The Beautiful Game: 

“For me, football is more than a sport.  Look at the impact it has on society.” 

• Kylian Mbappe. 

And so, that’s it for just under eighteen months.  The innate pragmatism of Southgate meets the cerebral energy of Mancini.  Someone was always going to pay the penalty.   

Football is a unifying force.  Like all forces though: both invisible and no-one really holds the rules of what it opens.   

I am a keen football fan (Liverpool).  Tournaments are festivals and therefore time to cancel reality for a month, settle down for three matches a day, wonder if I will ever get a full album of Panini stickers and players, I’ve never heard of getting linked to my beloved Reds.  As a result, I spend the hours between games checking YouTube sizzle reels and Flight Tracker. 

My oldest friend is a Tranmere Rovers fan.  I can remember shivering on the terraces; watching them lose on a cold Saturday before Christmas to Wimbledon, making a sharp exit to the pub on 85mins.  I can also remember them beating Man City, with the away end singing “We’re shit and we’re sick of it.” 

 

I know, ancient history.  See also winning tickets to Euro 96.  Sitting in Anfield, watching The Czech Republic beat Italy.  My brother having a “polite word” with an Italian fan, so incensed by Pierluigi Casiraghi missing a sitter; he was attempting some foot-based percussive maintenance on the seat ahead of him.   

Combine this with my love of Liverpool and you could say it's not just in my blood, but in my DNA.   

But when those tournaments come around, my love becomes a more public, shared thing.  Which is not just an egalitarian, but a logical one.  Everyone watches The Euros and The World Cup.  People become experts on players and systems.  They tether their soul to a country, for a variety of reasons.   

So, we’re back at the old patriotism thing.  The blind, unstinting, uncritical look at your country.  Wherever that is.  And we’ve seen many instances of that at the Euros.   

Let’s start at Hungary’s refusal to take the knee.  Players from a right-wing kakistocracy, where homophobia and transphobia are legislated. UEFA intervened in an attempt by Bayern Munich to light up the Allianz Arena for the match with Germany in gay pride colours.   

Funnily enough, The Europa League Final is in Hungary next year.  Perhaps UEFA could spend more time worrying about this, then ensuring bottles of Coke or Heineken are in shot in press conferences.   

Ah, a right-wing kakistocracy.  A government of politicians, who say that they are not politicians.  Casually racist, reactive, specialising in dog-whistles to those who consider themselves disenfranchised?   

Seems vaguely familiar.    

Over the last month, the phrase “Full Kit Wanker” has been redefined. Mainly by Priti Patel, a woman whose favourite sport is watching kids drown, expressing a love of football.  And Boris Johnson wearing an England shirt over a collar and tie. 

Football and politics are like binary chemical weapons.  They shouldn't be mixed, as the results are toxic.  Patel and Johnson are dogs, sniffing the national mood and using it to make them look slightly more normal, more human, more like the banjo Plucker's who put them in power.  

See also, Nigel Farage rocking up to Wembley in a union jack waistcoat, after dismissing BLM as a “far left Marxist organisation.”.  This is the sort of argument that an A Level politics student, or a rational human being could see through. 

I supported England as I live here.  Simple, really.  I was disappointed by France and The Netherlands will always let you down.  I refuse to support Portugal as their star player is a narcissist.  Though his mid-match arguments with Liverpool's Jota were hilarious, reminiscent of a soon to be divorced couple on a make-or-break holiday. 

However, I could never truly get behind En-ger-land.  Not just in footballing terms - the overt caution of it infuriated me.  No, it was more than that.  It was the booing of the national anthem of an opponent.  It was that lovely song about the bombing of Dresden.  And the song “We hate Scousers.” 

Following on from this: the racist abuse of Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka for the simple act of missing a penalty.  If we follow that line of logic, if you’re black and play for England you’re ok.  If you miss it, you are a target for the opinions of bellends.   

