Voting for this match ends at midnight on 22 March

ENGLAND: Sukshinder Shinda – “Wanga Chanke Ke” The Manager Says: “After the last match, the team regrouped over cups and tea and lengthy discussions about their fanbase, cultural identity and which is the best kind of biscuit. The end result was a team newly motivated, with this boshing, fun Bhangra track. The team are now focussed on keeping the spirit of the game alive and hope to see fans dancing in the stands.

Length: 4:25 Played: 69

ALGERIA:  Rachid Taha – “Jungle Fiction” The manager says: “Well, Brian, after the confidence we gained through SMASHING the mighty Slovenia 2-1 in our first game, we might easily have rested on our laurels. Instead I have brought in new striker Rachid Taha, and deployed an entirely novel and unexpected formation, with a jungle backline because we needed a bit of English steel at the back, a swirling Algerian midfield and an attacking ‘surf guitar’ system coached by American Dick Dale, with some Morricone-style spaghetti western horns for some added Spanish flair. I think it’s a combination any nation would find hard to stop, and we are optimistic about getting a result in this match against one of the undoubted giants of the world pop game. We know they are desperate for a win after losing to the US in their first game, but we are ready to spring some surprises. (I realize that spaghetti western = Spanish might sound odd to some, but the great Leone ones were filmed in Spain, of course.)”

Length: 4:04 Played: 65

Commentary Box Analysis: “The commentary box is all a-flutter, and not just because “Wanga Chanka Ke”is the classic commentators nightmare.  Many observers will be looking a little embarrassed today as this morning’s previews turn out to be way off the mark. This may be a complex game of second-guessing as neither side plays the tactics traditionally associated with their national sides. But who cares when the game is this good: high-tempo, high impact, high quality. We’ll be amazed if the game ends with 22 players on the pitch.”

Result! Group A: France 4 Mexico 2: A hugely enjoyable and high-scoring game. It was looking close through the first half but France stretched away in the second, and in the end the result was clear. “This is possibly my game of the tournament so far” “Easy win for France here I’d say – their lightness is a virtue, Mexico just feel lightweight.” “Mexico song is fab! This is why 70s pop trounces all other decades for pop, people.” “The French play a vulnerable, open game, but make no mistakes, their deceptively slow and subtle shifts keeping the Mexicans off-balance.” “What a match! Both sides fighting hard for survival. Really hard to choose between these two, both would beat 90% of what we’ve had so far.”

Coming up: Time for the second round of matches in Group D, starting with a match-up between two teams looking to kick-start their tournaments after a losing start: Germany take on Serbia. Both teams should be stretching themselves for success – it should be a good ‘un.

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 21 March

SLOVENIA: Qualia 6 - “RATTLEFUNK” The Manager Says: “Yawning and stretching after a sleepless weekend of excess, the Slovenes awaken their raw techno talent! Qualia 6 describe their feelings as  ”sometimes merry, sometimes dark” and quote their influences as “WHATEVER COMES FROM THE UNIFIELD“. What to say when it’s much better to funk along the way? Who cares if the daily job starts in just four hours?”

Length: 8:07 Played: 92

USA:  Kid Sister – “Right Hand Hi” The Manager Says: “We were chuffed to bits with our first game performance over England, but have taken on board the criticisms that the overly tricksy football married with the less than stellar striker may not be playing to the USA’s strengths. So off the bench, with her new pro nails screwed in, is the youthful, effervescent Kid Sister, rapping, singing, ducking but not diving – hoping to play a clean game against what she is assuming to be the route one bosh of Slovenia. And yes that is the sound of the crowd with their air horn getting into it at 2:08.”

Length: 3:22 Played: 68

Commentary Box Analysis: “I don’t know about the training regime over in Slovenia but to everyone’s surprise they have included an absolute GIANT in their squad for this game. Over 8minutes tall and 18MB long, it may be that the dark whispers of behind-the-scenes doping have some foundation in truth. The team doesn’t choose to fizz it up long to the big lad, though, sticking with some pretty rigid patterns. The USA, on the other hand, are clearly trying to provoke the “you’ll win nothing with kidsister” quip, but with their lively approach they may just be able to outpace Slovenia here.”

Result! Group A: South Africa 3 Uruguay 1 : this Uruguay performance would have won against many of the sides we have seen so far, but they came up against a classy and powerful SA team. “Bravo! This is terrific stuff from both teams.” “South Africa have just produced the track of the tournament for me.” “I quite like the Uruguayan track, but the South African one is an absolute stormer” “The South Africans roll along with play as round as the ball they strike. Hard to argue with, but I will, since the gentle variety of Uruguay has me hooked. South America for me.” “SA have it. They have more teeth.“

Coming up: Group C really begins to take shape as Algeria, one of the surprise packages of the first round, take on the pop might of England. We’ll know a lot more about how this group will pan out after these two games.

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 18 March

GREECE: Haris Alexiou & Dimitra Galani – “OHI DEN PREPI” The Manager Says: “Nigeria’s world-class young squad and thorough knowledge of the modern game are a tough nut to crack. So I’m going to try something a bit different. Take the pace down quite a bit. Bring in a couple of legendary players off the bench into the starting lineup. Watch them string together beautiful combinations and set-pieces, their sensitive passes cutting through even the most cold-hearted defense. Surely.”

Length: 3:07 Played: 105

NIGERIA:  Kefee featuring Timaya – “KOKOROKO” The Manager Says:  ”The Super Eagles of Pop seem to be winning more fans than points at this stage, which has been terrific fun but won’t stifle those mumbles of dissent from the Nigerian press much longer. There’d been some speculation that we’d go all out to kick our next opponents out of the game, but at this level it’s as much about winning hearts and minds as winning points. So our gangsta rap midfield hardmen remain on the bench in favour of a front pairing the fans at home have been clamouring to see. Nigerian pundits have been saying for years that this girl had the potential to light up the Pop World Cup, so let’s see what she do..”

