Just a Moment...

I went to the football on Saturday, to see Fulham take on West Ham at Upton Park.

It was one of those games. We scored first but the chants of "Easy Easy" were swiftly snuffed out by a Zamora equaliser. Then just moments after the start of the second half Yossi Benayoun scored a brilliant goal for the Hammers. Even after a couple of days I can still appreciate the deft change of pace and little shimmy thing he did with his legs before lofting his shot over Jan Lastuvka. We came back with a great headed goal from McBride only to watch in horrified disbelief as Carlos Bocanegra and Phillipe Christanval got tangled together, allowing Benayoun to round Lastuvka for his second...

...gutted. Heads went down. It began to pee with rain as apocalyptic black clouds rolled across the East London sky. It was going to be one of those days. But with the fourth official indicating five minutes of stoppage time the Fulham team roused themselves and after a thrilling few minutes Christanval popped up in the box to stab in the winner.

Well that's a lot of chat about football so far. What's my point?

The full body adrenaline rush that followed that third goal for Fulham, that led to me hugging complete strangers, leaping about like an electrocuted frog and yelling till I thought I was going to pass out...is there anything else like it? Moments like that are the reason why you follow a football team. Forget all this tosh about multimillionquid star players - it works whatever club you support. A 3-3 draw became a Fulham victory on Saturday. The miraculous happened. We were saved.

A similarly significant moment on Sunday evening. I went for a walk with Finn (my 6-month old son) in our local park. He was in his sling, dusk was falling. We went and stood in the park and gazed at the black outline of houses and trees silhouetted against a pale blue/pink sky. Orange glow from the street lighting bled into the scene. Beautiful. Birds sang softly, preparing to bed down for the night. Finn cooed against my chest and waved his little arms about. Dad and Finn, enjoying the evening. Once again I tried to store the feeling away.

I get a similar buzz if someone buys a book I rate. Want to see me smile? Come in and purchase a copy of The Road by Cormac McCarthy or JA Baker's classic The Peregrine.

As an old Hippie once said to me "Whatever turns you on man."

Football, family and books do it for me - make life more than the daily struggle to avoid financial disaster. For you it might be classical music or belly dancing.

Just remember nothing else is real, only the moment, and it's forever passing...