RHYTHMS OF THE WORLD 2011 (SATURDAY)

Well, we managed it…

Car packed and ready to go by 9.30am… Are we mad or what ?

Drive to Hitchin and park up on site, book in, and lug the cd player unit over to Ben’s new homemade soundbooth which is all tented up.

The stage is already in position and the stageblocks are down and secure so we’ll go for a wander around the site to give Haddy a bit of the flavour and also to get her into a picture taking mood, but I needn’t really have worried about that as the camera is out and working as soon as we start moving.

This is Haddy’s first year of being on the crew and so she’ll be snapping away, selling cd’s, t-shirts, commemorative mugs and all the paraphanalia that the artists gracing the stage bring with them, and also showing the artists where to get changed, where the coffee and tea machines and the toilets are, and all the other little jobs that need doing on the day.

Sarah, when she gets here, will be doing exactly the same job, so that we’ve always got one covering when not taking photographs.

Hopefully it’ll work like a dream.  It should do ?

Neil’s in, so’s Dave… Smile please, and now one with Haddy for the album ?

Dave, Neil & Haddy

Thanks very much.

Right… We’re back…

I’ll get the teas in while we wait.

In quick succession we get ANOTHER helper for Ben that nobody had told me about

but he’s very welcome, and Frank turns up with his bag of food and drinks followed by
Marcus and his film stuff and Sarah and their two children, Charlotte and Jonathan.

Jonathan, Charlotte, Marcus & Assistant

The film equipment is immediately unloaded and the setting up begins…

Marcus uses a two camera set-up for filming, one roving and one static stage centre and all the artists who have availed themselves of his services seem to be very pleased with the results.

Now the two ladies are doing the still photography it’s taken a weight off me as now I just get to stage-manage and compere with Joy, and by the looks of things…

Ben & Assistant

Here come Ben and his assistant now…      

Which is just as well because Ross has turned up to check out the sound settings.

Me & Ross

Ross is in charge of the sound, full stop.

He’s the guy who has to explain to the local council’s environmental health department why things are better doing it our way and not theirs.

If they knew jack shit  about sound then it wouldn’t pose that much of a problem, but to put it mildly, they know absolutely fuck all.

This, of course, poses major problems as we have to apply for our licenses to hold the event through the council and the major sticking point is the sound because of the (approximately) nineteen objectors to the festival who do their level best to have it cancelled every year.

Thankfully, Ross knows his stuff and has no need to baffle them with bullshit because he can quote chapter and verse at council meetings.

He seems quite impressed with Ben’s ideas and logic so we have a green light.

Nice one !

All that’s left is my co-compere and fellow poet Joy, but she’s got the farthest to travel to get here.

Half an hour until stage time and we’re sorted.

Frank, Me & Joy T.

Joy has arrived, the first band has been soundchecked, and we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.

Right…  It’s midday and we’re off and running…

Floor 9 start the proceedings and it’s looking good.

The thing about Ade’s crew is that they bring people along and people seeing them the first time seem to like them.

Ade', Sean & Mark (Floor 9)

It’s always difficult to get a reasonable reaction if you are the first act on as people are still deciding on their preferred place while others are treading on them to try and get past them to somewhere else on the field.

The music fans who know the local artists will be staking out their territories in front of the stage of their choice, and Ade’, bless him, has got a few of his fans camped in front of our stage along with a few of our regular punters who have followed what we do since the old ‘Arcade’ days, so the area is beginning to fill up quite nicely.

Nice set guys, not bad at all…

Sarah’s up next as a poet in her own write (sorry, couldn’t resist that) She’s a bit nervous about the thirty minute slot that I’ve given her, but I have total confidence in her material.

Sarah Power, poet & photographer

Her persona helps because she’s a feisty little ‘erbert when she wants to be and she blows a good one.

With seconds ticking to the end of the thirty minutes which she’s filled without a single problem she finishes on her shortest poem, aimed directly at her other half who is filming her at this point in the proceedings, and manages a nice ovation at the end…

Not bad for a three or four line poem.

