It had to happen. Man can only work, play, tour, run around like a headless chickens, baby-care for so long and then he (or in fact she, not in reference to any impending trans events coming soon in my life, but because women can get tired too) needs to rest. So we went to Russia in May but it wasn’t restful. Avoiding the KGB alone is exhausting before you’ve even started the normal tourist shtick. We went to Rome for a wedding and ran round like mad things so as not to miss any church, temple, Pope or any of the ‘must sees’ in the Eternal City. So we needed to rest. Just rest. And sun. We always need that. And when I say ‘we’, of course I mean ‘she’.

So we’re in Israel. The land of my people. And, unfortunately, as history has shown and continues to show, the land of lots of other’s people too. Or, in fact, possibly fortunately. Because the Arabs who live here, in Israel, are lovely, friendly, work in the supermarket we went to last night and emphatically add to the multi-culturalism of the place. So just for one single ‘bang on the drum’, the peaceful Arabs who live here, who’ve always lived here, are an important and necessary and totally included part of ‘Israel’. It’s only those who live under the Hamas spell and therefore train 8 year-olds to murder innocent civilians, who represent a problem for which walls get built and shit takes place.

Meanwhile, I’m going to lie in the sun and think of England. Or possibly Lila. Maybe Spurs. But its only for a week so I better think quickly.

And its only a 5 hour flight. Which manages to take an entire fucking day. We left home at 4.30 in the morning and arrived, local time, 6 o’clock in the evening. That ain’t right.

But at least I didn’t miss any football. That was all played on the weekend. And Spurs won. Which was fantastic, in a really, totally, absolutely un-fantastic way. We went 1-0 up (against frikkin, lowly) Cardiff after 10 minutes and… and… and that’s how it stayed. Love the 3 points but a bit worried about the total display. Arsenal saw off Fulham in some style, Liverpool and Man City couldn’t breach each other’s defences Chelsea won easily.

But Manchester United were something else. I watched the first half and was thrilled that lowly, can’t-buy-a-win Newcastle ended up 2-0 to the good. Shame, for them, that they had to play the second half. Which the Mancs won 3-0. Making a final score of… whatever. Too early for maths. Morinho exploded at the press telling them ‘fuck off you sons of whores’. There’s an inquiry. Though only by linguists as he used Portuguese to say it. Yet even with the win, you have to feel Jose is on borrowed time. Yes, he managed to rally the team of massively over-priced mega-stars to beat the team second from bottom in the league, but it really shouldn’t be that hard. They really shouldn’t have been so terrible in the opening 45. Or, as say in Israel: all good fun.

Happy holidays

A xxxx