How I became a digital reader

Or how I discovered that I'd actually been a digital reader for some time.

Being an editor who works in publishing as well as being a life-long bookworm, I am often asked about whether I read ebooks. I would often haughtily reply with a long, impassioned and well-rehearsed speech: that I work hard every day to create gorgeous print books; that I love the feeling of holding the book, turning the page and then putting the books I've read on my ever-expanding bookshelves. That I love the smell, the cover designs, the feeling of cracking a paperback spine, the weight of a book in my hand. That I love how I carry a book I'm reading around with me like a portable world and then that read book is a silent monument to a very personal point in time that is shared between only me and those pages. I love sharing a book I've read with someone else, so the pages are imbued not with just the memory of one but two people who read the same pages.

These and many other reasons are why I love books and reading, and why I did not have an ereader or read books digitally.

This isn't to say I didn't consider over and over again whether I should buy a digital ereader. And I did so – it nagged at me that I wasn't embracing the latest technology in this one area, where I had with everything else; technology is a wonderful thing after all. I would ask Nick at regular intervals, "Do you think I should get an ereader?" I asked him so many times, that his answer became rehearsed too: that if I got an ereader, it would solve another of our problems . . . that my bookshelves are ever-expanding to the point that we really don't have enough room. As ever, he had a logical and practical approach verus my emotional one.

In my professional life, I am fascinated by ebooks and I try to work on them as much as the opportunity is granted to me. I love learning more about how they work, how they are read and by whom, which audiences they reach, which genres are read most as ebooks, but my personal reading preferences didn't match up with that fascination – which was strange, since my hobbies and my job are so entangled.

This Christmas, one of my presents was an iPad – an exciting present in itself, but one which I did not imagine would have such a profound effect on my reading habits. A few days later, Nick and his brother were having what turned out to be a 3-day 'bro-down' on Star Wars Battlefront. I hadn't bought any books with me, and with it being the odd transitional period between Christmas and New Year where the shops would be filled with crazed sales shoppers, I decided to download an ebook to read. That's where it began.

All the reservations I had about reading digitally; that reading backlit for a sustained amount of time would hurt my eyes, that digital reading would not give me any of the points of satisfaction that reading a print book every did, were forgotten. And while this is still true, what I didn't expect was that I'd love different things about digital reading. A person can hold contrary opinions simultaneously – it's what makes people so deliciously interesting, fascinating and unique.

The convenience of being able to download a book within seconds, depending on which mood I was in, the convenience of being able to read without hands, so I could prop up my iPad still being able to read it, leaving my hands free for holding a cup of tea or a glass of wine was an amazing eye-opener. Plus, I could choose different fonts to read in, different line spacing and text size and due to the beauty of dynamic text. Digital reading is an amazing convenience, that still brings to me the things I truly adore most about reading – the story and the language.

I realised that I had actually been a digital reader for a very long time – I have always read articles, Twitter feeds and blogs onscreen. All that I needed to do was to align my book reading habits with this – and considering from this viewpoint, I don't feel so contrary. My embrace of digital reading seems to have been a surprise to everyone who knows me, but mostly it's something I never expected from myself and it's good to keep everyone guessing, especially yourself! So from now on, from 2016 onwards, my reading habits have completely changed – I read digital books plus I can still fill my shelves with beautiful, ornamental hardbacks. The next step is to look at my own reading habits, exploring the types of books I will read onscreen and which I will still read in print. Technology really is a beautiful thing.

Thoughts I had when watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens (spoilers)

There really isn't enough stuff on the internet about Star Wars episode VII, so I thought I'd contribute.  NB – there are plot spoilers below, so if you haven't watched the film yet, sort out your priorities but also please do not continue to read.

For many years, it was my dream to find a boyfriend who would be willing to accompany me to events such as a midnight showing of a Star Wars film. Dream achieved. (I don't want to brag too much about how awesome he is, but he's also currently a Rank 22 on Star Wars Battlefield and on Wednesday he aced the 'Science' round at a pub quiz.)

One of the reasons I love Star Wars so much is because it's one of those franchises with lots of holes and knots that you can pick at and argue about with your friends in pubs. It's a fertile ground for theories and annoyance – I love it. (These are also the reasons I love Doctor Who, but I don't have as many Whovian friends...)