So, you can see why I find it hard to really feel like an England fan.  Not all of them are fucking idiots, but the ones we see are.  There is a flag at Anfield that says “We are Scouse, not English.” And I don’t just believe that, I understand it.  When Liverpool players are seen as superfluous to the England team (either by birth or team) I’m mystified as to why.  But conversely, I am glad they are not part of it.   

I support a team which is made of players from (amongst others) England, Holland, Brazil, Senegal and Egypt.  It’s managed by a man who is not just a devout Christian, but a socialist. The team does charitable works in the not just the local, but international community.  If football is a model of society, then here is the purest version of it. Unity, charity, synergy, acceptance.    

But racism, a disrespect for any flag other than your own, an overflowing bandwagon of chancers, comparing it to war...? That’s not beautiful.  And it’s certainly not part of the beautiful game.     

 

 

 KIND OF MY THING: 

‘Times are bad.  Children no longer obey their parents and everybody is writing a book’. 

• Cicero. 

So, I’m writing a book.  This is nothing new, I mean, I am a writer.  It’s kind of my thing.   

They say that surgeons have their own private cemetery.  Every mistake they ever made, which they make a mental visit to, periodically.  This must be, I reckon at least my third serious attempt at writing one.  Let’s leave aside, the childish affectations of filling an exercise book with a new Doctor Who or a Star Wars sequel. Pool Of Blood, a comic horror set in Liverpool is on an old laptop, in a Scouse landfill somewhere.  Josh101 a YA novel, is on the red USB in the tin the bookshelves behind me.   

What do all these “projects” (a wanky phrase, but it fits) have in common?  Unfinished, lost, forgotten.  The new novel is called River City People.  It’s set in a fictional version of Liverpool.  It is, as yet unfinished.  But it still has an energy and freshness I love.  And I’m still working on it.  Shit, I might even finish it.  Fuck, it might even get published and I might actually earn some money for it.   

I was inspired to give flight to my dreams, after attending Marian Keyes novel writing class.   For four Monday evenings in January, I listened, made patient notes and my homework diligently.  It was ever thus, though in St Kev’s in the early 1980’s, I never asked questions on Instagram. This gave me ideas, plotlines and fully-formed, three-dimensional characters.  Admittedly, I’m gonna work some of my old ones in there too.   

The novel lives on my laptop, it’s backed up on the purple USB.  It’s currently about the 20,000wds mark (or 100kb).  It’s not just a thumbnail, or a waveform.  It’s a living, breathing thing.  Like all life’s good things - a relationship, a child, a plant, a pet – it needs constant care and attention.  I try and write every day (on a notepad), but it’s not the worst thing in the world if writer’s block, workpeople, a Hello Fresh delivery, a dip of depression, or even the odd virus get in the way. 

When I have enough, I fire up the laptop, play Sarah Gosling’s show on BBC Radio Devon and type it, save it, back it up.  In between, there is coffee and chocolate (current favourite: Daim Latte).  When not writing, I try and keep the energy going, think about plot holes, pester people to use their surnames as characters and kick around what is going to happen on long country walks.   

It’s my routine, and it appears to be working.  I have a good sounding board in my wife. I’m looking at the routine of famous writers and listening to interviews with them.  Everything is both research and inspiration at the same time.   I am, after all: a writer.  A guardian of truth and justice in the universe (allegedly).   

Then again, why should I get so territorial?  Everyone is writing a novel.  Celebrities (the orphan child of the English language) have books out on a regular basis.  Generally, these are kids' books.  So they’re not on my radar as much as they used to be.  But generally, the constant stream of ‘celeb’ books needles me.  And I can’t figure out why, exactly. 

It’s not professional jealousy.  I’m genuinely pleased that someone as nice as Richard Osman can get both a seven-figure advance and a four-book deal for his first novel.  Similarly, I don’t envy the large advance that Celia Walden got for her next book.  it’s a lot of money, but inadequate compensation for being married to mouthy gammonlord Piers Morgan.   

