Pop Star

Casshern

World Cup Kits

Why can’t they wear their traditional jerseys? Brazil are the home nation playing at home and should probably always, unless they get a seven goal tonking, get to wear their home jerseys. They’re playing Holland at the moment of writing (albeit muted), who are wearing a navy shirt. The Dutch, in blue? May as well be pink or green. Since when did orange and yellow clash? Holland aren’t Holland unless they’re in orange.

It’s been the same throughout the tournament. It’s actually quite unusual now for two nations to be both wearing their traditional home jerseys. Okay, England and Germany wear white, so it’s rationally acceptable for one of them to wear their away shirt, but for other teams to be wearing their 2^nd and 3^rd unrecognisable strips, well, I can’t quite explain it, but it puts a certain unwanted slant on the game. It’s like your favourite character in a computer duel changing his appearance at the last minute. It’s not quite off-putting, but it’s mildly niggling. And nobody ever mentions anything about it. No one else cares.

It must be about the tone and darkness or lightness of the shirts. Let’s have a bit of clash is what we say, it’ll make for a more interesting game for a start. Don’t get us started on that goal line technology as well. Taking the fun right out of it that is. Couldn’t they leave that BS to HawkEye in Wimbledon? Apparently the ref gets a vibration on his watch if it crosses the line. Clever but unnecessary. And as for diving — be a man, stay on your feet!

I saw a goalkeeper wearing black boots however, so that was a pleasant surprise.

A Table Of His Own Titles

No matter what unwanted beasties life gurgles up, no matter how messily bedraggled the coping mechanisms in this clogged system become, the age old scribe’s dream just won’t crawl under the carpet and be still. Somebody remarked that it was a wonderful skill to have a short time ago, this writing lark; I replied that sometimes it feels more like a curse. I’ve always said there are enough-too-many books in the libraries to not need another one. Lookit, all those cram-packed shelves! Why is your book important, aside from the fact that it’s yours? Does it even have to be in the library, when the local library has been replaced with a BetFred bookies?

Does it need formatting and editing and all that other 'professional' stuff, or are you comfortable enough to fashion it to a certain degree with your own capable hands before flinging it out to the stars like a candle in the wind on a chancing whim, as a tester? 

There are times when it dies but it won’t stay flat-dead, like a Hollywood baddie (the dream, that is). Although it’s not exactly a dream, a dream is smacking the woodwork and rippling the side-netting in a world cup final —it’s more like a venture, small mediocre and humble but trimmed with promising glitter.

Listen to this. I met a dude at a literary event last year. He had a wealth of titles laid out before him on a table. I was quite taken back when he said he was a one-man publishing outfit and they were all under his label. In a small mediocre and humble way, he was my dream, him simply standing there with all his books, proud and ready for questions before all his titles. Jamie from Valley Press, if I remember rightly, in Scarborough.

Since that encounter, I’ve never been able to shake the idea of having a litter of my own titles splayed out all over a public surface, and smiling softly when an impressed individual asks who wrote them all.

“Why, me,” I’ll reply,

and all will be well in the world.

How about that.