National Guitar Day.

 National Guitar Day. 

You've all been waiting with bated breath so let's surprise you. You would have never known what National Day it is so it is time to put you out of your misery. Ladies and Gentleman and for all those musicians who so diligently ply their trade with complete dedication, today is National Guitar Day. Now the chances are that for those who don't play the guitar, it isn't really the most important day of the year. Still, you can come out of your recording studio and enjoy the fruits of this acknowledegment of National Guitar Day. 

So where do our thoughts take us when we think of that very recognisable sound of the guitar? Do we think of Tin Pan Alley in Denmark Street, the heart of London's always bustling West End? Or perhaps we might venture into Charing Cross Road where the guitar still takes you back to the age of rock and roll, Lonnie Donegan's skiffle during the 1950s and all of those electric guitars of varying sophistication. Guitars tick all the right boxes because they were the distinctive soundtrack of the late 1950s and 60s in London where pianos, violins and drum kits still sit very impressively next to the guitar. 

Back in the early 1950s one man paved the way for a thriving, booming industry, a pioneering figure who today's generation still look back fondly on as the man who started it all, a sparking plug and catalyst for those who just loved writing songs that were simple. They had to be accompanied, though, by guitar solos or a subtle backing track for a song that just seemed so right and totally evocative of the period, maybe reflective love songs that took you right back to that first date in a candle lit restaurant. There was one, though one man and man only who made all the difference in the world of guitars.

His name was Bert Weedon and Weedon was the man who created the magic, a guitarist with the nimblest of fingers, somebody with a natural aptitude for finding new chords and colours within the framework of a guitar driven composition. Weedon quite literally taught the world how to play the guitar with skilful thumbs and joyous freedom. Weedon possessed a natural comfort and dexterity with the plucking plectrum that gripped Britain. None had really captured the essence of guitar playing until Weedon arrived. 

And so Weedon gave us his unique masterclass in that magical sound of the guitar. So it was that when Britain entered that seminal and life changing decade known as the Swinging Sixties, an all guitar group leapt into the music pop music consciousness, both owning and revolutionising the way the guitar could be played and would continue to do so for some time.  

The Shadows were an all British guitar band who elevated the guitar to a deliciously pleasant level that was choreographed to perfection with those wonderful feet shuffling movements of the Shadows. Both Hank Marvin, Bruce Welsh, Brian Bennett, Jet Harris the bassist and Tony Meehan would lend a polish and an air of finesse to the art of guitar playing. Hank Marvin, with his trademark glasses, would later carve out a film career with Cliff Richard and the Shadows and their appearance in the movie Summer Holiday will remain a treasured memory. Summer Holiday was a jolly and uplifting film about Cliff Richard and the Shads travelling in an old fashioned but classic Red Route Master double decker London bus and just enjoying life. 

But the Shadows gave us Apache, the superb Wonderful Land, Sleepwalk and Kon Tiki, smoothly effortless and the kind of music that the teenagers of the late 1950s and early 1960 would take to their park and listen to intently on their transistor radio with a shameless admiration and appreciation of that simple twang of the guitar. And the Shadows certainly knew how to twang their electric guitars because it was their definitive trademark. The Shadows wore sharp suits, smart trousers and were the boys every girl wanted to introduce to their parents. They were clean cut, respectable, knowing instinctively where their music was taking them to. 

Then, at the beginning of the 1960s a band from Liverpool called the Beatles stopped everybody in their tracks. John Lennon and Paul McCartney composed most of the Beatles most resonant and poetic lyrics. Lennon and McCartney were tailor made for the guitar, the instrument wrapped around their shoulders and then being held onto with a tenderness that was both moving and electrifying. Lennon and McCartney and Lennon gave the Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, its quirkiest acoustic and both Yesterday, Hey Jude and the guitar textured Ticket to Ride would become one of many of their greatest hits. 

McCartney though as a front line guitarist had so much imagination and invention in his head that you wondered whether you would ever hear anything like it ever again in the future. Lennon was just John Lennon, seemingly too casual and blase about the Beatles phenomenal success and convinced that even the Rolling Stones would have difficulty in matching, emulating and surpassing them. When the Beatles broke up in 1970s, Lennon pursued a solo career, spent a week in bed with Yoko Ono in a shop window, grew his hair to an impossible length, developed a beard and just kept producing song after song of unsurpassable genius. 

