In Which I Go To Watch A Football Game. Men vs Boys (Nearly)

Hello there, Hope you're feeling well today.

Well work had turned out to be unexpectedly fraught yesterday. Needed something that would wash it out of my hair. Happily for me. Football was back.

I live near the ground of the Welsh football league club Penybont FC (which is Welsh for Bridgend) and they were playing a preseason friendly against a Welsh team that plays in the English football league Newport County AFC. Neither wife nor daughter had plans for the day so at 2pm this Saturday afternoon off I went.

It's about a twenty minute walk from where I live,in the Bridgend suburb of Bryntirion. Indeed Penybont FC used to be Bryntirion FC until it merged with Bridgend Town FC. Making it then the first time a town moved to the suburbs.

The weather barring a cool breeze was warm enough but there was a dark cloud on the horizon.

Literally

So I took an umbrella and one other item, which I'll explain later.

A slight digression. never understood how Welsh street names are used. Not the principle you understand, just the application. They seem to be picked for no obvious reason.

Makes no sense

This is an extreme example on the way to the ground. The road is called Chestnut Way (which of course makes no sense in English - There's a way to the Chestnuts?) but underneath is translated in Welsh as BrynGlas, Not only does it actually mean BlueHill in Welsh but I've no idea where the "BlueHill" actually is.

But back to the football and the first real surprise. For it appears that it's not just Olympic stadiums that can have brand naming rights but also the second tier of Welsh league football as well.

Progress.....apparently

I went in. Paid £5. Was disappointed there wasn't a programme and went straight for the stand.

The Stand

Easy to laugh at it but remember this isn't the English Premier league but a league most people could afford to go to regularly.And of course if the football was dull there was always the view.

Gaze at that

Now look at the building on the right, In a seemingly small space it contains a sports bar with large screen TV, a function room. somewhere to get hot food (got chips and a cola at half time), the changing rooms for the teams and the match officials as well as some office space for club business. Clearly for the designer this was a sideline from building the TARDIS.

Outside of the bar there were chairs and tables people could chat and watch the match with behind the goal.

I noticed almost immediately that,programme or no programme, this was not the first team for Newport County. They were too young and fresh faced. Teenagers who probably only saw a razor from TV ads. This was the academy side. In contrast Penybont were a team of physically imposing first team adults complete in some cases with beards,baldness and in one case a combination of the two.

This match was,quite nearly, men versus boys,

And so it began....

The Match

In the beginning you could see why these "boys" were picked. They had skill. They had youthful enthusiasm (ah youthful enthusiasm I remember it well). Anyway in about the eleventh minute there was a cross field cross which which was taken by a Newport player who made an expert shot to beat the Penybont goalkeeper. 1-0 then to Newport. It was the score that stood for the remainder of the half.

If the match had ended after 45 minutes you would have said that Newport were the more skillful side and that Penybont had only kept the loss to a single goal by imposing their obvious physical superiority over their opponents. But of course as the cliche goes football is a game of two halves and after the break the home team showed the thing that was absent in the first half which was skill.

Attack after attack began. Near misses and stout defending were frustrating Penybont but they kept on going. Penybont were also getting inventive. At a corner they piled as a group to receive it the same way as the national team did against Belgium in Euro 2016. Or as I overheard someone call it "the Welsh Thing".

One of the best things about going to a football game is learning by just listening to the people around you. 

"That's Ellis Bellamy"

"He plays for us now?"

"Yes."

"Is Craig here?"

So on learning that a son of a famous retired Welsh player is playing for his team the first instinct of the recipient of that news is to look for his famous father (who wasn't there incidentally). Such is life.

There was more:

"There are two number threes (for Penybont) on the pitch" He was right.

"Does it matter?"

"Well yes. Say if there was a booking"

At that moment I had to turn round. There was I informed them two number twelves as well. One was bald and bearded the other was bearded with hair up top. Fortunately the first was one was substituted soon after that conversation. I didn't mention afterwards that I'd noticed there were also two number sixteens.

It was a good thing that the bald bearded number twelve had been substituted because it was the other number twelve who scored the Penybont equaliser. A delightful goal which was what they deserved after their relentless efforts in the half. Soon after Penybont scored two more. Both from headers. The second, in the way the ball was caught from the corner was positively Vogtsian.

3-1 then was the final score. I'm not sure what Newport County learnt from all of this other than giving the players experience. As for Penybont they would have the satisfaction of not just winning but coming from behind to do so.

I did notice that in this game was there were three times where Newport players had to go off the field because of injury. Being very young men there were no Oscar winning performances. It was real agonising pain. Let me stress I'm no expert, but I couldn't but wonder whether putting two sides so obviously physically different against each other was really a good idea.

And the other item I brought with me? Well I hereby claim to be the first man ever to have read an H E Bates novel during the breaks of a Welsh football league match.

Fame at last

Until the next time

In Which A Book Is Read In A Day And We Might Be At War With Peru But I'm Busy Watching West Ham

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I hope that one of the things this blog has shown is my love of reading. But even I rarely read an entire book in a day if only because despite the best will in the world other things such as football,life and oh, my family interfere.

Sometimes though circumstances move completely in the other direction and yesterday that exactly happened. I was at work, the afternoon/evening shift but there was not that much to do. Partly it was because we are now in the holiday period but mainly it was the weather. Summer 2016 were those two days early last week, today turned out what seems to be the new "normal". Grey skies, a cold breeze and of course bouts of rain. In other words October.

So I had time to read. The book that benefited from this sudden surplus of time was Walking Home by Clare Balding. Thankfully it turned out an extremely pleasant read meeting all my expectations when borrowed from the library on Monday.

Mainly it's a book where walking is the link for other aspects of her life. Mainly of course from the BBC Radio 4 programme she presents Ramblings (the many podcasts of which I find myself listening to in the bath now) but also her family. It's not completely about walking as the blurb in the cover would imply for example the London Olympics feature but that doesn't matter.

For a person such as me considering taking rambling up as a hobby Walking Home is not technical but an autobiography as a chat between you and a friend as she goes through her experiences taking it up both in her leisure and professional life (which let me stress is a good thing). It was reading as a pleasure and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

When I came home sometime after ten it was time for me to shut myself from the world for that night and early the following morning. It did not matter whether North Korea had declared war with South Carolina, the British economy had been twinned with a lemming or Boris Johnson had decided no longer to hire hairdressers with a sense of humour. West Ham, the team I support had been playing a Europa League tie against N K Domzale that evening and I had recorded the game. And if there was one thing I was going to do it was to shut myself off from the world until I'd seen the match in its entirety.

