Day 217: And the day started so well...

Today's soundtrack:  The Beatles - Mono Masters, Volume 2

"Previously, on 'Stuck Between Stations'..."

You recall yesterday's season ticket related trauma?

• the discovery of the loss.
• the frantic search of house and car.
• the phone calls - to shops, club and police.
• the 'crime number'

This morning then, it was up and out early to the club, clutching crime number and last year's season ticket,to try and make everything right.

Now I love Everton with a passion, but the only certainty with the club is that they will let you down.  Time and time again.  They don't mean to, they don't actively try to, but they do.

Except today, they didn't!  (Well they did - later on - but more about that anon.)

Parked up at the ground, queued up at the ticket window and eventually got to the counter.  To be told I was in the wrong queue and needed to go to another window under the main stand.  Which I did.  I told my tale of woe to the young lady there, who took my previous season ticket and crime number away into the back office.

And - wonder of wonders!  She was back in a couple of minutes with a new season ticket!  She did relieve me of a ten quid 'admin/handling charge', but I could live with that quite happily.

So, after all yesterday's trauma, getting the replacement card took all of five minutes.  Well done Everton - efficient and effective service!

Now, would the card actually let me into the ground this afternoon...

Well it did, but to be honest I wished it hadn't.  The team huffed and puffed against an effective Wolves team, missed a succession of straightforward chances before Joe Yobo gifted a goal to the visitors with fifteen minutes left.  Only an 88th minute equaliser spared the team's blushes.

Luckily, I'd not engaged in any pre-match banter with Kevin (other than a quick 'Come on you blues' text) so I didn't get too much egg on my face.

Unlike the young Liverpool fan who, no doubt invoking the spirit of 'Dr Fun', thought it would be a good wheeze to chuck a Liverpool beach ball onto the pitch at Sunderland.  A beach ball that deflected a shot from Darren Bent into the net, with Pepe Reina making a despairing dive in the direction of the beach ball instead.

Oh, how we laughed.

Apt that in a blog that is focusing heavily on events in and around Liverpool, today's soundtrack is provided by a bunch of cheeky young Scousers who could go far.  The 'Mono Masters' can be found in one of the recently released remastered box sets of Beatles stuff, and Volume 2 collects up all the latter period mono releases not included on any of the regular albums - essentially a few singles releases and some stuff from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack.

There's been a lot of debate about the relative merits of the new remasters, in either mono or stereo, when compared to the original releases, but given my exposure to the remasters is through some relatively lossy mp3 downloads, I'm not really qualified to comment.  At the end of the day, it's still The Beatles, isn't it?

Here's one of their throwaway b-sides.  Never found a place on any of their albums, was never an a-side...and is quite possibly one of the best songs ever recorded by anyone.  Oasis - and Liam in particular - learned everything they needed from this one song.  All together now:  "When the sun sheeeines...."