THE LENNY BRISCOE II REPORT

                                            Luis Suarez sinks his immense buck-tooth into the flesh of an opposing player. We’ve heard that before; it’s nothing new. Luis Suarez cops a 4-month ban, a 9-game international football ban, a 4-month stadium ban (apparently applicable anywhere in the world). We have sort of heard that before too. For the third time in his career, the super-talented Uruguayan striker, top goalscorer of the Premier League in the 2013/2014 season, multiple Barclays Premier League Player of the month and Barclays Premier League Player of the Year award winner cops a lengthy ban. For a second season in a row, he will miss crucial matches for Liverpool FC - who have qualified for the Champions League for the first time in Lord-knows-how-long years and need all their key men now more than ever. He hasn’t done himself or his agent any favours as ...

It was not a self-imposed hiatus or voluntary exile, it was just Google. Try signing in from a secret location with a different laptop or freshly-bought Sunday Market secondhand phone and you'll have hell to pay. I was told that I could not log into my account so many times in the past few months I almost gave in. To be allowed access into my account, I had to remember one of those useless, irrelevant, silly-ass questions I was asked while signing up. 1.Where did you first meet your ex girlfriend's uncle son? 2.What is the name of the person who sold your dog to the dog-catchers? 3.What is your first ever phone number? Usually, I (and probably millions of other people)make up answers to these questions. I mean how am I meant to remember my first phone number?Anyway, I had answered that question correctly.Lucky me. So after digging through the vaults, searching through almost two-decade-old chop-boxes and raiding grand mum's house, I found my 1999 diary...

                                                            

                                                  “These things happen. I do not know whether they are accidents or preordained but these things happen. I brought this on myself so it’s hard to say and I can’t complain”, says Johnny as he smiles…with his eyes. Sitting two yards from Johnny, I never would have been able to tell that he had spent two years of his young life in six different HMPs. It might be because I don’t know how youngsters who have spent two years in six different HMPs are supposed to look like archetypically. Or perhaps because Johnny O is not upset or even mildly bitter about life as I had half expected him to be.  He cracks jokes easily and has a good word or three for everyone who passes by. A usual Friday night out – no, what started as a usual Friday night out, two and a half years ear...

....We saw the Tahitian national team members holding the hands of their Spanish counterparts a few seconds longer than necessary in the handshakes before kick-off at the Confederations Cup. You knew the Tahitians were going to get a stuffing and they did. Zambia played against Ghana and the Chipolopolos thought Michael Essien was a walking TV. They watched and watched and watched him. You knew they were going to lose. They lost. So the point is that too many times, too many players bask in the moment of sharing the same pitch with their “heroes” instead of trying to win the bloody game! Now, these Pharaohs – Ghana’s opponents - are not playing in a domestic league. Political upheaval within the great nation of Egypt has affected domestic football but paradoxically not the national team. They cruised through the first bit of the qualifiers barely breaking a sweat. They made mince meat of Zimbabwe, Guinea and Mozambique (I think) home and away. A few of my Ghanaian frien...

                                      RUBBISH REASON WHY GHANA CAN BEAT EGYPT Growing up in Tema, Ghana, we saw lots of footballers come and go. Mostly, good ones. Oh, you didn’t know? Tema has produced generation after generation of world-class footballers for Ghana. Think Joe Addo, Simon Addo, Ishmael Addo, Daniel Addo, Sebastian Barnes, Shamo Quaye(I bet you didn’t know he was Tema-based, did you?), Paa Joe Kuma, Attakora Amaniampong, Abdul Razak Ismail, Joe Fameyeh, Matthew “Klinsmann” Amoah etc etc. Even the bronze-winning Ghana U-20 side that played in the recent World Youth Tournament in Turkey (2013) had no less than SEVEN Tema-based “youngsters”. Fact. Now, when we growing up, there was an already grown-up neighbourhood champion footballer who had a call-up into the senior national team. I am not going to confirm if his ...

“ WELL , I wanted  all  the credit to go the team and  all  glory to be unto God”, says  DJ Priv  with an expressionless gaze as he toys with a soda bottle cap at  The Elixir . You get the feeling that Priv does not say anything at all until he is good and ready. We were in for a long day! We had asked him his reasons for releasing NO GREATER LOVE VOL 1 under The Christ Experience Project brand instead of just claiming all the recognition - as he had done 90% or more of the work involved. When we got the CD itself earlier, we were all amazed at the sheer originality of the aloe-green packaging. Its complexity lied in its simplicity. Simple as. NO GREATER LOVE VOL 1 is a 10-track epic Gospel Jazz piece that has renditions of old classics as well as new music executive produced and performed by DJ Priv and The Christ Experience Project. To review the album without a modicum of bias we randomly threw in all the original tracks ( i.e. ...