Monday

The final day of the last home cricket Test match is always tinged with melancholy. Even when England win a game to draw the series. It’s the end of summer, the nights drawing in and a long slog through to spring. But the weekend had another layer of sadness as about 70 of us gathered in a beautiful Wiltshire garden to celebrate the life of an old friend who died of cancer in the summer. In May he was merely complaining of back pain; two months later he was dead. He was only 64. Ali had a variety of seemingly incompatible careers – there can’t be many accountants who also made shoes for dozens of films including the Harry Potter series and Gladiator – but at heart he was basically an old hippie who was never happier than when driving around in his old VW camper van with his dog and friends in tow. So as well as some touching speeches, there was plenty of Grateful Dead and a spine-tingling live version of Gram Parsons’ A Song for You performed by one of his closest friends, Rod. I knew him primarily as a lifelong supporter of the Hemingford Hermits, one of the world’s worst cricket teams, for whom I played for about 25 years before my knee gave out. My performances were so mediocre it took the rest of the team five years to notice that I had actually retired. Ali never batted, never bowled and never fielded, making him the very best of us. Something that was recognised by him twice winning the award for Hermit of the Year. The second time posthumously. As we left to go back to London, our dog was so overjoyed to see the people who had looked after him while we were on holiday that he tried to get into their car. It was a day marked by loss.

Tuesday

It’s hard not to enjoy the Lib Dem party conference. Bournemouth in the mid-September sun, when most holidaymakers have long since vacated the beach, is hard to beat and there is none of the ring of steel security that surrounds both the Labour and Conservative dos. There is no queueing up to have your pass checked by three separate security guards, followed by a 20-minute wait in a demilitarised zone as you and your bags are put through an airport scanner. Rather you just turn up at the front door, wait for 30 seconds at most while someone does a quick hand search of your bag, and you’re in. You actually feel as if everyone is pleased you have made the effort to come rather than a problem to be managed. Much of the conference itself seemed to be focused on the thrill of the new. New leader, new opinion polls putting the party neck and neck with Labour, new Brexit policy and a half dozen new MPs. Sam Gymiah, Sarah Wollaston, Luciana Berger, Chuka Umunna, Angela Smith and Philip Lee were all given a hero’s welcome and every event at which they spoke was packed. It did make me feel a bit sorry, though, for those Lib Dem MPs who had been with the party during the dog days when no one took much notice of them and were now rather taken for granted. Just about the only place where they were guaranteed a presence was in the merchandise stall. Here Tim Farron, Tom Brake and Wera Hobhouse took pride of place on the coffee mugs and fridge magnets as there hadn’t been time to order in any with the defectors’ faces on them. There were also several Lib Dems whom neither I, nor the woman running the stall, could identify. O tempora, o mores.



Wednesday

Piers Morgan would no doubt tell me I need to man up and stop being such a snowflake, but Brexit is definitely doing nothing for my mental health. I feel depressed and my anxiety levels are sky high. I wake up in the morning with a sense of dread – it often takes a huge effort just to get out of bed – and I feel out of control most of the day. It becomes increasingly hard to be funny about things that aren’t really funny and yet I wouldn’t swap my job for the world. Satire at least gives me some release. But other things don’t as much as they used to. There was a time when I was going through depressive episodes that football would give me a sense of purpose when little else did. The Spurs fixture list was imprinted in my brain. Now, not so much. Today I even forgot that Tottenham were playing their first Champions League match in Greece against Olympiacos until 10 minutes after kick-off. That’s never happened before. I still go to all home games and quite a few aways – some things will never change – but I do feel slightly disconnected from the team. Part of the problem is the new stadium. I’ve tried to love it, to embrace the increased capacity and the better facilities but I can’t help missing the old White Hart Lane. Even the rancid toilets. Watching football at the new ground reminds me of going to a baseball game in the US, where people wander in and out of their seats during play. It has become more of a tourist destination than a place of communion. Every game there are different people sitting next to me and I yearn for the faces I used to see week in, week out. Even the bloke who used to annoy everyone by yelling “CONCEN-TRATE” throughout the game. Words I thought I would never write.

Thursday

Three days at the upreme court following – with a great deal of help from Owen Bowcott, the Guardian’s superb legal affairs editor – the appeals against the different rulings by the English and Scottish courts on the legality of the government’s decision to prorogue parliament has been an intense but also uplifting experience. A sense that some people really did still care about the rule of law. It also gave me a new hero in the form of Lord Pannick – a total failure for nominative determinism – who was acting for Gina Miller against the government. Here was a man totally in command of both his brief and surroundings who could make complex arguments in plain English and cut through bullshit with ease. I could listen to him speak all day and if ever I found myself on the wrong side of the law, he’s the man I would want on my side. Though I dare say I could probably only afford to pay for 20 seconds of his time, so I would have to pray my case was simple. I did wonder, though, quite whether his opposite numbers in court always feel quite as warm towards him as I – and, it seemed, many of the judges – did. Because however good you are, you are almost bound to look a bit crap in comparison. I’m sure that on his day, Lord Keen, who was acting for the government, is a first-rate lawyer. But up against Pannick, he visibly crumbled and became almost incoherent. There again, Keen was having to make the tricky case that Boris Johnson was intrinsically trustworthy. Even Pannick might have struggled with that.

Friday

I am full of wonder for the achievement of Sarah Thomas in swimming across the Channel four times without a break. Not just for her physical endurance – few swimmers can even manage a single crossing – but for her mental strength. The sheer pain and boredom involved in going through the same repetitive motion with no real change of scenery for well over two days is almost unimaginable. I’ve always been a hopeless swimmer and I’ve been far too scared to ride a bike out on the roads after the mother of one of my daughter’s best friends was knocked off and killed by a lorry, so ever since I had my knee replaced with a lump of metal I’ve had to rely on the non-load-bearing cross trainer in the gym for exercise. I try to go at least three times a week – more frequently when on holiday – not just to keep me fit but to displace stress. I have to get my endorphin fix somehow these days. After turning up the resistance to level 15, all I’m capable of focusing on after 20 minutes or so is the sheer exertion required to keep going. The longest I’ve ever kept it up for was an hour and 45 minutes and it wasn’t fatigue – even though I was knackered – that made me stop. It was the boredom. And I at least had the distraction of a TV to watch in the gym. Thomas just had the grey waves and the lights of her safety boat for company. Whatever she’s got, I want some of it.



Digested week, digested: The Incredible Sulk v The Incredible Silk