New Year's Eve Blow-Out

And so it’s the end of the year and I guess a good time to write up what I’ve done these past twelve months – and in particular these past four months since I moved to Mexico (given that I haven’t written a single private personal word this whole time) – and maybe clean out the pipes or the mind or the system or whatever the hell I am.

Blah blah blah…I guess that’s a little something to get the fingers working, some kind of opening paragraph, some little…

So, yeah, now it’s New Year’s Eve and I live in Cabo San Lucas and I’m a school teacher and it’s sunny and warm all the time and – somewhere in there there’s a distant memory of being on this cold wet rock called England, and also of being this human being boy called “Rory” who wandered and wondered all existential and crazy and thought lots about dying and was really kind of miserable and I guess in the wrong place and –

Well, yes, it all pretty much disappeared when I took the plunge and flew to Mexico the beginning of August on not much more than a desperate whim and –

Is it worth looking at those times and reasons and everything that led up to that?

Exeter

I was living in Exeter. I’d been trying to go there most of the year and I guess I eventually did, after continually telling everyone it was my favourite place in England, and, it’s true, I liked it.

I remember one day walking down by the quay and having literal tears come rolling down my cheeks for the single solitary momentary contemplation of how nice it was, and how groovy to be in that city of outdoor folk riding their bicycles and jumping in canoes and girls like Colorado girls not wearing make-up but liking to get rough and dirty and truly digging nature in their North Face clobber and –

I was getting into it. Playing soccer. Working my little job. Biking to the Tesco and buying my medjool dates and feeling kind of lonesome and –

It’s all distant history now; I can barely remember it.

I tried to make the best of it, but something happened once I rented a real actual room and got to work on these computerised projects I was into and, I guess, the honeymoon and novelty wore off.

I still had this sense of being in the wrong place. My dreams and messages spoke to me of it, told me I in the wrong job, as they had been doing for months.

But what was the right job? Surely not the school in Mexico that had been emailing me for the best part of six months repeatedly asking me to come work for them, despite my best attempts to put them off, to point out my lack of qualifications, to say, “well, I’m sure there must be other people out there you want to interview, let’s check back in a little ways down the line.”

But they kept being insistent. And I kept stalling. And the feeling and thought of that job never went away, until I finally sat down in my room and tossed a dear old sweet I Ching – you know me: can’t do anything possibly reckless without first consulting an ancient Chinese oracle – and the I Ching pointed me to the chapter, “Nourishment” (or “Nurturing”; I can’t remember which) and – well, you know me again – that was enough of a “yes” to have me immediately heading for the email and sending a message to the nice lady saying, “okay, yes, let’s do it; I’ll come” – and life got pointed in a whole new direction.

It was interesting how, as soon as I did that, all my connection and fondness and interest in making something happen in Exeter just dissolved. All of a sudden, beautiful and wonderful though it was, I had absolutely no desire to be there. We were done and we were through. It’s still the nicest place I know in England – and if I stretch my memory a little to what now feels like a past life, I can picture its loveliness – but…

Exeter. Done. No more. Over.

And pretty much immediately I left, and zoomed up to Yorkshire, and spend a couple of weeks in the bosom of the family being taken care of and putting everything straight for the coming journey ahead.

I jettisoned all possessions, leaving only one tiny folder of old school work (from the eighties) and necessary papers.

I had nothing left, save what I was going to take with me as carry-on on the plane.

Nothing in the whole entire world.

That’s a pretty nice feeling.

Yorkshire and London and maybe elsewhere and then ZOOM

I was with my mum for her birthday at the end of June; I remember that much. I was finishing a project or two of work for my chum and his consultancy agency, late nights and early mornings and mucho computerising, wot.

Yorkshire was nice but I think I mostly spent it in my room debating flat earthers and foolishly trying to point out to them the folly of their ways (a very bad habit I’d gotten into while living in Exeter and distracting magnificently from my work).

They’re a very crazy bunch – but perhaps not quite as crazy as the supposedly non-crazy ones who try to explain to them why they’re wrong.

A Grinch, I tells ya! Just let the children have their little Santa Claus and be done with it: that’s what I invariably decide, and rarely manage to stick to.

It just seems so obvious, you know – but the CT mind is strong, and its follies clearly way beyond my understanding and ability to deal with…

So I was doing that in Yorkshire – and eating good, parent and step-parent cooked food – and being asked nothing of me – and sleeping in a large comfy bed – and looking out the awesome window over a stunning green Yorkshire valley (when I could pull myself away from the computer) – and also just biding my time while waiting for Mexican bureaucracy wheels to turn and hook me up with a visa-making appointment at the embassy, plus awaiting something of a high school reunion back in the ol’ town where I grew up, with chums some not seen for nigh on twenty years.

There were about eight of us in the end, including my very first girlfriend, who I hadn’t seen since I was maybe nineteen or so, and I guess it was fun. Certainly, lots of laughing happened and cajoling and stories. One thing that was nice, I noticed, was people didn’t bother much with talking about work or achievements or all that blah blah – just skipped straight to the jokes and banter and frivolity.

Still, next day I woke up feeling like I wanted to kill myself more than ever, and I can’t work out whether it was something to do with the night, or maybe because I’d slept uncomfortable in a cemetery about three quarters of a mile from where I grew up, and the next day was a horrendous one.

In any case, lackaday, I jumped on a megabus to London and threw myself on a good and kind friend who’s a champion at tolerating my grumpiness and woes – one of the few and only ones, I guess, ‘cos I pretty much never ever share them, and also don’t really know many who would have the stomach for very much of it – and, I don’t know what happened next, but I guess I probably went for a visit or two to Kent, and had my bike stolen for foolishly leaving it outside, and finally did the embassy business and had Mexican work visa in hand, and then all that was left to do was go half-crazy for a week trying to buy a last minute, reasonably-priced one-way ticket to San Jose del Cabo for the beginning of August – and finally I did.

Like I say: ancient history. Funny to dredge up those woes and feelings of lostness and crisis.

A good idea?

Hoo! I don’t know and I don’t care – ‘cos after four or five months or not typing ANYTHING, jus’ typing WHATEVER is all good by me.

What a feeling, huh? It’s all grand, even when it’s dirt.

Mexican plane ticket

So, yeah, even magic Rory with his magic ticket-finding fingers struggled on this one: spent entire days searching and working on all the different machinations and beat his brow at not quite buying a very last minute ticket to Vancouver, only discovering it three hours before departure, and not acting quick enough to buy it and make the ninety minute journey to the airport with full certainty of getting there in time.

Still, I finally got one – a holiday-maker flight from Manchester to Cancun I planned to ditch the return portion for, and then a cheap one-way on a Mexican airline over to Cabo – and the price wasn’t all that bad, given I bought it like two days in advance.

A train up to Bicester. A meeting with a friend who happened to be driving from there to up past Manchester. A bit of thumbing and walking round unknown Lancashire villages and a great, groovy, out-of-his-way ride to the airport, and there I spent the night eating my last meal of English bread and cheese and sleeping groggy in the beautifully lit, perfectly noisy all-night airport lounges – and if I was feeling anything, I know not what it was: just forward motion; just a man on an airport moving walkway.

Everything was done. The right thing was happening. I was on my way to Mexico and what need for thought?

