Back Again

I have been writing the blog for just over two years. and have lately been asking myself some searching questions as to why. In other words what do I get out of it?

It started mainly because I discovered that it was possible and easy to do, and I enjoyed writing, as I have always enjoyed writing; also I felt, at the time, that not enough people were writing about my football team. Through it I have got to know, virtually at any rate, such luminaries as Frankie Valley and Inspector Sands, pseudonyms just as mine is. And this has been something I have derived pleasure from. At the same time, my other main subject, our quiz team, has been riding high and low, and my team mates and one or two rivals, not to mention our charming and beloved landlady down at the pub, have been reading it; and then there was my friend Harry. [Hello, Harry!]

Harry and I go back many many years, having first met at university, and despite my having lived over here in Madrid since the seventies, he and his wife and family have always remained close to me. He too, though a late convert to the joys of computing, has read the blog, and even reads The Inspector and Frankie, despite being an Everton fan.

I telephoned him last evening to arrange about a forthcoming trip to the UK, and we chatted a bit about life, and the World Cup, in which we are not as interested as we once might have been, and then he said, in a tone that was almost accusing, "you haven't updated your blog for ages".

And this gave me a bit of a jolt. For of course I haven't; the last time I wrote about anything was when the English media were informing us (it is their mission to inform, after all), that Billy Davis was 'poised' or 'set' to become Charlton's manager inside three or four days. I didn't believe that at the time, either.

So I have been thinking about why I haven't been posting; the normal excuse is that as we approach the end of the academic year, marking exams and writing reports takes up a lot of my spare time, but then this is a task that happens at the end of every term, so it isn't the reason, and anyway that job is mainly going to be occupying the coming week, rather than having taken up the past two.

And of course, the football season is over; I always found that the fact that Charlton had played a match acted as a spur to get something down about it before there was another one, and I usually managed that. But last year I managed to write about things after the season had ended.

But it is fair to say that once last season had ended, and I had had a rant about Liverpool's 'greatest comeback of all time' in the Champions' League final (does no one remember Charlton v Huddersfield in late 1957? That really was the greatest comeback of all time), I was mainly writing about the quiz team. And the quiz has been in a state of flux lately.

This was because the much vaunted change to Thursday had driven away our oldest rivals, who simply stopped coming after a time; their cessation was gradual, but finally things reached a point at which they were no longer expected to be there, and the quality of life down in the cellar bar where the quiz takes place, was no longer so good; it wasn't the same without their sarcastic comments and cheery banter.

Without the rivalry, and knowing that David and Gitte used to read the blog, there seemed little point in reporting how many points we won by, or lost by (for there are other teams who can beat us, it just isn't as traditional).

However, we managed a good turn out last Thursday for what was the last quiz for a while. Hugh and I were question masters; a couple of old friends came to replace us in our team, which won with a respectable 136 points, and I had phoned David and he managed to get down, too.

It is the last quiz for the present, on account of the World Cup, as quiz players want to watch the games, and the pub will be full of supporters, too. We might dip a tentative toe in the water a couple of weeks down the line, but that might be that for the time being.

But the good news is that we revert to Mondays in September, and things might get back to normal.

As they will here soon; look for my views on the latest happenings in SE7 in a matter of days, now.