Month: July 2021

I’ve been thinking about chapter 7 of Kenneth Grahame’s book today. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

You’ve got this book about middle class animals. There’s a lot of anxiety about the rise of the motor vehicle, and a vague sense of foreboding about the weasels in the wild wood and how they want our stuff. Then a baby otter goes missing, and Ratty and Moley go looking for him and search all night.

As the dawn breaks they hear ethereal piping on the wind and something really odd happens in the context of this book. These two animals – they have a transcendental moment. They connect with the power of nature full force. They have this huge spiritual experience in the presence of Pan. It feels like an overlooked central part of this tale. It was written in 1908, as the Industrial Revolution was accelerating into the wars and we were forgetting everything of the old ways. Kenneth Grahame suddenly shows us these two creatures utterly cowed by a realisation of the sheer size of nature.

Pan returns the lost baby otter to our heroes. He is just there for a moment, the child at his feet, vast, magnetic and benevolent. The animals are drawn to him – they are in awe of him. And his final gift is for them to forget, just leaving them with a sense that something wonderful has happened.

“As they stared blankly, in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses, and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness.”

“The irrelevant bit about Pan,” somebody said. It’s the heart of the book. No. It’s not to be forgotten. Raises it from just a kids book about animals and suspicion of technology into something about the shift in the world away from nature. We could not live the life we live if we had honestly encountered the truth of the nature spirit – the Pan energy. We would be destroyed by the mirror. We are monstrous without intending to be monstrous. Pan’s forgetting is a mercy.

Pan stands for nature – a demi God, a faun, the myceliac extrusion of Gaea in recognisable form. I’m bringing mushrooms into it as I’m fucking with the fact that, with a world of choice, Grahame chose one of the only male nature Gods. That’s why I’m basically characterising him as mother Gaea’s detachable cock. I think he’d be happy with that.

Pan. Nature God. Much maligned. Precursor to some images of Satan, lightning eyed and cloven hoofed. He was declared dead on the island of Paxi in the reign of Emperor Tiberius – his death was howled on the wind to Thamus the helmsman and recorded by a surprised Plutarch, not used to recording such mysteries. He plays on the wind. He shows up when you’re not looking, and never when you are. He’s charismatic, terrifying, inexorable, gorgeous. You can never fully kill a God. He only died in so much as somebody cut a vine that day the helmsman heard a cry of mourning. The ascendance of Pan died with the ascent in Rome of a nature-averse monotheistic doctrine repurposed for conflict. A new age followed, but snatches of Pan blow through that world still. Maybe he’s piping the dawn again somewhere.

A part of the splintered Pan energy stuck to Kenneth Grahame for him to tell it in this little tale that has somehow beaten the years. I am connecting with it in a similar fashion, through his words, and through the fact that I’m working outdoors at this time of year on this text but in the rushes. If Grahame had never written this, it would be some other text. But his love of nature – his touch of Pan … it facilitates our love.

Bring it on.

And so it begins. Echoing the frantic Spring Cleaning at the start of Kenneth Grahame’s sweet dated little tale of English animals, we are putting something together as swiftly as we possibly can. It surely was the hottest day of the year so far as we all sat in a distanced circle by the banks of the Cherwell and did the first week of rehearsal in a morning. Now we probably know each other’s names, and we are aware of things that might have an impact – such as one of us being phobic of dogs in a park that is full of them all day. We even have a sort of kind of script type affair type thing. Even if it’s really just a melange of beats and ideas. And we’ve all learnt four parts of a song.

My job is now to absorb all those animal studies we did so exhaustively under the guidance of Wendy in our leotards when we were young and strong at Guildhall. Then we have to forget it all, put on a decent costume, and try and entertain a whole load of shrieking children and their adults as they rampage through a hot meadow. My homework today is to read two chapters of the source material looking for useful quotes, and to watch videos of badgers doing things.

