Wednesday 11th August

Tonight England are playing their first friendly game since the horror show of the World Cup campaign - a festival of absent effort and crushing expectation that raised little more than a miserable, resigned shrug from the folks back home and deserved little better - and, as expected, hopes are not particularly high. All of a sudden it's fashionable to dismiss any England player with more than ten caps as pampered (and that's always the word that gets used) and to feign disinterest in the match at all. It's, admittedly, not a particularly important one in the context of the season - and is oddly timed given the proximity of the start of the Premier League season - but it is against Hungary, architects of the amazing 6-3 win in 1953 (known as the 'match of the century') when the free-scoring Aranycsapat taught England and the world how to play football properly (a story well-told in Jonathan Wilson's brilliant Behind the Curtain, football history fans) - so there's interest from a historical perspective, right? Also the tabloids seem convinced that the World Cup players will get booed onto the pitch at Wembley, which, while a depressing prospect, will provide a little novelty.

I grab a few beers on the way home from work - given that I've struggled to rouse Will into coming to watch the match at the pub and find myself, in K's absence, home alone on a Wednesday night. The game comes on the telly (and the team, in fact, are not booed onto the pitch) and I get the laptop out to do some writing while a fairly dull friendly begins in the background. I open Skype and see that Alex is online - weird in that I know she doesn't have internet at home - and discover that she's sat in the pub across the road doing some househunting. Bored of the football and feeling more in need of company, I wander over there, get a pint and take a seat in one of the big leather chairs in the surprisingly nice round-the-corner bit of the large Wetherspoon's. We have a good time flicking through Gumtree and the like in search of not-horrible, not-massively-expensive flats (of which there are worryingly few) before moving out to the front for one more drink and to catch up with the football. After going behind to an own goal, England end up winning 2-1 thanks to two inspired Gerrard contributions. It's very early days in what must be considered a new era for England's international football - but at least they weren't completely terrible again.

In need of dinner we both head home and I finish my beers in front of American History X (a film I've always liked and haven't seen for years) and when K gets home around 11 I am surprised to find that I'm a little drunk. But in a nice way, I suppose.