Portentous. There's a word I never thought I'd start a report with. It's been coming. Much like that Amazon Xmas pressie I ordered on Wednesday and which they said they'd deliver by Friday but never did. Much like that promotion we were 'striving for' when Lambert got the job. He'd make a fair Amazon delivery driver. Perhaps that's his next big thing?
It was frosty at 6.45am on Friday. I went for a pre-dawn stroll. Woke up at 5.30am, lay in bed, watched an episode of Ozark, then got a glimpse of the blue-grey sky and the light, a peachy-orange on the horizon and thought 'perfect for a walk'. My boots rustled through the frosty grass, leaving footprints akin to those of the Yeti in Arthur C Clarke's 'Mysterious World', one of those Readers Digest books my dad had back in the 80's which part-thrilled, part scared my younger self.
It was a daft time to have a walk, the twilight making every branch as frightening as that bit in Disney's Snow White when she gets lost in the forest. No cartoonish eyes peeped at me, but an owl screeched somewhere near and several smaller creatures of the night scurried through the bracken at my lumbering approach. My breath curled round my head in plumes like a vape turned up high. I saw very few others, the occasional dog walker, the occasional single, suspicious-looking bloke, possibly returning from burying a victim, possibly just, like me, dogless and enjoying a very early morning walk.
I met one of my near neighbours, Dennis, and his excitable Staffie Missy on the edges of the bluebell wood, now dark and forbidding but lovely in the early summer. Missy bounded over, uncertain of her target in the semi-darkness, but friendly and a bit scatty nonetheless. She greeted me by sticking her nose in my nethers. If only more women were like her.
Dennis is a lovely bloke. He's never appeared in these pages before, mainly because I haven't seen him in ages. We stood having a chat by the gate that leads into the woods. Missy prowled the edges, then sat by her master as though taking part in the chat. It didn't last long and she was soon off again, sniffing at something in a culvert nearby.
Dennis' grandad used to be the local molecatcher in these parts, back when the only alternative occupations were trade or service. Dennis himself is in his late 70's, still sprightly, clad for warmth in his wax jacket and plum jumper and checked scarf and cap and corduroy trousers. "Cold ain'ert?" he said rhetorically in his old North East Essex dialect. I nodded. "Still, tha'll get coolder yet. Ain't 'ad the larsa this". He told me that he walked "six moiler day, takin' Missy owt fer'er breath'a'fresh air before all them others gets'oot 'ere with'er bloody great dogs". He brooded for a bit as I told him I was doing the same, early-morning walks in the twilight, sets you up for the day, all that old spiel. He nodded. "Carnt beat ert. Cold mornens loike this demarnd a walk, bit of a noice breakfuss when yer geddome. It's our Froiday froi-up terday. Missus'll be doin' bit'o'bacon, sausage, bit'o'froied bread, few termartas, probly 'n egg. Good start ter the mornin' when it's all frasty loike this".
Missy returned and sat, tail thumping on the ground and swishing plumes of frost from the fauna so that they wafted in the air near her like ghosts. She got up and came over, head bent, tail still wagging and with friendly eyes and nuzzled her head on my jeans so I could stroke it. "Beddar be gettin' 'ome Missy" said Dennis and we shook hands and wished each other a good morning. Missy gave me an affectionate head rub as I bent down to deliver a final stroke, and then they were off, disappearing through the lightening murk, Dennis lobbing a stick for Missy to chase. I walked the other way back, down towards Tesco's. I suddenly fancied a fry-up.
Tel rang at 10am as I was washing up the pan and the plates and cutlery. The kitchen smelt of bacon and toast and the drips off the HP sauce bottle. "Orlright?" said the disembodied voice at the other end. I affirmed that I was. " Might pop rarnd later. "Ad a bit'o' nooze from Tone, tell yer when I pop over". I said I'd be working from home on the laptop until three and he snorted and said "'f yer can call that work eh?" and we bantered on a bit, then I heard him talking to Mrs Tel in the background and he said "Blimey, s'like the bleedin' war's still on over 'ere, wivout the doodlebugs and the powdered bleedin' egg" and he said a rushed bye and hung up.
I suffered the Hull game on Tuesday night. I also inadvertently paid a tenner for the privilege, despite already having a code. In the end, it was as bad a capitulation as ever under this tool of a manager. All we ever get is more injuries and bad defending and unfit or uncaring 'stars'. As incompetence goes, this is worthier than Johnson's crooked Tiers. The Tiers of a Clown. Tendring has a 65.8 average. Why the hell this means we can't have a pint without a 'substantial meal' (and what definition is a substantial meal anyway? Most of the pubs that serve food round here do a sort of bastard Tex-Mex/Brit hybrid. A few ribs and some onion rings aren't that substantial to start with) no-one knows. Still, it was something else to get all hot under the collar about aside from the apathy at Portman Road.
