Freddie Flintoff- Andrew Flintoff bares his soul.

 Freddie Flintoff bares his soul.

In last night's BBC documentary about the life and times of cricketing legend Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff  we were given a very revealing and visceral glimpse of one of England's greatest and most charismatic bowlers. It was a very dramatic, heart-rending account of one sportsman's battle against the demons of mental health, an almost warts and all admission of what it's like to be when the public are filling your ego with overwhelming adulation. It was a raw expose of what happens when the camera never veers away from the public gaze without ever straying far from the man under the spotlight. 

Flintoff bravely and almost courageously admitted to the horrifically debilitating eating disorder known as bulimia which in itself is the ultimate confession. In a powerfully honest programme Flintoff described in graphic detail and with perfect eloquence a condition that most men would rather keep concealed if only to admit as such would have somehow represented some terrible weakness. But Flintoff, to quote a thousand cliches, laid all his cards on the table, ran his fingers nervously over a bristly face, admitting to fallibility and vulnerability in a way that may not have been possible 20 or 30 years ago. 

Speaking candidly about bulimia and the devastating effect that had been wrought on his personal life, Flintoff touchingly explained how every morsel of food that passed his lips would be thrown up and there would follow a dramatic deterioration in not only his mental health but there was a realisation that underneath the surface of that cocksure, confident exterior, Flintoff was privately suffering and then blaming himself inexplicably when everybody knew that there was never any need for self-reproach. 

Sometimes the public persona can often hide a thousand emotions and  Flintoff was quite clearly heading rapidly into a downward spiral of sorrow, apology and utter despair at times. It almost felt like a very personal session of soul-baring from the most unlikely of directions. Flintoff was tormented with guilt about the excessive sessions of binge eating and then declared quite openly that he had nobody to turn to when the pressure became almost unbearable.  

So Flintoff just carried on and on beating himself up remorselessly convinced that the public perception of his weight was both serious and genuine. How to convince a cricketer at the peak of his profession that even a stocky, rugged build can be mistaken for something other than being regarded as fat and completely overweight? 

In 2005 Flintoff almost single-handedly brought back the Ashes to England for the first time in decades, throwing his arms triumphantly in the air, dancing around the Oval rather like a kid who had just won his third egg and spoon race in consecutive years and then just milking the rapturous applause from the Barmy Army. It was at this point that the image Flintoff could see in the mirror was not the one he would have preferred when quite obviously it didn't seem to matter since England had beaten Australia and the Ashes had been captured by England. Who cared about the midriff of a fiercely committed cricketer when everything was right in Flintoff's mind? It could hardly have gone any better. 

And so things turned from bad to the lowest point in Flintoff's hugely celebrated career. Flintoff took us on a guided tour of a cricket ground's toilet quarters where the contents of whatever he'd consumed would inevitably result. He then pointed to the place where Flintoff felt the irresistible compulsion to throw up because, deep within the tortured recesses of his mind, the conviction remained that he was still the size of a house and nobody could persuade him otherwise. 

Then the documentary switched to Flintoff's visit to a Brick Lane therapist and dietician who talked Flintoff through his obsessions with certain foods, the psychological processes that led up to that crucial moment when food had now come to dominate his every waking moment. The image of Flintoff cycling on his personal gym bike frenziedly and almost urgently was further evidence of a man who had now become determined to rid himself of any superfluous flesh around his waist. 

There was the decision to take up boxing which for Flintoff must have felt like a release from the constant scrutiny he'd undergone when he was a cricketer. Flintoff boxed, he said, because he felt this was the only proper way to look whippet-thin and well-muscled. The programme showed Flintoff hopping around a boxing ring almost disinterestedly, jabs languidly thrust out as if hoping that the more circuits he completed the more the pounds and stones would fall away.

But then we saw the kind of images that Flintoff wouldn't have been wanted to be reminded of. There was the drawn, haggard face with sunken eyes, the eyes which Flintoff reluctantly felt as if there was nothing behind them, a face devoid of any emotion, haunted, sad, pleading and weary. And there was the joyful recognition that there was a very real problem and one only Flintoff could solve. So there were the disturbing sequences of junk food binges followed immediately by the awful consequences of his actions. 

The programme did though show a happy ever after story in its wake. Flintoff was seen pursuing his love of fast cars and driving as the co-presenter of BBC's Top Gear. With the naturally supportive and attentive network of his wife and family, Flintoff now seems to have his life under control. Flintoff seems to have his life back in a fully functioning order and in a world where mental health problems and eating disorders seem to be the backing track of a society now faced with even more critical issues, Freddie Flintoff may be the outstanding success story of the year so far. Well done Freddy, we're all proud of you. Particularly that day when you and your colleagues won the Ashes for England. We can never thank you enough.   

Another weekend without fans- how much longer can football continue like this?

 Another weekend without fans- how much longer can football continue this? 

So where are we? It's now six months since football last heard or saw a football fan, half a year without that special communal football supporter relationship between the fans themselves and the players they've always adored and idolised. None can possibly explain that sweet chemistry, that glorious kinship between the people who have saved up for the best part of who knows how much for a season ticket and the players who score their thrilling goals for the home side and then kiss the club's badge for all its worth. 

We are now into the third week of the new Premier League season and football just tootles along like one of those classic Hornby train sets that your parents once gave you for your birthday. Here we at the end of September and the mass return of football supporters back into the stadiums where once those fans once so excitedly congregated is no nearer a possibility than it might have been three weeks ago when the new Premier League season began.

Last Thursday there were doom-laden pronouncements emanating from the British government that pubs, clubs and restaurants would have to close at 10pm which meant a mass exodus to the local off licences and yet more alcoholic indulgence on the streets of Britain. Then roughly a day later we were informed that football's proposed set of pilot matches inviting some fans back into the stadium by way of a dummy run would have to be cancelled for the foreseeable future. 

To watch the Beautiful Game seemingly imploding and then exploding before our eyes is quite the most gruesome sight. We realise that the coronavirus looks set to remain with us for some time and nobody is to blame. Or are they? But rumours are circulating to the effect that we could be here until next spring's first daffodils before football fans are allowed to do something they've derived such immeasurable enjoyment from for decades and decades. 

The truth is of course some of us are genuinely worried about the future of the game now. Our brows are furrowed, our minds are overthinking and analysing the current situation and wondering whether they'll ever be welcomed back into the ground that had almost become a spiritual second home for them. They've forked out money for their extortionate season tickets and manoeuvred themselves awkwardly at first past their fellow supporters just to be with family and friends in that much -prized seat.  Then with the onset of winter now they'll button up their parka coat, tug their hoods over their heads and then laugh at their burgers or sausages perhaps. 

This time though we are in the now fateful year of 2020 and the world is motionless, seized by inertia, going nowhere and frightened to go out at all or maybe not. But football is now into yet another season and, to be perfectly honest, looks and sounds as if it belongs on a building site. The only difference we have now discovered is that there are no cement mixers, no men carrying hods with hard hats and very little in the way of bricks and mortar. 

At this point it is almost impossible to tell whether Liverpool will once again re-assert their Premier League superiority since it does seem as if the whole season will be dictated by an alien environment they may be forced to play in and whatever passes for self-motivation. Clearly, the players will have to ask themselves whether it's worth just jumping in the air with a private fist pump of goal-scoring celebration and then trudging slowly back to the centre circle with what seems nothing like an emotional reaction.

We are now in the world of madness, childishness and, above all silliness. Football used to be proud of that surge and sway of those heaving terraces, that very vocal solidarity, that feverish loyalty to the team, the atrocious vulgarity and those drifting four-word expletives. Of course it was rough and ready language and of course doting parents had to close the ears of their offspring but how football cherished its football supporters. 

After all, football supporters were the bread and butter of football, the ones who helped towards paying their weekly heroes wages, paid for the teas and pasties at half time, the customary Bovril at half time and those greasy burgers dripping with cholesterol. Football supporters would regularly squeeze their way onto packed terraces and shortly before the Second World War and for several years afterwards, would pass their children over the heads of the rest of the crowd because there was little room to breathe let alone watch the game. 

At one point Charlton Athletic's old Valley ground could comfortably accommodate over 75,000 supporters and Arsenal's old Highbury ground would never have a problem with 65- 70,000 fans huddling together for warmth on cold and grey winter afternoons. With the advent of health and safety though the maximum attendances had to be drastically reduced although, having ushered in brand new, state of the art stadiums such as West Ham's new London Stadium, Arsenal's Emirates Stadium and Manchester City's freshly painted Etihad Stadium, the sense is that football may have turned full circle. 

The trouble now is of course that the unmistakable theatricality of the game has been snatched away for reasons sadly out of its control. the deafening noise now no more than some early 2019 piece of history. You rightly acknowledge that football does bear enormous responsibility for its actions and nothing will even be remotely the same for quite a while. And that must hurt for all football fans regardless of whomsover your team is. 

The painful reality has to be that most of the teams currently residing in part of the Championship, Leagues One and Two and then the non League pyramids may have to rely or even become wholly dependent on hand-outs, loans or emergency payments to just stay alive. We are now talking about possible and inevitable bankruptcy, liquidation and heartbreaking insolvency for the clubs that were once the lifeblood and oxygen supply for the teams higher up the League. We are now officially in nightmarish territory for some clubs, the end of the road for some and time to wind up the club forevermore. 

You think of some of those famous lower League giants such as Rochdale, Torquay, Grimsby Town, now very humble Portsmouth, Walsall and Darlington, teams who are in horrible danger of just disappearing in a puff of smoke without really knowing what it would have been like to one day to find themselves with altitude sickness in the Premier League. Of course this would be wishful thinking at any point in the game's evolution. But now the aforesaid football clubs are simply clinging on desperately onto the game's metaphorical cliff edge, hanging on for dear life. 