Burt Bacharach's Something, a George Harrison classic, had those mellifluous guitar backing tracks that Lennon would have given anything to write. But the Beatles kept going through the 1960s because they knew they were pathfinders, discovering key changes in the guitar that few of their contemporaries could ever get the better of. Lennon and McCartney loved the guitar because it was liberating, exciting, energising and just ground breaking. 

At around about the same time during the 1960s Eric Clapton, from that wonderfully transformative and creative period of song writers, emerged into the spotlight. Clapton was a brilliant and stylish rock guitarists and Layla somehow defined both Clapton and the way he brought his guitar to life. When Eric Clapton, who joined the band Cream, arrived on the scene, the guitar became like a philosophy, a mantra and slogan that everybody could recognise. There was a vibrancy and vivacity about music during the late 1950s that everybody could dance to in first the coffee bars of Soho and the much wider world.

Twenty years later one of the most dynamic rock bands of all time exploded into a decade that probably hadn't seen them coming. They were genuine rock guitarists who crafted some of the most ingenious lyrics of all time, a group at first glance who were, allegedly, so outrageous, gaudy and garish that it seemed only a matter of a time before burn out would set in and the group would have a limited shelf life. And yet Queen were and still are a breath of fresh air and the critics would have to keep their feelings to themselves. 

But Queen were sensational, spectacular, glamorous and fittingly fashionable. Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor, were superlative musicians who embraced the guitar with the relish of youngsters who were determined to follow in their footsteps.  We Are the Champions, Seven Seas of Rye, their first single, Radio Ga Ga, A Crazy Thing Called Love and, above all, the remarkable Bohemian Rhapsody dramatically changed the landscape of  the rock guitar community. 

Brian May, now a distinguished astro physicist, remains one of our most famous and prominent mainstream guitarists. May attacked every Queen song as if his life depended on it. With long, frizzy black hair and electric guitar in his hand, Brian May made his guitar screech, scream and shriek with purpose and conviction. He would hold his guitar up in the air as if it were some birthday present his mum and dad had just given him. Then there the wild, extravagant chord changes, the respectful smiles and glances in Freddie Mercury's direction and Roger Taylor who pounded out the drums with a relentless ferocity.

During the 1970s there was Bread's Guitar Man, George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps and those gently tranquil Spanish guitar symphonies of sound that made us think of the English countryside, musical streams and wide, expansive acres of meadows, cornfields and late night jazz gatherings. The guitar sound always reminded us of where we were in childhood and then followed us into burgeoning adolescence.

And so today is National Guitar Day. The fact has to be emphasised in much the way the guitar either prompted us to play it playfully or simply at the end of the day with a smooth cappuccino, latte and my lovely and late mum's milky coffee. John Williams and Jeff Lynne's ELO are yet more legendary names from the high society of the guitar world. But if you should happen to have an old guitar in your attic and you're so inclined then this may be the time to express yourself for no other reason than it's the greatest musical instrument of all time. You are the Guitar Man or Woman. Enjoy.

Winter Olympics

 Winter Olympics in Milan

There was a time when the sport of skiing was always regarded as the one activity that only the rich and privileged could afford. Then again the middle class took one look at the wealthy bourgeoisie and just sniffed disdainfully at the commoners and peasants, shamelessly showing off their latest ski boiler suit and claiming to have watched Ski Sunday introduced by David Vine every week without missing a single trend or fashion.

Over the weekend the Winter Olympics of Milan began that well trodden journey towards the land of sportsmanship, goodwill to all mankind, equality of the sexes, no racism or discrimination of any kind, tolerance and understanding. Then again the whole Olympic movement has always tried desperately hard to rid itself of deceit, illicit drug taking, doping and corruption. And look what happened when that didn't work. The cynics accused the Olympic committee of being cheap and tawdry, a sleazy sham and full of shifty eyed, fraudulent behaviour. But that was enough about the summer Olympic Games. 

Anyway, the Winter Olympics has parked itself in Cortina Milan and although the critics are still darkening its corridors with accusation after counter accusation, we know otherwise. Somehow, you just have to pinch yourself at some of the events that have always decorated the Winter Olympics. For a fortnight, Italy will be packed to the rafters with world class downhill skiers, delightful skaters, the bobsleigh, the luge and the toboggan or the tea tray as some would affectionately call it.  

In the general scheme of things, the Winter Olympics never really had the desired impact as the summer Olympics because we are now in the depths of winter and there's a different aura about the Games. Once again we look at those snow clad mountains in Milan and just shiver because we think it's cold. But hold, on the kids of Britain and the world love the snow and nobody takes any greater pleasure in the snow than the children who pray for the snow because it's fun and you've got the day off school and once again you can slide down hills surrounded by snow. 