And the next day: one last British challenge – for these bloody, ever-cheapening airlines were now offering me only five kilos of carry-on luggage, and I had something more like twenty, and obviously checking in, and paying the associated charge, was out of the question.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve checked in a bag, and I don’t think I’ve ever done it on a flight where I had to pay for it. So…

Here’s a fun tip you’re welcome to use yourself: what you do is, go to the toilet before you check in; hide most of your stuff in the toilet trash can underneath the plastic sack; go check in and let them weigh your little red trolley-wheeled suitcase (which is by now 75% empty, since the thing itself weighs probably four kilos); do that business and then go wheeling back to the toilet; get there like literally seconds before the cleaner goes in, and race in in front of her; relievingly retrieve your stuff, and load up the suitcase once more; scuttle past the check in desk, and hope they don’t notice anything; and climb on board, safe in the knowledge you’ve done your utmost bit for world peace and global harmony, et cetera.

And whaddya know? I only went and got upgraded to ‘Premium Class’ too.

Extra legroom. Better food. A pillow and a blanket and even one of those lovely eyeshades and a few tiny bottles of cream I’ll never find reason to use, just like it was in the old days.

I tells ya: it just gets better and better and better.

Mexico

I landed in Cancun and –

But wait: should I maybe look back again at the whole seven months before all that? Think about England? Think about the weirdness of my year, which I’m now given to understand most people think a truly horrendous year ‘cos of Bowie and Trump and Brexit and Carrie Fisher and –

Ah, man, I had the horrors too, right up until I made my Mexico decision – but now I’ve spent the last four months in shorts and in the sun, and am currently sitting by a pool still in shorts and barefoot and in a t-shirt on the last day of the year – after five days over Christmas of laying in hot springs pool in my still beautiful canyon and digging all – well, yeah, 2016 don’t really feel all that bad to me, now it’s done. Now that my existential horrors of those first lost weird six months are ancient past life history.

Was I wrong in going back there sixteen months ago? Or was it just that I needed to suffer the doom to the utmost and final degree, to get me out of there once and truly for all?

I dunno: maybe both is true. But I’ll tell you this: there was a time, after I’d been here not too long, and school was kind of kicking my arse, and I wasn’t sure I could handle the teaching lark, and was even thinking some of England – there was this morning when I woke up from one of my timeless recurring dreams of yesteryear: when, in my dream, I’d found myself disembarking a plane in England – and then pretty much immediately found myself running around frantic trying to rectify the mistake, wondering what the hell I’d done in going back there, and feeling awful at how far I was from delightful Mexico.

It was the selfsame dream I’d had several times over when I was first at the hot springs canyon in ’99, still holding onto notions of going back to England and being ‘normal’, as I’d long been planning, and still not fully surrendered to the entire crazy magic trip that Mexico had lined up for me.

The dreams were awful – I was always so grateful to feverishly stick my head out the tent and realise I was – thank God! – still there in beautiful Mexican nature. And they only went away when I flung up my hands and said, okay! okay! I’ll stay.

And how wonderful to be visited again by that dream, as a silencer of even such a slight stirring of doubt, and maybe something more too…

The previous August had been a horror show, more lost and uncertain than I ever was in my life. I had no idea what to do, and wasn’t sure if escaping Mexico’s clutches was the right thing or not. I prayed and prayed for an answer: my usually infallible dreams gave me nothing, and what signs there were were inconclusive and could have been interpreted either way.

In the end, I went back, for lack of any clear other direction (and also being dirt broke, and all travelled out) and, despite the misery and hardships of that last year in England, there were still a lot of good and – you know me – seemingly pre-ordained and all in the grand scheme of things happenings too.

Just because it’s miserable, I guess, doesn’t mean it’s not meant to be.

Nor that escaping that misery, finally, when all karma and debts are paid; all desires exhausted; all necessaries achieved and accomplishments, ends tied up, preoccupations cleared – nor that that’s not the right thing too.

In any case, that dream was doubly wonderful to me, ‘cos not only did it mean that – yay! – there I was once more, in right place, right time, with faith and trust enough not to doubt it, but also this other subtler (and possibly invented) layer of meaning to the whole thing, predicated on the makes-sense-to-me notion that, well, couldn’t and wouldn’t Life have just as easily given me such a dream last year, when I was longing and sweating for it so much in my awful confusion?

And in a word: yes, in my philosophy, Life could and surely would have, had it been what was needed at the time.

So: England was the right thing. Everything that happened there was the right thing. Not taking the job the year before, or going elsewhere in Mexico, or not flying back to England was the right thing.

In a nutshell: everything was right. And after such an awful year of never feeling right, of always longing for the feeling of being in the right place, doing the right thing, and of being so constantly conscious of the absence of that…

Well, yes, gratitude and happy are the words. And smiling now at the thought of it and the breeze that just blew across my bare arms, and the rising of my thankful, heart-bursting chest.

It’s a mad life, you know – but a good ‘un.

Smilies

Now please note that I’ve probably wanted to end every little section with a smiley, but haven’t done so. Also, there were maybe a few other times I’ve resisted the urge. That’s interesting to me. Maybe it marks a new direction in my ‘writing’; I do tend to overuse them somewhat.

But, you know, typing makes me smile (he resists once more)…

Next

Something else happened that I can’t quite remember. Maybe I was going to say something about being back in England, and the things I accomplished there. Oh yes – a bit part of it was, believe it or not, my whole hang-up and preoccupation with being a football referee, and the weird bizarre idea that I could make up the ladder (my usual pride and ambition).

It’s funny and weird and bizarre to mention it now because, although I have a remembrance of being a chap for whom it was once a huge part of his life – and, indeed, often fuelled thoughts of England during my California and Colorado days – it’s really not something I think about at all anymore.

Weird that, that a desire and a mission and a plan and a real huge part of a person’s life can, once taken to its logical extreme, can so thoroughly and utterly dissolve that it doesn’t even figure or register and necessitates some heavy reminding from a part of me that is almost someone else to get me to realise that, not just ten decades or ten years, but ten months ago, it was pretty much the biggest and most important thing in my life.

Well, yes, thank God I went back to the UK and did it as much as I could and did and saw with my own two eyes and feet and whistle-blowing mouth that I wasn’t actually all that cut out for it after all – certainly not to take it the professional big wage, semi-fame, long holidays level that my foolish ambition had once longed for and – yup, if I wasn’t writing this it wouldn’t be in my head at all.

And another thing…

Eyes

One of the really awful things about going back to England – about going back to Europe actually, given that it started in Paris, before I’d even made it back to the UK – was that my eyes went mental. Suddenly everything was completely blurred. Signs at a distance I was reading without a problem I could no longer read. Faces and places and –

It was wicked sad. I couldn’t understand it. I thought my laser eye surgery had worn off. Or that I’d done something bad by taking too much LSD that one night.

Also, I thought maybe it was something to do with my leaving Mexico. That maybe I’d not only abandoned this fair country, but that I’d abandoned my soul; left my spiritual path; jettisoned ‘the way’, and the way that I’d fought so hard to rediscover after all those years, by breaking into and repeatedly crossing America; something like that.

I went to opticians. I went back to my laser folk. My eyes were getting worse, and seemingly worse by the day.

I got some contact lenses.

I cried in my soul.

And when I returned to Mexico, I remember standing in the awful Wal-Mart – I never dreamed I would end up as a man who shopped at Wal-Mart! – and realised I could barely read the big bold signs not even twenty feet away.

In my classroom, kids’ faces were a blur.

I couldn’t read the board from the back of the room.

And then one day, a few months ago, with me barely noticing, I realised I could see again. I could drive at night. I could read the grocery store signs, and see my kids’ faces.

So make of that what you will.

Where was I?

Sort of wondering whether to type more about England. Remembering other things fulfilled during my time back there, but also remembering them somewhat sensitive subjects, and ones I really should have learned by now it’s best not to wave around in public.