It helps that it’s funny and that most women and men of a certain age in the audience can also directly identify with it.

Another good set.

That’s two in a row.

The Gods must be smiling.

While Sarah’s been on, I’ve been chatting up what I believe to be one of our ‘special’ acts.

All female and all dressed in red, these girls have the potential to blow a few minds.

The Jolenes pracising

Ladeeez an gennel’men… I give you… THE JOLENES…

A four piece all female bluegrass band, and the only all female bluegrass band in the U.K. if we’re being totally factual ?

We were talking about bluegrass players before they went on and I just said I’d loved that style of music for years, and was asked who I particularly liked ?

‘Old and In The Way, because they all obviously loved it, but they mixed it up into a weird jazz sounding stew sometimes, when the mood took them…’

‘Oh… Vassar… My hero…’

Well that was it.

Old and In The Way, fiddle player Vassar Clements, the whole bluegrass hierarchy from Bill Monroe through to Steve Earle’s valiant try…

And I knew they were there on that stage for the right reasons.

The Jolenes

 And they ROCKED…

That ‘High Lonesome Sound’ as someone a lot better qualified than me once put it, is encapsulated in these four young ladies’ picking and singing.

Absolutely wonderful, and over much too soon.

I’ll take them again next year if Steve doesn’t pick up on them ?

Great set, and they managed to get a few up to dance…

That’s three !

Smige (pronounced Smidge by the way) is on next.

I like Smige and I’ll pay to go and see him.

Smige

      

He’s a young singer/songwriter with a guitar who writes these wry and ironic serious songs which hit you harder than you realise at the time until you actually find yourself singing a chorus or two.

Then you try and suppress that inward smile because he’s just caught YOU perfectly.

I dunno what his own generation thinks, but he’s carving out his own little niche and I’m glad he seems popular around the area because he has a talent for it.

He’s brought along a few of his Uni’ fan club too, which always helps because it gives him something to focus on while he’s singing, and again he plays a good set.

Definitely up there with those in the memory bank to book again at some time ?

Four !

The Gods are definitely smiling…

Silent Smiles are a young modern rock band.

I suppose you could call them an ‘Indie’ rock band except for the fact that they are ten times better than the vast majority in that overrated genre.

They’ve recently had to change their drummer but the new one seems to be fitting in quite well, and they are another local band that I’ll pay money to see.

Silent Smiles

There is something different about their rhythms and chord changes that make the songs sound more interesting, and for whatever reason, it works.

They seem to know what a melody is, and they utilize them amongst the riffing which is always a good thing and they also manage to put a lot of energy into their sets without losing sight of the fact that they are actually there for the audience as well, and I’m all for that.

I wish some of the other local acts would do the same, but unfortunately most have a tendancy to go ‘fretwanking’ and that bores the arse off me.

These kids don’t so all power to ‘em.

Nice set guys…

Five !

It’s getting interesting.

We’ll quickly scrub over the next act because it was me…

The second poetry set of the day was a fifty/fifty affair in that fifty percent of it seemed to work and fifty percent didn’t.

I know one thing, the opening poem was still too damned long and I’d already trimmed it quite drastically.

Well, that’s my assessment of my performance anyway.

Me & Joy T. Chance

I got Joy up to do the 'Greek Chorus' on 'The State (Of The Nation)'  and at least that worked.
Haddy helped out with the Wolof on 'Ebou's Song' and that worked too

Me & Haddy Jatta

Audience wise, I seemed to do alright but there was still something missing for me ?

Oh well, win some, lose some, but learn from your mistakes.


Kev Hayley follows me.

One man with a wry and quizzical way of looking at the world and how it affects

him ?    

Kev Hayley

                                  
                              





Once upon a time he used to be known as Kevin Two Sheds but now he isn’t.

We’d been after Kev to play for at least the last three years but last year apparently he turned up as a punter and he liked what he saw, so this year he’s come on board.

It seems like everything is going fine but it also seems a bit
mellow ?

This is no reflection on Kev, but more a reflection on me.

We seem to be lacking a little bit of ‘oooomph’ ?