A year or so ago, I wrote the Star Wars annual and as I rewatched the first six films, I found myself switching from the jedi/rebellion/Light Side to the Dark Side/Empire for the simple reason that the Empire gets stuff done. All the jedi seem to do is sit around whining about things while shaking their heads in a passive and condescending way. Apart from Anakin; he whines, but you've got to admire anyone who can pull themselves up the bank of a lava river after someone has cut off three of their limbs. That's tenacity for you. Plus, I wish I could get away with wearing a badass black helmet around town – but the reason I don't has more to do with me not being able to pull off that look than any possible social derision about an eccentric dress-sense choices. I also doubt that Darth Vader's helmet would look good with flowery dresses.

My allegiance to the Dark Side however changed when I watched ep. VII.
For two reasons: Finn/John Boyega – Finn is an awesome character, plus John Boyega is my new favourite celebrity. It's so delightful to watch him be so ecstatic that he's in Star Wars. I imagine that he looks in the mirror each morning and squeals with excitement as he dawns on him yet again that his life is real and he is best friends with Harrison Ford. I want to be his BFF. Also, Rey – another strong, female role model for the franchise, but now with a lightsaber and fight scenes – hooray!
Also who can forget how amazing Po Dameron and BB-8 are . . . so much fandom squealing.

But I digress . . . These are ten questions I have after watching, digesting and ruminating about Star Wars episode VII:
1) Why are jedis so shit at training other jedis successfully?
2) Why hasn't an authority in the Star Wars universe figured out that there's something in the Skywalkers' DNA that makes them terrible parents? Is that why they keep planet hopping, to escape child protection agencies?
3) Why doesn't anyone learn from the past?
Examples:
The First Order did not learn from the Empire that building gutters in a battleship that an X-wing can fly down is not a good idea. All it would take would be to decrease those gutters by a metre and perhaps the base you've been building won't be so easy to destroy.
It's not a good idea to have an angst-riddled father-son reunion near where one of you can fall or be pushed off from a height.
4) Why do all jedis piss off and exile themselves on a remote planet every time they lose a battle? It's so passive aggressive – I'm looking at you Obi-Wan, Yoda and Luke.
5) If Luke was hiding and didn't want anyone to find him (apparently not even his twin sister) then why leave any sort of map? He's just asking for someone to find him. Also, if he knows he's likely to be hunted down by his Sith nephew, why not take your lightsaber to arm yourself, just in case?
6) Why haven't the rebellion found a better method for passing secret messages between themselves than by droid? This method has proved to be fraught with danger and has a high probability of interception.
7) What about the prophecy of bringing balance to the Force? Neither Anakin or Luke have brought balance now – so is this just a load of rubbish?
8) If Rey is a Skywalker (Luke's daughter maybe?) then a disturbing pattern emerges with the Skywalker kids – they seem to get abandoned on desert planets, or in Anakin's case grow up as a slave on a desert planet. Is sand crucial to being strong with the Force? Is sand an excellent source of 'midi-chlorians'?!
9) This is clearly a universe of Daddy issues. Anakin – didn't have a father, and his substitute father, Obi-Wan, chopped off three of his legs and left him to die by a river of lava. Luke – his father chopped off his hand (bit of a theme?) and tried to kill him. Kylo Ren – we're not sure exactly what his Daddy issues are, but since he killed his dad, he's almost certainly got them. He also seems to have Grandfather issues too. Rey – whoever her father is or isn't, she was abandoned on a desert planet. She also watched a 'substitute' father be killed by his son. Finn – was stolen from his family and brain-washed into being a Storm Trooper.
It's not a universe where family values seem to be very important.
10) Supreme leader Snoke – his hologram is huge. Is this because he is so little in real life and he has small man issues?


Ah, I bloody love Star Wars! A second viewing might raise even more questions - can't wait!

NB – this is my favourite fan theory so far: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/seriously-dont-click-this-if-you-havent-seen-tfa-yet?bftw&utm_term=.bnllxv7ae#.ouzRnaoe3 

Which reminds me, I am very sad that the theory that JarJar Binks is a Sith Emperor appears to have been crushed. That would have been both ridiculous and cool.

'When are you getting married?'

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a couple in their late twenties have been in a relationship for a few years, that everyone will ask them on a very regular basis when they are getting married.

I'm well aware that people are either just making small talk and are (most likely) being very well intentioned in their questions on this topic but why does everyone feel the need to ask me this? And, come to that, why does it make me feel paranoid that the subtext of this question is that you aren't viewed as a being part of a successful couple until you decide to get married? In fact, it seems that the longer the relationship continues without an engagement or marriage, the more alarmed people seem to be about the fact that you're not engaged or married already. No matter how happy and stable your relationship may in fact be in reality, it seems the fact that you're not legally bound together by a ceremony must mean that something must be wrong.