Length: 4:26 Played: 99

Commentary Box Analysis: “Well, this is fascinating. Pundits have already been discussing the unprecedented diversity of styles and tactics deployed by the managers in this tournament and this enjoyable game confirms that view. The Greek team selected by Johan seems (literally) winsome, on first hearing. Matt’s Nigerian line-up may be a stroke of managerial genius, though: he has chosen to adopt an appealing style which plays to traditional strengths – strength – but retains an attractive and good-natured side, strong and quick but very fair indeed. Many were expecting a snarling, studs-up performance from the Nigerians here, but this more humane approach may simply outpace the Greeks.”

Result! Group H: Spain 2 Switzerland 0 The last match in the first round seemed too close to call. Instead, it turned out to be a convincing win for a  Spanish team who concentrated on doing the simple things well. It seems the Swiss inclination for invention may have led them to neglect the goal a little. Still, we haven’t seen the last of this Switzerland team. The Spanish, meanwhile, could be real challengers if they have as much more to give as the pundits think. “This Spanish side isn’t to be taken lightly: high-octane to be sure, but far from being brutish or relying on pure muscle.” “The Spaniards have so much energy! They keep running and running and by the end they look as though they could go for another 90.” “The Swiss team are content to play a deeper, slower, passing game but they certainly know how to surprise.” “SUI track really is something, its deeply odd mix of constituent parts works against all the odds.” “The Swiss song is as boring as long. The Spanish entry is full of vigour.”

Coming up: On to the second round of games in Group C: Slovenia follow the disappointment of their recent narrow defeat (to an Algerian team who surprised many with their quality) by lining up against one of the undisputed giants of pop football: the USA.

Voting for this match ends at midnight on 15 March

ARGENTINA: Bersuit Vergarabat – “EL GORDO MOTONETA” The Manager Says: “Against such a glittering pop powerhouse as Korea, I’ve chosen to let my team play in its preferred style, Buenos Aires Rock & Roll. Fans with long memories may notice some similarities to an older pop squad fielded by England in the late 70s (starts with C, ends with LASH), but I want to quash any rumors floating around that they’ve been getting training from American free agent Ted Leo behind my back; this is pure homegrown talent.”

Length: 3:54 Played: 120

KOREA REPUBLIC:  T-ara – “BO PEEP BO PEEP” The Manager Says:  ”As far as I can tell, this song is about telling one’s lover they should be your docile sheep. That’s the kind of unconventional approach I rate highly come squad selection time. It’s also a difficult track to mark, its bubblegum bounce disguising a relentless martial drive; caught off my line during training camp, I could only sit there as T-ara coolly buried their chorus deep inside my brain. Baa.”

Length: 3:45 Played: 125

Commentary Box Analysis: “Where flesh and blood are pitted against wires and electricity, we can see a classic pop battle. Argentina’s boss seems to be saying “just go out there and express yourself, lad”, and it results in some great moments, though there is a lingering suspicion of uncertainty about formation. Korea Republic, conversely, essay the pure joys of strict tactical patterns, but will those tactics prove too restrictive against a more flexible opponent? Both teams have their principles about how to play the game, and both deliver solidly on their own terms. In this tournament, unlike previous years, it’s not at all clear which style will emerge victorious.”

Result! Chile 1 Honduras 3 A typically enjoyable early-stage game, as both teams savour moving from the training camp to the dreamed-of tournament. Some surprise that the margin of victory was so wide, when for many observers the gap between the teams was not obvious. Both sides had chances, Honduras’s high-energy forward line converted theirs into goals. There have been higher-quality matches, though: both teams may have to up their games if they are to progress far into the tournament.  “HON is good-natured summer vibes, would never object to hearing it”; “the cheery grins on the faces of the [Honduras] offense belies the serious toughness of the defensive line”; “Chile begin tentatively but some brassy moves at the back seem to invigorate the frontman”.

Coming up: More titanic pop tussles in the supertight Group B as Greece take on Nigeria: two teams desperate for the elusive three points which will take them to within touching distance of qualification.

A convivial, if possibly somewhat blurry, afternoon is promised. All welcome, especially FT readers we haven’t met yet.

The Hole In The Wall

The Hole in the Wall is not a hole in a wall so much as a space under a railway arch by Waterloo. That is to say, it has a smallish carpeted front bar with a handful of tables for cushioned lounging in an L-shape facing the bar; a biggish uncarpeted box of a back bar with probably ten tables and plenty of standing room, and a laughable tiny concrete “beer garden” smokesies area out the back. Clientele a mix of commuters, hard drinkers, randoms and (on matchdays) football and rugby watchers. That’s it, really. But.

In the middle of the 1980s, before I was old enough to drink legally and before I’d even thought about living in London, I’d visit my student older brother here. I’d arrive and depart from Waterloo, off the one-track chuggy line up from Honiton.

My brother would meet his friends at the Hole In The Wall - they, undergraduates in not-unnecessarily-fashionable rags, would impress and awe me with tales of the kinds of activities I could only read about in the NME. I was a country boy in love at a distance with a specific brand of indie (let’s say continuity mod-pop with a non-rigorous and unsustainable kind of oppositional rhetoric) and the downwardly-aspirational, boozy, fading folk-punk scene (I loved the Boothill Foot-Tappers as much as I loved those early Pogues records). All the good stuff seemed to happen in the pub, up London. This place seemed like the sort of pub where it just might.

Perfectly London, waves of people I’d never know coming and going, not giving a monkey’s about bumfluff boy getting too-quickly sozzled with the big kids and trying his best to chip into the conversation. The cheek by jowliness of the attendant office-types and serious drinkers seemed the essence of pubness to me, and I had (to my great surprise) learned that my brothers’ inner-burb locals (Herne Hill or Nunhead, depending on the year) would feature the kind of folk who’d turn round and give you slightly suspicious looks if your face didn’t fit. Just like home. Weird.

Probably because it is , in part, a commuter pub, one of the great things about the Hole In the Wall is that, really, no-one gives a damn about you. In years of going there, I’ve only twice had someone trying to strike up an unsolicited conversation with me. I, like the pub, and like the other customers, am nothing special.

Those evenings in the Hole In The Wall still glow in my memory as glimpses into an amazing world I might one day inhabit. Crucially, the place was nothing special. Scuffed and fraying, this wasn’t one of those set-piece palaces which (in my mind) rang to the gasps of gauche out-of-towners, nor was it threatening or scary. It was just a pub where the sort of people who I might one day be would go, sit, talk, watch the football, drink, drink too much.

And so when I finally shored up here, it became a fairly regular haunt. It’s a favourite of mine not just for sentimental reasons: although it’s nothing special, it’s hugely adaptable. Want to meet a handful of friends to cook up some kind of plan? Front bar, round the corner. Want to watch the game on your own? Back bar is your only man: space atmosphere, good chance of a seat if your pubcraft’s up to scratch. Ten of you on a crawl: couple of tables in the front if you’re lucky. Twenty handed booze up on a Friday night? You’re probably best in the back, although you might consider colonising the whole front bar. Got visitors who want to see a bit of London drinking untouched by the tourist dollar in the guidebook classics? This is a place for you. Hanging out with some fancypants who doesn’t like alehouses? You’re probably best somewhere else entirely.

And as a result I carry a gallery of memorable days and nights in the Hole In the Wall – arriving late to the wintry pub crawl with my future wife in tow, the first time she met lots of the Freaky Triggerists; a notoriously difficult afternoon with some friends of friends who hated us, for reasons which only became clear years later; uproarious back bar Fridays of pinball and chips, the closest I’ve found in London to a real bierkeller atmosphere; the day after my fortieth birthday, with two of my oldest friends, unfunctioning, stinking and hungover.

It became the kind of place where I could be disappointed they’d done up the toilets: I’d got used to reading the graffito by the far urinal, in biro amidst the scratched names and logos of football teams and the weird insults, the legend “MY CATS CALLED MITTEN”.

All of which makes me think that I really have grown into the kind of person who drinks in the Hole In The Wall. Glamour, eh?  It’s a moveable feast. The Hole In The Wall in the 1980s offered a gungy kind of glamour, and God knows it’s barely changed. That dirty glamour was the best available kind to me, there, then. Now, it reminds me of me.

Method

Step One

One regular packet of Mars Planets was refrigerated, to make the chocolate easier to remove from each Planet.

Step two

With the aid of a regular table knife, the chocolate was removed from each of the planets.

 

[Note: it became clear that, for the two soft-ish centres, the  most effective method of chocolate separation was to squeeze the Planet until the chocolate broke, and then just pick it off. Once de-chocolated, we kept the caramel and nougat bits separated. The Maltesers were set aside (i.e. scoffed).

Step Three

The caramel and nougat were squidged together and re-shaped into the vague proprtions of a Mars Bar, and then assembled into our Mars innards. This was fairly straightforward, it all held together nicely, and shaped without any problem. 

 

Step four

The flakes of chocolate were placed in a bain-marie and warmed.

Hold on! THIS CHOCOLATE DOESN’T MELT! I remember childhood days of warmed chocolate turning to liquid in the pocket or the tiny hand, but something must have changed since then, in some mysterious, probably chemical, way. FURTHER SCIENCE REQUIRED.

Step five

After ten to fifteen minutes in the bain-marie, the chocolate had reached the texture of un-set icing. So, slightly disappointed that we didn’t get to dip our tiny creation in a vat of molten deliciousness, the best we could do was was spread the choco-sludge over our naked Mars innards using a knife and a spoon.

With three sides covered, the bar was cooled in the freezer to set the chocolate before the final (top) side was covered.The top side was distressed slightly with a knife to give a vague impression of the texturing of a regular mars bar. Then back to the freezer for a little while for the final set.

The size of the completed Mars Bar was about two inches long. VFM Alert! Mars Planets are about the same price as regular bar, but contain substantially less Mars for your money.

Conclusion

And then the proof of the pudding: general concensus was that our mini-Mars was an entirely serviceable facsimile of the real thing.

 Success!

It is apparently possible to reconstruct bring a Mars Bar back from the Planets. The only noticeable difference was that the chocolate was a bit granular, which was probably more a result of our having cooled it too quickly.

But – oh! – it’s been eaten! And a more fundamental atomisation has begun.

Entropy – I fought the law, and the law won.

Since on day one of the new UK-wide ban I met a crazy, I thought it might be worth documenting the more unusual of the conversations with my fellow martyrs.

Number 1: July 1, 2007, Franklin’s, Lordship Lane.

Setting: Franklins is as much a restaurant as a pub. It was (I understand) an eating house which was retro-fitted to be a gastropub and I really can’t recomend it highly enough. At least, I’m not going to. It specialises in St John-style offal-accented big British food. That night I’d greedily scoffed a lamb’s brain terrine and followed that with a Bath Chap, which (it turned out) was piece of pig cheek wrapped around a piece of pig tongue and slowly roasted (I think). After all that, I needed a smoke.

Nutter: perfectly civil and perfectly drunk middle aged lady with big blonde bouffant and crooked lipstick. With young, silent, slightly dangerous-looking, even more drunk male sidekick.