Kev finishes to applause, which is nice, so he can also be counted as a success

And now we’ve got the last poet of the day…

Please don’t be bland.

Jon Falconer is our last poet of the day.

Jon can get quite angry at some of the things that go on in this world, whether locally or globally and he’ll confront them directly in the things he writes.

Jon Falconer

It’s not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, but then neither am I, and so what ?

In Jon there is a kindred spirit lurking and I’m glad that he’s become a colleague, glad that he’s become a mate, because if I’m being totally honest, I think his poetry is great.

At one point Joy T. and myself get the call to provide response vocals so we’re up to join him in a flash.

Joy T. Chance, Jon Falconer & Me

Call and response or Greek Chorus or whatever you want to call them, seem to work well with a reasonable audience.

Joy and I both do it in our own work.

Anything to mix things up a bit and keep the audience guessing and interested is fair game in this lark, so we complete our guest spot and now he’s really fired up and going for the jugular…

Nice one.

So now we come to the star of The Arcadeclectic Stage on the Saturday…

Skip McDonald.

Skip McDonald

Skip is the guy behind the band ‘Little Axe’.

He plays the blues with a bit of dub on loops that he controls with pedals, and he’s world class.

When Steve intimated to me that he was thinking of booking him I just said ‘Get him… Do whatever you have to do and sleep with whatever they offer you but get him… He’s the sort of artist that Rhythms needs but very seldom gets’ !

Skip’s sort of ‘on the fringes’, but making his own way.

I’d already got a couple of his albums and I was quite impressed, so you can imagine my amazement when we got offered him for the Arcadeclectic ?

He would have made a great finishing headliner except that ‘Scum’ had come back to me with an affirmative and there was no way that anybody was going to top that lot in Hitchin or Stevenage.

It’s their turf and always has been, so ‘Scum’ would close but Skip would be our featured headliner.

And he was brilliant…

He’d already done a first set on St Mary’s for Mike, but now he was here and he was lapping it up.

He finished and I’d got him back on for the encore that he deserved and he started into it and then suddenly stopped playing…

Oh shit !

‘Where’s the man… Where’s Chris’ ?

‘I’m here, man…’   From down in the pit stage left...

‘Listen man… I’ve got this band… It’s only a small band, three pieces… But this festival, man… It’s what all festivals should be… Now if you’d have us, I’d like to bring the band here maybe next year… But I wanna play THIS STAGE…’

FUCK !!!!!

I mean I don’t know what that means to other people, but when you have an artist of Skip’s stature, a world class artist, give you a thumbs-up affirmative endorsement like that, I can tell you that it makes you smile and choke both inside and out.

Skip McDonald

It’s not better than good sex with someone you love, but it’s up there… Know what I mean ?

The roar from the crowd in front of the stage when he said it was something else…

Ok, sometimes you just get it right in spite of everything that is occurring around you.

All the hassles, all the meetings, all the snide remarks, all the aggro’, all the wasted phone calls, the hours spent e-mailing… 

None of that shit matters.

And one guy with a guitar just smacks you with that ?

Christ !!! 

A real justification.

Oh yes… We’re going to remember that...

And finally, when the euphoria had died down a bit and the congratulatory handshakes and ‘respect’s’ had been silenced, we managed to get the last band onto the stage for the night…

Scum Of Toytown… ‘The Scumbags…’ or just ‘Scum’ if you were discussing going to their gig…

A name that fitted their image like a model’s glove fits a catwalk pounder.

Leona, Jon & Toad of Scum of Toytown

A name they played up to at nearly every opportunity given them.

A name that conjures up all manner of negative aspects of everything going on in the plastic fantastic newtown in which we all had put down roots.

Yes, we truly are the scum of toytown, and that is how a lot of us had been treated by the powers that be, over the last thirty odd years.

Craig of Scum of Toytown

A joke name which fitted perfectly the attitude of self-deprecating cynicism that we’d all developed just to deal with the realities that we’d all faced.

But these guys and girl had taken it one step further.

They had capitalised on the whole thing and they were OUR band who told it like it was.