So after the verbal ramblings of a couple of old pros and ads which suggested all men cared about were fast cars, winning bets, strong drink and a full head of hair (really Shane Warne is that thing on your head truly natural?) it began.

Two things became clear almost immediately. One was that the Domzale defenders policy to Andy Carroll was one of assault and battery and secondly West Ham were dominating. After ten minutes and their first attack of the game though Domzale were awarded an extremely dodgy penalty from which they scored. 1-0 to them.

The West Ham of the past would have buckled under the unexpected blow but things have changed under Slavan Bilic and they continued to attack.About six minutes later they got their reward when the Domzale goalkeeper, clearly feeling left from his side's UFC defending clattered Kyoate in the box. Another penalty, another goal. Scored by the Hammers captain Mark Noble. A man who should have gone to Euro 2016. I mean, Roy Hodgson actually preferred Jack Wiltshire, the man with the glass ankle.

Mind you Mark noble. Admire you as I do do you really feel that football boots coloured in radioactive orange is really a good idea?

Anyway 1-1 and an away goal as well. Although West Ham continued to attack that is how it stayed at half time and given it was their first competitive game this season I was happy enough.

It was midnight. Time to sleep. Time to set the alarm for five o'clock. On waking up made myself a cup of tea and a breakfast cereal. I was ready for the second half.

Three minutes into the second half wasn't ready for what happened next as in their best attack of the game Domzale scored again,this time from open play. The Slovenians had so much space for their well taken goal they could have started a smallholding. 2-1. I was getting nervous.

West Ham continued to attack. But Domzale had grown in confidence. As the second half went on it was the sort of game that you knew was going to finish with that score. Taking everything into account this game could be best described as a disappointment but not a disaster. Clearly though they need to improve for the return match next week.

So it was over. I looked at the clock. Six o'clock Friday morning.Missed a few hours sleep to watch the team I follow being defeated. I'll be working the afternoon/evening shift next Thursday as well and if BT Sport show the return leg will do exactly the same thing again.

It's what you have to do.

Until the next time.

Owen Smith: Acting and Sounding Tough When You're A Small Man Wearing Glasses Rarely Works....Trust Me

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Brexit was supposed to be a precursor to civil war within the Conservative party but no. after about a week of backstabbing Macbethian style they seem to have settled down under the new Prime Minister Theresa May.

So instead it has been the Labour party that has carried the cause of gazing at its own navel and then proceeding to rip it apart. Whilst the country expects the main opposition to actually oppose (perish the thought) instead it's going to be busy fighting a leadership contest between the incumbent Jeremy Corbyn and his challenger Owen Smith, a man hardly known outside of his native Wales and let me tell you only a little better within it.

I first recall him properly in the Welsh TV debates during last year's general election. He represented Welsh Labour and to fair he represented it very well being smug, big headed and conceited. It seemed to me at the time the subliminal message he was trying to convey was "VOTE LABOUR.....ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?"

But to be fair here is the man who it appears as taken the main chance to challenge Corbyn when the people who have engineered that situation didn't have the courage to stand. Or the other one person that did, Angela Eagle, showed herself to be surprisingly thin skinned and easy to beat. He is just a heartbeat away from controlling a party ill at ease with itself and potentially in permanent decline. Good luck with that.

But let's not talk about that....well not today anyway.

Instead let's talk about what happened yesterday. When in a political gathering Owen Smith set out his policies, some of which were a clear attempt to be more left leaning than Corbyn. Policies that must have caused some of the anti Corbyn Labour MPs that caused this crisis in the first place to lacerate on their lattes.

But let's not talk about that either...for whether it was a genuine so well hidden commitment to pure socialist policies that it had to be brought up from some metal tomb or just some cynical ploy to sway some of his opponent's supporters...well I'll let you decide.

No I want to chat about something specific that Owen Smith said. When he mentioned that it upset him that Labour didn't have the power to "smash" Theresa May "back on her heels".

Let me stress before I go on that I'm in no way mocking violence towards women. For it I believe is one of those cancers in our society which is far worse than people might believe. I'm personally aware of one couple where the wife has told my wife her husband hits her when he's drunk. This woman, for the record,would deny any such claim if the police were involved so it's impossible to take the matter further. Furthermore, in case you were thinking in cliche, they are so middle class it should be branded on their arms.

So I'm not mocking violence towards women...I'm mocking Owen Smith.

When you are small man wearing glasses acting tough rarely works simply because you're wearing glasses. Everyone can see that you have a weakness. That you cannot start a fight without putting those specs down first. That for most cases you would be confronting someone face to chest and you have to be angry looking up at that person whilst he/she would be looking pitifully down at you.

Speaking as part of the oppressed minority of small men wearing glasses I can tell you that I rarely got involved in fights unless heavily provoked. Indeed the last real fight I had was aged fifteen with a boy the same age who also wore specs, so everything seemed fair enough. I remember it well, throwing my opponent to the floor, getting on top, hitting him and then thinking "I've won this but what the hell I do next?". As finishing a fight seemed so much easier on TV.

Owen, let's face facts, if this was a school and you confronted Theresa May,Nicola Sturgeon or Leanne Wood they would laugh, throw your glasses to the floor before proceeding to step on them with those heels you appear to be so obsessed about. After which they would give you a good slap before walking off laughing even more whilst you find yourself looking at the world with cracked vision before running off to the nearest teacher.

So Smithy, if there is a piece of advice I can give you (as if I truly care) it's that leadership is not in having a penis. It's in having a vision that people will follow. As far as I can see it, your vision is just in obtaining power...and that's not enough.

Until the next time.

Howard Jacobson's New Fans, Books Borrowed Read But Not Bought Plus Swansea,Mumbles and BHS

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Before the family day trip later on I had to make a quick visit to Porthcawl library as they were due and quickly to Poundland to get razors,shower gel and some toothpaste....oh and a book.

You may remember when I'd last visited there I was surprised that Poundland were selling some quality books amongst the expected dross. Although there was a tome by Howard Jacobson for more sentimental reasons I'd picked The American by Martin Booth (A decision incidentally that wasn't wrong in itself. Spoiler alert: So far it's very good). This time though I was going to get the Jacobson.

Or I would have.....if there were any there.

