choices

Those weekend blog posts seem to be turning into midweek catch-ups, not that it matters. A quick tour d'horizon, if that's the phrase, is all I feel I want to write about at present. Just back from a long weekend in Worcester, I almost felt that I got close to the spirit of the much-derided speech John Major made about a country at peace with itself. Oh yes. We went to Evesham for the day, our bus going through pretty villages like Wyre Piddle with cricket pitches being prepared for play, found a rowing regatta going on by the river, walked around a delightful park full of families enjoying the excellent, unvandalised facilities, looked around a couple of churches and came back to Worcester for an organ recital in the cathedral. If it sounds like twee Middle England it didn't feel like that, just a slice of the not-particularly-posh Midlands enjoying its weekend. Then on Sunday we went to Evensong at the cathedral. A good choir, or rather Kwa, as the (female) priest kept calling it (in fact ordination seems to require the kind of RP Alan Bennett made fun of almost fifty years ago, for everyone had the cut glass C of E accent and intonation), sang Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, with its setting of what must be among the most eccentric texts used in a place of worship, Christopher Smart's poem in praise of his cat, mice and musical instruments. I buy my tuna fish by the pound wouldn't have been a bad encore, with its decent tune and words that at least make sense. I suppose my wish to hear something by Adrian Batten was pretty optimistic, but I would at least have liked to hear something Elizabethan. The weekend was very relaxing, and we had a meal at perhaps the best Italian restaurant I've come across outside Italy. Unlike Chesham and Worcester, Evesham had plenty of political posters and declarations of allegiance. That kind of thing seems to have fallen out of use since 2005.

Monday's defeat at Blackburn left us feeling utterly fed up. It was a feeble performance, admittedly by a team weakened by yet more injuries and illness, but we still haven't secured third place and there's only one game to go. With Man. U. or Chelsea as champions in waiting , Man. City and Spurs vying for the last Champions League place and tomorrow's General Election likely to lead to several years of continuing national decline, things aren't looking too good. Oh well, we may buy a player or two, you never know. Chamakh looks as if he may be the first, but if we play badly on Sunday I think there will be a lot of discontent at the Emirates, not all of it due to the election result, our immature democracy or the greed of the wunch.