I'll lead off with a quick update about myself and my state of physical being. Those of you with no interest in that sort of thing can just skip down to the next subheading - no harm caused. I'll try and keep the self-indulgence to a minimum for those with the fortitude to tolerate my strangled bleatings.
Since being diagnosed with high blood pressure, diabetes, and whatever else could interfere with a normal recovery from spinal surgery, I gave myself a right proper bit of exercise yesterday to see what that would do. Quick rundown:
- Up at 0800h to take pain, vitamin, and anti-spasmodic pills.
- Off to Whyte Avenue to watch the Liverpool match at 1030h. Thanks for the lift, Jeffy.
- Ate bangers and mash for breakfast at half-time. My blood-pressure med capsule disintegrated in the pill bottle, but the diabetes stuff made it.
- After a gruelling, heart-wrenching, nerve-jangling match that never seemed to end, left the pub around 1300h. Match discussion found at next subheading for those that haven't already skipped ahead.
- Chatted with Paul and Craig about Liverpudlian matters until 1600h. An awful lot to discuss. Quick notes: keep Craig away from George Gillette and Tom Hicks, research the band "Kappa", and ask for Paul the bar manager the next time I'm in the Cavern Club.
- Walked home. Took an hour, but I made it through the veil of sweat and managed to grab a super donair from Campus Pizza en route. Another round of pills — a little late, but I managed it.
- Finally stopped flop-sweating around 1730h.
- Took a glucometer reading at 1800h and got the lowest reading I've ever scored on the vampiric little device since I got it.
- Tutored a friend's daughter in high school chemistry from 1900h to 2200h. Luckily, it wasn't the mechanically and mathematically grinding stuff, like redox or stoichiometry, but it took a certain mindset to approach stuff like Van der Waals forces. My apologies to Darrol Colgur for stealing his business.
After that, I started getting the sleepies. I needed to stay awake until midnight for the next drug dose, but I was literally blacking out. I've been tired, exhausted, weary, etc. but this was something else. I bit my tongue because I fell asleep mid-bite while trying to eat a piece of chicken. Every blink meant that I could topple over and crash to the floor because I was dropping out of consciousness uncontrollably. I couldn't even get one of those jaw-cracking yawns going, because I would blank out just as I started to inhale.
Anyway, so that was my day of exercise, and maybe I'll have another go at one in a few days. My siblings have been scampering all over various mountains in some sort of Spartan Race thing, but I'll take my accomplishments where I can get them.
Well then. That's that. Subheading?
The Former Filbert Street Foxes
Playing Leicester twice in one week is never a blessing, and certainly not one for a team whose confidence is shattered, and whose team cohesion has been battered an bruised for weeks on end. Transfer problems, contract negotiations, thoroughly vicious eviscerations and excoriations by the press, and exotic illnesses and injuries left a team ragged and shaken to face the champions of the league not two seasons past. Twice.Outfoxed in midweek (as it were), Liverpool desperately needed a win on Saturday. The team had not won a game in the last four tries, and the patterns were looking horribly predictable - loads of positive, offensive pressure that fails to result in a goal, followed by whatever team then counterattacking the tired LFC side and scoring some generally soft goals. The more soft goals, the more people pilloried the defence. The more the defence became self-conscious and nervous, the more brittle their formation and coordination became. And thus the cycle of self-doubt caused the implosion of the team. Nervous keepers and defenders make for twitchy midfielders. Elementary mistakes become the hallmark of the self-fulfilling prophecy dictated by the media.
The net result is that, for neutrals, this was a thrilling, heart-stopping adrenaline rush of a game. Five goals, fabulous free-kicks, a penalty-kick save, crunching midfield tackles... just an action-packed spectacle. For interested, biased, and committed observers, this was an increasingly powerful series of anxiety waves pummelling increasingly timid shores.
When the fourth official announced at the end of the game that there would be five minutes of time added on, a groan rose from the crowd. Liverpool was winning 3-2, but confidence that they would win the game was at an absolute low. Every free kick was met by drawn faces peering in terror through splayed fingers.
"Why does every game have to feel like a fooking cup final?" cried Danny to people shaking and clammy with sweat.
