Coronation of a King

 Coronation of a King

It hardly seems like 70 years ago but time does indeed fly. In 1953 the late and much beloved Her Majesty the Queen was royally crowned as Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Then Britain was still emerging from the most horrendous conflict it had ever known. The memories were still bitter and of course painful but we got through it all and our powers of resilience knew no bounds. The Second World War had traumatised us so much that maybe we didn't think we could do it but we did with flying colours.

Roll forward 70 years and the then Prince of Wales will now become King the George third in a couple of weeks time and the merry month of May will have the sweetest resonance of them all. King Charles the third will be accompanied by the Queen Consort Camilla. But royal protocol will insist that she be referred to as Queen Camilla and none of us would dare question this highly contentious issue. It'll be a glorious day, the sun will shine incessantly and we'll become very patriotic again. Besides, we could do with a boisterous knees up and street party.

All we do know is that come the beginning of May a new King will sit on his regal throne and his wife Camilla will be known as Queen and this is the way it's going to be. Yesterday details were revealed of the glittering golden carriage that will transport the future King and Queen. It'll be a notably different carriage in as much that it'll be far more comfortable than the Queen's carriage 70 years ago. It'll still be luxurious and splendid to look at but this time, or so we've been told, it'll have air conditioning and may be a substantial improvement on Her Majesty's mode of transport. This is not to say that Her Majesty hated the journey down the Mall and around the streets of London but the King will enjoy the whole day immensely.

So where will you be on this most historic of all days. For some of us it will be one of those once in a lifetime experiences that we knew we'd be a part of at some point in our lives. Sadly the Coronation of a King was the one day we could never have imagined and yet shortly it will come to fruition. After all, most of thought our noble Queen was invincible, that she'd reign supreme indefinitely, that one day Charles would become King but not yet anyway.

But here we are weeks away from one of those momentous, scarcely believable days that will take place. We may wake up the following morning after the Coronation convinced that we'd seen perhaps the most spectacular display of pomp and pageantry ever seen in modern royal history. Of course there were the royal weddings, the Queen's wedding to Prince Philip, sister Margaret and her nuptials, the Silver, Diamond and more recently the Platinum anniversaries because let's face it, they were pretty cool weren't they? You had to be there in order to appreciate or just swept up in the elegant euphoria of it all.

And yet here we are weeks away from another singular chapter in the lives of our royal family, another page in the illustrious history of a family who still divide opinion but for some, are there, easily identifiable, privileged and astonishingly wealthy but we don't think we'd have it any other way. Their lives have been so well documented that perhaps we know too much about them, that all of those by now familiar details of their every movement have become almost common knowledge.

We've all heard about the invasions of their privacy throughout the decades, that whole voyeuristic, nosey parker nonsense that gives us a revealing insight into the royals. We love a bit of gossip when it comes to the royal family but the fascination is surely a morbid one. They may be famous but how we adore the tittle tattle, the salacious Buckingham Palace rumours? Now may be the opportunity to stop this silly speculation immediately since the Royal Family are still the most revered and deservedly loved of any other Royal Family around the globe.

Charles, as has become widely apparent, has led an often colourful and tempestuous life in the full glare of the TV cameras and the whole panoply of the media spotlight. His marriage to the late Princess Diana has assumed Greek tragedy proportions now but the dust has thankfully settled and we can all get on with the business of recognising him as King shortly. When Her Majesty the Queen made him the Prince of Wales in 1969 there was a school of thought that the future for the next King could only be a rosy complexioned one. 

Those who treasure happy ever after stories thought he'd one day get married to the love of his life and they'd both be happy ever after without any complications or troubles. Well, yes he did get married and to all appearances the match was a compatible one - at least for a while. Then we discovered that Lady Diana, as she was formerly known, wasn't the girl we thought she'd turn out to be. The cynics sneered. They thought it had been an arranged marriage and Diana was just a shy young lady who wanted nothing to do with the media. They were proven right but at the time none of us knew the whole story.

To this day most of us remember those horribly intrusive images of Diana rushing out of a nursery, hair wind swept, ducking into her car, smiling awkwardly and wishing people would just go away and never come back. The bombardment of questions about her relationship with the Prince of Wales are now etched into our memory banks. From that point the joining together of Charles and Diana would seem inevitable but full of warning signs and caveats. She was too young and he just wanted to settle down with his wife and children. It did though seem a bit too hurried, rash and not particularly well thought out.

Then on July 29th 1981 millions of people from around the world converged on Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral, adoring, idolising, lionising, wishing and hoping. The Prince of Wales would be marrying Lady Diana Spencer who would now become Princess Diana. It was the quintessential fairy tale marriage but somebody obviously forgot to tell us. Behind the scenes and now privately, the rumours about serial affairs and infidelities would circulate like a spinning top. Charles only had eyes for Camilla, Diana was simply overcome by blanket coverage of the royal wedding and, although on the surface, blissfully happy, may have wanted the whole day to be over as quickly as possible.

