Now, I know I promised, sort of, more or less, that there’d be no mention of football in this blog for a while but it’ll be everywhere for the next few weeks, with a bloated, overblown World Cup taking place in Mexico, Canada and the United States.  Also, I had to take a bit of an interest because, for a bit of fun, we golfing PYPers (Pick Your Pro-ers) had to name our top four teams and the leading scorer.

There are 48 countries competing, including England and Scotland and one optimistic Scot has put his team down to win the whole thing; talk about taking devotion too far, surely.  Mind you, one person, who shall remain nameless, has been paying so little attention that he (just to stress that it was NOT a woman) opted for Wales…and had Harry Wilson, a Welshman, winning the Golden Boot.  They won’t be there, though they came agonisingly close to qualifying for their first World Cup finals since 1958.

After a bit of thought but nothing too forensic, no checking recent results, studying injury lists or baffling omissions and only the briefest of glances at the groups and where teams will be playing (there’s a lot of travelling involved for most of them) I came up with this selection:  Brazil, Spain, Mexico and Senegal, with Vinicius Junior scoring the most goals.

Brazil aren’t the irresistible force they once were but I still can’t forget the joy they brought when they were at their breathtaking best.  I wore my Brazil tee shirt until it fell apart and Mum threw it out, too worn even to join the dusters.  Also Carlo Ancelotti, their Italian manager, is a magician, a player whisperer sans pareil.  Spain make most people’s list; Mexico will be playing at home, at altitude, so they’re worth a punt just about; and Senegal are good enough to do well, having beaten Morocco 1-nil in a chaotic, bad-tempered final of the Africa Cup of Nations only to have the result overturned.  Don’t write off the African teams.

One of the reasons I ruled out the northern Europeans was the heat and humidity.  Of course, they all have access to all the best medical and nutritional information and the conditions will take their toll on everybody but it’ll be draining in the extreme and I fear for all northerners born and bred, however fit they are.

Still, with the Curtis Cup coming up this weekend, it’s good to remember that a peelie-wally (pale and wan) GB and I team of  three Irish, two English, two Welsh and one Scot won comfortably in the scorching heat of Prairie Dunes in Kansas – temperatures reached more than 100 degrees in old money, 40-odd now.  They were well prepared and well disciplined:  weighed before they went out in practice and when they came back; banned from using the swimming pool (until the match was over); and versed in the art of  hydration – it was the first time that I’d ever heard of electrolytes.  And, crucially, they played bloody good golf from the off.

As so often, I’ve wandered off at a tangent, rabbiting on about footie and all-our-yesterdays when I’d intended to wax lyrical about the delights of Derbyshire and the Dales.  Back in March, one of our cousins had a big birthday and the question was:  what do  you give the woman who has everything, pretty much?  Mo and I decided that a wee trip away was the answer, the cousin and her sister with Mo and me.

The organiser-in-chief (Mo) got to work and a few days ago the four of us headed off to Bakewell for a couple of nights.  We’d never been away together before but it worked so well that we’re even planning another jaunt next year.  Bakewell isn’t that far from me but I’d never been before and it turned out to be as lovely as everybody said.  We had bakewell cake, as instructed, with custard and ice cream in my case, plenty of wine and lots of chat.

The weather was a bit iffy but the rain was mostly intermittent and we discovered the awesome Haddon Hall (see the featured pic at the top), almost within walking distance of the town if we’d been feeling particularly sprightly.  I confess I’d never heard of it but it’s a fortified manor house, parts of which date back more than 900 years.  It’s still a private residence, a family home with so much history that your jaw is hitting the floor time after time.  It’s in a beautiful setting, with walled gardens and a medieval parkland.  There’s so much to take in, I’ll be booking another visit as soon as possible.

This vestment chest is one of the oldest pieces in the home, according to the notice (perched on the right), and was originally kept in the chapel to house the priest’s vestments.  The coats of arms are those of the Pype family and date the chest to the early 14th century.

Then there’s all the Tudor and Elizabethan stuff, much of which survived because of some nifty political manoeuvring and judicious alliances during turbulent times like the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War.  Also, the fact that the Hall was abandoned for a couple of hundred years meant it avoided any tinkering by the Victorians.  The place is a miracle of survival, really.

 

 

First of all, an apology.  Thanks to me, the scheduler of these blog posts, getting my dates wrong, Maureen’s blog Hot, Hot, Hot appeared yesterday, a day early.  I hope that didn’t lessen your enjoyment.