And I genuinely feel that sometimes, ‘celeb’ books can do some good.  The ongoing conversation about mental health can only be continued by celeb’s who write honestly about their depression.  That way, it makes it a plain and everyday fact.  It also gets rid of well-meaning, but patronising dickheads who use the ‘broken leg’ analogy. 

But you know.  I’m a writer.  This is kind of my thing.  I’m following the Blakeian tradition, of using my talents for “spiritual communion” and not “throwing it in the ground for a lack of bread”.  I rarely earn any money for what I do, even though technically my job is being a carer to my wife.  I always remember the school careers officer, advising me not to be a writer as “it’s hard to make a living from it” and advising me to be “a lorry driver, like your dad.” 

So, in that sense I’m just writing to piss someone off; who in reality may not be alive anymore.  You can’t get more existential than that.  The upside is that there is a long list of teachers and lecturers who would probably love my writing. One got in touch with me on Facebook to say so.  So there. 

But we’re in a sort of information war at the moment.  Where to question the large amount of money in a politician’s account; or committing senecide for a cheap burger is ‘racist’.  Where BAME people can even gaslight BAME people, into the disingenuous concept that it doesn’t even actually exist.   

Incidentally, David Baddiel got a whole book of the erroneous concept that, if you’re left-wing you’re antisemitic.  To say that is blown out of all proportion, is a point of view.  I’m a socialist, with Jewish heritage in me, somewhere.  I direct my ire and disdain towards racists, flagshaggers and middle-aged comedians who have yet to achieve puberty.   

I write, because I like it.  It’s a mental-health activity, as much as me doing Popmaster every day.  I still dream that someone might offer me a large cheque, that my wife will be organising a book tour for me, someday.  In that sense, it’s as remote a concept as a lottery win, world peace, me managing Liverpool FC.   

So, when someone ‘famous’ writes something with genuine weight and verve (like Michelle Obama’s autobiography), I’m both pleased and enthused at the same time.  When John Cooper Clarke’s autobiography has the same laconic drone of the eminent Salforian, I’ll devour in it a week.   

But (and I know starting a sentence with one is factually incorrect, a teacher told me so) when I’m not reading books, or pre-ordering books, I’m writing.  Because that is much a thread of my soul, as blue eyes, the mole on my stomach, the scar on my left leg.   

Because I’m a writer.  It’s kind of my thing.   

 

Books Of The Year:

Last year, I rediscovered my love of reading.  I re-read old classics and discovered new favourites. The final total was 67 books.  I thought, I’ll never have to do that again.  Then the world went to hell in a hand sanitiser.  I generally find ‘best of’ lists subjective and didactic in their nature.  Nevertheless, here we go.  Reading is one way I’ve kept my brain active in 2020.  I’ve drawn a line between fiction and non-fiction. I’ve also included a few books that were published in 2019 but are worthy of your attention.

Fiction:

Book of The Year, no questions asked is Grown Ups by Marian Keyes.  An ingenious, delicious piece of comic prose.  Starting with an ‘inciting incident’ and working backwards, it’s also a fantasy of how 2020 should have been, with festivals, holidays and parties.  Her hero, PG Wodehouse would be proud.  Close to that, but for different reasons, Actress by Anne Enright has not a word, or a line out of place.  A short novel, with a simple idea but with Enright’s skill and Kubrickian distance. 

Emma Jayne Unsworth is a novelist with growing skill and wit to match.  Adults tells a story of Jenny, obsessed by social media and ignoring the downward spiral of her own life.  Acrid, but with playful warmth and passages of great eloquence. 

David Mitchell returned with Utopia Avenue.  It was that rarest of things, a novel about a fictional band, with the drive and characterisation that they usually lack.  Place this against the Ubernovel that Mitchell has been working on (human beings as collateral damage in a war between supernatural ones) and add its simple structure (a song and the story behind it) and this makes it a notable read.  Agency by William Gibson is the second of the Klept trilogy.  Subsequently, it bore the scars of severe re-writing- a Hilary Clinton presidency – but had a story flitting between time zones and chapters like shots of hot, black coffee.

