Hello again!I'm the bald guy on the left, and worried at how I look like William Hague. Still, such is life, and I am left to compare my early appearance with that of a failed Tory leader.
Let me bring you up to speed. My last blog was in 2003. Since then I have made it as a qualified teacher: the zenith of my career was reached this morning when one of my students indicated the city of Mainz on a map of Germany with the corner of his (flying) dictionary. His aim was remarkably true. Sadly, he was not involved in my school's unsuccessful attempt to reach the next stages of the Leinster Junior Cup (Rugby, don't you know...). It seems they were hit by a some sort of gypsy curse: The captain hurt his shoulder, another player chucked the big vom, or so I am told, and most cruelly, they were defeated after leading at half time.
This, however, leads me to my real reason for writing this post. My one true passion, writing, has been rekindled this week. Hurrah! Another attempt to be Nick Hornby, strutting self consciously in Helen Fielding's knickers? Eh, I think not. Life, like literature, doesn't need to be so contrived. My problem with modern popular literature is that it fails to see that coinicdence provides the better scenarios than conscious literary endeavour. The temporary rush of adrelaline in a fourteen year old boy with a book in his hand, an unfortunate fall in a training session and butterflies on an empty stomach indicate that there is absolutely no need for a controlling third party to invent what reality throws up so much more eloquently every day.
