Monday 16 February 2015

Night & Football



Having spent most of the weekend watching mediocre football matches on TV or laptop I took myself out into the dark night.  The place I headed to was unobtainable so I wandered around streets I have not known for a while.
How different everything is in the early Sunday evening when dark.  
Away from the main roads all is relatively quiet, even those main roads have much less traffic. Lights at windows shine out revealing through open curtains adults wasting their minds on brain blurring TV, kids playing with tablets and policemen asking why I am looking at the buildings.  The family is quiet and at rest, the kids safely locked into their rooms, all is quiet.  
Had I ventured round here late on Saturday it may not be quite so quiet.  Late night revellers, parties here and there, an occasional police car.   At least when I delivered in this area that was the norm.  The austerity life has changed this somewhat I suspect.  
One noticeable thing then was the unfortunates who fell for Thatchers foolhardy idea of selling council houses.  These were erected to give folks a decent home, and the Conservatives under Harold MacMillan built three million themselves, she flogged them for a few votes!  The problem came when sickness or unemployment arrived and these people, fooled into buying cheap, selling high and moving 'upwards' now found themselves out on the street or in Council 'half way houses.'
In the past few years I suspect many more from here have fallen this way.  The happy contented families may be less contented than my quiet walk indicated.

      
I spent so much time watching football and being unsatisfied I had to start the day watching a game rerun on BT Sport.  It also was rubbish!  From Airdrie to Rome the games were not good. Still it's better than working.  Anyway I must go, Preston play Man U tonight and I have to watch it in case something relevant to the WW2 research comes in.....

.

6 comments:

Mo said...

I spent the weekend travelling between London and Leeds. I can now say I have learned about football. It involves drinking copious amounts of beer before breakfast. Making ape like noises and grunting songs that I don't understand.
As you can tell I'm a real fan

Lee said...

I had a lovely Valentine's Day. I went to the wedding of a young couple (son of my landlords was the groom. He now lives and works in China teaching English). It was a small wedding of less than 30 happy revellers, some of whom were visiting from China...their first time in the Land of Oz. And language really wasn't a barrier...the mood was contagious and everyone had a ball whether they understood what the other was saying or not! (None of the Chinese guests were Tristan's pupils! His bride does have a reasonable command of English, so that helped). :)

the fly in the web said...

The sale of council houses was a disaster...for those needing a home who would never be within sniffing distance of one again.
I did think that those occupants who could afford to buy should have been gently moved on to do so but that would not have been PC....or Tory policy.

Unknown said...

I have heard it said that footsie is better played in the dark, but I would not know from personal experience.

Lady Di Tn said...

today we are iced in on the hill as the northern weather will not stay where it belongs. Looks bad the rest of the week also. Burr for all southerns in Middle Tennessee. No traffic on our lane which was a nice quite moment as I took Maggie out for her morning walk. Reminded me of the quite when Prince and I first got married. Now Nashville is booming and unfortunate for us lots of folks are heading west (our side of town) Peace

Adullamite said...

Mo, Yes I think it unfortunate you landed among what I assume were happy Millwall fans. New Cross doe not produce people able to discuss Satre, Kant, Degas and the like. The trick is to mix with the decent fans, if you know where they were sitting.

Lee, That sounds a very good way to spend the day! You lucky lass.

Fly, Indeed in my day no-one considered buying but Thatcher forced it into folks minds.

Jerry, It's FOOTBALL!!!!!!

Lady, You poor thing! I hope it thaws quickly!