The tragic car crash which claimed Princess Diana's life still leaves a bitter taste in the mouths years after the event. Paris 1997 will not be a date to recall with any pleasure at all since that was the day when the Queen of Hearts died suddenly and unexpectedly in heartbreaking circumstances. The procession which saw Charles, the Queen and Prince Philip, William and Harry bow their heads in unutterable grief and sorrow, can never ever be forgotten.

Charles though has now though happily re-married the very woman we knew she should have married in the first place and on May the sixth, will become King Charles the third. Yesterday he walked among the public on Easter Monday as if everything in the world was just perfect. Queen Camilla, as the King would like his wife to be known as, held her husband's hands tenderly and it felt as though a whole new generation had just been ushered in. Briefly, he put one of his by now characteristic hands in his suit pocket, smiled warmly and pondered on tomorrow, next week, month and year. It had all turned out for the best as we always knew it would. 

Donald Trump- back in the news again

 Donald Trump- back in the news again.

The man who used to be president of the USA sat sombrely in an American high court and tried to pretend that he really wasn't watching or listening to the charges that had been so cruelly levelled against him. Besides it wasn't his fault, not me governor. He wasn't at the scene of the crime and this was quite clearly a travesty of justice, a total miscarriage of justice. How dare the American judiciary imply for a minute that he'd been up to no good and he was just a model of integrity and probity.

Donald Trump, the former president of the USA, had been victimised and singled out for improper treatment and conduct when most of us know that Trump was one of the most farcical, ridiculous and preposterous President that America had ever had. From the moment he'd put his feet under the desk at the heart of American politics, Trump had committed all manner of blunders. The man was just insufferably arrogant, full of pumped up pomposity. Or so we were led to believe.

At the Oval office, Trump joked his way through his term of office rather like an end of seaside pier clown in a circus. Now though things have come to a dramatic head and the man with the distinctive hairstyle is being interrogated by countless numbers of high ranking officials, legal aficionados, barrack room lawyers and those who just want Trump locked up in a prison cell for the rest of his life.

Trump just sat there with a sullen glare and menacing scowl as if he quite obviously hadn't a clue what all the fuss was all about. The beautifully combed, quiffed hair looked as though it was on its best behaviour and for a moment or two you were reminded of a sea wave rolling onto a Florida beach. For a minute you half expected an athletic looking surfer on their board swooping down from a great height. But then you realised that this was no ordinary politician if that was ever the case anyway. It was Donald Trump. Yes the man who will never be forgotten by the American public if only for all the wrong reasons. 

But yesterday once the most famous man in the world  couldn't quite believe what was happening to him and, let's be honest, nor could we. The celebrated hotel owner and multi million dollar man had been nabbed by the cops. Donald Trump was arrested by the authorities and the list of his duplicitous activities were laid bare to the American public who were either flabbergasted or just pleased that what goes around comes around. The charges and allegations followed by the ultimate indictment were there in front of Trump and his cronies. Of course he denied all of the well documented misdemeanours that had been committed but then he would.

Yesterday that esteemed body of men and women who make up the Congress in Washington, rattled off a whole sequence of felonies including the falsifying of important business documents throughout his much mocked administration and, alarmingly, a good deal worse. We were then reminded of those violent riots in Washington where the enraged and the outraged, the incensed and fuming, broke into the White House and the Capitol building, ransacking everything in their path, wrecking the furniture, scrawling graffiti across the walls and generally behaving like those wretched hooligans who once disfigured English football during the 1970s.

Meanwhile Donald Trump had already been smuggled out of office by then. He was no longer President of the United States and how a majority of Americans breathed a sigh of relief. For the rest of last year Trump seemed to have disappeared almost completely only to re-emerge recently. The vanishing act had worked to perfection. But you didn't think he'd get off that lightly. Trump was in the background with protestations of innocence as his only defence. It is hard to believe that he could have got away with it for so long but now he becomes the centre of attention again, a convicted criminal who probably won't go to prison but can only sheepishly admit that he might have been ever so slightly responsible.

Sadly Trump now cuts a pathetic and forlorn figure. Of course the books have been cooked, accounts have been tampered with and there is a dark cloud of illegitimacy hanging over him. There was the so called 'bullying' of the Scottish government, the undermining of trade relations with China and a whole host of vile violations and potty mouthed statements that were so incomprehensible that even he couldn't quite understand them.

And so to the present day. Even now some of us can only believe that a man so self centred and self possessed, so vain, narcissistic, misogynistic and controlling had just spent the best part of two and a half  years polarising opinion, dragging the USA down to the lowest common denominator but convinced that he was the best thing since sliced bread. Trump was the greatest of them all, the finest, a man with all the relevant credentials for entering the American Hall of Fame. Nobody could deny that everything he'd done had been perfect, flawless, transforming the country's fortunes overnight.

