So we’re in Cartagena, still. Cos its lovely. Still. Or perhaps, ‘again’ now the cruise ships have left leaving behind a distinct lack of hats and hundreds of thousands of dollars for the local economy, so they’re not all bad. Part of the charm of Cartagena is that it was a Spanish fort. Which still stands. aWhere the colonialists kept all the gold they could steal from the local people. Like all colonial ‘civilising forces’ the Spanish introduced to the Indigenous natives 2 things in particular: theft on a nationalised scale and the Spanish Inquisition to ‘help’ the locals see the error of their ways. A red hot poker up the jacksy will often serve as a catalyst in spiritual revelation more swiftly than a thousand psalms.

And there was lots of gold here in Colombia. There still is. The natives had been using it for generations so the Spaniards just gathered it all up and locked it in the fort. Which, as I learned yesterday, was a fairly awesome structure. But it had to be. Because Cartagena de Indias was Jonny Depp central in the 16th and 17th centuries. This was where the Pirates did the Caribbean. They came from all over the world to sack the Spanish ships which tried to sail back to the motherland laden with all their stolen treasures. And most of the pirates were British. Few French, probably some Portuguese, maybe even Italians, though doubtful as they’ve always had surrender issues when it comes to a fight. Not so the British. Always loved a fight. You can just imagine, hanging off the ships by their cannons shouting ” come on, Jose, bring it on, if yer fuckin’ ‘ard enough!!!”

And here we are, a mere 400 years later, shouting the same thing at Jose Morinho, though obviously in a slightly different context. Because we all know, Jose is not in any way ‘hard’ when it comes to psychological robustness. He cracks under pressure. And because for him that ‘special one’ title is not just some mere aspiration but a God-given right, even without the poker, with each relentless victory of Manchester City, his delicate psyche crumbles just a little more round the edges.

Yesterday’s failure by his Manchester United to hold on to a sure-looking victory against 10-man Leicester hit the man hard. Firstly he started on his own team, accusing them of childish mistakes, a very Jose thing to do. Act like a baby accusing others of childishness. And then he started the personal paranoia shit about Manchester United having the worst possible holiday fixture list of all the ‘top teams’. As if Sky, BT and the Premier League’s main objective in setting the 85 odd fixtures over the next 10 days was to, first and foremost, upset the little Portuguese twit.

All I know about (and certainly care about) is that Spurs were the only top 7 team to win yesterday, other than Man City, who simply don’t even count any more in the true battle. And that made me feel very nice. Very good. And very hot. Though the latter may have been due to the weather here.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx