I bloody missed Glastonbury. Again. That’s the 60th consecutive year I’ve bloody missed it. Damn.

Don’t actually think its been going for 60 years but its been going a while. And the guarantees from Glasto are: great bands and mud. Sadly, more of the latter than the former. Much, much more. The rule is that you can’t officially start the Glastonbury festival until its been raining for a week and promises no let up for at least another 3 days. That way it ensures not only a massive quagmire for the duration of the festivities but also a near total inability to enter the place in the first instance due to ’12 hour delays’ because the cars can’t park under water.

Even in my youth, a massive part of which was spent watching live music, the whole ‘festival’ thing never really grabbed me. You didn’t need to shlep all the way to Somerset to find loose women and drugs, when Camden Town was so tantalisingly close. And dry.

So I watched some of it on tv. Did I envy the massed thousands watching Coldplay in their cagoules, knee-deep in shit, wasting the last of their phones’ battery shining a light at Chris Martin?

No, because they couldn’t keep flicking over to the football.

In theory European finals (or World Cups) represent the ‘died and gone to heaven’ time for football fans. At a time of year when we’re usually deprived of our drug-of-choice, its on the entire day. Three matches yesterday, same Saturday. As it has been for the few weeks since the tournament started. But the reality is that you get overload. And possibly divorce so other things have to be considered. Like ‘normal life’.

And the football has been very mixed. Mainly uninspiring. Particularly from England, but many other teams too. Yet there were some sparks of, hopefully, things to come. Times when teams removed the shackles of conservatism inspired by the ‘better to not win than not lose’ ethos which is always prevalent at the start of such events, and actually start to play properly.

And surprise, surprise, out of the shadows step the Germans and the Belges, with decent wins against teams that they should beat easily but if they’d played them last week they’d have gone for the draw.

Tonight its England vs Iceland. We need to score at least one goal. Which is more than we’ve done lately. But preferably a shed-load.

Jeremy Corbyn is 93.

Happy Monday

A xxxx