Leafy

On Friday evening, I acted against my own prejudices, I stepped into the unknown, I watched men fiddle with balls.

On Friday evening, I engaged with the world of village cricket.

It was really rather pleasant.

Lashed

The British Artists' Football Tournament:

Saturday, 23rd May, 2009.

We played well - won 4, drew 0, lost 2, during first phase of the tournament. Both defeats were to the eventual finalists, 0-1 and 0-1. The wins were 3-1, 2-1, 6-3 and 3-2. I scored twice (one back heel, one outrageous first-time lash - following good team play down the left and a quick squared cross). Largely, though, I played a defensive, sweeperish role. In the semi-final, we drew 0-0 against Eastside Projects (Birmingham), then lost on penalties (*whispers* though I scored mine - hard and low). And so we were knocked out. We call that an honourable exit - for self and team (AirSpace). It was pleasing to hear newfound and amusing support from the sidelines. As with all teams and most players, our attitude was good, '...appreciate the effort that others have put in to making the day happen, now get on with it and play fair'. The tournament was won by another Birmingham team, 'Jibbering' - a collective of street artists and DJs - they played well, and used their squad intelligently. As we drove back up the M6, the mood was good - we'd done ourselves justice.

Number of teams who participated: 7
Number of teams who failed to show: 3
Number of instances of dissent / bad attitude: 2
Number of my legs experiencing thigh strain (Sunday - Tuesday): 2
Best kit design of the tournament: AC Tortured Birmingham (white polos, with AC-style logo)
Best team name of the tournament: Real Worcester
Number of natural left-footers in our team: 2
Number of miles to venue: 42.7
Mark out of 10 for satisfaction with the day: 10
Minutes delayed in getting to venue (Bank Holiday traffic): 20
Number of people who've seemed interested in my in-person reportage: 3
Number who haven't...: 3

There was a photographer on site for the whole tournament, though I have yet to get access to their handiwork. Thus, you'll have to imagine it... no no no, more attractive than that, surely.

Embodied by self, Saturday was a good day for north east football(ers in exile).

Sunday wasn't.

[ - Photographs may follow - ]

Left-sided

I'm feeling a bit nervous - got a football tournament tomorrow, which offers three possible outcomes:-

A - Creditable display by self and team (have been trying to pace physical exertion this week, for fittest finest preparation), leading to feelings of contentment.

B - The whole thing is a badly organised shambles (teams from all over England will converge on the West Midlands for it), leading to feelings of frustration.

C - Our team just doesn't gel on the day (we bomb), leading to feelings of frustration (variety II).

Aim: Eat well, sleep well, be sure to take footballing brain as I leave the house in the morning.

If Tuesday's training session was anything to go by, we just might be ok.

Logo

Alex missed school today - truly, a heavy cold, albeit with exaggerated symptoms.

After lunch:

Alex: I didn't much like the tuna mayo.

Shane: I thought you liked that.

Alex: Well, I do, but I added some raspberries** and it wasn't good.

Shane: Tuna, mayo and raspberries...

Alex: - not good.

Shane: Mm.

He'll be back at school tomorrow, and so I'll not be setting number quiz challenges, justifying jigsawing 'down-time', or contriving logo design work* for an eight year old. I will miss him, though. His singing about not being allowed to play on the Playstation or to watch any more television - all to the tune of Eye of the Tiger, well that was the high point of the day. I believe the term is 'LOL'.

* We support creative endeavour...
** Up to a point.

Litigate

I've changed my mind.

That series of reflections that I was going to post (about reacquainting with The Artist), well they'll have to be sidelined - perhaps to be revived and immersed, veiled or otherwise fronted, in future blog posting, or some such. Now is not the time to write of those reflections. Ongoing dialogue is shifting what and how I understand of my meeting with The Artist, of what we did and what we didn't talk about. Trying to write about this would be hard, and trying to read that would be really frustrating.

And so, more learnings.

Apologies for the obliqueness - episodic and thematic. Maybe one day I'll start writing really crisp, no-holds-barred, let it all hang out type stuff. One day, maybe.

In the mean-time, just be glad that I'm not clubbing you with poetry.

Love

Oh, forgive me. It's just that, well, I've had a week or so of being all in touch with my feelings. I think this comes from peak, or rich, emotional experiences.

I've embraced the past, I've stroked the head of a dying old bird, and I've come to understand things that I hadn't realised that I'd misunderstood. And so it goes.

Where am I going with this? Where indeed. Ah yes... For this month's posts, I'm going to pepper you with tiny extracts - dialogue, oddments of reflection, insights, and the stuff of general gaping, that came from my meeting with my old pal - The Artist, as mentioned previously.

As a starter, I'll say that we met up in Manchester - last Saturday - a warm, sunny day. We met at eleven on the dot, in the top floor cafe of Afflecks Palace, where we drank earl grey and ate toast, before moving on to the first of a few pubs. Approaching from the right (I hadn't spotted the second entrance to the cafe), The Artist called out my name and offered an open hand. I smiled, chorused back his name, and opened up for a hug. Already, 15 years on, things had changed.

