Author: Nick

Great to see Fulham back at Craven Cottage for the first home game of the season last Saturday. After two years spent in exile in what felt like another country (QPR) we’re back where we belong. Shame I had to miss it, but I’ll be there for next game.

Dad met Al Fayedoutside the ground beforehand, thanked him for bringing us back (even if the chairman wasn’t that enthusiastic about it a couple of years ago) and pointed out that he’d been coming there since 1937. Even a year ago it looked far from certain that any of us would see the place again unless we bought one of the luxury flats that appeared to be on its horizon.

Crumbs, in this political maelstrom, you can’t ignore what’s going on, so I give you the thoughts of two great American writers (well sort of) Norman Mailer and Bruce Springsteen.

And Mailer gives us the fine word, ‘smugmanship.’ Learn it, remember it, it’s sure to come in useful.

“So I kicked his amp over, smashed his guitar and cut myself up.”

Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

Well, you would if you’re Pete Doherty and your best mate and co-singer songwriter has just looked at you in a funny way during a song that’s a thinly-veiled story of their tortuous relationship.

Great feature here on The Libertines, Britain’s greatest contemporary band that I had the fortune to see in NYC a while back, which was quite something.

He’s currently going through a spiral of drug-induced paranoia, while the others are getting on with it. Hopefully he can pull out of it, but the spectre of him playing gigs at his flat for cash (which he’s doing tonight incidentally) doesn’t exactly point to a situation that’s stabilising.

Still, can’t wait for the new album, which arrives at the end of this month, apparently as deftly produced by Mick Jones as the debut was.

Well this double-parenting thing does take it out of you (and one of us more than the other, I have to admit). But anyway, everything else has to take a back seat, including photos.

But there’s some more of the kids taken this month up on the site now, linked from the one below (usual login required)

Now we have two of the things, we have slightly rearranged the structure of the photo albums on this site so as to manage the exponential growth in digital photography that will likely ensue in the coming months.

But don’t be alarmed, it’s very simple. Instead of linking directly to Miles, you now go to a top level album called Kids (login required and email us if you need one), within which you’ll find albums for each month including pictures of both kids.

Meanwhile all pictures of Miles up to and including May 2004 are also within the Kids folder, in an album called Miles archive, arranged monthly.

Historical revisionism is nothing new in English football; note the recent rebranding effort in the Football League whereby the third division is now called League One and the fourth is now League Two, with the second division (aka the first division) now called the Championship (of what, it’s not clear). Keep up.

But now Franchise FC, aka Wimbledon FC (not to be confused with AFC Wimbledon) has now been rebranded as Milton Keynes Dons, after the town to which all true football fans bid them good riddance, Wimbledon’s records have now been updated to reflect the new branding.

So the famous 1988 FA Cup Final win over Liverpool, where Dave Beasant became the only keeper – still – to save a penalty (he’s also still the only one to injure himself with a jar of mayonnaise) in a final is now recorded thus:

English FA Cup – Final

Milton Keynes Dons 1 (1) – 0 (0) Liverpool
Sanchez 37

Wembley
14-05-1988

Appalling nonsense.

The newly refurbished Craven Cottage – can’t wait to get back there!

The colour changes are just my fiddling-in-progress. I’m finally learning a bit more about HTML, but as Alexander Pope once said, “A little learning is a dang’rous thing.”

It really puts into perspective the shift in media delivery mechanisms (if not ownership of the content quite yet) when you can’t see any interesting live music on American TV (why is that, is just the power of MTV?) but you can go to the BBC website and watch live and recorded feeds from Glastonbury.

Just realized that this past week marked the 10th anniversary of the first time I came to America.

How’d I remember that day? Because I arrived on the day that OJ decided to get into his Ford Bronco and take off down the highway slowwwllly.

It gave me quite a good preparation for what was to come.