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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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Drags on a bit this, tl;dr-ers might want to look away now.
I did the very English thing on my first day away by not taking adequate protection against the sun. The wind was blowing a hoolie and there didn't seem much of a threat at all but really, I'm old enough to know better. Now half my face is hanging off in flakes and I've got white stripes spreading out from my eye sockets where I was squinting without my sunglasses. I look like Adam Ant in a snow storm.
With this breeze in the Canaries I reckon I've got DNA all over North Africa by now and knowing my luck I'll be making an appearance on 'Banged up Brits Abroad' after been found guilty of multiple previously unsolved crimes in southern Morroco.
I like it here where I am, I come often as I can in the winter and spring when it's fairly quiet. There are quite a few sea hippies (surf dudes) here which tells you a lot about the free-spirited nature of the indigenous population. It's not overly commercialised and there are no stag/hen parties throwing up in the street. There are a few Brit bars but I tend to stay away from them, except for when there's footy that I want to watch, which is why I found myself in one on Sunday.
Birmingham City vs Aston Villa, the Blues villa derby. Possibly , along with West Ham v Millwall the most spiteful, nasty football match in England.
Now I know just a few of you will get what I'm saying and where I'm coming from here but by the same token, I know that most won't; I don't like villa. I'm a product of the 1980s when football was far, far more partisan and secular. Us big city working class kids chose our friends by their colours and our Saturdays travelled in a different parallel universe to those that worshipped in a different church. At some point after leaving school I looked around and the only people I was still in touch were Blues, it was a natural progression. I'm pretty sure Nick Hornby says something similar in 'Fever Pitch' so I'm not on my own.
I was never involved in anything other than self-preservation matchday scrapping but some of that attitude has really stuck with me, not in an overt, nasty way but in a slight slant. villa fans start on the wrong side of me from the off and they would have to work their way into my space to gain my trust or respect. Everyone else starts on an even keel. It's small-minded, it's meally-mouthed but that's football and we wouldn't have it any other way. I wish them no harm is the most gracious thing I can come up with.
I personally think that some of my fellow Blues fans are trying to live up to the image of the old Zulus hooligan firm and more latterly, the Peaky Blinders tv series.
The Zulus were a ferocious outfit but they're all getting excited over box sets and pension payouts from JLR now, it's time to move on and forget it.
For those who don't know; Peaky Blinders wasn't the name of an actual gang, it was a more broad term used to describe petty thieves and vicious thugs alike. Those that survived by taking what didn't belong to them, with force if required or desired. The modern day equivalent word would probably be 'Scouser'.
Now even those who take no interest in football will probably have heard of the incident that shamed the city. I refuse to make light of it, I deplore what went on and to have sit in a pub full of people from across the country to witness it made it acutely embarrassing for me. You know what I'm talking about - villa fans taking claret and blue balloons to the match (snigger), what a bunch of cretins they are...yippee, balloons. I bet they took a flask of hot chocolate and a blanket too.
Following that embarrassing start, the match was played out in a friendly atmosphere. For those who don't know the score, Birmingham ran out 3-1 winners, which is nice...and most probably bounced villa all over Digbeth again after, which is obviously not nice (tilts head and winks in a Danny Dyer accent).
I'm in a modern downtown residential apartment, most probably built by moonpig.com by the looks of it. I heard the bloke 3 doors down cutting his toenails last night so god only knows what the neighbours made of my post-booze snoring. Either way, there's a decent chance they'll be getting some more tonight.
For the silly boy who got 3 months:
https://youtu.be/kpIFKKa1u-U
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