Toad & Nick of Scum of Toytown

                                                                          



One album, ‘Strike’ released on Words Of Warning Records and a few home made singles was all they had to show for the hours they had put in, but if you had ever caught them in their prime then you would have the memories, and a lot of us had...

Ska gigs, punk gigs, rock gigs and even some memorable acoustic gigs, this band had done them all and a lot of us had been there.

Now, older, but possibly not wiser, they were back, practising together again with a thought to maybe actually getting that second album out ?

Whatever happened on that stage was either going to be an encore or a coda or a re-birth or maybe all of those things at once, but what did it matter ?

People were saying that I’d pulled off the impossible, but believe me, if ANY of those five musicians had not wanted to do it, then nothing would have occurred.

That’s the way they worked, and that was always the way they had worked, but here they were…

Ready, willing and able after thirteen years away, to put themselves through it one more time.

And they were brilliant !!!

Scum of Toytown

The harmonies were as close and as soaring as anybody gets on stage, the bass and drums pounded, the guitars chopped and changed and everything was as it should have been.

Sometimes when you ‘promote’ something that exceeds all expectations you get one of those inward glow sort of feelings, and I’d got one… 

The crowd sang and the crowd ‘moshed’ and the crowd cried for more and it seemed like they’d never been away.

One word ?

Majestic.

That’ll do.

They came, they saw, and they conquered whatever feelings of doubt any of them were harbouring, and let’s face it, there had to be some ?

Absolutely bloody majestic…

Nice one.

Oh all right then…

Brilliant one.
The Gods had definitely been smiling.

AFTERBURN…

Whilst it’s true I’ve concentrated on the artists who played the Saturday, it’s not always been plain sailing.

Security.

Good word isn’t it ?

Shame that some people who should have known better do not know what the fucking word actually 

means ?

At the last stage managers meeting somebody asked the question ‘would everybody on site actually have an armband' ? and the answer given was yes.

If people were seen without armbands then please call security because they should NOT be on site.

So… Being down by the river we have to watch stage left as you look at it, like hawks.

Better still to cordon it off with official barriers and make it a ‘secure area’ where bands can leave their gear.

So when a large shaven-headed tattooed fuckwit without an armband and with slapper in orange

t-shirt in tow ‘crashes’ the barrier and just walks gaily off down towards the main gate security are asked to apprehend…

It turns out that aforesaid large shaven-headed tattooed fuckwit is second in charge of security and that some of the Rhythms team knew about the ‘no armband’ situation ?????

Hello…

Guys…

As stage managers we are ultimately responsible for what occurs on and around our stages.

We can over-rule any and all if we think security or safety is compromised, so to have a twat who doesn’t know a secure area from his arsehole as part of a security team does seem to be slightly idiotic given the circumstances ?

As for being told the lie when others knew the truth ?

Don’t worry, I’ll ask the damn question myself next year, and I'll expect names, photo's and official functions written down in the stage folders.
I know we're all volunteers, but some people could at least act professionally ?

The Sixth Gambian Experience (Brought On by A Simple Twist Of Fete)

You know what ?
I’ve spent nearly four months looking for my house deeds and when I went through all my papers for the fourth time I actually found a letter from the solicitors who originally did the conveyancing asking me did I want them left in their safe storage facility ?
See, that’s the problem when you have or had your own business.
You can close it down but you’ve got to keep the records for at least ten years after the event, and when you deal with invoices then you end up with thousands of them along with letters and all the rest so there’s a good twenty carrier bags full of crap to go through, but…
One ‘phone call later and I finally know where they are.
Thank Christ for that.
Now we can move along.
















