99 words to describe England's football team when only one will really do - turgid

Dumb, despairing, desperate, pathetic, puke-worthy, plain, cringe-worthy, heartless, broken, piss-poor, class-less, drab, dreary, depressing, disjointed, dull, callous, cold, hopeless, miserable, gloomy, measly, faithless, stuttering, wooden, dour, acerbic, bitter, blind, dastardly, bastardly, dicey, sleazy, pitiful, pointless, degrading, debasing, distasteful, disgusting, contorted, futile, grim, cowardly, listless, stifling, suffocating, spineless, spastic, spasmodic, futile, childish, miserable, sad, despondent, crap, shit, soul-less, dirt, garbage, dastardly, deviant, diabolical, nasty, noxious, nauseating, nerdy, nervy, knobby, knotty, tacky, filthy, degraded, exasperating, infuriating, maddening, vexing, annoying, galling, irksome, irritating, tiresome, tedious, wearisome, bothersome, worrisome, difficult, incommodious, obstinate, pigheaded, inflexible, mulish, obdurate, insolent, squalid, seedy, sordid, dodgy, shady, slimy.

...in heaven

So this is heaven.
Wake up, have breakfast, potter around till lunch, then watch the first of the day’s World Cup matches.
Potter around some more. Order coffee and settle in for the next match, played early evening.
Wrap up whatever pottering around it is you do, get dinner in front of the TV with lots of desert and watch the last match of the day.
Unfortunately, I’m off the sauce, or else it would really have been like dying and going to heaven.
But, that’s what life is like these days. Everyday. For the next 30 days. Heaven!

Vuvuzela-ed out!

And so it begins. A million people, I estimate, will be writing a billion articles on the World Cup. But, you will find mine only here. And on the website of the paper I work for. But, to maintain the figleaf of anonymity, I don’t link the two.
The world cup, as in the matches, have started on a discordant, ear-splitting, atmosphere-destroying note. I have written about this before here, and as always, my prophetic vision comes to pass. Or, in this case to ear.
The vuvuzela is making watching the matches on TV a pathetic experience. Truly sad.

Crazy schedule

I sensed it the first time I saw the schedule of warm-up matches before the World. I should have said it then. But, hey, I’ll say it now. Have all the team managers gone mad? Do they have to be putting them through such a hectic schedule one week before the World Cup, risking injuries to key players?
Consider the fallout… Arjen Robben (not sure), Didier Drogba, Martin Skrtel and Rio Ferdinand.
I have to question the wisdom of teams going to the most important sporting event of the decade playing warm-ups one week before the tournament begins.

I predict...

I have rarely been spot on with my World Cup predictions, because I have always supported England.
Nevertheless, this time, I predict four of these five - Brazil, Argentina, Holland, Spain and England will make the semis. I have two dark horses: Australia and Serbia.
Which means powerhouses like Germany, Italy and France are out of my reckoning, as are promising Portugal and upstarts like South Korea or the USA.
My head says Argentina or Spain will win it. My heart goes with England. My underdog to win is Holland. Come back in three months and applaud my judgement.