SHUT THAT TRANSFER WINDOW
OLD BAG: This is an archive story from Issue 283 - 3 Feb 2009
Pundit: Bit parky
Sir Reg Cabal: Common sense advice
Supatherm: Much missed
Johnny's feeling the cold
Funny old thing, football. For instance, the transfer window. Makes for a bit of a nip in the air, don't you find?
Polar bears in Regent Street
Only the other day I was nursing a hot toddy in The Mixed Metaphor, the watering hole for commentators deep in London's fashionable Soho. Fothergill, my old chum from The Light Programme, was sat the other side of a roaring fire which was making very little headway against the sub-Arctic temperatures. Honestly, I shouldn't have been surprised to have seen a polar bear ambling up Regent Street. Even the icicles had icicles on them.
Noble foreheads
'Freezing, isn't it, Fothers?' I opined. 'Well of course', says he. 'It's because they leave the transfer window open all January.' I slapped my in-many-ways-rather-noble forehead. Suddenly it all made sense. That's why it's always cold in January. The fools! It was the Football League who were responsible for all our inflated heating bills at this time of year! I couldn't believe the incompetence!
Wool mafioso
Then I got to thinking; Fothergill's words explained a lot. I bet the scarf-selling industry was in on it, for a start the wool mob are notoriously sinister, hiding behind their unconvincing front of knitting grannies. And Bovril are famously on the make; they put the 'extract' in 'yeast extract'. As for thermal underwear, well, what self-respecting Mafioso goes without it? The whole thing was a stitch-up.
Sir Reg Cabal speaks
As if to confirm my suspicions, the day afterwards I bumped into one of the Directors of the Football League, Sir Reg Cabal. You know what he said to me? 'Wrap up warm, Johnny'. I thought, Well if you hadn't left the transfer window open, we wouldn't be in this position. I mean, people bang on about global warming, but it's nothing compared to leaving the transfer window open all January, is it?
French doors
As 1978's face of Supatherm Double Glazing, I know about this stuff. It was shame they went bust shortly afterwards, I could do with a discount on some French doors.
Yours aye,
Johnny Pundit
