Longtime Hammers fan Russell Brand had a tough time absorbing Jermaine Defoe’s introduction at White Hart Lane earlier this week (“Defoe was togged up like an extra from Bugsy Malone ” actually not an extra, he was dressed as Baby Face who, if memory serves, was a depression-era itinerant worker expertly played by a tiny Dexter Fletcher in a cloth cap that after hibernating ever since, but for a brief interlude where it shielded us from Mick Hucknall’s scalp crimes”), but takes particular umbrage at the way the Carlos Tevez Affair continues to distract (“the East End hasn’t seen such a long-term commitment to eking out justice since the quest to snare Jack the Ripper”). From Saturday’s Guardian :

While we’re raking over the past and persecuting the Hammers, perhaps Lord Griffiths’ arbitration committee should reopen the case of that bracelet Bobby Moore was accused of nicking in Colombia before the 1970 World Cup “ yes, he was exonerated but perhaps there’s more to this. Who knows, perhaps since that day West Ham have been buoyed by a sense of indefatigability and have accrued undeserved points as a result.

Because that is what ultimately has to be ascertained “ how many points can one player’s contribution be said to have garnered? I would concur that towards the end of the 2006-07 season Tevez’s play did aid the team but when he and Javier Mascherano arrived they were a right couple of bumpkin nitwits; they upset everything with their clumsy, South American, unrefined ways. They lambada’d into Upton Park knocking over vases and treading on toes like a pair of swarthy Frank Spencers.

The unrest they caused among the squad and the disharmony provoked between Alan Pardew and the board must’ve cost points “ in fact, I’d like to calculate that it cost six points, a cup run and a jam sandwich and I want them back. Where’s my tribunal? I want Lord Griffiths to work out what would’ve happened if I hadn’t taken drugs as a kid, then compensate or penalise me accordingly.

There’s justice, then there’s the TV show Quantum Leap in which Scott Bakula “quantum leapt” into the past to poke his nose into people’s affairs, usually with the best intentions; well I’d like to tell Scott Bakula and Lord Griffiths to fuck right off “ not least for his use of the phrase “oral cuddle” when describing alleged behind-the-scenes assurances offered by West Ham’s board to Tevez’s handlers when the initial inquiry was in progress back in 1892.

If the West Ham CEO, Scott Duxbury, is giving oral cuddles to Tevez’s “agent”, Kia Joorabchian, then financial irregularities are no longer my primary concern. Sexuality and linguistics must be given precedence.