To my knowledge Poundland leave books on the shelves forever. My favourite of the "dross" books was one that celebrated Irish Olympic hopefuls. All very well in itself if it wasn't for the fact that we were in Wales. So that the Jacobson completely sold out is encouraging. I suspect most of the people who bought the book wouldn't have thought to have picked it up anywhere else and some of those might be further encouraged to read more of his work afterwards,

Poundland:Encouraging reading and literature, Who would have thought it but let's celebrate it anyway.

Afterwards I went to the library. Was tempted to get the autobiography of the ex West Ham and new England manager Sam Allardyce but ultimately went for this as my football book choice.

The Secret Footballer - Tales From The Secret Footballer

This is the sequel to the original "Secret Footballer" book which apparently lifts the lid on the football world. It has the reputation. Let's see whether deserved.

The intention was to just get that book. But as you know me by now and needless to say I was tempted to borrow another which was this.

Clare Balding - My Family and Other Rambles

I took this book because I'm toying with the idea of taking up rambling. Not the sort that wanders lonely as a cloud in green places but that explores towns and villages. Rather like the day I spent going round the Valleys in May.

I have the prequel to this. My Animals And Other Family amongst the great unread.

Must admit as well to have an admiration for the author. Capable of being a broadcasting "safe pair of hands" and yet can fight for her beliefs as well. A lioness in jolly hockey sticks clothing. She also has the ability, rather like the late Alan Coren and the comedienne Linda Smith of being the sort of person you consider a friend even though you've never met them.

When I'd got home the wife decided that we should go to Swansea for the day. Given the washout of her birthday the day before I wasn't going to argue. Still though we were out of the house the car hadn't left the drive for a further ten minutes whilst she and daughter chatted to the neighbour opposite. In that time I finished a book.

It was Not A Hazardous Sport by Nigel Barley. As I was reading this it reminded me of the sort of series started by James Herriot. Take an occupation and write about your experiences in a manner which suggested that life was basically comic with occasional sad episodes. Of course we all know that life is a constant battle between the amusing and the tragic. And if you don't have an occupation tragedy always wins.

The point is that Nigel Barley is not James Herriot, and as his occupation is anthropology his style is a mixture of bad writing and patronising condescension sprinkled with a fair degree of dullness. I don't mean dull as in academic dull, more dull as in the more I read it the more fed up and uninterested I got.

To fast forward a bit when we returned took the next book from the great unread. Which turned out to be this.

H E Bates - A Little Bit of What You Fancy

This was the last book in the Larkin series. I've read the first, The Darling Buds Of May years ago and I remember thinking that the TV series was better. Mind you I didn't like the television version after the first season. Got all too predictable. I don't hold much hope, though to be fair I understand that this novel was never filmed.We shall see.

So to Swansea then. Which in the beginning got a bit damp.

Early afternoon in Swansea

We went into BHS in Swansea before it becomes a part of retail history. To be honest it was more in curiosity than anything else. Needless to say it was very sad. Everything was for sale.

And I mean EVERYTHING

What was interesting was that even with the reductions prices seemed cheaper elsewhere. I mean I wouldn't pay just under five pounds for a cereal bowl whoever made it. Perhaps that explains part of the reason for the decline of the business.

After that I spilt up with wife and daughter to go to a charity shop that just sold books. Or rather that was the intention, but for the second time today I was thwarted in buying books as it was closed for refurbishment. Other charity shops I saw didn't have Penguin/Pelican paperbacks that I didn't already own. Thwarted again.

A quick digression the worst place for me was a stall in Swansea market. Only because I don't like the price of books being stamped on the top. 

Don't like this one bit

After the ladies finished buying clothes and I finished buying nothing we went further west to the Mumbles. It wasn't really summer coastal weather being cool and cloudy. Still it can still do the views. Here are a few pictures.

Still can do vivid colours on a cloudy day

The original fifty shades of grey

Despite how it looks it didn't rain

Warm enough to have some chips whilst viewing this

And so the trip ended. It had been pleasant.

Until the next time.

How Plant Theft,A Motor and Bad Weather spoils The Wife's Birthday...and A Dead Pigeon and A Bad Curry Doesn't Help Either

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So it's approaching 1am on the Sunday morning. I had been doing the afternoon/evening shift on the Saturday and had nodded off in front of the TV after I had my dinner. The wife had come downstairs to wake me up...but not to have a row.

For whilst I was asleep my wife was wide awake watching three drunks, two women and a man, walk along our street. The man stopped in front of our house and proceeded to pick up a large plant in the garden.

As she explained to me one of the women said "Why are you taking that?" To which the answer was "I wanted it" as he carried what had been, ironically enough a birthday present from a friend last year along the street.

Only when they were out of view did she come down to wake me up and tell me of the events. Clearly fearing that I would confront the man once I'd taken off my glasses. She was clearly upset,and it was not a good start to her birthday.

When daylight finally appeared I went out and walked along the surrounding streets to see whether the pot could be found. Alas no. It had gone forever.

And as I was walking around the rain was fine. Fine in the sense not that it should be admired but that it was too weak to warrant the use of an umbrella but wet enough to be felt. As the morning continued though the rain much worse and heavier. My wife had hoped to spend the day in Tenby but the weather made it pointless. We were going to stay at home for her birthday.

Of course even if there had been boiling sun there might have been a problem. For I'd taken the car for it's annual service on Saturday and discovered that it needed new brake pads and tyres. Most worryingly of all though apparently there was a slight oil leak it needed an oil sump as the current one was corroding, the part for which the garage did not have immediately. There were no problems driving the car now, but for issues I'll explain at the time I need to make two journeys to Essex next month. So although I'd spent a lot of money to get my car sorted out yesterday I could not take the risk of doing nothing so more will be spent when the garage gets the part.

Point is that it made my wife and I nervous about long journeys in the car so we would have probably have taken a smaller journey. All very academic anyway.

So the only person who went out of the house today was me as I needed for nothing more than symbolic reasons to buy a birthday cake from the supermarket. As I drove though a pigeon, seemingly ignoring the sixth sense from which it's species seems to have in avoiding getting into the clutches of small children who want to catch them, lost all senses as it drove straight under the wheel of my car. I could see as I was driving away feathers blowing in the wind.

Last time I posted it was flying ants, now a pigeon. At this rate I'll be reaching the level of American dentist.

As a quick side issue the supermarket sold some Polish goods. So I bought some. On the principle that I refuse to be a little Englander.

I've Shopped Polish

The icing on this depressing cake of a birthday wasn't so much the cake, which the wife described as stale even though it's expiry date was the middle of August, but the takeaway curry I'd got from a place we'd used and liked in the past. The sauce was more water than anything else, the chips were this side of just warmed up and the rice was bland. After that my stomach was best described as delicate for two hours after that.

So it was not a great birthday for my wife let's see if tomorrow turn out to be any better.

Until the next time.

Flying Antado 2

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well this is the second day of the two day British summer. As I write this it's apparently due to end as suddenly as it began but for the moment Bridgend is balmy and I'm sweaty.

My mother has left for London and the moment her car left the street my wife had got the vacuum cleaner and feather duster out as she was ready work herself into a nervous breakdown in the pursuit of turning the house showhome ready (with of course myself and our teenage daughter as helpers). Now to explain, my wife, for all her considerable virtues, is the sort of person who would consider our home to be just this side of a rubbish tip even if an army of cleaners had gone through the house first.

So through blood sweat and screams eventually everything was finished. Showhome ready. Midday. For as I mentioned in my last post the reason for her panic was the second viewing of the house since we put it on the market. 6:30pm. She was going to be out that afternoon seeing some girlfriends so I was going to have to be ready when the estate agent knocked on the door.

1pm: Wife has left the house. I'm in the kitchen. I've just finished a chicken sandwich and a cup of tea for lunch. I've hours before that estate agent knocks on the door. Everything is under control. You may remember what I said at the end of the last post. Things I felt were going to get dull.

Well...

I notice something crawling along the window ledge, then something else....then something else. Move towards the scene. Ants....and not just any ants...they fly.

Now you might also recall that yesterday by mowing down their constructed hill I'd unleashed squadrons of flying ants to the street (sorry again). Well it appears they were out for revenge for the devastation I'd caused.

And so it begins....

If this was America these ants would be flesh eating creatures and I would be battling to defend my family and humanity. But this was Britain and my job was to clear the ledge from crawlies before the estate agent arrived. More sitcom than scary.

Some would come in pairs

Apart from one respect they were pretty stupid. They didn't provide me with any trouble catching them. Flies they were not.

Some were quite big

Trouble was that I couldn't figure out where they came from. i thought I'd clear the ledge and then all of a sudden they'd return. Was there a crack in the wall or did they come up the plughole? Absolutely no idea.

Others were small

Before you ask why I didn't use Ant powder or spray don't forget that there was the house viewing to consider, Powder or spray wouldn't have looked good to potential buyers, So old fashioned kitchen roll it was.

Others looked quite scary

6:10pm : A knock on the door. It's the estate agent with the couple viewing the house. Twenty minutes early and with no prior phone call I'm not happy but try not to show it. Daughter and I leave the house to go and get some provisions and leave them to it.But not before getting rid of a few more of the flying mites

(As a quick aside this has put me off giving the estate agent our house key. That and a story a friend in Cardiff told us of her son in his boxers watching TV today when an estate agent just opens the door with a couple and again no prior phone call!)

We return ten minutes later just as the people viewing the house are leaving. You know it's a no and that's what it was. Apparently they saw another house which was more secluded and had better parking. So be it. Can't say I'm unhappy.

More ants were caught but as the day ends so do they. They seem to have gone.Hopefully Antado 3 is not on the cards.

I should stress that all the flying ants were killed in the making of this post.

Until the next time.

In Which We Now Know The Summer Of 2016 Is Two Days In July. Unfortunately For Me I'm Busy And Detained

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So this is the week, just before the schools close for the summer break and my wife and I become entertainment officers when the Ipad is unavailable, that hot weather has arrived in Bridgend.

It's only for a little while mind. The forecast was clear on that. Monday and Tuesday will be Mediterranean hot but Tuesday night/Wednesday morning will return to colder showery weather beginning with the clash and bang of thunder and lightening.

So what to do? Cut the grass on Tuesday whilst on Monday go and get some books from the library and then go up to the Rhondda Valleys to wallow in the views? Now that seems like an idea and a half.

Unfortunately that was Sunday morning me talking. Monday morning me knew that that was not going to happen...because my daughter was not going to school.

We had a Sunday afternoon lunch with my mother down from Essex to celebrate her birthday at a venue chosen by her I suspect because it had an intrinsically snob value. If you would describe this place as a TV channel it would be ITV3,all Downton Abbey and Midsomer Murders.

Despite all of this though the food was at best edible. There were Glamorgan sausages for a starter that my daughter described as tasting like Mozzarella Bites. For the main course whilst the others had lamb I had the pork. It was dull. To be honest I couldn't wait to leave and get home.

Anyway the point is that after the meal my daughter said she felt ill. A few hours later she was vomiting chunks of lamb down the toilet. I too was feeling uneasy around the stomach but nowhere near as bad. My mother,seventy five years old, felt fine.

Thankfully once the recycled remains of Larry went out of her system she was OK. Still school on Monday was out of the question, as indeed on Tuesday. Because she was going on a school trip to Oakwood Leisure Park and the idea of someone with an upset stomach on rides and roller coasters was a complete non starter. So the heatwave was going to be spent at home.

And my day further decided itself after my wife received a call from the estate agent. There was to be a viewing on Tuesday at 6:30pm. That was it. I had to cut the grass.

My wife said I was mad. Why do it now? Why not wait until the evening? But no I was adamant. Get it over with and do it today. So whilst I can't speak for Mad Dogs after a ham sandwich and a cup of tea this Englishman went out in the midday (12:10pm to be precise) Welsh sun.

And so for the next few hours that grass was cut. When it was finished I was red in the face and dripping in the back. Oh and to the people in my street wondering what caused the sudden outbreak of flying ants (some of which made a bee line (or is it ant line?) to the kitchen which I killed armed with a copy of my mother's Daily Mail). Well I might have disturbed a colony that decided to retaliate by going all fighter squadron on any targets nearby......so sorry. What with trying to sell the house and now this our popularity rating is really going down probably the same place my daughter's lamb went.

So that's how I spent one half of the summer of 2016. As for the other half? I doubt it will be as lively.

Until the next time.

Books:The Good.The Bad And The Unfinished

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

It's been a while since I've done a post solely about books but then again it's unusual when I finish three in one day. The literary equivalent of waiting for buses.

So let's start with the good. Sue Townsend's The Public Confessions Of A Middle Aged Woman, a collection of her columns in the Sainsburys Magazine was a joy to read. With her trademark engaging humour she writes about subjects as varied as Vodka and car boot sales though tinged with sadness towards the end with the decline in her eyesight. It's the best book I've read this year.

It occurred to me as I was reading that she is the last writer that was liked by so many readers. When I say liked I mean that you can be an academic or a gardener, male or female,work in a petrol station or a rail station, work in London or her home city of Leicester and still feel that you can relate to what she's writing. Her recent death robbed us of a person who I think we now realise was a quiet British literary institution.

