The Diary

25 December 2003: A Merry Chrimbo To Everyone - Including Alexander Fleming!

Greetings unto all, not to mention a short note just to prove I?m still very much alive and kicking this Christmas Eve night. Many thanks, incidentally, to that nice Mr. Alexander Fleming, without whose timely assistance I?d still be sneezing and coughing to a degree some would find distinctly alarming. The mention of that famous name brings me to yet another pertinent thought: why is it that when an overtired doctor leaves a dish to go all unwashed and mouldy on his laboratory window-sill for weeks, it?s hailed as the medical discovery of the century, but when I do it, or, more pertinently, neglect to do it, all I ever get are disapproving ?tuts? from relatives and visitors, and broad hints about using the dishwasher? As Kevin The Teenager would loudly lament, ?It just isn?t fair!?

It?s all a question of degree, I suppose; one person?s tardiness in washing up is another?s passport to eternal fame in the annals of scientific history. Come to think about it, had some well-meaning but horror-stricken Mrs. Mopp promptly swept up that mould-ridden but highly-significant Petri dish, and chucked it into some sink stuffed full of nice hot soapy water and disinfectant instead, along with some coarsely-phrased but timely advice for Mr. F about elementary hygiene, the course of medical research and pharmacology would have been changed forever! Don?t laugh, because the paths of history have been diverted by equally-improbable but highly significant events in the past. Here?s just one example. Just suppose, during the early part of the 19th century, youthful chemistry researcher William Perkins had junked the tarry mess left in a test-tube instead of chucking yet more chemicals on it, which he subsequently did with great enthusiasm, and bugger what the cleaners thought? No dyes, perfumes, or organic chemistry, for that matter, which is one hell of a tab to pick up for being what most people are, viz: neat and tidy in habit to a sometimes infuriating degree, but instantly-forgettable to posterity on their demise.

Oh, dear, I seem to have been going off at something of a tangent tonight, which will not do at all. Must be the heady pleasure of actually putting finger to keyboard for the first time in around four days, or something. What I did intend to say originally is that I?m now well and truly back in harness ? keeping up with matchday events even via Sky?s comprehensive latest-scores service is no fun at all, believe you me ? and I will be present in both body and spirit for our St. Stephen?s Day tryst with Derby County, thank goodness. And, according to tonight?s E and S, so will our hirsute but talented friend AJ, which comes as something of a relief ? we?ve missed his services. My forecast for the game? For numerous reasons too tedious (contentious, possibly?) to discuss right now, we don?t usually do ?below-par? two games on the bounce, so my forecast is a home win, and The Rams well and truly kicked in the gonads.

No, joy, though, with Mr. Huckerby: thus far, he?s spurned the blandishments of both Norwich and ourselves, and appears to be holding out for what the Premiership transfer ?window? will bring when it opens for business on the first day of the new year. From what I?ve read, as ever, the sticking-point appears to be ?personal terms?; reportedly, our friend is holding our for a salary in excess of 20K per week, and neither Throstles nor Canaries are able or willing to feather his financial nest to that exorbitantly-inflated extent. (I?m not that sure many Prem sides would either, but that?s a separate issue!) This could now proceed one of two ways: either Darren or his representatives realise they?re pitching his personal demands way beyond what the current market will stand ? I suspect some agents still have to wake up and smell the coffee on that score ? or some top-flight outfit in trouble (the Dingles, perhaps?) will manically flash the cash in a last-ditch effort to pull off what?s rapidly becoming a Sisyphean task for them.

If the former applies, then it could be we?ll have another go for the prize after the festive season has come and gone. Remember Great Auntie Glynis?s First Law Of Transfer deals, as expounded via this column on several occasions over the past couple of seasons? A ?no?, in football?parlance, can, in some circumstances, mean ?maybe?? Bear it in mind, because I might be proven right yet again, in which case, I won?t indulge in the sheer immaturity of saying ?told you so!? but will simply revert to the childish but ever so pleasurable retort of shouting ?Yah-boo-sucks!? instead! Mind you, I do harbour severe doubts about taking on any player who indulges in these sort of auctioneering antics in order to engineer a move; if the guy doesn?t want to talk turkey but elects to play ?he loves me, he loves me not? type tactics instead, perhaps we?re better off without his services after all.

And finally?.. Now I?m up and running once more (not to mention talking without either coughing or wheezing!) my next scheduled offering will be on Boxing Night, after the Derby game. Many thanks to all of you who enquired after my health; much appreciated, I assure you, and now I?m free of this bloody bronchitis, my attendance at future games is well-nigh guaranteed.

It only remains to wish everyone reading this a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, and may it bring for each and every one of you everything you?d ever hoped for, including, apropos of our favourite football team, that awful word beginning with the letter ?P?! As far as my readers in the Antipodes are concerned, at the time of writing, their festivities are nearly over, so to them, my parting hope is that the resultant hangover and indigestion isn?t too incapacitating. One final thought: just how do people Down Under adjust to the distinctly incongruous situation of chomping turkey, trimmings and all, in their very own back gardens, with the added bonus of a cooling swift dip in the pool between courses, or as part of a sun-drenched but bibulous picnic on the beach? Does one simply close the old eyes and make a pretence of snow, slush and freezing temperatures all around, or is it just a case of saying, ?Chuck us another tinny from the eskie, blue?? and rather than watching the Queen?s Speech on the box, observing multicoloured parakeets fluttering noisily between all those gum and acacia trees instead? Before I get totally consumed by jealousy, somebody from those parts please convince me there?s a hidden downside to such festive delights!

 - Glynis Wright

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