There’s a Parnassus Performance event for Digswell Arts Trust at The Farmhouse in Fairlands Valley Park before anything else, and we’re all going along to support it.
Jo Taylor from Lika Sharps (a band) is one of the artists in residence and had asked if any of us wanted to support their open day and so I’d punted the idea around the group of us and came up trumps.
We’re nearly all of us up for it.
Joy’s coming up from North London, Sarah’s putting together a poetry workshop for the youngsters and we’re working with another of their artists in residence, Jon Falconer so it’s going to be poetry all Saturday afternoon (whether people like it or not ?).
The following Tuesday I’m off to The Gambia to deliver the documents that Haddy needs to get here and I’ve covered everything.
There’s certified copies of everything I need here like my driving licence, which they haven’t actually asked for, but I’m leaving nothing to chance otherwise they’ll query it and it’ll go on for ever.
Everything else is as original as they want it.
Bank statements, pay slips, e-mail addresses of bosses at the council…
They’re going to end up knowing more about me than I do, but at least that’s better than having them refuse the application because there’s something missing…
Like when they charged me twice for Haddy’s visa last year knowing that it takes over twenty eight days for post to get there…
Who takes bank statements on holiday after all ?
You ?
Me ?
No.
None of us do that so we got charged twice because they could get away with it.
The fact that we were refused on the grounds that I wasn’t who I said I was is unbelievable…
Well, it would be if they’d actually carried out any checks on me, but they didn’t.
What an easy way to con money out of people ?
Don’t do a check and just send them a standard letter refusing them…
Thankfully we’ve got a new government.
Hopefully it’s going to be less corrupt than the last one but I’m not holding my
breath ?
But I’m off again in three days and I can’t wait to see her and the kids again.
I’ve really missed them.

But we’ll do the gig first, shall we ?
Get there at half past nine with the p.a. and set it up in the garden for eleven o’clock when proceedings are supposed to start.
Everything seemed to go ok on the day so I won’t go on about it, I’ll let somebody else do that for a change.
We’d got our ‘orders’ not to upset people, as there were likely to be councillors present, and all the artists wanted to stay in residence there, so we were a nice genteel Parnassus and suitable for children of all ages.
If you want to know what occurred then please click this link to Grant’s Page and you can look at more photo’s too…

http://www.grantsmusings.blogspot.com

It was a most enjoyable day on the whole, and probably benefited from us not going all out.
It was only my fourth gig all year, and I’m only compereing the stage at Rhythms of the World this year, but that means one less thing to worry about.
It would be nice if Haddy’s visa arrived in time for ‘Rhythms’ as it’s only six weeks away.
That should be long enough, though… Even for The British High Commission ?


It’s the usual early morning flight but on Viking instead of Monarch this time so we’re off an hour later than usual.
Blimey !
Haddy’s daughter Fatou is on the same ‘plane.
I hadn’t seen her at the airport and while I knew she was travelling the same day, I was expecting her to fly from Glasgow where her husband, Vincent, is based.
Oh yeah… That got forgotten about in all the excitement.
Fatou had got married about two months before Haddy and I did.
She and Vincent had met in the U.K. and had got married.
Vincent is Ghanaian and works in Scotland.
I’ve not met him yet, but he’s a nice guy on the telephone.
But no, she’d come down a day earlier and stayed over in London so we’re sharing a ‘plane, her at the front and me at the back which means that once the trolleys are going back and forth we’ve no chance of a real chat…
Anyway, I digress.
That probably has something to do with British Summer Time, but the cruddy 20kg limit at Gatwick is still the same and the searches are still going on and on…
The aircraft is different, too.
There’s even less room than usual but I’ve got my aisle seat so I can at least stretch my legs when there isn’t a trolley stuck in front of them.
For the first time ever I was able to write ‘family’ on the Gambian arrivals card, which raised an eyebrow or two when we’d got to immigration at Banjul, but hey, it’s true so what the hell ?
The lass processing my passport had a giggle anyway, after asking me when I’d got married ?
November 26th… I remember it well.
But I’m through, and there she is and there’s ‘Tufa, and bloody hell ! He’s got his own taxi…
Now that’s new.
Nobody told me about that.
I’ll tell you what, though ?
It feels good to be back.
All I need now is a quick trip to the supermarket to buy some tobacco for Ebrima and Lamin.
Prices are going up everywhere… Especially in duty free shops.