And what about the non League structure? The non League system has always been recognised as football's grassroots, the place where once full-time gardeners, carpenters, engineers and then meatpackers on factory conveyor belts would ply their trade. How much longer though, can any of  those immensely popular non League teams whose fans would normally stand on orange crates or rickety boxlike terraces, continue to survive without any semblance of revenue?

In essence football is now faced with the kind of scenario it must have been dreading, indefinitely  resembling a lifeless dummy. Eventually, every level of football will have to be rendered null and void, kaput and that'll be that. Because football without vast sums of cash or money is rather like the human race without food and drink. At the moment football is just limping along like a wounded soldier during the War. Players are obediently walking out into stadiums that if you didn't know were grounds would  surely be mistaken for ancient caves. We can only hope for some far off golden paradise where everything as it once was is now the way it will be one day. If only that day could be today or tomorrow. 

For the Premier League though concessions have been made and life goes on for the top clubs and those who make up the cultured elite, the snobs who look disdainfully on the rest of football's lower sculleries and parlours. This weekend represents business as usual for the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal for they are the show ponies of football's class-ridden hierarchy. They'll swan around their country estates, occasionally acknowledging the servants and the cooks downstairs before retiring to their studies. The leisured aristocracy have got to keep living in the only way they know how. 

Then they'll open up their well-ironed copy of the Financial Times, light up their 10th Havana cigar, check their shares in oil and steel, down their fifth cognac of the day and then pick up a snooker cue without bothering to play the game. They'll wallow in their ivory towers, head down to their South of France harbours to check on the condition on their immaculately maintained yachts, venture over to some exotic looking golf course before ending the day on some wisteria festooned veranda where the flowers always look pretty.

This is the way it is at the moment and no matter how hard we try to convince the movers and shakers who make up the top brass of the FA, football will just bury its head in the sand. The Premier League season will roll on perhaps forever in a complete state of wilful ignorance, daunted by nothing in particular and content to lead a sport completely lacking in anything, reputation broken, a charred ruin, burning, smoking and ebbing into oblivion, in tatters. Football has lost its soul, a game whose dignity has been battered by something it simply can't fix. Some day football's bigwigs may well come to their senses. It seems unlikely but there can be no harm in hoping.   

Still maybe one day football will take its heads out of its sand and indeed smell the coffee. We miss the sheer intensity of the game as it used to be and now lament because for the moment the actors are missing, the stage is empty and there's nobody in the wings. But one day it'll all come good for football. Mark my words. If we're patient and we're prepared to wait then football will come back stronger than ever and the fans will converge in their millions from every corner of Britain. You'd better believe it. 

The Jewish Fast and Yom Kippur.

 The Jewish Fast and Yom Kippur.

We are days away from that momentous day in the Jewish calendar. You can almost feel the solemnity, the sense of impending doom and gloom gently hovering above us like a drifting cloud over the mountains of Middle England. You can probably hear the moaning and the complaining, the whinging and the heavy hearts. And then you can hear the voices of contentment, resignation, acceptance and let's get it over for another year and besides it can't really do you any harm. But some of us love Yom Kippur and it's something personally very satisfying.

On Sunday evening the global Jewish population will begin their yearly Fast or Yom Kippur. It'll be quietly ushered in because we'd rather not be disturbed by any brass band playing or any real commotion. For some of us Yom Kippur is that 25 hour period of abstinence, self-control and discipline. It is the one day of the year when you stop thinking about your stomach, put food and drink to the back of your minds and think about anything rather than eating and drinking.  It is time to just forget haute cuisine and think of something else.

So here we have the one event in the Jewish year when most of us just attend the very sombre Kol Nidre service the night before Yom Kippur and firmly shut out any distractions from our mind. We do so because we just want to ponder on the year that has passed and pray for a happy, healthy and sweet New Year. We find comfort, at this time of grave reflection, in family, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunties, uncles, nieces, their achievements, their setbacks, our continuous love and respect for them and then you think about yourself because although you're not selfish and self-indulgent you just want time for yourselves.

This year though, as we're all now painfully aware, has not conformed to the script. In fact that script ended up in the wastepaper basket because it just seemed to be badly written and eventually became totally incoherent. We were hoping that the year would simply pass off without any incident, a simple, straightforward year where everything ran smoothly and finally Brexit would reach a natural conclusion. 

But oh no. Not this one. It is hard to believe that this year would be dreadfully unhealthy in every sense of the word. When the Jews of the world huddle together in front of their Zoom TV screens on Sunday evening they'll probably be wondering what on earth has happened to 2020  thus far. They'll briefly look at each other on their sofas, cocoon themselves in their bubbles, staring vacantly and then hoping that this was just some weird gothic fantasy novel or a petrifying science fiction series and you'll just wake up.

Some of us sadly and most, unfortunately, will not be going to synagogue(shul) for Yom Kippur which is a sentence that you thought you'd never have to write. But it's true and we are not going. It's as  simple as that. At first you might have thought it was some practical joke but then the kaleidoscope of colours turned very grey and then black and white. You are about to be plunged into a world where everything is quite clearly not the same. But as humans we'll get used to the fact that sometimes things do go haywire but not on this monumental scale surely. 

This year you were preparing to go to your local shul and then discovered that this wonderful idea would have to be condemned to history or just abandoned until it was safe to do so. Now where have we heard that one before? This year it's all about staying at home and watching the holiest of Jewish days reduced to a video conference call. Now how does that sound? You could decide that you want nothing to do with this daft arrangement and refuse to associate yourself with what could be considered as a pathetic excuse for a Yom Kippur service. But then you pull yourself together and just get on with it. 

And yet millions of Jews across the world will be sitting obediently and reverentially on their sofas, turning the pages of their prayer books, flicking through those pages even more respectfully and then following the hymns, the paeans of praise, the wonderfully and lyrically descriptive stories and fables, the poignant prayers, the Torah in all of its majesty. This time you won't be joined by family, extended family and friends because Covid 19 has kyboshed it all, blown it all out of the water and there's no turning back now. 

So you privately re-adjust your mindsets and innermost thoughts and imagine that on Monday morning you'll be there, bright and early, shuffling deferentially into synagogue and ensuring that if you do happen to see a familiar face you'll just smile affectionately, walk towards your seat and then sit down tallit(shawl) draped over your shoulders and kippa on your head. 

You'll sit down and then stand up, sit down and then sit down over and over again quite comically. But above all you'll sing your heart out because you're just totally besotted with the Yom Kippur service. Let the spirituality and communality ring out. Now why you might ask are you totally overwhelmed with joy because you should, under no circumstances, be happy? That's the last thing you should be or demanded to be. You should be utterly sorrowful, full of contrition and remorse, beating yourself up at all those pernicious sins you've committed. You know the ones. There are the innumerable armed robberies, the unforgivable burglaries and then theft. Now those are the ultimate sins. 

In the real world of course we're all upright, upstanding citizens with absolutely no criminal record whatsoever. Why though do we feel the need to go through this seemingly traumatic ordeal when your soul has to undergo a thorough examination, your mind and body switched off emphatically and then you subject yourself to 25 hours of complete concentration, sacrifice, homage and religious absorption, praying for forgiveness, peace on earth, no more wars please, no more health-related catastrophes, just calm, sweetness, good health and, quite literally, goodwill to humankind. 

For some of us though Yom Kippur is essentially about fond childhood memories. There was that insistent reluctance to accompany your parents to shul on the day of Yom Kippur. There was that miserable sulk, the stubborn refusal to fast when your parents told you that you had to from the year of your barmitzvah, the slouching pre- teenage demeanour, shoulders permanently slumped in some bolshie act of rebellion. Mum and Dad! Why did you have to fast now. It seemed so unnecessary.

But then you trooped dejectedly into synagogue, seeing your grandparents and your parents and everything in the world was right because they were to support you in your hour of duress and stress. So you sat next to your family, turning the page to what you thought was the right one and then just perfunctorily twiddled your thumbs because you hadn't a clue where you were in the service and were just happy to be there. 

There were row upon row of padded seats, a mirror if memory serves you correctly, the men downstairs and the women upstairs, the great gender divide. There were rows of women downstairs but they were veiled by a curtain, hidden away in some shameful corner. Within the Jewish community this still happens but there is a sense here that not only could this be construed as sexist but terribly insulting to women. 

On Yom Kippur itself the morning service would be concluded by the prayer for the dead(Yiskor) at lunchtime. There would then follow the mass exodus from synagogue, the perfect chance for all the teenagers to escape from shul like released convicts. Suddenly there was a frantic surge for the exit doors, the revolution was here at our local shul on our doorstep. It was every man or woman for themselves, no holds barred. It was time to rush home for whatever it was they were supposed to be rushing home for. 

During the afternoon the Jewish community of Ilford, Essex would converge on our local park Valentines Park for a collective cleansing session, repenting their sins quite obviously at their leisure. Then the kids of your age would light up their cigarettes, show off their smartest outfits and giggle at all the latest fashion fads. Young families would wander and then pause for breath, wheeling prams and pushchairs up to that lovely little bridge next to the boating lake next to the clock tower. It was all very heartwarming and perennial rather like that petunia at the bottom of your garden. 

Then after returning back to your parents home you would eke out the rest of the afternoon for a couple of hours TV, a totally thoughtless stream of adverts for lavish roast beef and veg dinners, bars of chocolate, cakes, biscuits, sweets, jacket potatoes, tea and coffee, all the things the Jews were not supposed to eat or drink for 25 hours. By tea time and with only a couple of hours to go before the end of the Fast, you privately counted down the remaining time left and then went back to shul with your late and wonderful dad for that final hour. 

