School sports

Out of my office window, across the 6 lane elevated roadway, squeezed in between the prison and the tube line is a school playing field. Every afternoon I watch the little dots endlessly hoofing a ball from one end of the muddy windswept pitch to the other. Even a couple of years ago the sight would have made me shudder and settle into my seat with the warm glow of knowing that I'd never have to freeze my bollocks off doing that kind of nonsense and being expected to enjoy it at the same time again.

Now I just think - "Well, I'd rather be outdoors doing that then stuck in here with these morons".

In fact when I think of the effort I used to put into avoiding games at school it's a miracle I can still walk at all. On the other hand a youth spent sidling off for a crafty fag or lurking in the library 'reading' Stern or just ghosting into the background provides you with a much better set of life skills than rushing red faced and over excited onto a frozen patch of dog shit to exhort your peers to play up, play up and play the game for two hours.