Tag Archives: Reuben

Jul 01 2026
Leave a comment
Uncategorized

Omens

Doctor Congo certainly drank their Um Bongo tonight! I wonder if it ever was drunk in the Congo, like the 1980’s ad claimed. A quick search online tells me it was originally created in Cumbria, which isn’t quite as exotic.

It was a good game to watch alongside my son because I don’t think it would’ve held his interest had we run away as comfortable 3-0 winners. The fact that we made a meal of it worked to our advantage, so I’d like to thank Thomas the Tank Tuchel for that. England fans like nothing more than to have something to moan about, even in victory, so he and the team delivered the perfect performance.

One of my work colleagues is Mexican, but she’s so nice it’s hard to create even a slither of faux rivalry. I’d say the omens don’t look good for her, though, based on the fact that three close co-workers of mine are Man United fans, and my line manager at the time was a Sheffield Wednesday fan, and both were beaten by my beloved Grimsby Town earlier in the season. I’m on a roll.

As is Reuben. We forgot to ask him to predict the outcome of the Ghana and Panama matches, but we remembered for this one and, naturally, he chose England. He’s a cat that knows things. Two wins out of two for him! And one win out of one for me on the betting. I’m tempted not to bet ever again, so I can dine out on my 12/1 victory (which, ironically, were the odds of Grimsby knocking Man United out of the League Cup back in August). I hope we never play Man United again. We’re four unbeaten against them — an undefeated run that stretches back 80 years.

Go back 40 years and that’s when England got knocked out of the World Cup by Argentina in the very stadium we’ll be taking on Mexico on Sunday night. Suddenly the omens don’t look so good for us. I think the England players will need to have their Weetabix for this one.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jun 29 2026
Leave a comment
Uncategorized

Panamanian clairvoyance

We forgot to ask Reuben to make his pre-match England prediction, but it looks as if I’ve done him out of a job! I’ll break the bad news to him later, when he wakes up from his eight-hour nap.

He shouldn’t worry too much anyway because my £13.16 winnings will only go towards the cost of his insurance cover for the next year anyway, which will amount to something like nine days. He’s a 16-year-old cat with thyroid cancer on his medical history, along with the vets’ note (and I quote): “This cat is a complete stress head.” I know this for a fact because I saw it on the screen when the vet left the room to get some medication, so he’s on the expensive end of the affordability spectrum these days.

I had a very clear idea of how England’s final group match against Panama would go: we’d be slow and lethargic in the first half, so that enough reactionary fans would have a meltdown at half time when it would still be goalless. Then England would probably grab a couple of goals in the second half to win the game — enough for everyone to be happy yet still have some suppressed angst against Tuchel and some of the players in the bank to be withdrawn at a later date.

It’s not often one of my visions plays out as accurately as this, so it spooked me more than delighted me. Don’t get me wrong, there was some delight in there (I’m not an emotionless moron, don’t listen to Reuben), but I found myself encouraging England players to fluff their shots from 67 minutes onwards, which of course isn’t in the spirit of someone who currently has two England flags fluttering from his upstairs windows.

Could this be our year? The other lucid vision I had for this World Cup was that Argentina would win it, so instinctively I don’t think so. Sixty-four years of hurt is the likely lyric for when we compete in Spain, Portugal and Morocco in 2030 — although, as my wife pointed out, the original lyric of ‘Thirty years of hurt’ isn’t particularly accurate, because what exactly was hurting between 1966 and 1970? The first four of those thirty years Baddiel and Skinner sang about would’ve been quite joyous, I’d have imagined.

Anyway, if I’d lumped on England to beat Panama 2-0 with more than a free £1 bet I’d perhaps know how it feels to be rich. Instead, this is how it feels to be Rich.

Ba-dum-tssh! I only went and involved the title in the article, didn’t I?! What an effort. See, I can write when I really want to!

Tagged , , , , , ,
Jun 20 2026
Leave a comment
Uncategorized

Flags, inflatables and fifteen goals

Get your flags out for the lads! After my wife put them up, I foolishly opened the windows to let some air in (to be fair, it has been very warm recently) and one of the flags fluttered away. Like Reuben last night, who escaped out of the living room window, it didn’t get very far. Both flag and house cat are now back where they belong.

Reuben had had enough of our crap and stealthily sneaked out of the living room window we’d left ajar given the sultry conditions. He’s lucky I bothered to even look for him in the first place; I just happened to notice that he wasn’t in his regular spot when I came down from doing story time. I opened the front door, peered round the corner and there he was, sat looking into the long grass with an expression of incredulity having possibly seen the hedgehog that visits us each night walking round the place like he owns it (which he does).

It was absolute carnage this morning as our under-8s found themselves 6-0 down before they mounted a spirited comeback. Unfortunately, the damage was done early on, and so it’s possibly the only time I’ll use the word ‘respectable’ to describe a 9-6 defeat.

At one point I thought it was going to be telephone numbers, but after such a disastrous start our lads settled into it and kept chipping away at the deficit. I’d love to say it had something to do with my inspired team talks, but at each quarter break I was panicking trying to work out the logistics of giving each of our nine players an equal amount of game time, so I actually said very little to them.

I had flashbacks of our under-7 season when we got roundly trounced just about every week (once we lost 22-0). It did feel like it was going that way to begin with, but I like to look at this positively and say that, from the 13th minute onwards, we won today’s match 6-3. Let’s say the game was only the final 27 minutes, cos that’s the real quiz.

No one saw that result coming, not even Reuben (because I didn’t get him to predict it. Maybe I should’ve).

After taking our son play football in very humid conditions this morning, we then headed to Harewood House to take part in the annual inflatable 5k race. He fell asleep very quickly tonight!

Mercifully there was a breeze on a very warm day. Five kilometres is a remarkably long way when you haven’t properly exercised for years. Some of the inflatables that are dotted around the course are pretty easy to navigate, while others really sap the energy out of you. I’ve been carrying an injury to my left leg for the past three or four years and it hampered me more than it did when I previously ran the course.

Still, I got my medal! Another achievement to add to my CV.

Sweaty and achy, we fully deserved our evening meal at Miller & Carter, which my wife had thoughtfully booked in the week. It was a rare evening out for the three of us — which ended in the McDonald’s drive thru as we could get a McFlurry each for the same price as one dessert at the restaurant.

Tagged , , , ,
Jun 17 2026
Leave a comment
Uncategorized

Reuben for England!

He’s had his critics, but Reuben showed a lot of character tonight and stepped up to the plate (or the flash cards with Dreamies on them) and put in an excellent display of football predicting.

He came flying out of the traps early doors — so much so that he actually missed the treats altogether and walked right over them. But once he got his head in the game he was gobbling up the England treats first.

Well done, cat. As the last remaining knight of the templar said in that Indiana Jones movie, you chose… wisely. I’ve found that I say this quite a lot in my day-to-day life, where appropriate (obviously). I say it almost as much as Bob Peck’s ‘clever girl’ line in Jurassic Park, for when Daisy uses the litter tray instead of the area of floor just in front of it.

True, the consequence of Reuben getting not getting his prediction right wasn’t to age rapidly, turn into a nasty skeleton and then get kicked into the corner by Harrison Ford where he’d turn to dust and get blown away by a mysterious breeze, until only a Nazi pin badge remained. But still. You can’t take it away from him (whatever ‘it’ is).

Live TV is a dead duck. And who watches a dead duck? Not even its mother. It just flies off, depressed (there’s always room for a Partridge quote). One of the very few things I’ll watch live on TV is England matches. I can’t pause it and watch it on any sort of delay because Baxter’s dad — the guy who lives in the house opposite — is loud as hell. I always know when Leeds have scored, or missed a sitter, because of that sweary foghorn. Even watching the England game live tonight, he was somehow a second or two ahead of us, so he served as a slightly annoying early warning system until I thought to close the back door.

We don’t know actually know his name, by the way. All we know is that the dog is called Baxter, so he’s Baxter’s dad. I’d say that’s genetically improbable, but people like Coldplay and vote for Farage. You can’t trust people, Jeremy (Partridge and Peep Show? Only the best for my one reader!).

As for the England performance, it was very good. You could almost say it was exciting (which is ridiculous, really!). Scored four, could’ve had more. A little wobbly and uncertain in defence, but you can’t have everything. Reuben knows this. That’s why his cries for more Dreamies were in vain.

Tagged , , , ,
May 30 2026
Leave a comment
Uncategorized

Reuben makes an Arse of himself

We asked Reuben (the cat) who would win the Champions League final tonight.

I don’t normally turn to cats for wisdom, or think they’re particularly clever (which is where the similarity between me and ancient Egyptians ends, sadly) but when you’re sat on the fence and don’t know what to think, they can be useful.

They must be useful for something. Reuben mostly sits around all day, sleeping, and when he’s awake he’s pulling up the corners of the carpets, sometimes vomiting on them, and using the litter tray five minutes before we have visitors. That can’t be all that he is, surely.

I began forcing Reuben to predict the outcome of football matches about 12 years ago and his success rate was fairly impressive (so much so that I set up a WordPress site to document it).

He was no Paul the Octopus. As we all know, the more arms you have, the more likely you are to predict the outcome of football matches correctly. Scientists proved that a long time ago (that’s why, if you go digging, you’ll find that most betting companies have octopuses in tanks in their offices).

I’m not sure Reuben has any arms because all four of his limbs are legs. The odds really were (and still are) against him, which makes his achievements all the more remarkable.

Anyway, he let us down tonight. He walked straight to the flash card with ‘Arsenal’ scrawled on it and ate the treats in front of that, and for a good while it looked like he was going to be right.

He’d likely argue that he was let down by Arsenal’s anti-football approach and the commentators being weirdly complimentary of it), but if he was doing his job he’d have seen that coming and simply eaten the PSG treats.

We’re not yet sure if we’ll be seeking his predictions for the upcoming World Cup. Reuben is a notorious anti-Trump cat and has suggested he might boycott it, or go on strike. But aren’t all cats on permanent strike over everything anyway?

Tagged , , , ,