The memory of passing out roughly a year or two after your barmitzvah will live with me forevermore so etched indelibly is it in the mind. It almost feels like a lifetime ago and yet you'll always have it as some very sentimental keepsake. We'd reached that final hour and the least you could have done was wait for the fast to finish before collapsing in an embarrassed heap. 

But here we are on the verge of this most unconventional of all Yom Kippurs. We will observe all the protocols in much the way we have with the coronavirus.  We will do our hardest to look on this first TV broadcast of Yom Kippur. There will be no captive audience because that audience are Zoom squares. You may be able to see them and vice versa but then you'll have to compose yourselves for 25 hours of a variation on a theme, a historic Fast, a ground-breaking Fast, something we must hope will never ever happen again. Well over the Fast. 

TV birthdays and the 10pm pub chucking out time.

 TV birthdays and the 10pm chucking out time. 

We might have known this would happen. We could feel it in our bones. We are almost six months into the one global pandemic that threatens to throw Britain into complete paralysis. For a brief period of time it genuinely felt as though we'd conquered this frightening hell and then yesterday came along and we're back in the same dark room once again. We've now lost our way again with yesterday's announcement from Government HQ and our eminent medical and scientific officers that we're no nearer to cracking the coronavirus than we were back in March when the storm broke and hell broke loose.

So effectively Britain and quite obviously the whole of the world is back at square one. We should have known what to expect because we were given adequate warning. There were whispers, rumours, speculation call it what you like. We were informed about the possibility that another horrendous second spike would visit our shores but we just assumed that it couldn't come back again. Or could it? It did though and the gruesome saga continues unabated. 

Yesterday Boris Johnson, the blond one from Uxbridge, declared, with not a single note of hesitation in his voice that the pubs, clubs and restuarants will close at 10pm as from Thursday. It all seemed too good to be true. There we were labouring under the gross misapprehension that Britain was getting back on its feet only to have the smile wiped off our faces with the news that we'll have to swig down as many pints as possible in record time and then polish off our evening meal in the pub gastro section hoping that it doesn't give us severe indigestion. 

The truth is that from Thursday Britain will be resorting to yet another set of draconian measures designed to quite possibly scare us again if only partially. Maybe we were floating on a sea of complacency straying over the disciplinary line but once again forced to face the music yet again. This time it'll be chucking out time at 10pm because there are tiny pockets of regional communities throughout Britain who have decided to throw caution to the wind, rebelled wildly with their wanton, illegal raves and then indulged in hectic partying with hundreds of their friends until the small hours of the morning without a care in the world. 

Now all pubs, clubs, restaurants and areas of corporate hospitality where substantial amounts of food and drinks are consumed are to wrap up the day's serving to the public at 10.00 in the evening. Which means that if you're planning to come along to your local pub with the intention of taking part in high energy karaoke sessions, or fancy spending the whole evening playing darts and snooker until whenever, then you're going to be pretty disappointed. Hold onto that voice and don't even think about another game of dominoes because it just isn't happening. 

To say that extra precautionary measures are being proposed here would be a huge understatement. We have almost reached the point where the fear of the unknown is rapidly becoming a horrible awareness of yet more misery, more despondency and yet more tidings of woe. It could hardly get any worse of course but the trouble is that it does seem as we're heading that way. We keep looking behind us, in front of us and everywhere else. It does feel as though we're surrounded, pinned into a corner and fighting to loosen ourselves from hindrances, obstacles, restrictions, dare you say, rationing and soul-destroying laws, taboos, and finally that 10.00 curfew. 

You're reminded of those bed and breakfast hotels from many decades ago where the manager or manageress would insist that if you were out late until some unreasonable hour, you wouldn't be allowed into the hotel because they were shutting up shop- or the hotel in this case. They'd lock up for the evening and you were consigned to a night's shut-eye on the local beach with nothing but the sound of the lapping waves of the sea to send you off to sleep. 

And so the immediate future continues to be shrouded in some grey miasma of indecision, uncertainty and some dormant foreboding, that unspoken fear that things could hit rock bottom very suddenly. Before we know it, we could find ourselves as prisoners in our homes. At the moment we seem to be have the virus under our control but the news is perpetually bleak and the mindset is inexplicably negative so who cares let's look on the bright side. 

So what do you normally do when things take a turn for the very worst. You wander over to your TV, take your pick from a thousand TV channels, both terrestrial and satellite Freeview and cherry-pick your ideal evening of entertainment. You now become aware of the alternative diversions such as Netflix and Britbox, those now very fashionable TV channels which sell you a lovely menu of excellent films, documentaries and what is now referred to in the modern parlance as binge-watching from the comfort of your own sofa. So let's go for it everybody and just become drawn into the LSD 85-inch cinema screen sized TV. Who could possibly ask for more? Not us. 

The subject of TV brings you very neatly onto the goggle box itself, John Logie Baird's finest invention, the one topic that always provokes very heated reaction from the masses. TV invades, intrudes and bursts into our consciousness for varying lengths of our lives. It is controversial, funny, serious, deeply argumentative, stupidly frothy and highly offensive if it just says too much and too often. It provides us with series that become immortalised and never ever forgotten. But above all it obeys the edict according to Lord Reith when the BBC was just a young toddler. It informs, educates and entertains. 

It is with great delight then that you extend many happy 65th birthday congratulations to ITV, the first commercial TV service to regale us with its wit, wisdom and always informative content. Yes today folks ITV is 65 years old and is no mood to be pensioned off. Who would have thought then that a TV channel would venture into hitherto unexplored worlds and break down all manner of frontiers with its very pioneering approach at the time?

Of course for those who treasure such memories that epic evening of September 22nd 1955 will always be enshrined in their minds forevermore. The first advert on ITV was dedicated to SR toothpaste, a charming reminder to us that before going to bed we should always remember to clean our molars and teeth. There was that gleaming white ice cube with just a smear of minty tasting paste that pierced through the ice cube and what a source of fascination that must have been at the time. 

Then ITV bombarded with us memorable current affairs programmes such as World in Action, the delightfully enduring soap opera Coronation Street which first appeared on our screens in December 1960 and is still going strong. Then ITV pulled a magic rabbit out of its hat with the delectably entertaining Sunday Night at the London Palladium which in its turn introduced us to showbiz giants such as Tommy Trinder and Sir Bruce Forsyth, peerless comic geniuses in your living room. 

But on that far off evening today in 1955 ITV were almost gently broken into this exciting new world of  advert driven TV programmes. There was a local boxing match from somewhere in provincial Britain, an evening of powerful plays and drama and a whole series of film stars and broadcasters welcoming the birth of a new child to compete against the seeming monopoly that the BBC had held up until then. 

So while you're dwelling on the frustrations engendered from spending only a couple of hours in your local pub or restaurant it's time to crack open the bubbly for dear old ITV. Well done you're 65 today and after years of watching enthralled at all those great regional symbols such as Southern TV, Anglia, ATV and the glorious Thames you'll be pleased to know that we still think that you're a doing a wonderful job so don't stop now. Keep going.       

Here we go again- it's the party political conference season.

 Here we go again. It's the party political conference season again. 

Just when you thought it may have slipped your mind the party political conference season has now been foisted upon us once again whether we want it to happen or not. It's rather like the proverbial bad penny that keeps turning up at the beginning of autumn when all you want to do is sip a relaxing glass of cider in your garden, dig up a few Sunday morning weeds, pick up some tomatoes from your allotment before setting the lawnmower on the grass. Now though the peace will be disturbed and from a British digital style, Covid 19 Zoom location near you, our so-called esteemed politicians will be bleeding our ears against our will. 

To think we've come thus far and we could well have done without all of that raucous heckling, that paint blistering noise, the childish name-calling, the nasty, derogatory comments, Punch and Judy bickering and quarrelling with each other and then more confrontations by the bar. It's enough to drive you to excessive amounts of alcohol but we'll try to resist that particular temptation. Suffice it to say that only a huge gathering of all the mainstream British political party delegates could get away with a complete lack of social distancing. What on earth has the world come to? Only politicians could break every rule in the book. But hold on they won't be assembling in their vast droves because a global pandemic has put paid to that little scheme of theirs. 

From every corner of the British isles and perhaps beyond, the Labour party are gathering forces in readiness for yet another round of shouting and bellowing and finger-pointing. As we all know by now nothing gets a politician more worked up and excited than a good, old fashioned bunfight. They love to massage their egos, argue endlessly about nothing of any real consequence and just behave like vainglorious prima donnas who may think of themselves as frustrated stand-up comedians. The truth is though that none of them would pass any audition and it may be best to invest in some cotton wool over your ears for the next couple of days or so. 

The Labour party, the party that wallows in Socialism, Marxism and fond memories of both Tony Blair and Harold Wilson will head for a week of challenging, questioning and battling the Tory party for all its worth. The Labour party of course have historically found common ground with the proletariat working class, a party that the postman, milkman, dustman and the builder can readily identify with. This may be true or not but when the Labour party get together for a sing-song and keeping the red flag flying you can be sure there will be fun and games. 

Over the years the Labour party have always cosied up quite brazenly with the trade unions, Morning Star activists and way back when Arthur Scargill was a wee lad in shorts. They represent the authentic voice, a voice unsullied by posh Tory toffs such as Jacob Rees Mogg, that celebrated know all and polymath who behaved appallingly when asked to sit up straight while the House of Commons were in the throes of tormenting itself over Brexit. 

Mogg of course was the one who loves to find fault with English colloquialisms, gets very pernickety about certain buzz words and then convinces himself that we should all have high tea at the appointed time and that children should be both heard and seen. Mogg of course speaks with that proverbial hot potato in his mouth, always insisting on the grammatical niceties before just falling asleep when a matter of urgent note is discussed.