Anyway, there is something strangely comforting about the snow and the Winter Olympics. It is perhaps the only time of the year when we can all be warmly insulated in our well heated homes and not envy the ones who are probably accustomed to the freezing conditions anyway. So we wrap ourselves in our blankets on the sofa and wonder if it'll ever stop raining outside. So we look at those crying windows with acres of dripping rain spots and just yearn for spring and summer. It simply can't come quickly enough. But then who cares about the rain and snow, anyway.

And so it is we turn to Team GB's latest hopes of ice skating glory. Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson will be hoping to follow in the distinguished footsteps of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean 42 years ago when the hopes of a nation fell on them. Torvill was a very feminine figure, all toothpaste smiles and a winning personality. Dean was, and still is, an upright, tall, commanding and reassuring policeman but was now Torvill's partner, never flustered or bothered, just content to be creating a massive slice of history into the making. 

So there we were there in Sarajevo in 1984 and we must have waited ages for Torvill and Dean to underline their signature on a momentous night in what used to be Yugoslavia in another age. Their performance incorporated everything we'd been hoping from them. It looked like an ice skating marriage made in heaven. In fact, for those who probably believed there was a romantic dalliance between them, it almost seemed too good to be true. There was indeed chemistry between Torvill and Dean and they were compatible but not close enough to be married to each other. 

Come the early hours of the morning, millions of folk in the United Kingdom couldn't wait to put the kettle on, smarten ourselves up in front of our TV and just pretend we were there when of course we weren't. But it would have been nice to think that we were. It was Nottingham's finest hour apart from that episode in Sherwood Forest when Robin Hood and his merry men appeared on our radar. Torvill and Dean were simply magnificent, outstanding athletes, the personification of grace and majesty with beautifully choreographed movements. Nobody had ever seen Bolero performed with such dignity and class.

And then of course there were Team GB's other Olympic heroes and stalwarts. John Curry's story was a  triumphant one but tinged with heartbreak. Curry had already come out as gay and this had been well documented. But when Curry sadly died of Aids and the world just wanted to put a sympathetic shoulder around Curry's family, you simply remembered the man himself and his remarkable achievements.

In the 1976 Winter Olympic Games of Innsbruck in Austria, Curry pulled out all the stops, gliding serenely and almost graciously towards his gold medal winning performance. The flowers that Curry was showered with were a pleasant and uplifting metaphor for what Curry had done on ice. It was a decorative and dainty performance, full of rich technical skill and supreme artistic merit. John Curry may have passed but he left behind him an indelible Olympic legacy. 

Then there was Robin Cousins, another ice cool craftsman of his trade. Four years later in Lake Placid, Cousins would perform with identical panache and the most immaculate interpretation to the music he'd been given. After Cousins had retired, he would go on to spread the gospel by teaching and influencing millions of youngsters who perhaps had never really given ice skating any consideration whatsoever. 

And so we return to the present day and Lilah Fear accompanied by Lewis Gibson. This time the British public are waiting patiently for another Torvill and Dean moment at one o'clock in the morning. The Winter Olympics may not quite the same kind of box office cachet as the summer edition but it does look both exciting and, at the same time, terrifying. So here's what some of us might do. 

We'll watch those downhill skiiers flying down those slopes, weaving fearlessly between the poles and glad that it isn't us. We will look on with nothing but endless admiration at those terrifying tea trays or toboggans, hurtling around bends at 200 mph and then feel even more relieved. Then there are the acrobatic events such as the breathless snowboarding which, to the outsider, looks mind blowingly dangerous and ski mountaineering which makes its Olympic debut.

Ice hockey of course has been around for decades and will once again be dominated by those countries who have always excelled at the sport. Now as an impartial observer, ice hockey just looks like violence on ice, a convenient excuse for a riotous punch up. The sight of experienced Canadian ice hockey players bundling each other into a corner and trying to punch their opponents into submission, just looks morally unacceptable. It is a kind of mini warfare where nobody benefits at all. 

So it is that the Winter Olympics are now here for a fortnight or two. During the opening ceremony of these Games, we were treated to the sight of Italian coffee pots dancing around the San Siro. Now San Siro is the home of Inter and AC Milan, still recognised as two of the most respected and adored football clubs in Europe. But the ceremony was never going to be festooned with football references because this was the Winter Olympics and that would never be the case anyway. 

