Ian’s FACup Challenge, 3rd Qualifying Round Report

Emirates FACup 3rd Qualifying Round, October 1st

Basford United 1 -1 Boston United

Replay, Tuesday 4th October, Basford win on penalties.

I have been suffering from Bad Faith.

I’ve been working on a book since autumn 2019. This work has run consecutively with my cancer diagnosis.

I submitted in May, and ever since have been dealing with Editor’s suggestions, and then a complicated copy-edit, whose complications were not of my making, etc etc. Only this week has this work been brought to a conclusion.

In the meantime, by way of a sort of relaxation, I wrote the script for the Presteigne Panto. This too ran into difficulties, which I found hard to deal with. I now have co-writers, apparently, co-writers who don’t even know how to open a fecking doc.file. I am cleaning up their mess, despite my saying that I wouldn’t be able to do this.

I’ve been unwell since this game; I had a vile flu-thing, which left me with a long-to-go cough (still lingering). I drove from Presteigne to Newhaven to take my step-dad up to Ewhurst for the unveiling of my mum’s gravestone, and then back, and then back here. I’ve been exhausted, I’ve had the shits. I’ve spent days in bed. I’m a bit breathless, and it seems a stretch to so much as walk up to Elda’s.

I look forward to my retirement. I am very very very proud of the book, but I suspect it will be my last. Certainly, it will be my last panto script. I have been a ‘writer’ for a long time. I need a rest, a long rest. I need a rest from ideas beating around my head. I have grandchildren to play with.

But, except, aha, you see, I realised a few days back that I am NOT retired. I have been acting in Bad Faith. I ‘am’ a writer, and I still have to live with what that entails. I might want to retire sometime in the next year or so, but it is not yet. There is the most enjoyable bit of publishing a book to look forward to, namely, going around talking about it. The Panto will be fun, despite my amour-propre having been put through the mincer. (Amour-propre being pretty much the one thing a writer has to show for their work.) And I have a few ongoing projects, not books, but things that involve writing; not least of which is this!

So this is maybe a holding post, which I wanted to put in place before tomorrow’s game, Solihull Moors vs Basford United. Maybe I’ll rewrite it, now that I’m coming to terms with the continuing nature of the work that has occupied my close attention for thirty years. But, for now, at least, this will have to do.

Family and friends are what I want to give my close attention to. Glenn’s photies are getting better every match!