Batten Down the Hatches

Eastenders has finished and there are  a couple of hours to go until Family Guy, leaving you with an entertainment blackout for most of the night. It feels like there should be something exciting filling the void, but it’s not there. Don’t you have something to do? Don’t you have somewhere you should be?

You go to the fridge for a snack, more to give yourself something to do than anything else, but there’s nothing in there. Nothing you can cobble into anything resembling a sensible meal, anyway. But you’re not that hungry either. You crack open a beer and plonk yourself back in front of the TV with the sound down low. Your eyes are drawn by something at the bottom of the screen. It’s the scrolling score tickertape on SkySports News. There weren’t any games on tonight, were there? There are games all right. Lots of games. As you follow the team names from right to left, it dawns on you that Spurs could probably take most of them. There are a few you haven’t even heard of. Then as more familiar names start slipping into view – of teams that you KNOW we’ve taken – you suddenly start feeling a little left out.

It’s then that it starts to get painful. Indiscriminate about the channel you end up on, providing it’s not this one, you scroll down for a few seconds and press select, not even bothering to look up from the lettering on your can. Amstel? Funny…..you don’t usually get that.

Then you hear it. It seems to summon you like the voice of an old lover carried on the wind, like the song of the harpy leading you to the rocks. The sound of music so familiar but at the same time so distant. Not so long ago, it made your heart thump, your hands tremble and your spirit soar. But it’s not in your life anymore. It’s been taken from you, just like that lost love.

There is something else you should be doing tonight. There is somewhere else you should be. But you’re stuck at home watching it happen to everyone else. You’re the lonely little kid who wasn’t invited to the biggest party in Europe. Everyone’s having fun with your long, lost love but you. And the worst thing of all is, you can’t get away from it. Everyone knows this. Everyone’s laughing all the more because they know you should be there too, at worst participating on the same playing field and at best…..even making them look bad.

But here you are looking, not touching. Touching, not tasting.

That’s right…..The Champions League is back.