No booze post show today. My friend getting sick has triggered me to a spot of sobriety for a while, especially considering there is Christmas to make and lots of shows to do this week. Another delighted bunch at Carol and we are back in the swing of it already for the longest week we have.
Those of you who have known me for years will be surprised to know that I’m now capable of having a conversation about football, having avoided it my entire life. I can speak about the form of different players. I watch it quite closely. When the matches are playing I sometimes have as many as 4 live score widgets open on my phone screen simultaneously, and you will catch me saying things like “De Bruyne just banged another one in.” Or “What’s happened to Abraham all of sudden?” “Oh dammit Salah scored again, Mane better have had the assist on that, I gave him the armband.”
It’s a good season for me to start with, as the team that I tell people I support when they ask me who I support is winning the league. I lived with a big Liverpool fan for a few years, and I had quite a few childhood years in The Isle of Man so they were my closest team geographically. Hopefully I’ll see them take the cup at the end of my first season following it…
It’s more of a computer game to me than anything else. A durational game over the course of months and months. I’m learning by playing a fantasy premier league manager. And I’m number 362,975 in the world. Which isn’t impressive at all but I’m still pretty pleased with myself considering I was clueless this time last year and there are millions of players.
It hasn’t changed much though. It just means there are a few more conversations where I don’t go quiet and walk away knowing I have nothing to contribute and no desire to contribute either. Football conversations are just name after name and I would find them annoyingly arcane. Now I can hold my own.
I’m not sure what made me decide to change that and learn some of the names, but it’s turned out to be quite fun learning and now I’ve started to get competitive – mostly with myself but there are some leagues I’m in as well. It’s all free to play and there’s no betting. If you do riculously well they send you some bizarre stuff like a Nike Manager’s Jacket. But I won’t be anywhere near that. It’s never too late to pick up something new, I suppose. I might even watch a live match sometime. Although that might be pushing it.
For this evening I’m going to get into a hot bath with a book to wash the potato out of my hair and then see how I do going to sleep sober after Christmas Carol. It’s already had a positive effect. I cooked some healthy food, changed a lightbulb, put in some laundry and washed the dishes. And my bank balance won’t have changed…
AlBarclay 