England

Knowing I had no work to do today (apart from all the things I have been putting-off for years) I stayed up until 3.30am drinking wine. I'm not proud of it, I just thought I would mention it. My weak  condition may colour this post, but at least I awoke in the knowledge that our Prime Minister has no criminal record.

I have a plan to watch the rugby at 9.00am tomorrow morning. To do this I will have to go to bed a bit before 3.30. In one way I (along with the rest of the country) am hoping England will win, but if they do the victory will have a couple of adverse knock-on effects for the country in general and Bath in particular.

Bath Rugby - along with estate agents - dominate this city. It seems that they can do no wrong, but their insidious acquisition of acres of prime city-centre land belonging to 'the people' (whoever they are) does not strike me as particularly right.

They have an unbelievably audacious plan to build a stadium to replace the one which already exists which will be as tall as the neighbouring buildings at one end of the pitch. It will block the view of half of the hillside for anyone at ground level on Grand Parade.

Of course, they stand very little chance of getting it past the planners, but probably have an alternative plan for a slightly more acceptable version already drawn up. It's what you have to do these days, but it is usually done with privately owned land, not publicly owned green spaces donated to the citizens for recreational use. If England win, their scheme will go through the planning stage that much quicker.

An England victory will also give a boost to the Farage and Johnson election campaigns which neither of them deserve. Donald Trump had a very chummy public chat with Nigel Farage yesterday on his radio show. He can see his prize getting ever closer as Britain tears itself out of Europe. It could be the deal of a lifetime. Maybe Putin could get involved too?