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Crunch!!!
For 45 minutes last night I did something that I don’t believe I’ve done since 1966. I cheered England as they went one, two, three against Spain in Seville. ‘Why didn’t you cheer for the home team?’ I hear you ask, since I spend part of my life there. Well, although I do not express a view on the independence issue, my granddaughter is Catalan, her mother is Catalan, and so by extension am I. As long as Catalunya’s leaders are in jail or in exile, Madrid is my foe.
I have to admit also that alongside the three goals, which were a mix of bravado and luck, my showreel moment came when Eric Dier, not my favourite player usually, ran forty yards forward to go right through Sergio Ramos, who has had it coming since the Champions League final, and give him and his team the message that Engerland were not there to play a friendly and roll over.
Hard Pressed
For a brief and unhappy period in my mid twenties I worked as a reporter for a Scottish daily newspaper. I am not going to say which one because some of my colleagues are still around and I wouldn’t want to offend them.
I might do that when I say that it was the most hateful working environment I have ever known. It was abrasive, ill-mannered (Bullying was tolerated:I didn’t experience it but I saw it) and some of the things I was asked to do just weren’t my style. I was very pleased when job offer came out of the blue. It took me to Edinburgh and changed my life.
Those days came back to me over the last few weeks as I watched ‘Press’, the new BBC drama that is crying out as loud as ‘Bodyguard’ for a second series. The only fault I could find was that neither of the two fictional newspapers featured appeared to have any sports reporters. The rest was brilliant: the villain, Duncan Allen, was a face from my past, and I look forward to seeing him slither even higher.
Zzzzz
news.sky.com/story/princess-eugenies-wedding-ultimate-guide-11464476
I looked for a ‘Yawn!’ Emoji, but this is the best I could do. 😴
Risen
I watched the first episode of Black Earth Rising a few weeks ago, then life got in the way. But now I’m back, and I am hooked.
Not only on the series, but on its lead. Not being a C4 watcher, I knew nothing of Chewing Gum, her previous venture, but I plan to catch up once Black Earth is done.
Michaela Coel is how she’s billed. I suppose when your name is Michaela-Moses Ewuraba O Boakye-Collinson, you’re entitled to shorten it a little. Whatever, she’s a star.
Maze
www.skysports.com/share/11521513
if anyone understands this please explain it.
Plotting the loss?
So, the Doctor is back and she’s made some changes. But Bill Potts has gone, taking with her a whole potential story line. I am a big Jodie fan so fine with her but I am wondering if this is all another perverted BBC ploy to kill off the franchise. Castrate the Doctor, switch to Sunday, no opening titles, Bradley Walsh as her companion: any one of those will upset some of the faithful; doing them all at once could signal the end of days.
I know
news.sky.com/story/gary-barlow-i-had-one-incredible-hour-with-my-stillborn-baby-girl-11521211
I feel for the Barlows. When I was two years old my mother had a full term still birth. I didn’t find out until I was eight when my dad let something slip.
Back then there was no such consideration for the bereaved. There was no funeral, there was only a small sad announcement in the local paper, closing ‘stillborn’. I have no idea what became of my brother’s remains: indeed I hate to think about it. But I do know that my mother never came to terms with it. She never spoke about it to me, and she carried her grief and her anger for the remaining fifty years of her life. It’s still in me and it always will be.
She and my dad deserved an hour with their child.
****
I watch a lot (too much?) of sport on tv. I choose to knowing that professionals often react emotionally and that their words are often picked up by the effects microphones that are put out there for that purpose. Every time they pick something up that is remotely industrial they apologise for it; usually I haven’t heard it nor I suspect have many others.
Also I watch a lot of drama on tv. I am old enough to remember the night when Kenneth Tynan uttered the first ‘fuck’ on BBC, for reasons long forgotten. Today it is commonplace. Indeed, in the seven kingdoms of Westeros it is conversational. Apologies post watershed usually take the form of a warning, pre-transmission.
So here’s an idea: instead of burdening commentators with the duty of offering a clumsy ‘sorry’ for each infraction, how about sports broadcasters beginning each programme with an acknowledgement that when golfers hit a bad shot, sometimes, unless they happen to be Matt Kuchar, they swear.
Theresa
‘Senator, you’re no Maggie Thatcher.’
Caring
I am watching a piece on Breakfast about carers and caring. While I sympathise with the sad lady whose situation they chose to highlight, I disagree with her litany of complaints.
You’re looking after your partner, dear. You gave the impression that you believe you were forced to do it and that you resent it. Sorry, but it’s what you signed up for. It’s a privilege to look after someone you love. It can be tough, but it’s better than loneliness.
If you don’t want to do it or you can’t, there is support out there, from social services, the NHS and from charities. After your tv exposure I hope that it will seek you out.
Let’s leave UEFA too
Football as we used to know it is dead in its boots. The people who run the modern game have no remaining shred of common sense or decency. Their entire purpose is to con as many people as possible into parting with as much of their disposable income as possible for a product that becomes increasingly devalued by each layer they add on.
GOAT?
The new John Lewis and Waitrose tv ad: Greatest Of All Time?
Opinion | I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration – The New York Times
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html
Been here before
Another Girona/Ryanair fuck-up. Passengers queuing on a staircase waiting to board an aircraft that is unlit and has no steps deployed. In other words the crew isn’t here yet.
I don’t give a toss
There is tragedy in the world and time is given to this?
Come on!
Maybe we get what we deserve but … these people seem to be minimal in every respect. They are morons and any society that affords them a flicker of interest needs to take a look at itself.
Eck
So. Alex Salmond.
It’s going to get messy. I wonder how the likes of Kerr Fraser, Russell Hillhouse or Muir Russell would have handled a similar situation in their day. More carefully, I suggest.
Quintin Jardine's blog 