Like the time I…

And the thing with…

And – oh yeah! – that other one, on…

And…

I guess we can nutshell it: I guess we can say that – well, what I said above: that things and desires and ideas and notions and all the rest of it seemed to have gotten cleared up and, maybe it was right and maybe it was wrong – I don’t know! I don’t know! – but, when you get right down to it, I sit here today a happy chappy – and jolly happy for typing! – and groovily grateful and even heart-gushingly thankful that I took this plunge and that I came back once more to Baja – after I swore last year that I was done, no more! – and that that horrible feeling of being in the wrong place, of not knowing the right place, or carrying it day after day after day has gone.

That, you know, is pretty much what my life is about: feeling in the right place, doing the right thing, and avoiding feeling the opposite.

And the last four months – though, don’t get me wrong, not constantly ecstatic or perfect or without their own woes too – have been a testament to that.

Amen, you know. Thank you.

I guess I feel kind of rescued.

I guess it’s not necessarily happiness or comfort that matters, but just that feeling of doing the right thing.

For me that’s what it seems to be, anyway.

And enough of the abstract, more of the –

Well what more is there to say? That I became a school teacher in Mexico? That I woke up at 4am on my first day of classes not having a clue what I was going to do, or how I was going to do it, totally unsure whether I was cut out, whether I might not freeze, whether I would last even two weeks, and maybe let everyone down?

That I wear a nice pair of Costco trousers, and a checked Mexican Costco shirt tucked into my nice Mexican school teacher’s trousers, and brown shoes and a belt?

That the kids at my school are all so unbelievably lovely, and that in four months, in a school of 150+ teenagers, I haven’t heard one single cross word, seen a single argument, heard one angry raised voice, save my own?

They boggle my mind, these kids. They make me question things I thought about reality. Things like…

Teenagers, huh? They’re supposed to be difficult, right? And they’ve got raging hormones, and they can’t help themselves. Puberty. Rebellion. All kinds of confusion going on.

But Mexican kids have hormones too, have puberty – and yet there’s none of the confrontation and aggression and rebellion that I’ve seen in England, in the US, in pretty much everywhere else.

They’re just cool. They’re happy. In my school, literally every single kid is friends with every single other kid, across all ages and backgrounds.

There’s something more going on here than just hormones and puberty – for if these kids can deal with things and express themselves maturely and eloquently and talk without anger, why can’t ours?

It’s an echo of something I’ve been saying for years: the only angry people I’ve ever seen in Mexico were the gringos, were moaning Brits at the airport on their way home.

There’s something in the bones down here. Something we don’t have, and aren’t likely to ever get, no matter how hard we try with our spiritual posturing and endless meditations and babbles about love and peace and oneness.

I’m reminded often of an event when I was in Mexico City back in 2009, staying in the very wonderful and exclusive and fairly European neighbourhood of Condesa. The woman of the couple I was staying had taken her dog to be shampooed, etc – they all get their dogs shampooed in Condesa; and the dogs always come back wearing neckerchiefs around their neck, which I guess I interpreted as being some hip and cool and chic middle-class sort of thing, but perhaps it’s not – and, anyway, since we were all off somewhere important she’d explained to the guy that she absolutely and without failure had to have the dog by, let’s say, noon and noon sharp and no way could it be later than noon, ‘cos we had things to do, and must be off.

Anyway, we get there just before noon, and of course the dog’s not only not finished being seen to, but not even started. And the bloke just smiles and says, oh, no problem, we’ll do him now, and the woman comes out and says what’s what and everything’s just accepted, life goes on.

But my English brain was bubbling and boiling. How could she let them get away with this? Surely she was angry? Surely she would be demanding some form of compensation? There was no way she should be paying for this, or the next one, or the one after that. And the manager must know. And letters must be written. And, if not heads must roll, at least a grovelling apology and maybe a firing or two.

I asked her, aren’t you angry? – and all she said was, what would be the point in that?

It wasn’t forced. It wasn’t stuffing it down and breathing to eleven and muttering one’s mantra.

It was natural. It was, as I’ve said, and will keep on saying, in her bones.

I marvelled, as I marvel today at the kids at my school who show me, again and again, that it’s in their bones and, much as I try, and far as I’ve come, it’s not in mine. And in that, the other great lesson for –

Well, you know, you become a teacher and you have foolish ideas about this and that, such as all the other extra curriculum things I can teach them beyond grammar and literature and – hitchhiking! life! camping and nature! and all the great groovy things I learned sitting at the feet of saints and crossing my legs alone atop mountains and –

Yeah, that sort of thing: the things that were so valuable to me when I was finally learning something useful, around my early to mid-twenties.

How to process emotions. How to deal with projection. How to not be pissy and petty and passive aggressive and proactive and all those other useful things that begin with p plus other letters besides…

But I spend a few weeks with them and I realise they’ve already get it all. They know this stuff, not ‘cos somebody taught them, but, because – altogether now – it’s in their bones. And I see it so clearly, in the ways they interact with each other, and in the ways they just smile and me and carry on being happy and calm in the moments when I let my teacher frustration get the better of me and raise my voice and feel annoyed.

But they just smile, and in that smile I see so clearly the reflection of how ridiculous and useless it is to channel emotional energy into feeling angry with someone who’s not quite doing my bidding.

With life, for not quite doing my bidding.

I have nothing to teach these kids. All my Buddhist posturings and ego ambitions were nothing but hopeful preparations for maybe approaching a place where I might get to be born with bones like these. And that makes me question even more: makes me question the whole nature of Western spirituality, which I maybe know a thing or two about, and makes me think of a lot of people I know too.

These kids, you know, I think a big part of what they’ve got is the whole growing up in the Mexican family structure where children aren’t necessarily seen as a burden to be shed as soon as possible, as a hindrance that keeps one from one’s dreams, or just from the pub, but – shock, horror – as a blessing, and something to be well and truly loved.

We know all this of course, and we try to do the same – but what we don’t realise is that the ability to do this, and to pass it on – well that’s in the bones too, as well as the lack of it.

These kids here – and the people here in general, it seems – seem to have an almost total lack of the insecurity which plagues almost everyone I know, and perhaps drives our entire (so-called) civilisation.

It was striking when the gringos all came back in October – those awful, awful gringos – and I watched them skulking and scuttling through the stores and streets, hungry expressions in their eyes, as though there was something forever missing, something they were looking for – that they hoped to find on shelves, perhaps, or in bars – and it was an absence that the Mexicans didn’t seem to have.

I wondered, God, do I look like that too? Can they sense it in me?

It’s so clearly writ on the faces of the Americans I see round here.

I sure hope it’s not writ on mine.

And – as I was saying about Western spirituality – which is of course born in gringoland – is it not then possible that the whole thing – the whole apparent “search for God” – “transcendence of the ego” – “following one’s bliss” – is nothing more than an extension of this awful pit of insecurity and lack of love in one’s upbringing, and the emptiness in our bones, inherited and passed on down from generations hundreds of years passed?

I know people who think they’re somewhat enlightened – and, when you get right down to it, they’re some of the angriest and most insecure people I know.

What could be a better tonic for an uncertain and afraid ego than to grasp onto and wear the robes of a holy Buddha, and to be looked up to and adored?

We think we’re so evolved and far along the path. We think we’ve discovered secrets and entered into ancient mysteries reserved for the chosen few.

We’re frightened children who want our mummies, ‘cos we never really had them in the first place, and we’re covering all that fright in posturings the smiling Wal-Mart checkout girls see right through in an instant.

That’s what I think.

Next?

Well that was fun: it kind of flowed out and probably expressed more than fifty percent of what I hoped it would while it was a foetus in my head. There’s more I want to say – thought I wanted to say – but now it’s pretty much time to go to a New Year’s Eve dinner and play games with my one friend here in Cabo and his family.

Perhaps lonesomeness: that’s what I should be talking about next, given that it’s what I’ve been thinking about lots the past few days.