One thing worth noting, for our transatlantic friends – we do badgers very differently on this side of the pond. Over in the Americas, the mustelidae are complete bastards. Honey Badgers and Wolverines. They’ll bite your testicles off if they can and then come back for whatever else you might have hanging off you. Our Meles Meles variety is larger than your American equivalents, but temperamentally they are completely opposite. They would much prefer to run away than to fight. This is for the best as they are absolutely riddled with fleas and disease. Like a Komodo Dragon, if they scratch you you’ll likely get badly infected. But they won’t and don’t scratch. They just hide. Nonetheless various paranoid types insist they spread tuberculosis and should be regularly shot in large numbers.

The first and only time I have seen a Badger was more or less four years ago today when I got drunk and wrote while walking through Osney Mead, predicting Covid. Now I’m back in Oxford to be the Badger during this damp and uninspiring Apocalypse type scenario. It’s all going to be over before it’s begun, but I’m going to enjoy the humanity of it.

We went to a PUB after rehearsal, some of us. It was Paella night so we definitely all had Paella. It is so hot but it felt the right thing to do. They’ve run out of lime cordial for the soda. I’ve consumed so much liquid today and still I feel like I’m empty. I got cloudy limey soda water and guzzled it. I’m a conduit for liquid. It goes in through my mouth and out through my face.

I’m quickly dizzy when I stand up fast in this heat. The met have issued an amber heat warning. I sleep in a garret and in the daytime I’ll be running around covered in fake fur… Early beds, long sleeps, good food, hydration. All the things one doesn’t normally associate with an acting job. ’twill be fun though. More so once it settles, but already it’s a joy just to be back working live with other humans. Some old friends. Some new faces.

I’ll go to sleep with the song in my head. The Wind in the Willows.

I’ve just arrived in a little attic room, up the top of The Banbury Road. The ceiling boards come across at just a tiny bit above six foot, so I’m *just* not gonna clonk my head if I bounce excitedly out of bed in the morning. That’s a relief, as it was my silent concern when I saw the pictures that I’d end up knocking myself out. This little room will be my home for the next three weeks, and I like it.

The blinds have been handmade – I’m sure Lou would have things to say about them. There’s a little bit of light wooden furniture including a nice old desk. Opposite the bed on the shelves there’s an old replica Absinthe poster, a deco clock, and a selection of children’s books. “Where’s my rabbit?” – perhaps an infant version of the great Kit Williams Masquerade book from the 1980’s. The bed itself is double with a decorative metal frame. This is better than my beige Jersey hotel room, despite the heat.

It’s rotten hot up here. They’ve given me a fan, thank God. It’s chuntering away on top of the chest of drawers as I write. I couldn’t sleep with it on as it raises hell as it works. But I’m gonna cook tonight if it’s off.

Thankfully there’s a little ensuite shower for morning cooldown, and looking on Google Maps I am right next to Sunnymead Bathing Place. If it’s open its the perfect solution, first thing in the morning, if the hot weather holds – a plunge. So long as it’s open, what with Covid. I’ll investigate tomorrow. As it happens I actually have my swimming trunks.

Bergmann took me up here from Brighton, smoothly all the way. He blew cold air on me and played me radio 4. It was hard saying goodbye to Mao for a few weeks, and double hard to know that I’m just going to miss seeing Lou, especially as her birthday is coming up. She’s back from a festival just as I leave her flat to come up to do this silliness. Mao gets to hang out with her instead of me. I’ve just got Bergmann up in Oxford for company tonight, and he’s not allowed inside.

I’ve given him a parking pass for tomorrow and he seems happy to rest here a little bit and wait. The digs owners are happy to give him permits for every weekday he’s waiting. He has seagull shit on his door, and he’s not happy about it so I’ll probably have to get that off for him before long. But I’m tired right now and the heat is making me dizzy. I’m not gonna be washing down a car no matter how proud it is of its bodywork. He will just have to go to sleep with shit on him. On the other hand, I’m getting in the shower. It’s one rule for people and another rule for cars.

