A chat across the road
As routines become entrenched I enjoy my daily chats with the gent who runs the independent high street supermarket shop from where I buy both my newspapers and odds and sods of food and drink.
Yesterday when I popped over the road to collect my Sunday newspapers including The Sunday Times, he joshed with me by saying “The Rich List is in there again, you’ll be able to check whether you’ve gone up or down over the past year …” and I shot back with the quip I used in both 2018 and 2019 “Not if my people have managed to keep me out of it again!”
On Saturday morning we’d discussed that afternoon’s resumption of German football’s Bundesliga – live coverage available, I think he mentioned, on Sky Sports – so, after admitting I hadn’t watched any games, I asked if he had.
He’d watched two – well one and a half, to be precise – and so I was interested in how he had found it. A bit strange was the answer. There was no atmosphere (obviously) or ceremony before the games, the teams had just walked out and got on with it. The football wasn’t great – most of the players were clearly not fully match fit, social distancing was non-existent during play (as you’d expect) and, without knowing quite what training/preparation had been possible, there had seemed to be little tactical sophistication.
Overall he felt the spectacle had been a bit weird. It was an experiment rather than a resumption of the round ball game as we know it. Or presumably pretty close to how we shall experience the Premier League if at some point in the next two months it gets its act together and starts playing under the UK ‘lockdown breakout’ rules and practices in force and/or being advised at the time.
He concluded by uttering the eternal heartfelt fall-back of every football (well, he’s a Manchester United fanatic) fan – and indeed followers of every sport in the land: “Well, at least it’s football of some kind …”.
For the first time in several weeks he had been able to watch some live committed action, rather than endless repeats of famous past matches or tournaments. He’d spent two and a half contented hours in front of the television – a development that had much cheered both him and his wife and daughter (who had been elsewhere at home doing other things) very much indeed.
I guess we can all be thankful for small mercies.
