It was when i found myself still up at 3am watching Uzbekistan v Colombia that i wondered whether in fact my body clock had totally stopped working and the talking badger on my sideboard was probably best ignored. I mean yes Abbosbek Fayzullaev did have a great game but well i don’t pester him about badger related topics at that time of night so give it a rest with the Uzbeki football comments!  And then i was up again the same time the next night…but this was something far more important. The Andy Burnham by election!! (oh, and the Mexico v South Korea 2am kick off)

There are some big questions to ask these days.  Why is everything so expensive and why is there so little money to go round?

At the same time, it’s just been announced that Elon Musk has just become a trillionaire.

If only there was some connection…I looked at my cake. I had to save 3 quarters of it for Big Dave who was coming round tomorrow. Still the other 10 of us could share the remaining quarter.

Hope

Now Galway in the west of Ireland is a lovely place. My mother’s side of the family came from there. And so did Harry Kanes dad. So, it’s great that migration not only makes up half our country but half of our top footballing legend who put 2 past Croatia this week.

Hope

Jude Bellingham who scored the 3rd goal is another Anglo Irishmen (the Irish don’t need to worry about qualifying for the world cup in their own right anyway, we’re everywhere!) But there’s also Kenyan heritage from his mum.

And of course, goal 4 from Manchester boy Marcus Rashford with his Jamaican dad and St Kitts born mum means diversity and migration really is something we can celebrate when we fly those English flags.

People are people and talent is talent. The world over. That should be the currency that unites us. Respect for where each of us has come from and for what we achieve for each other..

Hope

This week the government says it will enact a ban on social media for under 16s. Well, ok, it’s a mind controlling cesspit of lies and hate, but there’s literally millions of over 16s that can’t cope with it and who get their distorted view on reality from the funded algorithms of said previously mentioned trillionaire.

And he’s getting richer by the day.

If only there was some connection….

Zulu

The thing missing from everything these days is ‘Hope’. But no more. Football’s coming home, thanks to our wonderfully talented and diverse pool of players to draw on and Andy Burnham’s off to parliament and taking the working class with him.

Finally. There really is hope.

What’s that badger? Yes, I know ‘Zulu’ is on the other side, yes, I know with Michael Caine, yes  of course we can watch that…