Coming late last year, Tempest was the final book in The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman.  If this is Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil’s farewell to comics, it’s a sweet goodbye.  Mixing style and genre on each page, it’s as much a celebration of literature as it is a parody of it. 

Non-Fiction:

Stuart Cosgrove has always been a witty, eloquent writer.  He’s also a brilliant historical one – Cassius X takes Cassius Clay’s conversion to Islam as a prism to explore politics, sport, faith, music and a million other subjects.  Factor in a tight, economical page count and you can see why I loved it.  Vesper Flights was slated as a sequel to H is For Hawk, but it was more than that.  Helen MacDonald’s writing on nature is delicious, but the kind that works in single pieces or as a unified whole.  Finally, coming late last year and sadly ignored: A Game Of Birds And Wolves. Simon Parkin revels in the mundane details of The Battle Of The Atlantic, with Scouse WREN’s wargaming it with matchboxes, string and cotton wool. Film rights bought by Spielberg, the book itself is available at a bargain price if you look hard enough.  

 

 

Blue Sky Thinking:

‘My soul is in the sky’ – From ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

If I could trace it back to one particular day, it would be Tuesday 24^th March.  It was the kind of day that The Orb sing about.  Blue skies stretching to infinity, the merest wisp of little fluffy clouds.  Insects buzzed around me as I walked up the back road of the village, I lived in.  I would normally be stepping to the edge of a non-existent kerb.  Vapour trails would scar the blue sky.  Not even an RAF C-17 or a British Army Apache to follow me. 

But nothing.  Merely the existential hum of mayflies.  A beautiful day, in the middle of Devon.  A beautiful day, in the middle of a pandemic.  A beautiful day, in the middle of a crisis handled carelessly; with a side order of lies and arrogance.  I closed the door, locked it and turned my mind to something more pleasant.  I have a feeling it involved tea. 

Pandemics are generational events, so perhaps this is the first of many ‘fun’ times to look forward to.  Maybe we could reduce it down, slightly.  Make it part of the calendar, on a level with bank holidays, Valentine’s Day and Christmas.  I’ve already added it on the list of disaster, terrorism, falling in love, getting married and house moves that make up the chain of my life, as much as DNA.  Human life is fragile, but human existence is sequenced by events. 

You’ll have heard the apocryphal story that Shakespeare completed King Lear in the middle of a pandemic. So, me being a writer:  I expect you’re waiting for the title of my magnum opus; I completed during the period of my confinement.  Well, to answer your question: Josh101 is not quite finished and will still possibly require a major re-write.  Maybe it requires that little push in the right direction.  Possibly another pandemic, or maybe a lovely sight test at Barnard Castle.

Real life is something that now seems both elusive and dreamlike at the same time.  In fact, I want no part of reality at this moment in time.  When it comes to not dying and keeping both my wife and stepson alive, I am an existentialist.  Pass the roll neck sweater and pipe this way, mes amis.  When I do leave the house, it is for a long walk or for a pint of milk.  That new Aeroccino doesn’t fill itself, you know. 

When not looking at a blank screen, I’ve been reading.  I am about to finish my 44^th book of the year.  Two years ago, due to a major and creeping bout of a depression, I couldn’t read at all.  Last year, I completed 67 books.  I’ve noticed that the common denominator here, is a reaction to antediluvian events, so maybe that is the key.  See also a paper cocktail of re-reads and new doses of favourite authors.  I seem to be drawn to the books that get bad reviews in The Guardian.  Make of that, what you will. 