Though know that I’ve done gone typed a good five thousand words and been overtaken once more with the joyous spirit of the typing fool I am, lonesomeness don’t seem such an issue.

I guess the keyboard is my bestest friend. An ever-willing ear. A captive and attentive audience. And one who never interrupts.

Oh, what a fool I’ve been procrastinating all these days on flat earth numpties when all these words have been right there waiting to be birthed, but my fear kept them within!

And how that sentence strikes at my very heart – whatever a “very” something is – when I contemplate all the hundreds of hours I think of all the words and stories and books I would like to set down, but constantly run away from doing so, because of this fear – and one day, don’t you know, we’ll all be dead, and then there’ll be no possibility of fulfilling anything…

But, as I was saying, lonesomeness – and note I say, very specifically, “lonesome” rather than “lonely” or “alone” – for that feels the more apt word – and, anyway, it also feel like a very specific type of lonesomeness: lonesome for a woman’s touch; the softness of a woman’s body; a tender kind of love.

The remembrance of a hand brushing through my hair on a beach, and the shudders it sent through me, and almost shuddering me to tears, how beauteous and long-missed and true it felt.

And not that I’m talking about sex – that so often seems to mess things up, to pollute, to complicate and sully – but…well, it’s true and weirdly true that I’ve been thinking about woman, and looking and longing these last few months, perhaps more than I ever have in my life.

Ah! How good I used to be about never thinking on such things. How striking the comparison between the five days I just spent at the hot springs and the seven weeks I was first there, when I don’t remember yearning for woman once (thinking only of soul matters).

But, you know, reality is reality and one must accept it, not push it away – and this is my reality right now.

Though I did get to wondering: is lonesomeness really a thing that needs to be dealt with, or is it perhaps symptomatic of something else? Which is, of course, a horrible and meaningless sentence, so let me try and explain…

What I was wondering was…in the moment –

(Three days later)

And then I went to my New Year’s Eve dinner feeling like I was twelve feet tall and ate and chatted and was silly and played board games and, once more, typing had to wait…

A theory

Here's a theory I think we can all relate to:

People bemoan modern technology. They say we're always on our phones and computers, neglecting real actual genuine social interaction. And they say things were better in the old days.

There's some truth in that - though, of course, things weren't really that different in the old days. We watched TV instead. Or we read newspapers and books (see below). And people still talk plenty now.

So what is the problem?

(Here's where the theory - my very own theory! - comes in.)

I wonder if it's because when we're texting or messaging, we're choosing a different human to interact with than the one we're with. We laugh at the texts and messages, and it's like a dagger to the heart of the person sitting next to you.

It's a bit like saying, "you're not funny or interesting enough; I'll get my human interaction elsewhere; and I'm going to do it right in front of you, and you can't share in it."

Maybe we've always been doing this, but now it's a bit more in our faces.

Think: are we really all that bothered when our loved one reads a book? When they giggle at a newspaper sitting opposite us in a Sunday morning coffee shop?

But when they're giggling at their phone...

Jealousy. Insecurity. Feeling Neglected.

Whatchoo fink?

Finding a phone

Life is strange. After my morning plans were cancelled I thought maybe I'd walk barefoot in the peaceful and beautiful hills. And I did for a bit - but then the thought occurred that maybe I should go stroll round downtown Cabo for no apparent reason.

Yucky downtown Cabo?

Yuk, right?

But anyway, off I go and have my stroll and it was actually quite nice. Chiller than expected. And I start wondering what good things might come my way.

Then I round a corner and right by my feet I see an iPhone 7 sitting there on the pavement. It's unlocked. All the person's stuff is right there to see.

Groovy, I think: if there's one thing I love it's finding someone's treasured possession - wallet, driver's license, iPhone - and working all detective-like to get it back to them.

Anyway, it takes about an hour, and when I reunite it with the happy owner she tells me how grateful she is 'cos there are videos on there of her baby's first steps from just the other day and she woulda been heartbroken to lose them.

The woman's here on holiday with her husband. They're from India. Poor thing: must be awful to lose your phone when you're on your family holiday so far from home.

So it makes you think, right? There am I, somewhere I never go, wondering what's in it for me - and something like that happens.

Who am I? What am I really doing? Who's pulling the strings of this here life?

Am I actually not here for me at all, but just so I can follow strange urges and go on weird missions to find people's phones and get them back to them?

That sort of thing.

I mean, no doubt 90% of people would have done the same thing - but what if her phone would otherwise have been discovered by one of the 10% and I was 'sent' to go get it before somebody else did?

So having accomplished that and feeling complete with downtown Cabo I decide to drive to either Place A or Place B - and end up whizzing unexpectedly past both of them and heading instead for previously unthought of Place C - wherein I pretty much immediately see a Mexican lady pushing a tyre up a hill.

I pull over, load up her tyre, and tell her to get in. She's sweating in the hot sun. She says it's not much further - was probably like another five minutes walk - but any kind of ride's got to be better than pushing a wheel up a hill when it's 27/81 degrees.

I drop her off. I have similar thoughts. I go lie on the beach and fall asleep.

On Buying a Car in Mexico (when you're from England)

The first thing I realised when looking for a car in Mexico was how crazy expensive they were. Pieces of shit from ancient history with the doors hanging off and exhausts dragging along the road that wouldn’t sell for even $100 in the UK, let alone the thousand dollars plus people are asking for. Cars from the mid-nineties I thought had gone extinct, and even cars from the eighties. For a thousand dollars in the UK you could buy something from about 2005, with no mechanical problems or so-called “detalles esteticos” – which I originally thought meant, “a few scratches in the paintwork” but in reality seems to mean, “the lights are all broken, the windows don’t work, the seats are torn to pieces, most of the paint is fucked, and it looks like it’s been driven drunkenly into several donkeys, at speed” – or, for like $500, you could still get something pretty sweet, road and safety tested, “no debe-ing revistas”, and shining and driving and smelling nice.

But that’s not your fault that cars are pricey here. I understand: you don’t need them to have safety tests or be road legal, or have doors or mufflers or bumpers, so they hold their value more. Plus, they’re more expensive to begin with. Plus, people in the UK don’t have much tolerance for old broken down cars that constantly need fixing, and would rather drive something newer, something more reliable, and are able to too, given it’s probably a lot easier for us to go into debt thanks to our evil system of credit and banking.

No, none of that’s your fault: but what is your fault – what you are guilty as hell for – is the lame way you advertise your cars. How about “pone-ing el puto precio” for a start? How about saying in which city the car is? How about mentioning the model and the year and certain other little bits of essential information, like the mileage and your phone number and whether it actually drives or not?

And why should each and every individual respondent have to “inbox you” to get the “detalles”? Doesn’t it get tiresome writing it over and over and over again? Just put it in the ad and be done with it, fer Chrissake! And save yourself and the rest of us the trouble.

Ah, those pesky “detalles”, eh? You put your ad, you put your photos, you say, “hey, it’s pulls good, engine and transmission both 100” – never 90, never 85, never the 67 it actually turns out to be – all the while neglecting to mention that none of the electrics work, that it owes 6 years “revistas”, that you don’t have any of the paperwork, that the plates on it are from your uncle’s cousin’s long ago scrapped scooter but, “ah, it doesn’t matter, you know a guy who works at the licencing place who can sort it out for you, no es una problema.”

You don’t think these things might be worth mentioning before a person comes to see? Assuming, that is, the seller can be bothered to even arrange a meet. For that’s the other thing, dear Mexico, with your advertisements of demuffled, windscreen-shattered, headlights hanging by their wires, donkey-smashed twenty-year-old bone-shakers forever “pulling to 100” – even when I’ve wanted to buy them, it’s like you just can’t be bothered. Messages to people selling “urge” go unanswered. People don’t show up to meet. I’ve turned up at places with a pocketful of cash and the guy’s been like, “ah, it’s stuck behind some other cars I can’t move and I don’t have the papers anyway, plus the battery’s dead and…” – you’d think they might have mentioned it beforehand, right?

