The Weight

Well it’s been a week for disappointment. First there was the 5 -1 humiliation against our neighbours. It’s bad enough losing to them, but to lose by such a scoreline, in such a manner, in a game which was absolutely crucial to our hopes of survival in the prem was, and remains, unbearable. Actually it is bearable, because I am bearing it, but you know what I mean. Still, we move on, probably to places like Swansea Cardiff and Plymouth, but there you go. The ginger Mourinho up in Bolton might still come to our rescue, but we now have to pick up at least one point, which I’m not sure we can manage.

Having said that, even by Blues standards this season has been a bloody soap opera. The farce of the take over; the employment of the Villa entryist Ridgewell, with his innovative way with a costly balls up, Bruces manipulation of the media and subsequent (welcome) departure, the failure to buy a centre half in the window, the Taylor tackle, the Sully and Brady arrests, the virtually unprecedented capitulation against the Villa: it hasn’t been dull. I wouldn’t bet against a Larrsson screamer in the last minute of injury time in the last game of the season to keep us up. I wouldn’t bet on it either.

Then there was the new Willy Vlautin. I loved his previous novel, The Motel Life and had actually been saving this one, deferring the gratification, as it were, and it turns out to be…………………thin. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s not much right with it either. It doesn’t read like a novel; it doesn’t even read like a series of short stories, it is more like a series of ideas for stories, or maybe songs. Anyway, it doesn’t hang together or cohere and there is no depth there, although it very well written. Plus there is a little CD that comes with it. A novel with a soundtrack, you can’t complain at that.

So, the third pisser. The Felice Brothers. I fell deeply in love with their previous album, so just like the Vlautin book, I could barely wait to hear the new one and it’s……….O.K. It might be better than OK, maybe it needs a few listens but it certainly doesn’t grab the attention in the same way the other one. Funnily enough talking of novels with soundtracks, I reckon they could write a superb soundtrack to a Vlautin novel. Maybe they should collaborate and inspire each other.