wonder if other people notice how much comparative pleasure there is in drinking in a pub called The Eagle and Child or Lamb and Flag rather than, say, Joe’s Bar. Personally, I find endless satisfaction in it. I love to listen to the football results and the lulling rollcall of team names – Sheffield Wednesday, West Bromwich Albion, Partick Thistle, Queen of the South; what glory there is in those names – and I find strange comfort in the exotic and mystifying litany of the shipping forecasts. I have no idea what they mean – ‘Viking rising five, backing four; Dogger blowing strong, steady as
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