Her: “Well it’s stupid isn’t it? The prisons are full up and they’re letting perverts out and they’re going to put us in prison for smoking in the pub.”

Me: “Haha yes well I’m not sure they’ll be putting us in prison anytime soo…”

Her: “If they fine me and I don’t pay the fine then they’ll put me in prison and to make space they’ll let out a pervert. I think it’s disgusting.”

Me: “….”

Her: “Of course they’ll probably end up making perverts legal. They made being gay legal. I mean I’ve got nothing against them but when I think about sixteen year-old boys who might be all confused and someone could talk them into doing THAT ACT. You know who the last one they prosecuted for that was?”

Me: “No?”

Her: “That actor, Orson Welles. He went to prison in Reading or somewhere but he wrote a book about it and made millions.”

Me: “…..”

Her: “Of course I couldn’t be prejudiced. I’ve got nothing against them, or the blacks. Of course, if my daughter came home with one… but I wouldn’t throw her out or anything, not my own flesh and blood… but anyway all of mine are married now, I’ve nothing to worry about.”

Me: “I’d better go back inside.”

Her: “Nice to meet you.”

[Please note: I am not the hero of this story: this story is the story of my own inability (or unwillingness) to engage with strangers' views when engagement might lead to argument. Perhaps this series may become a record of my conflict aversion.]

Here are our observations: impressive edifice; tremendous views even from the top tier where we sat; expensive bad food and drinks; the stadium seemed very red inside due to the presence of more than 90,000 scarlet seats (over 30,000 of which were unoccupied); pretty much impossible to get tens of thousands of people to and from the suburbs comfortably but it seemed OK in the circumstances; overall it was good but blimey it wanted to be since they’ve been building it since about 1732 and they’ll be paying for it for even longer.

So far, so obvious. Nothing here you wouldn’t be able to read on countless pages of user-generated content across the interweb.

On a day when more than 50,000 people turned out to watch a game of football, and less than 10% of them seemed to care much about the result, it’s nice that my abiding memory won’t have anything to do with football. Having got to 3-3 with about twenty minutes to go, the teams seemed to decide that that was enough, honour was fulfilled, and the game dribbled to an uneventful end.

A smallish percentage of the crowd, mindful of the likelihood of massive queues to get into the tube (and perhaps worried about whether or not it is possible to be a spectator when no spectacle remains) started to filter out. Behind us, we noticed a few fellows taking what seemed to be a long way round to the exit. But they seemed to miss the stairway down, and they kept going. And going. Following a snaky path, they selected underpopulated rows of seats to walk along, so not too many were bothered by their route. Slowly, we realised the truth. 

This small band of adventurers was attempting a circumnavigation of the Upper Tier of the new Wembley.

This feat won’t be easy to replicate. The game was a friendly, meaning unsegregated seating, which will (I suppose) be rare in the future. The whole point of the fixture was to demonstrate the workability of the stadium with serious numbers of people inside, in order to gain some kind of safety certificate from the Council, so about 55000 people were there. That meant some stretches of their great expedition were through banks of unoccupied seats, making things easier than squeezing through a grumpy capacity crowd. A couple of them got cocky in the wide-open spaces and started jumping over seats in a lively fashion, which we thought might lead to stewardly intervention. No, they continued unmolested*.

The burning question was: would they make it all the way around before full time? Clearly, the whole exercise would be invalidated if the final whistle went before the circuit was completed. Any fool can walk around a stadium when there’s no game on. It was very, very tight. We reckon the first two thirds of the journey took them about 15 minutes, and they were clearly hurrying as the clock ran down. Of course, we didn’t know exactly where their quest had started, so we weren’t sure about the finishing line either.

With a couple of minutes left of the game, and just a little way past the big electronic scoreboard on (what I think is) the East curve of the stadium, they started leaping about like they’d won a famous victory. Which they had.

Hats off to these anonymous pioneers of the pointless.

*I wonder if this counts as one of the “minor stewarding problems“?

Then, Sidmouth and Branscombe are all over the news. A bunch of containers had fallen off the boat and were washing ashore on Branscombe beach. The locals were busying themselves prising the things open, and dragging out the contents.

Some scored BMW motorbikes, others apparently scarpered with arms full of nappies. On Radio 4, I heard a very unfortunate woman watching scabrous types skanking off with the contents of her personal crate, her belongings (which had been bound for South Africa) robbed and distributed to various East Devon homes, and thence to eBay or goodness knows where.

Next thing I know,  Devon & Cornwall’s finest have closed off public access to Branscombe beach.  It’s rare enough for that part of the world to make the local news, let alone the national. Reporters claimed to have seen small children left untended on the wintry beach as their folks grabbed what they could. It was going to take a year to tidy up. People opening crates were playing a dangerous game of Russian Roulette and they might be about unleash a crateload of unspecified industrial waste. The negative stories came in such a flood that I couldn’t help but feel they were being planted, maybe by the Police, maybe by the Receiver of Wreck. (“Receiver of Wreck”! Who knew?) It still sounded pretty bad. Even Billy Bragg got his mention (look at the first comment on that page, by the way…)

But some local on the radio was saying something like “it’s just like beachcombing, in a carnival atmosphere!” and my heart kind of melted again. The people of East Debm like our strange carnivals. No doubt you’ve heard me banging on about the tar barrels in Ottery St Mary (if not take a look at that link and glory) but equally odd is the Honiton Hot Pennies, during which shovelfulls of scorching small-denomination coins are buzzed out of the top windows of pubs for the local youth to scrap over.

I feel a strange sense of pride that MY PEOPLE, on the surface a fairly restrained bunch, are one small opportunity from reverting to a grand tradition, or at least an ancient cultural type: scavengers, smugglers, wreckers. Cool. Uncool.

Blimey, this place looked forbidding from across the road. Even early on a gloomy, wet Sunday evening, when the nastiest, most hostile boozers give off a promising, golden glow, this place looked drab and unwelcoming. I wasn’t much looking forward to seeing inside, but we had a spare half an hour before we were supposed to arrive at the party and there wasn’t an obvious alternative. Besides, science dictated that I was going to have to come here sometime.

It’s not well-decorated, the Railway Tavern, with fairly standard issue pub nick-nacks around the rag-roll nicotine walls. The lady behind the bar looked distinctly unimpressed with us and grumpily served us our pints of Eagle. What you’ve read so far is the sum of all the criticisms I could find of the place. Everything else was just about right. The Eagle we drank was delicious, it was comfortable sitting down, but it seemed like it’d have been just as good to stand by the bar. The juker was playing old country hits, and I know this is a special area of interest for me but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to be singing along to “Take Me Home, Country Roads”. My fellow singers seemed tolerant to the point of friendly and we would very happily have spent a few hours stretching out and bending our elbows.

There’s often a good moment on a Sunday evening, which I think our visit hit precisely. The match on the telly has ended and most of the watchers have gone home, leaving a handful of stragglers and boozers, those intent on continuing to celebrate their victory, or those made too miserable by defeat to think about moving on just yet. It feels like the pub is yawning and dusting itself down, it’s a little calm before we all begin the slow descent to a Sunday evening skinful. The elephant named “Work Tomorrow” has wandered into the bar room, but hasn’t yet begun to trumpet. Take a deep breath, and enjoy it. It’s your turn to go to the bar.

Overall mark: 7/10

So says Silvio Berlusconi to Inter Milan fans, appparently. But how would a man who had simultaneously been Prime Minister of Italy and owner of the Italian Champions know about a thing like that?

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been helping to tidy up some of the FT archives, and bringing some old FT essays into the current template. Exciting stuff, yes? I bring this up because one of the pieces I did yesterday was this classic piece of vintage Ewing, musing on fandom, pop, comics and continuity. And last night’s show was all about the backstory.

It involved JLH being re-haunted by her very own My First Ghost, and that meant her going back to confront some of her own past. Result: a big step forward in TGW backstory, explication of (and some unexpected answers to) a number of outstanding questions (when did JLH start with the seeing the dead? How did she handle it? What’s the deal with her Mum?). It seemed like a belated attempt to wrench a story arc out of the TGW formula, over and above the ongoing hints at some malign presence buzzing around.

It feels like a big change for a formula TV show, to move from more-or-less self-contained episodes within a stable situation framework to a show where the plot of each episode is (for fans) secondary to the progression of the longer-term story arc. Meaning that each individual episode is harder to miss.

I’ve no idea how popular TGW is, no idea whether this is a sign of confidence that the show is popular enough that it’s worth planning for the long term, secure in the belief that enough people are watching regularly to justify the insertion of backstory. Or maybe the show’s not doing so well and it’s been decided to try to grab viewers by soapifying. Or maybe they’ve realised that turning out such a formulaic show will eventually mean people getting bored. Possibly, none of the above.

But if Tom’s right and the most fun is to be had when talented people are required to indulge in hackery, this is most likely a worrying move in the other direction, a flexing of Authorial muscles, a move from the joys of the 7″ single to the rather different, often absent, certainly more indulgent, joys of the triple album.

So here’s how the television show The Ghost Whispererer goes:

1) Ooky spooky music box theme tune with “Sowing the Seeds of Love”-style “eerie” animation involving Jennifer Love Hewitt RIPPING HER OWN HEAD IN HALFin a Victorian scrapbook style which calls to mind Terry Gilliam’s overexposed early Monty Python nonsense.

2) Jenny Love Hewitt enjoying delightful classic American small-town bliss (incl. heavy hintage at distinctly vanilla rumpo) with a hunk o’husband who could’ve inherited Business Big Shot status but chucked it in to be a paramedic. ALL MAN. She runs an antique shop where they make a little money even though they sell NOWT but then blow it all on milky coffee.
(JLH mode (1) : all scrubbed-up and smiley.)

3) JLH encounters miserable / lost / troublesome spirit who has failed to pass over to the unspecified other side due to (yawn) unfinished bizniss on this questionably mortal coil. Jenny can see ghosts, you see, and no-one else can. JLH struggles manfully with her gift for about 10 seconds and wishes she didn’t have to help this poor soul. Then the ghost gets pleady or threateny and she agrees that she has to help.
(JLH mode (2): scared: as per (1) except less smiley, mouth held slightly open).

4) JLH in full Social Worker to the Spectral Community mode. She’s visiting the living relatives – she wants to help them but they’re all suspicious. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU’RE TRYING TO SELL LADY BUT I’M NOT BUYIN’. NOW LEAVE US ALONE.” Slam. She’s looking back through the papers to find out what misfortune befell her insubstantial mate. JLH is then subjected to a little more spookery just so she knows that abandoning the case is not an option, unless she wants ongoing ghostly botheration up to and including the lights flickering on and off.
(JLH mode(3): determined: as per 1 but eyes slightly narrowed)

5) Hostile Living Relative suddenly realises that JLH is telling the real actual truth (often through the proffering of some small unknowably meaningful token) and heart-to heart with deado ensues (amanuensis: sensitive Jenny). Any remaining earthbound wrongs righted in this sequence (e.g. treasure found; correct ownership of disputed tract of land resolved; parental love reconfirmed). Deado spots “the light”, dons beatific grin and legs it to eternity, out of shot. “Are they gone?” “Yes.” “Sniffles.” 
(JLH mode (4): caring: as per (1) but with head slightly tilted to one side).

6) THE END (sometimes add mysterious and thus-far meaningless sinister laughing ghouly spectre thing which puts the wind up JLH something chronic but never seems to turn up in the next show).
(JLH mode: (2), again)

The television show Haunted is EXACTLY THE SAME except for the following:

1) Nu-metal theme tune with trainer ad graphics on the title sequence

2) Main character is a mixed-up mound of muscly man with(out) a kidnapped son, whose cop career hit the skids* after the nasty baddies took his boy away.

3) More urban, more booze, more violence, greater possibility of insubstantial spectral sexing, less family values.

4) Greater possibility of using phantom intelligence to SHOP the BADDIES (as against Jenny who runs a one-woman FCAB (Former Citizens Advice Bureau)).

5) Matthew Fox out of Party of Five has fewer modes than Jenny, mostly he restricts himself to broody.

It’s tempting to ascribe each one of these differences to pure demographic targeting: Haunted plainly aims at being the ghost series of choice for discerning members of the Coke Zero generation (i.e. men, 15-29 or thereabouts), TGW is just as clearly for GURLERS. Except, except: if “Haunted” was going to be all about the young BLERKS, wouldn’t the obvious choice have been an enormous GHOST GUN with which any troublesome spirits could be blasted even further into the hereafter?

In both of these shows the haunters are always in need of the help. Even when they initially present as threatening poltergeistish nasties, it turns out all they need is a little tenderness. Who’d have thought? It’s the hauntees (some might say the victims) who have to change, to understand what’s gone wrong, to put things right. Justice, in both of these shows, is a gentle force but requires someone with the SPECIAL SIGHT to see the backstory and, er, try a little kindness to overlook the blindness. It’s all very hug-a-hoodie, even if the hood in question may have been applied by a real actual fictional executioner.
 
*I hope Richard Jobson isn’t still googling himself. Hello Richard!

My friends, consider this: you have taken control of a little local pub in South-East London called the Railway Tavern. You think the old place needs a little bit of jollying up, perhaps some pictures, some bits and pieces according to a broad theme. Give people something to remember the place by, make it more homely. Seems sensible. And the theme’s fairly obvious, right?

Of course: nautical. This Railway is decorated with (though not dominated by) bits of old rope, some pictures and models of ships, the odd mermaid. The nuts and Mini Cheddars sit in a little net behind the bar.

It’s a very basic, smallish, one-room locals’ boozer, fuzzy big screen showing a pre-season friendly, seating which is losing its foam stuffing in places. I suppose it would have been a backstreet place before the great big Sydenham Sainsburys was built over the road, now it seems slightly like a train out of water. The bar top is made of half-inch square black tiles, which is another unusual move. They don’t seem especially pleased to see me, but they tolerate my presence uncomplainingly. At the bar, two fellows are having a conversation. Well, one is talking very loudly while the other sits mutely and slightly shamefaced. “YOU DOSS CANT! THE HAMBURGER IS CALLED A HAMBURGER BECAUSE IT ORIGINATES FROM THE GERMAN CITY OF HAMBURG. IT. HAS. NOTHING. TO. DO. WITH. HAM. YOU STUPID, DOSS CANT”. And on, and on.

I imagine this place might be something of a laugh when it’s busy, and not too bad for hangover reparation when it’s quiet. If, and only if, your face fits.

Overall mark: 4/10

The traditional English pub: a place where blokes go to drink. On their own, with their friends. That’s it, really. Sometimes you don’t want any more. Often, no more is offered.

This particular Railway offers no more than the absolute basics, and even those basics it offers with a grudging bad grace. Eventually getting around to serving us, my lovely companion asked if there was any beer available via handpumps. After the laughter, we were told “you won’t get any beer on handpumps within 40 miles of here”. It seemed a wild claim, and we toddled off, Guinnesses in hand, to a mucky table.

The Railway Tavern has the feel of a pub on its last legs, stumbling along towards refurbishment (as a different kind of pub, or – worse – flats), though obviously I have no idea how successful or otherwise it is. There’s no need for a lack of maintenance to mean this kind of vacantly hostile atmosphere. I remember the last weeks of the Green Man in Bethnal Green: the pub was totally falling to bits but the people there were insanely friendly, kids running around having fun and the whole thing had a kind of end-times abandon which was a whole lot of fun.)

This place fixes its eyes grimly on the racing, scowls, then tears up another wasted slip.

Overall mark: 3/10

(Note: an FT correspondent speaks up for this place here. Maybe I caught it on a bad day at the bookies…

Funnily enough, the pub it reminded me of was the last I’d visited as part of this project, way up there in Mill Hill. Big boozers, long bars, high ceilings, lots of space. Probably Edwardian gin palaces done dirt cheap, subjected to a refit every fifteen years or so, with variable success. 

The Railway Telegraph has sanded wooden floors but it’s not all sofas and speciality olives. Clearly drinking here is more vertical than sedentary. Though there’s no big football ground nearby, it’s almost like a football pub: a place whose business arrives for brief, outrageously busy periods but which struggles to find a comfortable identity inbetweentimes. It can’t fill itself up with tons of furniture, because that’ll get in the way when the place is rammed.

My guess is that it’s absoultely raging in here on Friday and Saturday nights. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I got the feeling that the building itself was hung over, breathing deeply, waiting for the onslaught to return. Nobody was going to thank anyone for making too much noise.

At the same time, it’s actually a fine spot to cradle a mild hangover with a palliative pint, maybe a newspaper, maybe a similarly-afflicted friend, or two. The smattering of souls cooling it on the decking out at the back seemed to be admirably relaxed. The individual choice of wall hangings, oriented more to repro Art Noveau advertising than to standard issue vintage booze ads, makes you feel like someone actually cares about the place. For pubs which live in the cycle of refitting, that counts for a lot.