However, we could all see this for the sham it was, perjury of the worst kind. He told us to drink bleach as the perfect antidote for Covid 19. He would rant almost indefinitely on subjects for which he had no prior knowledge. He would verbally attack the media, TV, radio, newspapers and of course notably so, social media giant Twitter, pointing the fingers of blame at people he'd never met. He would single out members of the assembled Press and then blast their ear drums with the most powerful rhetoric, language none of us could make head or tail of.

Still, Trump is in court in quite the most unprecedented fashion. He knows where he might have gone wrong but his air of untouchable superiority continues to look a very bad fit. The damage though has quite obviously been done and there can no be way back from the precipice. At the moment there is something very toxic and explosive about this unquestionable political scandal. The gossip factory is in full spate and Trump knows that at some point something will have to give.

So we look on from a far distant country and your observations on this intriguing news story are probably reflected by the rest of the world. Every time we become subjected to one of many skeletons in the Trump wardrobe, we think back to the tearful and hugely emotional Richard Nixon who cried buckets in front of Sir David Frost, the legendary TV broadcaster. Watergate had sunk Nixon and left him humiliated. When Bill Clinton became president of the United States way back in the past, we were soon to discover that Clinton's turbulent private life would take precedence to anything he would do as President.

Today Donald Trump will search his conscience for some kind of salvation. He will roll his eyes across a courtroom, stare vacantly into the middle distance and then accept his punishment since final decisions have to be made and around him the chattering classes will rub their hands with sadistic glee. Donald Trump has now been rumbled, mercilessly exposed for who he is and the jury will make their decisive judgments. The cynics will insist that this is just a cheap publicity stunt and a battle Trump is bound to win. Whatever we may think him, Trump will always be regarded as one of the more unorthodox of American presidents. The important reminder here though is that a bottle of bleach to cure deadly viruses is not to be recommended. Keep smiling Mr Trump. Things may get better.  

Pesach- Passover, the Jewish spring festival.

 Pesach- Passover, the Jewish spring festival

If you're Jewish then please don't let me stop you. On Wednesday  evening Jews across the globe will be marking that traditional springtime festival. Yes folks it's Pesach again as it has been for so many decades and centuries that time has almost seemed immaterial. Pesach or Passover is that moment of the year when we all converge on matzot, matza, unleavened bread like famished people who haven't seen matza since at least the day after the first day of Pesach. Or it's that very meaningful first seder night when the world grows silent and reflective and starts talking about the great Exodus from Egypt. And then it begins.

On Wednesday evening a hushed reverence will descend on Barnet as my wonderful brother in law Jon, his equally as lovely sister in law Jo-ann and their family will welcome Pesach into their homes with all the warmth and cordiality that only family can bring to such extraordinary moments in our lives. We'll gather together in their living room, complete with pristine white tablecloths, beautiful candlesticks in the middle of the table and the seder plate with bitter herbs, egg, maror and the familiar shankbone, all heavy with stunning symbolism.

There are times when you can't help but feel good about being Jewish, the feeling you get when Judaism brings everything together to the table so to speak. There are the shy, young but eager small children who sit at the table attentively, giggling uncontrollably at the boxes of matzos scattered all over their homes, the bottles of Palwin wine placed strategically well away from their inquisitive hands and then the plates, crockery and cutlery quite possibly from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. This happens every year so therefore it's the most spiritually uplifting event you can ever hope to experience as a Jew.

So here we are again at Pesach and the fond childhood reminiscences tumble freely from your mind rather like tiny gems from jewellery boxes. They are the Pesach occasions you couldn't possibly forget quite simply because they meant so much to you. They defined that special, unique set of nights that stand out from the rest because everybody feels so appreciative of each other's company, so delighted to see you around the seder table, so loving and mutually affectionate within the family circle. In fact it's a great excuse to scoff as many matzos in such huge profusion that by the time you start your meal you've no idea where you're going to fit all of those vast quantities of food that now follow.

But your childhood was such an idyllic one that it almost seems too good to be true. You dig into your memory like those dedicated archaeologists who just remain permanently fascinated with history. Pesach had to be my wonderful grandparents favourite time of the year. My dear, lovely grandpa, a learned Hebrew scholar of the highest distinction, survived the Holocaust heroically and admirably. He would sit there, mind locked in a horrific solitude, quietly and gravely chanting the prayers and blessings but satisfied nonetheless that his family and grandchildren were there to see it all. Pesach again, every year.

By the early 1970s there were no more questions to be asked, no reasons why the Holocaust happened but simply a recognition of the way that things were fated to turn out. The inquests, post mortems, explanations, documentaries, harrowing accounts of six million Jews dying so unnecessarily in the gas chambers just seemed like statements of the obvious, tragic death and destruction that should never be allowed to repeat itself ever again. The sobering reality of course was that it did unfold quite horrendously and life for my beautiful grandma Rachel and her equally as lovely husband Jack would never seem quite the same.