But still: it all works out. This is, after all, the kind of thing I love about Mexico: that no one gives a shit. That everything’s all slapdash and inefficient and mindboggling. That people do retarded shit, and nobody cares, they just go right on smiling and being mellow.

It’s a perfect outpicturing of my own incapable inner-life.

It’s totally why I’m here. :-)

Chapter Seventeen: Police

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: POLICE

It must be such a confusing time to be an American right now: cos if all army veterans are automatically heroes, what does one do when they go all terrorist on the police's ass and murder a bunch of them?

(Note from the editor - it's only terrorism if they're a Muslim, or from a Muslim background; when they're Christian or Atheist it's just "one o' dem things".)

In any case, I'm here to say, fear not, you portly, moustachioed police of America! You're actually way less likely to be shot than in the olden days.

Here are some stats:

- Between 1971 and 1980 an average of 115 police killed per year
- Between 2006 and 2015, 50 per year
- Furthermore, an increase in number of officers from 437,000 to 725,000 means police were 3.5 times more likely to be shot and killed in 1980 than they are now

So there you go: the streets are safe. Be happy! :-)

Also:

- Police shoot and kill about 85 citizens per month (doesn't include people they taser to death, choke hold, and run down in their cars)
- About 50% of those killed are white
- 26% were black (compare with: 13% of population; nearly 50% of convicted murderers)

Stats summarised from this article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36826297

Cheers!:-)

Chapter Twelve: Politics

What's that thing wise people say about unsuitable topics of conversation among family and friends? That's it: don't talk religion, don't talk sex, and don't talk politics either.

Smart, them wise people - but me no wise person; we all know that. So...

1. I was watching the local north of England news last night and people on it were talking about out-of-touch London politicians who forget about the rest of the country, don't know what's going on up here, just take care of their own - you know, all the usual lines the good, humble Northern Working Man trots out.

But then I suddenly had this lightbulb moment: these people here are doing exactly the same thing! They're talking about places they haven't a clue about. And, if they did, they'd never say the things they say.

London politicians looking after London? If that were true then: why is it so bloody awful down there?

2. Ever since the referendum, the ironic beards of Britain's youth have apparently been tear-soaked and bedraggled. They didn't want it, older Remainers bleat - transferring and projecting - but they're the ones who are going to have to live with it.

Others retort, well if they didn't want it - and let's remember, a lot of them did - then why didn't they get off their Xbox arses and make it down the polling station?

Others, like The Grauniad, say they did, looking at different sets of statistics published a couple of days ago. But if you happened to read that article, look closer: the sample sizes were tiny.

In any case, for me it's all immaterial: the real question is: why should we care so much what the young think about political matters anyway? And especially why should we rate their supposed concerns of greater value than the elderly?

According to independent think-tank The Chimera Group, 90% of 16-24 year-olds don't know their arses from their elbows anyway.

3.Wah wah wah. Brexit means money has gone bad. Money has gone bad 'cos people said money would go bad - but what if they'd said money would go good? And what about my money - isn't that what really matters?

Wah wah house prices and trade deals and - look at the footsie, isn't it awful? (Whatever that is.)

Wah wah wah!

But listen: money would've gone bad anyway. And house prices would've gone down. And then they'd've gone up again. And either one would have been good/bad for somebody.

The recession in 2008? Fifteen percent interest rates in the 80s? What did either of them have to do with whether Brussels let us eat bent bananas or not?

Recession, she come and go, for whatever reason, and if this is the reason this time then, whatevers, it won't last forever.

Plus, it's very doubtful it'll do anything to diminish the unabated growth of the size of TV screens in our nation's households.

4. It's all very un-British, you know, all this handwringing and griping and whining, "it's not fair." After all, aren't we the nation that simply laughed as Jerry dropped his bombs, sang songs about saucy milkmen, and made up comedy routines involving tall men whose feet could go quite high when they walked?

Stiff upper lip, self-deprecating humour, and get on with it: that's the spirit.

5. Also, all those people saying, "look! an online petition! four million want another go at it and we've made a terrible mistake and we deserve a second chance - especially now we've seen money go bad."

Four million? That's a mere 25% of those who voted Remain in the first place. Which - stats being stats - we can extrapolate to conclude that a full 12 million of Remainers have changed their minds and decided they quite like the Brexiting after all.

6. Will Scotland have another independence referendum? I hope so. Couldn't believe they didn't take up the offer two years ago - all those hundreds of years of fighting and moaning and watching Braveheart on endless repeat, and they don't grab the chance when it's handed to 'em on a plate?

Poor ol' Robbie the Bruce musta been spinning in his grave.

7. Now, here's the thing: I don't really know anything about how politics or the economy works, and, if you're a normal human person with a head and three arms, you don't either.

In fact, I doubt very much whether even the abnormal ones like the ones in charge know that much about how politics and the economy works - if they did, should we not assume they'd do a better job at it? That they'd see things like booms and busts coming? That it wouldn't be so crazy complex and difficult?

But, anyway, like football, it's kind of fun to talk about.

8. A lot of people like the expression, "Politicians: they're all as bad as each other." They say that and we all know what it means and I guess if you agree with it you feel it's a "truth universally acknowledged."

But if it is true, doesn't it also mean that they're all as good as each other? And if that's the case, shouldn't we be cutting them some slack?

Tough job, eh? Not sure I'd want to do it, even with all the money and fame and going on telly and that.

9. Poor old Jeremy Corbyn: there's a man who symbolises the futility of living in a democracy, where any ill-informed jackass's opinion is worth as much as the one held by whatever Confucius or Lao-Tsu you may have living down your road.

All he ever said was, "I think maybe it's not a good idea to spend trillions of pounds on large pieces of machinery that are designed to bring death, destruction, widespread suffering, environmental devastation, and possible annihilation on a global scale, and which we're never going to use anyway" and they chased him outta town like some cobbled-together monster who needed jabbing with pitchforks and burned screaming at the stake.

That's what you get for being ahead of your time, Jezzer.

10. Winston Churchill, as I've said many a time, had it right: "democracy is rubbish," he said, "because the majority of people aren't all that smart and tend to make lowest common denominator decisions - but at least it's better than brutal dictatorship."

In a political democracy you get what - well, not necessarily what the majority want, but, you know, what a larger chunk of people than another chunk of people want.

But isn't it good that in other realms of life we're not subjected to such conditions? Otherwise there'd be no Stewart Lee, no Limmy, no Kurt Vonnegut, and no Gong either, and we'd all be living in a world where the only reading matter would be The Sun newspaper and Dan Brown books, all movies would be variations on the theme 'Transformers', and Adele, Ed Sheeran, and Michael Bublé would dominate the airwaves to such an extent those of different persuasions would either be running for the nearest cliff or doing a double Van Gogh in the search for blesséd relief.

Point being: if only we had a meritocracy of honest and wise leaders who quietly got on with it while the rest of us concentrated on the important stuff like eating pizza and hitting Level 42 on Candy Crush Saga 9: The Dostoevsky Years.

11. In any case, thank God UK politics barely makes a blind bit of difference to anything, 'cept maybe putting up the price of a paella every now and then. Or causing devastating events like the miners' strike, the war in Iraq, and the tragedy of a few thousand London hipsters throwing their toys out the pram.

12. Poor old Londoners - my heart genuinely bleeds for 'em 'cos, you know, it must be awful being forced to live somewhere so expensive and grim, with no means of escape, all them guards standing around the M25 herding 'em in like cattle, orders to shoot to kill.

