Tag: sandiego

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD SPOILT FOR CHOICE

Writing before the date with Denmark in the Euro quarter finals is a reminder that it’s now 55 ‘years of hurt’ since the World Cup victory but that hope springs eternal. After all, Marcellus tells us in Hamlet that, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.  Unfortunately, I am pretty certain it is not their defence because that guy Vestergaard looks a lot more solid than the ‘Little Mermaid’ and a lot less fun than Tivoli Gardens.

The misery of uncertainty will remain very much alive as I head to one of the English pubs in Little Italy, San Diego later today.  I guess that it will be for the England manager and his boys “to be or not to be” but they do have the power of Atomic Kitten singing, “Southgate you’re the one, you still turn me on, football’s coming home again.”  Mashing up Three Lions with Whole Again is fine but reminds me with sadness that in 1970 bringing the world cup Back Home was ruined by Gordon Banks being ‘indaloo (apologies for terrible pun and dad joke).

Whatever happens there is still the joy of Argentina v Brazil in the Copa America to look forward to on Saturday and the ongoing NBA playoff series between the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks will continue until at least next Wednesday.  And then there is the CONCACAF Gold Cup with the chance that we will see the USA men’s team blossom or the possibility of Mexico sending this corner of California into raptures. Being an Englishman abroad means realizing that there is a big world away from England.

There is so much to love about the prospect of Messi and Neymar meeting on the field in a competition that has been characterized by the most robust tackling I have seen since the 1970s heyday of Leeds versus Chelsea.  Columbia has become famous and notorious as home to coffee, cartels and cocaine but it seems that the football team consider being C in the alphabet as a slight that must be rectified against the A and B of Argentina and Brazil.  So much so that blood was oozing from the sock on Messi’s left ankle last night as he took the first of the penalties that took his team through to the final in the semi-final last night.

I’ve never seen a bullfight and have no desire to watch an animal taunted and slaughtered so it is paradoxical that Bulls of Parral by Marguerite Steen is one of the books I read over and over again.  Maybe it is the human condition to be drawn into fictional situations that are too gross or terrifying to ever wish to experience and I cannot imagine any other reason for people to watch horror films.  Life may not be as “nasty, brutish and short” as Hobbes suggested it can be but imagining the worst things is probably a way of realizing how lucky we are.   

The story itself is set in Spain in the 1950s and charts the lives and rivalry of the moneyed bullfighter Paco and a waif on the Parral farm called Ildefonso.  Their courses cross with Paco being feted and showy but never loved by the crowd while Ildefonso is adored as the heir to the natural talents of the greatest matadors.  It is a story which plays out the genius amateur against the tutored strategist and leaves us in little doubt where our sympathies should lie.

The European media tend to idolize Messi as Ildefonso while Ronaldo is positioned as Paco.  But watching the mesmeric genius of Neymar has been a revelation to me having only previously seen him as a brattish, patchy player for Paris St Germain.  My admiration for Ronaldo as a player and leader is high but his game comes with the shock and awe of a broadsword while the other two devastate with the deftness of the epee and stiletto.    

Watching a game where Messi is playing to cement his reputation with a first* winners medal for his country while Neymar is defending the honour of the greatest football nation in its spiritual home of the Maracana.  Both are an equal target for the hatchet men of the opposition but in this tournament they have got up, smirked and set about taunting the aggressors anew.  It recalls Steen’s vivid description of how matadors are bloodied, torn and scarred by drawing the bull ever closer but continue until it can resist no more. 

The stage is set, the sides are well-matched and it should be a wonderful exhibition made even better by the referees willingness to see the footballing equivalent of a mano a mano cagefight.  It is made even better by the fact that I really don’t mind who wins and will not have the disappointment of having seen England knocked out of the competition at an earlier stage.  Sport without responsibility is one of the few reasons that I can enjoy watching golf for its enormous skill, wonderful settings and leisurely pace.         

All that leaves me a little on the fence for the basketball playoffs because I have got something of a passion for the Suns after their mighty effort to see off the LA Lakers.  In a game where the ebb and flow can mean leads change hands quickly and games can become total blowouts and meaningless with a long time still to play it has taken time to love it.  That may be because at Stewards Comprehensive School we had one gym lesson where the sports hall hoops were set out but the lesson become more like a session of British Bulldog with a ball than anything resembling a game with rules.

All the stranger then that I was the lead manager for the bizarre ASDA sponsorship of the English Basketball Association which saw me spending many nights watching very tall men play the game in front of very small crowds in venues more intended for darts, bowls and 5-a-side football.  The overwhelming memory was that for something dubbed a non-contact sport there was plenty of testosterone and brutal elbowing between the behemoths.  The crowning (sic) glory of a tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in 1984 was a reminder that the building, named in memory of Queen Victoria’s husband and opened 150 years ago, is a better setting for Land of Hope and Glory than Battle of the Giants.         

I have been on a big learning curve but understanding the terminology of “pick and roll”, “in the paint”, “downtown” and “goal tending” has added significantly to my viewing pleasure.  But the tactics are so nuanced and finely managed that I find myself bemused, baffled and strangely awed by the cleverness of the coaches.  Working out how to draw fouls, use time outs and manipulate the rules has a level of strategic cunning that is easily the equal of any other game.

It has also become clear that appearances can be deceptive.  I was commenting that the excellent Devin Booker was much smaller than most of the others and could only be about six feet tall only to learn that he is listed as 6’ 5”.  I felt like one of those fabled grannies from the era TV was introduced who wondered how it was possible to get people who would fit inside the screen.