The bitterness and resentment would eat away at both my grandparents for most of their lives and maybe this is the right time to dwell on the happier side of Pesach, the cup of Elijah that my loving grandma and grandpa would always insist had been sipped. The wine had been drunk quite satisfyingly regardless of all the evidence in front of the eyes of my brother and yours truly. But we were then told to look at the ripple of wind that hovered over the cup which would have suggested otherwise. So we looked and looked and trusted that our grandparents were perfectly right even though we knew they must have been teasing us quite jovially.

The stories though were endless. You can never be sure about dates or years but you must have been very young. For what must have been the second seder night, my grandparents returned the compliment after the first night had been spent in the salubrious Essex suburb of Gants Hill. My dad, who will always have a special place in the hearts of my brother Mark and yours truly, stood up at the table and waited for all the excitement to subside. Half way through one of the many blessings for wine my lovely dad, without any prior knowledge and completely unexpectedly, found that, much to his and our own amusement, his trousers were falling from his waist, thus revealing nothing more than his modesty. Down the said trousers fell and we simply fell about with irresistible laughter.

Then at my grandma and grandpa as a child of roughly five or six, we had just finished the main meal of the evening and dessert would be promptly served by my adorable grandma. It consisted of prunes and custard but little did she know that the first grandson she'd so unfailingly doted on, had somewhat naively assumed that the stones in the prunes had to be eaten as well. So after eating goodness knows how many prunes my family, shocked at such innocent foolishness, rushed number one grandson and son, accompanied with much younger brother, to the Accident and Emergency in the local hospital where your stones were pumped out of your system.

And finally there were the seder nights themselves. After an intensive session of munching, eating, biting, savouring, salivating and enjoying the lavish feast you would survey the utter carnage on the table. Everywhere there were wine stained Haggadahs, yellow and red prayer books almost transformed, table cloths a thick purple vision of messy mayhem. There were matza crumbs everywhere, scattered quite liberally over beautifully stitched Hebrew lettering along with remnants of chicken bones and paper serviettes that had also been dabbed in liberal sprinklings of wine. You were also presented with several hardback classic books including Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by your uncle David.

Looking back on those formative years of your childhood you could hardly imagine which direction your life would take. You felt enormously privileged to be part of a Pesach ceremony that would become such an integral part of your life. To this day you could never quite understand why your grandpa thought nothing of racing through all the prayers and blessings in such record time, a sequence of muttering and mumbling the words but at the same time, immersing himself in Judaism, smiling at me tenderly. Oh for the sweet joys of Pesach. Happy Pesach everybody. Chag Pesach Semach to you all.

King Charles the third in Germany.

 King Charles the third in Germany.

It's some time since we last heard of the whereabouts of King Charles the third. He's always been there at the back of our minds and even there in the middle of an important news bulletin. True, the public image and perception of the King hasn't been the high profile one we might have been expecting. But with King Charles the third Coronation now just over a month away now, the man who would be King found himself in the middle of Germany today speaking in German, entertaining German politicians with a dry line in humour and then realising that his position of monarch is now one that has to be taken seriously.

But today King the Charles the third spoke to the Reichstag in Berlin with all the natural fluency of a German citizen. To those of us with very raw sensitivities on the subject of the World Wars and the Holocaust, this is the not the sound we would have liked to hear even 76 years after the end of the Second World War. The Germanic Teutonic dialect is still as harsh, guttural, stern and distressingly military at times but there is now a grudging acceptance of bygones being bygones and moving on.

Listening to the King speaking German is now something to be admired rather than abhorred, a language that no longer belongs in Hitler's impassioned, hysterical speeches where the fists were brandished with menacing intent and wholesale barbaric murder of the global population was the only issue that had to be addressed. Admittedly, the King's impeccable command of German is remarkably reminiscent of the late and much loved Her Majesty the Queen's French so there is a multi lingual love of languages running through the royal genes.

Today though King Charles the third appealed warmly to his audience in a way that his mother would have taken careful mental note of and probably approved of. We all know of the Royal Family's German ancestry but for the first time in quite a long time Charles looked comfortable and relaxed, at ease with himself and no longer the sole focus of attention as became readily apparent when Her Majesty The Queen passed so poignantly. He was happy, relaxed and delighted to be among a nation who once launched a blistering attack on Buckingham Palace during the Second World War.