Just as Sue Townsend's book is the best I've read this year then Ali Smith's The Accidental is the worst. This book won the Whitbread book of the year in 2005. Whitbread own the coffee chain Costa which is why this prize has changed to the Costa book of the year. But either way it struck me that the judges must have been high on caffeine to have awarded this first prize.

As a parent in the beginning there's an incident that upset me and I almost put the book down. I wish now I had.

If I was to say to you that some important characters are called Magnus and Astrid but it's not set in Sweden then you'll have an idea of how pretentious this piece of work is. But this is not so much a novel of pretensions but a pretend novel. For the author does not hesitate in using a hundred words where ten would do. Somewhere there might be a short story that I wouldn't bother to read screaming to be set free.

The writing style is best described as a "stream of consciousness" but is more a stream of urine. It rambles around like an intellectual tramp and in the middle there is even pages of poetry for no good reason whatsoever.

As a reader the only pleasure I had from this book was the feeling of relief when it was finished.

The trouble with The Dirty Game by Andrew Jennings is that for all the goings on in FIFA that it goes into intricate detail to explain (and it's a book that you truly need to be paying attention to or else you'll be lost in all the dealings it goes into) the investigations are still ongoing. When I finished this book I felt the phrase "TO BE CONTINUED" should have been placed at the ending.

As interesting a book as it is it really is unfinished and can only be completed once the legal and police processes are completed. Perhaps this can be best described as a first draft.

So new books now need to be picked from the great unread. The next Penguin to be picked is:

Not A Hazardous Sport - Nigel Barley

Apparently this is a book about a visit to a particular tribe in Indonesia. Hope this isn't going to be patronising. We shall see.

Unless anything unexpected happens I won't be able to visit the library until Monday week. So the non Penguin book I've picked is this one.

The American - Martin Booth

As you may remember I bought this book for a pound in Poundland but what pushed me into getting it was that it was set in Tuscany, the Rhondda of Italy.

Until the next time.

Yes I Know We're Selling But We Still Love You

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I'm about to chat about the mundane. It's important that I do. For this is written after the terrible events in Nice. We are slowly moving into a digitally medieval world where a person can deliberately drive a truck into people in France or attack people in Britain because they are Polish. These are two sides of the same mentality. The planet is moving towards a very dangerous place. So mundane is good. Mundane is what we have to aspire to. For at the moment the alternative is scary.

So the board was up on Thursday. Those in the Bridgend suburbia who didn't follow the internet or the gossip line now know...our house is for sale.

Mind you the gossip line seems very powerful where I live. The wife has been approached by a couple of the neighbours for a chat as to why we're selling when she mentioned this before any call to an estate agent was made. And apparently someone even noticed the house viewing early Monday afternoon. Good thing I'm not having an affair.

Of course it's only right that she is the one answering the suburban scrutiny since she has been the driving force in this. I having taken "no interest" other than on the issue of finance. As mentioned before the strains of an early drive to Cardiff for her work, as well as the wish of being closer to her family are the reasons why she wants this. Once my daughter was attracted to this too I was outnumbered, content as I was to live here (although finance aside I'm not particularly bothered as long as the process is relatively smooth).

When a family announces it's intention to move then to those living around them three reasons come into their heads.

1) The family has financial problems

2) The family has new found wealth and/or

3) The family has found a better area to live

With us, or two thirds of us anyway the reason is the third one. As explained what it's not is a question of snobbery (my wife is the most unsnobby - if that's a word - person I know). Still that's what it appears to be on the surface.....that this place is not good enough.

And so I'm expecting people I don't know to approach me. Seemingly innocently enquiring of our motives with undercover agent moves.

And should people ask us for favours, babysitting for example, well we have to say yes unless there is a very good excuse. You can hear the gossip go round immediately. Not only aren't we good enough to live here but they're not bothering to help us either

All that being said at time of writing there have been no further viewings of the house. It's of course early days but I'm getting the view that people are keeping their wallets tight after Brexit. There is a sense of uncertainty about everything since the referendum result and there is a sense of holding back until you know exactly how things will pan out. We shall see,

I've finished The Greatest by Muhammad Ali (ghost written by Richard Durham). I liked this book. It is important first to realise that it was written in the seventies when he was undisputed world champion and before being dealt the blow of Parkinson's disease.

That said it's an important book. After all not only does it show the life of a man who is one of the great icons of the past sixty years but also think what his encompassed. Not just boxing but growing up in the racial tension of America in the nineteen sixties. If there is a quibble I have with this biography I would have liked more when he was world champion for the first time before his ban from boxing for not fighting in Vietnam. So for example his fight with Henry Cooper lasts just a page.

But to end as I began this book also discusses why Muhammad Ali became a moslem. He was a proud of his faith but a proud American as well. To those people who think that you cannot love your religion and your country he was the answer. Throughout his life, including when he battled Parkinson's disease, Ali truly was The Greatest.

Until the next time

In Which Learning French Begins....

So the Kindle yesterday is opened. I've half an hour before lunch and the afternoon/evening shift at work. Teach Yourself French by Gaelle Graham begins. Even though this nation is moving towards little Englander status I refuse to follow this trend I won't go into the comforting arms of the femme fatale that is splendid isolation. I won't go à la mode. Au Contraire. Instead of going Bon Voyage to Europe I've become more Bonjour.It's a fait accompli.

I've tried to get into the mood. In the early morning I watched another episode of the political drama Spin (Les Hommes de L'Ombre). I like it. though it's really what you would expect from similar political dramas,intense looks,backstabbing,dark cars with security detail moving fast...just with added Gallic.

I drink black coffee, no café au lait for me. Carte Noire to be precise. I've seen the ads. Stylish French people do stylish things (including drinking coffee of course) in the stylish backdrop of Paris in black and white film. Of course real life is different. I'm drinking it whilst cajoling my daughter to move herself in time to catch the school bus. No style involved here, just slowly rising annoyance mixed with panic.

I've got my list of French radio stations ready. Yesterday it was France Culture. Hardly understand a word but that's not the point for the moment. For now the point is just to absorb.

So the e book is opened. In the beginning Ms Graham makes points I already understand and remember from school. A sense of  déjà vu overwhelms me but then I stop when she makes the point that there are a number of words that have transferred from French to English and gives us examples. This is the moment I start writing it on a notepad. Words I know the meaning of and how to spell. Seems like a good first step.

