So it begins. World Cup at last

World Cup Musings

Three days in and we've not seen many victories, including England. All that antication and we get a goalkeeping error which could cause trouble further on in the tournament. It's a bit of a shame that the Americans don't have the Greeks in the same group because they seem to be having a lot of trouble with grease at the moment, especially on the Gulf coastline. There've been no real moments of brilliance either so far, the only real highlight to my mind being the first goal for South Africa in the opening game.

So your mind wanders to other things, like fashion. Adidas seem to be winning the strip stakes, but Nike seem to be leading in the boots department with about 50% of players sporting their latest dayglo orange models which clash with team colours more frequently than anti-government protesters and the army in Bangkok. A lot of people have a problem with Nike, but I think they are to be commended for creating jobs for 8 year olds all over the developing world who would otherwise have to go to school or play in the streets getting up to all sorts of mischief.

Vuvuzelas are causing a lot of noise, and a lot of people are complaining about them. I think they are ace, if for no other reason than their name sounds like a gynaecological complaint and the fact that they scare the shit out of anyone with a fear of wasps who happens to be in earshot.



I'm sick of the sight of James "I'm morbidly obese. How hilarious is that?!!!!!" Corden on World Cup associated stuff. I do wish he'd just fuck off and diet. The song he's done with Dizzee Rascal is just dire. A truly great football song is this piece of sublime Afropop:



I can guarantee you will be having this tune rattling around in your head for days now. It was certainly part of the sounds of my summer of 1990

We watched the England game at the Shepherd's Arms, Horbury which was pretty rammed, but we had a decent place to see the screen. This is the oldst pub in the area apparently, but more importantly they now do decent beer. My current poison of choice being the Theakston's Black Bull. And at half time they brought out pies and sausage rolls. Snacks made from mechanically-recovered meat, it's what the Empire was built on

That husky feeling

It was the second week of strongman training yesterday. This was the toughest session I have done in a very long time. It was fantastic, and consisted of more farmer's walks, carrying a sandbag and pushing and pulling a weighted sledge which really takes it out of you. I definitely hope I don't get reincarnated as a husky

We now have our new telly set up, 37in of LCD HD gorgeousness. Well, it will be once we get an HD box, but even on nomal old LD it's a fantastic picture, and the football never looked so good. Connected up to the stereo it's like there are a dozen vuvuzelas being played in your own front room. Unfortunately, the first thing we happened to have on the screen was the opening night of Big Brother. Fortunately this was only temporary as it happened to be what was on the cable box as I set it up. This will be the only mention of this vehicle for publicity-hungry non-entities unless one of the inmates is killed by a large chunk of blue ice from a passing 747. It's unlikely, I know, but we live in hope. We need to get rid of our old one, so we'll give it away as it's got a lot of life left in it and it's a decent telly

The countdown is going for next weekend. We go to London Thursday night, have a day in town on Friday and watch England v Algeria at Jane's parents that night. Saturday we head off to Wembley to see Green Day. Oh yes. It promises to be an epic weekend