Donald Trump becomes American president again.

 Donald Trump becomes American president again.

In one of America's greatest cartoon theme parks in the world even Mickey Mouse must have stifled a chuckle and laugh or two. Florida has, it seemed, declared Donald Trump as President of the United States of America yet again. We knew it would happen like this so this was the way we knew this one would pan out. The election of a new American president always seems to bring some kind of emotional baggage with it but this morning the United States of America woke up to another thrilling instalment of Groundhog Day. The good people of America are resilient souls and they know how to roll with the punches. But today is just history repeating itself, a mirror reflection of 2016 and 2020.

This morning Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States of America and some of us are wiping our eyes with puzzlement and bemusement in a way we never thought we would. A vast majority of the American population will probably be just beside itself, delighted, ecstatic, relieved more than anything else, gripped with a sense of vindication, knowing full well Trump would get back into the White House again.

Objective eyes could hardly be less indifferent because we could never understand the complex machinations of American politics or any of the global political barminess that continues to follow the behind the scenes manoeuvrings and whispered discussions that get progressively louder before every American election. But today has a feeling of inevitability about it, a sense that of course we've been here before because we have quite undoubtedly. 

The cult of Donald Trump is now so firmly embedded in American culture and every political ideology you can possibly imagine, that this morning will not come as an earth-shuddering surprise. Trump has felt every conspiracy theory in the land for the last four years and still maintains he was unfairly robbed by Joe Biden and that all the forces of evil were hounding him. He was deeply incensed that it took America four years to come to its senses so it's about time justice was seen to be done.

Trump still thinks he deserves to be President of the Free World because his egotistical nature, which is the size of an American condominium, is confirming everything we always knew, anyway. Donald Trump loves himself and is convinced that he's the best thing since sliced bread. Britain doesn't know what to believe but it does like a winner. Trump fits the bill perfectly. He came to his podium in front of thousands of enraptured Trump fans and a forest of phones took their triumphant photos. 

But despite all the attempted assassinations which only grazed the Trump eardrum, the run up to this American election has become almost tediously controversial. Now of course such a statement seems to make no sense whatsoever but you can't help but think nobody has spiked anybody's drink. A sober assessment of the recent goings on across the USA reveals nothing more than two people grabbing each other's throats, attacking each other's faults and deficiencies and remaining steadfast in their hatred of each other. 

Both flagrantly questioned each other's sanity, both have accused each other of suffering from an incurably sociopathic illness and then finally dismissed each other as demented fools. Both, they believe, should be locked up in a lunatic asylum and never allowed to walk the streets of New York or Washington ever again. Trump, for his part, thinks the whole world should bow before him deferentially as one of the mightiest and most outstanding leaders of any country. He really would like be regarded as political royalty with all the trappings of British monarchy.

This morning though it does look very much as if Donald Trump has done it again. Surely the most comical, most incomprehensible, at times seemingly hilarious man ever to become President of the United States is about to put his feet under the table at the Oval Office again. Some will refer to him as one of the craziest, most ill educated and idiotic men ever to walk into the White House with a straight face. Maybe somebody will pinch us and tell us that we were dreaming this but Hollywood has our full permission to fulfil our wildest fantasies.

Now across the whole of America, the whole of the Democratic party are now crying into their beer yet again. Kamala Harris, the woman most of her ardent supporters hoped would become the first female President, is now licking the bleeding wounds of almost certain defeat. For Harris read Hilary Clinton who did everything to woo the hearts of the American public but then realised she was up against impossible odds.

Clinton lost her private battle quite convincingly and a man called Donald Trump came blustering into our vision, gesturing expansively with both sets of hands, raising his voice over and over again, grandstanding ostentatiously, showboating almost constantly and then doing a passable impersonation of Muhammad Ali. He was the greatest, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. At times Trump looked like a clubber at Studio 54, boogying and swaying from side to side and pretending to be a distant cousin of John Travolta.

At times it's almost felt as if time has been frozen, time revisiting another day from the past. Trump is genuinely conceited, narcissistic, a man now weighed down with a potty sense of entitlement and living in a world of a permanent illusion and delusion. Here we have a man with a frightening lack of knowledge about the job he's now been elected to carry out burdened by bonkers bombast and a self image so wildly distorted that even his closest advisers will be telling Trump to just tone things down. It's hard to know what to think of a man who never needs any introduction because most of us can hear him coming down the road from another suburb or village. So let's take this one from here.

