Longing returns and history also beckons

Longing — wrote Don DeLilo in his opus Underworld — on a large scale, makes history.

The football championship returns in earnest tomorrow, beginning in Ruislip where London host Galway, before the party hits The Bronx, where New York and their pick of 20 million faces down the poor unfortunates from Mayo, for whom the art of longing has become much less a pastime and more a way of life.