Perhaps the crux of my issue with this (and my motivation for this blog post) are two-fold: one is that I get asked this question much more frequently than Nick does; in fact, Nick only gets asked this question when he and I are both asked together. Which apparently means that people think that as I am a woman, I must naturally want to get married more than Nick – as if marriage is the happy 'be-all-and-end-all' ending and sole purpose and achievement of a woman's life. Being a successful marriage is an achievement, but no more of an achievement than being in a successful relationship. IT seems to me that marriage isn't the end of a story, but a new chapter in the middle of an already existing one.

The fact that this question appears to be inextricably linked to my gender, also comes with the connotations that people seem to perceive that Nick, as a man, is successful in his relationship, perhaps by virtue of being in one; yet as a woman, despite this relationship being the very same one, I am less successful as I have not yet convinced Nick to ask me to marry him. I have more than once been offer 'tips' on how to get Nick to propose, as if to correct all the things I must be doing wrong. Maybe, if I was better woman, say if I met him at the door every night with a martini, wearing lingerie after having cleaned the house and cooked him a meal, he might have proposed already...

The second crux of this issue for me is that I am conscious how easily this question turns me into one of those stereotypical girlfriends who perhaps nags her boyfriend about this topic (usually after a drink, I must admit). To the extent that now, if this question is asked to the both of us it immediately becomes awkward. An innocent question posed during the polite dance of small talk, to my own horror and through what feels like my own doing, morphs into this horrible self-perceived monster of proof – that everyone thinks we're not married because there's a problem. Whether people actually believe this or not, it's something I find myself feeling for a split second before I remind myself that it doesn't matter what others think, only what we know to be true.

When we do decide to get married, it will be on our own terms. Also, yes I'm well aware that it's a leap year in 2016, but, as Nick replied to someone who mentioned this recently (he knows me!) I'll be damned if I'm conforming to a cliché of female stereotypes.

Women always find their way to the sink...

How to be a woman in 2015: this statement has increasingly become something my brain debates with itself about, especially during the last two and a half years  – for life stage reference, these years are when I've been in a 'domestic partnership' (new Facebook status label...!) with my co-pilot of life, Nick.

The crux of my feminist considerations are domestic-centric; even writing that sentence immediately puts me on the defensive, against the literary image that a woman's sphere was limited to the home . . . but in reality, I begin here only due to the simple human fact that 'home' is where I live; it is the forge of my life and relationship, and it's as good a place as any, from a personal perspective, to spark my internal negotiations.

A few years ago, when I was living in a flat alone in Bristol, it was very easy to be an independent woman. Things were clear cut, simple, almost black and white: I lived alone, I had a career I loved and then at weekends, I saw my boyfriend who lived in London and we each alternated travelling to see each other.

After three years of doing this, our relationship had progressed so we wanted to spend more time together, plus we were fed-up of the travelling back and forth late on a Sunday evening! Even though love and cutting down travelling-time are strong foundations for any move, I was determined that if I was going to move away from a city and a job I adored, I was going to move for a self-centric reason, namely a new career opportunity, which happened to bring me closer to my boyfriend but only by happy geographic coincidence. This was a condition I placed upon myself not because I was worried that our relationship would not survive close proximity (I didn't consider this as a possibility once), but because I did not want to be one of those women who uprooted themselves from everything they knew just for 'a man', albeit one I love immeasurably. I had spent two and a half years writing Disney Princess books and I was determined not to become one (unless it's Merida. Or Elsa.).

Moving in together is one thing, but learning to live together is quite another thing. Beyond the amusing arguments and situations which arose when we first moved in (how to time how we both get ready for work in the morning without sleepily bumping into each other whilst brushing our teeth, what time do we set the alarm in the morning, that the kitchen 'jar' shelf absolutely can't have peanut butter next to curry sauce or the rationale of keeping vases next to the teabags), we eventually got down to the nitty-gritty of life: when both of us were working long hours each day, who does what?

Actually, it ended being very easy, we split everything between us (and still do).  My Dad told me that as time progressed, the 'little Utopia' we'd built would slowly subside without us realising, until the point came that I would find that, because sans a 'y' chromosome, I'd discover that the inevitably equilibrium would be settle with me doing all the housework. How is that fair, I snapped in repost, when Nick and I work equally hard, each at our careers, that for him at the moment he crosses the threshold, he can expect only to relax and unwind, but the moment I do the same action, I can only expect to clean and cook – all based upon traditional roles from years ago, when women also didn't work full-time. The change in society which has given the freedom for a woman to have a career should also be followed by a domestic change. Aren't Nick and I both adults, with equally responsibility within the place we both live? A wry smile crept across the faces of my audience, as if my views were naive and unachievable, they knew that now and it would be something I'd learn in time.

Traditionally, how a home was 'set-up', was based on the home of your parents, who teach you how to act in all things. I take much advice and many life lessons from my family, but when it comes to this, I can not – me being an independent woman is a running family joke (or rather loving tease). It has meant though (perhaps a consequence of the fact that I have stubbornly protested too much), that when I once mentioned that I ironed Nick's shirts, I doomed myself to never live this down. It is seen as a sign that I am 'softening' in my feminist views, as everyone predicted. Now every time I perform the necessary domestic chore of ironing, my brain imbues this action with a guilt; ironing has become a symbol that actually, I'm a traditional housewife, who has grown out of her youthful feminist follies and accepted who her she really is, whom her chromosomes and traditions dictate she must be .... Women always find their way to the sink, after all.

What it means to be a woman in 2015 is in flux for me, and from what I read on social media and in the press, it is the case for many different women. I suppose I'll have to forge my own unique role to fit with my own life, even if it feels against the tide at times. Fortunately, I have a co-pilot in life who is accepting and finding his way too, so I consider myself very lucky that we can do this together. Hopefully then, my answer to 'How to be a woman in 2015' is simply to be myself and do what works for me. The freedom of this choice to be yourself is what I believe to be the foundation of all types of equality – so for now, I'll run with this and see where it leads.

TMNT Movie: Teenage Mutant Ninja TRAVESTY

*Contains spoilers and ranting*

Last night, Nick and I went to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

A short background to my fandom of this franchise: a few years ago, I worked on the series of books for the new TMNT TV show which is on Nickelodeon. I remember watching and liking Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles when I was little (ah, the censorship of the early 90s), but I can't remember this series in detail, particularly any detail relating to the mythology.

When I started writing the books for the new series however, I fell in love – it's such a great TV show. Testament to its greatness lies with the simple fact that Nick agreed to watch this with me as I immersed myself in the brand for the books, something he has not done when I needed to watch the new series of Power Rangers Megaforce or Woolly and Tig for the same reason. In fact, we've been watching the second series over the last week or so, a move entirely driven by him. If you look at my twitter feed, you'll see that I've been quoting my favourite lines from the show, entirely from Mikey who is my favourite turtle.

I was nervous about seeing the movie; the other movies were terrible, I've never seen a film Michael bay has been involved with that I've enjoyed, and also Megan Fox has such a perfect sense of smouldering and seemingly dangerous sexuality that it puts me on edge. My worse fear for this film: what if I didn't like Mikey?

Off we went, with Nick wearing a red t-shirt, because his favourite turtle is Raph; his favourite turtle was chosen during childhood based on the fact that his favourite colour is red.

I encapsulated my reaction to this film in a tweet:

I'll start with the only positive from the film, which seems obvious when written in black and the white. The turtles were the only good part of this film, the CGI is cool, their action sequences are awesome and, in the rare occasions its glimpsed, they are funny and the brotherly argumentative dynamic is really great. So, if the best part of the film is the turtles, then this should have been a fantastic film, right?

Wrong. Despite being the eponymous heroes of a beloved franchise, I think the turtles get the least screen time. The screen time is given instead to April O'Neil, to an extent that I feel they should retitle the film 'April O'Neil and a few Mutant Turtles', because calling it 'TMNT' is a flagrant misrepresentation of the film.

The film is dedicated to April O'Neil, but it might be more accurate to say it's dedicated to Megan Fox. The plot entirely centres around her, her emotions, her struggles, her actions in a way that is infuriating and bizarre for a film meant to be about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I think there are two possible explanations for why this might be:

1) Someone thought 'Megan Fox is hot. How can we give her more screen time?' 'Perhaps we write out the turtles part of the film?' 'Excellent. Cinematic genius.'

2) The budget for the CGI was low (unlikely), so they had to concentrate that budget on the action scenes, rather than building a plot or storyline for the turtles. Shooting live action scene with an actress must be cheaper than expensive CGI rendering and hey, it means Megan Fox gets more screen time. Awesome.