Now we discover that it's official. Donald Trump is the 47th President of the United States, which for better or worse, means that to the outside world, it's time to board the roller coaster. The ride will be a swooping, sometimes unnerving, often terrifying experience where some of us may feel inclined to go weak at the knees, feeling sick with anxiety and resolving never to go anywhere near a fairground again. Trump, as has now been well documented, is never short of a forthright opinion and his comments are so cutting and acerbic that somewhere in the world, foreign prime ministers or presidents will be trembling with fear and trepidation. 

Then there is the Trump who goes off on some insane rambling rant about something completely inconsequential such as the consumption of cats and dogs, eating animals and doing so completely out of context with anything in particular. Then Trump goes off into his own private world of late night comedy where he takes enormous pleasure in verbally attacking any institution or religion, class and humanity in general. He'll roast you alive if you're in the wrong place or wrong time but you must never cross him because he'll just rip you to shreds if you criticise the colour of his shirt or the now infamous orange hair.

The blunt reality of course is that Trump has now acquired the kind of notoriety and shameful publicity that none of us can understand. Trump is a convicted criminal and felon, a figure of fun in the eyes of some, a sexual pest to the others, a hardened misogynist while claiming at the same time that he adores women. Earlier on Trump was addressing the kind of court charges that made the blood run cold. But it was a set up, totally unacceptable and unfair, illegal in the extreme. In fact, how dare they hurl savage indictments against this honest, respectable citizen of the world who just wants to be the Leader of the Free World? It was all a massive fix.

During the 1970s, this sharp business mind and entrepreneurial genius, once appeared on a late night chat show on prime time American TV. Now in the general scheme of things, this was somehow regarded as normal since Trump was a successful, up and coming businessman who was about to make his first millions. But then we had to hold in our laughter when Trump dressed up as a chicken on a farm, promptly engaging in the kind of bizarre tomfoolery you're ever likely to see on any TV channel.

The fact is Trump could end up conducting vital foreign policy business from behind a draughty prison cell burdened by the knowledge that he has committed fraud and any number of financial improprieties. Here we have the President of the United States still at the mercy of those who still think of him as a master of bumbling banalities, utterances of tosh and trivia that barely seem believable.

 His campaign speeches resembled nothing more than inane comments about Kamala Harris mental stability. He continues to sound like a man who never sticks to the script and then uses the media as an obvious scapegoat for everything that is wrong with American society. Fox and CNN must dread his some of his more irrational outbursts and the national newspapers must hide behind the sofa every Trump opens his often vitriolic mouth. 

But then Donald Trump is an angelic paragon of virtue, flawlessly perfect and there are no flies on him. Trump talks coherent, perfectly understandable sense and his understanding of the world has been enhanced by everything he sees around him. The global wars of Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and Russia should be uppermost in his mind and undoubtedly his concern is a genuine one. But the judgmental and critical nature of the man has to be both disturbing and distressing. At times, Trump may have to bite his lip when the going gets really tough because diplomacy is something that just escapes him.

Today the world has been shaken to its core again. The Trump fanatical fans will see today's election victory as a triumph for good, old-fashioned pragmatic politics. Trump speaks from the hip and never wastes his words. There is an honesty is the best policy of course about him. The next four years should prove to be both a fascinating study of human behaviour, the rigorous examination of a man you simply can't make your mind up about. The permanent critics would love to see him fail miserably, a man who is still an embarrassment to the human race. But we do mellow with age and although Trump is rapidly approaching 80, we can only hope that things will get considerably better. Tony Blair certainly thought as much.

Quincy Jones dies.

 Quincy Jones dies at 91.

One of America's most influential and dynamic of music icons Quincy Jones has died at 91 peacefully and quietly. Jones was one of the greatest, most charismatic, productive, prolific, imaginative, groundbreaking and pioneering figures in the history of American music. Jones was a driven, determined and inspirational character who proved to be one of music's most important characters, an irresistible force, a permanently optimistic and galvanic record producer, music arranger, conductor, writer, instrumentalist and a man for all seasons. 