For the Labour party the shock of losing another General Election before Christmas may still be rankling with them. When Jeremy Corbyn shamefacedly trooped into Islington Town Hall at some uneartly hour of the morning you knew that the end was in sight for both Corbyn and the Labour party. For a man who pins his colours to despicable antisemitism, racism and any other contentious issue, Corbyn represented the poisonous voice of modern-day politics. Or so we were told although we have no reason to disbelieve as such.  

But the days of the nationalisation of British Rail are now long gone and the future is seemingly not red. Long gone too are those years when Harold Wilson correctly predicted the White Heat of Technology and then told us about his intention to create the Open University in Britain. So too are the Labour shindigs where beer and sandwiches were the main meal of the day and everybody went into a private huddle to talk about bills being pushed through the Labour rank and file. Then there were agreements and disagreements about things that had no relevance at all since the Labour party were not in Government. 

Still, here we are in 2020 and the new Labour party leader is Sir Keir Starmer, a skilled and very accomplished orator, a man who, unlike his predecessor, knows exactly what he's talking about. Starmer could prove to be the stuff of nightmares for Prime Minister Boris Johnson because finally he will be confronting a man who can provide credible opposition for the Tories. 

This is a pivotal moment in the history of the Labour party in as much that Labour have been out of office for so long that they may have forgotten what it's like to come out of 10 Downing Street and hold court with the assembled Press. The days of in-fighting and trying desperately hard to get rid of Corbyn are now in the past but the scars and injuries are festering quite disturbingly. 

Ever since Tony Blair got involved with the Iraq war the Labour party have been wrestling with a tarnished image. When Blair left 10 Downing Street for the last time and Gordon Brown stepped into to replace Blair it felt as if the fairy tale romance was over for Labour. Blair had been a very capable and influential figure with his finger on the pulse at all times. Blair also had charisma, white shiny teeth, loads of personality and a wife Cherie whose father used to be part of Alf Garnett's family in the hit TV sitcom Till Death Do Us Apart.

Then though Gordon Brown took over the reins as Prime Minister and brought a steady calm to proceedings, a man passionately concerned about the parlous state of the British economy and its finances. In fact Brown was so worried about the country's Budgetary position that he told the whole of the United Kingdom to stop spending so exorbitantly and that if it stopped living beyond its means he'd have to ask prudence to take over the running of the country. We kept spending and spending and couldn't see why the country was about to collapse on the Stock Market. We'd run out of money and this had to be halted. 

When Brown walked out of 10 Downing Street it was all over bar the shouting for Labour. By now the Tories under the much maligned David Cameron were just about to start afresh, a party now resurrected from the ashes of past election setbacks but now fighting fit. Then Cameron plodded his way into his new job as Prime Minister before tripping up accidentally over the monstrous issue that would become Brexit. Tripping though would hardly do justice to what happened to Cameron because quite literally the man trod on a landmine. 

Then there was the gruesome spectacle of Britain's second female Prime Minister Theresa May. History will not look too kindly on Theresa May since she was the one who had to clear the wreckage in the aftermath of the Brexit punch up. May always reminded you of one of those Women's Institute members who so happily take part in coffee mornings with a nice piece of cake. But there was a harder, tougher and feistier side to Mrs May that may only have become apparent when she had to go as Prime Minister. 

Now though we return to the Labour party in all of its Socialist attire, a country that still insists that you call it the party of the people or a party for the people. There are no pompous gadabouts in the Labour party, no gallivanting Hooray Henry's who used to go to Eton and then inherited their parents money. There is nothing cosmetic or artificial about Labour. You get what it says on the tin when you talk to Labour ministers. They don't pull any punches and don't do cliches but they will fight on your behalf. It's straight down the line and none of it is put on or contrived. They're ruthless and uncompromising and they're quite definitely on your side. Make no mistake about that. 

This week though it's all about the Labour party and their quest to re-build and revitalise a political force who not so long were distancing themselves from a man who loved nothing better than eating a full English breakfast in the most embarrassing style. It may be wise to overlook the ridiculous flop who was Ed Miliband but it does seem that Labour are just as divided and fractured when the mood takes them. 

Still as Sir Keir Starmer presides over a Covid 19 friendly political party conference for the first time, this could be the right time to wish Labour well in its pursuit of mutual consensus, unanimity and long overdue cohesion or quite possibly solidarity. Because the fact of the matter is that this week the Labour party has to decide which way they want the party to go. Do they stick or twist? It's as simple as that.

This year there will be no alliances and peace treaties with the trade unions because quite clearly trade and trading came to a full stop back in March. There will be no clinking of champagne glasses or swigging of wine in conference hall reception areas because there will be nobody there and you'll just have to raise your objections on Zoom and those funny looking squares. Oh for those flickering, burning embers of Socialism. Or maybe the revolution has been and gone.    

The day before Rosh Hashanah.

 The day before Rosh Hashanah.

Outside, the welcome rays of late summer and early autumn sunshine beam refulgently from a glorious blue sky. It is the day before the Jewish New Year and Rosh Hashanah. Call it an Indian summer but the only conclusion you can come to is that the sun shines on the righteous and if it remains like this for the duration of the Jewish holidays then none will quibble or complain. 

Of course this is the time for reflection, for contemplative souls to look deeply into their minds and think back on what is rapidly turning into the most astonishing year of all time- certainly in modern times. Rarely have we known a year that stopped in March and the rest of the year would just be a blank screen, reluctantly closing down until further notice. It still feels as if the whole globe is running scared into the wilderness and hoping that things will dramatically improve as soon as possible. 

When the Jewish community gather together tomorrow and Sunday for their deeply cherished hours of worship, prayer and quiet introspection it is normally the point when we pull our tallit(shawl) over our shoulders, smile at the Torah and then express fulsome gratitude to our health, family and friends. We shake hands, murmur our genialities and then hug each other warmly in a spontaneous act of love.

I remember growing up in Ilford, Essex in deepest England and regularly taking my seat with my late dad and, as a child, finding myself in a bewildered state of incomprehension. By now I'd mastered all of the finer nuances of the adorable Hebrew alphabet( to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy, I kid you not) Then we were taught the rudiments of both the language and grammar. By now you'd got the hang of being Jewish. 

But as I stood there proudly with my wonderful, late dad and my grandparents it began to occur to me that although I could follow part of the service, the speed and intensity with which every word was being uttered and then left behind us had thrown me into land of nowhere. I hadn't a clue why the praying and singing had left me trailing behind the rest and not knowing at all which page I was on. Every so often I would glance over towards my neighbour almost forlornly before eventually discovering that I was in the land of nowhere. 

I think there was a common assumption that as a youngster, you'd be expected to be immediately and naturally pick up both the flow and continuity of the first day of the Rosh Hashanah. You'd absorbed the language, the words, the vowels and consonants and of course you'd be able to keep up with the rest of the congregation. Now this was just an urban myth because it seemed to me at least they were chanting at roughly the same speed as Lewis Hamilton on an F1 motor racing track. 

By now they were hitting the chicanes and hairpin bends at full tilt, tearing around the labyrinthine twists and turns of the Morning Service, racing through all of those treasured moments when everybody seemed to be singing together in perfect harmony. You were the only one though who seemed to be just privately stumbling through the New Year prayer book, mumbling, muttering and burbling awkwardly and tentatively, desperately clinging onto your dignity. 

Hard though I tried Rosh Hashanah seemed to be passing me by in a whirlwind rush, floating serenely over the rooftops of Ilford, leaving me cold, alienated and vaguely humiliated. Were the rest of the congregation really that bothered about the increasing difficulty I was now experiencing in following the service? There was a distinct disconnect and estrangement from the service I should have known by heart but mine was a very solitary dilemma. So I bowed my head and found some kind of acceptance from deep within. 

But essentially though Rosh Hashanah should be about family, extended members of our family, community, belonging to Judaism and the joy of being close to those who we love and care about. It is the yearly celebration of our religion, my religion, the arrival of another year and, more so than ever this year, faith. It is about praying for both mental, emotional and spiritual health, appreciating everything and everybody, never feeling excluded, never feeling that anybody should be on their own,  expressing our appreciation for the good things while never of course ever taking anything for granted. 

We are all of course disillusioned with the current state of our world and nobody can deny that this will be the most demoralising Rosh Hashanah experience for any generation. But then we come together over the weekend via the video conference facility that is Zoom and we indulge in sharing from afar, smiling broadly at each other on our TV screens and immersing ourselves in a world that we wouldn't have chosen to be part of but have sadly been forced to address with a heavy heart.

So tonight we will be lighting the Shabbat candles on the eve of Rosh Hashanah and on Sunday the shofar will be blown in the most heartfelt and poignant way. We will welcome the New Year in gladly and thrillingly, delighted to be here, in the present, keeping our chins up, dismissing negativity, maintaining our composure and then trying to make sense of it all. We must tell us ourselves that come next Yomtov we will be together, united we stand, joking, communal, relieved to meet and greet our nearest and dearest. 

This is what will happen over the weekend. We will all partake in the eating of apple and honey and we will make the most of the unfamiliar and the unconventional. In our hearts and minds we're all in this one together and will not be defeated because being Jewish is very special and always will be. We know that religion can be both unnecessarily divisive and will always create painful friction at all levels of society. History has never tired of telling that same story over and over again. And yet the Jewish New Year is upon us and it's time to light the Shabbat candles. Chag Semach and L'Shana Tova, a Happy, Healthy and Sweet New Year to you all.

 

Where are we all going with this?

Where are we all going with all this?

