WORLD CUP malaise - July 1

It's just as well there's no World Cup today. I feel a great weariness and an aching of the vital faculties. I'm not reading the papers or watching the news and I don't want to hear any more pseudo-sympathetic guff along the lines of 'wasn't it a shame' etc from once-every-four-years 'footy' fans. Or anything at all from the 'actually I'm Welsh/ Scottish/ Belgian on my ex-wife's side' brigade. Other people ask me: 'Will you be watching the rest of it?' And I reply, helplessly: 'Of course.' At the end of the day, it's the World Cup, and that's football. You watch it, whether you like it or not, and whether your team's in it or not.