For much of his life Jones always seem to be around celebrities, showbusiness legends, a cheerful, happy go lucky man who devoted himself exclusively to the lives of the remarkable Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and countless singers and songwriters who knew all about Jones aura, his formidable presence and electrifying personality. To be in the company of Quincy Jones was to be in the earshot of musical geniuses, men and women who simply wanted to be surrounded by the Jones entourage. 

Jones was always the driving force and catalyst behind Mike Myers and Jones loved to be behind the movie camera as much as he felt more than comfortable around Jackson and Sinatra. Jones particularly enjoyed his relationship with the privately troubled Michael Jackson, a man who struggled with his psychological demons for ages but felt comforted to be among Quincy Jones. Jones worked on the film the Wiz with Jackson and there was a real rapport between the two. 

And then there was Michael Jackson's iconic and record-breaking album Thriller, a piece of vinyl so transformative in the history of popular music that Jones must have suspected that something very special had taken place. Thriller spawned so many singles and hits that to those observers who could only look on with astonishment, it must have seemed a life-changing moment for both men.

Tracks such as Beat It, the eponymous Thriller and the superbly funky I Wanna Be Startin, Billy Jean, the more reflective Human Nature and the Paul McCartney Jackson collaboration The Girl is Mine were always on our chanting lips. There was also that magnificent album Off the Wall where Jones first ignited the flames of a music revolution. Jones became the best of friends with Jackson but later discovered, much to his eternal regret, that Jackson was suffering behind the scenes and Jackson's death must have come as an enormous shock to Jones. 

Jones also revelled in the crooning superstardom of the unforgettable Frank Sinatra. Sinatra and Jones were inseparable with Luck Be A Lady and the Rat Pack narrative the perfect connection. Jones adored his life in a recording studio and just relished his friendships and enduring relationships with the stars, the Bossonova, the soul groove and the whole organic process of creating, shaping, inventing and improvising. 

There was a time when Jones must have felt a strong kinship with fellow songwriters such as the also sadly missed Burt Bacharach. Both of course were demanding perfectionists but shared a common interest in the sounds, layers and textures in between the great songs. Jones seemed to feel the music, experience its simple delights, smile at its simplicities and then turn into an artistic powerhouse. He drummed his fingers on the complex desks of record companies because music was Jones and vice versa. 

In recent years Jones went into semi-retirement but never tired of rising to the occasion at grand and lavish award ceremonies in Hollywood. He accepted lifetime achievement awards, acknowledged his leading role behind familiar musical compositions but was always modest in the extreme.  I Na Colida  and Stuff Like That charted in both the US and Britain but never really made the desired impact as such. Both were superlative disco soul floor fillers in the world's nightclubs and bars and did much to keep the Jones brand image in the public domain. 

But Quincy Jones epitomised the American music scene because he touched hearts as one of its most innovative forces. Jones was one of the great conductors, presiding over the engine room of music's vital dynamics with subtle rhythms and infectiously pulsing beats. Yesterday the world of music lost its truth, its vital essence, its raison d'etre, the man who waved a magic wand and never failed to be lively, entertaining and wholly dedicated to the people who mattered.   

Non League Tamworth knock out League One Huddersfield Town

 Non- League Tamworth knock out League One Huddersfield Town.

The FA Cup normally reserves its giant-killing for the third round of the competition but we'll make allowances for early contenders. Normally, the Football League pyramid sits quietly in the background at the first round stage of the competition but we were now both stunned and shocked by the magical and unexpected. Last night, National League pace setters Tamworth, gently tucked away in Non League hinterland and unobtrusively minding their own business, sent League One Huddersfield Town toppling out of the FA Cup in this year's first cries of its infancy.

Ordinarily, most of us wouldn't have reacted with gobsmacked amazement at this startling turn of events but Huddersfield Town were the visitors to Tamworth's typically tight, neat, cramped and claustrophobic Lamb Ground in the middle of Staffordshire. But this one was a mighty conquest. Huddersfield, admittedly 100 years ago now, were old First Division League Champions under the legendary Herbert Chapman before Chapman came down to London and transformed Arsenal into a world-class League Championship side. 

