How Kenneth Williams Spoilt A Susan Sontag Essay, Why Broadway Can Prove West Ham Fans Don't Have High Expectations And Other Ramblings Of Another Too Early On A Sunday Morning Insomnia Post

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well as I'm writing this it's 5:56am on Easter Sunday morning. I'm not working today, I have no real plans and yet here I am awake. Insomnia rules again.

Have finished Susan Sontag's Penguin pocket book of essays I bought last week. All very interesting and intellectual. Her essay on "Camp" clearly showed her knowledge and intellectual breath. Trouble is, when I think of "Camp" in relation to a manner of behaviour I think of someone like Kenneth Williams or  Larry Grayson which she probably never heard of being American. So it was difficult to look at it in a more reflective, calmer mode.

That of course is my problem. My other problem is that she is far more cleverer than I am. When (and not if) I approach a Susan Sontag book again, I have to get my brain into fifth gear from page one. That as a reader is my responsibility. Whatever a Susan Sontag book is, I've learnt that she demands attention from page one.

West Ham won yesterday (hooray) but a lot of focus has been put on the club recently due to it's poor performance in previous games (including against Swansea City, which living in South Wales I was reminded of constantly) and the protests against the board.

When the mainstream media looked at the situation they got people, including ex manager Harry Redknapp (a manager who I did respect when he was at West Ham. After all under him you didn't have to look at the bottom of the table to find out where your team was) who agreed with the idea that the club's supporters had high expectations.

Rubbish.

West Ham fans are not glory seekers. They are fans because they believe passionately in their team. All they expect is for the team to put in a shift. To make an effort. To do the best they can.

And if you don't believe me then I would refer you to Broadway and the origin of the West Ham familiar chant "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". What other chant anywhere in sports would have something like these lines referring to blowing bubbles.

"...just like my dreams they fade and die. Fortune's always hiding. I've looked everywhere"

Is this the song of a team supported by people with high expectations? No. We are West Ham supporters. We are realists. But we also care. And it's the fact that we care which is what confuses the media and ex players to think we have ideas above reality.

It's now 7:35am. The sun is actually shining. Wife/daughter are asleep. Perhaps we should go out. But wife has bought beef and is actually looking forward to cooking for lunch and, well, how can I argue with that?

Must admit I do enjoy riling right wing Americans with regard to gun control. After all the rest of the world thinks that their gun laws are mad and yet somehow they're right. Tell you what? They don't like me.

One of them pointed to a particular graph of homicide rates. Just four countries in the graph HE TWEETED were worse than America's. The rest were better than the USA.I wonder why. These people really are thick. Thick and with guns in their possession.

Well wife and daughter awake. So time to close off for now.

Until the next time.