No Easter Getaway

We were meant to be going to the Lakes tomorrow but, as usual, people dropped out one by one, pleading lack of money or minor illness or alternate, previously unmentioned, plans. I'm more disappointed than surprised: repeated too often, unreliability becomes boring, mundane and predictable.

Telephone Interview

Even with the ten-minute grammar inquisition - How many tenses are there? What's the difference between the present perfect and the present perfect continuous? What would you say if a student asked you why I've done it this week is correct when we don't use specific times with the present perfect? Can you use the present simple to talk about the future? - I think the interview went pretty well. They said I'd hear back within the next two weeks, though I've already decided I won't be taking the job. As keen as I am to see the west coast of Ireland, there's no way I want to be starting work at a summer school the day after I finish at the college. Besides, it would mean that I wouldn't see Milan and Hanka, who are coming over from Liberec for a few days in early July.

In the afternoon I sent my CV off for the job in York. The interview's on Tuesday morning.

Five-a-Side

The last time I played football was the day after my wedding. It's hard to say which was the most disastrous choice. I only played last night to make the numbers up, and because I thought it would make a change from running, but within five minutes of stomping up and down Temple Park's rock hard surface my thighs felt as if a baby elephant was using them for a mattress. Eventually taking refuge in goal, I dived to make a save and cracked my elbow square off the ground, before banging both knees while trying to make tackles. I jogged home at half-pace, drank a bottle of Tsingtao beer and lay across the coach watching The Apprentice. Next week I think I'll just stick to the last two.

Trouble on the Terraces

The violence at last night's Roma game was hardly a shock. No doubt there were plenty of English fans just waiting for an excuse to kick-off, and a lot of drunks too stupid to see what would inevitably happen when they started throwing missiles back across the perspex fence, but judging by the TV pictures the only difference between an Italian football thug and a policeman is that one carries a knife and the other wields a baton.

The Eternal Radgies

When in Rome, watch your back. Predictable histrionics from the Italian media after Manchester United advised their fans to avoid areas associated with the Roma Ultras. The mayor of the city summoned the British ambassador to complain and threw out a non-sequitor about the city being safer than London, newspapers alleged racism and referred accusingly to drunk English football fans, and the coach of the football team talked at length about his club's passionate, correct, non-violent supporters. No mention then of the fans who had to be dispersed with tear gas during running battles with Lazio thugs, the ultras who caused the abandonment of another derby game after a false rumour that one of their number had been killed in a pre-match fight with the police, the three Middlesbrough followers knifed in the Campo de Fiori or the innocent Liverpool supporters stabbed and battered in a coach park. The truth is that every city has its no-go areas for travelling supporters, especially on important match days, and anyone who pretends otherwise is indirectly encouraging the violence that follows. As Catania proved, of the many things that are ignored in Italy's culture of disobedience, football hooliganism is now perhaps the most dangerous.

Things To Do When the Sun Comes Out

Today felt like the first day of summer, which of course means it'll be freezing cold and bucketing down with rain by the time I set off for the Lakes on Saturday morning. In preparation, I bought a pair Craghopper Kiwi trousers with my birthday tenner, popped flower seeds into little black trays, and buried some spuds in the corner of the garden.

The Notary's House

The notary public's house was at the leafier end of the street, set back from the road and hidden by a trellis fence, round-topped shrubs and stunted beech trees. The door was already ajar but I'd pushed the bell for a second time before I heard the first soft noises from inside. He stood straight-backed in shiny black shoes and a dark blue suit; over his shoulder I made out the beginning of a bannister and a portrait of a woman I mistook for the Queen. The air smelled like a suburban dentist's; furniture polish mixed with tightly closed windows. We sat at right angles across a large oval dining table while he looked over the documents, the only sound a faint tick-tock from the hallway. He spoke slowly, as if he were selecting his words from a far greater store, turning each one round in search of defects as other people might pick ripened fruit from a market stall. He stamped the four pages in turn, and placed them face up between us. I asked how much I owed. "Thirty pounds," he replied, crisply. I'd been dismissed.

Summer School

In spite of the wind and rain it hasn't been a bad start to the day. I've fixed up a phone interview with a summer school in Sligo, Ireland for Thursday morning, and have been asked to send off a full CV for a month-long residential course in either York or Barnard Castle by another company. At lunchtime I have an appointment with a notary in South Shields to offically sign my divorce papers, then tonight I'm starting badminton once again.

No point in standing still, is there?

On the Straight and Narrow

Today I started working off the weekend: three nights of beer and a diet of leftover pork pies and chicken legs from my sister's engagement party. I loafed around the garden, planting a couple of shrubs and an azalea, walked up and down Jarrow shopping centre, and took my sagging, over-filled stomach on a forty-five minute run along Shields' seafront.

Going Down

Snigger all you want at Glenn Roeder's increasingly surreal public statements, but he's right to insist that his comedy team is not in a relegation fight. Without a league goal in a month and a half, and full of so-called senior players who use each new low as an excuse for the next, it's more like a surrender than a struggle. We'll probably stay up because there are three or four sides who somehow manage to be even worse than our gutless wonders, still hiding behind injuries to mitigate their lack of pride, heart or tactical guile. What difference would mercenary Michael Owen make when there's no-one to give him the ball?