Life-affirming rawk

I went to see AC/DC on Saturday night.  I had seen them once before but that was in 1988 and so on longer counts - 1988, when both they and I cut a wonderfully seemly figure at a gig.  I'll be honest, I was rather dreading it, but my best friend, who also accompanied me on that outing 28 years ago, insisted.  And I have to say, it was brilliant.

AC/DC have never been a self-regarding band, and this has stood them in good stead.  The idea of a grown man flailing around in front of 80,000 people while dressed as a 1950s schoolboy was as ridiculous then as it is now - no more and no less.  It's meant to be pantomime.  People who harrumph at the band are guilty of a category error.  They are wrongly reading AC/DC as a heavy metal or even heavy rock band.  They're not; they're a rock n roll band - a very different beast.  They don't take themselves seriously so why should you?

It was a real shot in the arm to have my worst middle-aged fears confounded.  We're not done yet, by god.  Just a bit saggy is all.

Summer lovin'

Another bank holiday here in dot-coe-dot-you-kay yesterday, and another hosing-down from the gods.  We're in that difficult transition period between "it's been a shit spring" to "it's being a shit summer".  No-one's quite sure where the cusp lies.  It's like Easter; only the Vatican seems on top of that sheight.  All we do know is that it's close.

The point of this equinox of course is that one must abandon hope if it can be shown we've passed it.  Summers in this country and short and brutal, like a spell in a young offenders' institute.  If we've missed even a week of the summer season to poor weather, then statistically-speaking it cannot be saved.

As Bill Shankly or Buddha would no doubt have averred: it's the hope that kills you.

This spell of appalling weather has come at the end of a very trying weekend too.  On Sunday my beloved Orient were beaten in the League One play-off final at Wembley.   I've seen Orient lose more play-offs than I can shake a stick at, but this one hurt particularly  

I was stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the same cohort of people I was in the 80s when Orient went up against Wrexham, and we've been there for every major game since.  The difference this time is that if we needed 13 years to reach another Wembley final (the gap since our last play-off final), would the club even exist?  It was this thought that played on my mind on the interminable tube journey home.

If West Ham get Olympic Stadium, I fear we're screwed.  The children of Walthamstow, Leyton, Leytonstone etc. will grow up to be Hammers.  You can't blame them; I would have done the same.  The idea of Orient not outliving me is hugely troubling.  I've got football existential angst.  I wonder if my GP will sign me off work?  He is an Os fan after all.