And then we recalled Eddie 'the Eagle Edwards, an eccentric British gentleman who, as a kid had always wanted to do ski jumping for a living. The story has been told repeatedly but never loses its lustre and shine. It was a rags to riches, a dogged determination in the jaws of adversity. Edwards took on the might of the Olympic establishment and did take part in the Winter Olympics of Calgary in 1988. Of course there were those who thought he'd lost any sense of reason and commonsense. But Edwards wasn't mad and he wasn't silly. He did take part in the Winter Olympics and he defied the odds admirably. And that encapsulates the spirt of the Olympics. Look at the opposition in the face and tell them it can be done and it will. Edwards remains the Winter Olympics fearless cheerleader. Never give up

The Munich air crash

 The Munich air crash.

It was football's darkest hour. None of us could have foreseen just how great a tragedy could still have the capacity to affect us almost seven decades since it happened. But it has and will continue to live in the memory of all who witnessed it at the time. For some, it may haunt their every waking moment from the time they get up in the morning to the time when they go to sleep. We must pray that it never happens again in anybody's lifetime and therefore it is enough that we recollect the event with painful clarity. 

For today marks the 68th anniversary of the Munich air crash which claimed the lives of the Busby Blues of Manchester United, one of England's finest collection of enormously gifted individuals. Even now, the scale of what took place on that snow bound Munich airport runway remains simply incomprehensible and conceivable. It almost feels as though the accident itself was so avoidable that every time you look at the dusty black and white film footage of the air crash, all of those horrendous memories keep flooding back. 

However hard you try, you can still see Bobby Charlton, he of the thunderous shot and one of England's youngest natural talents at the time, lying in a hospital bed on a drip, fighting for his life. And then there was the extraordinary Duncan Edwards, the one United player who briefly represented his country with peerless distinction, a player of world class refinement who, some suggested, would have become England's captain for years to come. But sadly and heartbreakingly this was never to be the case. 

And yet the weekend before, Manchester United had gone toe to toe with Arsenal in quite the most astonishing League match in the old First Division. They had beaten Arsenal 5-4 at Highbury and even now the game is still remembered with an emotional intensity that, in hindsight, now feels like the hollowest of reminiscences. How could one match be followed with another whose aftermath would be so shocking, so appalling and so devastating that it keeps drifting through your mind and refuses to go away? 

But tomorrow at Old Trafford and every Premier League game throughout the country we will bow our heads with a reverence and solemnity that will be both apt and heartfelt. At six minutes past three tomorrow afternoon, the United players of today's generation will drop their heads, hands clasped behind the backs and, for some, this will be the most private and personal moment in their lives. They will think of the Busby Babes, closing their eyes tightly and praying for the families who may still be grieving. It will be the hardest couple of  minutes of their lives.

What happened in Munich this day 68 years ago is another sharp reminder of football's vulnerability, its humility, the sombre recognition of the Busby Babes who died when, quite obviously, this should never have been the case. United had just beaten Red Star Belgrade in a European Cup tie and were looking forward to greater riches in the competition. The intervention of fate dictated otherwise and on a cruel day in the history of Manchester United, the heartbeat of that team was stopped abruptly and brutally. 

The players who died still sound like an agonising and plaintive cry from yesteryear. There was Roger Byrne, Dennis Violett, Tommy Taylor, Eddie Colman, David Pegg, Bill Whelan, goalkeeper Harry Gregg, the aforementioned Bobby Charlton, Duncan Edwards and Geoff Bent. On reflection we now know that that plane should never have been allowed to take off in such extenuating circumstances but it did and more is the pity. 

On three separate occasions, air traffic control had given United permission to fly back to England for United's home game against Wolves on the following Saturday. Repeatedly so, the nagging voices who ordered United to come home, will resonate with us for ever more. That crusty reactionary Alan Hardaker warned United that if they didn't return to England immediately, they would be docked points in the League and sanctioned with the heaviest of fines. 

For the last time, the United players settled back in their seats and the authorities were breathing down United's necks. Ploughing along an icy, slushy runway, the plane attempted to take off but then slid out of control before plunging towards extinction. With fuselage and the main body of plane hurtling towards a hut, the plane then crashed on impact and a majority of the Busby Babes were dead. There were flames and ashes everywhere, shrapnel scattered across smoky ground and it looked undoubtedly terrifying.