When not fitting characters from other David Mitchell books into the psychedelic patchwork of Utopia Avenue; I’ve been cooking a bit more than usual.  I’ve found my metier; in that I like cobbling a meal together from what’s in the cupboard.  Signature dishes include a low-carb Scouse, a mean Pasta Bake and Scrambled Eggs; which Mrs McCready described as ‘the best thing you’ve ever made me’.  Well, I thought the Salmon I made when she visited my old flat for the first time was nice.  But it was overcooked, apparently.

Everyone is a critic.

When not busy, my mind had drifted.  I’m at that age where your mind is a sinking cruise ship.  You know something is coming to an end, but at the same time you want to settle.  Where finding a Zoflora under the sink is the best thing in the world ever and finding that perfect salad spinner is a small triumph.  Leaving aside such symbols of middle-class life, I re-evaluated everything and everyone on those long country walks. 

And I made a decision.  That I don’t regret anything I’ve done.  I could have done it better, perhaps.  However, I come across a small koan: the people, whom I thought were passing through my life were my best friends.  Conversely, the people I thought were my best friends were passing through my life.  One got in touch, recently.  I have no idea as to why. I also am not inclined to reply.

 

Maybe, she was part of this great movement we were all subconsciously part of: the honking great cliché of this pandemic: ‘when all of this is over, we’ll build a better world and be nicer better to each other’.

Whilst some of us have been getting fat, sorting out our bookshelves, reading, or simply terrified to leave the house… others having been delivering food, clapping on a weekly basis, or wandering aimlessly round their gardens to raise money for the NHS. Whilst this is all completely laudable on one level, it is virtue signalling at its finest. 

People are now, mentally prepared to accept the NHS as a charity. I mean, we can pay them peanuts.  We can put them at risk of dying from Covid. But a nice clap once a week, that makes you feel better.  Doesn’t it?  See also the care system.  Infected pensioners placed back into care homes.  People died.  Needlessly and alone, because of the intransigence of this government.  In care homes.  In hospitals.  At home.  Wherever.  Blood drips from Boris Johnson’s hands as easily as bullshit. 

There are some in power, who see this an opportunity.  To make money, to gain influence.  The head of what is laughably called Track and Trace is Dido Harding.  She is also on the board of The Jockey Club.  This explains why The Cheltenham Festival went ahead this year.  By extension: the preponderance of Covid cases in the area.  Her husband, John Penrose is a Tory MP.  He is also a member of a pressure group, which favours turning The NHS into a charity. 

I don’t know.  You work it out. 

And against this blue, blood-stained background: the continuing lunacy of Brexit.  Which will be a no deal, because that what the ‘will of the people was’, apparently.  Children are not eating when they are not in school.  Food banks are growing.  And working-class anger is being directed towards those funny brown people, in a cheap dinghy, crossing The Channel.

One can only imagine their thought processes.  They’ve come from countries like Syria and Yemen.  Corrupt, intolerant, dangerous places.  Any place begins to look like Paradise, when you live in Hell.  And they think they’ll be safe here?

I have hope, that one day the people who gave Johnson the keys to Downing Street will realise he is that lethal combination of idiot and tyrant.  See also Trump, a man who inadvertently admits he’s had a test for dementia.  We are in End Stage Capitalism, which means the dickheads appointed by the rich and powerful, using working-class anger as fuel are finally revealed to be just that: dickheads. 

The sad thing at the moment is: I don’t genuinely think there is an alternative.  Anything is better than the status quo.  Biden is better than Trump.   Starmer is better than Johnson.  Maybe, in 2024 we can have an argument with the mild-mannered legal eagle about the free, just, equitable society we need. 

The only bright spot has been Liverpool FC winning the league.  Unstoppable, magnificent, inevitable.  I raised a glass to them: I toasted Klopp, Paisley, Shankly, the dead Of Hillsborough, John Peel.  A perfect shining moment. 

But: the bottom line is: we are in blue sky days.  We are surviving, just.  Floating, but alive.  Better days must and will come. 