It’s share out time on the clothing that I’ve brought over, hoping that it’s all going to fit ?
Little Mariama isn’t so little anymore.
She’s grown like a weed in the time I’ve been away and is probably a good three or four inches taller which means those three quarter length white jeans that I was a bit worried about fit her like a glove, as do all the jeans I bought for Sainabou and the twins…
T-shirts and tops are no problem, but jeans are guesswork every time I come over.
I mean I know their sizes but it depends on the cut and these Chinese made things are different every time…
If I could afford it, I’d stick to Levi’s and Lee Cooper’s.
At least they’re consistent and they don’t start falling apart after five washes.

I’ve managed to forget to bring all the photo’s we were going to give out after the wedding. They are all still at home where I left them in the bedroom.
I did manage to remember the computer stick with all the fire station and lifeboat pictures that my brother wanted to give to Ngagne at Bakau fire station, but that’s all. The shots of the mosque at Bakau, Pat’s footballing shots, they are all back in the U.K. where I left them so I’ll have to give them out next trip or maybe give them to someone I know who’s going out there.
Actually I’ll probably end up doing it all myself.
Pillock !
I spent so much time checking and re-checking the official visa documentation that I forgot the personal…


Here’s a list of what they want from me, if you’re interested ?
Certified copy of passport
Certified copies of all pages of passport appertaining to trips to the country.
Certified copy of all mortgage agreements or rental arrangements or housing deeds.
Certified copy or original end of year P.60.
Original copy of marriage certificate.
Wedding photographs.
Original copies of any previous divorce certificates
Original copies of the last six months worth of all bank statements
Original payslips.
Original copies of all utility bills for previous six months (Gas, electric, water etc)
Children’s birth certificates if school or Uni’ age.
Copies of any photographs that support any and all of this.
E-mail address, telephone number and postal address of employer or manager of department worked in.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten a couple of things, but I added a certified copy of my driving licence plus a copy of the American newspaper that covered the wedding.
Of course they want exactly the same plus more besides from Haddy…
But the thing is… It’s all there exactly as they’ve asked for it.
Oh yes… Nearly forgot… They want six hundred and forty four pounds for processing the application, and it will help if you’ve got five thousand quid sitting in one of your bank accounts, but they don’t tell you that bit.
That’s there because we don’t want any more freeloading paupers turning up on our shores, do we ?
Like the majority of Eastern Europeans, Afghan’s, Iraquis, and Asians that we’re all now having to pay for…
Typically, the bloody price had gone up the week prior to me flying out.
Trust me to miss it by a week ?
Bummer !
But hey… That’s our wonderful new Tory/ Lib Dem coalition policy for you.
Yeah, I know… I’m being sarcastic.
But the question is, could it ever be worse than the previous Labour government’s non-policy on immigration ?
Or worse still, could it be as racist a policy as the last Labour government’s ?
You don’t know what I’m on about, do you ?
Well it’s a funny thing…
If you go back a few years to when the bar was put in place to stop Africans getting visas to the U.K...
Guess which European directive it coincided with ?
Now guess which political party started getting very popular in the U.K. at exactly the same time ?
Conjecture ?
Maybe ?
Or maybe not, but we’ll come to that in time, and believe me, there’s a lot more to it if you follow the timeline backwards into the Labour years…


It’s the beginning of the Gambian rainy season.
They’ve only had two storms so far, so we’re not too far into it.
I’d done a July trip out and that was definitely WET.
Hopefully the last ten days of June would be better because we were going out to the beach bar for a few days ?
We weren’t staying, more like a few days relaxing in the sun and on the beach for me, while Haddy and Fatou go through what’s happened since Haddy’s been running it while Fatou was in Scotland.
Apparently my darling wife had brought in extra business with another firm running tourists out there for a day on the beach, so that’s a plus.
So I’m going to lay in a hammock or swim in the sea and then lay in a hammock and I might even have an occasional beer while the girls talk business…
Who knows ?
Apparently there’s a heatwave in England ?
If that doesn’t show that my Gods have a sense of humour, then what does ?
The World Cup, perhaps ?
Bloody hell !


