Alsatian Cousin

There were wracked faces at five o'clock on Saturday gone as the relentless winning streak developed in the curdled bowels of Utility Machine Dominance relented and enabled Lincoln to leave Adams Park with three points. No-one expected to win every game until May 2007, but like catching your uncle up to his elbows with a spatula and Tony the delivery lad, it was shocking all the same.

Less surprising was the creeping emergence of leading CONEMEN after the defeat, rubbing their hands together at the prospect of a chink in Lambert's armour. The recent burst of wins has upset them deeply, as it cheapens their false memories of 2005, a year now as distant as 1267 in moral terms. Nostalgia is the opium of the age and they are off their faces in a Limehouse smokepit. Dr Watson isn't going to rescue them any time soon either.

No, this reversal to Lincoln was acceptable, there is nothing to fear, the roadshow will be back on soon and the lovers of the old regime can return to their soapy scrapbooks and their intricate arrangement of the salt and pepper pots. In the meantime, the visit of the full-denim hoardes from Swindon tomorrow could be epoch defining or it could be as forgettable as Adrian Caceres.

Sweetness Follows

Hanging on to the rails on the District line, you just know you're going to pick up some sort of illness but when the destination is Barry George's manor then the prize is worth it. On Wednesdays.

The League Cup is like the Easter holidays, from a distance it seems like an utter waste of time but when it comes around the same old feelings well up in the stomach. Away ties at puffed up Premiership franchises make it even more shiny and so it was that the usual crew traipsed down to SW6.

In total we had: The Drone Army; the hate mob; Section Five; Section Five Recovery Programme; the junior politicians; the OAP army; Steve Hayes; the casuals baby squad 2008; One-One; photocopier repair salesmen; Dusty Springfield; the autobots; Thomas Cook; Arkan; Al the pal's care team; Rhubarb; COTN reserve squadron; SMBU Deathsquad; Cherry Parry; Bulsara; BBC Norfolk; Louise Woodward.

Great turnout, great result. We're in the third round for the first time thanks to an epic display from everyone involved. Special mention the The Judge in midfield who passed typical judgement on Fulham's engine room and found it guilty of weepy top-flight arrogance. The jury, made up of Tommy Mooney and pretty Jemma, were quick to announce a sentence of League Cup ejection for the FFC apes and a suspended sentence.

We came into their manor fired off a load of shots, got on the telly and went home with the Met Police unleashing their armoury. Untouchable. Utility Machine Dominance. Get there.

Must I Paint You A Picture

Paul Lambert's shuddering embrace of Utility Machine Dominance was evident in the gash foothills of Lancashire on Saturday afternoon as Rochdale were crushed, ground into the floor, broken like rag dolls and tossed in the river, muscled, bish-bashed until their fans were forced to invade the pitch like Section Five at a Jewish wedding.

But forget the football for a while, there are more important things, like this season's jargon. I am tired of all manner of flotsam coming into the Meat Clinic and breathlessly asking me what this or that means. I will print out this list and paste it to their eyes.

CONEMAN
Someone who still harks back to a mythical glorious era under John GORMAN. They are noticeable by their exaggeration of the quality of Wycombe's football in autumn 2005 and by their belief that strange supernatural forces derailed Wanderers' promotion bid in the New Year, rather than defending like autistic clowns.

ELASTIC HEROIN
The feeling the supporters of a club endure when their struggling team put their league worries behind them and get a decent win in the League Cup. Wycombe fans will remember a pointless glamour tie with Nottingham Forest just days before Alan Smith was sacked in 1996.

BALLOT FOX
The inability of the Wycombe Wanderers Supporters Trust to ever deliver the results of a poll or ballot at a specified time. Badly-run Central American dictatorships have a more reliable voting system than the hapless WWST.

PIXEL RAGE
The feeling you experience when you notice that you are watching the latest goals on Wanderers World in low resolution rather than high and the utter lack of desire to reload them.

BURTONS SUITS
The complicated formula that ensures that for every 100 Wycombe fans lost at the gate, another marketing mogul is employed by the club.

SHAKERBAKER
The feeling you get in your stomach when Bucks Free Press columnist Ian Baker gets the wrong end of the stick again and accuses a losing Wanderers side of lacking "passion" and "desire".

DRONE ARMY LOYALIST
Loyal footsolider in the the ranks of the hated Drone Army. Can be identified by tufting of the facial hair, flecks of drool made up of Lucozade Sport & anthrax and an utter devotion to travelling the length and breadth of the country by coach.

HAZY MEMORY
The tendency of Wycombe fans once opposed to a PLC setup to become compliant supporters of the new regime after a friendly chat with MD Steve Hayes in Scores. Particularly virulent amongst pensioners for some reason.

PLASMA TAX
The inexplicable surcharge applied to any drink bought in flashy Wanderers drinking hole Scores. Has been known to result in a glass of water costing more than a pint of beer, echoing nightclub policy in the early 1990s.

HOUNDSDITCH
The concrete path in front of the Woodlands Stand on which the Ballboy Manageress marches up and down during games.

IAN ATKINS DIET
The propensity for obese Wycombe fans to complain when the teabars run out of burgers and hotdogs, ignoring the inherent benefit of not stuffing a length of grease into their gulping necks for once.

WHEELBARROW POLITICS
The creeping inflation that has gripped WWFC ticket prices, with fans being penalised for not owning a computer, not having the right blood type and not liking Wasps.

NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES
The long-rumoured genocidal cleansing of the staff at Adams Park, which, according to Pete Lansley in 1993, will begin with media officer Alan Hutchinson being sacrificed and end with machine gun fire in the boardroom and new home colours of gold and peach melba.

