Looking In The Other Direction

Here's a picture of me and G yesterday afternoon, in the centre of our village watching the local brass band doing a free outdoor concert. Something other than the music had clearly caught G's attention at the moment Mrs J took the photo, which makes the image a bit reminiscent of the cover art from The Verve's Urban Hymns album. Not sure which one of us is Richard Ashcroft and which is Nick McCabe, though.

G was still looking in the other direction later in the day, when England played Germany at the World Cup. She seemed singularly disinterested in the first half, and didn't protest when I put her down for a nap during half-time. Perhaps she just couldn't face watching any more of England's terrible defending.

Having lived in England for more than ten years, my old yearning for England to lose every game 10-0 has slowly ebbed away. Now that I've got an English-born daughter, I actually felt obliged yesterday to hope for an England victory. At least I wasn't too disappointed when that hope was crushingly snuffed out by the Germans. Even though she was too young to understand it all this time, I suspect G has plenty more such disappointments ahead of her. Especially if I force her to support Scotland as well as England.