And yet it was time to talk about more up to date, topical and contemporary accounts of the monarchy and today's problems, difficulties, anxieties, hopes and passions. Dressed in typically sartorial elegance, Charles gazed across a rapt Reichstag fully equipped with gentle pleasantries and the fervent hope that Britain could still enjoy amicable relations in Europe despite the uncertainties surrounding Brexit. He then did something that nobody thought he'd ever mention. He made humorous references to Monty Python humour and probably thought of the celebrated sketch in BBC's 1970s national comedy treasure Fawlty Towers. 

You must remember the sketch, surely. John Cleese(aka Basil Fawlty, owner of the craziest hotel in Torquay) strides pompously into a dining room where a poor, unsuspecting German family are subjected to a rude and vitriolic tirade from Fawlty. Cleese then barks furiously at the said Germans with all the ruthless arrogance you'd expect of the man. He then reminds them of their German heritage and then apologises for his irrational behaviour insisting though that the Germans were still wholly responsible for the Second World War.

Still, here we are on the final day of March 2023 and maybe now would be the right time to forgive and forget the sins of our now distant ancestors. From where you stood there should, in theory, be no room for apologies and a conviction that it'll never happen again doesn't really sound realistic. The truth is though that there remains a strong underground element of racism and antisemitism brewing quite disturbingly in Europe. 

At the moment there are isolated outrages of desecrated Jewish gravestones being daubed unforgivably with Nazi swastikas or destroyed in quite the most reprehensible and disgusting fashion. Russia, under the despicable tyranny of one Vladimir Putin, are spreading hate crime of the most malicious and evil kind, killing hundreds and thousands of innocent Ukranians and flattening homes, buildings and shops with a violent ferocity that hardly seems possible. And yet it's happening on a daily basis.

For a while though today King Charles the Third was the authentic voice of peace and reason, reassurance and dignity, a man with an unwavering commitment to the civilised standards that you'd like any society to stick to. He plunged his hands in his pockets as his late father Prince Philip was often wont to do on so many occasions and told his German audience that most of the world would just like to cut out this aggressive nonsense, the ugly face of bloodshed, death and brutality consigned to history.

It was nice to see the new King of the United Kingdom and Head of Commonwealth because at long last Charles has got everything under control. In the days and weeks after the sad death of his mother Her Majesty the Queen, Charles was an emotional wreck. The image of Charles showing understandable annoyance when handed a leaky fountain pen for yet another signature is one that does stay in the mind from time to time. Let us all salute the new King Charles the third and the Queen consort Camilla. May they reign supreme with enormous dignity.

Two out of two for wins for England in Euro 2024 qualifier

 Two out of two wins for England in Euro 2024  qualifier.

They came from all four corners of Ukraine, the inconsolable, heartbroken, devastated, grieving so desperately, praying and hoping that one day that the wicked mass murderer Russian president Vladimir Putin simply rots in hell. The tears have been shed in gallons, an abundance of suffering that can never be properly measured because you simply forget how long war can just drag on interminably. Already Ukraine is traumatised and will be permanently and maybe that's even more of a tragedy.

But on Sunday evening a small corner of Ukraine gathered in their thousands at Wembley Stadium, massed away tightly at one end of the ground. For 90 minutes they were emotionally united, delighted to be at the home of a country whose sympathies remain just as unconditional as ever. In vast rows of yellow and blue flags, they stood brave and honourable, undaunted, unperturbed by the occasion itself and just grateful to be in a welcoming sporting environment where nobody would judge them, criticise them or humiliate them.

For the duration of England's second Euro 2024 qualifier against Ukraine, yellow and blue clad supporters spent all of the match, jumping up and down joyfully, bouncing together, arms linked, all wedded to the same underlying theme of the afternoon. They were our kindred spirits, the men and women who just want to wake up every morning in the hope that one day they'll be given the freedom and the luxury of open spaces to play football from morning to evening, displaying their skills and participating in the Beautiful Game. At the moment it is a forlorn hope but at least here was a temporary truce.

Nobody was ever going to say this was an easy game for Ukraine since football may not be their foremost consideration or over riding priority. Instead they lined up against an England side searching for their second consecutive victory in their opening Euro 2024 qualifier. Last Thursday of course England broke the habits of a lifetime or seemingly so by beating the European Champions Italy in Naples. It may have been a significant breakthrough but then this is England we're talking about so anything could and probably will happen.

And so Wembley welcomed home their battle hardened if ultimately defeated Euro 2020 runners up as if painful memories had been summarily obliterated from their minds. Ukraine of course were looking for some modicum of  revenge after the 4-1 thrashing by England in the 2018 World Cup at a time when Russia was just being a grizzly bear with a sore head. What we witnessed at Wembley on  Sunday evening was the steady evolution of an England in transition, still recovering from the body blows of both Qatar and Russia and re-connecting on the same wavelength.

