It’s happened. I developed a cough. The thing that makes you the undisputed #1 favourite with fellow tube travellers. A lovely, deep, chesty, phlegmy cough. If I had a bag of masks with me, I could’a made a killin’. Then a runny nose and a bit of sneezing. Yesterday I just felt like shit. Tired. Bit uncomfortable. Early to bed, even though I’m only up to part 7 of ‘music videos of the ‘80s’ and there’s another 19 left to see.

But, even though there’s no temperature, I decided, medically, that this is definitely… Man Flu!!! On the basis that: I’m a man. I seem to have flu. And no person on Earth has ever suffered as much as this. Ok, no person has moaned as much as this. Didn’t even go to tai chi this morning as its probably not fair to get ‘up close and personal’ with people then coughing at them when I’m supposed to be throwing them on the floor and kicking them. It’s not nice.

And so we look forward to a weekend of sport. England play Argentina at rugby tomorrow, followed immediately by Spurs hosting Liverpool. Which will be an interesting game. Liverpool are really underperforming this year, languishing in the lower half of the table, even though, unusually, there are virtually no public inquiries to distract them. But they can’t seem to win. Whereas Spurs have reached a watershed. Do we keep pissing away the first halves of matches with a total lack of aggression, excitement and passion, knowing that we can always win it later? Or should we change, step up a bit earlier and even try to avoid giving teams the inevitable head start? It’s very hard to demand change when Conte has produced the ‘most winning’ Spurs side in decades. And yet, if you ask 10 fans, all 10 will find our current methods unacceptable and decidedly uncomfortable. It’s truly wonderful to win matches with the last kick of the match. It’s also unbelievably stressful and leads to failure if they don’t manage to score in the ninety-whateverth minute.

And Son is injured. Surgery on a broken bone in his head. Nooooooo… even when he’s only playing half as well as he did last season, he’s still three times as good as everyone else in the league. You do the maths. And now he’s ‘gone’ for a bit. To mend.

Bit like me.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx