Champions League? You’re having a laugh…

More snow. It’s not coming down in big 20-30 cm drops, which is something to be grateful for, but it is still coming down, which is something to be dealt with. Another 4 cm today. Decided to get to grips with the numerous tasks awaiting me, and so started in the basement. Everything takes so bloody long, though: empty one box – minimum of an hour; tackle laundry – 30 minutes to fold the old stuff and sort the new; etc. etc.
 
Still nothing on the work front, so the novel it is. I’ve solved (through a process called intense procrastination) the main reason for the story being told. So now I can tell it. Prepare to be disappointed. Talking of which, I was reading in the Guardian that the stage production of Coraline was being cancelled after allegations made against Neil Gaiman. I’m not sure what to think about that. Does this cancellation mean the allegations go away? Have the allegations been proven in court? Does the fact that the author might be a weak-willed sex pest make Coraline any less meaningful? Can we disassociate an author from his work? I don’t think I know the answers to any of these questions – but would be willing to discuss them all over a few drinks. Maybe I should publish my novel under a pseudonym – or completely anonymously? Seriously though, I really don’t know what to think. Gaiman’s work seems to be about the striving for something positive in a world of mystery and darkness. Not sure if his message is lessened because he is allegedly a twat.
 
In the afternoon, I was forced to watch the Champions League match between PSV and Liverpool Reserves. Liverpool lost 3-2 but the match was so unimportant that Arne Slot fielded 18- and 19-year-olds, and left all the senior players back home. I fully expected we would lose, but then as the game developed, I got increasingly angry at perhaps the most inexplicably bizarre refereeing performance I have ever seen. The referee, a German called Tobias Stieler, was absolutely terrible. As in, dire. I don’t think I have ever seen a performance so mystifyingly bad. For example, for PSV’s second goal, he got in the way of a Liverpool player who was moving away from the defence with the ball: it was purely accidental, but this meant that the Liverpool player was off balance, and then subsequently lost the ball to a PSV player, who then made an excellent pass, which led to a goal. Really strange refereeing. Anyway, as I said, it was for us a meaningless game, but …