My Portugal Diary: Day 2

英国病人 @ 2004-07-26 15:58

Day 2 Wednesday 16 June, 2004

Woke up around 5:00 local time, and it was already bright sunshine outside. Had suspected it would get too hot for me to fall asleep last night, but it turned to be very pleasant.

Started working on my .xls files after a simple breakfast, same pattern as my holidays in London last autumn—well, maybe slightly better: I had a couple of teleconfs with the office last time.

Done the work around 10:00, called the office in Southwood, then started out to prepare for the Portugal trip, i.e. buying an England jersey. Oxford St. is as busy as any time, and it’s just a Wednesday morning! Unbelievable. Seems quite a few sports gears have cut the price. Struggling a bit with buying the red or the white—too many choices make life hard in a perverse way, same problem with democracy maybe (the communists should borrow this argument). Decided to go the white top, as my Liverpool kit is red enough already.

Having visited my bank, I’m now sitting in a Caffe Nero in Holborn, the part of London I’m most familiar with. Looking out of the window, a lot of cars in the street are flying the St. George’s flag. “Football is coming home”. Hope by the time I’m back here next week, St. George’s are still flying.

Buried a panini, am now sipping an espresso writing my journal. What a familiar scene: the winter of 2001 I was sipping an espresso in the Quartier Latin, writing postcard to my friend, telling her that I could only taste bitterness. By then I was even once crying over a passage in “The Razor’s Edge”, now I can read Russell’s “Autobiography” in complete peacefulness. 有个成语叫“白驹过隙”吧。

Coffee is gone now, time to head back to the hotel and need to go to the office in a while. Hate the invasion of work on holidays but seems I can never avoid it. Just dreamed one day I could have holidays as long as I like wherever I love, and don’t have to work at all. Oh, just a second, how do I pay for the holidays?

Later Tonight:

Back from watching the Russia vs. Portugal match with Roger in a pub near Westminster. Ran into a couple of Roger’s old colleagues from the Home Office, who he confided me are more often drunk than sober. No wonder the Home Office isn’t best known for its efficiency. The Russians were done tremendous injustice by having the ‘keeper sent off for a non-existent hand-ball out of the area. The pundits at Sky Sports branded this as “a shocking decision”. 2:0 to Portugal.

A separate football story but more important, to me at least: a press conference was called early today at Anfield to unveil Rafael Benitez. He may not have come from the boot room, but I do hope he can start another Shankly Era.