Alan Coleman

I love Christmas, always have done. I can remember vividly getting worked up into a frenzy as Christmas came closer, school finished and family started to congregate in houses far too small for the purpose.

Looking back, it was all about the build up as the day itself was always, for some reason or another, a bit of an anti climax. The waiting,  the familiar smells and tastes, The Poseidon Adventure on our portable black and white TV, the old man disappearing up the pub and Mum struggling to cook all that food for all those people. Happy days.

As I got older and started going out and drinking myself, the focus seemed to turn towards Christmas Eve as the pinnacle of the season’s excitement. Finishing work, a few days off, beering it up in decorated boozers and round people’s houses. The continuous soundtrack of Slade and The Ronnettes blaring from juke boxes and Halfords aftermarket car stereos. More Happy days.

One particular Christmas Eve I came home shitfaced and vomited on the sofa, couldn’t be bothered to clear it up so just turned the cushion over hoping nobody would notice. It was my Grandma who came back from church the next morning and bubbled me to the old man. Very fucking Christian Grandma, cheers.

By that point Christmas Day had become one big blur, the whole thing mired by an unearthly hangover and paranoia about the previous nights activities.  Being uncontrollably drunk in front of the family, warm cans of lager, steamed up windows, shitty moods and dried up Turkey. The reality of Christmas.

Tomorrow will be Christmas Eve and as usual I can’t wait. In a couple of weeks I’ll have forgotten the tears, hangovers and the shit presents and will be wishing it was Christmas all over again.

Happy Days indeed.

A day before the space shuttle launch in 1982 Mr Atkins, our primary school teacher at the time, asked us to find out something about the men who pioneered space travel. Easy I thought to myself, just look up Neil Armstrong, that’s all we knew about space, Neil Armstrong.

At home, we had half a set of encyclopedias that had been inherited from my Grandma. It was a gamble as to whether or not you’d find what you where looking for depending on what books from the collection still existed.

Book A was missing which meant Armstrong was out of the question. After asking mum (Always quite taken with anything Russian) about  spacemen, I looked up Gagarin’s name and was rewarded (by chance) with three paragraphs about his first trip into space, an orbit of the earth in Vostok 1, taking 1hour 48 minutes.

The accompanying photo was what got me most, grey, shiny and unmistakably Russian. Amazingly it’s the one currently used in Gagarin’s entry on wikipedia. Quite how I recognised it instantly after 30 odd years when I can’t seem to remember where I currently live, is beyond me. Relaxed, happy, almost laughing. His confidence and huge beaming smile seemed to belay everything that everyone was saying about the Soviet Union at the time. Look at the picture and judge for yourself, he was a great guy then and if he was here today he’d still be a top bloke.

During the Vostok Program, colleagues were asked to vote for the member of the program to fly first, 17 out of 20 voted for Gagarin, incredible.

The following is how a Soviet Air Force Doctor evaluated Gagarin’s personality in 1960, 8 months before his mission into space:

Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.

In that sense Yuri Gagarin was a childhood hero of mine. All everybody else at school wanted to talk about was Neil Armstrong and how he walked on the moon, a magnificent achievement in its own right, but for me I was always more intrigued by Gagarin’s ground breaking solo voyage into space and around the earth. When I was younger the Soviet space program portrayed in the media in the west always looked a little bit  home made, like the whole thing was being put together by a bunch of enthusiasts, which I suppose it was. I was drawn to the spirit of the people who built and developed technology under the Soviet regime.

It’s a shame that Yuri’s life would be cut short at the age of 34, apparently amid suspicious circumstances. Ironically, the very same society he championed through his achievements would eventually bring about his downfall.

Yuri Gagarin, Hero of the Soviet Union and space legend.

This is a fantastic picture, and one of my favourite images of the last few years. Even if you’ve been living in Mongolia since the turn of the century and don’t recognise them, they look like the sort of people you’d like know, right?

Look at Joe Calzaghe, with his humble stance and cool as thumbs up. When he answered his critics by teaching Jeff Lacy how to box in Mach 2006 I honestly thought that it was a defining point in my life. Still unbeaten after 45 fights, he is quite literally, a great bloke. Victoria Pendleton’s shy smile hides a personality that ignored her coach when he insisted that she was too small for track cycling. She went on to dominate her sport as the undisputed champion of the world with far too many titles and gold medals to list here. Lewis Hamilton’s friendly hands in pockets confidence is the epitome of cool. He ignored the racist slurs and backstabbing that accompany his chosen sport to rise as a true champion in unbelievable style.

I have no doubt whatever that any one of the above would stop and help you in the street if need be.

As a simple picture, it’s the embodiment of personal achievement, good nature and everything that is great about our country. Stuff The Daily Mail, the Royal family, the BNP and waving plastic flags at Last night of the proms. These people are what Great Britain is all about.

FA Cup Final, Saturday 17th May 2008. Portsmouth Vs Cardiff.

The day starts with a journey down to Portsmouth on the South West Trains’ superb service out of Waterloo. Great station, quiet new trains with spacious carriages, £30 return. You can’t argue with that. People who moan about trains in this country usually listen to bands like Coldplay, drink Magners Cider and pretend they like Jeremy Clarkson. Go away.

The Final itself coincided with Ian’s Stag night, which was handy for getting refused entry to most pubs in Southsea, “Nothing personal guys, but no groups of blokes”. What do you expect? It’s the FA Cup Final, not fucking Valentines Day. You can stuff it anyway, who needs student pubs with stab vests, chalk boards and fake sawdust? Not when some of the finest pubs in Portsmouth are open for anyone, The 5th Hants Volunteer, The Devonshire Arms, proper boozers with Vinyl padding and dog hair. Pints in pint glasses and a dartboard without the irony. Urban pubs for industry, a dying and underrated breed.

A proper football club in a proper city. Women wearing football tops out drinking with their blokes. Humour, cigarettes, the buzz of victory and self respect. Great stuff, great day.

I was reading a list of names yesterday, members of the armed forces who have died whilst serving in Afghanistan. Each one of them leaves behind a lengthy and complex network of friends, family and loved ones who will spend the rest of their lives thinking about them. With each death, the years of history, work, conversation and decency seems to be lost forever without any but the closest people remembering it. All those ideas and thoughts that people spend their lives shaping get chopped in half without ever being explained or answered.

The platitudes from the Commanding Officer and politicians are the official line of closure before moving on to other business. As such, I find it difficult to reconcile Sgt Dave Wilkinson’s life of memories, fun and hope, to five minutes work at Whitehall. Holidays on the beach, Match of The Day and warming his wife’s side of the bed whilst she’s brushing her teeth, all summed up neatly by graduate with a thesaurus.

Also, I find the idea of celebrity men in London suits conferring gratitude and respect on the dead a little difficult to stomach. It’s as if somehow an acknowledgement of heroism demonstrates a humble and thoughtful persona, freeing the salesmen of guilt and deferring the responsibility back to the client. The harder the Army work, the more heroes we’ll have on our hands, which in turn means less space on the front page for greed and incompetence. So many winners and they’re not stupid either.

In a political sense gallantry is too easy to deal with, so much easier to explain than selfishness and celebrity. And nobody answers back too, that’s the best bit.