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Lemon curd and Luque

June 8th, 2010 No comments
Lemon curd

Sweet snack

Albert Camus once said “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football.” I’m sure many of us have also learnt life lessons through our wonderful game. In 1978 I learnt about timezones. You see, despite 1978 being the year that Grange Hill started and Boney M told us about blarting near The Rivers of Babylon, it was also my first World Cup…..and that meant the challenges of a timezone……………….. Argentina’s matches kicked off at 11pm which created a problem. How could I persuade my parents to let me stay up and watch it? In the build up to the tournament I asked them repeatedly and the answer each time was an increasingly resounding “Don’t be so bloody stupid you aren’t staying up until after midnight to watch a game of football it isn’t even England playing etc”

Of course, the idea of being in bed while a World Cup match is happening on the telly was preposterous. So I decided to force myself to stay awake until 11, wait until they were both asleep in bed and sneak downstairs for the feast of football. I had to be quiet to avoid the mandatory within an inch of my life thrashing if caught.

In the second phase of the competition Argentina faced  Brazil. Being fed stories of Pele, Garrincha and Di Stefano this one would be well worth sneaking downstairs for. The ticker tape blew and all seemed well with the world. It was surely going to display the glorious pride and fury of South American football. Well, the fury anyway!! Argentina v Brazil 1978 was a staggering show of violence! Within seconds of kick off Luque, whose brother had burned to death in a car crash a few days before, had violently hacked Batista and Brazil weren’t taking that lying down. They could hack a bit themselves and replied in kind. The game was little more than a vicious brawl. At half time, and getting increasingly cocky about not being caught downstairs, I decided that what would really bring samba skills to the fore was a lemon curd sandwich. For me not the players. I constructed the aforementioned snack and looked for a plate. For some reaason (the words ‘for some reason’ are often a prelude to a ridicuous incident) I decided to use a metal plate. As I took the clanking plate from the cupboard one of the cats, pleased with late night company, brushed against my leg startling me. I let out a loud cry of shock and knocked the metal plate off the worktop and onto the tiled floor. For a split second I watched in fascinated terror. The plate landed on the floor on it’s side and bounced several times CLANK CLANK CLANK, CLANKETY PHUQQING CLANK. I was terrified. It was obvious that mum and dad, or both, will have heard that din and would inevitably dash downstairs to see whats happening and administer a good belting.   And, worst of all, I’d have to miss the second half of the violence. I cowered in the kitchen and waited. And waited. Five minutes passed and it was coming to the start of the second half. Miraculously, nobody heard. I continued watching the violence uninterrupted and enjoyed the lemon curd sandwich.

That the clanking went unheard, and I remained alive, can only be described as a miracle. It was the miracle of the World Cup. Once every four years there is a magical month full of wondrous mystery. SO, if you find yourself metamorphosising into a giraffe in the next month don’t be alarmed….it’s just another World Cup miracle!!      But whatever miracles happen we’ll still go out on a penno shootout.