So every day I get photos. Natalie’s obsessed with photographing her daughter and sharing and I’m obsessed with seeing them. Its become an epidemic. I may have to give up work to spend more time looking at Lila pics. And going ‘ahhhhhhh’, or ‘awwwwww’ or ‘Oh My Gawd!!’ or whatever. That’s my business. Then yesterday, whilst the two of them were attending some kind of mother/baby thing/event/class/convention, I got this one. Proudly showing how Lila (yellow dress, front of pic) is holding her head up so well. But what got me, but like really got me, was how the other kids weren’t. They were just face-planted on the mat. And as I looked it just seemed funnier and funnier. Are mothers allowed to do that? Should Social Services be called? Is this ‘cruelty to children’. Don’t know, don’t care, it was too funny to worry about all that.

I rushed home from this morning’s martial arts class to watch the rugby. Ok, Tai Chi class, but when the instruction is: “I’ll punch you as hard as I can in the face and you have to block it” I can be forgiven for thinking its martial arts, rather than the artistic martialness that Tai Chi can aspire to. But I rushed home for the British (oh, ok, ‘and Irish’) Lions. The final test match. Series at 1-all and this was the decider. And fuck me, what a decider. SPOILER ALERT!!! it ended in a draw. But one of those draws, at 15 each, that felt like a win. Because the All Blacks are not just a bunch of thugs who do a tribal dance and then pretend to play rugby for 80 minutes, they are in fact the real deal. The total package. Brutality and skill, in equal parts. Brutally skilful and skilfully brutal. That in itself takes skill.

And we (the royal- and Irish- ‘we’) matched them, equalled them, on all levels.

So now its more tennis. Wimbledon’s on. In case you missed that. The world’s best tennis tournament. In fact, for most people (certainly people round here) its the only tournament that’s worth anything. Andy Murray has both limped and moaned his way to next week. And for once I can sympathise with the morose Scot. Because I have that same injury. Related to ‘bursitis’. Tennis players get it. Especially at ‘our level’ of the game. The difference is, he’s still a miserable Scottish tosser, and I’m lovely.

And now John McEnroe, who avoids trouble like most people avoid money, has rekindled his personal crusade against women. Not all of them. Just the ones who play tennis. And how the best women’s players couldn’t beat the 786th rated man player. Yet you watch Serena play, not this year cos she’s pregnant, of course, and you see how Martina used to play… and then you have to realise that Martina was a lesbian. And originally a Czech, but that’s not relevant here. So where would a gay man fit onto the McEnroe scale? A transgender… person/thing? A hermaphrodite? Answer that, John, whilst you’re being a sexist (but possibly true) bastard!

Happy Sports Day

A xxxx