So there I was, out in Africa with the World Cup starting, six African nations represented in the group stage, South Africa as host nation and a whole continent of football crazy nutters let alone the Gambian ones, to watch the games with…
I’ll tell you what…
Passions were definitely running a bit high.
So let’s talk a bit about the World Cup, shall we ?
Sorry darling, it’s about football for a bit… Pop out and make us a cuppa’, there’s a good girl…
Go on, I dare you…
Challenge the reader…
That’s what you have to do to get them to think.
I think it’s probably safer not to go down the tea route, though ?
So the next bit is about football and you can take it or leave it as you will ?


Well…
I’m not really sure where to start ?
It’s probably fair to say that the whole of The Gambia was supporting all the African teams as choice one.
England, Spain, Holland Italy or Brazil as choice two, depending on who your favourite players were ?
So we’ll start with the first game, which obviously featured South Africa.
You know what ?
When that first goal went in I was as stunned as anyone…
What a goal to score for your own nation in front of the World’s camera’s ?
I can’t even remember the guy’s name, but he can be proud of that one for the rest of his life.
Brilliantly taken strike and absolutely World class.
One of the goals of the decade if not the century ?
Beautiful.
Then there was England vs U.S.A.
Not good.
We were quite honestly… CRAP.
My brother had already said from across the water that the Americans had the confidence to beat us…
He wasn’t too far out, was he ?
We played at a fraction of the talent (if you could call it that ?) on show.
Appalling !
Crap !
Shite !
What else do you want me to say ?
Disappointed ?
The Gambian public were, and that’s a fact.
They expected a lot better from our team.
Nobody could understand that ?
And then we played Algeria…
You know what impressed me ?
The Algerian team.
They came on with a little bit of trepidation against our stars and suddenly realised that we were all hype and no substance…
They matched us pass for pass and kick for kick and they got away with a nil-nil draw.
That was impressive because Algeria is not really thought of in the West as a major footballing nation, but out in Africa they know better.
They’re a bloody hard team to beat and we took them lightly…
Dumb… Dumb… Dumb…
So now it’s all to play for, and here we go into our third game which I didn’t see because we were watching one of the African teams instead.
Apparently we won but it wasn’t too impressive.
This means we haven’t won the group stage and means we meet West Germany in the knock-out stages…
Oh what fun that’s going to be…
Oh God !
What can I say that hasn’t already been said ?
In a masterclass of football they took us to pieces.
Yes, we were unlucky with the disallowed goal but then football is a game of ‘what if’s’ ?
What if he hadn’t missed a penalty, missed a sitter, been tripped, been sent off,
scored ?
There’s too many imponderables down that road so we’ll have none of that.
How about ‘What if they were a better team than us ?’
It’s probably a little more honest ?



This is what they said in the 28/29th June edition of Foroyaa

The following morning after every ‘Salaam Aleikum… Good morning how are you ?’ came ‘What happened in the football ?’
I’m not kidding you, it was embarrassing…
What could I say ?
4-1 ?
We were put to the sword by a couple of old timers and, compared to us, a bunch of kids.
It was a great game to watch… But…
Don’t worry, I hadn’t forgotten them…
Vincent would probably have a few choice names to call me if I did ?
Cameroon hadn’t even been worthy of their reputation.
South Africa hadn’t made it.
Nigeria seemed to give up after Cameroon did.
The Ivory Coast and Algeria had battled and tried but had got nowhere…
And then there was Ghana…
And the night they went through to the knock-out stages was amazing.



Every seat in the house was full.













You have to realise that being the only African club left in the competition with a chance of qualifying for the knock-out stage brought immense, and I really do mean immense, pressure on those poor eleven blokes on that pitch.
How they did it, I’m still really not sure, but win they did and the whole house erupted…




