What I have learned today.

Can someone please explain the new Not Necessarily Champions League format in such terms that even I could understand?

Blah blah league format 32 team league split into seeded pots blah.

It has had for... 25 years?

Where the Manor pub used to be.

Apparently, the Manor was demolished in 2005. So, more like 20 years.

But still...

Drank in The Manor when I was 16-17 years old. Pool table. Juke box. Intimidating dogs on the roof. Weeping willow in the car park. Back when you could count WB pubs on one hand.

I think:

They created four pots of teams - Best teams (A), Next best teams B), also rans (C), the rubbish teams (D).

Each team play a team from each pot home, and a different team from each pot away.

They are all competing for points in the same league, even though they don't all play each other.

In a few years, they'll decide they should just put all the best teams in one league, avoiding all use of the name "European super league".

Some of us will wonder why they didn't just stick with the European Cup that only had the best teams to begin with. But the ranking coefficients mean UEFA can make sure the big money makers qualify in the top league every year.

Went to a Phoenix Nights-style cabaret night there when we were students in about 1989.

So WB M&S was to The Manor born?

I was kind of thinking that my mundane conversation starter was the spotting of James Ward Prowse rather than the existence of M&S in West Bridgford, but here we are.

I think I bought some ready meals at WB M&S once. It would have been around the same time I joined the library while staying for a week in a (then) very recently renovated AirBnB studio-with-kitchen-and-bathroom type gaff on Musters Road as I had some printing to do for job interviews.

But I can't be sure.

I bought a ready meal* there just yesterday!

Mrs Florist was going to be late home and messaged me to get some fresh fruit from the supermarket. I was driving through WB so thought I'd stop at M&S rather than the Aldi at the end of our road because a) better quality, b) we're doing all right, actually, and c) I knew there was an M&S right there, what with it having been there for 20 years or so.

And then, Boom! James Ward Prowse.

*Beef and mushroom stroganoff.

I do enjoy a good stroganoff.

Mrs. Seán and I are quite partial to the occasional M&S 'Gastro Pub' range meal deal thing.

Main, side , starter or dessert for 12 quid. Which on the face of it isn't quite as comprehensive as other supermarket 'preminum' deals of a similar ilk, but are, generally speaking, much nicer.

The fish and chips (sadly no longer available it seems) were especially choice. We'd usually go with a 70s stylee prawn cocktail starter and as it already came with mushy peas anyway would get a posh mixed veg side to yse with something else another day. Winner.

I don't think I'd recognise JWP in a supermarket.

I'm not sure I'd recognise WB M&S as a supermarket.

More of a mid to lower-high end food outlet.