Just As Well

You know the drill: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Martin-Palmer5

Sorry blog friends, I'm ill again and not up to producing my usual high standard of blogcraft. I just got over a cold earlier in the month, and had hoped that I had at least enough antibodies to keep me healthy for, oh, I don't know, maybe a bloody fortnight at least... And to top it all [or 'bottom', really], I've just had another session of surgery on my toe nail. It's been pretty painful this last couple of weeks, and I'm sure you'll thank me for not sharing a picture of all the discharge I've been dealing with. Anyway, now that I've completely annoyed and sickened you all with my moaning and disgusting truths, I'd like to take the time to assure that, despite the current situation breeding a 'f*** it' kind of atmosphere - one in which I'd really rather like to crack open a bottle of something strong and unwind in front of an action film - I am still sober. I was even offered a taste of two new beers from Tiny Rebel that came into the shop yesterday, but I turned down even the possibility of spitting it out after tasting, just in case I accidentally swallowed any. 

There was another great opportunity to sling a couple of beers down my neck on Monday, during the Liverpool game against Man U, but I didn't take it. It's interesting, especially since I've talked before about how I perceive alcohol to change the passage of time, that I think the pace of a game [even a big one like that] seemed the same, despite being on Beck's Blue shandy [I had a bottle of the stuff recently that tasted like vomit - yes it was in date - and I wanted to try it with lemonade to try and avoid that awfulness]. The first half seems to go quite slowly. Especially in a game where you are waiting for someone to burst the dam and let the flood waters free, I think. But then the second half rockets by, until about seventy minutes in, then eighty minutes crawls as you're checking the clock to see how likely a goal could be at this stage, to see how long a substitute has to change the game [giving Origi four minutes wasn't inspired. He's a decent enough player to be given longer, but hey, it is what it is now], and whatever else.

I suppose the biggest difference between the drunk and the sober game-watching is probably emotion. You get more vocal when drinking, usually, and of course you can 'forget yourself' a little bit and can get even more absorbed in the game because you're not conscious of so much of the stuff you're usually worrying about. The big thing with the drink is the fact that it's a depressant and, come win, lose or draw, you can find your mood dip after leaving the social circle you've just been enjoying. But I don't want to get too far into this, being as though I find the same thing happens when I'm sober after playing sport [I always assumed it was as the endorphins wore of], or even just on a quiet day one can go up and then very down. That's depression for ya.

It was a tense affair [though some have said 'turgid'], one where efforts by either side to be more proactive in attack could've left spaces in the defense that might've proven a weakness. Had it been a six-goal thriller, I could easily have, without thinking, had big gulps of a beer and ended up drinking lots, so it's just as well the result was goalless. Had Liverpool won, I would've been tempted to celebrate, had it been a loss I might've wanted to drown my sorrows.

Now, if you were to ask me if the result was fair, I'd probably say it was justice. Well...