And so, 68 years later, the Manchester United team of caretaker coach Michael Carrick will step out with the present day United squad for their Premier League encounter against Spurs. Football will hardly seem relevant or important at all for the minutes silence before the game. Football will become the least of any of our worries or concerns. Of course United will be totally focused and ready to concentrate on victory or so they must hope. But the seconds will linger forever tomorrow and the clock at Old Trafford will tick round inexorably and achingly. 

Of course there have been League championship titles, Premier League titles, FA Cup Final victories and European Cup Final triumphs since that fatal day in 1958. Football has to continue because it has to and we have to move on. There will be a time for gravity and moroseness tomorrow and the grandchildren of those who lost their great grandfathers will look on with a stunned bewilderment. How on earth did this one event leave so many psychological scars for ages? We will try to understand the traumatic consequences of  the Munich air crash but will never do so. We'll do our utmost and hope for the best.

There is though the comforting knowledge that the Busby Babes could have blossomed into one of the most stunning Manchester United sides of all time. We will never know now but, tomorrow, United will walk out of the tunnel against Spurs with their heads held high. It won't be easy and nobody ever said it would be but for both the Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson years, it'll be a time for healing and positive thoughts for the future. We must live with nothing but optimism since life is indeed beautiful. 

Snooker player John Virgo dies

 Snooker player John Virgo dies

It used to be the case that a love of snooker was the sign of a misspent youth, a waste of an afternoon or a sure sign that you could have been using your time far more productively. For some of us, it was never the easiest watch and only TV provided snooker with a glamour and personality that perhaps we should have done more to get excited about. But when snooker loses one of its greatest exponents, you begin to wonder why you didn't really take it as seriously as you should have done. 

John Virgo, one of the most cheerful and upbeat of all sportsman, possessed a charisma and charm that his contemporaries always valued in Virgo. Yesterday though Virgo sadly died. Virgo was always a classical snooker player always sticking to the orthodox but then surprising everybody in the game with the flamboyant and unpredictable. Like most of his rivals, Virgo was always respectful of his opponents but ruthless when he needed to be. Long after he retired, Virgo was still bathing in past glories and always hungry for victory.

And the annoying stereotypes continued to haunt snooker. It was a pub game that was either played in your local watering hole or some atmospheric hall or leisure centre. Snooker had vast hordes of enthusiastic fans who followed Virgo everywhere. He was their spokesman, their rallying cry, their advocate and champion. He played snooker with a permanent smile on his face and none could question his unstinting commitment to the game, a man for all seasons. 

The lines are now blurred between snooker's divine right to be considered as a sport and those who still regard it with sneering disapproval. How can a spectacle that requires no physical exertion whatsoever still attract hysterical praise and adulation from millions of people who can't get enough of it? But Virgo was markedly different, a humorous joker always laughing along with his captive audiences but also playing snooker with a meticulous attention to detail. 

After serving his apprenticeship in the pubs and clubs of Salford, Virgo rose to prominence and arrived shortly after snooker converted black and white TV coverage into resplendent colour. The BBC's Pot Black was compulsive viewing for a growing audience who were slowly developing a passion for the sport. The likes of Fred and Joe Davis were very much the pioneers just after the Second World War but then the 1970s knocked on snooker's door and a whole host of unknown men captured our hearts. 

There was Fred Davis, Steve Davis, Alex Hurricane Higgins, Eddie Charlton, Cliff Thorburn and, more recently the inimitable Ronnie O' Sullivan, another entertaining extrovert who sets his own rules and boundaries and frequently tests both. But everybody loves Ronnie because he's a national treasure and gets an enormous satisfaction out of beating one of his fierce rivals. 

But John Virgo won the 1979 UK Championship beating Welshman Terry Griffiths followed swiftly with four major titles and trophies. He took snooker to an even bigger fanbase and he did so with an impish chuckle and a complimentary word or two. Snooker revels in its immaculate suit, shirt and bow tie image because snooker has a measured precision about it, a cunning strategy and a thrilling simplicity that requires no explanation.

You sit down to watch the game and that green baize table is simply mesmeric and you are drawn helplessly into its web of  intrigue and mystery. My late and wonderful dad loved a good game of snooker and would insist on watching its changing moods and clever machinations. From the beginning frame of red balls to the striking and vivid blues, yellows, pinks, black, pink and red balls and 147s, snooker has always held us gripped. 

Now for the sceptics and cynics and naysayers, snooker is unbelievably boring, too slow for words and somehow demeaning to the intellect. But what do they know that we clearly do? Snooker is big money, highly lucrative, unquestionably prestigious, a millionaire's dream, the kind of financial windfall that the working man or woman could only dream of. 

