I See Dead People

Joss has kept me up date with our home games, texting me about our 3-2 home defeat to Wolves and I picked up on our 2-0 defeat at Preston after reading Aidy’s latest email. By the time we started our home game against Blackpool on Saturday 1^st November, I had trooped round the Forbidden City with Jun, Mum and Brian (nominally). That was closer to the end than the beginning of their trip: they have already been treated fantastically in Xian, with Jun’s family and friends showering my mum with gifts, taking us around in a hired van (to the Terracotta Army amongst other things) and buying us massive meals. Then we flew to Guilin and took a cruise down the River Li to Yangshuo before returning to Beijing and the “must-sees” there.

We woke up just after five for the Great Wall & Ming Tomb tour, and Joss’s text told me that we’d been defeated at home again. “Rasiak is back and scored” his succinct message related. I’d texted him earlier thanking him for keeping me up to date and asking who he was going with but without direct response. Anyway, the 4-3 defeat left the Hornets fourth from bottom. Surely Aidy was already a dead man walking?

The section of the wall we climbed was very different from that I had scaled thirteen years previously. Badaling is so full of tourists that Mum and Brian decided that the jostling was too much for them to continue. Fortunately almost everyone went one way so they were able to ascend a different way at their own pace.

Since then we have been to a Lama Temple and Mao’s mausoleum. I tried to sneak a video (using my phone) of the body but couldn’t look at the mobile for fear of being detected and didn’t realise it had auto-locked. Mao is as gold as the Watford strip. “Too much make-up” said Jun.

Joss’ most recent text informed me of the mutual decision by club and manager to terminate Aidy’s contract. I don’t think anyone will be wholly surprised: after last season’s disappointing end, he was going to have to improve and he has not done so. I’d like Alan Curbishley to take the job but it doesn’t feel possible. No doubt it’ll be someone I’ve never heard of; still, as long as there’s a beneficial bounce, I’ll take him.