Tel arrived at four on Friday, just as it was achieving darkness outside. He was driven by Mrs Tel, who wore her fur-hooded parka and stonewashed Levi's and who greeted me affectionately from the driver's seat before roaring away back to the warmth of her house. We stood in my driveway watching her depart, Tel with the merest hint of a wince as she screeched round the corner. "Keep tellin' 'er not ter take corners that quick" he muttered to me, lest, I suspect she could lip read at distance.
He had a beer. An Asahi, one of the twelve I bought last week in Tesco. I did Waitrose yesterday morning. I'm currently writing this with a cup of their excellent breakfast tea at my elbow. It's darker than builders tea, even with more than a splash of milk. I've had my morning walk already. I was up at six. No Dennis or Missy though. Sorry, off at a tangent there.
Tel sipped his beer from the bottle appreciatively and reclined on my settee, his hand reaching lazily for a mini poppadom or a festive turkey and cranberry flavoured crisp. I'd laid out the plates for these treats. I was waiting on the festive party Indian snacks to cook in the oven.
"Tone's gotter bit'o'work for me in the Noo Year" said Tel, lugubriously. He took a swig of beer and then finished the dregs and I brought him another. "Plasterin', bit'o' paintin', new build in Braintree, them sorta boxey-lookin' places they always build these days". He looked at me for affirmation that I knew the type and I nodded, and said Oh yeah. "Gonna be cold in Jan'ry" he said, gloomily, like a depressed Michael Fish. "They got nah 'eating set up in them 'ouses. Be like workin' in a bleedin' meat wagon". He sipped the top three inches off the new bottle and swallowed noisily. A slightly muffled belch. "Them Indyan fings smell done by the way".
"Still cummin' ter us fer Chrissmas?" asked Tel through a mouthful of pakora. I said yes. I'm seeing my parents on Christmas Day, but I'm at Tel's on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. "We've got the board games ready" said Tel, brightly. "Usual pap on the telly, so we'll be playin' cards fer money, bit'o' Frustration, bit'o' karaoke in the evenin'. Should be orlright wiv enuff booze'n that". I agreed. It will be a different Christmas this year, as Boris and his medical advisers keep telling us. I might enjoy this one.
He went at seven, after a few brandies for the road and a wincing sip trial of that bottle of Sambuca I've had in the back of the drinks cupboard since about nine years ago, following a 'lost weekend' with friends in Amsterdam. "Bleedin' 'ell, sure that aint paint remover?" he grimaced. "Tastes like aniseed balls mixed wiv white spirit". Then he had an idea. ""Ere, bring that wiv yer when yer come on Chrismuss Eve. Ah've got a load'o' drinks we nevver fancid'n'all at 'ome, Warninks fer snowballs'n'bloody awful sherries'n'stuff. We'll get drunk on the good stuff first'n'then have a game'o' russian roulette wiv the crap". I prayed my liver would survive til Xmas Day and wondered if I'd make my parents' Xmas morning walk and champagne breakfast. I could feel the spew rising already.
Finally, yesterday. I didn't watch it live. Fearful of accidentally spending another tenner on something I'd already paid for, I left it. This was, by all accounts, the right thing to do. Doesn't make things any better, I know. But, much like my email to Lee O'Neill yesterday, which started conciliatory and then, as the anger and the red wine gripped my fingers, became a bit emotional, it's not a subject we can all just blithely gloss over yet again, or dismiss as "another one of those things you have to put up with as an Ipswich fan". We shouldn't and we needn't. Respect cuts both ways and I don't feel like we're getting our share at the moment.
Phil Ham is an ITFC legend. He doesn't have much to do with these reports, but he lets me do them, despite their subject matter sometimes stretching the accord with the club. I don't apologise for my thoughts. As the disclaimer reads, they are not the views of the people who own and run this site. The same goes for every poster on here, regardless of agenda. I may not agree with you, but I'd never stick anyone on ignore, even those borderline scum fans with one brain cell between them who occasionally alight on here (Not you, Ullaa. You are decent). Maybe this is something certain people at the club we love and support would do well to remember. You're only a bit-part of the story. Not even a good bit-part. You're no Dennis and Missy. You're definitely no Tel. Banning our star man for something he didn't do just makes you look petty and vindictive. No-one wants that at our club. We stand for more than short-term myopia here. |  |
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