It’s a beautiful sunny day in Brighton. Opposite Lou’s flat there’s heat haze over the sea stretching out to the army of giants that make up the Rampion Wind Farm.

My charging plug is broken so I’m writing this in the car. Honest guv that’s the only reason I’m down here sitting in the XTrail. Not because it’s my new toy, my portable room, my workhorse.

I rarely name my vehicles. In some circles there is a loose social pressure to do so, but I don’t like to. It usually feels a bit twee. Occasionally though if a name insists itself I will adopt it. I had a bike that knew it was called Ahmed. I just rode it and the name kept surfacing in my mind. This car, for some reason, seems to want to be called “Bergmann”. I honestly don’t know why, but there it is. I’m sitting in Bergmann charging my phone and writing this. Ingrid or Ingmar? Maybe a bit of both. It’s not even a Swedish car. But it feels like it’s called Bergmann.

Bergmann and I went to the East Jetty at Brighton Marina today. With the sun hammering through all the windows I was glad of the very efficient shock of air conditioning that I have rarely encountered outside of rental vehicles in the States. Within seconds you can be too cold. I’m having to adjust it constantly as I write, just because the sun is blazing today, but if the Aircon didn’t exist I’d be cooking like a Sunday chicken as I tried to charge my phone. Brighton Marina was for a little favour. Just a happy coincidence. A friend bought a scooter in Brighton. I’m driving through London tomorrow.

Sharon was Stage Manager on a touring Twelfth Night fourteen years ago, and they lost their Malvolio one day before a big show in Eastbourne. I drove down and stepped in after a long day of remembering my lines from playing it at college, and so began a journey that took us up to Edinburgh Festival and roundabout the country on a crazy tour of Doom staying in all kinds of bonkers places and having a fine old time. I used to do that last minute thing the whole time. I like it. It can be joyful just stepping in like that. It turned into a fun job although there was a lot of hooey about money and working hours. I think of it fondly now.

Sharon and I are still in touch and she has purchased a scooter. I introduced the scooter to Bergmann, and we will all be driving up to London together tomorrow afternoon. This is Bergmann meeting the scooter.

The weather is too nice for me to continue to sit in an air conditioned car just to charge my phone. I just ran into a friend of Lou’s as well, in her summer hat. The last thing I want is to look like I just sit in cars all day with the engine running…

Two days ago I drove halfway to Bristol when the phone rang and the puppet wasn’t ready and I had to turn back.

Today I drove halfway to Bristol. The puppet WAS ready. I was stationary in a car crash queue when Jo phoned me. Moving goalposts again. The puppet was suddenly needed for the evening show. I was an hour and a half out of Bristol. It was half past four. They were going to put it on the train as it wasn’t physically possible for me to get it there in time. I got turned back again.

Two days ago I was turned back in a van rented for another job. No harm done and not much extra fuel. Made the day shorter. No trouble.

Today I was in my brand new (to me) Nissan Xtrail and it was my only mission. (I didn’t take a photo. When will I ever learn?) I was enjoying getting to know it.

The reason I was so slow to Bristol is because Arnold Clark – the huge inflexible dealership – were having a bloody nightmare. I went back to pay the balance on my Amex and they declined it. Calls to my Amex and much vacillating led to us establishing that it was definitely on their end which led to them essentially announcing that there was nothing they could do. I was dealing with poor Jim in a portacabin in Lingfield with nothing but his prodigious patience and certainly no ability to affect anything. “We’ve only got one card terminal. We’re just a tiny click and collect”.

We took ages and he stuck with it, and eventually we established that £500 payments would go through, so we made a load of them. He stapled all the declined transactions and all the smaller accepted transactions in my book and he kept a tight log calmly despite me getting more and more pissed off with everything. The next customers were fuming in the parking lot by the time I left. “This is our lunch break!”

