What's pleasing me today

Picked up some tickets to see Celtics V Bulls on Monday evening. Have wanted to see a live NBA game since I was a kid.

That will be great fun, two of the most storied teams in the league at a famous venue. Good job.

I'm guessing we're going to be quite high up by the ticket price, but I don't care about that at all. Really looking forward to the experience more than anything.

Is it likely to be a close game or is one of these teams a bit better than the other at present?

I’m not a big NBA fan, but the Celtics are a perennial playoff team, and still have a several players left from their last title, a couple of years ago including notably Jason Tatum, the Bulls last made the playoffs in 2022 and are only expected to with 29 games this year, the Celtics are expected to win 52.

Only 2 games into the season, and the Celtics fans are already on Tatum's back. I agree that they should win but it could be a game.

There were enough of them at the TD Garden last night with shirts bearing his name and he was the stand-out player. I thought Norman Powell was excellent for Chicago.

Really enjoyable evening and Little Miss BW loved it, which was great because she's not into basketball. I think the whole razzmatazz of elite-level American sport helped (pyro, lasers, cheerleaders, T-shirts being fired into the upper tiers by a fuck-off cannon, hotdogs and vats of sugary drinks, etc).

If we could have had everything, the game would have been closer for excitement going into the final quarter, but otherwise it was fantastic. Felt like the Celtics were toying with the Bulls a bit first half - it was a three or four-point ball game for periods. Second half, they went up a couple of gears and Bulls couldn't live with them. Their three-point shooting was immense - Payton Pritchard in particular.

Are you going to Salem or Provincetown while out there? What's the plan? Quite jealous.

Getting the train to Salem in the next hour or so. Plan is to hire a car tomorrow and drive down to Cape Cod to see the fall foliage, but, I'll be honest, I'm panicking a bit about the driving - especially the downtown stuff.

Hoping to be able to pop into Enterprise later today to talk to them and take a look at some cars. Fancy an SUV but don't want anything too big.

Not tempted by the ferry to Cape Cod? I mean less freedom to get about but it's a nice trip and means no driving

The plan was a bit of an American road trip experience, driving through the last of the year's fall colours and stopping off at a few places on the way.

Managed to get a load of cardboard out of the house and squashed up with the recycling bins just as the dustmen were coming along the road

Aw shit tricky, were you driving on the pavement again?

Hoorah for Reform?

Or do you mean the Labour mayor who gave them an extra £120m to fill potholes?