I TAKE ON THE MIGHTY BRUNCH

We went out for food today and for some reason (let’s call it hunger) I had something called a Mighty Brunch.

I have never seen a mountain of food quite like it. Sausages, bacon, hash browns, tomatoes, eggs, black puddings, toast, mushrooms, beans - piled onto a plate I’m sure they would have called a ‘sharing platter’ in the old days. It was certainly mighty - like a kind of breakfast the Greeks might have had before taking on the Spartans. A small pot of ketchup appeared alongside it. I picked up my knife and fork like a gladiator and dived right in.

Is there still a connection between food-capacity and perceived masculinity?

I definitely think there was a time when you were seen as more of a manly man if you took on large portions. I used to think it was a sort of primeval thing, where the alpha male, the hunter would need the lion’s share of the meat so that he could fight off the wolves and still have energy to hunt the bison. Society accepted it in some deep level of understanding, and so the strongest among us still prove themselves against the Olympic breakfast or the all-you-can-eat steakhouse.

But has it changed? I’ve not encountered it in a while, and I’m wondering whether culture has adapted. As I ripped into my mighty brunch, I wondered whether it was because I am clearly no more than a beta male (which, I’m actually okay with) and therefore not likely to have ever felt the pressure to stuff my face. I also wondered whether it applies quite specifically to young men, rather than the grizzly old grumblers at the back of the cave.

I ate most of it. It seemed a bit silly to consume the last bit of toast and the final half of black pudding, if, as I knew it might, it would make me feel queasy and uncomfortable.

Nevertheless I got through the rest of the Mighty Brunch, and I enjoyed it. Weirdly though, the last thing I felt like doing afterwards was riding out onto the plains in search of the buffalo. I’m more of an afternoon-nap kind of a guy. 

Probably good news for the saber-toothed tiger.

THE PERPLEXING CAPITAL

I had to work in London yesterday. A few months ago, the company I work for gave up its London office, and so work days in the capital haven't really happened. But yesterday, one did - and to make up for not having a dedicated office, I had to make other arrangements in a Regus type workspace somewhere near the BBC.

I found it okay, but standing outside the heavy black door, I realised I had no real clue how to get in. It was one of those posh houses - probably belonging to a merchant years ago, with capacious rooms of high ceilings and tall windows. Georgian by design, given away by the fanlight window over the front door and the white-washed limestone brickwork. I scratched my head at the intercom, wondering whether I should dial the number for 'Meeting Room' listed on a small plaque next to the dial pad. It was just about the best guess I had.

I find London perplexing. Eight million people living and working there, and yet somehow still the loneliest place in England. The intercom rang angrily as I waited, making me certain that nobody would pick up.

Eventually the door did click and swing open. A young lady, casual white dress, trainers, brown curly hair gave me a half smile. She seemed cautious. I explained who I was and what I was doing there and she understood, leading me through a large hallway with polished floor. On either side, white doors with round gold handles were positioned, shut firm, small numbered plates on their panels. The whole place reminded me of a posh dentists. We clacked across the tiles and she led me down some concrete steps to a brightly lit corridor - presumably once a cellar for barrels and caskets and servants. I sort of wished it still was.

And there I was, suddenly in the workspace. A large room - sofas round small circular tables, a blank TV screen bolted to the wall, a long wooden table with matching chairs and a dresser with a coffee machine and paper cups. It was comfortable-looking. Three large windows on the wall opposite, one to the left, each one of them offering a view of sub-street walls, with a glimpse of shoes and taxi-wheels and leafy trees at the top of the frame. And in the corner, an empty plastic water cooler.

Before I knew it, the girl was disappearing, one hand on the golden handle, backing through the door and closing it behind her. Who was she? Nobody knows. Was she there on reception? What reception? There was nowhere obvious you'd call a welcome desk. Could I find her again? As it turned out, no. Never saw her once. Was she an angel? Well, I've not looked into the theology of it, but I'd have thought an angel would be a bit more welcoming.

That's the thing about London. Nobody seems to know how to do that. It was the same in the other office - there the staff just slid a clipboard over a desk and pointed a pen at you. Eye-contact is not desirable, customer service barely stretches to a minimum, and don't you dare expect anything beyond half a smile.

She'd gone before I'd had a chance to ask exactly how to let Andy in when he arrived half an hour later, and, crucially, what to do about the empty water cooler. It was clearly up to me to figure out how to solve my problems myself - the de facto London way. You're on your own.

And that is the perplexing thing. How can a city so full of life and people produce such isolation? You're not on your own; you're surrounded by an ocean of humans trying to make their way through those wide streets and circular parks. Everywhere you look there are theatres and cafes and cinemas and restaurants and bistros and bars - places designed for connection. So why, London, why is it so difficult? Why do you make so many people feel so lonely?

I do wonder sometimes, what would have happened if I'd been brave enough to live there. I mean not now - it's clearly for younger people, but what if, years ago, I had leapt into the Big Smoke with a bagful of hopes and a gritty pursuit of a dream? What if I had had the chance? Would I have developed that same self-sufficiency I needed to replace the water cooler and figure out the workspace? Would there have been hundreds of small problems that I would have had to solve on my own like that? Would I have met people who would have smiled at me? Would I have made friends in that unfriendly place? Would I be a different kind of person now?