 

Now, this is not necessarily a promise I’m going to keep but it’s my intention not to mention football for another wee while….Not much of a commitment, admittedly and who knows what exciting news will emerge from the world’s self-styled beautiful game in the next few weeks.  For the footy phobes, a word (or two) of warning:  the World Cup starts on Thursday 11th June and continues until Sunday 19th July.

My mate, who grew up in north London and is Tottenham to her painted toenails, now lives up here in the Midlands and drove us down for the big game last Sunday.  Weekend trains are notoriously unreliable and there were going to be disruptions at Euston (not unusual) and there was every chance we’d be surrounded by non-London based fans of West Ham, Fulham, Crystal Palace and, even worse, newly-crowned champions Arsenal.  Not forgetting the supporters of Leeds, Newcastle and Everton, who were all visiting the capital.

If we lost to Everton and West Ham beat Leeds, we’d be relegated and the journey home, disrupted or not, was likely to be brutal.  Driving it had to be.

On the M1 on the way down we saw the Hull City coach on the way back up north and wondered if it was some sort of dreadful omen:  they were on their way home after winning the Championship play-off and promotion to the Premier League.  Would we be taking their place in the second tier…..Aaaagh.

Spurs were last relegated in 1977 with the great Pat Jennings in goal and a young Glenn Hoddle, who went on to become great, remembers the hurt to this day.  Jennings conceded that the fall had been coming for three years and there could have been no complaints if we’d gone down again this time.  There’s also no guarantee that you’ll bounce straight back up again.  Spurs did manage it last time but only just:  they gained promotion in third place, on goal difference….So, just as well we managed to beat Everton 1-nil and West Ham went down instead, despite beating Leeds 3-nil.  Too late.  Too late.

The ground was packed and we were noisy as well as nervous and the cheers at the end were ear-splitting.  The overwhelming emotion was relief, we’d made it, we’d escaped the dreaded drop.  But there was anger too, that we’d had to watch far too much utter rubbish for far too long.  Roberto De Zerbi has given us hope that next season will be better – it had better be – but he has a lot of hard work to do.  “He needs to drive a bulldozer through that dressing room,” Gary Neville said and I doubt there’s a Spurs fan who’d disagree.

 

After the exhaustion of Sunday, it was a delight to go to the nephew’s wedding on Tuesday, at a lovely venue called The Glade on the edge of the National Forest in Derbyshire.  An owl delivered the wedding rings, landing on the (very nervous) best man’s gauntleted hand.  I wasn’t taking happy snaps during the ceremony so we’ll have to wait for the official photos.

The groom and his groomsmen were in suits that were too warm for the weather – no one had budgeted for the hottest May days on record – so they slipped into something more comfortable for the evening festivities.

 

A couple of days later, out in nature of a different kind, on the golf course, conditions were a little more testing and not every shot found its intended target (a bit like being back at Tottenham).  No wonder people think golf’s like life:  always presenting you with problems to solve…

I didn’t really have the space last week to mention the G4D Open (for Golfers with Disability) at Celtic Manor.  Simon Seungmin Lee, from the Republic of Korea, won the men’s title and Jennifer Sräga of Germany was the women’s champion.  Many congratulations to them and to all the competitors and everybody everywhere who made the event possible.  You can read more about it and the various categories – intellectual, standing, sitting, visual – at randa.org.  (NOT panda.org as my machine would have it.)

There has to be a special mention for Issa Nlareb A Amang, of Cameroon, runner-up to Lee.  He’s 35 and was a professional golfer when he contracted bacterial meningitis in 2018 and had a double leg amputation and severe damage to his hands. He is now the world No 7 and won the EDGA Tour Pas de Calais in France in April, before making his Open debut in Wales.  He struggled with the cold on the last day and putted like a drain – 40 putts in a 73 – but holed out from 40 yards with a 9-iron for an eagle three at the 17th.  Joy unconfined.

Where does a year go!  It seems no time at all since the 2025 Cambridge Beer Festival and now we’re back again, ready to sample the wonderful – and sometimes weird – selections on offer from all over the country.  I tried Grave Diggers Mild from Church End in Nuneaton and Moulin D’Etienne from Burwell in Cambridgeshire, two very different beasts – but surely that’s what a festival is for, a bit of experimentation.

Also, if you’re partial to punning, this is the place for you.  For instance, Electric Bear from Bath offered a stout called Darkside of the Spoon, a pale ale called Jurassic Thrive and another one called William Shakes Beer.  Shameless.

