Monday 9th December 2024

And so to the last full week of my last full working year.

I am still feeling tired, but looking forward to Christmas and nearly two weeks off, and no thoughts of work will enter the vast empty spaces of my brain.

It is still blowy outside, and rain is falling steadily as Jools left in darkness to go to work. She had her waterproofs on as she planned to do some walking before work, but the driving rain when she got to Hythe meant she didn't go and went straight to the office to get ahead of things.

I drink my coffee, and I have no audit to lead, I can start a few minutes late.

First task it to write my official letter informing the company through HR of my intention to retire early next year.

My boss's boss is online, so I call her and fulfil my promise to let her know by the end of Monday.

She knew it was coming and accepts it, wishes me well.

So the deed is done.

There is work to do, and yet I am oddly distracted, and struggle to concentrate, but get some done.

I call Rune and Henrik to let them know face to face that I submitted the letter, and they are sad and yet pleased for us.

Its a bittersweet moment for sure.

Outside the rain continues to fall, so I nip out to put bird food out, and a few minutes later rewarded when a pair of Choughs fly over, though don't land this time.

I get my camera ready with the big lens just in case.

But it is the time of the shortest days, so when its cloudy, or like this, rainy, ten it doesn't get fully light, so the table lamp burns bright beside my monitor as I work.

Jools is splashing in the evening, and I have said I would try the gym in the leisure centre, I even bought a new pair of trainers for the task last week.

But as time to go approached, I felt less inclined to go, Jools called to make sure I didn't need an induction and could pay on the door.

I could.

No escape.

I put on the new sneakers, then drive us to Whitfield and to the centre, park out the back in the large car park. We scamper across the car park, into the teeth of a north easterly.

Damn cold.

I pay to go in, and so up the stairs to the first floor, into the large gym room, all brightly lit and a large array of instruments of torture.

I pick a recumbent bike, program it for a quick start, steady resistance, put a podcast onto play, and away I go.

Listening to something interesting is the key, so the podcast plays and time drags.

Plan was to do half an hour, in the end I do 25 minutes as my right knee was aching, so stop.

Jools is still in the pool, so I went out to the car to wait, put the radio on, and watching the rain sweel in from the darkness beyond the five-a-side pitches, all brightly lit.

Just after eight, Jools comes out, fighting against the driving rain, and then we drive back home.

A quick pizza in the oven for supper, and a large tripel for me and a cider for Jools.

As we broke out the peanuts, I pour a second Le Chouff from the magnum bottle as I watch the relegation six-pointer between West Ham and Wolves.

A fight to the death.

Of Man Utd and Spurs

As a job, I audit management systems.

It sounds dull, and is, pretty much.

But the three main management systems sets of how organisations should be run, how strategic decisions are made, how to manage what the organisations does, and the people, information and so on.

So, when I turn my professional knowledge to the world of football, I see problems.

And problems that do not seem to be getting better.

I was listening to Radio 5 yesterday, sitting in a leisure centre car park, the reason for which will be part of the daily post, but I heard a guy who writes for the Manchester United fanzine, United We Stand, saying how the new manager at the club has a philosphy, and the club will have to adapt to that.

I hear reports of when a club is looking for a new manager, that a candidate "interviewed well", whatever that means.

But here is my point. Or points.

It is the club's job to decide on the philosophy that the team has, and employ a manager or coach who is best to execute that philosophy. The club should have the strategic vision and plans to recruit young and current players based on the philiosophy, or the style of play they would like the team to play, and so the replacement of managers or coaches shouldn't matter as much as it does.

Because if the club is waiting for, or expecting, the new coach to come in and change fortunes with the 30 or 40 player squad the old one has, by playing a different kind of football, then it aint gonna work, as the revemp of the squad to meet the new guy's requirements might take four or more transfer windows, by which time he is usually deemed to have failed, been fired, and another new coach is wanting a different set of players.

Multiply that six times over 12 years and you get a mongrel squad that really doesn't know what its actual philosophy is.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the current Manchester United.

Spurs. Or Tottenham Hotspur have, or had a philisophy. Attacking, expansive, to dare is to doing kind of philisophy. They would leagues, coups, doubles with this. And then when Poch failed to win anything, the club appointed the Special one, Jose.

Jose was seen as a winner, buy plays dour, pragmatic football, the opposite of that Spurs have played for decades.

Spurs did not win, so then appointed Conte, a kind of Jose-lite coach, who continued the pragmatic football, did not win anyting and the fans became restless.

The now have Ange Postecoglou in charge. He's been there 18 months and is everything Jose and Conte wasn't, his philosophy is to play attacking football on stilts. And wen things are going wrong, double down and do it more.

