Friday afternoon work

Nazis, Latin grammar and a very good sound guy

Fiction

I think I may have just read my first ever thriller: Fatherland by Robert Harris, an alternate Cold War history in which Nazi Germany has won the Second World War, concealed the Holocaust and is now on the brink of a détente summit with the United States.

My main reflection, other than, you know, whether the premise — that the world discovering the Nazis murdered millions of Jews would be seen as a big and bad deal that could blow up a superpower summit — still holds up in the current climate, is: are all thrillers this confusing? I had to continually check everyone’s name. Thank goodness there was a female character so I could at least reliably identify one of them.

I raised this with a much better-read friend, and he assured me not to worry about the plot, which is never that important in the end, and kindly directed me to that old Raymond Chandler quote:

“When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand."

Non-fiction

The title has major WHSmith-at-Gatwick-Airport-business-book vibes. But Calling the Shots: How to Win in Football and Life by David Dein, former vice-chairman of Arsenal, is hugely insightful and terrific fun.

There is a Forrest Gump quality to Dein’s career — whenever something major is happening in elite European football, there he is, often with a hand placed firmly on the tiller. Dein was instrumental in the old First Division’s 1988 broadcasting deal with ITV, the breakaway that formed the Premier League and the Kroenke-Usmanov tussle for control of Arsenal.

Dein is clearly still terribly aggrieved at how it all ended at the club back in 2007. I found his raw hurt and anger a little hard to bear. But once that is disposed of in the opening chapter, you get to the good stuff: not least his relationship with Arsène Wenger.

Highlight: in my audiobook, Wenger himself reads the foreword, and you can hear him turning the page which is deeply amusing.

Memory unlocked: May 2006, when half the Tottenham squad went down with food poisoning before the final day of the season, with Spurs a win away from pipping Arsenal to a Champions League spot. The joke at the time was that the club called up the FA to get the game postponed, only for Dein — then also on the FA board, to pick up the phone and politely decline the request.

YouTube

Paul Simon is 84 years old! Anyway, here he is taking the famous Stephen Colbert Questionert. And taking it very seriously indeed.

I don’t much care for golf. But like watching Shane Warne spin the ball yards or Ronnie O’Sullivan secure a 147 maximum break in five minutes, there is something about watching a sportsperson do something self-evidently astonishing. See: Bryson DeChambeau’s drive on No. 6 at Arnold Palmer.

It’s a perfectly pleasant song (as far as songs about school shootings go). But what is it about this live performance? Give that sound guy a raise!