6 Feb. 2026

On Saturday I'd had a brief encounter with a crowd that seemed representative of the English soccer enthusiast in their natural element. The experience was not negative, at least not at that hour in the morning, but I was glad I didn't catch the same crowds heading home after the game. Going to a game in person seemed like a Tier 1 Cultural Immersion Event but the prospect was intimdating. Furthermore, we lack the equivalent of an extra mortgage payment it would take to get tickets to a men's United or City game on the secondary market, and buying them directly from the clubs is a complex process weighted towards repeat season ticket holders. Solution? Women, the solution is always women!

The Manchester City women's team was playing Chelsea on Sunday at 2:30, but you could book free tickets for pregame kids' activities on an indoor field across from the stadium so we turned up a few hours early. Everywhere there was infrastructure designed to either funnel or corral large swarms of drunk people, but when we got there around 11 the spectators were outnumbered by staff. Three different people offered my children stickers or clap banners, which are pleated oak tag fans you can either unfold and hold as a sign or hold the folds together at one end and bang the loose end against your palm to make an amplified clapping noise (apologies if the clap banner is already a widely known thing to sports people).

Across the road, kids of various ages were playing academy games across half a dozen fields. There was a smaller stadium used by the academy and minor league teams and the women's team when they aren't playing in Etihad. For a dispiriting moment, I wondered if watching other much more athletically gifted kids was the extent of the "Kids Fanzone", but we eventually followed some rather obscure signage into the indoor practice facility to the promised activities. These consisted of bouncy castles of various shapes, various soccer-adjacent games, a face painter, booths where you could have your photo superimposed next to a players by the magic of AI, and so on. It was all very orderly. The children added albums for Women's Super League stickers to their haul. I liked the game where you sit across from your opponent on a bench that is also your goal. When I am reluctant to play with my children it's usually because I don't feel like getting up, so maybe this setup is a solution.

Around 12:30, they played the ska version of "Blue Moon" that is the Manchester City anthem, signalling that it was time to start walking back across to the main stadium. The team bus went by and we waved from the overpass. We scanned through the turnstile without incident after bag check which also went quick.

Maybe a quarter of the sections in the stadium were open, but it looked like most seats in those sections were full including a spirited contingent in the dedicated section for fans of the visiting team. Crowd in the stadium was very skewed towards families and women as you'd expect, and demand for the self-service beer machines seemed small. I did hear someone ordering Bovril, so perhaps it's a staple of watching sports in chilly weather. Maybe I'll work my way up to trying it. Hot food options were hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders, fries, and assorted meat pies. I had braced myself for a big outlay on lunch and was pleasantly surprised that it cost no more than what we would have paid at a normal fast food restaurant, although I didn't look closely at the beer prices.

The players were on the field warming up. Does they do that at men's games? As kickoff approached, the announcer and the mascots started doing their thing. Special guest! It was The Wanted 2.0, the surviving rump state of the Irish boyband that sang "Glad You Came". The two Wantedians who are still making a go of it did a few songs unrecognizeable to me before moving on to their hit. It was a bizarre experience seeing them on the Jumbotron singing their "Ohoh ohohohohhhhhhs". When you hear that song it's hard to picture the sounds coming out of actual human throats. Where does "opener for a women's soccer game" rank in terms of engagements for the Wanted 2.0, who I see can be booked via a form on their website? There must have been a few women on the team who had been fans of them in their heyday, and now they were running right past them as if there were not pyrotechnics shooting up from the stage.

The Wanted, now the no-longer-wanted, wrapped up. More pyrotechnics, surprisingly warming from our seats. Kickoff! And here my descriptive powers will show their limits. A few tense moments when players were injured. City's goalie got hit in the head and remained curled up tightly and unmoving on the ground for several minutes while the medical staff examined her. Are they told to stay absolutely still as soon as they go down in case they make something worse? She finished the game, kicking and punching the air when the rest of the team was on the other end of the field for free kicks (maybe????). T took one of the children to the bathroom and reported that the men's room was a large horseshoe of urinals and two stalls. Women's bathroom was the usual setup.

Victory! For a brief moment I understood why people like watching sports. I certainly felt more invested in these players than I would have for guys making millions of dollars. A player from Chelsea climbed over the side and went to the visitors' fan section, where some people who presumably knew her made their way to the front and lifted up a child for her to hug. Home. We shuffled through the corral meant to control the crowds going down to the tram platform. I steadfastly refused to make eye contact with a woman who desparately wanted to share a disapproving glance at a very loud and rambunctious family standing near us. Before the game I'd wondered if I would feel like we missed out on something by not going into hock to see a men's game. Looking back now I'm sure there would have been some memorable moments, but I'm very content with our experience.

3 Feb. 2026

It's 9am on a Saturday. Is the train crowded? If yes, are the crowds predominantly male? If yes, do they have beer and if yes, are they drinking it? Are there periodic waves of chanting? Is someone brazenly vaping? If you've reached this point in the decision tree, there is some kind of sporting event happening and you are just along for the ride.