That being said, the game ended favourably for all those involved in the pub. It was just a terribly hard row to hoe. Every hope was precariously balanced like the highest peak of a house of cards, and every achievement haunted by the spectre of a corresponding collapse.
Liverpool wins, stops a ghastly winless streak, and head into the forthcoming midweek European adventure in Russia away to Spartak Moskva with a little more grit in their determination and a little more spark in their attitude. It just felt as though it required a labour of Heracles to accomplish an ordinarily commonplace objective. That was frustrating.
The Song List
I'm going to start wrapping this up, because as refreshed as I am by last night's rest, I feel the weariness calling me to nap-land now. Here is the itemized list of musical accompaniment entries during my last ablutions.- I Feel Fine, by The Beatles
- Gijim Beke, by Juluka
- Joy, by The Lightning Seeds
- Let Love Rule, by Lenny Kravitz
- Unknown Soldier, by The Doors
- Wild World, by Cat Stevens
- Suspicious Minds, as performed by Dwight Yoakam
- Europa, by Prozzäk
- To Love Somebody, by The Bee Gees
Some quick notes:
- Yoakam's version of "Suspicious Minds" is, in my humble opinion, better than the Fine Young Cannibals cover version from the 1980s. The drums and the Chet Atkins rhythm guitar riffs are well worth the price of admission.
- In a strange reversal, "To Love Somebody" is the best Bee Gees song when it's not performed by the Bee Gees. I much prefer the version performed by The Lightning Seeds, while a significant lot of others prefer Janis Joplin's version. I think it's well worth a comparative listening session over afternoon tea.
Take a Knee
I'm flabbergasted that people are still working themselves into a proper huff over sports figures kneeling/sitting/reclining/reposing in a lotus position during the playing of their national anthem. Of course I speak of Americans - the people who can rarely recite the lyrics of their own national anthem, let alone sing them. Enter Rosanne Barr. Have a go at "The Star Spangled Banner," babe. Listen HERE. Maybe you don't like her. How about nine time Olympic American gold medallist Carl Lewis? He has a go HERE. Or any supposéd celebrity who reckons that this is easier than "O Canada"? Suffer through the catalogue if you like HERE.I'm sorry. What does an old British upper class drinking song set to Francis Scott Key's lyrics have to do with athletics? Whatever. Americans who think it's part of a sacred pagan ceremony to honour their flag or bald eagle or roadkill cuisine may want to read the story of the music. It's right HERE.
Oh wait. It has something to do with the military. Maybe it has to do with former Arizona Cardinal player Pat Tillman who was riddled with bullets and killed by friendly fire after publicly criticizing the war in Iraq. The U.S. military shot him to shut him up, then tried to cover up the whole matter, and now the military are telling Americans how to be patriotic?
This boils down very easily.
Free speech is an absolute keypoint of western "free" democracy. Kill that, and any blitherings about "freedom" wilt like snowballs in the sun. You must be able to express yourself or you are not free - you are a slave.
The United States has a problem. You can read about it here: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
Disbelieve it, and you are in denial. Deny it, and you're a fool. Bringing media attention to this problem via the most popular sports vector in the land is a relatively prudent and non-violent means of increasing consciousness.
So what's the problem? Does the national anthem equal the flag? Do they both equal the military? Is that what America stands for - drone bombing kids in Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria? Would the NFL be happier drawing pentangles with the blood of the innocent at the 50-yard line?
Even if you don't agree with the U.S. military going into countries where they aren't welcome, extracting resources that aren't theirs, and billing the American taxpayer for the lot, then you must agree that American military veterans are treated like crap. Hmm. Except when they come home disabled, shell-shocked, and unemployed, you can buy their foreclosed houses cheap! Yay! http://www.hudforeclosed.com/government-foreclosures-info/va-foreclosures
In short, who cares that someone is protesting institutional racism and violence? Unless it is someone who enjoys living under such a regime and prefers to have his or her circus entertainment regulated ferociously, I can think of no reason.
You want to find someone who thinks the system is unjust and will say something about it?
I am Kaepernick.
Until later, goodnight England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS
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