Let’s change the subject. This week, of all weeks. Time for some escapism. Football will do. I would like to examine the bizarre recent history of Manchester United. I don’t support United and, up to a point, it is always a pleasure to see the mighty fallen. But what has happened to the club since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement is a useful parable for much else in life, and in particular the mercurial nature of success. Continue reading
Sport
The Test of diminishing time
As any cricket lover of my vintage will tell you, test cricket is the one true faith. One-days and 20:20s are all very well (and they are very well), but they’re not the real thing. (As for the new format that is about to be unleashed upon the game, heaven help us. It is a horse designed by a committee. If tobacco sponsorship was still legal, it would be called the Camel Cup.) Continue reading
Teenage idols
Like any teenager, I had heroes. I’m not talking about pin-ups: that was something different. (Marianne Faithfull and Sandie Shaw, since you ask.) I mean proper male heroes: a sporting hero, a musical hero and a celluloid hero. One of the curiosities of my life is that – thanks to a series of staggering coincidences – by the time I was 20, I had met and talked to each of my teenage idols. [read more]
Faster, stronger. Higher?
The Olympics. Oh dear. Over recent decades, the image of almost every institution has been tarnished, but the image of the Olympics has surely been tarnished more than most. Like millions of others, I no longer have confidence in the proceedings. [read more]
The battle of Lens; the Battle of Loos
Last Thursday, 16 June, England played Wales at the Euros in a place called Lens, a small industrial town in north-east France. This had strange echoes of 26 June 1998, when England played Colombia in the World Cup, also in Lens. [read more]