All this is a long way of saying that if I was still in England I would, quite happily, be taken up with the frenzy of England versus Denmark with all the glory or sorrow that this might bring.  As it is I will be turning up Three Lions on a Shirt and Vindaloo before heading off to the Princess pub and will be drinking my share of lager when I watch the game.  But win or lose I will be fortunate to be living in San Diego with South American football and the Suns versus Bucks to enjoy in this glorious week of sport.

*I know he has won a gold medal with Argentina at the Olympics in 2008 but football, as with tennis and golf, at the four-yearly celebration of athleticism is just a distraction from the driving idea of faster, higher, stronger.   

 Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay

An Englishman Abroad In Cactus Alley

Tending your own patch of land is as much part of the English psyche as talking about the weather, queuing in an orderly fashion and having fifty ways of saying ‘sorry’. Ever since encountering the overgrown wilderness behind my first house I have been a keen gardener. Four distinct seasons provided the setting for a year of planning, tilling, planting and reaping.

The country’s love-affair with its gardens drove the song, English Country Garden, to number five the charts in 1962. It was based on an English-folk song, Country Gardens, which married the whimsy of Morris-dancing to the pagan, earth revering influence of the druids and spawned many parodies. It is from that background that I came to tend the semi-arid, almost season-less, badlands of San Diego.

Americans don’t really even have ‘gardens’ because they have yards. The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon “geard” (pronounced YAY-ard) and is a good reminder why prisons have yards while country houses have gardens. One word is Proto-Germanic with overtones of efficiency and sparseness while the other comes from the Gallo-Romance language of Picardy and Flanders.

In the new environment everything has to be placed and considered in the context of hours of sun or shade, lack of moisture and relative danger to humans and animals. Rocks, dirt and pebbles are home to relatively slow growing plants that have evolved to be as tough as their setting. It’s a harsh, alien, unforgiving and strangers need to beware.

I’d never been allergic to a plant until I tangled with the toxic sap of the Euphorbia tiruccalli, which goes by the common name of Fire Sticks. Waking up with a face that looked like I had gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson was an early sign that I’d always need to wear gloves in the garden. But that was only a precursor to my duel with the Cactaceae.

Euphorbia tiruccalli

It is no mistake that the family group name for the cactus has echoes of a Mediterranean-based crime family. They are tough, aggressive, impassive plants that never tell, never forgive and always take revenge. The biblical warning “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9.5 and Acts 26:14 of the King James Version of the Bible) could have been written to remind us of the challenge they bring.

Engaging with a cactus and not taking appropriate precautions is like inviting Hannibal Lecter to dinner in a private room. One of you enjoys the potential of sharp objects to inflict pain and misery while the other will end up on the receiving end of a miserable evening. Even the slightest brush against one of these beasts can bring several dozen tiny shards of agony.

But through the allergic reactions and hours of picking cactus spines from my arms the year has seen a pleasing sense of order emerge. The reshaping of the garden has allowed for Cactus Alley and Succulent Corner to become landmarks while individual plants have been able to thrive after being moved to better locations. And I have learnt lessons in caution after indiscriminate digging cut through carefully buried irrigation lines which led the arid earth to resemble the Somme for several days.

Cactus Alley – Jeffe, Bobby, The Succulent with No Name and  Sneaky Pete

Because I am unfamiliar with the names of the plants many of them have emerged with personal nicknames. We have the barrel cactuses Billy, Bobby and Betsy as well as the handsome and rapidly growing Jeffe. Sneaky Pete is aptly named as the prickly pear has tiny, needle-sharp bristles that embed themselves with just a touch. Gomez is as sharp, squat and evil-looking as any bandit from a spaghetti western.

In the open ground Fellaini is the bargain bin asparagus fern with a habit to match the Manchester Uniter and Belgium footballer or his alter-ego from The Simpson’s, Sideshow Bob. Alongside him Spike, the yucca, has moved to luxuriant growth in full sun after being a weedy and ailing specimen in the shade. These are plants with individual characters that are forged by their resilience and robustness.

I’ve introduced some flowering plants but have learnt to paint pictures in the garden with the varying pinks, greys and subtle variegations which seem the natural palette of the desert. From similar climes we have Australian visitor ‘kangaroo paws’ (Anigozanthos), Asteriscus maritimus from the Mediterranean, and Didiereaceae from Madagascar. It is a global garden that is united by the challenging combination of glaring sun and water and soil poverty.

As a United Nations of plants it co-exists in a climate that is under increasing stress and facing enormous challenges from progressively worsening climate conditions. Disproportionate application of resources allows traditional Western plants to grow but plants used to living more frugally demand their rights and can thrive without pampering. It’s a little like the economic lessons of the real world.

After living with the land for a year I have begun to understand the raw materials. The variation of temperature, daylight and precipitation are more subtle than the English seasons. The growth patterns of the plants move to a rhythm which is less easy to understand but which can result in moments of extraordinary flowering and unexpected beauty.

While I have dabbled with herbs, tomatoes and peppers this year I am hankering after developing a vegetable patch. There is little more satisfying than pulling a broad bean or a new potato from the earth and eating it a few minutes later. But the planning involves thinking about ways of conserving even more water over the winter season to support this ambition.

It’s been a steep learning curve but whether semi-desert or temperate the garden offers similar lessons and insights. Patience and perseverance, the determination of living things to survive and the belief in planting today however uncertain the future might be. It is captured nicely by American author, journalist, activist Michael Pollan who writes, “The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ” (The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals)