Jack's view on... The best moments of Euro 2012

As the dust finally settles in Poland and Ukraine, it is a time to contemplate on what has been a truly wonderful tournament. From the word go we have been blessed with some of the most memorable moments in football history; a stunning collective of images that will live long in the mind for many years to come. Euro 2012 rekindled my love for the game - it showed me everything that I want a football tournament to be about.

And now it's all over, I don't mind admitting that the realisation that it is has come to an end made me shed a tear. No longer would my eyes be able to feast upon visions of such glory, of such perfection, and I find myself looking to the heaven's, looking for answers, and asking Why Lord, why must you punish me so?!

Euro 2012 was a tournament that gave us so much. A Spanish team that cemented their place in football folklore as the greatest team ever to have graced the hallowed green turf. A world-class performance from Cristiano Ronaldo that prompted him to change his hairstyle at half-time in every match he played in. A sulking goal celebrating style from Mario Balotelli that made us wonder if he was French instead of Italian. An England team that has given us hope for World Cup 2030 when hopefully the off-spring of the Golden Generation might be able to do what their dad's couldn't! And even a German team that didn't make it to the final!

But those little nuggets of gold don't even come close to what got me really excited about the competition!

Call me dramatic, call me emotional, call me extreme, but the fact is I am a man who stands by my passion, my beliefs! There are countless amounts of men across Europe right now who feel just like me. They too are going to miss that sensational tingle every time we turned on our TV screens and waited in baited breath in anticipation of the one thing we all wanted to really see...

The scanning of the crowd!

That's right suckers! I am talking about the monumental efforts from the Euro 2012 cameramen to pluck out some of the absolute little treacle's sitting in the crowd! In the words of Chris Kamara, some of the women on display in this tournament were unbelievable! The best moments for be at Euro 2012, were the girls of Euro 2012!

I'm normally the first bloke to moan about women watching football every time a European Championship or World Cup comes around. I hate the fact that for two years they moan about how much they hate the footy, and then suddenly you can't get them away from the big screen TV. Whether it's screaming at the top of their lungs every time England get a throw-in, or ruining in-depth football chat by trying to discuss which player has the best legs, I get proper annoyed whenever some splitarse starts harking on about her passion for the game all because she thinks David Beckham has got a nice arse. It does my nut in!

But this was completely different! And here is why...

The girls on display at Euro 2012 had made a bit of an effort. They had clearly been down the gym do some serious working out in order to fit those tight little bodies into replica shirts that were clearly two sizes two small for them! There were curves poking out all over the place!

It changed the whole dynamics of the tournament for me! I was gutted when Greece were knocked out. It meant I couldn't knock one out over that little Greek blonde sort they kept showing on the TV. She brought joy to millions of Greek people during a financial meltdown for crying out loud! I didn't mind Germany doing so well, and I was even keeping my fingers crossed that they would play England in the semi-final and embarrass us all over again like they did at the World Cup last year. And the reason why?

Because it would have meant I could have drooled all over over this fine specimen once again. I mean look at her. Look at her dammit! She is even carrying two pints in her hand. She is like the most amazing woman I have ever seen in my life. The men were watching footy and they sent her to get the beer. I almost fucking cried right there and then when I saw this image. It was beautiful. 

It has changed the way I view football forever. I was happy enough to sit indoors during this competition, with my pants around my ankles, waiting for the Euro 2012 money shot to come along! And I didn't have to once explain the offside rule to anyone! It was frickin' awesome!

Normally I'd head down to the pub and I'd have to stand with some Nora Batty lookalike, and watch her belly jiggle out from underneath her crappy Primark England t-shirt every time she got over excited about a free kick on the halfway line. But this year was a real game changer. I mean look at this Italian fan on the left - this is what she looked like when Juan Mata had just tucked away Spain's fourth goal!

So make sure you remember this tournament for all the right reasons. It wasn't about the brilliance of Iniesta or the rugged determination of Roy Hodgson's Three Lions. It was all about the effort made by the female supporters. I salute you ladies!

Jack Chatham is a fictional character from Steven Scaffardi's comedy novel The Drought. 

