Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017 - 23:57

1. Today was, as maybe I should've expected, Sunday blue overshadowed. I could've done more to resist or counteract this, but I didn't. I read a while, I pissed about on my laptop playing football management games, listened to some very amateurish radio shows, I failed to settle on much that I was really enjoying to do. Work is going to be a cunt this next fortnight, yet the job searching I have done in the past month has indicated there is little preferable out there because I'm far from wonderful and someone who people would want to employ and pay more to do less. This had led to a certain degree of self-doubt and a feeling of being trapped.

2. This afternoon I put on 'We'll Live and Die in These Towns' by The Enemy, which I must've bought (along with others) for a quid just before Xmas from Poundstretcher in an attempt to purchase some interesting fillers for my Mum, but which I must've decided was probably more my kind of thing than hers. It was OK on first listen-to, elements of the Joy Division, Editors, White Lies type thing I like.. but a bit of the modern-ish snarling Arctic Monkeys type vibe that isn't necessarily as much my kind of budgie. I'll give it a bit more time.

3. Watched a bit of stuff this evening about magicians, and noticed that quite a few of them - Paul Daniels, Pete Firman, Patrick Monahan etc. - are from Middlesbrough in some sense. Is there something about Tees-side that makes one want to become a sorcerer? Oh, I suppose there could be a level of me noticing the accent more than noticing all the other people from the same place as each other. Something something BARCODE.

4. Naturally, most of today I was celebrating the 85th anniversary of the speech by Laureano Gómez that led to the escalation of The Leticia Incident. This, also called the Leticia War or the Colombia–Peru War, was a short-lived armed conflict between the Republic of Colombia and the Republic of Peru over territory in the Amazon Rainforest that rumbled on for almost nine months before an agreement was reached - Colombia stayed with ownership of part of the territory and Perú the remainder.

5. It will excite you to know that at the moment I have three mugs in rotation (of the fifteen or so mugs I own). One for coffee, one for tea, one for cup-a-soups. Usually I just have one mug 'on' at a time, but that's before I was drinking so many cup-a-soups. Putting a dedicated receptacle into rotation for that savoury lumpy substance, I figured it would be possible and perchance sensible to also segregate my warm beverages.

6. I finished that book set in the town of my birth, and it had plenty of good points w.r.t. the perceptiveness and realisticness of much of the characterisation, plenty that touched me and I found admirable. Alas the plot was a bit odd at times, and the writing seemed a little inconsistant in pace. Next to be read will be Zoe Heller's 'Notes on a Scandal', which I have head good things about.

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8. The Festival of the political song "Alen Mak" (Scarlet Poppy) was an annual event from 1975 to 1989 which was held in the city of Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. It was organized by the official cultural institutions in socialist Bulgaria and the Komsomol, intended to develop and popularize among young people the genre of the political songs with antiwar, commemorative anti-fascist, guerrilla, anti-capitalist content. Along with the participation of popular Bulgarian estrada singers with a specific repertoire, the festival was attended by many musical groups and solo musicians with leftist orientation from the entire world. The event was named after the popular Bulgarian song "Alen Mak" from the interwar period, reckoned as a musical symbol of Bulgarian communist's fight with the previous regime. During the socialist times it was defined as "the favorite song" of the founder of the Bulgarian social-democratic party (from which derives the communist party as well) Dimitar Blagoev. The state-owned monopolist record company Balkanton issued compilations of chosen songs from the festivals on LPs and 7" records.

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10. Oh well. I might die in my sleep. That's something to look forward to. This evening I had a pint of 'Ripsaw' from Wychwood Brewery, which was nice, though obviously it was just a bottle of beer. It's not the most super brilliant important thing ever to have happened. I'm not the most interesting person ever to have lived.

Chelsea 0-0 Arsenal. Arsenal had the better of the first half, perchance surprisingly - two or three moments when they could've taken the lead, including Ramsay's hitting the post and Lacazette blazing over when he should've done better. In a goal-less first half Courtois was a little busier than Cech overall. The second half, um.. it wasn't an uninteresting game, but there was a certain lack of quality up front - Ozil missing (Iwobi trying hard but he and Welbeck aren't the best) and Morata still adjusting to playing in England. Mustafi had a goal ruled out for offside, and Davud Liz was shown a straight red with five minytes left, so Arsenal might feel disappointed not to have won, but it does bring a bad run at Stamford Bridge to an end for Wenger's men.

Manchester United - Everton. Lukaku playing against his old club. Schneiderlin playing against his old club. Fellaini playing against his old club. Rooney playing against his old club for his even older club. Phil Neville not playing for either of his old clubs. Antonio Valencia scoring a scorcher after just fou minutes. I had olives at around half past four, and they were salty. Everton were really struggling to create chances - following their disappointment on Thursday in Europe, and following what I have said previously about not having replaced Lukaku, they look like they've taken a stap back. Seven from the end Henrikh Mkhitaryan made it two, two from the end Lukaku made it three. Martial scored a penalty in injury time after Schneiderlin's handball. United keep pace with their city rivals at the top of the league, but this scoreline flattered them.