Unfortunately, I’m an optimist. Always have been. I never carry an umbrella, and never pack aspirin. I assume the other car is always going to slow down.
Chewing my scarf, however, on May 25th at 22.30, local time, in seat 193, row 35 of the lower North Stand at Istanbul’s Ataturk Stadium, even I (a man who still thinks Kevin Rowland has a number one left in him) was soaking up the pervading mood of desolation and despair like an old tea-bag. Surely Luis Garcia didn’t destroy the Chelsea Death Star for this?
3-0 – and not just any old 3-0 – a painful to watch, derisory, piss-taking 3-0; where a mid-ranking, mediocre Premiership team were being put firmly in their place by an imperious array of footballing aristos.
“Would Fon-A-Cab pick up in Turkey?” one of our number wondered.
No such luck. We couldn’t get a signal on our mobiles.
And then, of course, it changed.
Stars aligned. Plates shifted. Yin became yang.
And, while it was all happening, there was I – maybe 50 feet behind Jerzy Dudek when he made that save from Shevchenko. And, truth be told, I still don’t think I’ve recovered. A few weeks after the event, a friend accused me of exhibiting certain behavioural traits (flashbacks, loss of attention span, and visible unease when in the company of anyone who hadn’t shared the experience) commonly found in unfortunates suffering from post-traumatic stress. He was only half joking.
Anyway: I was there when Liverpool won the European Cup for the fifth time, and Earth does not hold enough Man Utd fans for me to tire telling.
I’ll stop now before I gush.
No Direction Home almost made me jump just as high. Really Bob, we’re not worthy.
My favourite film was Wong Kar-Wai’s sense-obliterating 2046 – a mesmerising amalgam of Alfie, Solaris and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, ‘Magnetism’ – in which Tony Leung and Zhang ZiYi took turns laying claim to the title of world’s greatest movie star. Zhang, of course, won on points.
I didn’t have a problem with Downfall humanising the Nazi hierarchy, but was troubled by how close the film came to dignifying them. Powerful, it may have been – but ultimately I didn’t find it half as convincing as Kenneth Branagh’s unexpectedly brilliant (and morally sure-footed) drama, Conspiracy, which I also (belatedly) caught this year.
Would you think less of me if I admitted that I also loved Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice? You would, wouldn’t you?
After devouring the first four seasons of Seinfeld on DVD, the missus and I now feel like we live in the same apartment block as Jerry and Kramer. After getting through Curb Your Enthusiasm, however, we’re glad Larry David is tucked away safely on the other side of the world.
In these dark, Darwin-doubting times, Jonathan Miller’s A History of Disbelief single-handedly justified the BBC licence fee, while, on a similar note, Voltaire In Exile, by Ian Davidson showed that an enlightenment rationalist is, indeed, something to be. Cast Michael Gambon in the inevitable film adaptation, please.
As the year ends I’m listening to the McGarrigles’ Christmas album and acquainting myself with the now 83-year-old Kurt Vonnegut’s new book, A Man Without A Country. It’s as sad, despairing and humane as anything this great man has ever published, and, inevitably, given his age, veiled in an air of finality and valediction. We’ve poisoned our planet, he concludes. Elected thieves and murderers to positions of influence and authority, and abdicated our responsibility to communicate with one-another – relying, instead, on machines and gadgets to ferry information. But despite all this, stars can align, plates can shift, yin can become yang.
Why? Well, because even in our darkest hours, Vonnegut says, we still have music to redeem us. Or, in other words: When you walk through a storm…