It's a fair question and we think we're all entitled to ask it. Where are we all going with this coronavirus pandemic? Why do we keep swapping the rules around or are we just walking around in the dark and grasping at redeeming features by way of consolation. You'd be forgiven for thinking that we may just well be back in March because this does feel like a case of emotional tug of war. Sooner or later something will have to either ease up completely or just collapse under the weight of its own complications.

Today we discover that the Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer has had to retire to his own bunker in self-isolation. Now there is every likelihood that Starmer is new to this Shadow leader malarkey so it's best to give him time in the job. You find yourself wondering where his former colleague Jeremy Corbyn might be. Maybe he's in hiding from the public since the Islington man was simply crushed in the General Election and driven out of office quite amusingly it has to be said.

Now though Sir Keir Starmer, once a distinguished human rights lawyer, has been self-isolated or so we believe. It seems fairly safe to assume though that the last time we saw Starmer he did look the picture of health. In fact so fit did he look that some of us felt sure that, with some rigorous training, he might have been good enough for a place at next year's London Marathon. Then again who knows when that'll be because at the moment nobody knows what might happen tomorrow let alone next year?

But the truth is that although the number of fatalities resulting from Covid 19 have now been established people are still wearing masks, snoods, hoods and anything remotely resembling protection from the disease. People are peering over the masks with glazed eyes, suspicious, petrified and even warier than they were yesterday and the day before. Time it seems has become so immaterial that maybe we should wait for the year to end and just hope that the best-case scenario will unfold so to speak.

Britain at the moment is in the grip of testing and tracing itself, busying with the painstaking process of discovering which of us has got the symptoms of Covid 19. We are patiently waiting at testing and tracing stations across the nation, bursting with exasperation and never knowing whether we'll ever be seen or whether it's just a waste of our time. Quite clearly though it isn't a waste of time because we're talking about human lives here and this isn't some temporary illness that will just blow over by this evening.

By the day, week and month, this is beginning to look increasingly like some very sinister episode of Doctor Who or some very outlandish science fiction series that just keeps going on and on and on. What we need to do now is retain a very sober perspective of the daily events. Up until now we've conducted ourselves with admirable restraint and our sanity hasn't boarded a plane to some remote desert island. We are still safe, secure, capable, rational thinking and not panicking. We've got a handle on this disease and we know that by the law of averages it will go and hopefully won't come back.

Of course the swabbing must continue to determine who might be displaying the symptoms of the coronavirus. It goes without saying that all work surfaces and pieces of furniture will have to be thoroughly cleaned and steamed and when you go into any leisure centre, pub or restuarant you may have to be subjected to a complete interrogation if you don't wear a mask. We know this to be true and this is happening now and it can't be disguised. The world is suffering its most catastrophic pandemic since the Spanish flu and we know that millions died way back then. We get it.

But now politicians from both sides of the House of Commons are just bickering unnecessarily, cross- examining, going at each other hammer and tongs, rowing, raising their voices, blowing their top. When are they ever going to stop this never-ending prattling? Criticism is raining down from all sides and nobody is going anywhere with any kind of a seemingly well-constructed argument.

This is not the time though for recrimination nor accusation, it's all your fault and this incessant howling like a wolf. This is the time for all politicians to slow down, remain seated and just listen to each other respectfully, a time for politeness and diplomacy and not losing your rag. In a sense a little quiet and sensible reasoning may be all that's needed. Then again though when did your local constituency politician ever have recourse to the off button? This is not some childish game or competition where the prize for the loudest voice or heckle is two weeks in Disney, Orlando so it may be wise to kindly refrain from any speeches if you don't mind.

We are now in the land of the lowest common denominator where manners have escaped via the back door, very few ministers have the slightest inkling of what they're both doing and saying and the only voices of commonsense are coming from the members of the public who voted them into Parliament in the first place.

Perhaps this could be the time to just slow down, breathe very slowly and just refrain from personal grudge-holding and toxic antipathy, the red mist falling gently across our eyes and obscuring everything within our sight.We may have our doubts and reservations about the current discourse but when somebody tells you that just over 41,000 people have died as a result of the pandemic you may be inclined to believe them.

But once again Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood to his feet, settled himself for the barrage, tried to avoid the flak and then resigned himself to the fact that he was obviously fighting a losing battle. For every plausible defence for his case and the insistence that the testing and tracing operation had to be introduced as soon as possible there were a whole load of Punch and Judy impersonators who told him that he didn't know what he was saying and should therefore be sacked in the morning pronto.

For a Prime Minister who has risked life and limb to get to this point, Johnson sounded truly philosophical. Throughout all this torrid turbulence Johnson has been honest, remarkably pragmatic but then blinded by science. Flanked by his trusty medical and scientific officers he has blurted out all of the relevant bullet points, described the meaning behind all the statistics and then wished that the water next to him was gin or vodka. This has been the worst and toughest times for the Prime Minister and nobody told him this was going to happen when he was elected as Prime Minister just before last Christmas. And yet it has.

And that maybe another valid point. If this goes on for the rest of the year then - shock, horror- Christmas may have to be scrapped. How are you going to fit hundreds of your relatives and family into your home when only six are allowed into the family dining room? What are the kids going to do about their presents if Santa will quite clearly be banned. You simply can't let gentlemen with red coats and white beards to drop down chimneys when everybody else has been assembled from every part of Britain.

Oh well! These are the pressing concerns of the day and we must hope that at some point in the foreseeable future the great social historians will remember where they were when Covid 19 became a stark reality. At the moment it does seem that all of us will never ever forget where we were on the day the world came to a standstill. It may not seem like it at the moment but it's time to look into the crystal ball and remain optimistic. Don't stop now. We're on the right road and we will get there.

And then there were six- and Rosh Hashanah.

And then there were six and Rosh Hashanah.

And then there were six. Suddenly the coronavirus has now imposed its limitations, setting its clearly defined boundaries because, according to the latest spike in figures, we've just got to make do with only six family members or friends in any kind of environment. So if you find yourself in your local drinking hostelry tonight and somebody decides to hold an impromptu party including one or two more extended members of their family, then you'll jolly well have to tell them that it's cancelled.

After a seemingly indefinite period of time now firm conclusions have now been reached, the numbers have literally been crunched, the scientific data has worked everything out for us and if you dare include any more than six you'll have to expect the ultimate fine or sanction. Now there is a school of thinking here that if the big department stores in the West End of London are allowing hundreds and thousands of people through their hallowed doors then why on earth are the Great British public have been restricted to a mere six?

We are not quite at breaking point yet but the longer that the pandemic continues to implement all these restrictions and strictures on our everyday living then eventually something will have to give. But for some of us the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah which begins this Saturday, will now be overshadowed by an emotionally draining global disease that doesn't really look as if it'll end at any point in the immediate future.

The Jewish high holy days are one of the most important and sacred festivals of the year, a time for families to come together, much-beloved prayers and chants to be intoned resonantly and repentance for sins to be proclaimed from all four corners of the globe. It is the time of the year when the ram's horn(the shofar) is blown with such stentorian conviction that across the land every Jew will hear it clearly and upliftingly.

But this year will be quite unlike any other we'll ever experience or encounter again - or hopefully never again. The truth is that our local family synagogue(shul) will not be welcoming any members of its congregation because the risk to health takes understandable priority to any other consideration. So there will be none of that familiar exchange of humorous quips about work, the latest fashions on show in the synagogue and obvious discussion about the most historic and incredible year of all time.

The truth is none of our family will be allowed to sit next down to each other wearing the warmly protective shawl or tallit around our shoulders nor the kippa or couple or head covering our heads. We will not be mesmerised by the stunning singing of our choir, nor the rabbi's stirring and thought- provoking sermons. We will not be allowed into the inner sanctum of this holiest of holy days, the sharing of heartfelt thoughts on Yom Kippur and of course the Torah itself, that loveliest piece of ancient literature brought to vivid life yet again for the delectation of those who just want to reflect and ponder on the year so far. It is a year that some of us, even now, are convinced, beggars belief.

For some of us it is hard to believe how any of us are going to negotiate the one Jewish festival where the ones we'll always love, won't be with us because of some mysterious infection that has now rendered most of us speechless. Still, we'll cope because we have to do and we will. We will tune into our video conference call which goes by the name of Zoom, gaze at those images that remind us of the 1970s TV quiz show Celebrity Squares and laugh out loudly, chuckle privately at the sheer absurdity of it all and then just take a deep breath.

We will of course look around our living rooms and then find the right words to describe our scrambled emotions. Of course it isn't right and of course it feels awkward and uncomfortable. But then you realise that you're at home and with your immediate family so nothing could be better than that surely. The surroundings though are not the ones you've been accustomed to for as long as you can remember and this may be the time for re-framing our thinking, re-adjusting our focus and accept the status quo for what it is.

So we'll close our eyes in a state of considerable incredulity, stare down at our prayer books and delve deep into our subconscious for some kind of clarity, a plausible answer and then sigh with contentment. Because quite clearly this is not the end of the world and we're still together albeit not with the rest of our precious family. We'll point at the TV screens and then, from time to time Zoom will freeze and now we'll be confronted with inanimate humans who had looked as though they were acknowledging us and responding to us before temporarily losing contact with us.

There will now be the comforting realisation that the shofar will be blown as that yearly heralding of the Jewish New Year. The rabbis will clutch at their tallit, calmly moving this wonderful garment over their heads and then davening reverentially. At this point in the Rosh Hashanah service the congregation would have stood to their feet for what may seem the umpteenth time to sing powerfully from the bottom of their hearts. And then some will be visibly moved by the occasion because this is deeply harmonious and gloriously special.

