Just For the record.

It has not escaped my knowledge that the football world Cup is on at the moment, despite me not having a television. It's all-pervasive, look, it's even on this blog.
I'm a man. I'm English, so therefore I'm wearing a red and white shirt and swallowing beer in between cheers and moans in front of a big screen?
Incorrect. I hope to see not a moment's coverage, nor hear or read about it, but, let's face it, such a hope is as implausible as hoping there won't be another Olympic games. ever.
Sporty just didn't happen for me. My dad was a keen cricketer, and hockey player, (that's real hockey by the way, the one without ice).
I just could never see the point of getting excited about chucking and whacking an inflated pig's bladder, wrapped in leather, from one end of a field to the other.  Oh, I'm sure there was a point to it, the first time a gang of marauders kicked their enemy's captain's head up the village street, but, hey, lads, all that's a bit passé now, isn't it?
The point of this post is to express my extreme disappointment in the U.S. team's failure  to knock England out of the competition.  Okay, it wouldn't totally have stopped the ad-nauseam coverage, but it would have de-smugged a whole heap of f**kwits.

I'm fascinated by the way corporate "sport" brainwashes the masses. People have blind loyalty for a team, so blind they seem unable to see that the team is just another big business corporate entity, where the people who make up the team are not team members, but employees, who are bought, sold, valued, devalued, traded like any other commodity. The guy you cheer for as a hero this time out, you'll jeer at in a year's time because he's wearing a different colour?
And when, I ask, did it become necessary that everybody out there is a heap of mobile advertising? That any company with enough money can buy space on the players?

No, no, no, he moans, stop right now... we all know the world's doomed and dumbed down, come on Soubriquet, calm down, take your medicine, there's a good chap. Look, nurse will be here soon with more tranquil pills. In the meantime, let me tighten the head-clamp, and pin your eyelids open.. oh yes, look, we're wheeling a television in now, won't that be grand?

What's that, fellow? mmmfmmmf? Oh, well, the gag's for your own good, and the shouting was disturbing other patients. I'll just turn the television on now. Football? Yes, that'll keep you entertained.