Unanswerable. Andy rang my phone and shook me out of my reverie. He was outside, he said, with not much clue about how to get inside. I headed upstairs to let him in. Sunlight flooded in from the street. He gave me a full duchenne smile, both sides beaming, genuinely pleased to see me behind that heavy black London door. Him from the South Coast, me from the Home Counties - both of us meeting in the middle, figuring out how to be ourselves, the best that we could be, in the perplexing capital. 

NOT INTO FOOTBALL

“Are you into football then, Matt?” asked someone on a call today. You know how sometimes you get asked a question and you can tell that the person asking is fully expecting you to say no? Well the clues were all there. I’m clearly the kind of person who looks like they shouldn’t be into football. I said I didn’t mind it.

“But last night’s game,” I went on, “was just horrible. Right the way through I was just wishing I wasn’t watching it. So stressful!”

She nodded in agreement.

England did lose to Argentina, normal time 2-1. The first half was stop-start, push-people-over, tetchy argy-bargy. The second half was better, then England scored, then Argentina threw everything at them while England focused on defending the barrage of attack (for some inexplicable reason). I say all this for the record, and as a reminder if you’re reading this years in the future. There were still about 30 minutes to go so Argentina just went relentlessly looking for the equaliser. They equalised (everyone must have known it was coming). Then seven minutes later, they scored again, and basically that was that.

The whole thing from start to finish was just awful. And I, like a moth drawn ever so slightly too close to the flame, couldn’t turn it off. What a load of nonsense.

So maybe she was right to assume football is not for me. My whole life has been skirted by people who thought the same; why not the main contact from our podcast agency? I have always sort of suspected it might be nonsense. I’ve gone along with the excitement of others, stood in front of big screens and sat on people’s sofas. But I just think that if every single weekend is like that for you, watching your team float miserably between hope and despair, and you have to navigate that in your own life on Saturday afternoons between August and May and every other summer… maybe this ridiculous sport has you trapped.

I confess I did think about tattoo man. How’s he doing, I wonder? If I were him, I’d probably wear long trousers. But I’m not. I’m me. And in two years’ time I’ll have to ask myself again whether I can be bothered with all this.

A TYPICAL TATTOO GREEN

There’s a man who’s had a huge tattoo of the World Cup with the words ‘England World Cup Winners 2026’.

He’s been sure of it, he says, since the game where they beat the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Apparently, if it doesn’t happen, he’s going to add the words ‘only joking’ in brackets underneath.

Tonight (I barely need to say) England play Argentina in the semi-final, and as usual the national mood flickers over the centre point drawn by wild hope and apathy. If they win, they play Spain in the final. If they don’t, they play France in the third-place playoff, and that man with the hideous tattoo has some tough choices to make.

In a way, I admire his faith. It is faith, isn’t it? To do something like that? To be so confident in your team that you do something basically irreversible to your life to prove it. There is something to like in there, even though I think it’s crazy. Wait a week! I mean you’ll know for sure by Sunday. You might even know tonight if England lose.

We’ll watch it. I’ve no clue what will happen and I was really wrong last time. Push me and I’ll say 2-2 in normal time, with penalties to follow. Classic England. But who knows? Not me. And not, I’d wager, tattoo man.

It’s crept back up to 30 degrees today. Cool mornings followed by hotter afternoons. I stood outside today looking at the sky, feeling the burning sun on my skin. They say this is the new normal now for English summers. I made a note to myself to research exactly how heatwaves come from climate change. I get the greenhouse effect, certainly. But I think there are holes in my knowledge about the heat transfer and weather patterns that result and why. One thing seems clear: this didn’t use to happen, and now it seems to happen every summer.

It’s not much of a joke is it though, ‘only joking’? In 20 years’ time he might still have that tattoo up his leg - England World Cup Winners 2026 (only joking) - and his grandchildren will ask him why he did that. It is faith, but it is misplaced - dependant on the micro-chances of a football being the right temperature as it curls through the air, the tightness of someone’s laces, the sun being at just the right angle, a noise from the crowd, a misheard instruction, a pre-match electrolyte, a moment of anger or loss of control. There are so many things that could go wrong or right, it makes it something of a lottery.

There are far greater things to have faith in, in my opinion. I just like the idea of being unaccountably bold about what you believe, and who you believe in, and then nailing your colours to the mast. But then I would.

Deep-down, like the man with hope and ink in his veins, when it comes to my own faith, I secretly don’t think there’s any need to add ‘only joking’.

COOLER MORNINGS

It feels cooler. That’s good after the run of baking-hot days, though it’s likely that the afternoons this week will be sweltering, despite the morning breezes.

I had to take the car to the garage yesterday, so found myself walking back through town to catch the bus. Audiobook in, leafy streets, cool, fresh air. It was wonderful. I even found a little coffee van where a Spanish lady told me about her cats.

