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I just saw this previously unpublished Laurie Lee poem in an email from Penguin books, thought I'd share it, because I think it's beautiful:
Ah Well
Ah well, I think, even the chestnuts are breaking, there is a soft down upon the cry of birds, and they slip covertly, with intent gentleness, among the bushes; life is full in the green ear and brilliant with chance, what of the mere grain blown out and forgotten, rotting or ripening in a shroud of grass?
Feels like this came almost out of nowhere, but apparently he's been hotly tipped to break through. Now he has. Amazing tennis, powerful and graceful. The girls are gonna go wild for him.... and all other denominations, of course.
It's the height of summer. Usually there are loads of insects buzzing around, especially flies. Right now, in the corner of West London, there are none.
"Last season saw the highest overall attendance at Championship matches since records began more than 130 years ago.
More than 12 million people purchased tickets to second-tier games in 2023-24 - an increase of 22% on the previous season, the English Football League said.
The figure is higher than Germany's Bundesliga, Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A, making the Championship the second highest-attended league in Europe, behind the Premier League."
I'm sure like me, many of you have relatives who were involved in some way with D-Day.
My Uncle John was a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, in command of Motor Launch ML 205 that landed on Juno beach on D-Day. Sadly he died four years ago, he would have been 101 this year. He was awarded the Legion D'honneur for his role. I feel very proud of him, and all those who served, to give us the freedom that we enjoy today.
Edit: I've just found an email from him where he explains his role more fully:
"I was on the bridge directing one of the columns towards its allocated beach. Our MLs were known as Directional Leaders as we had been fitted with very secret radars which could pin-point our position in the English Channel very precisely.
A couple of weeks after the landings I was ordered back to UK to begin extensive training for what was then a record distance for such small boats - over 8000 miles for the invasion of Rangoon, Burma then in the hands of the Japanese. We had to have extra fuel tanks bolted to the upper deck, which then had to removed when we got to the nearest Indian port not in the hands of the enemy."
I saw that Chris Cross, the Ultravox guitarist who wrote their massive hit 'Vienna' died in March. Which is a clunky segue into the fact that I will be visiting this fair city in a couple of weeks.
I've never been before, so I thought I'd ask the incredibly knowledgable LFW collective for any recommendations as to places to visit and things to do..... Less obvious, quirky ideas and tips are welcome!!
Don't you think this has been a fascinating season so far, indeed, perhaps the most fascinating for many years?
When it started, I imagine most of you, like me, were relying on a huge amount of hope. Because that was all we had really, versus the cold hard reality of a manager who was not only clearly completely out of his depth, but actively undermining the group psyche of the entire squad.
What I mean is that his core strategy seemed to be a bizarre Haka-style bravado, in place of anything resembling tactical analysis, positional awareness, or how to get the best out of a bunch of underperforming and dispirited players. Not long into the season, my impression was that the players pretty much downed tools in exasperation at what was going on. Indiscipline became rife, injuries multiplied. And as each game went by, we looked worse and worse and were soon teetering over the abyss.
Nevertheless, the fans kept turning up, hoping perhaps that their sheer collective will would lift the team above the level of being utterly dire. Surely the board would act? But when we went into the first international break and the manager was still in place we looked doomed. A large proportion of fans were crying out for that patron saint of teams in trouble: St. Colin of Warnock. For who else could save us? Who else would even come, for that matter? The list of alternative names of potential managers who might be crazy enough to take over did not look pretty.
And then a whole series of unexpected things happened. It seemed our owners finally awoke from their long stupor and realised that they could actually generate cash through naming rights. This was the start of a domino effect of events: Ainsworth was sacked, Amit resigned, Hoos became chairman and temporary CEO and, then, most incredible of all, a manager with genuine pedigree arrived. A foreign manager who spoke impeccable English: intelligent, eloquent, articulate, with fresh ideas, genuine experience, including, incredibly, a stint working with Millwall. How was this possible????
From the moment he arrived, the gloom lifted. The players were clearly revitalised. Players who had been resigned to the shadows came back into the light and started to shine: Willock in particular. A talisman in past seasons. Everything began to improve. And after a couple of creditable draws and a narrow defeat, we won three games on the spin. Amazing!
But this was a Herculean task, and inevitably the energy required to achieve escape velocity from the League 1 black hole seemed too much, even for a man of Marti Cifuentes' abilities, and we began to falter. But the remarkable events hadn't finished. A brand new CEO arrived, again, seemingly out of nowhere, young, with bright ideas, untarnished by the moldering Rangers legacy of old. But even he told us: there's no money for new players.
So we went into January with low expectations, and yet still the hope that our new coach could perform a minor miracle and turn things round. But with no injection of new players, how could this under-performing bunch survive? The end of January approached... Clearly there was no one coming in.
And then.... boom: Michi Frey (Who the f...?), well, better than nothing.... but no, there was more: Isaac Hayden - wow - a classy midfielder... WTF? But no, there was more: Joe Hodge, and young Ireland international from Wolves, a genuine talent.... WOW!
Suddenly things looked very different. Yet still we headed up to Ewood with our record there of no wins since 1999 glaring at us. Maybe a draw would do. No, we won!
And then, Lucas Andersen signed on as well.
So, here we are, with a completely different mindset from three months ago: comparing performance tables with, not just a modicum of genuine hope, but also admiration.
And this is why supporting a team like QPR is such a niche experience; something appreciated only by true connoisseurs of the beautiful game. Something mainstream armchair fans simply cannot understand. To stick to a belief in something as arbitrary as a 'football team', and not only that, but one that apparently rarely delivers the vicarious hit so craved on a weekly basis by the mainstream addicts, would appear, on the surface, to be some kind of perverse madness. But to those ITK (i.e. all of us who follow Rangers), this is why we do it. Because we are - whether by luck or judgement, it does not matter - football aficionados. And seasons like this are our pay-off. To be savoured like a fine wine, with all its unexpected depths and flavours and nuances.
Of course the season could still end up with the massive downer of relegation. But I don't think it will. I think we will survive, and then in years to come, we may even look back at this season as a remarkable turning point in the strange, chequered yet beautiful history of Queens Park Rangers.
...but that was a fabulous Masters snooker final tonight. I know it's fashionable for some to dislike Ronnie O'Sullivan, but boy oh boy, he's the Paganini of the cue. Incredible sportsman.
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