And yet not this year because the number six has become fashionable and no more than six. Most synagogues would normally accommodate hundreds of worshippers on all the Jewish high holy days but not this one. Of course it'll be ever so bewildering and just inappropriate because this isn't the way it should be. We know that but we'll get there and we will use the power of a positive mindset.

The inexplicable can never be reasoned with since it is incomprehensible. The Hebrew words, sentences and paragraphs will naturally be the same as they've always been. However the Torah will be conspicuous by its absence and the bimah something that has to be imagined in our minds. Of course we'll smile and we've got to eat the apple and honey for life is deliciously sweet. We'll try to pretend we're in shul and then be excessively grateful our health, our family and our friends. We may have to accept the number six but our blessings will be countless. Chag semach and a happy, healthy Jewish New Year to all of you.

Incidentally, when was Zoom ever mentioned in the Torah and make sure that shofar is blown powerfully with all your heart and soul because sooner or later Covid 19 may decide to do a runner and just disappear permanently.

The first day of the new Premier League football season.

The first day of the new Premier League season.

How football fans right across the country used to long for this day, a relentless yearning that could never be properly understood because only the die-hard loyalists who would buy their yearly season tickets at the end of the previous season could be relied on to push their way through once rusting turnstiles. Then they would find their reserved seat and then absorb the inherent tribalism of it all, the earthy rawness of that cavernous football stadium. Football used to revolve around its fanatical fan participation, the incessant cheering and chanting from feverish terraces. Football used to feel loved and wanted.

But here we are on the opening day of a new Premier League season and still football finds itself at square one, soul-less, drained, diluted, totally diminished as a spectacle and wondering whether it'll ever know what it'll be like to have its supporters back in their rightful place again. When Project Restart completed the full circle of those remaining nine matches of last season, some of us felt sold down the river, exploited, essentially robbed of the game's vital acoustics and dynamics. It wasn't the same and it didn't take a rocket scientist to find out why.

For the last four almost five months the whole world has been shackled and chained down by the lockdown, the global pandemic coronavirus and football was the first victim of terribly unfortunate circumstances. First there was shock, then bemusement, followed by dismay, utter confusion and then thousands of questions, doubts, moral outrage, blame, counter blame and then a barrage of criticism. Football went into hibernation, abruptly stopped, horrendously suspended until further notice and, from time to time, threatened with termination. Football faced a complete shut-down and possible cancellation.

Come the end of June and football was back on the road again. It was business as usual. The remaining nine matches of the last Premier League season were promptly played out behind closed doors, against an antiseptic, dull and lifeless backdrop of no fans, no joviality, no banter, no industrial language, no humour and none of the witty badinage that used to come so naturally to football before lockdown.

The season was promptly finished with Liverpool declared as Premier League champions,  confirmation of something we already knew back in March anyway. Liverpool were 25 points in front of everybody else and were so far ahead of all their challengers that perhaps a towel should have been thrown into the ring by way of surrender. Manchester City qualified for the Champions League, Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich were relegated to the Championship and Leeds United had returned to the big time of top-flight football for the first time since the beginning of the new century.

So here we are gathered together for a brand new football season and it's hard to know whether we should laugh or cry because nothing has changed. The traditionalists will believe that this is not the way they would have planned this one. They'll express their frustration and disgust, tied up in tangled knots of cynicism and not quite knowing how to react. Of course they'll listen to the game in their living rooms, the pubs and the clubs but the fact remains that the physical interaction between the supporters and the players on the pitch still looks a long way from a return to real time.

We all remember those defining moments of the game when a team, having scored a crucial goal- or any goal for that matter- would celebrate seemingly ad infinitum. The goal scorers, quite clearly on a high, would rush over to the corner flag, slide along the ground in an ecstatic trance, kiss the club's badge adoringly and then topple over the rest of their colleagues. Then some of the team would race towards a small section of the ground where a majority of the home supporters would normally have been situated, grinning fiercely and smiling widely at those same fans.

Then the fans would tumble down in their hundreds and thousands in perfect unison, hurrying to ensure that they get the best possible vantage point for their moving displays of congratulation. But certainly for the next couple of weeks or so this will not be the way of things. The fans will just have to get used to more deprivation, a feeling of loss mixed in with an obvious sense of confinement. Their presence on the terraces and the seats will be surplus to requirements and that won't be easy. For the time being anyway.

For instance the Premier League champions Liverpool meet newly-promoted Leeds United at Anfield in a setting that would probably have seemed very alien and frightening to some extent during the 1970s. More than any other top-flight fixture these two teams provided a surefire guarantee of excitement and drama, melodrama and controversy. Liverpool against Leeds was the preserve of Bill Shankly and Don Revie, two managers with big-time temperaments and very similar philosophies on how the game should be played.

Leeds, under Revie were though a mass of contradictions at times, sublimely beautiful when the mood took them but then quite the toughest and dirtiest of any team in the old First Division. Leeds tackled ferociously, shoved, pushed, kicked and punched at the slightest injustice but then astonished us all with the breathtaking purity and subtlety of their football. The ever so slightly schizophrenic streak allegedly running through Revie's team manifested itself too frequently for our liking but when Billy Bremner, Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer, Mick Jones, Johnny Giles and Jack Charlton came out to play you were sure that the world was in a good place.

Today though  Leeds, under the enormously well respected Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa, will start this afternoon at Liverpool aware of the club's illustrious history and determined to replicate some of the club's more commendable achievements rather than the ones that were X rated and just abominable. Leeds have been away from football's top tier for too long and whatever you may have felt about some of their football when the danger signs were out, the more favourable aspects of today's Leeds may provide the club's fans with something sweeter to chew on.

And so the new Premier League season is with us again and the next nine months will surely be completely unlike any we are ever likely to see again. Away supporters will not be allowed into the grounds and the home fans who would usually have packed into their favourite part of their ground so creating quite the most unlevel of all playing fields will only see the glass half full.

Any opening day of any new football season carries with it the unknown and unexpected although some events will unravel in quite the most predictable way. The top six of Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham, Manchester United, Wolves quite refreshingly and Arsenal will comprise the upper class section while the economy class of Leicester City and Everton will be taking it in turns to bother and pester the aristocrats. The order of merit may be open to guesswork but the overriding impression is that coronavirus or no coronavirus, the established pattern will remain stubbornly unchanged.

As for your personal choice of football club this may be yet another of those tiresome and wearisome  seasons where everything that could go either wrong or right may still not come as any surprise. West Ham United are still under the very workmanlike David Moyes, a man who quite clearly has some kind of attacking plan up under his sleeve but may find that everything he does is so incompatible with the West Ham DNA that he may be forced to tear up that piece of paper and start all over again.

Opening days of a new football season take you back to West Ham's first relegation season from the old First Division in the late 1970s. On a warm August afternoon at Upton Park, West Ham overpowered Notts County with a thumping 5-2 victory. For the next three seasons West Ham struggled and strived painfully to re-establish their top flight status but did get there in the end.

Now though West Ham have once again discovered that this could be another make or break season in the Premier League. Already the natives are restless at the London Stadium and the negative dissenters are still calling for criminal sentences for both the board and chairwoman, the two Davids Gold and Sullivan accompanied by ruthless entrepreneur Karen Brady. It is though the first day of term for everybody so we do hope you'll stand still in the playground, do as you're told and listen to your teachers. This is an important year for the class of 2020-21 and we could be here for quite some time. So straighten that tie and tuck in your shirt. Let the football season begin.   

No end in sight.

No end in sight.

We are rapidly approaching the end of our tether. Just when it looked as if couldn't get any worse than it has - or so it would seem. The global pandemic is lingering like the most repulsive smell. It won't go away no matter how hard we wish it would. It isn't for the want of trying because we are endeavouring to do as much as we can to keep the coronavirus under control. We're really doing our utmost to clean our hands 50 times a day, sanitised to the point when our hands couldn't be cleaner and then keeping such a respectful distance from each other that we may just as well be in different countries.

But last night another bombshell struck with a vehement thud. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced yesterday that only six people would be allowed to share a room with each other.  It was rather like reprimanding a school sixth former for planting a whoopee cushion under the chair of the chemistry teacher in an otherwise respectable staff room. We thought we'd been on our best behaviour although we didn't think for a minute that we were doing anything wrong in the first place.

So yesterday we were told off by Boris for stepping out of line, converging on pubs in huge crowds, cluttering up all available space with vast groups of people holding ten trays of foaming lager in their hands. Then more friends and families turn up from nowhere and it all begins to get slightly out of hand because the noise levels are increasing and the jokes are getting louder and funnier. What on earth is going on here? If they haven't been told once they must have been told a million times.

Meanwhile, at the bar, hordes of men are pressed tightly against each other reaching out for another set of drinks. It is now that claustrophobia may well have set in because now the pub is heaving and ready to explode. Nobody can move and it's all very oppressive. It is hard to believe that a small cross section of Britain is just flagrantly flouting the laws of the land. We thought we might have just cracked this terrifying coronavirus pandemic but it's clear to see that it may be here for some time.

Now the point will come when the country may well be unwittingly forced to go back to square one, the same place where this all started back in March. We are going around in ever-increasing circles and achieving nothing of any consequence, a case of one step forward, a million steps back. The world is being held hostage for reasons that simply escape us. We were hoping that the world would just follow a logical pattern and just move forward in a very businesslike fashion. We woke up on New Year's Day and had no idea that the events that would follow would be truly historic.

Firstly there were those destructive forest fires that raged through Australia and that was only January. For a while we must have thought that this was just another isolated disaster that would simply pass and eventually the Australians, famous for their dogged resilience, would re-build, grieve for a while and then get back on their feet. Then things went downhill almost immediately as if the year had suddenly crashed into some impenetrable wall. February was in a forgiving mood but when March came along all bets were off. The world stopped, stunned and shocked into submission.

