Clowntime is over

Norman Wisdom has died. One of the people who has actually made it into the blog before: http://szekely.blogspot.com/2006/02/wisdom-of-ages.html There's probably some "Mr Grimsdale" type line that I could use here to conclude that otherwise meaningless comment into something with gentle pathos, but so unfamiliar am I with Mr Wisdom's oeuvre that it's beyond me frankly

Frost last night. Bollocks. It's too soon for winter for me.

This blog post can safely be ignored.

My International Football Career

I am, to put it mildly, not one of the world's greatest footballers. As a child I would be one of the last people picked in playground matches, and as an adult this record has not improved much since (a) I don't play that often, and (b) I'm still crap. But, for two brief years I was, and I say this with a fair degree of certainty, one of the best players in the country in which I resided. (There is a topical point to this post, so bear with me)

For this we have to go back over ten years now to 1996 (cue twilight-zone-esque music and the wibbly wobbly blurring of the screen as the universal indicator of the flashback). I was living and working in Pohnpei, the capital island of one of the world's lesser known countries, the Federated States of Micronesia. Every evening just before sunset I'd meet up with a few people at PICS Field, which was the only football pitch in Kolonia, the main city, and play a match. Most of us were foreigners of various origins, though there were one or two high school kids who joined us. Among the regulars were a Ugandan guy named Charles Musana, and a wily veteran Ghanaian called Thomas who was over 70 and who could still play a midfield anchor role, standing near the centre circle spraying passes around with unerring accuracy. Other nationalities typically represented included Japanese, Fijian, French, Australian and US American. On one occasion we organised an island wide tournament on a weekend, and we had 5 teams that got together - three high school teams, a team of Fijians, and my team of expats, originally called "The Internationals". For reasons that I can no longer remember, we decided to organise the tournament in such a way that we started off with two first round matches (with one team getting a bye to the semis), followed by one semi final and another bye, and then a final. The flaw in this plan became obvious when we were drawn to play in the second first round match, which we won, followed by the semi final, which we also won. Meaning that we, a team of players almost none of whom were younger than 30 and some of whom, like Thomas, were much older, had to play three matches in a row in the intense strength-sapping 100% humidity that was not really conducive to running around. And to make matters worse we were facing teams of 17 and 18 year olds, who were actually getting a break between matches. However, despite our totally exhausted state we managed to eke out a final win against the Seventh Day Adventist team (the SDA school had some enthusiastic American teachers who actually trained the kids, so they were always seen as potential winners).

This epic achievement still ranks as my finest moment on a football pitch, and possibly (and without too much exaggeration) in life. A little later in my Micronesian football career, I caught my foot in a divot while playing and ended up breaking my leg, which was not such a great high point of my life, though I do like to play up the story where I limped around my house for an evening, and then drove to the doctor's the next day, before discovering that I had broken it, and being gently advised not to drive home since the pain I felt on accelerating and breaking was almost certainly caused by the fact that I had a broken leg)

Anyway, why this story and now? Well, I happened upon this story this week, which rather took me back as you can imagine. References to my former colleague and teammate Charles, "an expat from Ghana" and all the things I remember (especially the barefoot approach favoured by the kids). Good luck to the new coaches. I suspect the (obviously tongue in cheek) hope for eventual world domination in football mentioned in the last sentence maybe a little optimistic, but they might beat Chuuk one day.

The Year of The Ox

Today is the first day (or second, or third, I'm not entirely sure - whatever the facts, it's early on) of the year of the Ox. You probably know this already since for whatever reason the Chinese New Year is always presented as a piece of big news. I don't have a problem with that per se, but it seems like other New Years (and there are loads of them) don't get half the coverage. Anyway, that aside, I am very pleased that this is the Year of the Ox, for historical reasons.

There now follows a story from my past which may upset people for a number of reasons. Some may be offended by the schmaltzy dredging up of old reminiscences. Some may be shocked to learn that I am not, as everyone may suspect, entirely perfect and above the law. Others still may be perturbed to learn that, despite appearances to the contrary from my writing ability, I actually did go to University. Who knows? Anyway, without further ado, and with my fingers firmly crossed in the hope that the statute of limitations on some of the revelations contained herein has passed (and typing with your fingers crossed is quite challenging, let me tell you), here goes.

When I was a student (an undergraduate student, that is, since I've done more studenting since then), I occasionally indulged in a spot of smoking. And by smoking here, I don't mean an after-dinner Gitane or a post-coital Marlboro, but something a tad less legal. And by "occasionally" here, I actually mean something like almost incessantly. I hope you've got the picture.

Anyway in my third and final year, I lived on campus in a kind of shared kitchen arrangement with a number of other students, some of whom were first-years. Somehow, one of the friends of one of these first-years, learned that perhaps I might have once in a while on a special occasion have a small puff or two on a joint. Anyway, he wanted to know where he could source some of Morocco's finest export, and so he naturally ended up approaching me. However, much as it amuses me to imagine it these days, I may have intimidated him slightly (apart from being the old hand, I was obviously living a life of crime), and he approached me by shoving a letter under my door. Now here I must now explain that for reasons connected to my surname, for many years in my school and latterly university life I was known by the nickname "Hox". So, this note appears under my door addressed to "The Ox". Obviously this lad had decided that I was some big time gangster drug-dealer and had assumed that what he'd heard to be my name was actually a big-time-gangster-drug-dealer alias.

You might be surprised to learn that this event caused great hilarity among my circle and among a number of people I indeed became "The Ox". In fact my oldest friend still calls me The Ox.

So, anyway the upshot of all this, is that it being the year of "The Ox" is (or ought to be) very propitious for me. And I fully expect to be overwhelmed with good fortune and health happiness and whatever else Chinese people get in good years.

(Final note to the police: The events depicted here happened over 20 years ago. And, anyway, I could have made them up. So there.)