This is how it feels to be Rich

While attempting to tidy our garage last weekend I made many discoveries of things I thought we’d lost long ago, like the weighty orange Sainsbury’s bag that was taped up as if it contained the crown jewels. My son may very well claim that it did, because his eyes bulged out of their sockets and made that comical awooga noise when he saw the ton of coins that were hiding inside.

They were all the 1p and 2p coins I’d put to one side when we used to use coins to buy things. I’d always kept my coppers separate, thinking one day they’ll add up to something significant and we could go out for a meal one day once I’d cashed them in.

That might have been the case had 2005’s values remained the same, but 19 years on things are more expensive and once the Coin Star machine (ironically at Sainsbury’s) had taken its 11.9% cut and a 49p transaction fee, we were left with £23.62.

We’d earlier played the game of Guess How Much Is In The Bag and I’d plumped for £27. And I would’ve won, had it not been for that pesky thieving Coin Star machine. If only I’d have just counted it out myself, bagged it up in the correct denominations and taken it to a bank myself. I’d have had another £4 to play with now! Would’ve paid for my Gregg’s lunch the other day.

The trip to the Coin Star machine was a reward for taking a car full of rubbish to the waste recycling centre (or ‘tip’ as I knew it growing up). It’s always a sobering experience going there because it’s always busy and everyone’s got so much to be throwing away.

We said goodbye to the crib, which served us well — apart from the time our son climbed over the side of it when he was ten months old and knocked one of his front teeth out after landing on his head. That was a fun night in A&E. A year later, almost to the day, he tried knocking his other front tooth out when he tripped while running at nursery, smashing his mouth against the edge of a table (which we saw in a skip a few days later). He’s still here, but where are the cot and table? Exactly.

We also said goodbye to his old blue scooter, on which he’s probably had many more accidents but none of which stick out more than the crib or the table debacle. It’s a bitter sweet moment getting rid of that sort of stuff. When I think of the joy (and tears) many of our old possessions brought, it doesn’t seem fair that it ends with them looking rather sad and pathetic among a load of other people’s broken rubbish in a big skip.

Still, on the plus side, our garage is a little clearer, and lighter, and we’re £23.62 better off. I’m determined to make sure that money isn’t absorbed by the cost of repairing the next thing that breaks in our house.

The great thing about Saturday nights during the summer is that there are no football highlights on TV (unless you count the dozens of live World Cup matches we’ve had but, come on, you know what I’m saying). It frees me up to watch other things instead.

Netflix tried to force me to watch Alley Cats, which looks like a terrible show designed specifically for Ricky Gervais to achieve his wet dream of saying the worst possible things in a vaguely legitimate way (an ambition that he’s already been able to fulfil many times over in his career, it’s worth pointing out). Actual alley cats would only amuse each other by using the likeness of Ricky Gervais to say the worst possible things to each other in the most legitimate way anyway, so all’s fair in war.

Instead I cracked on Legends, of which I knew very little. Set in 1990, I was one of the many inevitable bores who noticed that during an opening scene (in which a young lad dies from drug abuse at a house party) N-Trance’s Set You Free was filling my ears.

They blow a wad on production, and go to the trouble of making sure all the street scenes are incredible accurate, including the reg plates of all the innocuous vehicles in the background, and they make a boob like that. Tut, tut.

I think the series is great, but I’m easily influenced by the soundtrack which, being from 1990, is incredible. That N-Trance track is an absolute banger. From the gentle tickling of a piano set against the sound of thunder to the moment the rapid beat kicks in, it’s everything I imagine a pill head in Liverpool would’ve craved had it been released three years earlier. Out of every record I own, and of every song I have on my Spotify playlists, few deliver a better vocal performance than Set You Free.

Naturally you have the The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays, and The Jesus and Mary Chain, plus Cocteau Twins (a personal favourite of mine). The series is gripping by itself, but the soundtrack just reeled me in further. Oh to have been old enough to have enjoyed the dance, trance, house and rave scenes at the time! The irony being, of course, that I’ve never touched any Clarky Cat, Triple Sod, Zoopy Sleepers, or Cake.

Just taking it one episode at a time, Gary. The series is a marathon, not a sprint. Resting up tonight, then we go again tomorrow, and all that malarkey.

I still had time to kill so I sat down to watch Lady Macbeth afterwards on BBC2. Having studied Macbeth at school, I thought I’d have some of that! Turns out it’s not about Lady Macbeth, but patriarchal oppression (that old chestnut). Don’t judge a production by its title, that’s what they say (unless it’s Ricky Gervais’s Alley Cats).

I took my son to the National Football Museum in Manchester last week. At least, that’s the cover story because it’s always been me who’s wanted to go, and I finally made it happen. All I needed to do was meet a woman, get married, have a child, wait eight years and bam! I got my wish.

The general rule was: if it was words on a wall, or something displayed in a cabinet, he wasn’t interested. Which is fair enough, really. I can’t say I remember relishing the idea of attending any sort of museum when I was eight.

If there was something there to be kicked, and it was usually a football, then he was all for it. We paid a few extra pounds for him to take three penalties in an interactive area of the building, which measured his accuracy and speed. His fastest shot was 43mph, which felt impressive to me, although he didn’t make it onto the day’s leaderboard.

Those that did could declare their nationality. Now that he’s grasped the difference between club and country, he said he’d represent Zimbabwe. His thinking was, if he’s good enough to play for Grimsby Town one day he’ll likely be good enough to play for Zimbabwe. Shoot for the stars, son.

However, I think he’ll change his mind now and aim for England because, having followed their fortunes (or misfortunes, as it were) through the World Cup, he and his mum just happened to be in Birmingham when Barcelona visited for a friendly, and they managed to get a couple of tickets to the match.

If a 2-2 draw (and a 3-2 win to Brum on penalties) wasn’t exciting enough, he also found out that Jude Bellingham was in the house. Now he can tell his mates at school that he was at the same match as England’s best player, which I personally think it a really cool thing to have in your locker when the kids inevitably descend into petty playground arguments.

It’s immediately better than anything I ever got to boast about when I was at primary school. Back then, I claimed to my mate Simon (who, worryingly, said he fancied his own sister) that I’d designed a school uniform so cool that the head teacher had commissioned me to actually make it, even though I had absolutely no fashion-making skills or experience whatsoever.

I don’t know if Simon ever believed me, but I like to think a part of him did because he countered my claim by claiming he had designed an even cooler school uniform himself and was planning to stitch it. Called himself a mate, but that boy never did want me to thrive.

In the end, neither of us made a thing, although it didn’t stop us making increasingly wilder claims each time we went into school, saying we’d ‘made a leg’ or ‘sewed one of the arms’ of our beautiful luminous green shell suit style uniforms with action purple chevron the previous night.

Oh, the days when you could say absolutely anything and not have to back it up. [Insert joke about politics in 2026]

My son also beat me at Treetop golf* during our day in Manchester, but he’s very quickly reached the point where telling your mates that you beat your dad at something is (pardon the phrase) par for the course. The Bellingham thing is far more impressive.

*Not to be totally outdone, he missed on the bonus 19th hole where I nailed it and won a free round. Not that we were able to cash it in because we had to run for our train. But at least I left with something to celebrate.