Reasons to be cheerful

Post coitum omnes animal triste est, and what a glorious white-knuckle ride that was. But now it's gone. I've used Reasons to be cheerful as a title a few times over the years, and it usually means I'm trying very hard to find some.


So let's give it a go. Vegetables, there's a reason. To be honest I've not been bothering with them much this last month, as they seemed a little fiddly under the circumstances. Today, though, I might go and buy a courgette. I could slice it lengthways and steam it with a little grated nutmeg. That was never going to happen in the group stage. Although now I think about it I could have just eaten them raw. Oh well, next time, eh?

Vegetables aren't quite the only reason to be cheerful. I'm sure I can invent some others. Oh yes. Suarez. There are 3.324 million people in Uruguay and 7.046 billion in the world, so it was very decent of him to give such pleasure to 99.953% of us in one mad, bad moment. The very best thing about the World Cup is the way it brings people together. Also, on behalf of Premiership watchers everywhere, thank you Luis for fucking off to Spain. With luck and a friendly Champions League draw you might never ever be back.

Summertime. Honestly, we wait for it all winter, when it comes it's glorious, and there's really no reason for me to be so indifferent to it today.

And I can't emphasise enough that football hasn't stopped. Tonight, for instance, the Portland Timbers travel to their Pacific northwest rivals the Seattle Sounders. It would be overegging it to say that I can't wait, but it's proper, association football, played on a pitch in front of a crowd then instantaneously pixellated, transmogrified into some waves or particles or something, moved across continents by money and physics and retromogrified into pixels right in front of my eyes. I've absolutely no grounds for complaint, so this must be happiness. I had expected it to be more buoyant, but I'm sure that will come.

So those are my post-coital thoughts. Don't you think you can be shuffling towards the door, though. I don't want to hear your it's not you, it's me, and I don't care if you aren't looking for anything long term right now. Because I've decided to carry on.

I used to write a lot when I was young and by my standards vigorous, but I'm older and slower now, so instead of these intensive vanity projects I'm just going to write the odd thing, every now and again. I'm going to do it in here, as I quite like the name.

Which was chosen for a reason, by the way. Take me on a roller coaster is a line from the song Virginia Plain, which also contains the lyric Baby Jane's in Acapulco, We are flying down to Rio. Rio was the location for last night's final, which is why I chose it for this World Cup (and yes I always knew Acapulco was in Mexico). The Kevin Bacon thing was honest serendipity. Not that I'm above the mendacious and contrived when it suits me, but in this case it wasn't necessary.

There won't be a theme any more, because I don't see why I shouldn't just write about anything I like. For those of you who remember, it will be a bit like The Secular Backlash, but there might not be as much of it.

Watch this space.