I had no battery left and realised I couldn’t charge from the car USB adequately in heat without a cigarette lighter jack. “8 hours until charged”. You know, when the charging barely matches the demand…

I sat in the parking lot with the air con on, fighting the battery as I tried to get myself insured. I’m not making that mistake twice and just driving home where internet works and chargers are many. Six points is enough thanks. With 2 per cent left I clicked “pay” and it was declined. “Sorry but there’s been a problem.”

They didn’t like me much when I angrily reappeared in the portacabin and wordlessly plugged my phone in by the photocopier so I could just try to pay this damn insurance and get the damn car on the road. Thankfully they didn’t kick me out, but a guy who came in after me was told very firmly to sanitise his hands.

Fraud prevention. That’s why my insurance was declined. All the little payments Jim and I had to make because they wouldn’t accept a large payment. I find myself having to answer questions about my earning capacity and it’s all taking SO MUCH TIME and it feels like it’s because I’ve never made a purchase like this before so obviously I’m not supposed to make big purchases because KEEP DOWN KEEP DOWN STAMP STAMP STAMP

But we got there. Now I’ve got a car that is useful for production driving. It also has a good carrying capacity. Or it can take up to 7 passengers. It is currently unblemished. It only has 28k on the clock and it’s smooth to drive. Pay me to drive your things!

My aborted trip to Bristol gave me a chance to give it some head, and after the Audi it has a disappointing lack of grunt which is probably for the best. If you floor it in third gear it isn’t gonna jump for you. You have to change down. Still, it’s economic and big and grown up. And believe it or not it’s cheaper to insure with 6 points than the Audi was with none.

I didn’t want to go the extra mile and have a battery car as I think that nobody has really thought about disposal for those things and there is a whole world of nasty chemicals rotting their way into the soil just waiting to happen.

Now I’m back with the lovely pussycat. I’m going to wash the filth off in the bath. All is right with the world.

Towards the end of my doomed stint shouting at people on boats, I would tell the passengers about this train platform at Blackfriars where I’m standing. It’s the only station on the underground that crosses a river. “When you’re waiting for a train you can see over this ancient waterway while you wait. But it’s Southern Rail, so you’ll be there until you die because the trains are always delayed forever. You’re better off on this boat, frankly. At least we’re moving and the skipper showed up for work. We’ve even got twin engines.” Ha ha etc.

This is the first time I’ve actually stood on the platform since it was built. Grey sky and this is my view. The train will take me back to Brighton. It’s nice to be here.

I’m thinking about old dayjobs. I used to be that river tour guide. And before I came here today I was in a school in North London, running probably the last workshop I’ll ever teach about getting year 10 to write their first CV. The company has dissolved. We did it anyway for our relationship with the school.

It was carnage. They learnt something. I said at least one “fuck” and one “shit”. I connected with them, sure, and they definitely learnt something. But I’m not a traditional teacher. “I don’t often get to go into schools and do this kind of work … but I’m here now and I hope I can leave having helped you maximise your chances of a happy and successful working life.” Who knows? The students were ace.

I’ve done some random shit over the decades though. Frankly I love doing random shit. Random shit just makes me happy. But I never thought, having gone in quest of random, that I’d be a careers adviser. I answered a million questions to a computer at university back then and it told me I should be an architect. “Architect” was pretty much the only creative profession considered legitimate enough by the people who programmed the career machine back then so I guess it was as right as it could’ve been. Even if architecture is mostly maths and the drawing ain’t creative drawing… I tell you, there would be some very odd shaped buildings if I’d obeyed that machine.

But I threw in my lot with the randomers. If I have a tribe, that’s my tribe. I could never recommend the quest for chance to anybody that isn’t me. This unpredictable working existence – when it’s functioning it suits me very much. The last two days have felt like a return to the adrenaline kicks that make me feel like myself.