“I have to keep the windows closed,” she said, “Because I live on the third floor.”

“Cats eh?” I replied, not really knowing what else to say.

“Oh I wouldn’t be without them,” she countered, “They’re my babies.”

Of course, I thought. I am not a cat person, and she didn’t even have to ask. In fact I got the feeling she was irritated because I’d (accidentally) suggested her cats might be a burden. I think we all balance the equation of what we value and what we need, don’t we?

Anyway, it was a really nice morning. Today too, the sky is bright and cloudy, and the breeze swirls in through the window, fluttering my post-it notes. I am relatively happy, I think.

THE GREAT SPARKLING SEA

Oh, you should have seen the sky.

Perfect blue, clear and hopeful, hung with white summer clouds above the horizon.

Luke was driving. The fields either side were golden with sunlit wheat, waving in the breeze, as careless as a hot summer day makes anyone these days. At one point, the single-track road ahead seemed to climb into the sky. Path met cloud, the ridge of the hill on the top of the world. It just felt as though the sea should be there, waiting on the other side.

… oh the great sparkling sea! Tiny white sails on a cool ocean of deep, dark blue. Spray on the Cornish rocks and the sound of gulls above, wheeling and diving in the stillness of the air. Friends’ laughter as we race to the shore, filled with inescapable youth, fathomless hope, and unbreakable friendship.

That had been where I’d met Paul. Cornwall. He and his brothers had turned up that summer, cool and handsome, funny, kind, and above all, full of a kind of unusual, unshakeable faith. As a shy 22-year-old, it was all I could do to spin around them all in some sort of orbit, particularly around Paul, brilliant as the sun.

I would have had no clue about the next 25 years. That would have been too heavy for anyone to carry. But God gives us time, doesn’t he? One story leading to another, to another, and another, with each day leading to the next. Summer to winter to summer to winter. It’s the way of things; we’re not to know what lies over the horizon, only to enjoy watching the view unfold.

Not the sea this time.

This was Essex after all, and not Cornwall! And this was not the beginning; it was the end. Behind us was Saffron Walden, the picture-perfect, chocolate-box town where Paul had lived his last chapter. Ahead, leafy country roads that wound their way to concrete ribbons of motorway that would take us home. But I found my heart aching for the sea.

It had been very honouring of course. The cool, cavernous church was full of people who clearly all loved Paul, some from long ago and some from more recent days. I looked around as the worship band struck up the chords to the first song. Heads I knew threw hands in the air, others were in tears, still more looked sweetly towards the front, under prayer-soaked ornament and bright stained-glass. A cool breeze from the open wooden doors blew down the aisle. The sun, shielded by the vaulted roof and arched columns, burst in through the high windows and danced across the stone.

Moments later we were giving a standing ovation to a man who had impacted every heart and soul in the room. I heard my own hands collapsing in on each other. Well done mate, and thank you. 

Somehow that felt like the moment.

Later, as the boiling sun lit up the motorway and we fell silent in the car, I couldn’t help wonder about the sea and the ‘inescapable youth’, the ‘fathomless hope’, and yes, the ‘unbreakable friendship’. My friend.

When I next see you, Paul, I thought, maybe you can show me just how perfectly blue and clear the sky really is. And maybe over the hill, we’ll see that great sparkling sea together, and perhaps finally, after all this brokenness and pain, this longing and this sorrow, it will at last be summer forever.

HAS FOOTBALL FORGOTTEN WHERE IT LIVES?

When do you think England fans might stop singing ‘it’s coming home’? I mean, maybe if it actually came home? Sometimes it feels like the punishment for the men’s team not winning a major tournament since 1966 is that we have to hear that nonsense trolled out every two years, adding more and more numbers to the line about ‘years of hurt’ as though the accumulative time will make it more likely we’ll do it next time.

I watched some of last night’s World Cup game against DR Congo, then listened to the rest as I drove to pick up my friend Benjamin for a coffee. England scored twice on the motorway. Lucky, if you ask me.

Anyway, football’s been coming home since 1996 when it actually did come home, and England itself hosted the Euros in the country where the sport had been invented. Ever since, the chant has referred to elusive victory rather than a tournament, and I think will continue to do so for a very long time. To be honest, I think football has forgotten where it lives, and, based on this team’s performance, if football is making its way home this year, then it’s by miraculous chance and fantastic coincidence. Like the Mexicans, Brazilians, Argentinians and the French all going down with some inexplicable illness or forgetting how their legs work.

The Mexico game is in the early hours of Monday morning. The England manager, Thomas Tuchel, said today he thought kids should be allowed to stay up for it. Awful idea - especially at the beginning of a heatwave. Besides, it makes no difference at all to the team, does it? I do not believe England will win.

But what do I know? Hope is what keeps the England fans alive isn’t it? That’s what those wheezy trumpet notes are about. That’s what the Three Lions song means, and that’s why it seems so good when Harry Kane scores two goals in the second half to bandage over a dreadful team performance. Hope realised. Put that man in bubble wrap. Just make sure you unwrap him in time for Monday. And then you can tell me about it in the morning.