Here we have an England side, who although missing out on a major international trophy, are still testing the waters after dipping their toes at the shallow end and finding that they do belong in the highest echelons of world football. For the opening twenty minutes to half an hour, England moved the ball around like pawns and bishops on a chessboard. They looked comfortable and assured, never in danger of losing the game but just waiting for the right moment to pounce. Their movements were strategic but simple, nothing to get excited about but then there were carefully constructed platforms to score when the mood took them.

In years gone by, England would have strolled onto the old Wembley with some kind of masterplan only to find that there were pieces missing, components of their game that still needed refining and tweaking, a side who were  just awkward and cumbersome. These were the days when the ball would spend so much time in the air that reconnaissance missions were sent to look for the ball. The ball resembled a hot potato when England had possession and sides were built on strength and endurance rather than technical ability and skill.

Now of course England are much more socially aware of their surroundings. Gareth Southgate, England's smartly dressed boss, has revolutionised thinking back at St George's Park and most of the England players now genuinely look forward to future confrontations rather than being scared stiff. Now a football is something to be treasured and relished, where friendly relationships are formed and the sense of bonding can never be disguised. It's true. England are changing and changing for the best.

When England returned home from Qatar just before Christmas, the festivities were somewhat tinged with sadness. England hadn't brought home the World Cup after all so what was there to celebrate? We'd got to a quarter final against France but even Napoleon Bonaparte would have been laughing all the way to the Champs Elysees had he known what happened. England's cross Channel rivals had stolen their thunder and the spirit of entente cordiale among the French had ensured that England would be taking the first plane home.

Still, here we were back at Wembley once again on the last Sunday of the month and England were ready and waiting to go again. Regrettably Ukraine were nowhere to be seen, on the outside looking on, hovering on the periphery but never really engaging in the game. For a while England tapped out a veritable Morse Code  of passing movements, short, succinct and clear passes that restored your faith in the national side. This was an England side building and re-building, gently as she goes, patient, possessive, proactive and constructive, considerate rather than rash and hurried, protective rather than panicky.

When John Stones and Kyle Walker had erected their portcullises and fortresses in England's defence, there would be no way through for Ukraine who threatened only sporadically. Both Stones and Walker are now ageing rapidly but there's a great deal to be said for experience. Walker still looks like the fastest athlete and Stones just happens to be in the right place and the right time so there would be nobody to encroach on their territory.

Once again Declan Rice was magisterial, shifting around in front of England's rigid back four, a player of flair and flexibility, nipping into tackles with impeccable timing and always a master of the solid interception, throwing the full force of his body into challenges in a way that had to be admired. Then there was Ben Chilwell who although now settled at Chelsea has found that the season has not been quite as successful as he would have hoped. Chilwell looked secure and responsible, never resorting to over elaboration when simplicity was all that England needed.

In England's midfield James Maddison made his international debut and looked every inch the controller, the barometer, easy going, a player of the highest culture and excellence. Maddison, rather like his midfield partner Jack Grealish, could form the most compatible of partnerships. He is pleasing to the eye, passing the ball cleanly and accurately, stylish to his fingertips. At Leicester he looks the kind of player who may find himself travelling to pastures anew since relegation battles may not have been in his job description when he joined the club.

And so it was that England fired on all cylinders again. Jude Bellingham was quite breath taking once again, breezing past players effortlessly and authoritatively, picking his moments to find the right ball for one of his colleagues and by far the most exciting discovery the England side have made in ages. Bellingham is still blissfully young, elegant, the complete article, never anxious or nervous and just England's future. At times you thought of Paul Gascoigne and hoped for a similar package but without the troubled private life that so sadly accompanied Gazza on his footballing journey.

Then the goals inevitably arrived. We had to wait for a while but then England opened the scoring. Arsenal scoring sensation Bukayo Saka, a John Radford or Charlie George in the making was just inspirational for England and is destined for honours within the game. Saka is almost impossible to catch when he's in this mood. There were times when the Arsenal forward seemed to running rings around the Ukranian defence, tricking, dropping his shoulder, teasing his opponent mockingly, checking back onto his other foot and then driving the ball forcefully into the net.

His reward came shortly before half time. Jordan Henderson, now in the autumn of an admirable career at both club and country level, fed a typically perceptive pass inside his defender and Saka picked up the ball on the edge of the penalty area. What followed was a masterclass of wing play with Saka cutting back onto his favoured foot before curling a beautiful shot that flew past the Ukranian goalkeeper. It was a goal fit to win any football match let alone this one.

The second half, for what it was worth, seemed just a terrible anti climax with England apparently content with their afternoon's work. England just stroked the ball around as if the match had now been reduced to a training ground routine. Job done for England. It was good to be following an England match at the beginning of the spring equinox. Optimism had replaced a world weary disappointment following England's failure to bring home the World Cup.

England manager Gareth Southgate, now as dapper and chipper as it was possible to be, distanced himself from his menswear salesman persona, always respectable and unfailingly polite. At some point an England football team and manager will win something and you find yourself wondering whether the always diplomatic and former Crystal Palace defender may be the one to lift that elusive trophy. Nobody deserves it more. 