From that point civilisation seemed to be put onto hold. The whole world was stationary, broken down into a million jagged and disparate pieces. Humanity had nowhere to go and nothing to do but just remain where it was in the hope that sooner or later what seemed like a severe case of flu would just go away. But we were wholly mistaken. This would be much more serious, even grave. In fact it was simply catastrophic and it was all cloaked in mystery. We were heading toward spring and surely this virus would naturally disappear. It didn't though and we just had to muddle through.

 Here we are in September, frustrated, exasperated but optimistic that this damaging ailment, this chronic virus will just drift away into oblivion and never darken our shores again. The children may be back in school after a horribly truncated summer holiday, the shops are open with their tempting offers, the cafes are serving their traditional noshfests and the pubs are clinking to the tune of innumerable glasses. Still though things aren't right and the masks tell their very visible story.

Outside, the world is still queuing, still on tenterhooks, nervous of its own shadow and treading on eggshells. Recently a brief Accident and Emergency hospital visit proved the point. A very understanding nurse covered every part of her face with one of those visors that gave you the impression that a nuclear fall out was on its way. Oh dear, how did it come to this?

Still, the seaons have changed again and we can but hope that sooner or later that the world will once again find its comfortable place, that stability will be fully restored. We will wake up one morning and breathe the beautiful air of life and not worry for a single second that the person in front of us may have some unavoidable infection. That day will come and when we flick through history's turbulent books we may find that a salutary lesson has been learnt. There is no clear indication at the moment that there is indeed an end in sight of this disease  but we must keep believing and hoping. Keep going, everybody. 

Tour De France- 2020 a cycling tour de force

Tour De France - 2020 a cycling tour de force.

So here we are again, back on the roads of Europe and the cyclists of the world are pedalling furiously for their life as if their life depended on it. This year the Tour De France, cycling's blue riband event of the year, went ahead when there were those who thought it would never happen. They looked at the sky, felt the bracing air and felt sure that no virus could ever stop these two-wheeled masters of their craft from reaching their personal target in their relentless hunt for the Maillot Jaune, the ultimate prize for the rider who breasts the tape at the finishing line known as Paris and the Champs Elysses.

Cycling may have a rough ride in recent years with all of those sleazy drug-taking scandals bedeviling its every pedal and spoke. When Lance Armstrong found himself at the centre of all that unnecessary controversy over his alleged misuse of narcotics, cycling threw up its hands in horror. Surely a cyclist of Armstrong's stature could never be so naive enough to get all tangled up in such wretched illegality because he was Lance Armstrong and nobody could ever accuse Armstrong of anything so abhorrent as dabbling with those naughty sweeties that none of us should ever take.

But this is  2020 and the Tour De France. Once again tiny pockets of French vineyard owners and upbeat farmers from deep in the heart of France's thriving wine drinking heartlands are lending their voice and encouragement in the way they've always done since time immemorial. This year the Tour De France isn't quite the same eye-catching product that it used to be. The fans and crowds lining the typically twisting and winding country lanes are still there but not in the sheer weight of numbers.

High up on the Swiss Alps where formidable mountain ranges gaze down on equally as forbidding open roads that remain as stamina-sapping and punishing as ever, small groups of cyclists of the highest class will hunch forward on their bikes, clutch muscular arms onto their handlebars and then push themselves beyond the point of endurance. It is one of the most riveting sights in world sport if only because we mainly use our bikes to get the Sunday papers, a pint of milk, a loaf of bread and the rest of the shopping in our local supermarket. Then again there are those of us who just love cycling long distances for all of its healthy benefits.

In recent years Britain has excelled in the Tour De France. Sir Bradley Wiggins famously took the yellow jersey and Chris Froome also collected the garlands with sparkling victories. This year Adam Yates is champing at the saddle, gritting his teeth tenaciously and putting his feet down hard in the hope that somebody falters and flags at the finishing line. Above all we can only hope that nothing untoward occurs such as blatant cheating, a mass collision of bikes fighting for supremacy and perhaps the inevitable accidents.

Cycling of course is one of those sports that somehow defies categorisation. Quite clearly it is richly deserving of its Olympic status but then you look at the innumerable cheats, the cheeky mavericks, the law-breakers, the ones who quite literally think they can get away with it. Cyclists are completely focussed, driven to the point of obsession, unwavering in their belief that they are the best. They climb the hills vigorously, puffing out the reddest of cheeks, pounding the pavements for mile upon mile and then pedal like crazy through barriers of the pain threshold as if it were something that just came naturally to them.

And yet this year there will be no cheers of Allez Le France resounding from gentlemen with onion bags on their shoulders or just harvesting the local crop of grapes. Along the route there will be the familiar sight of brooding cows curling up in their traditional fashion, models of curiosity, languid and thoughtful as ever and then staring up at the cyclists while munching their lengthy lunch on a grassy meadow. Then the sheep will join in with just a few bleating choruses and all will be well.

Eventually the cyclists who comprise this year's Tour De France will head for the valleys and the heavenly hills for one last heave-ho. On Sunday they will attempt to break all records, arms and shoulders pushing, panting, gasping for air, rivers of sweat pouring from their saturated foreheads, rolling their wrists, grinding out one more painfully excruciating ounce of energy out of exhausted bodies. We salute their dedication and we acknowledge their courage and their heroic bravery. The world of cycling and the Tour De France has always made for compulsive watching and this year should be no different. 

England cruise to victory against Australia in T20 blast.

England cruise to victory against Australia in T20 blast.

England cruised to victory against their oldest foes Australia in the T20 blast with the most comprehensive victory you're ever likely to see. They won by six wickets and, quite frankly, England had hardly broke into a sweat from the beginning of this match to the end. In modern-day parlance this was both a breeze and a blast, a walk in the park and the game had been won well before the last Australian batsman had departed from the crease after another astonishing display of pace bowling from Jofra Archer and Mark Wood had left the Aussies reeling.

And yet for those who can still look back down the years at Sunday cricket as it used to be, then this might have come as a cultural shock. Way back then the John Player League on BBC Two had the privileged cameras for a Sunday afternoon of thrills and spills, pulsating run chases, meaty batting and menacing bowling. Sadly, those days have now been consigned to history, an age of gentleness and chivalry, politeness and generosity where the two captains and players never really took the game that seriously and everybody slapped each on the back in congratulation and kindly shook hands. But we would always embrace such qualities.

Besides the John Player League was all about winding down at Sunday lunchtime, waiting for Sunday lunch to digest before trotting out for a pavilion and taking it very easy. The John Player League seemed like a good excuse to just enjoy themselves. But of course there were teams who thrived on the competitiveness of the Sunday biff bash and slogfest because there may have been local pride at stake.

Today though marked a radical departure from the norm in as much that this was an international contest between the Ashes protagonists. Of course there was needle and rivalry in the air but you'd hardly expect anything less from England and Australia. There was an edge to this game, the fires of antagonism were burning and a firm resolution to get one over each other. At the end of the game there were the now regulation fist bumps and a whole load of mutual respect for each other.

Neither England nor Australia like losing and although the game itself had an end of season friendly feel Australia will privately feel that any defeat against England is somehow morally unacceptable and that explanations have to be given. Realistically though this was not the end of the world and cricket will always have its days of contrasting fortunes where one team will simply crack under the pressure while the other will lay out its picnic and just feast on a hearty appetite of runs.

When Australia were put into bat, you had a premonition that this was not the right day to open up the batting. The Ageas Bowl in Southampton would rarely have known days like this since it would have never witnessed the full splendour of the John Player League. Wherever you looked around the ground there were vast banks of unoccupied seats, a match completely devoid of any atmosphere and once again we had to experience the global pandemic that has stolen so much from today's sport.

From the moment David Warner carelessly sacrificed his wicket for no runs Australia were struggling and treading water frantically, flapping wildly and fearing the worst. After scratching out a meagre three runs Alex Carey was the next Australian batsman to fall on his sword, flailing outside off stump and nicking the ball for an easy England catch. Australia were three for two and grasping out for any kind of inspiration. None though was forthcoming and after painstakingly accumulating 30 runs the normally reliable and steady Aaron Finch was next to receive his marching orders.

By the time the Aussies had reached 79 it looked as if they'd stabilised the sinking ship. Steve Smith was recklessly run out following a rash call for a second run that had not been heeded. Then in a quick succession Glen Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis threw their wicket naively when caution should have been the watchword, Maxwell slashing at the ball and Stoinis caught at slip around the corner in quite the most humiliating fashion. Suddenly the Aussies were 132 for six in a whirlwind display of brutal English bowling that quite literally knocked the stuffing out of Australia.

When Australia lost their final wicket before completing their allotted 20 over ration, England were licking their lips with enormous relish at what they must have regarded as gross incompetence on the Aussies part. With only 157 to get for victory England went about their business with a very measured but ruthless batting attack from which there was no way back for Australia.

There were though one or two hiccups from the otherwise impregnable English batting. Jonny Bairstow, in presumably a rush of blood to the head, swung around fatally in an attempted hook and then discovered that he'd accidentally knocked off the bails. England were 19-1 but still full steam ahead. At the other end the majestic Joss Butler was comfortably taking up residence at the crease, rolling his wrists and powerfully pulling, cutting, reverse sweeping from time to time and looking very impressive.

Tom Banton, a young and spritely Somerset player had appeared to dig himself for a pleasing innings when even he must have sensed that there was something very lucrative in the pitch. Regrettably this was not to be the afternoon Banton might have been hoping it would be. He slogged the ball high into the air with an almost derring do, cavalier style that his county predecessor Sir Ian Botham may well have identified with. But the ball fell without quite the requisite power he must have been trying to apply. Banton was caught out quite simply and by the time Dawad Malan lofted the ball into the air for another comfortable catch from the Australian fieldsmen, England were almost home and hosed.

