HOW I CAUGHT COVID
I tested positive for coronavirus yesterday. I started to feel unwell – like I had flu – on Sunday afternoon. After a night felling too hot and too cold, Monday morning I had a temperature of 38.3°C. I went to my local walk-through testing clinic later that afternoon. It was a self-test. If I’d known, I would have ordered a test-at-home kit, although I wouldn’t have got my result as quick.
Read moreCHAOS AND CONFUSION
If you thought last year was bad…. No one could have foreseen this! British coastguard sued by French charity for failing to save drowned refugees. Broccoli and cauliflower thrown away. A shortage of lorry drivers. Renationalised energy companies.
Read moreNATIONALISING SAUSAGES
Navy gunboats defending our fish from the French. An army of Sikhs feeding European lorry drivers caught up in Kent. Shortages of broccoli and lettuce. Nationalising sausages doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea, now, does it?
Read moreHIGH TRAFFIC NEIGHBOURHOOD
Took me an hour (as opposed to 10 minutes) to drive my lad home from school this afternoon, thanks in part to the High Traffic Neighbourhood (‘Improving access for HGVs’) in Southall ‘Green’. Like a rat, I tried the side streets and back roads option and found those to be jammed, too, and Scotts Road - although confusingly still two-way throughout - is now No Entry from the eastern end.
Read moreA SUCCESSFUL HOME DELIVERY AND THE LOCKDOWN/LOCK-IN.
My second son was born late Saturday night (what would normally have been my beer night) two weeks ago, after a short, but intense, labour. He was delivered at home by two brilliant midwives, who were fully protected courtesy of customised #tinap bin bag aprons, unused clean air protest dust masks, and disposable gloves my wife stocked up on back in February when – without any scientific advice whatsoever – she somehow accurately foresaw the current coronavirus global pandemic somehow reaching the UK’s shores (and airports).
Read moreRETURN TO WORK
I returned to work last week after my extended absence due to respiratory illness, which may or may not be related to three years of breathing the poisonous gasworks' air. I find I now have to literally climb over two rough sleepers camped outside the door of my workplace in order to get in. There is no more space in the nearby doorway, and the doorway around the side entrance is similarly occupied.
Read moreTRIGGER VOTE FOR SHARMA
In July 2019, I attended a public meeting with Public Health England to discuss air pollution problems created by the development of the old gasworks site. At this meeting, I asked Public Health England if it is true that people with Asian and African heritage are genetically more at risk from poisoning from naphthalene – one of the main causes of the stink coming from the gasworks site. Do you know what they said?
Read moreSOUTHALL UNDER SIEGE: THE NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL
‘A lack of scrutiny,’ says John Freeman, Regulatory Services Officer at Ealing Council. He’s talking about lessons to be learned from the council’s response to the new asphalt plant built in neighbouring Hillingdon borough in 2014. ‘We didn’t expect there to be so much odour from a new building, or so many complaints.’ Moving swiftly on. Oppressive odour The highly contaminated old gasworks site in Southall has been kicking up a stink, too.
Read moreTAKING THE PISS
Last night I arranged to meet a beautiful young woman and we spent an hour together alone in a dingy bedsit. Two weeks ago, I reported a crime. A broken window in an empty first floor flat, a couple of empty cans of Stella Artois in a small black plastic carrier bag, and a toilet bowlful of urine – the water tank had been drained and capped weeks ago, so there was no running water with which to flush away the evidence, or remove the stench.
Read moreINCONSIDERATE CONSTRUCTOR
Lorry driver on his phone while leaving ‘Southall Village’ building site, right next to school entrance during school run. Got a load more verbals from the driver and his colleagues on site - ‘Did he hit anyone?’, ‘He doesn’t work for us!’ All part of the Considerate Constructors Scheme, aka Couldn’t Care Less Scam.
Read moreSOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND
Or, why I became a soccer manager. Not Top 100, SM or even football-related. Three years out of date. Depending on this last stab at pop stardom, I will be resigning from my post as Hamburg boss in the New Year, to focus - Pablo/Dani Osvaldo-style - on my musical career.
Read moreSAME OLD ENGLAND
I’ve been writing (if that’s the right word) about the England football team elsewhere since 2006, and this is basically the theme: (even when we win) England are shit. If that’s not depressing enough in itself, and you are curious for more, here’s a little summary of what to expect should you enter the rabbit hole: The best place to start is my preview of England’s ill-fated plan to get to the final of the 2012 World Cup in South Africa under the guidance of disciplinarian Italian capo Fabio Capello.
Read moreHOW TO BE A TOP FOOTBALL MANAGER
Leaked documents and video reveal the FA’s shortlist and assessment interview questions for the England manager’s job. Stuart ‘Psycho’ Pearce, who presided over some of the least attacking and creative Manchester City and England U21 sides in living memory, was asked to give some expert coaching advice on how to play more attacking and creative football in line with England’s DNA blueprint. In a rambling and incoherent response, he finished off by reminiscing about how he used to psych out opponents.
Read more“Mum, passing me a small parcel wrapped in Xmas paper: ‘I didn’t get you anything for Xmas.’ Me: ‘What’s this then?’ Mum: ‘Oh, just socks.'”
Read moreHad hearing test on Friday. 20% hearing loss in left ear. Ear canal is wafer thin in places, meaning wax build up. That, or a brain tumour.
Read more12 week old son just laughed properly for the first time. Now he can’t stop.
Read more3 days into my new job. Company policy says staff must remain upbeat. Loving every single minute of my return to wage slavery.
Read moreBaby son is one month old. Feels like we’ve had him five minutes and forever.
Read moreA NEW INGERLAND
I wasn’t even born when we won the World Cup I’m forty-six now and all hope I’ve given up My wife asks me now ‘Why don’t you be a better fan?’ But all the players I loved at school already failed for Ingerland I loved you then, but I don’t love you still I bet you’d beat Portugal, but it ended nil-nil I don’t feel bad about letting you go
Read moreWHATEVER HAPPENED TO... JIMMY CARTER?
A little under three years ago I eulogised about Jimmy Carter (the footballer, not the peanut farmer) in a musical response to 20lb Sounds eulogising about Jimmy Carter (the peanut farmer, not the footballer). I wondered why Dan, the band’s Liverpool-supporting singer-songwriter, had neglected the opportunity to write about a player who is widely acknowledged (from a cursory search of fan forums) as one of Liverpool’s worst ever signings? Two years later (thanks to the wonder of the internet, and possibly also the wonder of Doug Whitfield and his Music Manumit Podcast), I received a reply:
Read moreWife: “I don’t like the words. I don’t like the music. You sound like a hooligan. I couldn’t care less about fucking Jimmy Carter.”
Read moreTeaching REM’s The One I Love to 7 yr old. Had to change the words to ‘The One-Eyed Bug’.
Read moreWife says we should have named our cat Bjork. Because she’s small, cute and makes funny noises.
Read moreEating cold turkey, ham, pork pie, Lincolnshire sausage and haslet. Reminiscing about pig’s chap, chine and brawn.
Read moreWhy are toasters and smoke alarms still so stupid?
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