Its exciting.

Spurs have not won anthing under Ange either, and in fact have lost 19 out of 40 games since the beginning of last season. Now there is talk of Ange needing to be sacked.

It all seems to unserious.

Not the sacking, the endless changing, expecting the next change to magically make everything right again.

And to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result each time is madness.

Adopting management system principles might not make Man Utd European champions or get Spurs to win anything again, but it might make the clubs think of the future and the clubs owners and chairpersons part in that, rather than sack a manager when things go slightly wrong.

No new manager can fix what is, or might be wrong at Man Utd and Spurs. To think they could is madness too. Fix the club, their decision making processes and strategic thinking and have actual plans and follow them through, might just work.

Until then, both will be like the clown in a circus, and for us who follow the game, the gifts that keep on giving.

Sunday 8th December 2024

Day two of the storm, and after not much discussion it was clear we would not go out walking far.

That being said, I needed a haircut, and so some walking in Folkestone would happen.

We had coffee and breakfast, and with the storm raging, plan was to go via St Martin's Battery and Capel to wave watch.

Thing is, with the wind from due north, most likely the land and downs would protect the inland waters from the wind, and so not many waves.

So drove down Castle Hill, through the town and up Military Hill to the car park, and the sea was pretty calk, at least in eyesight, as all was in the lea of the land.

I drove in a huge semi-circle, went out of the car park and down the hill, turning up the A20 towards Folkestone.

At Capel we could even without getting out of the car that the sea was pretty mild, we slowed down, thought about walking on the muddy grassed area to the cliff edge and thought better.

And drove on into Folkestone.

I dropped Jools off at the harbour, but soon the wind and incoming rain forced her up the Old High Street and into a coffee shop to get warm while I was shorn.

The usual in the barbers, some pleasant chat and then out with the heavyweight gear to lop off my locks.

Jools was waiting, or just coming up the hill, so we went via the Italian deli, bough some twisted spaghetti and some almond and date focaccia, walked to the car and drove home for brews.

Damn, there was some chill in the wind, and not nice.

Morning passes into afternoon, and me watching 22 millionaires running around kicking a bag of wind: Arsenal draw with Fulham 1-1 and Spurs and Chelsea invent a new game where there are no tactics. That ended 3-4. A new Spurs dawn fades.

We have ragu, into which I add some crispy guanciale and the rendered fat from it, some of the twisty pasta, and warmed the focaccia up.

It was damn near perfect, even if I say so myself.

The bottle of XV made it even more special.

And that was that, to bed to read at eight, and sleep by nine.

Rock and roll.

Ahead my last full working week of the year.

Saturday 7th December 2024

Storm Darragh.

A two day autumn blow that wreaked havoc on the southwest of England and in Wales, killed two people when trees fell on their vehicles, and hundreds of thousands are still without power.

Up here on the downs near the cliffs, it was windy, it did rain. But nothing too bad, though the wind did howl.

We had plans, nothing firm, but the decision was not go go anywhere other than Tesco first thing, get our stuff and come back home.

Again, barely three bags of groceries, and with no booze, washing tablets or anything that expensive, it still cost £111.

We paid and scarped back to the car, loaded it and drove home.

Once home the rain came down. Or went sideways, so we put the radio on, had breakfast then put the shopping away.

If I am honest, not sure what we dd most of the day, other than from half twelve when I put the football on. Everton v Liverpool was off due to wind, but Leeds v Derby, which the home club won 2-0.

I sat with Scully, while Jools went for a walk on the Hoe, got wet but blew the cobwebs away, and was gone nearly two hours. There was one other person down there.

Norwich travelled to west London, to play QPR who had not won at home all season, and City have scored 12 in the last three games.

Easy, eh?

Norwich lost 3-0, and were lucky to get nil. An even stronger team than last week, should have been like shooting fish in a barrel.

We had party food for supper, as it is the season for parties, while Craig played funk and soul on the wireless.

Outside the wind continued to howl, rattling windows and milk bottles in their crates.

Five years on

Idiocracy (2006) wasn't supposed to be a TED talk.

Not sure if it was meant as a warning, but the themes such as:

"anti-intellectualism, commercialism, consumerism, dysgenics, voluntary childlessness, and overpopulation."

Five years ago today, the first case of what became known as COVID was confirmed, in Wuhan, and soo the whole world would know of it.

I wrote about it a lot, but have never re-read my posts except the very first when I ran numbers based in infiection, hospitalisation and mortality rates that was coming out of Italy by the end of January 2020.