England were now 122 for three and they'd have been quite content to close their eyes so logical had their task had now become. 135- 4 would now become the most easily attainable winning total. Buttler was still reverse sweeping, swiping, driving handsomely and then spraying his shots around Southampton with gleeful abandon. Buttler reminded you of a ferocious bull determined to crash through a gate.

With well over two overs left for England to just tie up the loose ends, Buttler adjusted himself and then smashed the ball high and beautifully into the Solent for the winning six. Although there was nobody present to see this apparent no contest Australia had been beaten and you began to think that, effectively, this was the end game for the summer cricket revelries. September is here and football is waiting patiently for its long-overdue cue. Oh to be England in the autumn. 

For the Second World War read the viral war.

For the Second World War read the viral war.

We all know of course that today 71 years ago the air raid sirens wailed plaintively, the citizens of the world took shelter, the bombs thundered and then exploded and what followed was six years of hell, death, torture, suffering on an unprecedented scale, broken hearts and once proud Victorian buildings were now smoking, burning to the ground. It was horrific, ugly, utterly heartbreaking and too much to take in. The long term damage would take ages to repair but the psychological repercussions could hardly be imagined for generations to come.

The outbreak of the Second World War remains the bloodiest of wounds inflicted on a helpless world. Even 71 years on, the mental and physical scars can still be painfully felt. In his gravest and most solemn of voices British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sadly admitted that although he'd tried to reason with Adolf Hitler the murderous dictator with ice in his veins and little in the way of remorse promised to wipe out the human population in double-quick time. Britain was now subsequently at war and the rest you all know about.

From 1939 to 1945 the world waged war with the tyrannical forces of the Nazi party and all of its collaborators including Hitler, Goebbels and Eichmann. What followed was seemingly irreparable destruction, anarchy and the complete disintegration of society, the end of the world as it seemed at the time. There seemed to be no way back for the human race once Hitler and his cronies got hold of power.

 There were explosions, fiery conflagrations that ripped apart both the social fabric of Britain and the world, leaving families homeless, wandering through desolate streets and then loitering around potentially deadly bomb sites. They said it should never happen again but now the world finds itself battling against a viral war with no apparent end in sight. The casualties have been too frighteningly high for any of us and the fatalities send cold shivers down the spine. The statistics now begin to look like the most horrendous post mortem of all time and none of us can understand the destructive impact of the global pandemic.

This morning we woke up to the news that the world is still struggling desperately to come to terms with the dire predicament it has now been faced with for almost five months now. Of course we've made the necessary adjustments and adaptations but here we are at the beginning of September and it still feels as though we haven't seen the back of this grotesque disease. Things aren't nearly as bad as they were at the end of April and the beginning of May but the seasons are now merging into one and it still seems that the nation should be celebrating the end of the coronavirus without quite being able to reach out and touch that moment for real.

Yesterday Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon declared another lockdown and a second spike while the school students who thought they could breathe again were thrown into a state of anti-climactic gloom. The message to all schoolkids is that you can return to your academic studies but not for the time being. It was hard to read into anything of any coherent sense in Mrs Sturgeon's wise words because privately even she looked clueless. But she is dealing with her day to day agenda intelligently and speaks a great deal more commonsense than the mandarins of Westminster.

Meanwhile across the transatlantic pond Donald Trump is still President of the United States America and maybe that says a lot more about Trump than any of us could possibly have believed when he first came into office. Trump still gives the overriding impression of a frustrated comedian earning his crust in the comedy clubs and bars of New York. But Woody Allen he isn't and Steve Martin would probably be deeply offended if you told him that Trump would love nothing better than a season of gigs.

You may have heard that our American friends will be holding their Presidential election in November which could mean anything. For now though Donald Trump will be out touring the cities and states of the USA drumming up support from anybody who cares to vote for him. The last couple of years or so at the White House have been eventful and often turbulent, if ever so slightly laughable. Trump has carried out most of his outlandish promises and more or less steered the country in some kind of direction but then there's the distinctive voice and that delivery.

Trump is a controversial rabble-rouser, a blunt and often outspoken figure who simply ignores the autocue and wallows quite happily in creepy sounding improvisation. For roughly a year or so Trump viciously attacked every media outlet in America he could possibly think of. It was character assassination on a massive scale. Firstly, all news was fake and malicious propaganda but then it got personal. How dare that journalist accuse the President of taking his eye off the ball, completely underestimating the intelligence of his own people by insisting that those people should go back to work regardless of deadly infections?

Then he vowed quite emphatically to build a wall which would stop those annoying Mexicans from flooding into the USA. Now a vast majority of Americans probably knew that part of the said wall had already had been built but Trump just thought he'd indulge in a brief burst of bluster and assertiveness. Surely there could be no harm in having a bit of fun with the world Press. But Trump was standing his ground and wouldn't be moved.

Still, here we are in the first week of September and if there are any Disney executives out there who think this whole episode of pre- election mind games would make one spectacular film or documentary then you may give us your suggestions now. Trump knows that he can't be beaten in November but the rest of the world is much more sceptical although you never know. Two months as opposed to a week in politics can seem an inordinately long time. In fact it may seem much longer than a piece of string. But you'll never stop the Trump oratory because he can just talk for his nation.

Trump's opponent is one Joe Biden, even older than Trump himself and a man who should really contemplate retirement fishing by a river or enjoying the company of his grandchildren. But Biden will keep going on ploughing forwards into an election, a delusional and perhaps embarrassing figure who should stop now and just write a historical novel rather than clinging onto the hope that he should be the next President of the United States.

So there you have it. We are now into week or month of however long this crisis has been going on for. We are settled, unperturbed, defiant, even gutsy and combative but the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah( New Year) looms hearteningly on the horizon. Autumn beckons and the sharp winds of winter are once again poised to make their presence felt. The beginning of the Second World War may now seem like some terrifying chapter in the history of the world but you'll never stop Donald Trump from speaking his mind whether we like it or not. As for the coronavirus pandemic. Well, even in the most difficult of times we have to keep believing. Keep on smiling everybody.

My books.

My books.

Now we all know what kind of year it's been for all of us because we've all experienced its toughness, its difficulties, its challenges and, above all its demands on both our emotions and all of our resources. The global pandemic has quite literally taken every piece of mental and sometimes physical energy out of us all but we keep bouncing back and we will remain defiant.

So here's the deal. This is my chance to tell you once again about my books, my modest contribution to the fiercely competitive world of publishing and literature. Of course this is brazen self-promotion off the scale but you may like to take time out to feast your eyes on some of my cherished pieces of literary work. They may not be your cup of tea because your instinct is to turn to the more high profile likes of Lee Child, James Patterson, Dan Brown or David Baldacci for your further reading pleasure and delectation and of course that is your right but perhaps you'd like to read something different.

I wrote No Joe Bloggs six years ago now but it remains one of my favourite books of the four I've written so far. No Joe Bloggs is available at Amazon, Waterstones online, Foyles online and Barnes and Noble online. It follows my life journey, the triumphs and disasters, the good times and the setbacks, the traumas and the celebrations, the ups and downs, the twists and turns and the moment when it all came right for me. Of course there were tears, trials and tribulations, the victories and the inevitable defeats but we all experience those.

No Joe Bloggs is my funny, feelgood, moving, nostalgic and extremely lyrical account of where it all started for me, a story about my grandparents, parents and vividly descriptive homages to London, the West End, East End and the world. I'm a grandson of a Holocaust survivor and I make a reference to that horrifically traumatic period for my grandparents and mum with a poignant page or two about what might have happened.

I also tell you about my favourite music, bands and singers from the late 1960s and 1970s, amusing pen portraits of football teams from the 1970s such as Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton, Ipswich Town, Wolves, Leeds United, Chelsea and Spurs, favourite TV programmes from the 1970s, loads of pop culture from the both the 1960s and 70s. There's also an affectionate tribute to my late and wonderful dad and a totally fictitious but I think funny story about his visit to Las Vegas where he fulfills his life long ambition to mix with his Hollywood heroes Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Tony Bennett. Towards the end I once again to refer to my childhood home in Ilford, Essex with all the characters and places that made and continues to be special for me.

So if nostalgia is something you're looking for in a book and wistful recollections of the past are the themes you crave to read about in a book then No Joe Bloggs is definitely the book for you. It is my affectionate gratitude for everything that is beautiful and the prose will make you laugh and smile in equal measure.

Then there's Joe's Jolly Japes also on sale at the above online bookselling platforms. Joe's Jolly Japes is different in as much as this is my personal take on social commentary, an acknowledgement of all those great British cultural institutions such as the Chelsea Flower Show, the Henley Regatta, Polo on the playing fields of England and the England football team's ups and downs, triumphs and disasters in recent years, the players and managers. I talk about my favourite sporting personalities from the 1970s, the heroes and villains, the ones who made us laugh and smile.

Finally there's my first children's book Ollie and His Friends, now available at Lulu.com. Ollie and His Friends is all about a group of musical instruments who go out for the day with their family to a local village fete where they get up to all kinds of mischief and fun.

So there you are everybody, a brief summary of my books. Taken as a whole I have to tell you that I'm enormously proud of these books because they all come from my heart and maybe that's the place where all books should derive. They say we've all got a book in us but that I leave you to decide. Meanwhile if you fancy sitting down for some quiet moments of reflection and prose, put the kettle on and cast your eyes over No Joe Bloggs, Joe's Jolly Japes or Ollie and His Friends. You won't regret it.