Missing ingredient is accountability

The farmer sitting at the bar in my local hotel last Sunday afternoon had arrived in from the country to “get a bit of dinner and watch the United match”.

Dinner eaten, he scanned his Sunday paper, glancing at the big screen as kick-off time approached.

I’m there with the kids for more or less the same reasons. “Get ye all out of the house and you can watch the match,” my wife had said: which translates as “Get ye out of the house, so I get a bit of peace and quiet.”