Allergic to England?

I have now had my traditional holiday illness. Perhaps, rather than tempting fate, I should refer to it as my first traditional holiday illness of the season. If we simply refer to it as 'food poisoning', it should give enough idea without needing to dwell upon the details. Thankfully it looks like just a 24-hour thing as I feel just fine today.

It did give me plenty of time to read more of Outlaws of the Marsh - the book on which the Water Margin, a childhood TV favourite of mine, was based. It is quite the splendid book, full of wit and flourishes with a Flash Gordon style 'how will our heroes escape? Read on to find out' attitude. And next time I miss something obvious I will be referring to it as "I have eyes but did not see Mount Taishan". However, I shall probably have to send back to NZ for my other Chinese classics in order to ensure I don't run out of reading. Tsk.

Sadly, my illness precluded me from going to the Forest match last night and I missed a remarkable thing.Yes, we lost with two late goals conceded, but that is hardly a surprise any more. The extraordinary thing is as follows. The match was originally postponed as an unfortunate Leicester player had a heart attack at half-time in the dressing room and the team was quite stunned by this. The postponement seems reasonable to me, although there is the disappointment of having been a goal up and playing really well against a local rival from a higher division. At the beginning to the rematch, the Leicester players allowed Forest to score before play properly started (Paul Smith, the goalkeeper, scoring his first goal in football, and possibly the fastest competition goal ever). It's the sort of big, honest gesture that restores some faith in football. Fortunately they have appointed the worst Forest manager I can remember (Gary Megson) as their new coach so I'm not going to be left with too much residual goodwill about them!

So, today I am off to some more embassies. This is not too bad since they always seem to be in nice areas of town. Hopefully all will go well. More anon.