How they clamber at that wall! How they risk life and limb to get across it! How they beseech, please let us go to Sunderland! We know there are empty, affordable houses there, we're sure we could start fresh lives, bring vitality, make the perilous journey, wagon-train style, and build anew.

But no: they must stay, scrape together for their rents, and suffer the horror and ignominy till Trident is finally and gloriously unleashed and the whole apocalyptic mess is once more returned to the cabbages and the cows.

People

What do you do with people, huh? Sometimes they’re just plain hard to deal with. Maybe even people that you actually like. Like, perhaps in these days of political upheaval and lots to chat about, your friends and family reveal that they’re kind of bigoted and racist and you don’t know what to say. You like them plenty in other ways. So it’s maybe best to keep schtum. Adhere to the old adage of keeping religion, politics, and sex away from the dinner table.

Communicating properly with others requires a kind of unspoken contract: we’ll be somewhat open; we’ll be honest; we won’t play daft games to try and score points; we won’t get hysterical and irrational, overly aggressive or violent.

If the contract’s not adhered to, we have a choice: get involved in something maybe unpleasant, or walk away, avoid those people, or at least avoid those topics.

Obviously, because I’m saying all this, that implies that I see myself as a rational person. And by that, I guess I mean that I listen, I try to be open to what the other person is saying, put myself in their shoes as much as I can, not be nasty even when I think they’re totally barking (understanding that doesn’t do anyone any good), and seek that which is mutually beneficial, the point of harmony and understanding, a place where agreements rather than antagonisms can be found.

Also obviously, I may be wrong in all that: if I see others as irrational, unwieldy, and generally lacking in communication skills, it only stands to reason that others may feel the same in me. I mean, they won’t feel themselves to be irrational, just as I don’t. But we can’t both be right.

Still, if I assume I am right in this – how else is one to exist in the world? – then the real question is, how does one proceed? I’ve dealt with plenty of people who seemed incapable of rational conversation – particularly when in the middle of refereeing a football match – and the conclusion I’ve come to is it’s simply best not to engage, tempting though it is, and straightforward though it appears. It’s a lesson learned repeatedly, and often painfully, and a lesson I will no doubt have many chances to learn again, and will also no doubt fail many times too.

But that’s not what I’m thinking about now. What about those who do appear capable of rational conversation? Those who say the right things. Those who appear to be listening, and hearing, and singing from the same hymn sheet. And those who it later transpires, quite clearly aren’t.

Let’s say I know a man. Let’s say he’s really nice in lots of ways, and we seem to get on well – and yet, over and over, when the conversation’s finished, I discover the way he might have related it to others is full of blatant fabrications. Let’s say he also lies about other aspects of my life. Let’s say he tells others close to me things that aren’t true, that are hurtful, and that come so out of leftfield as to be baffling, puzzling, almost amusing in their preposterousness, and generally ludicrously easily disproved to boot.

Why would someone be like that? Why would someone be like that over and over again? What could they possibly find so threatening that they felt such a need to lie?

Now let’s take it a step further: let’s say this person works with vulnerable people. And let’s say that being honest is not only integral to their work, but forms the basis of it.

Can the most dishonest and manipulative person I know be trusted in this position? Can a self-confessed “pathological liar” help others to be more honest with themselves and others? Does the end justify the means? And where, exactly, do I fit in with all this?

It’s a tricky one: when the whole Jimmy Savile thing came out, there were no shortage of people claiming, “oh, everyone knew that about him” – but where were they in the preceding decades, when they could have saved others from grievous and irreparable harm? Why didn’t they step forward while he was still alive? Why do so many of us let all different kinds of abuse slide?

It’s scary, I guess, and messy too: whistle blowers rarely come away unscathed. You roll with the socio and psychopaths of this world, you get covered in dirt. Icky stuff, difficult to remove. I can understand the temptation to try to let it go, to forget, to move on.

Still, that’s not quite where it’s at for me: for truly exposing one man’s dishonesty would also embroil and hurt people I care about, as well as possibly jeopardise their finances, and that’s what holds me back when push comes to shove, for better or for worse. It’s not their fault they’re inextricably linked with such a person. I don’t see why they should suffer.

It’s a rock and a hard place, and I guess I choose the rock.

Well, that’s okay: I quite likes rocks – and in some ways, prefer them to people too. ;-)

It’s also a curiosity: in 99.9% of my interactions I find little stress, little unpleasantness, little unease – so to have this one person in my life not only so seemingly incapable of telling the truth, but also apparently hellbent on spreading disinformation when honesty would quite happily suffice is baffling in the extreme. I just don’t come across it very often, and I certainly don’t understand it.

But then, maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t – though perhaps I should try:

Q. Why would someone be compulsively dishonest, even when it would be easier not to be?

A. I guess because they have some fairly complex deep-seated mental and emotional issues that are way beyond my level of understanding to comprehend or unravel or deal with.

Q. And why would somebody so seemingly charismatic, likeable, and good in so many other ways exhibit so many episodes of manipulation and falsehood?

A. Probably something an expert in pathological behaviour could elaborate on: history has given us enough examples of severely twisted individuals who were well-liked, entertaining, and capable of completely heinous activity to show us that popularity isn’t everything.

Q. And what am I to do about all this?

A. Probably nothing. I mean, the wrongdoings aren’t particularly harmful – they’re certainly not on a Jimmy Savile-type level – and, like I say, because people I like and love would be adversely affected, I don’t feel I can anyway. I guess it’s just a case of avoiding them. Managing my own emotions around this as best I can. And waiting till they die.

I dunno. I don’t understand why this causes me so much stress. Maybe I’ve just been lucky in my life thus far and therefore never learned to deal with the nasty shock of being gossiped and lied about. Maybe it’s the discomfort of not knowing exactly how to proceed. Or maybe it’s my inherent Britishness and sense of ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’ rising its confused hackles and bristling at the inconvenience of an internal battle between politeness, doing what’s right, not wishing to make a scene, and the frustration of an enemy who refuses to play by the rules, even when the rules make perfect sense for everybody.

It’s all very strange. But I feel better for typing it out, and resolved.

The Euros

Oh dear. On a refereeing forum I sometimes check in on I made the awful mistake of deciding to share my thoughts about the Euros: awful not because of any associated pain, but because, once I'd started, I didn't seem able to stop. And by that I mean: 2,642 words' worth of not being able to stop.

So what am I going to do? Bin it out of sheer embarrassment? Or post it here?

I think you know the answer to that. ;-)

In a nutshell, for the 100% who have no interest in reading the whole rotten thing: England weren't so bad; pundits are daft 'cos they judge teams on results rather than performances; results are often a consequence of rather arbitrary and random factors; and other things besides.

Cheers! :-)

*******************************************

RORY'S CLOSING THOUGHTS ON EURO 2016 (AGED 40½)

What's really struck me at these Euros is how obvious it has come across that a team's performance has been rated based on the result. A team loses and there's all kinds of negative analysis, while the one that wins is heaped with praise. It seems absolutely clear and I'm amazed that very few are able to realise this.

England vs Iceland is not a good example, but if we look at something like England vs Russia or Slovakia, or Belgium vs Italy...

Italy were winning 1-0. Belgium should have scored an equaliser. Game should have finished 1-1. Italy scored a second on a breakaway when Belgium were committed up front.

The pundits praise Italy and slate Belgium. But I know for a fact, had Belgium got the draw, it would have all been about how they kept plugging away, didn't give up, etc, etc.

England drew against Russia. People like Phil McNulty criticised Roy substituting Rooney, as though that made a difference. But would he have even mentioned it had Russia not squeezed a last minute equaliser totally against the run of play? Or were England already two goals up, as their display merited?