A big thumbs-up from Chick Lit Plus!

The Drought has often been called 'chick-lit for men' so it was great to see a positive book review from the girls over at Chick Lit Plus this week. Check out the review here on the official site or read the full review below...

The Drought by Steven Scaffardi
The Drought by Steven Scaffardi follows Dan Hilles post break-up with long term girlfriend, Stacey. Dan is a pretty average guy – he has a normal job, a regular group of friends, and typical male hang-ups. But, it isn’t until after his break up with Stacey that he realizes just how “average” he is. Dan has been out of the dating game for quite sometime, and although he tries to hop right back in, things aren’t quite as easy as he once imagined. The lack of dating leads to Dan experiencing a “drought” … and I’m not referring to a lack of rain. Yes, he has gone quite sometime without having sex. His closest pals rally together and try their best to help out their friend – but it seems like Dan isn’t willing to help himself and can’t really seem to catch a break. Luckily for Dan, he has Kelly to confide in, and after confessing his woes, she begins to teach him just what makes a woman tick. Is Kelly the answer to his prayers? Will the “drought” ever end?

Here at Chick Lit Plus, we occasionally get requests from authors promoting their newest “Lad Lit” novels. Being a female, I sometimes have difficulty relating to the main characters, but not with this one. Steven Scaffardi’s first novel is absolutely hilarious and will leave every reader, male or female, laughing out loud. I found the characters very relatable and know several friends who have found themselves in very similar situations - albeit not as funny as Dan’s particular story. The Drought is well written and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a book that actually brings the laughs.

4/5 stars

Lad Lit Book Reviews: The Ghost by Robert Harris

I can’t help but think I should have enjoyed this book more than I did. Don’t get me wrong – it was a good read, but there were one or two things that hold me back from giving this higher praise than I’m about to.

What I’m about to reveal is a bit of a spoiler. It won’t necessarily ruin you reading the book, but I need to reveal it in order to explain my... discomfort whilst reading this book. So here we go...

For some reason the name of the fictional narrator of The Ghost is never revealed, so let’s just call him Bob. When Bob – a professional ghostwriter – is asked to step in to finish writing the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, he jumps at the chance and jets off to the American resort of Martha's Vineyard.

Lang – who is clearly based on ex-PM Tony Blair (Harris even wrote Blair’s memoirs) – is having a bit of a hard time as he is accused of war crimes. On top of all this, Lang's original ghostwriter has mysteriously died so he is not exactly the happiest of bunnies. In amongst all this we meet Lang’s wife, Ruth. Immediately the face of Cherie Blair sprung to mind, which is not something anyone should have to go through.

So here comes the spoiler – Bob ends up sleeping with Ruth/Cherie, which means that midway through the book I had to endure the image of Cherie Blair bumping uglies. And the fact that when reading a book you put yourself into the shoes of the main character meant that image was of me bumping uglies with Ruth/Cherie.

Now can you see my problem?!

Okay, so this is a piss-poor excuse to give for not giving the book a better review, especially when I actually thought it was fairly decent at the end of the day, so I’ll try to put that sorry incident to one side. On the whole this is a pretty decent read. There are some nice twists and turns, but on the whole I found some parts to be quite slow. And the fact we are basically dealing with a couple like the Blairs who are not about to win any popularity contests anytime soon, doesn’t exactly help you endear to them either.

In terms of the plot, Bob starts to grow suspicious of the death of his predecessor, especially when he finds himself surrounded by a few unsavoury yet very powerful people. But try as he might, Bob can’t walk away and as he delves deeper into the mystery, things begin to unravel that will bring him closer to the truth and danger.

Advice for Indie Authors: You do judge a book by its cover part 2!

Last year I published a blog called You do judge a book by its cover! where I discussed the importance of a good front cover for your novel. One year on I decided to dig out all the nearly covers that didn't quite make the grade for my debut comedy book The Drought. 

I thought it might be nice to share these, all wonderfully designed by Jacqueline Abromeit at Pen Press, and feel free to leave your feedback as to which one was your favourite...

