever. Davenport should’ve clinched victory in the second set but somehow didn’t, and handed Venus another title at SW19 in a titantic third set (9-7). Sweet revenge, too, for Venus as she’d lost at Wimbledon in 2004 when the umpire called out the wrong scores during a tie-break in the fourth round, with Venus going on to lose the match.

7) 2004 Men’s French Open Quarter-Final: Henman vs Juan Ignacio Chela. Henman never played well at Roland Garros, so it was a surprise that he reached the semis, beating renowned clay-courter Chela in the process. Henman went on to lose to Guillermo Coria in the next match (he really should’ve won that), but Bleungberg will always remember the look of incredulity on Henman’s face as he shook hands with Chela after thrashing him in the QF. The Coria-Gaston Gaudio final was a shocker, too, with the latter winning 0–6 3–6 6–4 6–2 8–6, saving match points, overcoming nerves, bouts of cramp and some truly, shocking tennis. Gaudio never won another slam, whilst Coria quit the sport under a cloud….

8 ) 2001 Men’s Wimbledon final: Rafter vs Ivanesevic - first Monday final, three-day Henman semi, wild-card victory; enough said. Watched the whole thing in Byron Bay in Australia.

9) 2000 Men’s Wimbledon final: Sampras vs Rafter - Sampras’s date with history, and a 9pm finish in total darkness after numerous rain-delays. Sweet.

10) 2005 Women’s US Open final: Kim Clijsters vs Mary Pierce - not a great final (marginally more competitive than the horrible French Open final that year which also featured Pierce) but remembered as Clijsters’s maiden Grand Slam. Questions were constantly asked of her credentials as a world number one without a Slam, and she answered all her critics in style here - repeating the feat in 2009 by coming out of retirement by winning as a wild-card.

Just missing out: Safin beating Federer in the 2005 Australian Open Semi-final, Elena Dementieva’s shocking serves in the 2004 Slam finals against Myskina and Kuznetsova, the 2003 Davis Cup Final between Australia and Spain in which the Aussies playing the old Franco national anthem to deliberately spite their rivals (who went on to win), Gasquet surviving cramp in an epic five-setter in the 2006 US Open, and Hingis against Clijsters in the 2007 US Open final QF.

So, ITV have appointed Adam Crozier as its new chief executive, as it seeks to find a way to make money after years of mismanagement and the advertising downturn.

For us, Crozier’s appointment is an absolute shocker, and one which can only be financially-motivated. Under Crozier’s leadership, the Football Association became a cashcow and made tonnes of money through the sports rights markets spiralled out of control - inflated, ironically, by the ill-fated ITV Sport Channel’s desire to compete with Sky Sports and the BBC.

The Scot was also instrumental in appointing Sven Goran Eriksson as the England coach which was ultimately a very costly failure for both the FA and Crozier’s successor, the much-ridiculed Brian Barwick (see the Bleungberg archive for our hatred for him).

Most damaging of all, is that Crozier also left behind a legacy of poor morale at the FA, and is instrumental in turning the once much-respected organisation into a laughing stock and an administrative mess that it is today.

That’s not all though!

Crozier fared even worse at the Royal Mail.

Yes, he balanced the books somewhat by cutting costs, but failed largely in wholesale reform (he constantly faced stiff opposition from the unions who called numerous strikes), lost some notable contracts (TV licensing, for example), and never managed to sort out the massive pension blackhole. Meanwhile, morale hit rock-bottom, whilst customers had nothing but complaints for Royal Mail.

All the while, he picked up huge pay cheques and even performance-related BONUSES!

At ITV, he’ll face even tougher challenges - and its pension deficit is massive.

So ITV board, you only care about your shareholders and about making a profit. You clearly don’t give a flying fuck about the viewers, and even less for your long-suffering employees. Job cuts will follow. GMTV will fold, which is no bad thing but that’s besides the point. Regional news will never be produced in-house again, and there’ll even more money-spinners like X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent-related shows, stifling creativity and budgets alike.

In the short-run, ITV may succeed. But longer term, it’s doomed to fail.

They should consider firing him NOW.

Marat Safin & Amelie Mauresmo: two champions who lit up Bleungberg’s living room for best part of a decade…often at some ungodly hours during various Australian or US Opens. Physically, they were great to watch. But 90% of the time, it was to see whether they could cope mentally, and more often than not, Mauresmo would crumble whilst Safin raged against anything in his sight.

But when they were on song, they were always entertaining - and memorable.

2006 Australian Open, Wimbledon winner

2000 US Open champion

2005 Australian Open champion

Two wealthy power-hungry presidents, with a combined age of nearly over 150, both with a penchant for hair-dye/plugs and cosmetic surgeries, controlling newspapers, television, using football as a diplomatic tool, are the best of chums, and are probably most upset that they are separated by the Mediterranean.

So, which one do you hate more?

Hosni, or Silvy?