I asked, early on, how could it be that during the Spanish Flue pandemic of 1918 and 1919 that there was a such a strong anti-masking movement. Now we know.

Stupidity.

And now the stupids are going to take charge in the US, and the lessons were notlearned here in the UK either. Depsite COVID being airbourne, simple air filters in each classroom could have slowed its spread, those things were never ordered. THat they would have slowed the annual flu and other infections over winters means that pupils, teachers and parents are now suffering from quite the flu cocktail.

Masking stopped before COVID was through, and many politicians vowed that they would never reimplement as mask mandate. I'm talking about you, Johnson.

Meanwhile in the US, vaccination rollouuts for other diseases are being stopped or defunded, mean things like measels, mumps and polio are on the rise. All down to hostility towards scients and scientists.

I don't see how either us in the UK or the US are in any better position now than five years ago, and the next pandemic, could have higher mortailty than COVID, so more will die. The lack of masking now means those we masked to protect through the waves of COVID will now fall to less infection versions now, and as the Government pretty well stopped counting, no one will know, and those that died, and the restrictions we all went through will all have been for nothing.

Friday 6th December 2024

And we made it to Friday.

Again.

As punishment, I have another four hour audit to carry out, though this is the last one of the year.

Which is nice.

So, once Jools leave for Yoga, I rush round doing chores; bins, washing up, fill the feeders.

Make a tea and set the office up.

There were about 30 people in the audit, and several were not happy and quite negative.

But we push on and start.

And with just a ten minute break, we finished the audit at one minute to midday (Danish time), and we are done.

But I have lots to do, another meeting following up on a previous audit, arrange yet more meetings, call my friend and colleague Henrik to wish him happy birthday.

I finish at one, have a shower so to look and feel better.

Good news is my back pain eased overnight, so freshly showered and clothed, I felt like a million dollars, but look like a buck and a quarter.

So it goes.

We have an appointment with our financial advisor, so we leave as soon as Jools gets here, drive up the A2, though past Dover to the junction with the M2 at Faversham, then turn up Thanet Way and down through Blean to the University. All this to avoid the inner ring road, which is jammed all day, every day.

We arrive half an hour early, so have a brew and share some crisps before the meeting starts.

We want to retire at the end of March; is it possible.

Yes, you could retire now, if you wanted.

We just have to decide how we want our income paid, and whether we want to take all the pension out, or continue to invest as the pot shrinks, so the money goes further and we get older.

So, that's all sorted.

We leave, drive back up through Blean to to Thanet Way, then along to Monkton before turning back towards Canterbury again to Upstreet before turning off, and dropping down the hill to the level crossing and the bridge over the Stour, and beyond is the pub all lit up.

The pub is the Grove Ferry Inn, they do food all day, and would be quiet this time of day, so we park and go in, and indeed there is just one other table occupied.

We order drinks, and then food. I have a huge burger, while Jools has a Kofte fajita, which she says was spicy, but good.

We pay and drive back home, across the marshes to Preston, then back to Sandwich and on more familiar roads back to Dover.

We get back at ten past six, sadly too late for the music quiz, so I crack open a Christmas beer and relax.

We can retire.

In three months.

And will.

Thursday 5th December 2024

We are onto our second air fryer.

Nothing wrong with the first, really, other than it was too fiddly to use, and the rotating basket knocked the crispy bits of chips and roast potatoes.

I hated it.

And yet, i researched and it came top in a Which test.

So we have gone full Ninja. On Thursday I cooked chips and breaded chicken in it. Got the two buckets to sync, and all I had to do was warm through the Boston beans.

The chips require some work, but were acceptable, the chicken was crispy and excellent.

Before that, there was work.

Lots of work.

And coffee.

Lots of coffee.

Up at six, coffee and more coffee, begin work, and meaning I had to get the draft report out by the end of the day.

So, with Jools out of the house on her way to work, and rain hammering down and wind lashing at the house, there was little else to do.

But then the professional procrastinator can find diversions in almost everything. Its a skill.

The days slips by in a blur, helped by brews, YouTube videos and football blogs.

So it goes, so it goes.

I went next door to see Steve. He had his knee replaced back in September, and is walking OK, but still in pain, not sleeping so not back at work.

I take him some beers, which he accepts. And we have a pint of Shepherd Neame Christmas beer and swap football news and gossip.

By the time I come out, its getting dark, and back home time to feed the cays and begin to prepare dinner. But once the chips and chicken were cooking, nothing much to do, really.

I pour some wine and drink that. That's something.

And for the evening there's football, with Spurs being Spurs and being outplayed and losing to Bournemouth 1-0.