You know what they say (and they said it in the theme to the BBC's Seaside Special): get a little sand between your toes. Ah yes, Blackpool. What joy. Sorry, dear reader, not to have blogged in a while...
I leave really early, just in case there's holiday traffic - there isn't - and being on the M25 at 8am when the day is unsoiled has its own special pleasure. And coming down the M1 and M6 the other way is seemingly most of Manchester - United and City fans don't seem to share coaches oddly enough - there's hold ups everywhere for them, poor lambs.
As I secretly hoped, I'm there and parked up before midday. This means there's time for some fun. I haven't been to Bloomfield Road for a decade or so (a night match if I recall) and, not that I am now, I haven't stayed in Blackpool for maybe 20 years, since a friend's family took pity on me and took me on holiday with them. It hasn't changed. It doesn't look like the holiday season is about to begin: the Tower is shrouded in mist (does anything other than mist shroud?); the trams aren't running and the seafront is drenched in roadworks.
I spend exactly £2 in the slots. That takes a minute or so. I walk onto the beach, and if not quite getting a little sand between my toes, get a little water in my shoes. I walk to the end of the south pier and back. It could be 1976, but for one of the rides playing Marillion's Kayleigh at ear-mangling volume. Had I known there'd be no food at the football, I'd have had fish'n'chips. Next time, next time... All is well with the world.
Bloomfield Road has changed. They've finally taken down the I'd Like To Knife A Preston Bastard graffiti from the early-'70s (that I can remember it shows how much it troubled me at the time; it was both the word "like" and the seeming absence of lesser violence such as punching I found so unsettling). I wander round, wonder if it's the only ground to have a council creche in its bowels and, never having reported from here before, fail to find the press entrance. A not wholly diligent steward lets me in, points vaguely to the opposite of where I thought it would be and leaves me be.
Already I sense trouble. The people are lovely, but the wi-fi doesn't work and they don't have an IT person; there's no food beyond some straggly sandwiches and the hackseats don't have numbers. Uniquely perhaps, we're literally the buffer zone between the two sets of supporters, in the very spot where other clubs have, say, police. Still at least it's not raining, which since there isn't much in the way of cover is a blessing indeed.
And I'm sat next to someone who refuses to acknowledge my winning smile (not that bloody winning obviously) or even speak to me. But he has taken my laptop plug socket. Cheers. Let's go for a drink afterwards. Actually, let's not.
Reporting on the match has its troubles (admittedly correspondents holed up in Mogadishu may take issue, but these things are relative). The sun is in my eyes, which means I can't see my laptop screen or the video screen, moving the cursor is trickiness itself and my new dongle won't let me send e.mail (anybody know why?). To keep up the sensory deprivation theme, since we're in football's equivalent of the 38th Parallel and it's a sold-out local derby, the noise is, shall we say, quite loud. I get hit on the head by a beach ball. God knows how the radio people cope.
Still, I manage. That's what I'm there for . Wigan Athletic win 3-1, but it might, should even, have been more. Blackpool have run out of ideas, Wigan are starting to realise they have some good one. Afterwards, Roberto Martinez almost tap dances into the room. He's always said they'll come good and they're coming good at the right moment to stay up. I'm really pleased for him and there are few Premier League players more underrated than Mohammed Diame.
In contrast, Ian Holloway is in an understandably foul mood. His world his crumbling around him and his responses are atypically snidey and begrudging. I chance my luck wondering whether he saw stuff in Friday training that made him think they'd be so dreadful on Saturday. Maybe it's not Paxman on Howard, but it's not in the "how important is it to you..." line the sloppier hacks push every week. A proper answer would be quite revealing.
He spends rather too long proclaiming what a stupid and daft question it is. Jesus. I explain to him that it's not and why it's not, but he talks over me so I give up. I've never seem him behave so boorishly before, never seen him so rude: he's always wrestled with my questions are illuminating length. Let's let him off this time; after all he's one of the good guys and he's under a lot of pressure. Then again, aren't we all?