EASTER RISING
The careful tactical retreat of certain Wycombe fans who violently criticised striker Jermaine Easter in 2005-06 but now maintain he is the finest forward in the club's history.

So Fast, So Numb

There has been little action in the Meat Clinic this week as we remembered our own 9/11, September 11 1981, when Brill was invaded by the Grendon Underwood territorial army. They marched up the hill in traditional two-by-two formation and cut a swathe so deep that to this day, one scarred woman won't leave her house without an automatic rifle and a harmonica.

Forty of our kinsmen died that day and although no-one can remember if or where they were buried, we hail their unnecessary rearguard action. If it wasn't for them defending so bravely, the rest of us wouldn't have had time to escape into Long Crendon for a chess tournament. My esteemed father, Colonel Denver Trump, lost his arm that day, although it should be noted that it was in a completely unrelated incident.

Anyhow, the real world never pauses for mawkish tragedy and so it happens that Wycombe Wanderers have played two games this week, picking up another greedy six points and forging a pace at the top of the table that only the money launderers of Swindon and the Women In Black of Lincoln have been able to match.

Some generic points:

1) Anthony Grant's sending off against Chester was a disgrace. But not in a Jason Cousins versus Doncaster manner, much the opposite. Cards are handed out by referees nowadays as if they were flyers for a dub-elephant power ballad night at the Hammersmith Hotel. They litter the game like seagull bodies after an F-16 has strafed the beach at Hunstanton. The Judge proves that combative midfielders should really be allowed three bookings before being ordered off the field of play.

2) Is Jermaine Easter the first Wycombe striker to have a nickname that makes him sound like a girl? "Me and Jemma look good together," cooed Tim Tam Tom Mooney on some interview or other, sparking images of him strolling with a chubby redhead down in Gilbralta as the Autumn sun sets over the churning Atlantic. Still, Jemma is hitting the back of the net with such regularity that I hear members of the Drone Army who were critical of him are contemplating having a bath and a haircut. Wonders will never cease.

3) Rochdale and Fulham are irrelevances, next weekend is where it's at, with the top two heading to Adams Park for a showdown that could shatter our dreams or elevate Lambert's Lisbon (Golf) Lions even higher. The Project is now a tiny footnote in history, we are now in the era of Utility Machine Dominance.

Unstoppable.

Death At One's Elbow

Murder in a football stadium is always unpalatable; think about the way an episode of Wogan was ruined by the Heysel European Cup Final or Shed Seven's ill-conceived b-side about the Ibrox Disaster. But what apparently occurred at Adams Park this week is something that not even a madman could have devised.

MURDER MOST HORRID ON THE LUSH DESSO

Apparently, a deranged Wasps player, wearing a letter on his back instead of a number no doubt, and fuelled by the primal urges of the upper class crowd snapped a bird's head off and held it aloft like some sort of wacko trophy as a huge medieval roar filled the Hillbottom Valley from the gathered bonemen.

Eyewitnesses report that there was a stampede of animals from the nearby woods as the Wasps player (unsurprisingly called Josh) hopped from foot to foot, the bird's thin blood mingling on his shirt with the thicker man's blood and manure so typical in professional rugby. The crowd urged him to find more beasts to kill and the game umpire offered to suspend the match while the players went into the fields to hunt more prey. Indeed, more than 50 Wasps fans ran to their 4x4 vehicles and offered to fetch their dogs from special canine stables so that the hunt could continue.

But the bloodlust was settled. For now.

Nonetheless, questions remain, and they are ones that must be answered:

1) Why did WWFC invite the RSPB to set up a pitchside sanctuary during the summer and is Keith Blagbrough's stated wish to fly to an away game under the power of his own wings connected with this development?
2) Why are Wasps players allocated a "blood dowry" in their contracts, paying them a bonus depending on how bloodied their kit is at the end of a game?
3) Does a Government report proving beyond all doubt that rugby fans are almost entirely motivated by the sight of blood leaking from wounds spell trouble for the hated game?
4) When will Wasps return to London where they belong?

We at the Meat Clinic demand answers and access to the corpses.

Miss Haymes

Three clean sheets in a row for Wycombe Wanderers, words that would make the traitor Gorman fly into a frenzy. The Project would have buckled under such a puritan regime. It hasn't happened for so long that to even search for details of a similar previous sequence would use more computer processor power than a human mind can comprehend.

Still, there were other things to take out of the Friday night adventure, and these are what they were:

1) Jamie Young has no neck. Absolutely no neck at all. He looks like the sort of Australian who could stick his head in a wasps' nest and come out with nothing but clean teeth.

2) The management team now have a television on the bench, beaming them a range of programmes from Airwolf to Bergerac. Rumous that it would also show repeats of the early 1990s WWFC cable station that the Bucks Free Press boasted would make the club the first in the world with its own platform are unfounded.

3) Jermaine Easter is really rather talented, and the fact that the club could not get him to perform at the end of last season is a further indictment of the previous regime, committed as it was to creating pretty patterns with a spirograph and sheets of dried lasagne.

4) Funny how Wycombe play better when the pitch is covered in grass. I was sickened this week to read that the new rugby season has begun once more. The pulsing steroids have been flown in from China and the "players" are bulked up and ready to churn the pitch into Flanders. God help us.

5) Is there a better midfield trio in the division than Grant, Oakes and Torres? The epoch-defining encounter with inbred overdraft racketeers Swindon is in three weeks and those three will take the likes of The Guv'nor to the knackers yard.

Early season optimism is a stance not a human right but occasionally we can all dream, even if our pillows are soaked with blood and weep.