Overall mark: 6/10

There was only one moment when I thought seriously about regretting being the host for the Second Annual Food Science Day. I was sitting in my lounge, and a smell so rank blew through from the kitchen that I figured either (a) I would be evicted from my flat, or (b) I would never get the stench out of the curtains. Or both.

The good news is that I live on the third floor, and it was windy, and the stink soon blew through. But even an unshiftable aroma monster would have been a small price to pay for hosting the event. Aside from the excellent company, and apart from the fact that I didn’t have to worry about getting the bus home when it was all over, there is a special privilege in seeing a bunch of shockingly talented and intelligent people sitting on the rug in your front room and giggling uncontrollably because they’ve scoffed too many sweets and followed them up with a whole world of caffeine-heavy diet coke.

Over the next few days (or weeks and months if last year’s effort is anything to go by) you can expect to see write-ups of the various pieces of hard and/or slightly wobbly science which took place. I’m proud to see my premises used to push the boundaries of scientific enquiry, even if we did only push them downwards.

It seems the right thing to begin this story with its bitter end, by noting the detritus which remained once the last pioneer of knowledge had departed:

1 peach
1 Garner’s Pickled Egg (in a jar of vinegar)
1 Packet, Nice & Spicy Nik Naks (complete with “Reduced for Quick Sale” sticker)
500g Sainsbury’s Butcher’s Choice sausagemeat
1 0.5L bottle Diet Coke (British)
1 0.5L bottle Coke Light (German)
4 330ml cans Diet Coke (British)
1 bottle Vintage English Perry
1 can Guinness
1 tomato
1 piece brie (or possibly other oozy brie-ish soft cheese)
167g Organic Parmesan cheese
14 eggs
2 slices Leerdammer cheese
2 chicken carcasses (stripped by me to produce 1 big plate of tasty-looking chicken for later use)
1 carrier bag assorted chewy sweeties
1 little pear (local windfall)
1 packet (opened and part-used) Rakusens’s Cake Matzo Meal
1 packet (opened and part-used) Sainsbury’s Golden Breadcrumbs
1 carrier bag unidentified (by me) meat, bag suggests this came from the Afro Food Centre, Peckham Rye.

Note: this list does not include refuse: I’m pleased to say that we didn’t generate much rubbish this year. Mostly it seemed to consist of empty beer cans and bottles. Oh, and the rubbish that I hope you’ll enjoy reading as the write-ups roll in.

(This is the continuation of a project which has been dormant, largely as a result of a lengthy period of foul sobriety. New readers, or forgetful ones, might like to catch up with what this is all about. This review is of the Railway I visited some months ago and never wrote up, so it’s from slightly splintered memory. Please forgive inaccuracies or embellishments.)

I was in a bad mood: I was late, I was hung over, I was supposed to be visiting two Railways on the way to watching my football team slump to an inevitable defeat against Pete’s football team. These things aren’t sent to try us, we bring them on ourselves (rather, we generously treat ourselves to them).

And then, The Railway Engineer. It’s one of those pubs built to service a fairly large housing development, probably in the thirties. [One pub for a whole estate] + [early-mid century fashion for "roadhouse" style pub - restaurants on a large scale] = a big old boozer. And it has a tell-tale sign on the front: it’s a Mr. Q’s.

The Mr. Q’s sign is not generally a good thing, unless you’re looking for a game of pool. If it’s pool you’re after, I suppose it’s not too much of a disaster. This much it’s possible to say for Mr. Q: he’s a consistent chap. You have a fair idea what you’ll get when you visit his place. You’ll get pool tables, for sure, you’ll also get some big screens, some low-grade flags-and-shirts style sporting memorabilia, plenty of chairs and tables, often in rows in one of the larger rooms. You have carpets and wooden furniture so standard and familiar that you can’t bring them fully to mind once you’ve left. His establishments are geared to the evening trade: they work best when there are people in, the music’s cranked up, lager is being drunk, laughs are being had. Those aren’t really my laughs, these aren’t really my kind of places.

This, however, was the tail-end of a Saturday lunchtime. There had obviously been a few in earlier, but now there were a handful of us. A man and a woman were slowly playing pool, when they did talk it was quietly. I didn’t have time to take a chance on the food, so grabbed my pint of Guinness and my big bag of cheesy Quavers and sat down somewhere in the expanse of empty tables to watch the football previews on the telly.

And it was alright. The man behind the bar had been very friendly, apologised for a (brief) wait while he was fixing something in the back. I felt reasonably comfortable. The few souls remaining for a post-lunch drink seemed fairly benign. And even my mood had lifted slightly by the time I set off back in the direction of Barnet. Where we lost.

Overall mark: 5/10

Here it is (copied from A History of Pantomime, by R. J. Broadbent)

“Ladies and Gentlemen:–In putting off the Clown’s garment, allow me to drop also the Clown’s taciturnity, and address you in a few parting sentences. I entered early on this course of life, and leave it prematurely. Eight-and-forty years only have passed over my head–but I am going as fast down the hill of life as that older Joe–John Anderson. Like vaulting ambition, I have overleaped myself, and pay the penalty in an advanced old age. If I have now any aptitude for tumbling it is through bodily infirmity, for I am worse on my feet than I used to be on my head. It is four years since I jumped my last jump–filched my last oyster–boiled my last sausage–and set in for retirement. Not quite so well provided for, I must acknowledge, as in the days of my Clownship, for then, I dare say, some of you remember, I used to have a fowl in one pocket and sauce for it in the other.

“To-night has seen me assume the motley for a short time–it clung to my skin as I took it off, and the old cap and bells rang mournfully as I quitted them for ever.

