The Stranding by Kate Sawyer: 

As we tread gingerly into Autumn, we approach “Super Thursday” - the first one in September, when all the big books for Christmas start to arrive.  Do we really need Paddy McGuinness’ autobiography, My Lifey?  Probably not.  Do we need Ed Ball’s cookery book/memoir? Possibly.  Personally, I’m holding off for Alan Rickman’s diaries next Christmas.   

The Stranding is the kind of book that will haunt your dreams.  After finishing it, you will need either a good lie down or a good cry.  Possibly both, at the same time.  It’s that good, that emotional and by far and away the best book I’ve read for years. 

If you want to be flippant, it’s a shaggy whale story.  Ruth leaves behind loving parents, a distant friendship  and a bad relationship to fulfil a lifelong dream of working with whales.  As she tries to save one on a New Zealand beach, The Earth dies screaming.  Her and a photographer shelter in its mouth and emerge to build a new world.  

If that sounds a fantastical concept, you’d be right.  Sawyer delights in both the biblical and literary allusions.  What makes it such an entertaining read is the sheer, gorgeous craft of the book.  It’s constructed in a binary fashion, alternating between chapters of Kate’s life “before” and “after”, beginning with her arriving on the beach and ending some twenty years later.   

One of the novel’s best narrative tricks is the apocalypse itself.  It’s a nuclear war which starts on Christmas Day (I know, cheery).  But we never really learn why.  Other characters refer to darkening events, but Ruth wilfully ignores the news, pursuing a relationship with a man who is both married and abusive, having a brief fling with a colleague and becoming slowly disenchanted with life.  As she arrives in New Zealand and realises all flights to Europe are cancelled and she can’t call her parents, she learns the truth she has ignored for so long. 

Ultimately, we can view that as a narrative gamble, but it’s one that pays off.  Ruth is a tragic heroine, her rejoices in her own feminine power in a much different, harsher world. 

It sounds like the proverbial grim read, but it’s not.  This is an uplifting, but not didactic book.  If it has someone kind of moral or message, it’s that what we leave behind when we die is more important; than struggling with the minutiae of our individually flawed humanity.   

So, this should be enough to convince you to buy a copy.  Pack a bag for the end of the world.  Prepare to be moved, impressed and entertained by a stunning piece of work.   

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.