1. My mother was part of a resourceful generation of working-class women who grew up with so little that they were magnificent at making something out of nothing. The older I get, the older my kids get, the more I marvel at how she kept the show on the road.
Despite rearing four children on a bank porter’s wage, she always found money for new soccer boots when they were needed.
A beautiful piece by Dave Hannigan on his own blog. A must-read.
2. James McClean’s refusal to turn and face the English flag as the national anthem was sang ahead of West Bromwich Albion’s pre-season friendly in America was insulting, stupid and hypocritical.It was an act of defiance that asks the question, if you do not like the British so much, because that is what your behaviour suggests, why have you spent the vast majority of your career living and working in England, the country at the heart of Britain’s ‘colonial power’?