Looking on the bright side of life

Apparently there was an interesting interview on Radio Kent on Saturday afternoon with Peter Varney and Michael Slater. Even if I hadn't been suffering from Frau Rita and her unreliable Wi-Fi (for which she had the grace not to charge me), I wouldn't have heard it.

However, Peter Varney argued that we should look at last season as a positive. Michael and Tony came in and saved the club, helping us to avoid a possible relegation to League Two. Without them the club could have entered administration: Abyss

Sagacious commentators have pointed out that Paul Hart should not be seen as a potential replacement for Chris Powell if things don't work out. Hart has had more than enough cracks of the whip as manager to know that is not his forte. Youth development is his speciality and that is why he has been brought in. Hart's talent in youth development should help Powell to deliver.

The new owners want success, no doubt about that. But they want to achieve it in a prudent way. We don't want our accounts qualified by the auditors as has just happened to Coventry City.

I'm still reeling from the extent to which people in Germany refused to speak English to me, even when it was clear that they could. Even in Zurich Airport, German was insisted on. One café proprietor in Konstanz even complained to me about my East German accent.

But then when I think about it when I checked in for an Iberia flight at Heathrow not so long ago they insisted on speaking in Spanish throughout. Perhaps it's a new linguistic nationalism.

This is developing into one of those odd loose connections features you get in programmes. But then the originator of stream of consciousness writing is commemorated by a blue plaque in Charlton. Italo Svevo, wrongly rendered as Sveno on the plaque, aka Ettore Schmitz, lived at 67 Charlton Church Lane from 1903-13, although his role in the club in the early days remains obscure.

It is the close season after all.