Cod Almighty | Diary

The bottle stands forlorn, a symbol of the dawn

5 March 2026

Here I am with all the news that's fit to print, and some, maybe that isn't. The Vernam masquerade rolls on – he continues to turn heads and raise eyebrows. The goals, the assists, they keep on coming and he says he is ticking off weekly all the goals set on his IDP. The CA target – summarised as stop gesture defending – well, there is still work to do. He might score weekly but he still defends weakly. Yes, we are hard, gruff taskmasters, but he'll thank us in the end.

Maybe it is a genetic defect. As a youngster helping on the family milk round, I delivered to Charles's paternal grandmother who lived on the outskirts of Nettleton. Beyond the Vernam residence the maps stopped and you entered the Moortown hinterlands. One gold top a day and three on Saturday. Until my Dad said we don't go there any more because she never gives us the empties back. In the mid-sixties this was a big thing. Occasionally was forgiven as a faux pas, regularly, well that was enemy action. Without bottle recycling the milk business was doomed. Looking back more kindly maybe she was using them to grow homunculi? 

Your Guest Diarist feels like a bit of a masochist these days. I never miss any of the pre- and post-match media interviews with Mr Artell. That's four per game, averaging 11 minutes each. Two games a week and that's an hour and a half!

Considering he is very averse to sharing team, formation or injury information that's an awful lot of minutes to fill. The interviewers have long ago run out of lines to take, angles to explore and cute questions, so the chat ploughs the same few furrows every time. Each interview, I listen for what seems like ages and then realise only two minutes have passed and think how on earth are the next ten going to be filled? The last time I felt like this was sitting as an eight-year-old in Chapel listening to the sermon. The difference is, I suppose, that I soon abandoned religion but there is no way I will abandon the blues sung by Blind David Artell. Bring on the next presser! See yer.