This is my door. My kitchen door. And it looks a mess. As we like it. Because upon that very door are marked the heights of virtually everyone that’s ever walked into our house. Ok, everyone below the age of 16, the older ones are represented more sparsely. The marks are named and dated. So we could see how the kids were growing, when they were growing. And all their friends had to be on it, every time they came over, and many of my friends insisted on being on it too, because they’re stupid and childish. And at the very top is Big Dave, as you’d kind’a expect with such a name, just 2 inches below the top of the door, and Natalie’s babyhood doll, ‘Doh-doh’, coming in at about 12 inches is the lowest recorded addition. Lila’s on there, obviously, just below Mel’s line and of course I’m on there too. And that’s the problem. Because ‘Andy, 1992’ appears a ‘good inch’ higher than ‘Andy 2018’. The ‘good inch’ because standing someone against a door and putting a pen along the top of their head is not an exact science. So it might be a bit more than an inch, might be a bit less. But WTF??? I’m shrinking! That’s fucking awful.

In another 16 years time I’ll be 78. And an inch shorter again. But that’s probably not the case. Shrinkage is not necessarily a linear function. It could increase with time! Holy shit. I could be 5 foot 2 by the time I’m 65. 3 foot 8 by 72. I would end up an Action Man. With very little ‘action’.

The Sunday Times has found evidence about the successful Qatar World Cup bid. It was bent. Crooked. And the world is in shock. No, like real shock!!! Who’d’a thought that the awarding of the 2022 World Cup by a now disgraced and totally, entirely corrupt FIFA, to the nation possibly least suited to hosting a World Cup, but a really really rich nation, who’d’a thought that could be wrong?? On any level? Amazing.

They’ve already had an inquiry and found no evidence of corruption in the bid. Probably because they’re all too clever at sending money to untraceable overseas trusts. But now they’ve found that Qatar employed an American PR company to use fake news and negative campaigning in America and Australia, the other two bidders in the hat. They paid professors to publish articles about how damaging to the economy a World Cup could be. How awful, how dangerous, how-ever.

And that’s illegal. Not allowed to do it. So there’s still hope that the Qatar World Cup won’t happen. So it won’t have to be played in winter, disrupting the season all over Europe and injuring our players.

(Andrew Conway will be 4 foot 7 in 2022)

Happy Sunday

A xxxx