The FA Sunday Cup might not seem like much to the rest of the world but about 600 people turned up today at Lower Breck FC’s stadium, in Liverpool, to see one of the quarter-finals. The tension seems to be getting to this guy: he’s about to see the home team (Pineapple) go out 0-2 to the visiting Trooper team from the West Midlands, anyway.
My last day of the promised 11-in-a-row in Toronto. It’s been a worthwhile trip for sure, although that doesn’t mean it’s been all that eventful (Saturday night’s accident aside). But the necessary work has been done, and possibly I will be back in June. For now, the pre-flight ritual beer in the departure lounge, then home.
I was going to go out of Toronto for the day but last night I managed to slip on a wet floor and bash my head against something that was harder than it: the evidence is not graphic on this photo (I’ll spare you the gore) but it was evident enough. I will live but there was no way I felt like spending two hours each way on a bus. Instead I hung around and recuperated. So there will be no ex-Toronto moments on this trip: 12 days straight through, in which I won’t even have got on a vehicle of any kind, unless elevators count.
Well, we do still have a social life now and again. You wouldn’t necessarily perceive this from reading the blog, though: this is the latest shot in a given day since late November (and it’s still not all that late, though the evening did continue past this point).
From a fake old picture to some real ones. These were taken in around 1945 when my Granddad, Harold Whitworth — my father’s father — was serving in Egypt towards the end of World War 2. He’s the chap with the dapper moustache sat down next to the guy in the turban; and the one on the left of the other shot. (Mildly dubious it might be to dress as a native stereotype, but I have photos of myself doing much the same in Fiji.) Anyway, these are the kinds of family references that now seem obligatory when visiting my parents for the annual-Xmas get-together — last year it was the family tree; in 2023, the box of very old photos.
I don’t honestly remember Granddad ever saying much about his experiences in the war; he was certainly not one of those ex-soldiers who go on about it to anyone who will listen. In these pictures it all looks like an extended holiday, but I’m sure it wasn’t.
The woman in question being Clare, of course. We both adopted this position all day in fact. I liked her little ‘light cave’, and should point out the dubious fluffy mascot to lower right.
The last class of the semester, and as I’m on sabbatical for several months next year, the last one for me until late September 2024. And that’s just fine by me. I do — generally — like teaching but it is tiring, time-consuming work and if I want to do some proper thinking I can do with taking a break from it. The last class of the semester also gives rise to the annual ceremony of ‘having pictures taken with one’s professor’ — I make people upset if a 20-minute window isn’t offered up at the end.
One might think that Jenga and Red Stripe are a risky mix in the first place, but Tom’s ‘reacharound’ move just adds to the tension on this Friday night match-up. However, though the tower did fall — they always do, in the end — it was not for another few moves yet.
It’s the Season of Tat, it starts some time in mid-October these days so by now I reckon this guy feels like he needs a rest. However he might also be Deliverooing at some point as he has the masked look of the typical cyclopath (I’m tired of dodging them on the streets of Manchester). The definition is low on this shot but that’s because the light’s very dim, even by 4.25pm.
Not only did this peak hour train turn up with half the usual number of carriages, thus assigning itself instant CTS (Cattle Truck Status) — but it was also 23 minutes late at this point, being scheduled to pass through Rochdale at 8.37. Grin and bear it? Bollocks to that, I wasn’t grinning at this point, put it that way.
Being 42 