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The World Cup: J'accuse!

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Grandma loves children
(prev. Old dear. Gin. Problems)

15:05 / 10.06.06

I was going to watch England v Paraguay for the horror buzz really, but it's already too ugly. The mindless baying of the fans, the utter cuntishness of the commentary, the terrible feeling that people who you normally like and respect are going to talking about how 'we' are doing, as if the fortunes of English football team have got anything whatsoever to do with them ... I just can't do it.

Fuck, they've just scored ...

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

15:12 / 10.06.06

I may go for a walk soon, and enjoy the no-doubt empty streets.

Tryphena Absent

15:30 / 10.06.06

I'm trying to watch this but honestly, these men are playing as if they aren't paid millions every year. Can't they even get the ball in the net? (First goal does not count as headed into net by Paraguay. HA HA HA.)

God, I'm so bored. Why hasn't Crouch done his robot dance yet???

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

16:11 / 10.06.06

Yeah, the 'we' thing always bugs me. If you go and see your favourite band, you don't come out going "wow, we played a fucking blinding set tonight", do you?

Especially in international events. I think if people are going to take credit for the actions of their country's representatives, they should also shoulder the blame. Next time someone tells me 'we' are doing well, I'm gonna say "yes, congratulations on the football. But I believe I still owe you a kick in the bollocks for invading Iraq".

I mean, at least with the political stuff you could have had a say in the selection process.

16:30 / 10.06.06

I still blame you, personally, for Culloden, Stoatie.

And you are just weak, ADL and AG. No good will come of this capitulation to the World Cup virus. No amount of mimetic Robot dancing will make Crouch your friend. Theo Walcott won't be your boy toy.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

16:32 / 10.06.06

I'm calm now. I've just ranted about it on my blog. Shouting into the void is always good for the soul.

And the park was just lovely right now! There was no sod there!

As long as the offy's restocked with cold beers in time for Doctor Who, everything will be fine.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

16:33 / 10.06.06

Oh, and Culloden?

Yeah, erm, sorry about that. I'd had a bit to drink, y'see... if it's any consolation, I felt terrible the next morning.

Tryphena Absent

16:45 / 10.06.06

No amount of mimetic Robot dancing will make Crouch your friend

You. Are. Wrong.

I did the washing up, which was fun, curled my hair and watered the plants and now I'm back in front of the TV. They've pulled Joe Cole off because he's a giant wuss and Michael Owen because he was playing like a dripping tap. The English boots are nice colours and Paraguay's shirts look like their mum's ironed them.

I'm not sure I'm noticing the right things here.

17:49 / 10.06.06

Au contraire, sounds like you're deriving maximum pleasure from an insipid, so-called spectacle. Particularly the choice to attend to chores in another room. I made a big jug of Pimms and have also cooked an early dinner as the neighbours punctuated the balmy afternoon with their shrill vocal ejaculations.

Tryphena Absent

19:20 / 10.06.06

This gets worse. Whats-his-name is watching Trinidad and Tobago vs. some other team in the other room. It's okay though Dr Who is on at 7.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

19:47 / 10.06.06

Yes. The Doctor versus Satan. That's gonna be MY Match Of The Day. I just need a flag.

Altogether now...

Satan is a wank-AH!
Satan is a wank-AH!
It's Doc-tor Who (OY!)
It's Doc-tor Who (OY!)

Grandma loves children
(prev. Old dear. Gin. Problems)

19:51 / 10.06.06

I don't want to over-stretch the analogy, it's a bit, you know, flawed, and I appreciate that, but it seems as if this idea that it's only going on for a month, and that you shouldn't be a curmudgeon, that if there's a problem with the World Cup then it's essentially yours, and that you shouldn't try and fight it, you should just get involved with your team and your national identity, because no one likes a whiner, is basically what people were being told in Germany in 1933.

And look how that turned out.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

19:58 / 10.06.06

The one thing I do like about the World Cup is that about twelve years ago someone did this hideous World Cup wine, that came in a bottle shaped like the trophy. Because it was, essentially, horrid, everyone had tons left after the tournament. Which meant it was dirt-cheap EVERYWHERE. I was signing on at the time, and I lived on that piss for ages.

Grandma loves children
(prev. Old dear. Gin. Problems)

20:15 / 10.06.06

Those were happier, and more innocent, times though Stoat -This world cup, everyone pays.

Disco is My Class War

20:26 / 10.06.06

See, I'm really enjoying watching the spectacle -- but probably not for the right reasons. Never been a football fan, never gotten into watching it. But in Australia, football is a little different -- it's like the non-machismo, non-violent, 'culturally diverse' sport that has only just begun to compete with Australian Rules football for airtime. So this year I'm giving it a chance. And it's fun! Those shell-shocked Swedish fans are hilarious.

England vs Paraguay, though. Boring. Not Paraguay, England. There's something very wrong happening there. No wonder they have to resort to robot dances to keep the crowd entertained. Cuz they sure weren't doing it in play. (And who else but English football fans would launch into three renditions of the national anthem in the middle of a match? Tasteless and arrogant, just like the team.)

00:17 / 11.06.06

How does the old Why Don't You? theme song go? 'Turn off yopur TV and go out and do something less boring instead'

I've been drinking bloody marys all day and have no telly, w00t! No soccer for me!

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

00:23 / 11.06.06

How does the old Why Don't You? theme song go? 'Turn off yopur TV and go out and do something less boring instead'

Problem is, it's not that it's hard to avoid on the telly. It's WHEN YOU DO THE "GO OUT" BIT that it all comes charging up to you demanding an opinion, honking its horn at you and WAVING ITS STUPID FUCKING FLAG IN YOUR FACE!!!

Tryphena Absent

00:28 / 11.06.06

Maybe Quantum is trying to tell us that Brighton is a non-football haven? Well? Is it?

The Impoverished Llama

00:44 / 11.06.06

The Doctor won, thanks to a last minute save from the TARDIS.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

00:55 / 11.06.06

Maybe Quantum is trying to tell us that Brighton is a non-football haven? Well? Is it?

I'm sure GGM would have moved long hence were that the case...

Mon Oncle Ignatius

01:56 / 11.06.06

The thing about avoiding it on the streets being nigh impossible is what is getting to me. I turn around, and the shop next door is selling some kind of pastry on the basis that it will suit watching football - with a Cross of St George plastered on the sign board just to get the message across.

Of course the only thing people who aren't watching the world cup are talking about is whether you'll be able to hear the roars which greet each score and the wails which bemoan every near miss from the refuge of the park.Still, we football-avoiders solved that - we couldn't - for once I was glad to be by a paddling pool filled with screeching children.

Then, in a highly weird momnet, a glass pumpkin carriage drawn by two white horses with long plumes on their heads drove down the road. I was not hallucinating. A short while after, very drunken man in a white shirt with a red cross on it staggered down the road and walked into a lamp-post. I have no idea if these two events were connected in any way.

Then I go on Barbelith and join in the anti-World Cup ranting and make my head explode.

I am thinking about making t-shirts or badges which say "Please do not talk to me about the World Cup. I will not feign interest, and bore easily."

I think I need a pirate flag or something equally non-football-related to flutter out of the window. What is the symbol of the antithesis of football mania?

Mistletoffelees
(prev. Mist van der Rohe)

15:39 / 11.06.06

What is the symbol of the antithesis of football mania?

I believe, it is mini golf.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

17:34 / 11.06.06

But how would I fly a flag representing mini-golf?

Suggestions most welcome.

18:08 / 11.06.06

Gallifrey's flag is distressingly difficult to source.

Brighton is a non-football haven? I would love to say yes but sure enough there was a huge thirty-man fight last night on the front, because, er, we won the match or something.
We had to abandon a lovely hippy fire on the beach because a few people turned up shouting ENGERLAND! and being drunkenly-over-friendly in that way that means they're a moment away from turning nasty and giving you the Millwall smile or kerbing you.
Fucking love the world cup, me.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

18:14 / 11.06.06

because, er, we won the match or something

"We", Quantum? Well, congratulations for making the team... but I believe I still owe you a kick in the bollocks* for the invasion of Iraq.

Hey, this shit works!

*metaphorically speaking. I don't really want to kick you in the bollocks. Especially with you not liking footie and all. Just practising.

Grandma loves children
(prev. Old dear. Gin. Problems)

18:22 / 11.06.06

I think I need a pirate flag or something equally non-football-related to flutter out of the window. What is the symbol of the antithesis of football mania?

I was thinking of spray-painting 'scum', or actually something a bit more declarative, onto a cross of St George and hanging that out the window, but ... well there obviously going to be problems. I'm thinking though, that if perhaps I just wrote it in very small letters instead, so that only I knew, then it might do the trick ...

The Impoverished Llama

20:31 / 11.06.06

The Seal of Rassilon can be used in the place of a Gallifreyan flag.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

20:33 / 11.06.06

For some reason Rassilon always makes me think of Basil Brush. I have no idea why this should be other than that Basil Brush used to be on just before Doctor Who when I was a small stoat. Ain't subconscious associations grand?

Mon Oncle Ignatius

23:45 / 11.06.06

The Seal of Rassilon can be used in the place of a Gallifreyan flag.

Can it? Oh. I'm not a Whovian, much, but it's a nice enough logo/flag. Kind of like a Celtic yin-yang.

I doubt I could stick that on a banner out the window though, sadly.

Maybe banners and flags are where the probem lies? Perhaps there's somehing else (beyond righous self-important apathy) we could do to show our disdain in an unavoidable, yet non-threatening manner? Perchance involving macrame and mini-golf?

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

23:49 / 11.06.06

Funnily enough, while I was walking Sheena the other day, there was a guy in the cemetery lying there pissed out of his face playing REALLY miniature golf. I have no idea where you buy these things- the green was about eight inches long, the club the size of a toothbrush- he let me have a go, and it was good. I was about on par, too.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

00:26 / 12.06.06

Would it be big enough to flay as a mini-Golf flag though?

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

00:28 / 12.06.06

Flay?

You, sir, are letting your understandable anti-football sentiments tempt you into an orgy of violence.

Stoat-ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

00:31 / 12.06.06

Actually, golf of whatever size would be a good counterpoint to the British football mania, the Golf being a German car and the World Cup always bringing out an unpleasant amount of anti-German sentiment on these islands...

Mon Oncle Ignatius

01:06 / 12.06.06

Flay, fly, I don't mind. Maybe I can get a flag made of a VW Golf?

Nuke Kids on the Bloc

01:25 / 12.06.06

Weld a Mini Cooper and Golf togeth- oh, I'll get my coat.

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