So far nothing has seemed avant-garde. No liguistic art déco or art nouveau here. Which is fine by me. I want rules. Carte Blanche worries me

Soon the half hour was up. Time for lunch. No apéritif or après ski. Just a sandwich and a hot drink before work. That drink of course being black coffee. Work next....well.... c'est la vie. 

Monday will be the next time I'll be learning French. I know I'm not deserving an encore yet but let's see what the future will bring.

And as I'm sure you've guessed now the words I've put in italics (apart from Bonjour) are the ones I've written down.

Until the next time.

in Which I Take French Lessons, The First Viewing Of The House And Buying Presents

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Yes,yes I know. I've resuscitated my old Welsh textbooks, starting to learn Polish and now on a Monday learning French?

Well.....yes.

But racist crime has got worse even since I last posted about it. I read an article that a car was attacked because it had French number plates. As I have said before the dark ages have begun.

So decided to add two more languages to the list. Picked because I've a petit knowledge of either. French which is of a sub O level standard and Italian of whose remote vocabulary gleaned almost organically. They've been taken off the remote bookshelves of my mind, the dust blown off and so Je vais.

And gradually my intention is to be more French than French, Polish than the Polish etc. It seems to me that if I want to listen to Verdi rather than Elgar then I should without nobody questioning my choice because it's not British, and more specifically English.

Because that is the insular society we are potentially facing now. Particularly if the Labour party keeps looking at its navel and then begins to cut itself open. Leaving Britain at the mercy of the right wing. In the meantime the cleverest politician in the Conservative party Theresa May has about to become Prime Minister simply by staying relatively quiet as her opponents blunder their way out of the race.

I have a timetable for learning these languages.....oh yes I do.

Monday/Tuesday: French
Wednesday/Thursday: Polish
Friday/Saturday: Welsh
Sunday: Italian

So I start watching online the French drama Spin on the Channel 4 strand Walter Presents. The same strand that showed the Polish series The Border I mentioned in an earlier post. Watched the first series before but now am on it again to listen as well as see. Actually it's French title is Les Hommes De L'Ombre or Shadow Men, Things sound better in French or Italian than they do in English. For example there is a Ligue 1 football team, I can't remember which, that is sponsored by Mutuelle Du Soleil which even the most ardent Brexiteer must admit sounds better than Sun Mutual.

The book I'm starting with is Teach Yourself French by Gaelle Graham. A woman who is not only a teacher and linguist but works for a trade union and is a commentator for French radio about English education (!!). Clearly a lady who takes multitasking to the next level.She's from Brittany originally though with talents like that perhaps she's Britainiche,

More French chat tomorrow.

So the first viewing of the house. I was in the car parked at the opposite side of the road like a private eye having given the estate agent the keys. It was early afternoon so no danger of schoolkids invading the street.

I saw a couple, late twenties/early thirties being led into the house. There they stayed for about forty minutes. In between gazing at my front door I started reading Michael Palin's diaries. The length of time made me feel rather nervous,not sure with excitement or fear. Surely I thought they must be interested?

Well perhaps,or perhaps not. Apparently the couple loved the upstairs but not the downstairs, Too small for a family of two children apparently. That surprised me. Their ultimate view, according to the estate agent was a maybe. I'm going to assume a no unless proved otherwise.

Final proper thing I've done today is to go  with my daughter to buy proper birthday presents at Macarthur Glen (a retail outlet complex just outside Bridgend) for my mother, who's coming down this weekend.

Daughter picked a Yankee Candle and a fancy holder. Personally the popularity of scented candles is something that has just passed me by as I'm always on the slow lane to fashionable. I get them when the smells are simple, say orange or strawberry. But it's when they get all descriptive, for example I remember a Yankee Candle called Christmas Eve. Since when did Christmas Eve have a smell ?

I played it safe present wise. Bought a Marks and Spencer gift voucher......and this

I know you want one

It's a cheese grater. Probably the oddest looking cheese grater that you will ever see. And come the weekend it will be my mother's. It's Marks and Spencer also. And you wonder why they're in trouble.

Until the next time,

In Which I Have A Headache On Friday....And Yesterday

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

On Friday I start to have a headache. It wraps round my head like an ill fitting hat and there is a throbbing. As if I'm being subjected to a long bad massage. Unfortunately for me there's no one to complain to afterwards.

These headaches are not unusual for me. I get them from time to time. As a child and in my twenties they were particularly bad. They seemed to start from about midday and get worse at around six in the evening. I could just about have dinner and a cup of tea and then would throw myself to bed for a sleep until the next morning.

And a long night's sleep was the best cure. Would wake up in the morning as if nothing had happened.Nowadays things have changed. They tend to be less powerful but last longer.

It's probably a common thing. Think it is. But there was a time when I was checked by a doctor in a hospital for having a second attack of Bell's Palsy (a separate issue which I won't bore you with, at least not today anyway). He asked me whether I had regular headaches. Told him yes. When the weather is heavy. When it threatens rain but doesn't. That's when it comes.

"Ah yes he said....atmospheric migraines".

And there was a part of me that loved that. Didn't matter that might be as common as mud. I had a medical condition. Something that sounded good. Not just any old migraine but atmospheric.

The weather this week has been odd. Despite what the TV ads will tell you. No one in Britain believes in the cliche of sunshine, BBQs and cider (always cider). Everybody knows it will rain sometime. It has though been a lot windier for this time of year and most notably of all greyer. If you had woken up from a coma then you'd think it was February, March or October. You'd be demanding proof in blood that it was July.

Unfortunately for me. I had to work and dutifully went. I've said before that being unwell but not been unwell enough to call in sick is probably the worse of all worlds.

Despite the greyness of the weather many people were wearing T-shirts. Actually understand that. For if you were able to avoid the wind it was actually quite humid. The three men  who I saw wearing sunglasses were less forgivable. How can you be so posy to want to wear sunglasses on days without any sun?

Work was not easy. People asking me questions that I didn't, couldn't know the answers to and those who did know were unavailable. Could only smile wanly,speak politely and tell them that I could not help them. I think they were unconvinced until seeing the pained look on my face.

Saturday was a little different. I was not expected to come into work that day. But the manager had a text  at 11pm Friday from someone who was leaving her post saying that she would not be working her notice so the following morning I got a call in the morning asking whether I would come in for the afternoon/evening shift. Didn't want to go. Never liked it when plans for a day go awry. But I go I did. After all money is money despite the headache

Earlier in the morning my wife and I had been to the estate agent. It appears much to the delight of my wife and daughter moving to Penarth is feasible. The photos of the house are now on line and its for sale. I have, as my wife would say, "not taken any interest". And it's true. I'd prefer to stay. But as long as there are no financial issues I'm not standing in anyone's way.

