At the end of the huge Restore Nature March in London on Saturday, the magnificent Mayday Morris team from South Devon finish off with a display of pagan exhuberance in Whitehall. The brown shrouded figure with antlers in the background wanders in and out like a gentle reminder of doom.

Descending into the false industrial bowels of Westminster tube with a flood of other marchers heading for home but not demobilising, there is a group of a dozen or so people dressed up immaculately with beautiful garlands of flowers in their hair – full blooming roses very prominent – who seem like a small contingent of aspirant minor deities. Stuck in the crush before accessing the platform I ask them if they were from the march or where they, perhaps, a hen party. Turns out they were Swedes living in London who were out celebrating Midsummer Day – a big deal in Sweden, where summer days are very long, and midwinter days barely peek into existence.

All the way up to Wembley, the Jubilee line is overwhelmed by a tsunami of sequins, silver stetsons, body glitter and dangly earings as an almost entirely female army of Swifties heads for the Eras show at the stadium. The atmosphere is effervescent and excited, packed out and hot. At each stop, a few get off, and a few more get on. A bloke with a strategically placed tuba on a trolley has to struggle to get out. At one stop, the driver announces the train is ready to depart before a crush of people have got off, so passengers heave themselves against the doors as the counter crush from the platform push themselves into spaces that aren’t there. A quick dash across the platform to the air condition wide open spaces of the Metropolitan Line – there’s even seats – proves a wise move. The importance of local knowledge. At Wembley Park, the platform is overwhelmed again. In dismal weather, the sequins would be defiant. In bright sunlight, they sparkle like a wave crest.

In stark contrast to the football. To slightly misquote Barnesley FCs inspirational song, to the tune of Blue Moon, “England… its not like watching Brazil”.