“With the same respectful feelings as ever do I find myself in your presence–in the presence of my last audience–this kindly assemblage so happily contradicting the adage that a favourite has no friends. For the benvolence that brought you hither–accept, ladies and gentlemen, my warmest and most grateful thanks, and believe, that of one and all, Joseph Grimaldi takes a double leave, with a farewell on his lips, and a tear in his eyes.

“Farewell! That you and yours may ever enjoy that greatest earthly good–health, is the sincere wish of your faithful and obliged servant. God bless you all!”

He lived for 14 more years, and according to this site “his last years were spent beside the fireplace of ‘The Marquis of Cornwallis’ tavern, in Pentonville, where each night he would be carried home on the back of the landlord, George Cook.” Another ending, then. No-one gets carried home on the landlord’s back in uncaring, binge-drink Britain. For shame.

I was interested to see the referee wave away appeals from the Depor fans and players alike after what looked for all the world like a Villareal back pass. A Villareal player under not-much pressure kicked the ball and it rolled tamely back to the goalie, who picked it up. That’s a back pass, right? Well, not if it was a mis-kick, if the player didn’t mean to, if they didn’t know what they were doing.

Now, someone who shall remain unnamed (on account of I’ve forgotten who it was) was talking me through the Catholic Church’s attitude to suicide recently. Suicide is a mortal sin and, by the letter of the law, suicides may not be buried on consecrated ground. However, if the person is insane, they are let off because they don’t know what they are doing. Apparently, in most cases of suicide these days, the Church considers that the deceased must have been insane to carry out the act, and so their relatives are allowed to bury them as Catholics, and are not in a position of having to assume their loved ones are facing an automatic eternity in hell. This seems a perfectly sensible and humane thing to me, though I’ve no idea how true it is.

And it seems to me that the refereeing community have made a similar shuffle. No player would have deliberately passed back in that situation, so it’s only reasonable to assume that any apparent back pass was an accident. No foul. On you go. Sporting laws that require an assessment of intent: a bad thing, on the whole, right? We don’t want to ask our referees to see into our souls before deciding between fair and not fair. And don’t get me started on the matter of interfering with play.

This priest-ref parallel is probably worth thinking about some more, but this morning I am failing to get past the mental image of an irate Keano in an intricately carved confessional, bulgy-veined and screaming about some small penance.

I hope they succeed in their stated aims. Actually, I think they’ve gone a long way to achieving those aims already, in so far as they have a club and they seem to be enjoying themselves. Well done to them.

Not well done to the Guardian, though, who consider this to be breaking news. Hold the back page: FCUM have some songs. Any club with more than a thousand regular attendees could write the an equivalent article. It’s the kind of thing which fills up a quarter page in a local rag on a slow day. This is just fawning.

“Ties are stronger than they could ever be with a woman. If she goes and sleeps with your best mate, it’s over. If the Rs’ boss, Ian Holloway, slept with my best mate, QPR would still be my team.”

Who would say such a thing? (This line aside, the piece is sadly little more than a checklist of plankishness, but I guess we get our kicks where we can these days, eh?)

Anyway the Head of Steam has generally managed to achieve an excellent friendly-but-not-too-friendly local atmosphere, even in the face of the fact that it’s a station pub and obviously lacks many actual locals. It’s true that the range of ales attracts fatbelly beer bores, but we’re a relatively harmless bunch as long as you can put up with the conversations about – and the faint smell of – yeast. It’s one of the very few places in London where you can get a decent pint of cider. (NB The Publog cannot recommend such foolishness for the untrained).

The other obvious feature is The Code. Ask behind the bar for The Code and make sure you remember it, because you require The Code to get you through the locked doors to the downstairs toilets. It seems there exists a certain constituency who crave access to these facilities without purchasing goods from the bar, which offends natural justice, and it may be that these people are intent on other unnamed mischief. Anyway, they are apparently repelled by The Code, so all is well.

So what, you ask? Well, the Head of Steam has been sold. Its new Fullers overlords intend to maintain its current character, which is probably a good thing and will be even better if they give the food a sympathetic, cheap and cheerful brush-up. They’re changing its name, though: it’s to be called The Doric Arch. It’s a shame Fullers haven’t cottoned on to the recent fashion for concrete buildings. Instead of commemorating the neo-classical pile which the current building rather gleelessly stomped all over, they might have done better to celebrate what’s there now. The Block of Concrete seems a good name, or The Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, to commemorate Betjeman’s architectural enemy. Or maybe The Brutalist’s Arms. That’d be nice.

Here are my top five tips for Open House:

1. Think of it as an excuse to see a bit of London you don’t already know, as well as to see the insides of buildings you do. I’m always surprised how many unexpected things crop up near home (last year I was surprised and delighted by the Pioneer Centre, Peckham).

2. Plan a route without using the tube: if you are trying to see bits of London then the inside of the sucky hole train doesn’t seem to best choice (NB getting a bus into town from Romford, as I did last year, is likely to require a big chunk of your day.

3. Take the indie choice: last year people sacrificed their whole day to see inside that gherkin. It can’t have been that interesting. Rushing for the big, famous, headline places is all very well but you’ve only a limited time and the obscure bits can be good too. If you don’t have any inspiration, pick one at random and then go to the three nearest sites. Or choose a theme: this year I’m going to do a few town halls.

4. FOLLOW THE CONCRETE.

5. Try to go to at least one church. I recommend the glorious Christ Church Streatham and that elliptical Ukrainian Holy Family In Exile one off Oxford Street.

I know the above is all very London-centric and I’m sorry so if you don’t live in London and you’re sore about all this nonsense, here’s a special Open House day tip for you: don’t be. If you don’t live here, that’s probably for reasons of your own.

Last year, I cut short my tour of decadent Civic deco in East London to go and help some friends move into their flash new flat. This year their flash new flat complex is part of Open House! Except that you don’t get access to the apartments!

FT 1 RIBA 0.