I've seen this time and again. I've wondered what would happen if people were shown a game with the goals removed¹, without knowing the result. Imagine editing all that out. You get to see the chances but you don't know whether the keeper saved it, whether the shot crept across the line, whether the penalty went in. Then judge the performance. I think it would be a totally different picture.

But time and again performances have been judged on results, which are often not a fair representation of how well a team has played, and then we take it further by trying to find the underlying reason for the result, such as games played over the year, the way youth is developed, and even whether players are paid too much, too pampered, or have fancy toilets.

Wales were credited because they got decent results, even though we dominated them. Gareth Bale was credited because he hit two free kicks that went in purely because of goalkeeper error - not because of the quality of the strike, but because of how the strike 'resulted'. Time and again across this tournament I've seen it, and marvelled at the inability of the pundits and experts to separate performance from results.

Wales are a good case in point, too, when it comes to talking about England. How many of their players came through the exact same system the English players came through? How many of them play in England, have never played overseas? How many of them live similar lifestyles? Less similar, admittedly, given the number of Championship players they took, but their best player was Aaron Ramsey, of Arsenal.

Wales come home heroes, because they got good results. They were excellent against Belgium, and I understand they were great against Russia too². But they were poor against England, Northern Ireland, and arguably lucky to win against Slovakia - and without Ramsey they really struggled against a Portugal side who, though they won the whole thing - results, again - few would argue were even one of the top 5 sides in it, based on performance.

Fine lines. Gignac comes on and scuffs one against the post and suddenly all today's post-match analysis is totally different. Suddenly Portugal are transformed from a team who create nothing, who sit back and wait for a mistake, to a team who battle to the end, who never stop believing, who work hard as a unit greater than the sum of its parts.

Meanwhile, Ronaldo is lauded, even though he missed 80% of the final, and despite being a superstar player having a very average tournament, a couple of flashes of brilliance aside.

And what about England? Well, I thought we played really well in all three of our group games, and in another universe, on the other side of the fine line, could have won them all³.

I actually thought Wilshere was good when he came on against Russia. I don't see any reason to judge him on the lack of games he played over the course of the season, as everyone else seems to have done - Germany certainly weren't lambasted for using Schweinsteiger - and I much preferred his energy and desire to go forward than Rooney's ponderous, sideways ten yard passes, which nevertheless had the pundit's endlessly declaring him man-of-the-match, a midfield mastermind.

Rooney was good in 2004. Rooney has done some unbelievably quality things over the years, and had some great seasons - but whenever I see him, to me he's a player who gives the ball away far too often, has a very low pass completion percentage, gets out of position in his desire to get on the ball, has a really poor first touch, and rarely if ever does something I would describe as 'world class'.

Yes, I'm biased against Wayne Rooney - possibly chiefly because of how overhyped I feel he is - and also in direct proportion to how biased people like Phil McNulty are for him. When he was lauded as having been by far the best player on the park against Russia I felt we must have been watching a totally different game. Lallana was excellent. Kyle Walker probably our best player. But Wayne Rooney and his “midfield masterclass”?

By the time of the Iceland game I decided I was going to watch Rooney closely and make a note of what he actually did, instead of just saying, look, “he’s given the ball away again”, “look at that touch”. I got my notepad out. Unfortunately for my experiment, he was excellent the first twenty minutes – and scored the penalty – and so I gave up.

I wish I’d carried on. At about the half hour mark he made his first really bad misplaced pass. Then I think there were five in a row. Really, for the rest of the game he was awful. Woy should’ve pulled him off at half-time, if not sooner. How could we expect to win a game with a ball-hungry number ten who can’t make a pass or control it?

One of England’s biggest problems, for me – and long has it been the case – is picking players based on reputation. Players are picked because of who they play for (how many only enter the England set up once they sign for a big club?) and because of what they once were (Rooney, Owen). They’re even picked because of what people once thought they were going to be (Sterling).

It also seems like players are overlooked because they don’t play for the right teams, or don’t have the right reputation, such as Shawcross, Noble, Drinkwater, even Defoe (yes, there’s a random shout).

But here’s a novel thought: how about picking players on the things that really matter, such as form, and whether they’re the right man for the formation?

I think if Woy should face any criticism over selection decisions, it wasn’t so much the team that faced Slovakia, as so many of the pundits got up in arms about – again, I say, purely because of the result¹¹ – but for the selection against Iceland. The team he put out against Slovakia was a perfectly good selection, and well capable of earning a win. Plus, of the six changes he made, two were clamoured for (Sturridge and Vardy), two were like for like (Clyne was excellent, and though Bertrand had a bit of a stinker, it wasn’t to any great detriment), and the other two were understandable, and, had we taken even one of our many, many chances, would have been said to have come off.

Against Iceland, however, I couldn’t believe that Sterling was recalled, and can only imagine it was done as an attempt to boost his confidence – very dangerous thinking – while I was also disappointed to see Kane brought back. For me, Kane was not only off it during this tournament, but also in the month or so leading up to it. He looked tired, and I thought Rashford would have been a much better choice up front.

Again, pick the players in form, not the ones who were in form two months ago. Pundits like to say things like, “form is temporary, class is permanent” – but that sounds like bunkum to me. That’s the kind of thinking that took Michael Owen to the World Cup in 2006, simply hoping that something of his previous self would somehow miraculously emerge, with zero evidence to back that up.

A friend of mine, meanwhile, said we should have Fraser Forster in goal. I do think Forster’s probably now the better keeper, and arguably had a better season, but figured we’d be all right with Hart. He couldn’t possibly make two clangers in a week, right?

Still, I don’t think we can totally blame the selection for us losing the game, nor the players’ lifestyles, nor even how well Iceland played. For me, it was the age-old England problem: mentality.

You saw it in their faces the moment they went 2-1 down. The dread at contemplating what seemed to be unfolding. The weight of anxiety and expectation. They looked stressed out. They looked tense and panicked. Desperate. And desperation and tension and panic don’t often help footballers make smart decisions, nor play to their optimum level, nor, even, have the limbs working as they should.

Balls were misplaced, uncontrolled, passes going astray. Rooney went from an excellent opening half-hour to completely falling to pieces.

They had 70 minutes to get a goal back and they panicked. Compare that to when Wales conceded against Belgium: it didn’t phase them, they just carried on as before, and it worked. But something happened to England – to not just all the players but to the guys in the dugout too – as it so often does when the weight of expectation is too much.

Rabbits in the headlights. Paralysed by fear. Incapable of doing what we know they can do, and do on a weekly basis in the Premier League.

And if you think the Premier League is the problem, count the number of players from the other teams at the Euros who play in it. Or count the number of players from the 4 teams who made it to the semis, where, of the 92 players from those 4 squads, a full 38 currently play in the Premier League or other UK leagues (eg, Scottish or Championship) and a further 11 are former Premier League players¹².

It’s not lack of winter breaks, or lack of overseas experience, or not being good enough. It’s not rotating and resting a couple of players here and there, and not therefore sticking to the same 11, as Shearer likes to say. Yes, England were amazing against Holland in Euro ’96 – but then how does he explain the display that followed it against Spain, which we were extremely lucky to escape from, thanks to a couple of dodgy officials’ decisions and our one and only penalty shootout win?

He trumpets Euro ’96, but, again, it’s purely because of results, because of one great performance (and a further great goal), and because of how far we went. England were poor against Switzerland and fortunate against Spain. How well-loved would that team have been had Spain gone through instead, as they deserved?

