Beating the Hun...

England fans will long remember last night’s game - England v Germany - even though for 75 minutes it was cautious, careful, tippy-tappy football. with both teams more frightened of losing than motivated to win. The result has apparently cauterised the nation’s psychic wounds and made us proud to be English again. Football, as the fans at Wembley sang, is coming home. Nevertheless, I won’t allow the fluctuating fortunes of eleven footballing millionaires to dictate my mood. Football is just a game… and, on last night’s evidence, a rather dull game.

Licenced today: houses in the Cumbrian village of Caldbeck... 

Losing on penalties...

France, the favourites to win Euro 2020, were knocked out last night when Kylian Mbappé missed a penalty. After 90 minutes playing as a team - plus 30 minutes of ‘extra time’ - it seems like an unsatisfactory way to decide a sporting contest. And, for the player concerned, that penalty miss will remain on his footballing CV for ever.

The France captain, Hugo Lloris, tried to share the load. “We win together, we lose together”, he said. “We are all responsible for being eliminated at this stage of the competition”. In a short statement on Twitter, Mbappé was perhaps more realistic. “It is very difficult to turn the page. I am sorry for this penalty. I wanted to help the team but I failed. Finding sleep will be difficult, but unfortunately those are the risks of the sport that I love so much”.

His misgivings are not without foundation. During a game in the 1994 World Cup, a Colombian player, Andres Escobar, inadvertently scored an own goal, which ended Colombia’s run in the competition. A few weeks later, as he left a nightclub in his home town of Medellin, Escobar was mocked by two men about the own goal, who then shot and killed him. And there are probably more trigger-happy nutters around in 2021 than there were back in 1994. 

Licenced today: a Land Rover dealership in Shrewsbury...

Country life...

According to today’s Guardian, Rafael Benítez will soon be confirmed as Everton’s “sixth permanent manager in five years”… which suggests that we may have to revise our definition of the word ‘permanent’. 

A regular seller, licenced again today. Maybe it sums up the idea of moving to the country...

Indiscretions...

Matt Hancock’s indiscretions, caught on CCTV camera and splashed across the front page of the Sun, have been characterised as breaking the rules about social distancing, and breaching the ministerial code by not declaring the relationship when he hired Gina Coladangelo as a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care. There’s a wife and a husband, waiting in the wings, who might be viewing the events in a rather different light. 

The health secretary was telling the country to "follow the rules", even as he was breaking them himself. Boris Johnson should be accepting Hancock’s resignation… not his apology.

Licenced yesterday: the summer game being played in the village of Hartley Wintney, Hants...

Ally's Army...

Scotland have been eliminated from Euro 2020 without winning a game, though, for a country with a population of just five million, it was quite an achievement simply to qualify for the competition. Back in 1978, Ally MacLeod took the national team to the World Cup in Argentina, cheered on by a ‘Tartan Army’ of expectant fans. Their hopes were already sky high when MacLeod announced that “You can mark down 25 June 1978 as the day Scottish football conquers the world”. The mood was captured in a catchy song:

We're on the march with Ally's Army
We're going to the Argentine
And we'll really shake them up
When we win the World Cup
'Cause Scotland are the greatest football team

It all ended badly, of course, in a hailstorm of hubris and recrimination.

Licenced today: deer grazing in front of Belton House, near Grantham... 

North Pennines...

 Licenced today: an abandoned house in the North Pennines...

Gorilla Glue...

A young woman, Tessica Brown, is launching a range of haircare products. The day-care worker from Louisiana had gone viral on TikTok after posting a video confessing that she had sprayed her hair with Gorilla Glue instead of her usual hairspray. The glue, predictably, made her hair stick to her head, and required four hours of surgery to remove. “As a result of that”, she said, “I ended losing some hair and having scalp damage”. And now she’s trying to flog a hairspray called ‘Forever Hold’.

St Mary's Church in the village of East Bergholt, Suffolk…

Vaccines...

Having watched a few matches in the Euro competition, I’m reminded how dull football can be, whenever teams are more afraid of losing than they are motivated to win. A better use of ninety minutes was watching a Horizon Special: The Vaccine. It was fascinating to see some of the people involved in formulating the vaccines, doing the blind testing and ramping up production… all within a timeframe that the scientists themselves could barely believe. Essential viewing… especially for those who are ‘vaccine hesitant’. 

Springtime in the flatlands...

Astley Hall...

Licensed last week: Astley Hall, Lancashire... 

Newquay...

Condoms will be given out free to competitors at the Tokyo Olympics. However, according to the story in today’s Guardian, the athletes will be told not to use their condoms during the games - to "avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact” - but to take them home instead as "souvenirs". Think of all the happy memories a packet of unused condoms might evoke!

Licenced today: the beach at Newquay, Cornwall...

Haworth Moor...

According to a headline on the BBC website, “a lion at a wildlife park has predicted that England will beat Scotland on Friday”. Hmmm… just how bored would I have to be to click on the link, read the article and discover what the hell this is all about? 

Sunlight picks out a farmstead on Haworth Moor: licenced today...

Doomsday Gear...

Goole is a surprise winner in the latest ‘Throw Money at Shit Towns’ sweepstake, with £25 million newly allocated for revitalising the town centre. The renaissance has started already. According to the Goole Times, the mayor has just cut the ribbon on a new store. Doomsday Gear promises to be a “one-stop shop for all your survival needs”: body armour, camouflage creams, flash grenades (made by a company called Enola Gaye), boots guaranteed to survive “blunt trauma impact”, outdoor gear (in any colour you want, as long as it’s khaki). There’s plenty here for disaffected young men of Goole, whose greatest regret is missing out on combat, comradeship and conscription in a proper fighting war. There are even toy grenades for the kids. A spokesman for Doomsday Gear said he was “looking forward to what the future brings”. According to the company's mission statement, that will hopefully be World War III.

Licenced today: the Albert Memorial Clock Tower in Barnstaple, Devon…

Malton...

A street scene in Malton, licenced today...

Stan Laurel...

Licenced today: the unremarkable terraced house in Ulverston where Stan Laurel was born…

Saltaire...

A muted cheer: football is here. Euro 2020 matches are mostly being shown on the BBC, so I can watch them at home, alone, or in the pub, surrounded by guys with their smartphones and betting apps, bonding over their losses. Even as they’re losing money, they are still producing the adrenalin and endorphins which gives them the gambling ‘high’.
 
Punters who have the audacity to win more than they lose may find their accounts limited or even closed. With no legal obligation to take a bet from any individual, the betting companies do everything they can to weed out professional gamblers, while welcoming mug punters with open arms, free bets and loyalty bonuses. Beyond that counterfeit ‘high’, the punters have plenty to lose: money, job, house, marriage, reputation, prospects and, in extremis, their lives. The betting companies, on the other hand, have what is effectively a licence to print money.

Licenced over the weekend: Salt's Mill reflected in the Leeds & Liverpool Canal...

Levens Hall...

Licenced today: the topiary gardens at Levens Hall...

Kirkoswald...

The sandstone village of Kirkoswald, in the Eden Valley: licenced today. There's a story in the papers about the last shop in the village - the one in my pic - which has been saved from closure. Locals have managed to raise the £200,000 they needed to buy the shop and continue to run it as a co-operative venture. A good news story, for a change...

Castle Crags...

To persuade the ‘vaccine hesitant’ to get their jabs, the state of West Virginia is offering a range of bribes… including guns, free beer, a lap around a speedway track and tickets to a million dollar lottery. Encouraging people to drive round a speedway track - while pissed and carrying firearms - is not guaranteed to end well.

Licenced today: Castle Crag in Borrowdale...

Friendship...

Inspired by this article on the Guardian website today, I’ve decided to subject my portfolio of friends to a judicial review. It’s time to jettison those so-called friends who offer too little return on my emotional investment. Why should I listen any longer to their interminable tales of woe, when, in truth, they should be listening to mine?

A Tesco delivery van in Maldon, Essex...

A cautionary tale...

Unimpressed with the price he was offered for his home, a householder in Thorne, South Yorkshire, decided to demolish it and auction off the bricks as individual lots. It was the worst idea he ever had. Pic licenced today… 

Goole Marina

Licenced today: boats moored in Goole Marina...

Rutland Water...

Licenced today: Rutland Water...

Ennerdale Water...

Two drug dealers have been caught with cocaine, with a street value of £500,000. While using the hard shoulder of the motorway, to avoid the queues, they drove at speed past a police patrol car  If I had a suitcase full of cocaine in the Romahome (something I’d be loath to admit on a blog read by millions), I would make sure to drive very carefully indeed.

Licenced today: Ennerdale Water, in late summer, looking towards Great Borne…

Tollesbury Hard...

Heard an appropriate expression yesterday for those who won’t wear a mask, or get a jab, or take the pandemic seriously. “If you don’t chip in for the gift, then you don’t get to sign the card”.

More pix from Essex: creek life at Tollesbury Hard...

Cricket...

Test cricket is back! England are playing New Zealand at Lords (“the home of cricket”™), and I’m enjoying the commentary from the Test Match Special team. Jonathan Agnew demonstrated that he may be out of practice when describing the on-field action: “Stuart Broad runs in, carrying his shadow with him”.

Rowhedge, on the tidal River Colne, Essex...

Into the woods...

Son Chas in woods near Coventry...

Buntings and boozers...

Walked from Asselby to Goole yesterday, along field tracks. The birds were in good voice: skylarks ascending, buzzards ‘mewing’ and a whitethroat singing its scratchy summer song from a blossoming hawthorn hedge. I think I spotted a redstart at the edge of the woods. I’m more certain about a corn bunting, which landed, like a fat sparrow, at the top of a tree, and regaled me with its repetitive little song… which sounds like a bunch of keys being jangled. I’ve always thought of the corn bunting as a farmland bird of the southern counties; I can’t recall seeing - or hearing - one as far north as Yorkshire. Since numbers have declined throughout the country, due to changes in farming practice, it’s reassuring that they can still be found in the fields around Asselby. I’ll be looking out for them.

A wander round Goole offers fewer delights for the elderly flâneur. One pub wouldn’t serve me because I have neither a smartphone nor the requisite app. I had a warmer welcome in the Tom Pudding, a friendly micro-pub. I walked up Aire Street, toward the docks, counting the empty shops. It was almost as big a surprise as hearing a corn bunting to find that The Mackintosh, Goole’s best - and most characterful - pub is once again open for business. You don’t need an app to drink in the Mac: just a little spending money and - ideally - a facial tattoo. I’ll be back. 

Corn bunting (pic Creative Commons)...