In more recent times, Virgo was chosen as the guest on a snooker related quiz show called Big Break. Introduced by comedian Jim Davidson, Virgo demonstrated all of the qualities that we'd always admired. He was the court jester, funny and gloriously facetious at times, quietly modest at times but never less than committed to the sport he'd honed his craft in during his early adolescence. John Virgo, we'll always remember that happy-go-lucky demeanour. Thankyou. 

It's time for some book promotion.

 It's time for some book promotion. 

For those of you who know what happens next, this is the time when your humble self published author and writer reminds you that there's something that might interest you. So, for your further reading pleasure, this is my current book of football poetry. It's fun, quirky, lyrical, descriptive and this could be either your cup of tea, breakfast, lunch or supper depending on your appetite and craving for originality. 

So here we go. My current book is called Football's Poetic Licence and is available at Amazon, Waterstones online, Foyles online and Barnes and Noble online. Of course, football is the universal language of the sporting world. It speaks to you eloquently of the dramas, the melodramas, the wildly contrasting emotions that cross all borders and frontiers. Football is the Beautiful Game and its simple pleasures, traditional highs and lows, fortunes and misfortunes can never be underestimated. 

This summer, the world will gather together in huge congregations, heartfelt communal and tribal gatherings for the World Cup. This year, the World Cup will be hosted by the USA, Mexico and Canada which, in the grander scheme of things, does sound pretty exciting. But there is a novelty value about this tournament because only the USA and Mexico can boast some history and pedigree. Canada may have to search around for their identity because football has yet to break into their market, their publicity machine. Sooner rather than later it will become a vitally important topic of conversation in the bars and pubs of Toronto, Montreal, Quebec and Banff. But we'll be delighted to see them because football loves the underdog and we love Canada.

There is an intriguing undercurrent of discussion murmuring in the heartlands of Canadian discussion rooms. It may work in their favour but, still, the thought persists that Canada may have to be politely introduced to world football's charming hosts. They may get it eventually but the fear is that they won't understand the breathtaking beauty of Brazil, the Latin sensuality and romance of the Argentinian game, nor the technical efficiency and European flair of Germany, Italy, Spain nor France. Or maybe they will and you're being very patronising. Canada will be certainly welcomed with open arms and eternal friendship.

England and Scotland will be at the party because football's sense of international diversity remains its most significant feature. Of course they play the same game and that's the epitome of cool but it needs to be said that football is also inclusive and tolerant, never discriminating or excluding anybody. And the rarefied world of football poetry is different. You feel sure that the esteemed likes of Keats, Wordsworth, Shelly and Wilde would have been quite flattered by homage to football although they might have reserved judgment on football poetry. 

Anyway, the fact is that my book of football poetry Football's Poetic Licence is currently at Amazon. Football embraces all cultures and classes, from the athleticism and physicality of the African game to the more sophisticated narratives of the South America. So here we are my friends across the world, this is my book of football poetry and this is definitely the book for you. It is a warm homage to the world game of football, poetry in motion. 

So here goes. Check out my book of football poetry Football's Poetic Licence, now available at Amazon. I wax lyrical about the FA Cup, Premier League, Champions League, my late and wonderful mum and dad, there's a warm eulogy to my lovely dad, my grandpa Jack who cut the hair of those noble 1966 World Cup winning heroes Bobby Moore, Sir Geoff Hurst, Sir Martin Peters, the World Cup, England, USA, Euro 2020, Europa League, the Carabao Cup, football grounds and Ilford FC, my local team growing up. Tell all your friends and families. Best wishes to the global football community. 

National Curmudgeons Day.

 National Curmudgeons Day. 

So come on, cheer up. It may never happen and probably never will but it could and then you somehow knew it would be so that's a self fulfilling prophecy. There are those people out there who inhabit a world of constant despondency, nothing but incessant pessimism, gloom and doom merchants, misery guts merchants, grumpy, cantankerous, thoroughly objectionable, negative, disagreeable souls who are the proverbial pain in the neck. They're always complaining about something and can never be happy unless they're whinging and moping about the worst case scenario. 

Now, my late and wonderfully delightful father in law Stan was the best in the world, an admirable and hardworking father of two wonderful children. He served the Ministry of Defence as a conscientious civil servant for almost 40 years. He worked hard and diligently because he was dedicated and always knew the meaning of duty and service to the work force.

