Impossible situations

Kinnear: Which one is Simon Bird [Mirror journalist]?
Bird: Me.
JK: You’re a ****.
Bird: Thank you.

- the start of the Joe Kinnear show

I've just read most of the Joe Kinnear press conference. It happened sometime when I was in Norway, so I haven't been up with the football news as much as I normally am. Actually, considering I'm on holiday, it's shockingly depressing how much I am in touch with football news. Maybe I should throw the laptop in a train station locker and forget about it for the next five months...

Anyway, Kinnear's in a bad, bad situation. He's unloved by the players, the fans, the press. He's appointed by a man who's unloved by the above and will be sacked in a few months. And he works for a guy who's unloved by the above, is looking to sell the club and who probably can't give a toss about how the manager, the club or the fans are feeling.

Despite what he's said in the past, I'm sure Kinnear's bloody glad it's just an interim position.

I've a certain sympathy with Kinnear. I've shot my mouth off before. In fact, I used to do it at work once every six months or so, usually around August, usually on a Wednesday. It feels really, really good when you're doing it. You feel bulletproof, invincible and - and this is the part that really feels great - righteous. You feel like you're completely right, and they're completely wrong, and it's your mission on earth to tell them exactly how wrong they are.

It's only the next day that you start to realise what an arse you've been. I think we've all been in that situation. And really, there's nothing that needs to be said. He's in an impossible situation and he cracked. He's got my sympathy.

I visited the Anne Frank House today.

They've got excerpts from her diary plastered on the walls of the annex. There's this one that really got to me, about how the chestnut tree in the courtyard was more beautiful than it was the year before. The idea that she would look at the tree through a slip in the curtain, see the sun shine through the leaves and see the wind make them sway, and yet never being able to step out and touch it... it effected me more than all the holocaust stories I've ever read.