Kith

I'm becoming reacquainted with a friend from the past - one of those ones that you should never lose touch with, and that you did kind of seems bizarre. To me - not on Facebook, blogging under a pseud' - this is a big deal.

Related, there has been emailing. I've received the gift offer of a pastel drawing of my sister that was done in 1993, when she was a small 8 year old - it's her 24th birthday today (the gift offer came from the old friend, An Artist).

It seems that a meeting - in Manchester - will follow. Men will hug.

Kingdom

Particularly Relevant to the Beautiful People.

Perhaps overdoing it on the Take-Opportunity-To-Get-Away-And-Relax-Goddamit-Relax front, my return from the north east was but a stepping stone to a dive south (just don't even go there, sniggerers).

On Saturday morning, I took breakfast at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park - with its leafy green outlook to the west. Deftly egg-dipping a hash brown, I was roused by an unusual bird call. And thus, I spotted - clear as the blue sky - my first ever wild ring-necked parakeet. There were many of them. And later, a trio came and perched in the tree of a property next door to where I was staying.

It's good when the Red Deer faces competition for my weekly 'Most Favourite Bit of Nature' prize.

Other observation, of human nature: In the cosmopolitan centres - Manchester, London, Stoke-on-Trent, it is easy to feel surrounded by the body beautiful. On fine sunny days, the work that goes into the body beautiful is there to be seen - the doggedly determined clomping round the park, the gritty extra lap on the 21-speed racer, the comedy of the power walk. Maybe it's because much in their lives is taut, and edgy, and competitive, and all a bit brow-furrowing, but a lot of these Body Beauties look like they ought to relax a bit. Look at the ring-necked parakeet or the red deer, their's are paces that seem to be much more well-adjusted - culturally-speaking.

I'm also liking deadwood - it's likely to be a contender for this week's prize. Never to be overlooked, though, is the mid-evening goldfinch rhapsody.

Keepin' On

Alex joined his Dad on Tuesday, so I took the opportunity to visit the clan up in County Durham. Meanwhile, Emma continued to fend off the rockets and shells of writing hard stuff, and of herself. County Durham seemed like a safe distance.

The Wexford siblings converged on the parental home and, as ever, I enjoyed the ferocious banter and acidic put-you-downs that we count as love.

As sister and brother discussed music festivals that did and respectively didn't interest them, I recalled something utterly inconsequential that I thought might interest them.

Shane: You know Neil Tennant?

Sister: Mm.

Shane: He's got a house in County Durham.

Sister: How d' you know that?

Shane: He mentioned it in an interview that I listened to. In fact, it's an interview that's upstairs right now - on the iPod that's under my pillow.

Sister: Hold on! You've got an interview with Neil Tennant - from The Pet Shop Boys - under your pillow?

Shane: Yeah. It was from Front -

Sister: Other Brother, Shane's got an interview with Neil Tennant under his pillow!

Brother: I did wonder, like.

Shane: It was from Front Row.

Sister: Mutha, (pointing) that one's got an interview with Neil Tennant under his pillow.

Mother (distractedly): It's 2009 - each unto his own.

Shane: Hold on a minute. I just -

Sister: Fatha - Shane's got an interview with Neil Tennant under his pillow.

Dad: Who's Neil Tennant?

Sister: Never mind.

It amused me.

It was also amusing to hear that an old familiar of brother and I was currently appearing on The Apprentice. Sister crossed paths with (not so) young (any more) Phil, in Durham, at the weekend. A nice lad.

And apart from foregoing Porto versus Manchester United (0 - 1), in order to take in Durham City versus Woodley Sports (5 - 0), the only other item of note concerned maternal grandmother.

I've got used to the further extensions of frailty that the old bird exhibits - each visit presenting new expressions of vulnerability, fallibility, fading - very much reminiscent of her husband's end of life. Entering the second week of a stay at Bishop Auckland's General Hospital, the violence of grandma's Parkinson's Disease - the tics, the strains, the jolts and jerks, they seemed to show no mercy. Memory was playing tricks, too. I felt like I was talking to the echo of a person.

This morning, on the drive back to the Midlands, the subject of jolts and jerks, tics and strains returned. Would I like to join Alex and his Dad at a local theatre, to watch Thriller Live - this evening. It was one of those questions where what the boy wants to hear, is probably the best answer. So here I am, jaded of an early Thursday evening, waiting to Beat It. Meanwhile, I hear another shell fall as Emma grinds on. The theatre seems like a safe distance.

Killer

On the phone:

Dad: ... aye, there's a load o' people 'round 'ere that's died recently - not old either.

Shane: Mm. It's these hard northern men, and their hard northern lives.

Dad: (sagely) Aye.

Shane: With their hard northern kids, and their hard northern wives.

Dad: (pause) I dunno about that bit, like.