A blog post after two months, boy am I getting lazy or what? Blog was ignored on account of many reasons: I was as busy as a hamster on a wheel at work, then I fell horribly sick. So sick in fact that the doctor advised me to go home; “There’s no hospital like home, and no better doctor than your mother,” he said. Cheesy, yet true.

As a result, I’ve returned from an 18-day vacation in rain-swept Mumbai, and apart from sitting around and doing nothing—which is what most sick people do on an enforced holiday—I devoted myself completely to watching the telly with unbound exuberance. I was on a healthy diet of cooking shows—Nigella Lawson, Kylie Kwong, Jamie Oliver, the lot—the movie channels, EPL flashbacks, and VH1 (MTV and Channel [V] are just hideous nowadays!). What I’ve noticed is that adverts are getting better, and news channels waste no time in labelling every cough and sneeze a “breaking news”. But they aren’t half as stupid as English movie channels, and their dim-witted attempts to weed out swear words and kisses from a movie, so that pimple-faced brats and their parents alike can watch movies like Cocktail and The Mummy together with a straight face.

But let’s keep all that craziness for the crazies. I don’t have to bear with it anymore as football is back from its hibernation, and weekends will never be the same. United are left with a big hole after Ronaldo’s record-breaking departure to Real Madrid, and one thing led to another, as Michael Owen—the one man I never imagined at United—has embraced the mantle of the #7 jersey. Carlos Tevez has gone across to Manchester City, and with no major name signed in the transfer window, there’s a big banter over United’s depleted forces and how it’s Liverpool’s season this year. We’ll wait and see about that.

So, the pre-season friendlies are gone, the Community Shield hiccup against Chelsea forgotten, everyone expected a United win over newly promoted Birmingham City on the opening weekend of the new Premiership season. And win United did, Rooney scoring in the first-half, but it was a scrappy victory—the 1-0 scoreline not as convincing as Arsenal’s 6-1 demolition job of Everton on Saturday. However, Liverpool’s 1-2 defeat at the hands of a resurgent Tottenham Hotspurs was nice to see—and so was the post-match interview of Rafa Benitez, the Man with a Thousand Excuses. But these are still early days.

Yay, for the Premiership. I missed you.