LOUD NOISES

Anxiously awaiting a throw-in

It didn’t take long for THAT to lose its sheen, did it? The Premier League came back with no one quite sure how to react to it and has continued with no one quite sure how to react to it. Broadcasters have gamely tried to analyse bits and pieces while the rest of us have gamely tried to sit through entire days during which not very much has actually happened, with the only swift resolution we were promised – Liverpool’s title coronation – also extended into an interminable timeline with no end, just like the rest of existence. Even Sartre would baulk at the level of anguish involved in watching Leicester v Brighton.

THAT interview with Andrea Dossena

The greatest story never told

When Andrea Dossena was a little boy growing up in Lodi, northern Italy, he would spend hours sat cross legged outside the cathedral on the historic Piazza della Vittoria, telling strangers how he would change the world one day, many miles away from where he now sat.

Saturday at 3pm

Joyful chaos (despite how it looks)

In many ways, normal services has resumed hasn’t it. A technology slip-up (our theory is that Michael Oliver didn’t have his watch set to vibrate), a fairly dour 0-0, a City (Kevin de Bruyne) masterclass and David Luiz playing as if controlled by a teenager wearing a headset, albeit a teenager wearing a headset that wasn’t plugged in to a console playing a game he or she had no idea how to play.

Things we learnt about the football during lockdown: a note to the reader of the future

The future, brought to you by Ask Jeeves

This can go one of two ways. In 80 years’ time, the reader of the future takes one look at this blog and is utterly baffled by talk of pandemics, lockdowns and The Queen’s Nose*. Or else said reader of the future becomes all at once furious, seething over the trivialities of a) having a blog and b) dealing only with pandemics, lockdowns and fondly remembering ‘90s TV shows that showcase Gary Mabbutt scoring a hat-trick.

A job not even Jesus wanted

In your FACES, doubters

Imagine, if you will, 92 bits of fruit and veg. Actually, be a bit less ambitious – it’s the end of the week and you might be tired, or an idiot. Imagine 92 apples and onions. Quite a lot of fruit and veg that, isn’t it? Only it isn’t. Not when just six of the 92 bits of fruit and vegetables are apples. Then it becomes rather more like a massive pile of vegetables with little to no fruit in there at all. What happened? Did you forget to write out your shopping list properly? Aren’t you in favour of a balanced diet? DO YOU WANT TO SMELL LIKE ONIONS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

Football as Art: a retrospective (a.k.a Sachin Nakrani’s Tweet, the Totti/Heskey advert and Gary Mabbutt in the Queen’s Nose)

"So, I've been having some weird dreams ..."

‘They’ say that people are experiencing extremely vivid dreams during lockdown. Apparently, Google searches of “weird dreams” have doubled year-on-year. According to an article in the Independent at the end of April, a Tweet asking: “Is anybody else having really weird/vivid dreams during this whole lockdown or is it just me?” got 4,600 likes, which perhaps says more about Twitter than it does about dreams.