That’s not strictly true, the whole compound erupted…
Ok, the whole village erupted…
Well make it the whole of Africa erupted then, because that is closer to the whole truth.
Within a minute of the game finishing at ten pm Gambian time the drums had started in the compounds and within a couple more minutes the streets were full of partying villagers.
What a night !
We had to drag Mariama off the street with her drum at about half past one in the morning because she had school in about six hours…
It was definitely a party.
A whole of Fagikunda, Serrakunda, Gambian, Sennagambian, African party and it’s probably fair to say that the whole footballing world joined in, somewhere,
anywhere ?
Joyous does not even come close to describing the atmosphere.
I’ve no idea how much Vincent and Fatou spent on phone calls but it was probably a lot ?
It was a lot more than joyous, and what is more, it meant more than that and it went a lot deeper, too.
I actually felt total pride in what they had done.
It was a totally emotional moment and don’t forget, I’m an English and England patriot.
There’s nothing wrong with England…
Just some of the people in it.
And being out there for that particular match brought it home that you can take a lot of pride in a game well played, even when it’s not your team playing in it.
It brought a smile back to my face after watching England, anyway.
It was a special moment.
Now think of how those poor eleven players felt after the game ?
Think of what they must have felt ?
I couldn’t do what they must have been feeling, justice.
Heroes, each and every one of them.
It really was a special moment.
As for the next game, well they faced Uruguay with Diego Forlan in player of the tournament form.
Uruguay had impressed.
Seriously impressed, and Forlan had been what can only be described as magnificent…
Sadly, Ghana managed to make the penalty shoot out, but just when they needed confidence it seemed to desert them and they lost on penalties.
Ah well, the dream may be over for four years but they know what it’s about at that level now, and believe me they have nothing to fear from any other international side on the planet.
Africa put on a great world cup.
I hope it really did and does do something for some of those African sides ?
They should all know now that they have the abilities to play at this level and the only thing lacking is confidence.
Don’t believe the hype, believe in yourselves and you’ll go further.
At some time in the future it will happen and there will be an African winner, I have no doubt of that.
Hopefully, I’ll be out there when it happens because I can’t think of a better place to be, and that’s a fact ?
Ok, footballing bit’s over…
You can let the missus read it again, now.
(Hope you enjoyed your cup of tea ?)



Little Omar is now a mischievous toddler and wants to be involved with everything.



He gets under your feet more than the late and sadly lamented Pussy ever did.
Poor old Pussy had been killed in the early morning by a taxi in the street outside about a month before I flew.
To put it mildly the whole family was devastated.
She’s now resting peacefully at the back of the compound under the banana tree.
It’s Pussy’s place, and I’m ok with that.
There’s a ring of flowers around her grave and I’m not sure if the family will be getting another cat ?
The strange thing is that her ‘boyfriend’, a ragged and quite wild Tomcat visits the site in the evening and just sits on the window ledge above her, and not just sheltering from the rain either.
It’s like he comes, pays his respects, and then leaves to do what tomcats do.
Cats are strange creatures sometimes.
I should know, I’ve had three of them.
My last one, Stella, had passed away about eight weeks after Cozmic had to be put down.
It’s probably fair to say that she died of a broken heart.
They used to argue and fight all the time but when Cozmic went, Stella was bereft and there was no way of pulling her back.
God knows I tried, friends tried, but it was all in vain.
She’s now buried under the apple espalier in the back garden.
Animals get to you, and there’s no doubt that Pussy was part and parcel of the family.
She could be a vicious little sod at times, but after she’d got to know you, she was fine…
Especially if she knew there was cat food about.
I miss her, and I know the family does.

We have decided to give Mariama swimming lessons in the pool at Ocean Bay.
The problem is the weather.
Everytime we make plans, it clouds over.
It’s still very hot, though.
Definitely in the nineties and that’s quite warm for me, but finally we get a day when she’s not at school, the sun is shining, and we can go first thing.
It had taken us ages to find her some blow up armbands because it was the end of the proper holiday season and the shops hadn’t re-stocked but we’d finally got a couple of pairs.
Talk about taking to it like a duck takes to water…
Once she was in the pool we couldn’t get her out.



She’d been in for about an hour when she decided to doggy paddle and/or swim
from the shallow end to the deep end which scared the living daylights out of Haddy, but she had the confidence to do it with her armbands, and the last hour was spent trying without them but she’s not there, yet.
Another couple of lessons to get her breathing right and she’ll be fine.
That was definitely six hours well spent.