And the creativity of the brewers seems endless.  Holla Brewing from Potton in Bedfordshire presented a lager called Blush Vegas “brewed with the use of Thai black glutinous rice, which gives a pinkish hue.  Clean, crisp with a classic lager note on the nose, along with light floral, herbal notes peaking (sic) through with the hops.”  Mmmm.  At 4.7% it was out of my comfort zone, I rarely venture much over 4.0%.

Being a lot of a wimp I was not in the least tempted by Green Jack of Lowestoft’s Baltic Trader, a stout billed at a head-banging 10.5%.  Here’s the description:  “Export stout brewed with molasses and three roasted malts giving fruity flavours with hints of vanilla and roasted coffee – a rich plum pudding in a glass.”  Mmmm.  Perhaps better saved for Christmas.

We also had a trip to Bury St Edmunds, to visit a few pubs, including a titchy place called The Nutshell, apparently the smallest watering hole in Britain.  There were ten of us visitors in there and one garrulous local and the place was packed.  There was also the most gruesome thing I’ve ever seen anywhere:  a mummified cat that was apparently excavated from the brick wall of an old fireplace at some stage.  “Fluffy” as the cat is called is reckoned to be about 400 years old.

The  dubious practice of putting cats – dead or alive – in specially created niches was, apparently, to ward off evil spirits or bring good luck.  Fortunately, I’d finished my pint before I looked up and noticed him (or her) in their Perspex Ⓡ box.  All cat lovers look away now.

Now, just in case anybody is worrying about how we managed all this beer drinking, we were quite abstemious and paced ourselves well enough and made sure we had plenty to eat too.  Most important, we went by bus – on the top deck, so we could admire the views and any number of delicious-looking thatched cottages and beautiful gardens.  If you’re old enough, don’t hesitate to pick up your bus pass, you never know when it might come in handy.

There were various toasts to be drunk too:  to the new PGA champion Aaron Rai; to Lottie Woad, who continued her rise by winning the Kroger Queen City Championship at Maketewah Country Club in Cincinnati, Ohio; to Leonie Harm, who won the Amundi German Masters at Green Eagle Golf Courses in Hamburg, thirteen years after being hit by a drunken driver and given a one per cent chance of surviving her injuries.

“I got hit by a car when I was out jogging before school,” Harm, now 28, recalled.  I got put into a coma and suffered some pretty serious injuries [including head injuries, multiple bone fractures and a collapsed lung].  I miraculously recovered.  I woke up from the coma and it was weird, I knew what had happened to me but I had no memory of the event.  Everyone around me who thought I was going to die was like, ‘please don’t worry about golf, just be safe’.”

Seven weeks later Harm was back on the golf course.

She went on to win a German championship, play in the PING Junior Solheim, won the (British) Women’s Amateur in 2018, have a successful college career at the University of Houston, graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemical and biophysical sciences and turn professional.  She also had to learn to cope with the death of her mother from cancer but nearly gave up a couple of years ago when she lost her swing and was in despair, ready to retire.

“I was kind of on the verge of turning insane because nothing was working on the course even though I was working so hard,” she said.  Then, in Saudi Arabia caddying for her friend Momoka Kobori, she decided to hit a few balls on the range and Scott Edwards, a coach, asked if she’d mind him saying something.  “I thought, honestly, knock yourself out because I was ready to quit.

“He made a few tweaks and suddenly everything started to feel more like my swing again.  I was then able to work on all the other parts of my game.  I made a few trips over to work with him and instantly started seeing improvements…

“Resilience is a good thing and I have shown this at times but I believe right now I’m in a good spot mentally and for it to then be paired with success in golf is such a great feeling because I don’t have to be miserable.”

If you go to the LET’s YouTube site, you can hear – and see – Leonie tell her remarkable story.

Away from golf, I have to congratulate Arsenal on winning the Premier League title for the first time in 22 years.  We, the not-so-mighty Spurs, have never won that trophy, so it’s the Gunners doing the crowing, not our cockerel.  Still, they deserve it.  Having finished second in each of the last three seasons, to mocking cries of “Chokers, bottlers, wimps, losers”, whatever, they’ve earned it.

I draw the line at putting in a pic of the celebrations and think this is much more fun.  It made me laugh – and buy the book.