I sat with friends after work who have similar perverted predilections. I was in a hurry, as my train was booked and the cat will be very hungry for food and snuggles. All too short. John is an old friend from Factory days, on Bankside for his birthday at late notice. A joy to hang out in a pub with a friend. Normality? Closer.

When we did our swansong run of Factory Hamlet, John learnt the part, worked it in his spare time, got in the mix for it, and won the audience game for it. He learnt the whole part of Hamlet just to maybe play it for one night only, and he got to play it. I remember it well, in The Norrington Room of Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford. I ended up as his dead dad that night. As far as I remember I gave him some rope. I can’t really remember the choices, the casting or the audience props though – those Factory Hamlet shows all blur into one huge mess of wtfness now, and we are growing more ancient.

Apparently all the show reports were gathered on a wetpaint site – this huge archive of our shared venture – and the site went down. Pages and pages consigned to the void. We weren’t doing it to be recorded though. It’ll happen to this blog too, less than a year after I kark it. John spearheaded a campaign to copy and paste the lot, so now it all exists still, on a USB drive, to be forgotten anyway. It’s how it all goes, these glories that we paint. They get painted over. I love to write on the waves. But maybe occasionally I should carve in stone. Meanwhile I’ll just keep seeking the random.

“I like them! They’re beautiful.”

That’s a black veined white. They’re extinct now.

“These ones are nice!”

“Large blue. Also extinct.”

…

“Ooh this is good.”

“What are they?”

“Large Copper. They’re extinct too.”

---

I picked up a large lepidoptera collection in a rented van with my brother. They were donated over a century ago to a private school in Surrey, by an ex pupil. They’ve been in a basement for decades, mouldering. Many of the big private schools had similar collections donated to them around the same time and have done similar fuck-allness with them. This school is later than most in giving up theirs. Harrow flogged theirs two decades ago, which means it was there when I was there but I was certainly never aware of it. Likely in another basement. Eton kept theirs. They have got it on display. They are rich as Croesus, sure, but they are also pretty much the only one left. Most of the other expensive schools with interesting collections from that era of rampant collecting – they have either flogged or donated what they were given. It’s not fashionable now. But it’s done. We are very very busy killing things in other ways. Doing it on purpose for science is as frowned on as it is for fashion.

“We have an entomologist here as a pupil,” my brother is told. “But he’s from far away. The rules are different there. We had to teach him that here we only take photographs of specimens. We never collect or look at live specimens.” And so these extraordinary things, these extinct colours of a lost past… Apparently they have no educational value. This is why they are leaving the school they were given to, and going to the Natural History Museum. Despite collections just like this being a big part of Max’s route to his deep conservational role in the entomological world, they are not considered educational anymore. Every prospective scientist should only look at pictures now it seems. Pictures are good enough…?

I looked at these beautiful extinct bodies. I remembered them, I saw their colour fresh with my eyes. I stood and communed with the husks of these things that had once had life. That life had been taken prematurely by a collector decades ago. But taken so they could be contemplated and understood and recorded. Something shifted in me thinking about it.

“Were these things collected to extinction? Is that a thing that can happen?”

“Think of having an insect infestation in your house. You could have a team actively trying to collect the insects to extinction and you could never do it no matter how long they tried. No. Not this collection at this time. Sure if you are on an island and there’s only a few breeding pairs left after a habitat extinction or a new disease you must not collect. But no, not these, and not generally, no. There are three major factors contributing to extinction. Disease, habitat change and climate change.

The collection comes in the form of many shelves housed in large cabinets. To move it you take the shelves out of the cabinets. Then they can be moved with less chance of damage to the specimens. It means you see the creatures you’re moving. You hold a shelf of them in your hand as you walk. The school has a team of staff to help us. We all looked at them.

“I remember these from my childhood – they were everywhere!” That’s Steve, one of the staff. He’s pointing smiling at a Tortoiseshell Butterfly in one of his shelves. “Yeah, I remember them too.” I say, looking, smiling. “You barely see them anywhere now,” I attempt, speaking my personal truth. “Yeah, you’re right, they’re gone,” Steve agrees, with a momentary troubled thought. It hangs. “… But they were everywhere!”

In the late eighties / early nineties some butterflies were snuck over in bulk from France, probably for a one shot thing like a wedding release or a film shoot. “Hurrah!” *Onwards*

They had a parasitic fly in them previously unknown to the UK. For somebody’s moment of “oooh” the fly ran rampant through the UK’s Tortoiseshell Butterfly population. It is only now evolving to recover.

This is how easy it is for us to disrupt the natural order with our lazy consumerism. “I WANT THE BUTTERFLIES! JUST SNEAK THEM OVER, STUPID CUSTOMS!” One guy with a van load of butterflies for a pop video or whatever. That parasitic fly will never leave the UK now. But generations go fast with lepidoptera so the uk butterfly has learnt to live with it like it has in France for hundreds of years. Still, it has been literally decimated and likely it’s niche has been filled so it’ll never be as prevalent.

We are so fucking irresponsible. Most of us, if we can find one inconsistency with someone trying to teach us an inconvenient truth we will chuck the whole message out wholesale and change nothing about our behaviour because we all basically think we are doing enough with what little we do to help stop the world killing us. Lazy greedy lazy greedy smug buggers, every one of us. It’s not the scientists and collectors who broke these populations of beautiful creatures that used to live with us. It’s the consumers with our thirst for “now”.

Stop it. Grow. Learn. I’m talking to myself as much as you, oh holy reader. Stop being so damn smug. You can do more to help. Send this to Bezos. Bleh.

Pretty pretty pretty dead dead dead butterflies. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

I’ve bought a car. I also have an American Express card for the first time in my life. My desire has been to pay for the car on the American Express, because allegedly the points are good with travel, and dammit all I want to travel again.

Problem is, the car is much more than I can put on the card in one go. So I had to go in to the dealer today, look longingly at the vehicle, and then go back again on multiple trains because I have to wait for the first payment to register so I can clear it and do it again. Patience is a virtue.

The car dealer is in Lingfield. It’s a short drive to Brighton but I have to take the train and change at East Croydon. Being unschooled in matters American Express related I thought perhaps the first payment would register in a couple of hours, so I took a recommendation from James at the dealership and ended up killing time having lunch at The Wiremill while I waited for nothing to happen. Thankfully that pub was the highlight of my day. I was there for a bit too long considering how busy I am, but I’m blaming that on optimism. I kept on thinking the payment would register. I’d have been there even longer, refreshing my app, if I hadn’t started to run out of mobile phone battery. I’m glad I didn’t stay though as it still hasn’t registered and it’s evening now.

It was lovely, The Wiremill. By a lake. “I’ll come again,” I told the waitress. “Well, you’ll have to book if you do,” she replied. “We’re rarely this empty.”

Mao is alone in Brighton and I’ve got tons to do. The car would’ve made things so much easier but instead I had to do Southern Trains back to London quickly to pick up my laptop and phone before getting the one I’m in now back to Brighton so I can play with Mao and make sure he’s well catered for. My alarm will be going off earlier than I want to think about and it’ll be yet another expensive train back to London in order to grab a van at 8am tomorrow from New Cross. Seems I’m still biting off a bit more than I can comfortably chew when the opportunity arises. Old habits die hard. Also, frankly, whatever points I might have got from paying on the card are likely already spent on train tickets and faffing around, and will be for sure by Friday when I go back to Lingfield to finish the transaction…

Hey ho. I’ll learn one day. Or not.

Everybody is hungover.

I pulled myself up off the sofa in the morning. Tom didn’t come home last night. I could’ve snuck into bed and slept a bit better. It was hot. I had a restless night on the sofa and was up early and unfulfilled. My dreams were full of penalty kicks. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in that.

What a way to end an international tournament. I kinda think it would be better to go into sudden death and then just stick it out, gladiatorially, until either a goal is finally scored or all the players die of old age. This tournament was decided, finally, by a nineteen year old boy missing a penalty. The pressure was, perhaps, too much for him. No surprise. A shame though for a lovely England team not to have that win which would have made them immortal – preserved in the annals of the beautiful game.

I wasn’t so deeply invested, as you know. But I would’ve been pleased to see them win. I cared enough for my sleep to be fouled by them losing. But I definitely slept better than most of the people I was alongside as I took the train from Victoria to Brighton. There I was surrounded by unhappy shambling slow and quiet souls. A hot night in London, and the deflation of weeks of rhetoric about how it’s coming home. I went on the train through these sad souls with their customised clothes, on their walk of shame.

This evening in Brighton I honestly didn’t even realise I had chosen an Italian restaurant until the waitress apologised for her hoarse voice and I realised she would’ve been watching it too and cheering the other side. “We are out of Moretti on tap,” they tell us. “It was such a long weekend.” The food was still good, and it didn’t taste of tears. I ate well and now I’m back at Lou’s. We are winding down and she’s packing to go to a festival for a week. I’ll be looking after Mao here, and doing tons of random work before I go to Oxford next week. Last night with Lou for a bit. I’m gonna hang with her and bother the cat…

Italy then. Interesting. We haven’t really had a history of difficult football with them as a nation. It’s not like the Germans. Maybe this is the start of something ugly.

On the tube today six lads with crazy eyes were shouting together with no shirts on. They were painted crudely with George crosses and they were angrily denigrating a cheap meaty snack made in Ansbach, Germany. “You can stick your peperami up your arse,” they sang – to the tune of Coming Round the Mountain. Stupid looking stupid people being stupid. Of course it was aimed at the general idea of Italians. They also correctly tried tagliatelle, but peperami was their favourite notionally Italian thing for anal insertion. They were roving up and down the carriage. Were they looking for Italian fans to shout at?

I had to do a brief inventory. “Have I inadvertently put on a T-shirt with an Italian slogan?” No. My shirt is American, and red. “Likely they won’t decide to start trying to put things up my bottom”, I find myself thinking. Still, the these guys weren’t particular. They had a kind of dumb oppositional rage against all Italians. I’m glad there are none on the tube. They are hammered.

It’s such a contrast. On the field these young healthy football players are breaking the mold. They’ve been getting involved in politics. They’ve mostly been trying to use their profile to send positive messages. But their pasty plump fans boo loudly for the opposing team’s anthem, they boo when the team kneels, and they work themselves up into a frenzy about peperamis and they are currently intimidate a whole weekend worth of tube carriages.

Off the tube and I’m walking across Richmond Bridge, and Marybell strays too close to the road. “Darling! Stay closer to the wall please.” “Yes mummy.” Marybell is 5. Her mummy can’t resist. “Marybell, is it coming home?” “Yes, mummy. It’s coming home. Football is coming home.” I’m overtaking them. I find myself wondering what Marybell’s mummy would do if I offered her a peperami. And I kind of hope she’s right.

Have we really not been in a final for this long? For decades and decades…? All these people crying and missing penalties and crowds of people fighting and yet this is the first final in my lifetime? Ok. So this liberal and thoughtful team have done well. Good on them, but not if a win is going to be used to fan the flames burning our relationship with Europe. It’s bad enough already. This little island, walled in against the world and dripping with rage and incompetence. I don’t want stupid people to feel more powerful.

Still, I’ll be watching the game along with most people. I’m closer to Marybell’s mum perhaps than the peperami lads on the tube. I suppose it’s sporting history already, whether they win or lose. By the time this is published it’ll be decided… And the whole damn nation is going to have a massive hangover.