But, and this is a view widely shared by his loving family, Stan loved a good, old fashioned moan and gripe and was always finding fault with something and somebody in officialdom. But he was the greatest and kindest, most warm hearted and considerate father in law you could ever meet. And yet, according to Stan, there was always something fundamentally wrong with the government of the day, there were far too many injustices within society that could never be righted and there were annoying imbalances that none of us could rectify.

Essentially though, we tend to get all hot and bothered under the collar about the trivialities and insignificant aspects of our life. Now, though, we are incensed about the astronomical fuel and electricity prices, the soaring gas bills, the unfeasibly expensive phone bills and those ever rising rents to landlords that are always a thorn in the side of young students looking for their first property. So it is that we get angrier and angrier, wildly indignant at the declining moral fabric of the British culture and so much more.

We wake up in the morning and the immediate concern is that good, old fashioned chestnut known as the British weather. Now the weather across the United Kingdom has always been one of the most enduring and traditional preoccupations that do so much to dominate our everyday conversation. We have to worry about ephemera, the things that shouldn't really matter but do and we can never tell you why. We despair of rain during the summer when it should be up in the 90s and gloriously hot. Then we look up at the dark, cloudy skies in June and July and wonder how Britain invariably ends up with day after day of wet, soggy pavements. 

But in complete contrast, we open our blinds and curtains during the winter and half expect twenty inches of snow on the ground and are frustrated when not being able to get out as much as we would like. So when it feels like spring in December and there are still one or two tulips in our gardens, our minds get totally confused and befuddled. So we get on our high horse and criticise our highly qualified weather forecasters because they can never be accurate and it's not the weather we're supposed to get. 

There are the pompous, pontificating politicians who, according to some, are a complete waste of time. The trouble is that there can be no satisfying those grumpy grouches who are always blaming someone or bleating about something. They sit all day in the kitchen, leafing through the news in the tabloid newspapers, fuming and fretting, privately boiling and seething, blustering and bickering with insufferable neighbours or telling their local councillors that those wretched pot holes in the road are getting worse and worse. But then again some of our neighbours are full of sympathetic understanding and kindly words. 

We just become exasperated with those council tax bills, the criminally extortionate prices of breakfast cereals, bread, meat, fish and all of those essential foods that keep us alive and well. It's the cost of living crisis at the moment and how are we ever going to cope and afford basic clothing for both kids and their mums and dads? We more or less surrender to the inevitable relegation of our football team West Ham United all the while condemning outright the manager, the chairman or woman, the ground staff and the catering department for our eternal shortcomings. 

And finally we can barely tolerate the unbearable traffic on the road, vehicles restricted to slowcoach pace at roughly 20mph. There are the winding, twisting tailbacks, bumper to bumper cars, lorries and vans that lead to a procession of bad tempers and very patient motorists who just keep hooting their horns just in case this is something of a deliberate conspiracy. So we just keep airing our understandable grievances because nothing is going to get done and may never be however many times we email the authorities.

Recently, our recycling bins reached bursting point and you found yourself shoving tons of cardboard, paper and plastic into a huge orange and black repository that looked as if it was about to explode with excess and rubbish. So you kept your feelings to yourself and just remained cool and composed, recognising the absurdity of what was happening in front of you.

Then you realised that even though we are almost a month into the new year, the dustmen and women still think it's Christmas. They've forgotten to empty the eco waste again.  And yet there is something warm and reassuring about the world of the grumpy people. They're seemingly never satisfied and yet we love them. They are indeed the rich tapestry of life.  Here's to the Curmudgeonly folk of the world. You're brilliant. Victor Meldrew, of course we believe it.

Holocaust Memorial Day.

 Holocaust Memorial Day.

So here we are again. We've arrived at that point in the year when thoughts turn almost naturally to the Holocaust. On Tuesday, the global Jewish population cast their minds, 86 years ago now, to the one apocalyptic event in world history that horrified, terrified and left a vast majority of the world in a state of numbed silence, shock, stunned horror and paroxysms of disgust and fury. The world found itself paralysed, broken, heartbroken and utterly despairing of the immediate future. 

And so it is that January 27th is the date that marks the day when the grandchildren of the Holocaust survivors stare mournfully into the ground because they have no words for there are none that can adequately explain or justify the life changing, momentous and horrific events of the Shoa. These flashpoint moments have now left the darkest shadow over the lives who witnessed it in all its gory, gruesome and blood curdling fashion. This is the day we recognise the admirable sacrifices made by armies, navies and huge regiments of soldiers. 