So Huddersfield have bejewelled history and have also lifted their FA Cup and that was back in 1922. So much for those Football League superiors with all their flashy affectations, airs and graces and serial achievements. Huddersfield briefly ventured into the Premier League in recent times but that was just a fleeting flirtation and now they're back in the shark-infested waters of League One, fraternising with the less than glamorous, good- time boys who once mixed with the best and finest. 

Last night all of the FA Cup stereotypes were in full evidence. There were the matchbox terraces, shaking with breathless anticipation, little children dangling their legs over advertising hoardings, the seething, heaving masses and the hardcore, dedicated Tamworth supporters who have braved wind, rain and snow through innumerable seasons over the years. There were the signs for local steam cleaners, metal car showroom signs and clearly prominent sponsors from Staffordshire's most well- respected factories and companies.

This was Tamworth's greatest night in the TV limelight. Nobody would have ever heard about anything that in any way related to the club apart from perhaps that celebrated story of escaping pigs many years ago. Now though the fantasy story came joyfully to fruition. Yesterday evening, the tightly knit communities and amiable clubhouses of the National League were full to the gunnels with chairman, managers and fans munching away gleefully at well made, nutritious sandwiches, plenty of harmless and inoffensive booze, crisps and savouries and that pervasive air of rock and roll celebration. 

The obscenely wealthy environment of the Premier League seemed a world away and Tamworth amply demonstrated their non League prowess with their more than competent capabilities. It would have been easy to dismiss Tamworth as lightweights, little known minnows, purring pussycats who were just there for a severe battering at the hands of their once illustrious opponents. Instead, the National League got their come- uppance over League One, a classic example of the so called peasants and proletariats coming unstuck against the posh, swanky, bourgeois elite who play their football on an altogether different planet. 

Recently, my son and I had the enormous pleasure and honour of watching Prescot Cables, a cosy outpost in the shadow of Merseyside, a land of solar- panelled rooftops, crisp, leaveless, autumnal trees without any summer foliage and men in yellow shirts who could have been mistaken for Wolves. It was football of earthy authenticity and warm sentimentality, where the local lads play for simple, unalloyed joy and little in the way of national recognition. Prescot Cables were beaten 2-0 by Northumberland's Morpeth Town. There was no end of the world sense of apocalyptic disaster for the Cables because nobody had been hurt, there were no film stars or celebrities, no prima donna, pampered superstars. It was grassroots football at its most intoxicating. You were drunk with happiness. It was the FA Cup working its magic. 

At Lamb Ground last night, there were tiny cafes and busy refreshment kiosks doing a roaring trade selling warming cups of teas and coffees. There were shining palaces of commerce glowing in the evening light and the floodlights towering over the ground were truly uplifting. These were not the massive chandeliers of the Premier League, more the lovely studio apartment lights of the National League with a slender pole at each end of the ground.

But Lamb Ground is a glorious or, perhaps not so glorious throwback. Lamb Ground has a plastic,artificial pitch known in the modern vernacular as 4G. You were painfully transported back to the 1980s when artificial football pitches were all the rage. Queens Park Rangers became the trailblazers for plastic pitches at a time when the late and much loved Terry Venables was still writing detective novels and crooning songs with the Joe Loss Orchestra. Venables also happened to be instrumental in one of the most memorable moments for the England national side when he almost guided the country to Euro 96 winning glory but then saw Germany in the headlights and bit his lip. It was semi final heartache at its most excruciating.

Then there was Luton Town who also got into the act of this new fangled business of plastic pitches. To this day there simply seemed a nonsensical silliness about these synthetic grounds where the bounce of a ball reduced the game to the status of mockery and satire. Then there were the burn marks on the body where the friction caused by the scraping of players well honed legs and arms, just beggared belief. 

And yet the shiny green 4G pitch was somehow acceptable because this was the FA Cup and anything goes. There were no WAG girlfriends in the crowd, no VAR, no controversial decisions although the winning goal itself might have been chalked off. This was plain, unpretentious Tamworth, old school, old fashioned, illuminated by the splendidly heroic figure of one Tom Tonks. Tom Tonks may be an unknown journeyman who just loves the electrifying atmosphere of the FA Cup but Tonks revelled last night in one of the most magnificent long throw routines that saw off Huddersfield when none saw it coming.