England open Euro 2024 qualifier with win against Italy.

 England open Euro 2024 qualifier with win against Italy.

They say that all good things come to those who wait. Patience must have been a virtue and, at long last, it was rewarded. There are times though that however hard we try to redress the balance, or rectify our faults, nothing seems to go right. For large periods of England's Euro 2024 qualifier against Italy in Naples, we all felt that eventually something would give and it did. So when the referee blew his whistle at full time, some of us were so pleasantly surprised that if somebody had told us a full moon would appear at roughly midnight we'd have probably questioned them and dismissed the thought out of hand.

Last night though in the grand old city of Naples, home of some of the most violently disturbing skirmishes between rival fans and a good deal of gang warfare, it all came right on the night for England and a 2-1 victory away from home against the indisputable European Champions can never be sneezed at regardless of the stakes. So it was then that Gareth Southgate gently strolled up to his players, relieved at the knowledge that some measure of revenge had been exacted over Italy after England were beaten by the Azzurri at Wembley Stadium in the Euro 2020 Final.

Across the picture postcard hills and sloping valleys of England and Middle England, its silvery streams and sweetly flowing rivers that nestle peacefully next to dramatic waterfalls, a victory for the English football team is normally a plausible excuse for a stirring knees up in pubs and wine bars across the land. We congratulate ourselves because we too felt a real sense of affinity and belonging to any occasion that culminates in a famous victory over rival international teams. And here we are back in the rarefied land of international football qualifiers, a major forte for any England team in recent decades.

Guess what? England have once again started with yet another win in their opening Euro qualifying group. This has happened so many times now that some of us have lost count. But the difference this time is that England were up against one of the strongest and most attractive looking Italian national side for years. In the second half of the Euro 2020 Final, Italy had called England's bluff, noticed something strange in English poker faces and totally bossed the second forty five minutes that unravelled for England like a threadbare cotton wool. It can be no coincidence that the law of averages would throw up a result in England's favour.

The last time England beat Italy in Neapolitan surrounds was back in 1961 when the late and much missed Jimmy Greaves ran ragged an Italian defence who would normally have taken out an insurance policy for ages knowing fully well that few countries would ever break it down. The bad, old days of obsessively negative defensive football with the language of catenaccio very much to the fore, are now locked away securely in the vaults of Italian football. Now Italy play the game very much on the front foot, an inspirational and uplifting sight in full flow, positivity flowing through their veins, a team with a very palpable air of freedom and independence about their football. At long last the Italian national side are going places.

Before this Euro 2024 qualifier, the stadium darkened quite alarmingly before we were told that this was the precursor to a wondrous light show. Suddenly purple lights flickered around the perimeter of the pitch and then needles of light illuminated Naples. Then the match itself burst into life and for well over half an hour, England took the fight to their hosts as if all the misfortunes that had befallen them beforehand were no longer evident and they could just venture into what had been forbidden territory up until last night.

England, in contrast to the second half of the Euro 2020 debacle, were coherent, cohesive, unified, together in thought and deed, fearless, undaunted and supremely adventurous. They began to dictate the pace of the game with a controlled authority and a pronounced style. England were swaggering rather than swaying about in a drunken fashion as if the Italians had spiked their drinks. Their football oozed confidence, athleticism and a pliable flexibility rarely seen in international football at any level.

Suddenly there was a real sense that Italy could be caught off guard. England were now moving the ball around with quick, quick, slow slow staccato passing that spun webs around the Italian players. No longer are England teams inhibited by circumstances they could never control. Under Gareth Southgate the ball is an amiable family relative who always smiles at you in instant recognition. The channels of communication were buzzing last night and England were talking the most expressive language.

And so it was that Harry Maguire, John Stones, Kyle Walker and the superb Declan Rice put their indelible imprint on last night's match. The understanding that had been developed so carefully and shrewdly for so many months and years, once again revealed itself in its finest plumage. Maguire occasionally looks slightly sluggish and cumbersome at the back but the Manchester United defender is a model of reliability. Luke Shaw, who was deservedly sent off for a moment of madness late on, still chained himself to the Italian attack, reminding you of a limpet. Walker is still stunningly quick while the rest of the England defence simply did their duty with due diligence.

By far the most handsome of performances came from Declan Rice, the West Ham captain, who at this rate, will certainly lead his country. Rice was like a huge cinema projector screen, skilfully reading the game like somebody deeply immersed in a historical novel, tackling with an instinctive awareness of events around him, muscling blue shirts out of the way with decisive interventions. It now seems almost inevitable that Rice will be leaving West Ham this summer regardless of his team's fate at the end of the season.