From a personal point of view, the Holocaust is the one day in the calendar year when you begin to rationalise the irrational, clarify the indefinable and inexplicable and then fill out all the missing details that may have gone over our heads. I remember who they were because they put their lives on the line, felt their brutality and then saw the horrendous savagery of it all and are still dumbstruck by something that seems so barely imaginable. 

And yet, ever year, I pay my respects to my late and wonderful mum and dad at Waltham Abbey Cemetery before wandering off to the Holocaust Memorial. The Holocaust Memorial is undoubtedly one of the finest, most impressive spaces and sanctuaries for those whose lives will always be remembered, dwelt upon deeply, lamented upon with absolutely appropriate grief and then thought about again and again with sadness and sombre reflections. Of course this is a painful process and the psychological scars  are still with you because you saw the tragic repercussions thirty years after the end of the Second World War. 

You are, when all is said and done, a grandson of a Holocaust survivor and the Shoa still hurts almost vicariously, jabbing you in the pit of your stomach, reminding you of the stark reality of what happened. You saw your beautiful grandma suffering the hellish flashbacks, tormented by the murderous terrorists who were the Nazis and convinced they were still in her vision. They were still behind her, still attacking her precious family and she screamed hysterically because she experienced the agony, purgatory, those relentless atrocities, the starvation, the terrible confinement of the concentration camps and gas chambers. 

It all feels so unbearably heartbreaking, loaded with poignancy and pathos, that one moment in history when all normality was suspended for a seeming eternity. But then you think back to your grandma and grandpa's Gants Hill home during the 1970s and you feel sure it was a never ending nightmare. Your grandma was showering her first son with demonstrative affection, spoiling him with crisps, chocolates, sweets and unfailing love, a love that can never be forgotten but felt so gloriously overwhelming. You were hugged and kissed over and over again and now they still return to your memories over and over again.

But then you were taken back to that one horrendous day at the height of the Holocaust. One day, my grandpa Jack set out on one of his many visits to the shops for a packet of cigarettes. On his way back, he was suddenly confronted by those vile and evil Nazi stormtroopers. A group of monsters descended on my adorable grandpa and suddenly all hell broke loose. One of these presumably grey jacketed men, complete with swastikas stitched to the material, ran after my grandpa with a bloodlust that can never be defined.

My grandpa, ever the battle hardened and most stoic, formidable of men, stood his ground and remained delightfully defiant, refusing to be defeated and overcome by force, violence and aggression. He must have lashed out at the Nazis, covered his face but was helpless to the inevitable barrage of punches. So, he fell awkwardly to the ground in a crumpled heap, face contorted with incessant blows to head and the rest of his body. You were not there of course, but the imagery must have been frightening. 

I've now discovered all the missing details, the six million lives who have now been inscribed and carved on the walls of innumerable Holocaust Museum and Memorial walls. Theirs were the lives I may never be able to recall because they were cruelly snatched from those who were adored by their loved ones. Their early childhood and adolescent days would never reach fruition because it was completely out of their reach. So we keep thinking, praying and pondering, chanting prayers clearly and then privately because this is the way we'd like it to be. It is only the way and there are no alternative scenarios. 

And now you gather together all of your heartfelt emotions, compartmentalising all of those innermost feelings because there can be no specific category for anything happened during the Holocaust. It is, put simply, man's inhumanity to man, his entire family and extended family. It is the unforgivable sin that can only reluctantly accept apologies because, several generations down the line, it is still there vivid, harsh, authentic, in my face and bones, sending chilling sensations down my spine. 

Now on Tuesday I will become aware of the historic magnitude of it all, the suspension of belief, knowing clearly that the damage has already been done. Tears have now flowed in gushing rivers and tributaries, eyes reddening and sore with every recollection and remembering your late and lovely mum and dad, grandma and grandpa with love for an eternity. Tuesday will feel both sensitive, repeating itself endlessly in my mind. Their voices will never be heard again. And that's infuriating and frustrating because you dearly wanted and longed  to attend their family parties and social gatherings, their weddings, anniversaries and their children's birthday parties.

But lest we ever forget the Holocaust. It's the most challenging and mentally demanding day of the year because indirectly your ancestors were there and they could never convey the gravity and soul destroying nature of what had just happened. So I'll be closing my eyes and bowing my head in contemplative sorrow and remembering my family and extended family. It'll be extremely hard because it's always been and always will be. But my wonderfully loving and supportive wife, children and grandchildren and family will always be there for me. I have so much to be humble, grateful and blessed.