I mentioned this theory to Nick after the film, who pointed out that unlike in Transformers where Megan Fox 'bends over a lot wearing tight clothes', she actually doesn't do this during TMNT (score one for feminism...) but it does highlight just how awful an actress she is in this film. In the parts where her explanations of how she'd seen ninja turtles were meant to be comic, they just weren't. When she was meant to be afraid or scared or determined, it was just unconvincing. 

The story centred around her saving the turtles and Splinter from a fire at her dad's lab. They were her pets, apparently. A fact in her life that she's forgotten, despite probably being about 10 or so according to the film (but then again her Dad died in the fire so it could be attributed to trauma), she is reminded of this story by Splinter in the layer and all of a sudden, appears the brother/sister bond between her and the turtles. Immediately.

Oh, and that's another thing. Instead of being a well trained ninja of years of experience who steps into the mutagen with rat DNA on him to become a rat/human hybrid, the Splinter of the film is a mutated super rat, who decides to teach himself ninjutsu after finding a book in the sewer, so his sons could defend themselves in the outside world. Which means that in the short space of 16 years, a mutated rat taught himself the complex, lifelong discipline of ninjutsu and then was good enough to teach it to the turtles . . . outrageous.

The explanation of why Splinter raised the turtles as his sons, was not because his DNA was spliced with theirs in the mutagen, but because of the care and love April O'Neil showed them in the lab, he knew he had to love these turtles. *eye roll*

When Splinter and Shredder meet for their battle in the film, their set up as an exchange between two mortal enemies, which they aren't because they've never met previously. This is yet another flaw with the plot of the film, it assumes that the audience are bringing along a wealth of knowledge of the franchise with them. Which, of course they do, but if you expect this of your audience, you shouldn't them try to offer a 'different story' and create a slightly altered world mythology from what is known from the canon. 

When the plot of this film was first announced, the turtles weren't going to be mutants, they were going to be aliens from outer space. I'm not sure if the fan backlash to this was why the film was rewritten, but suppose it was, the end result is a TMNT film which has nothing to do with aliens, as the mutagen in this film is made in a lab. This change would of course be fine, if you weren't expecting fans to bring with them the knowledge of the franchise with them, but the fact that the plot spent so little time developing the characters of the turtles and the relationship between them seems as though they expected the fans to already know this.

This was highlighted in three moments in the film. 

1) When the turtles are begin drained of their blood for the mutagen it contains, April asks Donnie 'What should I do?' to free them and he tells her to press the adrenaline button. At this late point in the film, apart from the hi-tech glasses Donnie wears, it's not really been established that he's the genius of the turtles. Or if you argue it has been (albeit loosely), it's not been established the April knows this with enough certainty to know he is the turtle to ask.

2) The classic tension between Leo and Raph over who is the leader is alluded to; Leo's leadership is briefly confirmed in an exchange early on in the film. (Paraphrasing) Raph: Who made you the boss? Leo: You know who did. So when the big moment when Raph says, "Let's do what Leo says." that should have been a defining moment in the relationship between the two brothers, but it just isn't in the context of the film plot (where Raph is the turtle who gets the most screen time and who goes the other turtle's rescue) and only is with a knowledge of Raph and Leo's relationship in the wider franchise.

3) Raph's big speech at the end as the Turtles are falling from the tower, when he tells the other turtles he's sorry that he's pushed them, that he only did so because he believed in them so much and that he only threatened to walk away because he was afraid he wasn't good enough to be alongside them, surely is the speech of a leader. It also comes out of nowhere, as these internal struggles and the group dynamic is not explored enough in the plot for this to make any sense. It only makes sense when you know Raph as a wider character from the franchise.

All in all, as you might have gathered from my rant, I did not enjoy this film in the slightest, just as I feared. But at least, I still liked Mikey.

Wardrobe Tardis and work PJs

I've started a new job where I'm working from home. I'm only a week and a half in and I have to say that working from home suits me. Not least because I woke up dramatically this morning and declared to Nick,  "I have to get up now and get to work. I don't want to be late." I think I'm going to find that amusing for some time to come, especially on the mornings when there is a horrific tube delay. Also, because if I'm not going out to meetings, I can wear comfortable 'home' clothes. Which meant a couple of weeks ago I stocked up on a collection of work PJs, onesies and comfortable trousers. Amazing because one of my new work outfits includes a pair of Star Wars PJs. If that's not the career dream then I'm not sure what else would be.

Here's my new office (in progress).

