WORLD CUP 2010 @ THE POPSCENER

Finally beginning to recover from my unbridled misery after England's unprecedentedly horrendous 'performance' on Friday, I thought it time to return to the blogging fray. Still, being the bitter individual I am, I can't let sleeping (overpaid, gutless, despicable) superstars lie. And so, revel with me in the press assassiation of Friday's Cape Town debacle. "What went wrong?" asks Kevin McCarra. Everything, naturally. Meanwhile, Marina Hyde thinks it was "comically unwatchable". I wasn't laughing.

Still, on a (slightly) lighter note, if you read nothing else from the papers about this World Cup, be sure to check out this peice by Jonathan Liew in the Telegraph, which provides a hilariously sharp crystalisation of the excruciatingly pitiful World Cup coverage that yours truly has been ham-fistedly addressing in my occassional dispatches.

In other news: Brazil win, but the real winner is, erm, diving around; playacting; handbags; and pursing thumb and index finger in the 'book-him-ref' motion. The ref proceeds to hand out some distinctly unfathomable bookings (including sending Kaka off), whilst inexplicably missing a studs-up annihalation of Elano's shin by the Ivorians, and two blatant handballs in the lead up to Brazil's second goal. Ah, the beautiful game.

Anyway, here's my favourite England football song - merely by virtue of three factors: It features Alex James; it rips the piss out of the Verve; and a restraining order in the interests of human decency (dignity?) prevents any footballers or Ant and Dec from approaching closer than, say, 800 light years of it.