Such was the scene this weekend. T was back after two weeks in Medford, which meant the children were eager to make up for lost time playing video games and I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, where no one would ask me when we could go home. I picked Sheffield more or less randomly. I didn't notice anything unusual when I got on the train at Manchester Picadilly, but at Stockport the crowds poured in. I was taking up an extra seat for my backpack at a table so a man in a flat leather cap jokingly gestured for me to move aside. I was a little flustered and temporarily muted by my bacon sandwich so I shifted without saying anything and probably seemed miffed. We made amends as we sped past the besheeped fields, although to be honest what with the din I was not getting 100% of what he was saying about the big event. I considered whether I might learn more from continuing our conversation than from returning to my book about food and the English class system, but you can imagine what I decided. When Sheffield approached, as is my wont, I spilled the last few tablespoons of tea in my thermos down my front. "Nobody saw that," said hat guy.

Hundreds of men in nearly identical jeans, sneakers, and black puffer coats streamed out into the streets around the station. Some tried to find a pub where they could settle in, and were politely told to look elsewhere. A police officer engaged with another group squinted at someone's phone, although I couldn't figure out what they were trying to show him. By the time I got to the Millenium Gallery, the crowds were left behind. One of the four galleries was closed and a second was occupied by a class of teenagers, sitting on the floor and highlighting printouts. A third was very small and contained contemporary stuff, mostly of birds. I spent the most time in the exhibit of metalwork produced in Sheffield over the year. I'm kind of "ok sure" about a lot of art, but you could leave me in a room full of plates for hours.

The turtle is a soup tureen

Next to the museum was the Winter Garden. A few stores around the perimeter sold local crafts. Every town in northern England seems to have their local musical hero. In Sheffield, I'm not sure how fast they're moving The Human League merch but there seemed to be a brisk trade in greeting cards with Jarvis Cocker on them.

The sights on the agenda were taking rather less time than I had expected. The cathedral was very small compared to Chester, and most of it was roped off being used for a youth choir retreat. It was refreshing to see it actually being used instead of just gawked at as a relic of past splendor, but now I was starting to sweat a little about what else to do. Problem solved by having scones AND cake in the cathedral coffee shop.

The last item on my agenda was Scrap Dragon, a nonprofit secondhand store for donated art supplies. There are similar re-use places all over Britain, but not always easy to get to without a car or open at particularly convenient times, and the stock is hit or miss. The Scrap Shack in Staffordshire was great, Manchester's was so-so. SD didn't open to individuals until 1 (mornings were for schools and groups). When I arrived at 12:50 it was suggested I wait in my car, the area surrounded by council flats being low on places where one might want to linger. I thought the volunteer staff might feel responsible for me if I told them I didn't have a car, so I wrung ten minutes of browsing out of the small supermarket next door. What could have happened in those ten minutes? When I went back, I was told there had been a medical emergency and now they wouldn't open until 2. I walked back towards the center of town, nursed a pot of tea for a while, and got back around 2:15. By now they had reopened, but a line of a dozen people was ahead of me to get into the space that could only accomodate a few shoppers at a time. After all that, nothing caught my eye that could justify being lugged back to America.

It started to rain. I thought about hitting a few charity shops before heading home, but there didn't seem to be the concentrated corner where you could find four or five clustered together like other towns have had. At this point I was also questionning how much time I've spent in this country trying to buy things, so I went home. Perhaps my favorite thing about Sheffield is that, as a solo visitor, it was only my preferences that determined when I left.

30 Jan. 2026

London day. Lunch at the Gladstone Arms around the corner from my office, another entry in the Desi Pub Guide. There was a family of parents, baby, and grandparents at the next table. As far as I can gather, they are from Boston but the parents and baby live here and the grandparents were visiting. Goes to show that you never know who is nearby listening, and comparing what you say you paid to have your driveway shoveled to what they're giving their guy (sidebar to extend my deepest appreciation for Octavio's Landscaping, I wish you could hear the exclamations of shock and awe British people make when they see the pictures of what our street in Medford looked like last week).

Most museums are either too far from the office or close too early for me to squeeze in a visit between the office and my train home, but on this particular day the Fashion and Textile Museum was open late for a talk by Anna Buruma, the author of a book about Liberty.

The women in their twenties and thirties were wearing vintage or flamboyantly embellished sweaters. The other women were nearly all gray haired except for one who had gone for a very bold orange and one the most delicate shade of lavendar. Then there was a large ungainly woman, made more so by a large ungainly backpack, who had to squeeze through the rows of delicate silver chairs as her various belongings snagged or fell out of her pockets. At one particularly horrifying moment, she opened a bottle of sparkling water only for it to spray on the cashmere cardigan of the woman in front of her. This woman was, naturally, me. Everyone cooed in unison at a closeup photo of a satin dress embroidered with pearls. At Q&A, someone asked AB if she was ever able to actually try on any of the intricate gowns she studied in museums and archives for her work. "NOOOO!!!", she said. "NO."

After the talk I went through the exhibit. It was a selection of pieces from Cosprop, supplier of historical costumes in all your favorite auntie movies.

For me this was the equivalent of seeing the Shroud of Turin

I resisted the urge to duck into Waterstones on the way to Euston, but my thrift was canceled out when I misread my train time, missed it, and had to buy a pricey new ticket. The Great Smoke, city of wonders and agonies.