Today, I was feeling ill and it wasn't brilliant weather outside, so on my lunch break, I put some laundry away. (This is very close to being the most glamorous post of all time.) I realised that I've had to start quadruple hanging my dresses on each coat hanger. Even to me, a 'hoarder' according to some, this seems quite excessive. I don't particularly want to throw any dresses away because things always come back into fashion and I bought those dresses because I liked them. Also, it's on a regular basis that I look at my wardrobe that's full to bursting, sigh loudly and moan about how I have nothing to wear. This is probably because I can't actually see three quarters of my wardrobe at a glance.

I'm worried that it'll become a large enough problem that Nick will notice and because he's a practical, cold and logical humanoid he'll tell me to throw out some of my dresses because there isn't 'enough room'. He's made this absurd argument before. He finds so few items of clothing that he actually likes that he'll never understand my predicament. He'll do the maths and remind me that I had fifty coat hangers to begin with and so quadrupling the dresses on each hanger that is frankly ridiculous for someone who now works from home in her sparkly and awesome new work PJs. My wardrobe and mind has no place for the rudeness of mathematics and the constrictions of space. 

The only solution is inventing a wardrobe Tardis. 

Why I've decided to be Chilean for the World Cup.

I'm not really into football. I usually hate it because about 90% of the time it's just watching over-paid princesses falling over when another player gently brushes his shoulder. But I do love the World Cup,  'football at its best as they always say', but mainly because of the patriotism you feel and get to see – you get to watch other people cheer on their national team with a look of pride and passion so intense that I'm always surprised that there's never been a case of a football fan spontaneously combusting when their national hero scores a goal in the dying seconds of a game that rescues their campaign from the swirling hell of being knocked out.

I also love feeling patriotic. I love England; I love being English. I like being British too, but that's a concept slightly too abstract to feel as passionately about. I do prefer the Union Flag to the St George's Flag, but that's for colour and aesthetic reasons more than anything else. I researched my family tree a few years ago, along several branches and there wasn't a single a relative that wasn't born and lived in England for their whole lives. I love the rain, I much prefer winter to summer because I am just not good in the heat, plus I really like hats and scarfs. I drink an inordinate amount of tea and I always say sorry to someone who clearly bumps into me (although the frequency of this has lessened ever since I moved to London).  If you follow my Dad on twitter @thesockmine you'll see from his many retweets he is a British manufacturer who isn't afraid of being a passionate advocate for bring manufacturing back to Britain. (Incidentally, if you need socks, you'll find the best ones ever made here: www.thesockmine.co.uk. They're like wearing a pair of dreams.)

I'm not trying to be all EDL, I'm just trying to illustrate that how proud I am of being English and that my switch to support Chile is therefore surprising to say the least.

Probably not that surprising, as co-habitant Nicholas is half Chilean (despite the surname Wilkinson, since it's his mum who is Chilean), so at the beginning of the World Cup I'd decided that Chile would be my second team for two reasons: to be in support of Nick and also so that I could enjoy watching and be involved when watching the matches with him.

I was watching Chile vs Spain alone in my flat, as Nicholas was out. I found myself really enjoying the match, especially how Chile were playing – together as a team, so passionately for their country. You got the sense that if you asked any one of the Chilean players to lay down his life for a member of his team or his country, they'd do it, without a thought and with a smile on their face. The fans are the same, the image of the Chilean fan weeping the crowd as he sang the national anthem; a national anthem that's a love song from a people to their country.

Just look at the English translation of the lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvkVX99nBUc&app=desktop

It was watching this match, that I so enjoyed that I realised that you could watching a team you support during a World Cup match without feeling insane amounts of stress, feeling sick and also bitter disappointment. Up until that moment, I thought that is what watching your country at the World Cup was like and I was wrong. All these years of hating those 90 minutes watching a match; this was not how it was for everyone. Well, it was a revelation . . . amongst the guilt I was feeling about enjoying another country's victory more than an England one. Even when I watched Chile lose to the Netherlands, I enjoyed that because you knew that they enjoyed playing for their country and they tried.

Even the commentators during the match against Spain fell in love with the Chilean team. I've never heard English commentators get so passionate about an entire team before. "Oh, they're such a hardworking team." "Every pass they make is for the team; each thought they have is so generous." Up to the point where, towards the end of the match, one of them actually said: "Oh, that's a great foul Chile. Tactical." A team that is commended for how awesome their fouls are and how they showed great teamwork is definitely something I've never hear before.

So that's why I'm supporting Chile for the World Cup. Who can't fall in love with a country who has this advert on their TV in support of their football team. It's just superbly ridiculous. If Westeros had adverts, these are the adverts they'd have:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZHwdI3bh9Q&utm_content=buffera17e3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer