Told you I wouldn't be watching.....

See...I told you I wouldn't be watching the match. It has started, and so for the next 90 minutes I am a prisoner - no TV , no radio and no sneaky peaking on the web! I can't do any more than that to help them. I have even got a little prayer

Oh Great Lord (er....yeah I know its when it suits me mate, but you are supposed to be all forgiving, how about being non-judgemental as well!).....

Oh Great Lord
Make it swift
Make it painless
If the Arse are to win make it by 1 goal
No humiliations please
Make it over 90 minutes
No extra time
No penalty shoot outs
If this happens, then I will know this prayer was intercepted by The Devil
Or that you are The Devil

Blimey, straight plagiarism of the style of the great EJ Thribb, resident poet of Private Eye. The only poet I ever really liked in fact. To my mind the best poetry is usually song lyrics, although to those who study poetry properly, and know all about iambic pentameters etc, song lyrics are just above limerick status. I did study this stiuff as part of my foundation course in the Humanities, but despite my best efforts , and although I can understand the structures and meanings, I still can't rave over poetry thats not music based. That probably makes me a heathen to some academic minds, but it doesn't make me a hypocrite. So my favourite poem....

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon

Courtesy of a certain Roger Waters from my all time favourite band Pink Floyd. The music is great, I always dissed them because I laboured under the illusion that they were heavy metal (although now I like a lot of the "metal" stuff). I was 16 when I first heard the album "Dark Side of the Moon" and this song Eclipse, is the denouement of the album. I can honestly say that it's as fresh to me today as it was 26 years ago (fuck me, was it that long?). At 15 I thought it was the single most profound thing I had ever heard, and I include all the Catholic propaganda shoved down my thoat from cradle to my independence age of 14. In fact it was miles away from that. Previous to hearing this I had been a David Bowie freak, but then this stuff came along and blew me away. I had mates who didn't get me, who lived and breathed the singles charts and the prevailing fashions. I was different , I did both - singles and albums. I was the archetypal bloke who saved his money and bought an album. A 12" inch piece of vinyl, with proper covers, with artwork decor on the cover that was almost as integral to the album as the music. I was prepared to listen to other stuff. It kind of felt unique, being able to enjoy Floyd, then Zep, and punk, and glam, and disco, and New Wave,and New Romantics etc etc . At a time, not dissimilar to today, when life was about labelling and pigeonholing people, I was rather proud of my ability to cross musical genres and not feel hypocritical. I may publish my second favourite poem another day, by a certain David Bowie, but I am going to dash now and put the hi-fi on, brush off Wish You Were Here, on vinyl and play it as loud as possible because I have the house to myself. Grab these loud peaceful musical moments when you can. When you have kids they are rare indeed.

Later, Grocerjack