Wednesday 21 November 2007

The End

The Frog and Rosbif near Les Halles has a fantastic big screen but deeply dodgy wine. But I go there to watch the football and not because of the quality of their grapes.

But after seeing England lose 3-2 to Croatia, I won't even bother to whine. Coming back from 2-0 down to 2-2 was heartening. Then to capitulate was just the kind of drama one needed like a poor wine.

So England won't be performing in Austria and Switzerland. This is exercising lots of people on Radio 5 Live's phone-in programme at the moment.

I'm pretty sure the police forces of Austria and Switzerland must be jumping up and down with joy. They won't have to deal with fans rampaging their way round the mountains.

The golden generation fails to shine. Oh woe. But maybe not. There's now talk about radical overhauls in England.

They're talking on the radio about changes at grass roots level. I love that phrase "grass roots".

If they are going to revamp at that level, then one thing's for sure. I'm not likely to see a winning team for another 20 years or so.

Oh well. Time to adopt another country. Any ideas? How about France? Not a bad choice Paul especially since I live here.

There was a small screen in the pub which was showing the Ukraine v France match and the French were cruising. They'd already qualified courtesy of Italy beating Scotland on Saturday.

And there couldn't have been a bigger contrast. England labouring, France polished.

Well at least Britain isn't under the cosh of a transport strike.

But then loads of French people don’t have to go and check their bank accounts because the government has lost computer discs containing sensitive details about who receives child benefit payments.

The British government's customs and revenue department has done this. And I have to make sure no one is pilfering through the billions in my bank account because of this blunder.

I want compensation for the mental turmoil I've been put under because of this catastrophe.

As for the anguish caused because of England's footballers, I don't think there's a currency to repay that kind of loss.