1. This was all a bit too James Bond for me and I was never too sure about the plaster!	2. I liked the desert idea so asked to have a guy running towards the woman...
3. Jacqueline wanted to try and brighten the cover up so she came up with this...	4. But we decided to tone it down a bit and tried the cover with a different woman
5. I'm not too sure what we were thinking with this one! Running out of ideas maybe!	6. So we went back to the original design and included all our favourite bits

Looking back over all the covers again, I still think I got it right. I remember how excited I was when I saw the design for the first cover, but I think that was because seeing the front cover for your own book starts to bring everything to life a bit more.

But I spoke to friends and on there advice agreed that the design didn't quite capture the tone of the story - it looked a bit like a thriller (minus the heart-shaped plaster of course!). The idea of having a man run towards the image or 'mirage' of a woman in the desert worked, and also looked quite comical.

We also added in some praise The Drought had been given by TV presenters Ortis Deley and Angellica Bell, and the 'Mike Gayle' quote on the front worked really well as it immediately told the reader that my book was in the lad lit or chick lit category.

Now over to you - what is your favourite cover?

Irish fans sing Home & Away - the best football song ever?

Football fans sometimes get a bit of a bad press about the things they chant from the terraces, but few can deny the genius spare of the moment and impromptu songs that some fans are able to think up on the spot.

I can remember one particular trip to Loftus Road back in the 90s and listening the QPR faithful passionately belt out the lyrics Who needs Cantona, when we've got Devon White. The fact you are probably scratching your head trying to remember who the hell Devon White is speaks volumes.

From the re-workings of  Artful Dodger and Craig David's single “Re-Rewind” to create Van Per-sie, when the girl says 'no', molest her to Celtic fans chanting There's only two Andy Gorams at reference to the Rangers keeper being diagnosed as a schizophrenic, football fans have always been quick off the pulse when it comes to sing-a-long banter.

But this week at Euro 2012 when Ireland fans launched into a rendition of the Home & Away theme tune to drown out Croatia fans singing their own footy song on a Poznan tram, surely has to take some beating.

There isn't really much else for me to say other than enjoy...

Back with a bang baby!

Diary of a stand-up comedian Entry #53
A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked if I would be interested in performing stand-up comedy at a charity event she was running for the media company IPC.

I wasn't too sure. I had only performed one gig this year, and that was the semi final of the Next Big Thing comedy competition, which didn't exactly go great! I was happy that my evening's no longer revolved around going to a dingy little pub somewhere in the arse-end of London to perform in front of five people, who either didn't care what I was saying or were too drunk to notice.

I left those crazy nights behind me. I made my decision to take a break from stand-up comedy, and by God I was going to stand by it. Nothing could change my mind.

Then she happened to mention that IPC published Nuts magazine and that a couple of the glamour models that had appeared spread-eagled in the mag were going to be making an appearance.

Well, perhaps I shouldn't be too hasty...!

And I am bloody glad I decided to come out of 'retirement' for the evening! Not because of the scantily-clad babes that made an appearance (they were actually fully-clothed - what a liberty! Plus they didn't even give me a second look - must be lesbians...).

I was pleased I turned up because it was probably the best night I have ever had up on the comedy stage. My set went down a storm (they had no idea I hadn't written any new material in over six months!), and there was a huge audience - all laughing (which is always a bonus...). You just can't beat that feeling of a room full of people laughing at you - unless of course its because you're trousers have fallen down and they are laughing at your little problem. That is never a nice feeling... not that I'm talking from experience or anything!

All the comedians on the night were top notch - from the compere Toby Brown to the headline act Rob Beckett, and it was all in the name of charity of course! Which is nice... :)

Maybe I won't leave it as long next time...

... Then again I do quite like sitting around in my pants doing nowt each evening. Each to their own!

Promo Trailer for The Drought: Perfecting the First Date!

Stand-up comedian Steven Scaffardi offers his wise words of wisdom on what makes the perfect first with the girls. And to back up his theories, he got a few girls to explain what they think a guy should do (or shouldn't do) on that all important first date. For more laddish fun about a guys point of view on relationships, check out Scaffardi's hilarious debut novel, The Drought! Available now at Amazon and all good bookshops.