World Cup Warm-up

Big flag to hang out of window Heart palpitation pills More lager Check windows open properly to get in fresh air after effects of lager More slippers (fancy Hox forgetting those) Twiglets Instant bronzer so it won't look as if you've spent an entire month inside Check lager supplies are adequate

Substitute partner - one who doesn't like footie and is a Will Carling look-alike (nothing to do with Black Label, of course) Good book Ear-defenders Larger fridge on the pretence it's for more lager, preferably a Smeg - much better lager-keeping technology! Stock of TV dinners for one (I'll be outing out with substitute partner)

Check Welsh flag for moth damage Large stock of DVDs Anti-Chav spray Stating the bleedin' obvious shield If you want to buy my book, visit my blog: http://whatisthisstrangeplace.blogspot.com/

My 'jude' England shirt Twigletts Cans of 'not-lager' - Pepsi Max is quite good Spare undies in case of penalty-shoot-out Samaritans' phone number if Beckham kicks his ....oh I can't talk about the memory...too traumatic Big TV More Pepsi Takeaway flyers and supermarket microwave meals Crisps, more Pepsi, more twigletts Silly hat for partying in Trafalgar square if we win jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Big stick for poking germans with.

Net for catching flying pigs. If you want to buy my book, visit my blog: http://whatisthisstrangeplace.blogspot.com/

So we won't be listening to English fans singing 'Scolari whoa ho, cantari whoa ho ho ho' to the tune of Volari. He's turned the job down: emphatically. He's had dozens of papparrazi camped outside his home, and he's not even the manager yet. He said "It might be part of your culture but it's not part of mine, and I don't want it to be". Fair play to that man. I shall be getting my (largish) tevelision from Oxford and the vd recorder/player and the destructions to operate them both; I'm praying that these have not disappeared into that great maw that is my mother's home. I'm not planning to get any lagers in, but then I'm not planning not to. Day at a time and all that. (Has there ever been a more mawkish song written than 'One day at a time sweet Jesus' by Kris Kristofferson?) But what to do when it's Windlebom? I'm going to have to have vd players wired up to one another. A classic case of transference. Tee he. How do I think we'll do? Last eight certainly: semi-final a distinct possibility: after that? I remember watching Sunderland dispatching the mighty Leeds when they hadn't a hope in hell. I was in Birmingham at the time and playing with an all black soul band (well by definition not all black because I'm magnolia coloured) staying at a Jamaican house, and they were all football mad. There were about 20 of us in the this living room. We were all rooting for Sunderland. (Am I digressing?) (I don't care) The place went apeshit at the final whistle. The band was called Donnie Gee and the The Soul Brothers. Now Donnie was the son of a Soutern Baptist minister, Chertsy in Surrey I believe; and man could this guy rap. We would play about 7 songs over a one and a half hour gig, we would play the song and then he'd ask us to 'break it down'. And he'd just shmooze the ladeez for about 10 minutes. On the last song he'd introduce the band: he always left me 'til last. "Now ladeez an' gennelmen; we got a foreigner in the band", was his shtick about me. This always brought the house down, and we played to largely mixed race audiences. He would finish with "and lets here it for white soul brother Steve" and I'd go Boom chaka boom chaka boom and the crowd would cheer and the girls would throw things at me, normally beer bottles. Wot's this thread? I think I've got missed in the lost of time. Can you imagine??? Roger Federer is knocked out of Windlebum by some spotty youth from Latvia. Nadal injures himself getting out of bed. Who's left? A lanky Scot from Scotchland. He wins Windlebum and we win the World Cup. How soon before Engerland get back to work. Are Ladbrokes taking bets on that? Germany will win.