Halfway, and Slightly Behind

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoAnd here we are in July, which means the year has quietly folded itself in half while I wasn't paying attention. I could have sworn 2026 arrived only yesterday, still creaking with resolutions and good intentions, and yet somehow six months have slipped past like coins through a hole in a coat pocket. There's a particular vertigo to reaching the midpoint of a year — the sense that the ledger is now half-spent and the columns don't quite balance. Time to get things moving faster, I keep telling myself, though telling oneself is rarely the same as doing.

It was, ironically, a slow day that gave me the room to think all this. There's a certain kind of quiet that doesn't soothe so much as prompt — the mind, given a little slack, immediately wanders off to audit itself. Not unpleasant, exactly. Just a reminder that stillness and ease are not always the same thing.

The middle of the day was given over to a lunch meeting with a pharmaceutical rep, that peculiar genre of appointment where the food is generally better than the conversation demands and the pitch arrives somewhere between the mains and the coffee. Pleasant enough, and mercifully unhurried.

The afternoon clinic, however, had other ideas. What began as a manageable list stretched well past its expected borders, helped along by a couple of emergency admissions that arrived without appointment or apology, as emergencies tend to. There's no arguing with the genuinely urgent — you simply rearrange yourself around it and get on. So I finished considerably later than planned, the afternoon having quietly consumed the early evening before I noticed it was gone.

Still, I made it back in time for dinner, which after a day like that feels like a small negotiated victory. There's a great deal to be said for arriving home while the table still means something.

Then came the evening's great moral test. My Oura ring — that small, well-meaning tyrant on my finger — has been increasingly pointed in its counsel, nudging me nightly toward the radical proposition of proper sleep. It has a case. It usually does. Unfortunately, England were kicking off at midnight, and no wearable device yet invented can compete with the pull of a knockout tie at an unreasonable hour.

They made me suffer for it, too. DR Congo led early and held that lead with alarming conviction, until Harry Kane finally remembered his job description and scored twice in the closing stretch to drag England through, 2-1. A nervy, unconvincing sort of win — the kind that gets you into the next round and precisely nowhere in the estimation of anyone watching. Mexico await, apparently. I'll worry about that later.

For now, I've made my choice, and the ring will note it disapprovingly in the morning. Tomorrow I shall suffer — bleary, under-slept, and entirely without regret. Some bargains are worth the interest. This, I suspect, was one of them, though I reserve the right to revise that opinion at around six a.m.

A Monday in Reasonable Repair

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThere is a particular flavour of Monday that announces itself before you've even reached the kettle. Not despair, exactly — more a low administrative hum, the sound of a week clearing its throat. The World Cup hasn't helped. The group stage is finally done, all forty-eight teams whittled into the knockouts, and there's a faint sense of mourning when a tournament stops being a sprawling banquet and becomes a series of duels. No more obscure mid-afternoon fixtures to half-follow. Just the serious business of teams going home for good.

So Monday morning arrived with the blues attached, the way a parking ticket arrives tucked under a wiper — quietly, and entirely as predicted.

The cure, as it usually is, was simply getting on with things. I'd braced for a morning of friction and instead found a surprising number of small matters resolving themselves before they could become large ones. Emails answered. Loose ends tied off with the quiet satisfaction of a man crossing items from a list he'd been avoiding. There's an underrated pleasure in a morning that behaves — no dramas, no surprises, just a steady tidying of the desk and the mind in roughly equal measure.

Clinic, too, ran smoothly, which is never something to take for granted. A colleague is away on holiday, somewhere no doubt with better weather and fewer obligations, which meant I was covering the gaps. Covering for someone away is a curious arrangement — you inherit their afternoon without their familiarity with it, like driving a borrowed car with the seat in someone else's position. But it held together. The day moved at the right pace, and by the end of it nothing had toppled over.

By evening the blues had thinned out, the way they tend to once the day has actually been lived rather than merely anticipated. Dinner was at Mont Kiara — a steakhouse called Casa Rosa, a name that promises rather more romance than a Monday usually delivers. The steak was decent. Not transcendent, not a story I'll be retelling for years, but properly cooked and quietly satisfying, which on a Monday is exactly the correct ambition. One does not need a Monday steak to change one's life. One needs it to be good, and to arrive without incident.

The real seasoning, of course, was the company. Good company has a way of rescuing an ordinary meal and elevating an already pleasant one, and this fell firmly into the latter. Conversation that wandered comfortably, no agenda, the kind of evening that doesn't try to be anything in particular and is all the better for it.

I came home with the week feeling considerably less daunting than it had at breakfast. Monday, it turns out, was in reasonable repair after all — sorted out, covered, fed, and seen off without complaint. Which is, on reflection, about as much as one can ask of a Monday.

Deservedly So

France was the favourite to win the World Cup from the off. They had a very talented team despite a lack of out and out striker. But Olivier Giroud turned himself into the ultimate target man and was instrumental in the way France play. This was made easy with the strong midfielders they had, plus Griezmann and Mbappe who could walk into any team in the world.

They had the perfect mix.

And Croatia wasn't that bad either. The team had leaders and guts. They fought in every corner of the pitch and truth be told, they played better than France in the Final. But it wasn't to be.

The Final was also a memorable game which had everything. Dodgy play acting earning a freekick leading up to a goal. VAR decision which could go either way. Own goals. Lloris applying to play for Liverpool with a calamatous goal.

On the flip side, Croatian equalizer from Parisic was too notch, Mbappe was an express train in scoring the final goal after Pogba demonstrating that he could shoot with both feet.

Six goals in total. And the heaven opened during the trophy presentation which was really a hug fest in the end. Mbappe was crown Young Player of the tournament with the great Luka Modric taking the consolation of the Golden Ball for tournanent's Best Player.

It was a great World Cup, topped off by a great Final. The quality of football may not be as great as the 2006 in Germany. The fact that many of the top teams stumbled during the group stage or soon after did not help. England getting to the semis put a smile to my face.

It was scary to think that France had the second youngest side - youngest being Nigeria and England third. This team will only to continue to get better. And Raphael Varane was a Rolls Royce at the centre of French defence. That boy can play ...

Ing-Gerr-Land

The World Cup fever had finally hit me. And yes, I support England, and this was despite our pet goldfish - Gareth the Goldfish - died suddenly last month. Bad omen it may be, but England would still be on top.

They started their campaign against Tunisia the other night. On paper, it should have been an easy win but it turned out that Tunisia was a very organised outfit. Although England striked first - courtesy of a penalty by Kane - Tunisia equalised and the score remained so until an injury time winner from a set piece - a corner this time.

England clearly lacked the flair player who could unlock defences and throved more on fast transition play. This would be a problem against opponents who parked their bus and stayed behind the ball. At the end, the set-piece play bailed England out. Against better opponent, they had to be more clever. Without penetration, England would not go far.

The next game would be another straight forward one before the real test in the last group game against the best team in the group, Belgium. That would be the game who would make or break England’s campaign. For them to progress far, these are the games they would need to perform and get results from ...

For an Early Night

Or at least that was the plan. United would be playing Real Madrid at 3 am tonight as a season opener. I have a long day tomorrow but watching the game was just too tempting. One of the ways to make it world would be to start with an early night, and set the alarm to catch the second half of the game.

Let’s see if things go according to plan then ....