Well when returning from work at 10pm my wife tells me that she's had a call from the estate agent and somebody's coming round for a viewing on Monday.

Perhaps a new type of headache has begun.

Until the next time.

The Football Game Where The Wife Is More Emotional Than Me

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well it's Wednesday evening in Wales and it's the evening of that game. Two ground shaking events happen in world football history. Firstly Wales are in the semi final of a major tournament and secondly my wife and I are in the living room watching a football match together.

She doesn't watch football normally. She rarely watches any sport except when the Welsh national rugby team plays. She will moan when the DVR is full of games from leagues from other nations.But this is of course different.

Every game Wales has played has been seen by her. Nothing has been missed because of work. The one other time we could have watched a game together was the last set of matches in the group stage where I opted to watch England Slovakia on the laptop whilst she watched her countrymen face Russia. Needless to say she had the better deal Wales winning 3-1 whilst the English could only manage a 0-0 draw (which in hindsight was a predictor of the disaster to come against Iceland).

Not that she's completely knowledgeable. She queried during the Russia game why it hadn't finished. I explained that eighty minutes was for Rugby.

It does not matter. She has been caught up in the fervour. She is Welsh and Wales are in the semi final.

So we are in the living room together. Through the TV preamble. Watching the screen shoehorned with retired Welsh football players in the panel with at least one of them (Ryan Giggs) you knew was only brought in because of his team's success. Then Lee Dixon/Roy Keane in a patronising manner pretended to be Welsh for the evening. But you knew their heart wasn't in it.

The obligatory interview with Gareth Bale, a piece on the tragedy of Gary Speed, more waffling from the ex pros...and then the game.

Before it started we were reminded again the Welsh had the best fans in Euro 2016 and the non rugby world learnt for the first time that mae hen wlad fy nhadau is the best anthem as well. You don't need to understand it, you don't have to speak Welsh but wherever you came from it stirs the soul.

So to the match. The first half was to be honest, relatively dull. They and their opponents, the undeserving but lucky Portugal seemed to be taking the cautious approach. The wife shouts at Ronaldo as he claims a penalty. She doesn't like him. Quite perceptive that way.

The half end without a goal. There was still hope.

But come the second half came two goals in quick succession for Portugal. The last of which scored by that man Ronaldo. A man so in love with himself that if you remember the Champions League final and the Athletico Madrid player who ran to kiss his blonde girlfriend after he scored, well I wouldn't have been surprised that had Ronaldo scored he would have run to the nearest mirror to perform the same act.

It was unfortunately the sort of game that you knew was not going to change afterwards.

"Looks like Wales missed Ramsey" (Aaron Ramsey - suspended from this game) said my wife....my wife ? It was though true.

And so it finished 2-0 to Wales. The wife went off to bed.I was going to make myself a cup of tea. As she went up the stairs I pointed out one thing to her that made a disappointed woman smile.

Wales came third in Euro 2016.

Wales came third!!

Until the next time.

Exercise...I'd Like To. It Just Doesn't Like Me

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Before going to work for the afternoon/evening shift yesterday I had to go out earlier for some quick shopping (ie the stuff I'd forgotten to get the day before). Whilst locking the front door I noticed a neighbour taking out his cycle for a ride.

Was envious I must admit. If only because the feeling of participating in sport or most exercise has for the moment passed me by. The closest I normally get to sport nowadays is to watch it.

Now quickly I'll digress. The neighbour was dressed in the "I'm going out with my family" biking attire even though there were no children with him at ten o'clock in the morning. I don't mind that so much. The type of cyclist that really annoys me are those who are dressed as if they've made a wrong turn in the Tour De France.

You might find hypocritical that I, a collector of football shirts, feels this way. But when putting on a West Ham top I've never thought that the Olympic Stadium beckons. Yet when these people put on the shirt, the visor, the scifi helmet and of course the choirboy making lycra shorts then they're not out for a ride. They feel professional. These are the sort of people who will think they're riding not in Bridgend but Brittany.

Anyway back to me and exercise. There has always been something to hold me back. With cycling it's been the fear of riding somewhere that you don't feel as venerable as an English defence to an Icelandic attack. London has embed that in me and the fact that I've not lived there in decades has not changed things

Then there is swimming. I've tried. Genuinely I've tried to glide effortlessly upon water. But my stock move is to cling onto the edge at the deep end of the swimming pool. It just did not happen.

And of course there's running. On the road where I live many people take it up. See them all the time. Lycraed and sweatbanded up. Aiming to beat their "personal best" armed with whatever tech device to their ears so that they can listen to pumped up running music and isolate themselves to whatever is going on in the world around them........including of course the traffic. In their hands is a water bottle presumably used to catch the sweat dripping through.

Decades ago made an effort to regularly run where I used to live in Essex. But two things quickly put me off. The first was the sheer boredom of it. After all you couldn't just sit down and admire scenery oh no. You have run and forget about doing anything along the way that suggested fun.

But the main reason was the fact that in these jaunts I suddenly became meals on legs to any unattached dogs in the area. I have a phobia of dogs, brought on when nearly attacked as a child by an Alsatian (Note I said Alsatian. This being before a brand consultancy firm got their grubby hands on its image problem and somehow got it called "German Shepherd" instead. Incidentally real German shepherds must be a really tough bunch. No wool pulled over their eyes). So it goes without saying that seeing canines without leads...or owners...did not make me feel ecstatic

So where do I go now? No inclination to play a sport where being young is a distinct advantage. Neither do I wish to swing a golf bat or play mock sports designed for oldies like me. I saw an ad where somebody had drawn up a game called "Walking Football" for those people "over fifty". I'm fifty two. Get me that zimmer frame now.

No it looks like it's just going to be long walks. I don't mind long walks. As the long as there is a target at the end of it and the weather is dry (and despite it being Wales it does happen more often than its cliche would suggest) I'm ok doing that.

Still after I waved to the neighbour in a suburban friendly but too busy to talk way.........I took the car.

Until the next time.

Do You Remember Harry Carpenter? (Even Great Books Can Die). Also Books Bought And Borrowed

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Let's start with the question in the title. That's for anyone living in what will probably soon be named the Disunited Kingdom. A land whose government is apparently telling people living here originally from the EU that they might not be allowed to stay post BREXIT.

No matter that you worked here, started up businesses and/or a family

With every day that has followed since the referendum this Kingdom seems to be slowly moving to a very dark place indeed. A look here,a remark there, a graffitied wall strewn with racial insults, in some cases violence.

Britain has become a very worrying place to live right now. And I say this as a white male with a British passport.

So I went today to Porthcawl mainly to go to the library. Here is the Porthcawl view of the day.

Metaphor time

That view seemed to match my mood. Calm but with a sense of foreboding.

Before I went to Poundland for a few odd groceries. Poundland sell small stocks of stuff mainly for, surprise, surprise a pound. Now they do sell books most of which deserve to stay there. Some though will surprise you. There was a Howard Jacobson. But that wasn't the book that caught my eye. It was this.

Martin Booth - The American

This attracted me because it was set in Tuscany, where my Italian relatives live. Remember starting to watch the film on TV and nodding off but liking what I saw before seductive power of the nap took over.

It's not a Penguin paperback I know. But as it was only a pound it was bought.

And so to the library. Picking the football book to read was easier than I thought.

Andrew Jennings - The Dirty Game

Well the cover says it all really.

I was about to leave when in the corner of my eye I noticed this.

Sue Townsend - The Public Confessions Of A Middle-Aged Woman

Sue Townsend wrote the Adrian Mole books (I've read when he was a teenager but not those as an adult) but she also wrote some other stuff as well (I remember a novel...though not the title... where the Royal family were moved in a Republican Britain to a council house). These are a selection of columns she wrote on various subjects. I borrowed it, pathetic as it sounds, because I thought it would make me laugh. How sad is that?

So to the question Do You Remember Harry Carpenter? If you do then I've finished my "car book", Glued To The Box by Clive James. Let me say now that the next car book is volume one of  Michael Palin's Diaries bought a couple of weeks back. I now have five books on the go. I'll never kick the habit of reading but I've got to learn to control it. Thing is I don't know how.

This was his final published collection of his TV columns for The Observer between 1979-1982. It's quite simply just as good as I remember it all those years ago. Funny yet erudite. Here is a man capable of talking about an opera and then move on to The Rockford Files (that was in an earlier book - Just lumped that in to say that The Rockford Files seem to be one of the few seventies detective shows that has stood the test of time - I liked The Rockford Files - It seemed to be written and performed by adults - Clive James liked it as well).

He is the best critic I have ever read. One of the few that I would look forward to reading (or perhaps even prefer listening to, as I mentioned when discussing the book of his radio show he used to do called A Point Of View).

But........

Do you remember Harry Carpenter? He was a BBC sports presenter in the seventies and eighties. He was mainly known for his Boxing commentary but he'd also present The British Open and Wimbledon. Clive James writes about him here. If you do then you will read the book with a wistful smile about a time long gone.

If you don't then the bulk of this book is not for you. It'll mention programmes and people long since forgotten unless you look them up on Google or Youtube. I don't know why book or literary or theatre criticism (Christopher Hitchen,Dorothy Parker, Kenneth Tynan) survives but TV doesn't, certainly not for this period anyway.

So when the last person to remember Harry Carpenter dies. This book, great as it is will die with it.

Until the next time.

In Which I Talk To Two Polish Men And A Book Is Finished

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well my job, not fatcat wages, not glamorous and I'm not going to reveal it today. But it's a job. A job that I believe I've shown that I'm willing to do almost anything I can to help out. After all the way I believe things are going at the moment for Britain there will be areas of the "United Kingdom" (not so United anymore) that will become employment blackspots because of BREXIT.

(And as a quick aside it's irritating that those who wanted to leave call themselves "Brexiteers", believing themselves to be as swashbuckling as The Three Musketeers. Written as we all know by a French author.)

But anyway had to do the early shift at work this weekend which is the reason why I haven't been posting for a while. As going to bed and waking up early does leave a short term jet laggy effect on you when you return home. You find there is a moment after you've had your late lunch where you just nod off in front of the TV. There was no intention to. You just didn't have control.

So on Saturday at work I noticed two men, who seemed to be brothers, speaking in an East European accent. I thought I'd recognised the language and asked whether they were Polish.

They looked concerned. "Why are you asking?" questioned the older one.

"Well I just thought you were unlucky on Thursday".

Thursday : Poland lose out to Portugal on penalties after extra time and are knocked out of Euro 2016. Let me say now if there is one team I don't want to win the tournament it's Portugal. They just haven't done anything that makes them worthy champions.

Their faces brighten. Suddenly I realise that when asking whether they were Polish they'd expected xenophobic abuse. Instead I'm talking football.

This is what our society has started to become post Brexit.  

Let me stress again that I'm not saying that the bulk of people who voted leave are racists. But what it has done is to unleash a racism on Britain to an extent that I cannot recall ever happening before. So that an innocent question about a person's nationality invokes what could only be best described as fear.

But not for long.

"Yes Yes" the older man said. "And now I want Wales to win".

Friday: Wales beat Belgium 3-1. It was a match I saw the first half live and a recording of the second half early (4:30am!) Saturday morning. An astonishing match. That Wales won did not surprise me. That they beat the second ranked team in the world 3-1 did.

And of the three teams I wanted to do well it's Wales who are in the semi finals. Truly,truly astonishing. Well deserved mind you.

"I have lived in Wales for twelve years. Poland first Wales second".

He was talking about football. Couldn't argue with that. I feel the same way. You may live in a different country and be respectful of it and indeed in my case wish it to be independent but the football team you support is not the same as changing supermarket.

Both men extended their hands to me which I shook. "Your team did very well. I hope they beat Portugal now".

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was born in England (aka Football laughing stock).

Then they left. You know it's made me want to learn Polish even more now.

I've finished the biography of Thierry Henry by Phillippe Auclair. Personally my view of it reminded me about my view of Paris in that it was a slight disappointment. Not I stress that the French capital is a bad place. Far from it. But I'd been seduced by its image on books,films and TV. In reality although there were some obviously stunning sights and monuments it was also more like London than I'd expected (I will make the caveat that obviously I didn't see all of Paris - mainly the "touristy" bits).

The point is that for me this book, written by a French Arsenal supporting football journalist living in Britain, promised more than I felt it delivered.

It's not bad and does have high points (such as Henry's famous handball incident against the Republic of Ireland and the parts about his early career). Like the Paris I saw though it's high landmarks do not hide that for the most part it's not all that different to other similar books.

I'll go to Porthcawl library tomorrow to find out what my next football book will be.

Until the next time.