 

 

 

A few days ago, I was pondering the state of the world, something even a would-be ostrich like me feels obliged to do from time to time, unutterably depressing as it often seems to be.  After all, there’s little joy or relief to be found in my golf – unable to break 100 on my last outing – or my football team – unable to scrape a win at home on their last outing and still deeply mired in the relegation swamp.

It is, as Sir Alex Ferguson once put it, accurately if inelegantly:  Squeaky Bum Time.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine things being any worse but then I realise that I’m a bit of an ancient and can vaguely remember (or have I just read about it?) the Bay of Pigs; worries about nuclear obliteration (long-range ballistic missiles); the three-day week (sharing a bath every now and again); famines, famines everywhere.  If this is the worst of times, it’s also the best of times.  We’re lucky to be here, we just have to remind ourselves of that, whatever it looks like.

I haven’t mentioned football much recently, for obvious reasons  but I decided I’d have to plough on and go to the last two home matches.  The penultimate game was against the mighty whites aka Leeds United at the unsympathetic time of 2000 on Monday.  Ah, the joys of Monday Night Football – on the telly, not in person.  It’s a bugger to get home – and when the ref conjures up a mind-boggling thirteen minutes of added time, well that’s the 2300 train off the agenda.  Good thing I was booked on the 2330 on a cheap-as-chips advance single with senior railcard!

You can’t get back to Lichfield at that time, so I park the car at Birmingham International and get back home at just after 0200.  There are always other Spurs eejits/tragics/fans on the train.  The two guys near me were lucky enough to be getting off at Rugby, though when we reached Milton Keynes Central, the first stop, I heard one of them say to the other:  “I wish I lived in Milton Keynes.”

“No, you don’t,” said his mate.  “You just want to go to bed.”

And, of course, we were travelling home in a state of high uncertainty, if not anxiety.  The last relegation spot is between us and West Ham United, everybody else is safe.  It’s still in our hands – or feet – I think but only just.  Speculation is rife but futile – que sera sera.

My train down (up?) to London cost next to nothing but it called everywhere and was very slow, so I decided to take a book to help pass the time.  Ideally it had to be a slim volume and easy to read, not too demanding.  I ruled out Autocracy Inc. by Anne Applebaum, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, with the subtitle The Dictators Who Want To Run The World.  Hmm.  Slim, brilliant but too serious and close to home.

I settled for something a little older, just as brilliant but a different animal:  James Thurber’s My Life and Hard Times.  His  self-deprecating “Preface To A Life” concentrates on “writers of light pieces running from a thousand to two thousand words”….

“Your showpiece writer’s time is not…..Professor Einstein’s time.  It is his own personal time, circumscribed by the short boundaries of his pain and embarrassment, in which what happens to his digestion, the rear axle of his car, and the confused flow of his relationships with six or eight persons and two or three buildings is of greater importance than what goes on in the nation or in the universe.  He knows that the nation is not much good any more; he has read that the crust of the earth is shrinking alarmingly and that the universe is growing steadily colder [global warming now]…..

“He is aware that billions of dollars are stolen every year by bankers and politicians, and that thousands of people are out of work, but these conditions do not worry him a tenth as much as the conviction that he has wasted three months on a stupid psychoanalyst or the suspicion that a piece he has been working on for two long days was done much better and probably more quickly by Robert Benchley in 1924…”

Plus ça change.

We all have our priorities and one of mine is now to re-read every bit of Thurber I can get my hands on.  He was from Columbus, Ohio and one of my few claims to fame is that I introduced him to Jack Nicklaus, another famous son of Columbus…Well, more accurately, I introduced Jack to the work of James, filling in a gaping hole left by the school system in their home state…

I’m struggling near the bottom of the AGW PYP (Pick Your Pro) table but I have hopes of soaring up the rankings after this week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink. You get three choices in a major and I, praise be, have Scottie Scheffler, the defending champion, Patrick Reed and Harris English.  My sole ambition really is to have my pick actually playing in the event and that’s never a given because it’s hard to gauge in January who’s going to be playing where then, let alone later in the year.

I sympathise with the person who found that their choice for the tournament in Qatar was, in fact, playing in Phoenix, Arizona, that week, a mere 8,299 miles away.  That led to another colleague, renowned for his speed, accuracy and knowledge, admitting that he’d once told the world that Stephen Bennett was leading a tournament in Spain, only to take a phone call from him:  “I think you’ll find it’s Jeremy Bennett who’s leading.  I’m at home in Grimsby…”

Sometimes players are not where you want them to be and things aren’t quite how you want them to be.