A disappointing Monday

  continued from here

 A disappointing Monday at Selhurst Park 

This afternoon, both* came over to watch the Arsenal match with Uncle Albert. Or, they came to watch Uncle Albert watch the Arsenal match; they were playing Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
     He watches like a cat. He’ll doze off for a few seconds or minutes or ten minutes, then he’ll wake up and grab at the action like a hacky sack at the end of an elastic band. He must hear the flow and smell the ebb of the action behind his closed eyes they always pop open just as something is about to happen.
    So they see the foul on Zaha, the Conor Gallagher free kick, and from Joachim Andersen’s head to Mateta’s past Ramsdale. They see Agnew pass it past Ramsdale after a superb long pass by Andersen (again). They see Lacazette’s pop-up, the only decent Arsenal chance of the half and Ramsdale's save on Mateta (again). And this is only the first half.

Paul at ‘Chains’ in Ephesus*: “Pick up! Pick up!!”

Both Axel and Nils come to watch Albert watch, but Nils also comes to see if he can wind him up. He asks about yesterday’s service, particularly about Melancthon Philips. “Did you really call him a ‘fruitcake’ That’s not terribly woke, is it?”
     “Let’s say I only meant that his damp, dense brain was full of candied fruit and nuts,” Uncle Albert said. “I might have called him a fornifreculating fruitcake had it not been a Sunday. He was babbling on about feet in the most lurid way. Sometimes, they are just feet, for heaven’s sake.”
     “Not in Boaz’s case,” Nils said. “And ... ”
     “No, not in Boaz’s case,” Uncle Albert agreed. “Did he mention Boaz?” he turned to me. “I wasn’t always paying attention.”
     “Not to my knowledge,” I said, who had also been woolgathering.*

In the kitchen, while Albert and Axel were watching Rebecca Lowe, Nils tried to wind me up. “If you’re going to counsel your uncle on Paul’s ‘straining’ perhaps you should consult the Incoherent commentary on passage.” He doesn’t believe the series exists [links].
     “I would,” I said, “but the Philippians volume isn’t out yet.”

                                                                04.04.22      
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 * Uncle Albert holds, “with Tierney and Smith-Rowe,” he says, that Philippians was written not at Rome — or at Caesarea — but at Ephesus.  On the origins of woolgathering, see here.