The FA Cup was still weaving webs of withcraft and the supernatural even a night after Halloween. There were no orange pumpkins or broomsticks at the Lamb Ground but even the most wide eyed optimists were predicting a night to remember. How dare Tamworth assume ideas above their station. They should have been preparing for another National League fixture rather than planning for the world's most famous competition. But football of course can be the most richly fertile of level playing grounds. We all knew that. Football has an innate capacity for turning the world upside down.

As for the football itself in this often free- flowing and rewarding FA Cup first round match between Tamworth and Huddersfield there was something very raw and natural about the game. It reminded you of one of those old Pathe newsreels where the rattles and rosettes can be both heard and seen the length of the local shopping centre. This was never football designed for the purists and connoisseurs of the one touch, instinctive variety seen in matches involving Brazil, Germany, France and Spain. But it was good to watch and essentially pleasant on the eye.

Tamworth had Jasbir Singh in goal who was the very epitome of bravery, flinty courage and absolutely bravura heroism, flinging himself at everything, being hit in every part of his battered body and sacrificing life and limb. Hadyn Hollis and the wonderfully named Jordan Cullaine Liburd were towers of security and reliable as front doors at full back and centre back, locking up the home defence rather like yeomen at the Tower of London. Luke Fairlamb was a busybody, ubiquitous, here and there midfielder, various fingers in different pies, scurrying and scampering to all points of the compass, helping out when necessary and urgent. Ben Milnes, Tom McGlinchey were always intelligent and perceptive while Rico Browne just stood tall and assured for Tamworth. David Creaney, up front, buzzed, darted and probed for the ball rather like a kid hunting for a lost ball that had landed in a neighbour's garden.

For Huddersfield of course this was a deeply uncomfortable, distressing and humiliating defeat which wasn't supposed to happen but did. Their small knot of away travelling fans could hardly look through bemused eyes. Tom Lees, Nigel Lonwijk, Matty Pearson, David Kasunu, the hapless Serbian Bojan Radulovic were never on the same wavelength and frequently moved the ball about between themselves like a wartime grenade, never quite knowing where they were going with the ball. When they did get anywhere the Tamworth goal, it looked as if too many cooks had spoilt the broth. 

It was all very well intentioned and honourable but Huddersfield were going nowhere. The up and under, long ball nature of football at this level always ruined the spectacle at times. But Tamworth did try to play it the right way and for that they have to be commended for their enterprise and willingness to keep the ball on the deck. At times it was all very higgledy piggledy, dreary and desultory occasionally descending into the typically awful. But this was the FA Cup and, besides, who cared?

The winning goal itself was both accidental and ever so reckless and careless. Tom Tonks, Tamworth's man of the night, wound himself up for one of those long throw-cum missiles for which he is now renowned across the whole of Britain. Rubbing the ball on his chest and staring menacingly into the eyes of petrified Huddersfield defenders eyes, Tonks held the ball high into the air and launched a miraculous throw into the away side's trembling penalty area. 

Chris Maxwell, the Terriers goalkeeper, leapt up for the ball confidently but then broke every goalkeeper's time- honoured rule. Maxwell fumbled and bumbled, dropping the ball clumsily and getting punished for his negligence. The ball fell into no man's land and,after an unseemly scramble, prodded the ball into his own net with his back foot. It was not the way Maxwell had imagined the night would turn out for him but his Huddersfield team had now unravelled. 

You remembered the Huddersfield of yesteryear, the immortal and exceptional King Denis Law who began his career at the old Leeds Road ground but then discovered Manchester United and never looked back. Then there was the lovable socialite and party animal who went by the name of Frank Worthington who started his career at Huddersfield. Worthington once scored one of the most spectacular goals ever seen while at Bolton. Trapping the ball deftly with his back to goal, Worthington juggled the ball with both feet, back- flicked the ball over his shoulder impudently and drove the ball into an Ipswich Town net, a goal to treasure in an unforgettable 3-3 draw.

But last night Huddersfield were back in less enlightened company. It felt as if they were almost completely overawed by these humble surroundings. Your mind drifted charmingly back to Herbert Chapman, the Huddersfield manager who revolutionised the club overnight. The formal waistcoat, bowler hat and cigarette characterised the man but even Chapman would have been at a loss at the modern incarnation of Huddersfield Town. It was not a pretty sight.