Likewise, when Lineker harks back to Italia ’90, let’s not forget that we only beat Cameroon thanks to their insanity in the box, squeezed through against Belgium in the last minute of extra-time, and won just one of our three group games, thanks to a header from a set-piece that gave us a 1-0 win against Egypt.

In both of those tournaments there were some abject performances, some lucky wins, and maybe a total of three great displays. The only difference between then and now was that, by hook or by crook, they got results and this team didn’t. But to say those two teams performed any better than the current one would be stretching it, as far as I’m concerned.

I guess what I’m saying is it wasn’t that bad. To be honest, I think we could play Portugal next week – and give them a fit Ronaldo – and beat them convincingly. Denmark have won this tournament. Greece did it against a better Portugal team than this one. Winning, results, lifting the trophy – when it comes to knockouts and short-length competitions – isn’t necessarily an indicator of who was actually the better team, or how well a team has performed. Goals decide all that, and goals – or lack of them – are often the outcome of arbitrary, fortuitous, and unlikely happenstance. So why we are so quick to judge the performance of a team based on goals and the outcome of goals – the match result – is beyond me.

Goals and match results are what happens when the sum of a multitude of factors are taken into consideration, and two of the biggest factors are randomness and luck. Selection and performance are about the only things we can control. The rest of it is in the hands of fate.

Or, sometimes, in the hands of the referee, as the far superior German team might claim after their defeat against France in the semis.

Still, that doesn’t solve the problem of what exactly happened to those England heads when we went behind against an Iceland team who then had even more reason to “park the bus” than they had in their previous three games, and that’s what we need to address, because it’s an ongoing and endemic problem that I can only remember being overcome – when rather than panic and desperation, there was mental-strength and determination – by Beckham’s legendary display against Greece in 2001.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that Roy’s gone. Maybe had we made the quarters or the semis – as a team we dominated went on to do, don’t forget – things that needed to be looked at wouldn’t be, and the cracks would have been painted over. Seeing Hodgson on the bench during those last fateful 70 minutes didn’t exactly fill me with confidence – he was no Conte, no Venables, no Ferguson – and if ever a team required a manager who could inspire them at half-time it was this one. But it seems like he wasn’t that guy. That the vision of tomorrow’s newspapers and Shearer’s scowling mug had already got the better of him. Paralysed into fear rather than motivated into action. Hopefully we can get somebody who can finally instil a winning mental attitude into the England football team, much as Ivan Lendl seems to have done for Andy Murray. Someone who can pick the right team for the right formation, superstars be damned. Someone who can look beyond a player’s reputation, beyond what he was in the past, and beyond an unfounded hope of what he might be in the future. And, above all, beyond any talk of pressure and tactics and selection and media, someone who can toss his bread in the air a half dozen times, and have it land butter-side up just often enough to make the difference between going down in infamy, and going down in history.

¹ I know that teams play differently depending on the score, which we could probably discern, but I think the point still stands.
² I didn’t see that one.
³ As well as very easily having drawn against Wales, and/or lost against Slovakia. Like I say, fine lines.
¹¹ I just watched the highlights again and it’s barely believable that we didn’t run away with that game the number of good chances we created.
¹² There may be a few more former Premier League players that I’m not aware of.

PS Here's mathematical proof that England were actually the best team there, given that we whupped Wales and Wales whupped Belgium; Belgium whupped Hungary, and Portugal could only scrape a draw against them; Portugal beat France and France beat Germany and Iceland - another team Portugal could only draw with - while Belgium whupped Ireland, who beat Italy, who beat Spain.

Basically, whichever way you look at it we absolutely dominated the team that dominated the team that put three goals past the team that won it.

Elementary algebra will show you that, had we faced Portugal in the final, it would have finished something 12-4 to England. And when you rank the teams using proper statistics, we see England were 1st, Wales 2nd, and the Republic of Ireland joint 4th!

Tip of the Day

If someone asks you if you're having a mid-life crisis and you feel you have to say "no" because saying "yes" will result in your being teased, laughed at and dismissed, kind of like you've just admitted to having 'man-flu' - DON'T.

Say "yes". Then go on and on about the futility of life. Then tell them you're thinking of putting an end to it all.

We'll see who's laughing by the end of it. :-D

A history lesson

So I'm telling a friend about a creationist guy I met who genuinely believed that Noah had dinosaurs on his ark and the reason he could safely carry T. Rex, et cetera was because he only took baby ones. Can you imagine! The madness!

But then she goes, but wait: I thought all the dinosaurs were killed in the Big Bang?

Oh my. You couldn't make it up.

Gary Speed

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: SUICIDE

Gary Speed sat on the graveyard wall. Gary Speed was 42 years old and the manager of the Wales national football team. Gary Speed was thinking about killing himself.

In front of him was a gravestone; it read: Anthony Jenkins, 1887-1952; also Elizabeth Mary Jenkins, beloved wife of the above, 1901-1984, Reunited Forever. Then there followed the names of their children: Richard, Margaretta, Ernest, Ann; died 1944, 1919, 1973, and 1996 respectively.

Gary Speed shook his head. All this dying, all this being born. Two people presumably finding love, making babies, having happy times - 'cept one of the babies dies in infancy - and then the husband dies at a reasonable old age and Elizabeth lives her last 32 years alone.

The graveyard is full of these couples. Finding their soulmates. Remaining true. Doing everything they're supposed to do to earn their happy ever after. And from a still young 50 or 51 years old she - this Elizabeth, this Liza, this Liz - endures a whole three decades without her beloved.

Unheld, untouched, unfucked, unloved.

Mourning, and looking back.

Gary Speed thought about his own wife. She wasn't as pretty as she once had been, and if he was honest with himself, he knew he didn't fancy her anymore. This woman who had driven him crazy when they were first together...and now she drove him crazy in an altogether different way.

Probably they would get a divorce soon and some other man would tuck his children into bed at night, berate them over breakfast, help them with their homework.

Why had he ever brought them into this woe-filled world? What were their chances of escaping unscathed? Of not ending up where he was now?

A man who had done everything he ever wanted, achieved so much - and still could find no way to escape misery.

What hope would they have when glorious, carefree childhood came to an end, and teenage years and drugs and the encroaching ravages of a harsh and difficult world got its claws into them?

He hoped that they would grow up good, not fuck women over, not do horrible things or have horrible things happen to them. He hoped that they would find love, not think too much, and maybe find the contentment that had always eluded him. Live simple lives. Find some meaning. Be happy, like the happy people on TV.

******

He hoped that, but what he wished was that they had never been born. That he had known then what he knew now: that life was futile, and there was no escaping the horror of having to watch your own body shrivel and die before your eyes. Watching what was once strong and athletic and beautiful begin to crumble to dust. And for what?

******

safe from the storm, as he had promised - and then still left her alone.

The whole graveyard was full of them. Stories of shiny-faced, scabby-kneed youths playing in dirt, playing with dolls; and then grown handsome and full of cum; and then grown old, and withered, and glum.

Gary Speed lifted up his shirt and grabbed a handful of flesh. His belly seemed to be softening, expanding by the day.

What was happening to him? Wherefore now the sculpted, toned abs and thighs and arms of five years ago?

I should work out, thought Gary Speed, and get it back.

But then, how long would it last? How long would he have to keep it up? How long could he forestall the inevitable march of flab and sag and wrinkles and pain?

One day he would be an old man, unrecognisable in the mirror. Bald, maybe; certainly grey. An old man like his old granddad, bent and broken, incapable, doomed.

I am crumbling into dust, thought Gary Speed. 42 years of youth and fitness, a beautiful face and a beautiful body, and now it’s all being robbed away from me, the injustice of time and its one-way motion. The inevitable, painful, achingly-slow destruction of a human being.

Gary Speed didn’t like thinking like this, but these last few years he didn’t seem able not to.