I spent last week in the wonderful city of Edinburgh, in bonny Scotland. I am lucky enough to have lived in Edinburgh for four of the best summers of my life, performing at the Edinburgh Festival in some really rather awesome shows. Yes, I am biased, but what the hell.
Edinburgh is truly spectacular, from its changing architecture (Gothic to Georgian to ultra-modern - i.e. the Scottish parliament), to its cobbled streets climbing up hills and inclines, valleys and dips, where history, art, culture, and extremely expensive lattes combine to impressive effect. The Festival, in particular the Pleasance Courtyard, is one of my favourite events, and favourite places, in the whole wide world. I could live permanently in this city if they could but pick the whole thing up and placed it a bit further South, so that I could remain in some semblance of easy distance to my family and friends.
I saw a number of my friends performing in shows, all of which were great, although the pride in seeing them perform, I'll admit, was tinged by a slight pang of jealousy that I was not performing alongside them, as I have done many times before. Nevertheless, if you are heading up to Edinburgh before the end of the month, check out Monsieur Montpelier and Tomorrow's Leaders at the Pleasance, Art at C Central, and Graceless at the Assembly Rooms - all good friends of mine, all worth a gander.
I made a promise to myself on the train journey back to London that I will return to Edinburgh again, not simply as a punter, but as somebody with something riding on the events of the festival, on the reviews, the gossip, the chit-chat. Still, it is always good to be in a city, even if just as a tourist, and know exactly where you are going. A bit of George Street here, a stroll down the Royal Mile there, a nip into Bristo Square later, and a tipple down York Place to round off the evening. You name it, I know the way. It feels as much as my city as parts of London do. It was with a mixture of satisfaction, nostalgia and burning ambitions that I returned home.
Yesterday, Sunday, was one of those rare days when things go right. For starters, I awoke at a fairly ungodly hour for a weekend morning to go and play football for my Sunday league side in a pre-season friendly. I had to race around the M25 (anticlockwise in the direction of Heathrow Airport) to Brunel University, where our home pitch will be for the forthcoming season, in order to aid my team's 6-0 annihilation of our admittedly feebler opponents.
This, of-course, was what I like to call a good thing. Especially pleasing were the two goals I contributed to the scoreline. It's always nice to find the net in any game, but two goals in one pre-season game help lay down a marker for the competitive action to come.
Afterwards, it was home for a quick shower, before emerging, sweat-free and positive, in my SAMUELSON 1O adorned Spurs shirt, ready for the journey east across North London to postcode N17 - world famous home of Tottenham Hotspur.
What followed was a genuinely well deserved victory over a Liverpool side lacking any sense of creative purpose and direction, not that this criticism is designed to take anything away from a committed, fast-paced and impressive Spurs display.
There are few better feelings than driving back through the boroughs of Bounds Green, Southgate, Whetstone and beyond, knowing that Match Of The Day 2 will be pleasurable viewing later on in the evening, smugly replaying the snapshots of glory from the ninety minutes before. The only thing that would have improved the afternoon would have been the BBC Radio Five Live music for Sports Report, a staccato riff of mind-numbingly romantic proportions that should really be the national anthem, booming out of the car radio, but, alas, this was a Sunday afternoon fixture, and this staple of nostalgic, traditional British sports broadcasting is solely the reserve of a Saturday afternoon.
Spurs fans do this. We accentuate the positive when there are such positives to be accentuated, but mark my words, when we inevitably fail to live up to expectations during a tricky away match practically anywhere in the north of England, most likely starting this Wednesday in Hull (a game I have decided, in my infinite idiocy, to travel up for), the knives will be out, the recriminations will begin, and all of a sudden predictions of a top four finish will be replaced by the altogether more realistic expectation of 'top 6'.
Meanwhile, the weather today is close to perfection; not too hot that it is unbearable, but warm enough to feel like August in London. Certainly warm enough to take a break from the work assignment I have currently been given (more on that tomorrow - it deserves a blog in its own right because it is, if I say so myself, really cool) to go and post a letter to my future law firm which, sadly, contains various forms relating to tax and pay as you earn claim-backs. Tax doesn't have to be taxing, folks, but it generally tends to be anyway.
I was recently involved in a conversation with my lawyer cousin about which season is the best. I automatically plumped for 2006/2007 - a campaign that means a lot to me for lots of reasons beyond football. He meant the seasons of the year, of-course. When the weather is as it is today, it is hard to go for any answer other than summer, but actually, and as with many areas requiring me to make a decision, it is not so clear-cut, and deserves further consideration. I love summer for its long days, its magic hour shadows, its opportunities for pushing my generally dark complexion towards (and a free pint from me if you can guess who I am paraphrasing) the hope of a better tan. Yet autumn is my birthday season, and comes free with that feeling of excitement, of newness, that F. Scott Fitzgerald stated can only be synonymous with the 'two changes of the year'. Orange leaves, the first frost, The X Factor battling it out against Strictly...
Still, let's not neglect winter, for those crisp blue-sky days following a bitter night; of condensation-filled breath and long coats buttoned up, cosy warmth juxtaposing against the harsh exterior conditions that only such a time as winter can provide...in England anyway. I have experienced a little bit of winter in Chicago (and will do again soon actually), and that's a whole other ball game. It's not called the Windy City for nothing.
(Actually, it's got nothing to do with the wind, and everything to do with corrupt Chicago municipal politicians spouting hot air every time they discussed and debated the city's bid to host the world's Great Exhibition in the early twentieth century. Yes, that's right, I studied History at University.)
Finally there's Spring time. 'That pretty little ring time when girls do sing', so sayeth some olde worlde English ditty. When I think of spring, I think of my school, and the smell of a cut grass - an odour that could only mean that the beautiful grounds that my school was set in were open to students to use as an enlarged playground, where Boys' School and Girls' School pupils at Habs would meet by the notorious black gates, throw frisbees, exchange glances, and discover feelings...That's why I both hated and loved the spring term in equal measure.
The sun went in behind a cloud as I wrote that last paragraph, and that means I should get back to my actual work.
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