Damascene:

I think the term in theology is Damascene.  Most of life is filled with Damascene moments anyway.  Just imagine the next game of Scrabble you are going to win with that word.  I was walking down Paradise Street, feeling the irony of it all.  The sun from The Mersey was blinding, that sort of pale, all powerful Autumn light that blinds the eyes and warms the soul.

It was at that point I realised a small, subtle disconnect.  I didn’t feel Scouse anymore. In any case, as Scouse as I thought myself.  Or Meself, to be precise.  Like. 

Let me explain.  We have recently returned from a holiday in Liverpool.  It coincided with both mine and my stepson’s birthday.  The two weeks were a kind of restful whirlwind, meeting my oldest friends and saying hello to my family.  However, there was as much lounging round our holiday home, reading a good book.  Three of which were totalled within the walls, looking out the yachts sailing past the window. 

However, it was when we ventured into Liverpool itself I noticed that subtle changes in its psychogeography.  Liverpool is rapidly changing into just another high street.  In the face of such a deluge of social and political change, I’m not sure that another Specsavers or the umpteenth Costa is the answer.  I used to spend a lot of time on Bold Street, it used to be my little boho district.  A sort of wacker Tribeca.  It now resembles a long, greasy forest of takeaways.  Some scuzzy, some trendy and the inevitable chains.   But there are far too many of them.  At least Leaf is still there, offering tea, culture and a gut-busting Veggie breakfast.  See also: News From Nowhere, an independent bookshop run by a collective of Scouse women. 

If we talk about the soul of a city, it’s dripping out of the centre and into the outskirts.  The really interesting places are on the edges and back jiggers: I met two friends for coffee in two entirely different locations.  One at the restored Georgian glory of The Bluecoat, another at a trendy coffee shop called 92 Degrees in The Baltic Triangle.  The latter used to be home to drunken sailors, early in the morning.  It’s now home to businesses, bars, gigs, galleries and a giant mural of Jurgen Klopp. 

So, where is my soul?  Where is Liverpool’s soul?

It’s still there, below the low hum of MRI and underneath the blips of radar.  If you slow your breath down to subsonic levels.  It’s still a socially aware and politically aware city.  I went to a book signing of There She Goes, Simon Hughes book.  I recommend it as an absorbing record of the city’s recent tumult of lies, murder, corruption and rebirth.  I feel that was an indication of my disconnect.  I lived through a lot of that book: Militant, Hillsborough, and Jamie Bulger.  And I felt I was the only person in a packed bookshop asking questions.  Everyone else was still shouting the slogans and feeling the passions of Hatton.  If we view it in situationist terms: The Hacienda has been built.  It’s called Liverpool ONE shopping centre. You’re in it.  Stop speechifying and put your leaflets away.  We lost the argument. 

For a birthday present, my wife arranged for a visit to all of The Three Graces.  Afternoon Tea in The Port of Liverpool Building, a visit to the Museum Of British Music in The Cunard.  Before that though, climbing to the top of The Liver Buildings.  This is a recent, mystifying addition to the tourist calendar.  It took me to the edge of tears, but the climb didn’t make me lose my breath.  It’s hard not to look in awe at an ever-evolving city, resembling a space age building site and not feel humbled that this is where I came from.  And there will be probably come a time, long after I’m dead when Liverpool Waters will be built.  Which will entomb the Liverpool waterfront in glass and lose its UNESCO World Heritage Status.  My stepson will probably enjoy a show in the Birkenhead Opera House.  Having brought him up right though, he’ll probably scowl at the new Everton stadium. 

Home, is where the heart is.  It’s easy and very addictive to lounge in a La-Z-Boy Chair with a good book.  But a home is made by the people in it, not by furniture.  We were driving back from North Wales when I heard a member of China Crisis interviewed on the radio.  And for a moment, I was just a kid from Kirkby again.  And then I remember, in the light of a significant birthday candle; I’m defined by the people around me.  My wife, my stepson, my friends, my family. 

Places are just that, places.  It’s the people that matter.