With barely minutes into the game England asserted themselves intelligently. The ball seemed to switch between white shirts with a lovely accuracy, short, pinpoint passes that were sent with eye catching effectiveness and an innate belief that finally they could beat the Italians in their own backyard. From an inswinging corner England finally discovered a strategic spot that the Italians hadn't covered. The ball eventually landed at the feet of Harry Kane who swung the ball back into the six yard box, helping the ball on productively to Declan Rice who emphatically slammed the ball into the net from close range.

England now found themselves in the most unusual of environments. The last time this happened George Martin had sat down with the Beatles at the Abbey Road recording studios with radical song arrangements and lyrics on his mind. Then the esteemed likes of Johnny Haynes, Sir Bobby Robson and Jimmy Armfield were at the heart of Walter Winterbottom's by now experienced team. Jimmy Greaves and Gerry Hitchens shared the goal scoring that distant afternoon 62 years ago.

Shortly before half time with England increasing their share of possession by the minute, England scored again. Another England corner descended rapidly down from the air and a blue Italian shirt caught Kane's attempt to challenge for the ball. An arm was raised which looked as if the ball had been accidentally ricocheted off the Italian arm and the back of his hand. After much deliberation and the consultation of a VAR screen the referee pointed to the penalty spot and Kane stepped up to blast home England's second goal.

After the break, Italy, perhaps hoping that things could hardly have got any worse than they already were, rallied and recovered to some extent. There was a much greater purpose and intensity to their passing and it all looked well constructed but lacking in the vital cutting edge. We're all familiar with the theatricality of Italian football, the almost operatic movements, the sense of a persecution complex about them. At times it almost feels as though the whole world seems to be ganging up against them. 

But last night it all felt pure and unblemished, free flowing, fluid and frequently inventive. In the second half Italy were administered with an injection of attack minded football. Their incessant pressure for at least twenty minutes into the second half was deservedly rewarded. A magnificent exchange of quick, impulsive passes around the edge of the England 18 yard box was threaded through to Mateo Retegui who picked his spot and fired past a helpless England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

The last quarter of the game was spent largely in the England half as England struggled desperately to hold onto possession. Italy had established something of a foothold and looked like equalising but failed to find away through a stubborn and well disciplined England defence. So, as is becoming quite the custom now, England were off to a confident winning start to yet another international qualifying group. This time only one team can qualify for Germany next year so the incentive could hardly be bigger for England. Perhaps Gareth Southgate could summon the spirit of Sir Alf Ramsey in 1966 when the lad from Dagenham was convinced England would definitely win the World Cup four years before. Maybe next year. We shall see.

My new book of football poetry.

 My new book of football poetry.

It's hard to believe folks but this is my fifth book. You'd have forgiven for thinking that I'd simply run out of energy, desire and inclination but not me. You wake up in the morning and think of an idea or hundreds of ideas and the words just seem to pour out of me in torrents and you've no resistance whatsoever.

So what, you may ask, is the subject matter? My first science fiction novel, a horror book about monsters and evil forces, perhaps my first love story-cum- romantic novel, an epic psychological thriller or a collection of short stories? But no folks it's none of the above and that maybe for another day. Who knows? This one is different, original, fresh, and unexpectedly surprising in as much as that I didn't think I was ever capable of writing such a book.

My new book of football poetry is called Football's Poetic Licence by me Joe Morris. Now where did that one come from? You weren't ready for that one, hey. Yes a book about football poetry. It occupies a place in the literary market somewhere far away in the distance and is suitable for all fans of the Beautiful Game. It's poetry that does rhyme for every reason and most amusingly if I say so myself. But it's football poetry that paints pictures, illustrates different themes, football that is both thought provoking and full of lyrical descriptions.

In Football's Poetic Licence I wax lyrical about the FA Cup, Premier League, Champions League, my late and wonderful mum and dad, there's a eulogy to my lovely dad, my grandpa Jack, the World Cup, England, Euro 2020, Europa League, the Carabao Cup, football grounds and Ilford FC. There are topical and nostalgic references from the present day to yesteryear football. It is football poetry full of imagery, meaning and soul. It is the kind of book that may transport you all the way back to some historic FA Cup match or just make you smile, giggle and laugh.

So here's how to buy a copy of my book of football poetry. Football's Poetic Licence is available to buy at Amazon, Waterstones bookshops and Waterstones online, Foyles online, Hatchards online and Barnes and Noble online in the USA, always our friends. It's a book that you can pick up at any time of the day and find yourselves swept along with poetic adjectives, adverbs and pronouns. It is football poetry that has a very definite identity and character and I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

Football's Poetic Licence is all singing, all dancing and designed to make you feel good about football poetry. It's football as poetry in motion, football with life and vitality and football with verse and whimsical word play. You'll love Football's Poetic Licence because it's about words with emotions and from the heart. So go on, treat yourself. I can guarantee you a rewardingly enjoyable read. Thanks everybody.