The Joy of Football

In football, the Premier League Season is well under way. To date, my team, Manchester United, have played 5 matches and returned 8 points. A poor return for United and only good enough for 11th position in the league. It’s fair to say they haven’t really got going yet. Their poor result on the opening day of the season versus Newcastle has set the tone for some uncharacteristically nervous performances since. Leads have been thrown away against Chelsea and Liverpool but with a 2-nil victory against Bolton last week, achieved with the help of a wrong penalty decision, hopefully United can raise their performance levels and advance good and proper on another successful league campaign.

My own football career has slowed to a bi-weekly kickabout at the local park. The neglect of my favourite pastime, although not terminal, has left me struggling to recall how good a player I was back when I was fit and focused. These days my knee takes less time to become sore and my hamstring is as tight as a nun’s.

Feels good.

Mind you, I did hit a couple of shots down the park the other day that even a mother superior would’ve enjoyed. One was a curler from 25 yards out. I played the ball to my flatmate, he rolled it back into my path and, without breaking stride, I swung my boot full nelly and licked that mother right in her sweet spot. The ball took off, pitching 10 yards wide of the goal but coming back like a bad thing, spinning and holding onto physics for dear life. You could hear the screams through gritted teeth “fuck shit fuck shit fuck shit …” as it curled and dipped like a rapper’s girlfriend, before whipping in from miles wide until it came, shuddering against the hollow metal of the goal post before collapsing, it’s energy spent, to roll gently to rest by the fence.

Yeah. There was no goalkeeper but if there had been he wouldn’t have got near it. If the hypothetical keeper had managed to get a hand to it he would’ve been killed. That shot was so good it probably caused a tidal wave somewhere.

Then I got cramp, did a fart and told my flatmate I wanted to go home.

Stagger / Flow 24

Stagger is my sister not being paid her wages by a (C)unt of a boss. / Flow is despite my cautious nature, can’t see any reason why handing in my notice wasn’t a good idea.

Back In The Game

Apologies to everyone, it’s been a while since I updated the blog. A lot of stuff has happened since my last posting. There has been family stuff, girl stuff, festival stuff, loads of stuff, but all has been outstuffed by changes in my work situation.

On my return from a week of rest and recuperation back in Ireland I handed in my one month notice to my current employers. “Stuff this job up your arse!” is what I said as I pissed on the carpet. Well… I actually had a one-to-one meeting with my boss where I thanked him sincerely for my two years at the company and agreed to discuss further the possibility of working from home until they find a replacement for me. I will discuss this further but will probably opt to cut the cord – umbilical? parachute? Whichever cord I cut is likely to leave me falling like a baby from a plane onto my parent’s doorstep at the end of October.

Leaving London behind won’t be easy. I’m far from fed up with my life here and there are several people I will miss. Thing is I’m just not satisfied grinding away just to afford living and a couple of beers. I’d be grinding a lot more years before I’d have any decent money and I can’t be bothered doing that. So, my plan is to write more when I’m home – maybe complete a screenplay. It’s a plan that’ll bear fruit or wither and die by mid 2009. Then, I’ll know if it’s to be rhythm and rainbows for the rest of my life or toil and grunt.

I was at the Cois Fharraige Festival a couple of weeks ago. There, there was a jamboree, a ton of shenanigans, a girl I liked, and a lad called Emmet dressed in pink. He’s the guy in the video below with the fancy footwork.

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Stagger is I’m probably going to be back at the family home in six weeks time without employment. / Flow is… things will happen.

Home to Boost

The results of my blood test came back. Two thumbs up, great blood. I’m determined not to feel sick again for a while.

I’m back in Ireland since yesterday for a week’s convalescing. Good to swap the grey noise of London for the wet green of home (see video below). Gives me time to think. For a while no more tubes, double decker buses, bendy buses, no midweek dates, nor rumpy pumpy full stop, no scaffolding, no kebabs, no loud noises, alarm clocks or sirens, no dodging through crowds, no attractive girls followed by attractive girls, no ”no more time to think”.

Good food, restful slumbering, and people who, touchingly, only want the best for me. The time to think coincides with a call for change. So I’m packing in my current job. Exciting to see what happens next.

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Stagger is the uncertainty of what’s in the future. / Flow is the excitement of entering the future without a map. I’m handing in my notice at work.

Jamaican Me Crazy

I’ve made no mention of the 2008 Olympics which drew to a close last Sunday in Beijing. It’s some sort of sad indictment of the pace of my life right now that an Olympics can come and go without a buzz.

I was thinking about my priorities while Usain Bolt broke the 100m World Record.

Jesus, it seems like only yesterday I was 7 years old watching the 1988 Seoul Olympics (the last Games to be held in Asia before this year’s). Dad had set up our shitty tv in the kitchen so we could watch some of the action with our pre-school cornflakes. I would watch, dribbling milk, captivated by the different sports, the intense competitors, the darkness of a “live” broadcast and the high emotion of victory and defeat. I fell in love with sport around this time. Dreams of athletic, and then footballing, glory began.

Nowadays from time to time I wonder how positive my love affair with sport was (in recent years it has waned to affectionate non-priority). I enjoyed success – national high jump champion, a successful football scholarship to America – but I often wonder what I’d have become had I never had those initial notions of a glorious career in sport. Would I be richer, more powerful? Would I have a great job? Would I have a sexy girlfriend? Would I be a cunt? Might I have better used those hours training, competing or simply zoned out with a ball at my feet? I surely would have wasted some of that time partying, looking for women and generally faffing about but I do wonder if I might have embraced earlier what is now my main priority, to write prodigiously until something good comes of it. Who fookin’ knows?

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Stagger is the girl I hesitantly took to watch teen coming of age movie “Water Lilies” (Really Good French Teen Swimming Movie) is actually a lesbian. Irony, go figure. / Flow is the Irish boxers.

Patient Sexy

I’d an ultrasound scan of my pelvis and abdomen at a Harley Street surgery last Monday. Kinky little procedure it is where the doctor lubes up a cold metal object before sliding it’s warm rays across your lower torso. We did our best to ignore the awkwardness with some gruff man talk about football.

Not my actual abdomen.

I’ve had ultrasound treatment before that did compromise a couple of ethical codes. There was something about an attractive trainee physio administering lubed up warm rays to my prone, semi-naked body that invited… an arousal. It was very lucky for me that she handled it professionally.

Back to the hairy man trying to find lumps in my organs. He scanned me for about half an hour and at one point I thought he’d found something. As he fiddled the device for an extra duration around my pancreas he said,

“I am going to tell you at the end of the scan if I find anything that concerns me.”

He didn’t look at me as he said this but kept his eyes on the screen, leaning in closer, apparently bemused by the scale of the malignant growth inside me. He continued the process through to it’s completion then handed me some napkins to clean up the lube.

My actual arm, post blood test, holding holiday shopping.

“There is nothing abnormal in your organs.”

“Phew, for a moment there I thought you found something.” I was covered in lube.

“No. Everything appears fine.” His arms were so lubey it looked like he’d birthed a calf. “That’ll be £380.”

Bam, with that I was off, organs in place, shouting “BUPA! BUPA! I’ve got BUPA!” and on up the road to a separate practice for a very unkinky blood test. I’ll make light of that when I get the results back.

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Stagger is having the blood sucked from my body for testing. / Flow is “There is nothing wrong with your organs.” The words you want to hear following an ultrasound scan of the pelvis and abdomen.