Macca vs Larry

Had a near implosion of semi-orgasmic nirvana last night, when Paul McCartney played Anfield and finished in time to allow me to watch Larry David on Curb. It was like being caressed by angels then shagged by the devil. Marvellous.

Macca is of course deeply embarrassing with his 'let me hear you say yeah-eh' and perky demeanour (even during Yesterday), but as I've said before I can forgive this man anything because of what he's done, and what he represents.

I don't know why he holds this place in my life. It's perhaps that music is processed by the part of the brain which does not articulate, so that for some reason the music of the Beatles is likely to express some deeply felt emotion that typically I don't talk about. Or it could just be because that the Beatles are the greatest songwriters ever, by a country mile.

So Macca is the sugary, eternally upbeat perky Dad-at-the-disco cringemaker, who can be forgiven anything because of his place in society and unparalleled songwriting genius. Meanwhile Larry David continues to represent the darker side, an almost equal genius, who says the unsayable and does the undoable and who is, as his advert says, all of us.

There was a moment when I had to decide whether to turn off Macca early to watch Larry or tune over to establish the crucial early plot which you always need to do with Curb.

Macca won. But someone will lend me the DVDs.

Brian Keenan

Hero.

My Grandfather

The photo below was given to me for my family tree research. It shows my Grandfather, who is in the centre standing next to his Dad. His Mum is sitting down with his brother and his sister is on his right.

It’s funny to think of this being taken in about 1932. My Grandfather looks slightly awkward, shy even.

It’s also strange to see his Dad (my Great Grandfather) and his enormous flared suit. I think they all look happy, don't they?

It feels healthy to think of my Grandfather as a teenager, as I tend only to think of him as an old man. But he wasn’t always. Once he was a teenager in funny trousers standing next to his Dad in the sunshine.

But within 7 years he would be at war.

He fought under Montgomery in the 8th Army against Rommel. These were the battles that helped turn the tide of the whole war. He was injured before El Alamein by a tank mortar and was whisked across the desert, drifting in and out of consciousness. Coming to in Tobruk Field Hospital, he remembers an enormous woman looming over him with a razor, which he says was enough for him to pass out again.

He was finally transferred to a hospital in Alexandria where he says he was surrounded by pretty nurses and he made up silly songs about their names. He was eventually shipped home from Cape Town, thousands of miles away, so they must've been rubbish. His shell injury still troubles him today, but of course, he never complains.

By the age of 30 he was starting a new life in Liverpool. He fathered 4 daughters and ended up as Stage Manager of the Liverpool Playhouse Theatre. I remember I used to think he was actually off to a real 'Play House' when I was young.

Fast forward to today and here he is, at 87.
He's still charming the ladies when Granny's back is turned. (And sometimes when it isn't).

He's still able to laugh at himself. Still makes up songs about people whilst doing the dishes. Still disgraces himself at Christmas.

Still calls me 'Stinkerbomb'.

Still stands for all that's best in Britain.

Still my hero.

He's back...

The last time I saw Jonny Wilkinson live was in 2003, round about the same time (he says casually) I flew to Sydney for a weekend to see England win the World Cup. It was a perfect, fairytale ending to a story which, it seemed at the time, could never be beaten.

Today I saw him again, and it was.

In 2003 the Jonny story was about the phenomenal, inexorable rise of a rugby machine. One of the greatest tacklers for his size ever, and the greatest kicker, he was the enforcer who routinely punished opposition defences as they tried to resist England's forward strength. His kick to win the final felt like poetry. Or at least to an Englishman who'd lived in Australia through successive Ashes thumpings, poetic justice. All those years of underachievement, of promise, of talk - always talk - of slatings in the press, of being taunted by opposition fans from Scotland to Sydney, all seemed to be banished in one perfectly choereographed drop goal which sliced through the wet Sydney night and changed the way we saw English sport.

But today was quite different, and far greater testimony to the real power of sport. Most people assumed Jonny could never play again, me included. In the intervening years he has injured both knees, his back, his kidney, his feet, his neck, and if I remember correctly, his bicep. I think he threw in a hernia operation for good measure too. Simon Barnes - the greatest sports writer in the world - wondered aloud if he was cursed. It seemed surely he must be, for time and again he returned, only for his frail body to be spat out of club rugby, mangled again in new and inventive ways. (I mean, how DO you lacerate a kidney?) Lesser men would have acquiesced in the face of such implacable fate.

But that is not his way. Today he ran the game as though he'd never been away. But never once did his body language say that this was about him, that this was his moment of payback for 3 long years of misery. He was the quintessential team man in everything he did. And at the end he ran off with the captain as though he was simply a number, another cog in a machine. No theatrical acknolwedgment of the 80,000 crowd, who all stood to applaud.

He is the truly dedicated professional who will not give up and who will not settle for second best. The Australians churn out sportsmen like these for fun. But for once, he is English. Today's performance spoke far more of the man than 2003. And today's performance should speak far more to the rest of us, too.

For he must have felt doubt during those 3 years, he must have tired of the excruciating cycle of rehabilitation, the long roads back to fitness, the questions from the press, the doubt, then the same ruined comebacks. But more darkly he must have wondered that the thing which he dedicated himself to so utterly was to be taken from his grasp at the peak of his powers, like Barnes' Greek tragedy.

For someone who worked so tirelessly to eradicate the flaws from his game, to control the pressure situations through his own efforts, he must have begun to doubt himself, and realised that fate was his master after all. And at that point surely he must have felt like giving up? No one would have blamed him after so long fighting.

But - and this is the simple lesson - he never did give up. And today the world saw what sometimes happens if you refuse to accept the cards that fate hands you.