Wow, it’s been hot. Really, really hot. One of the principle problems about living in a country that doesn’t often have 30C temperatures is the fact we aren’t equipped to deal with it. Our homes don’t have air conditioning therefore at night, its very hot and stick and difficult to sleep. New York, on the other hand, always has a hot humid summer and because of that nearly every single apartment is equipped with air conditioning.
 
I was watched GMTV yesterday morning and they came up with all these brilliant ideas to keep you cool at night when sleeping. They were:

1. Freeze a water bottle and then place it in front of a fan which should then cool the air down

Right, so this frozen water bottle thing. Its going to unfreeze and get warm isn’t it? Yes. I bet when I wake up two hours after going to sleep its going to be a lukewarm bottle of water in front of an irritatingly noisy fan and will have precisely fuck all benefit. Excellent.

2. Take a cool bag to bed with you and keep a towel in it so if you wake up, you have a nice cool towel to put over yourself. 

So, a cool bag with, I presume, freezer packs in it, right? Yet again, the key element here is that the freezer bags will melt and the cool bag will no longer be cool resulting in a towel that is about as refreshing as a salt sandwich. There is genius at work here, I’m telling you.  

3. Make sure you have some cold water beside the bed so you can drink it if you wake up dehydrated. 

But it won’t be cold in a couple of hours will it? Do you see the pattern emerging? 

So, the answer to keeping cool at night, is to make sure you have a bedroom that is fully equipped with a fridge and freezer so all these cool things are neatly to hand when you wake up sweating your tits off.
 
GMTV – television for morons, written by morons and presented by….. yes, that’s right, morons.

So England stutter and stumble their way through probably the weakest World Cup group they have ever been placed in over the last 20 years.

At this rate, we're going to lose to Ecuador, the weakest possible second round opponents.

I can't remember seeing 3 more shambolic performances from an England side at a World Cup finals. This much vaunted team with its array of "superstars" like Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Cole, Rooney and Ferdinand is playing like a busted arse. Our manager decides to take only 4 strikers, when two are injury doubts and one is barely out of nappies and has yet to play a competitive Premiership game, let alone an international match of consequence!

Its pathetic.

Sven is a fraud. He must be inwardly laughing his arse off at how he's managed to hoodwink the FA for so long. This team have limped and puffed their way through qualifying in an incredibly weak group but also managed to outdo themselves by losing to Northern Ireland and drawing with Macedonia yet no one at the FA chose to question why this was so.

I don't know what he says to the team in the 2nd half but it must go something like this:

Sven: Good first half lads but really, its all a bit too much for me. Can you play like wankers in the second half?

Team: Ok boss, no problem!

Then lo and behold, they do. Its not all Svens fault though. The defending against Sweden was laughable. It was barely League One standard. Beckham had an appalling game. He can't seem to stay on the right hand side of the pitch, where he is supposed to be. He can't resist going for the "Hollywood" pass. In short, he should be dropped but that is never going to happen under Sven because the bloke doesn't have the testicles for it.

Terry or Gerrard should be Captain. Beckham has been mediocre in an England shirt for nearly 4 years now. He also doesn't have the character to inspire his team mates. Of course the rumour is that he stays Captain because of all the extra sponsorship revenue the FA get. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Unless Sven can make the hard choices and start picking on form rather than reputation, play Gerrard in his best position and resist playing that lanky streak of piss Crouch up front, we're going out on Sunday.

Will England win the World Cup? You're having a laugh.

The World Cup is underway and the media have already, on the basis of the performance against Paraguay, heavily criticised England and in particular, the tactics of Sven Goran Eriksson.

Is this justified?

In my humble opinion, yes it is. I think that Sven doesn’t actually have a clue about how to manage an international team. I certainly think he is tactically inept. From the squad selection through to his tactics, I think there is a compelling weight of argument that says that he doesn’t really know what he is doing.

Let’s look at the key points:

1. Picking Jenas and Hargreaves and not taking a fifth striker. This is already looking a poor move; a fully fit Jermain Defoe would have been ideal cover for an unfit and out of form Michael Owen and either Jenas or Hargreaves could have made way. I don’t think we need Carrick, Hargreaves and Carragher all sitting there with the ability to play a holding midfield role.

2. The fact that England team have never scored a second half goal under Eriksson in World Cup Final matches. This point to the fact that he is happy to sit onto a lead, as he tried to do in 2002 and in Portugal in 2004. This is not something that suits the English game and I would have thought he would have realised this by now.

3. Sven’s inability to get Lampard and Gerrard to form an effective partnership in midfield. Two of the world’s best central midfielders often look lost in the middle of the park. Sometimes your best team doesn’t involve your best players, something that Sven can’t seem to grasp.

4. The gaps that appear between midfield and attack. The defence will, when defending a lead, take up far too deep a position causing the midfield to drop back and then leave too much space between them and the strikers.

5. Too much reliance on long ball football and not enough retention of possession seems to be a disease throughout the team.

6. Pulling Michael Owen back for corners. Why? Leave him up the pitch so that it means the opposition have to leave players further up the field and also gives us a threat up front on the counter-attack.

7. The bizarre substitutions; a national newspaper listed them recently and there is not many of those substitutions that any football fan will agree with.

8. Messing around with tactics in the build up games. The bloke has had FIVE YEARS in the job to work out a set of tactics and different systems, so why start mucking around with them three games before the start of the World Cup?

I think that any manager of a football team, club or international, should be able to list these issues out, like I have and then work out effective ways of solving them. If I can call it, then surely you would expect someone being paid £4,000,000 a year to be able to do the same?

The other issue is that it seems that Steve McLaren is willing to go along with all these substitutions and has virtually no say. If I was the England manager elect, I’d try and at least get Sven to sit down and listen but then maybe he agrees? If he does, it doesn’t bode well for the future.

England will get no further than the 1/4 finals so for anyone thinking we can win the World Cup, I suggest you think again. We have a lot of good players, but we have a joke of a manager.

So, the time is nearly upon us for the World Cup. The time, where every four years, the Scottish remind us how much they hate us. Ah yes, because Scotland never make it to the World CUp they choose to support anyone that England plays. How very mature that is. Especially from the Scottish people that live and work in England.

I don't get wound up by much but this really, REALLY gets my goat.

Well, if you hate England that much, why do you live here? Why do you work with English people? Why don't you fuck off back to Scotland and then join the rest of your English hating friends?

Scots always bang on about "English arrogance". What a bunch of crap. If you speak to any English football supporter not one of us expects us to ACTUALLY win the World Cup. Nor do we think its our divine right to win the damn thing. We hope, usually with misplaced optimism, that we might win it. This time we think we have a really good chance. What we really want though, if we don't win it, is a heroic loss, usually involving penalties so at least we can say, ah well, the boys did their best. The whole English arrogance is a myth dreamt up by the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh so that they can't vent their vitriol which really comes from the depths of history.

So, if you're a Scot living in England around the World Cup, you're welcome to watch the matches in any pub I'm in. If you start supporting the other side vocally though, expect to find yourself being told to "Go away" in no uncertain terms.

I was walking back home from the station the other day, past my local pub when I noticed a police van parked outside it. Then I noticed a fair number of uniformed plod wearing bullet-proof vests. Now, bearing in mind where I live, this is not something that you expect to ever see. It really is a quiet and peaceful part of Greater London; its ABC1 and has been a Tory stronghold for about 30 years.

As I get nearer, some bloke is handcuffed and there are police stationed outside every pub exit. Obviously being a nosey bastard, I'm staring as I go past and trying to see what all the fuss is about. I then see two more police and another police car further down the road.

Odd.

I found out the next day that it was a "drugs raid". I also learnt that they found precisely fuck all.

Now, I'm no policeman (thank God) but I reckon that I could have told them that my local pub, in the area it is in, was NEVER going to be a good bet for a drugs raid. At the very best they would have found a couple of 18 years olds with a few spliffs worth of weed.

Which brings me to this question; did the police really investigate this "tip off"? Did they send someone in plains clothes down there on a Saturday night to investigate this alleged den of inequity? I would suggest not because if they had, they wouldn't have wasted their time, the taxpayers money and the pubs patrons evening on such a pointless exercise.

This whole "War on Drugs" thing is such a bunch of crap as well. I mean, you're not going to win it. Honestly, you're not. The US spend $50bn EVERY YEAR on the "War on Drugs" and still make no dent into the inflow of narcotics. Drugs will always be available and if someone wants to take them, then they are going to irregardless of their legality.

Personally I say legalise them all. Cut out the organised crime, make them safer than the crap that gets sold on the street, tax them and then pump the money into Education, Pensions and Health. This would improve the quality of life in this country, cut down crime by a massive amount as the mafia would then have no substantial source of income, and also save lives.

Bit too radical for most people though; DRUGS ARE EVIL, DRUGS ARE BAD, etc.

People getting addicted to drugs are symptomatic of the ills of society, not because drugs are available (illegally or legally). If you address the social issues, then people won't walk down that path in the first place. So legalise drugs, make society better, and then just get on with your life.

Simple.

Well, England, from a position of having Sri Lanka 162 for 8, contrived to lose the 3rd and final Test. Gah. The current England side is a far cry from the Ashes winning team of last Summer. Michael Vaughan, Steve Harmison, Simon Jones and Ashley Giles are all badly missed right now. What really did worry me though was the tactical and selection errors that happened. In order.

1. Saj Mahmood being left out in favour of Jon Lewis. I have no idea why this was done and it just completely went against Englands selection policy of the last few years. There is no substitute for natural pace and this is something Saj has and Lewis never has or will possess. It made Englands attack too "samey". This was a rare poor decision from Duncan Fletcher.

2. Flintoffs tactics. In the 1st Innings, when we had them on the ropes, England bowled badly. He should have thrown the ball to Monty far, far earlier. Also, his positioning of fielders out on the boundary smacked of panic.

3. Englands body language. Under Flintoff the team just doesn't have that same steely grit and belief they do under Vaughan and you can see it in the field.

4. The middle order collapse in the 2nd Innings. Yes, it was a stiff total but not one player from 3 to 7 managed double figures. That is inexcusable.

All in all, probably the worst day for English Cricket in close to 3 years.

Sven really has now lost the plot. I don't know what he's been taking but its pretty strong stuff, I can tell you.

First, if the reports are true, he is going to play Jamie Carragher in a holding midfield role. I think Carragher is a decent centre half, probably even a good one but he is not and never will be a quality holding midfield player. He doesn't have the pace, the mobility or enough quality with the ball to manage that role effectively at either club level or at international level. I realise Michael Carrick didn't have a great game for England "B" v Belarus last Thursday but he is still a far better bet than Carragher. Madness.

The second item is this quote from the man himself:

Eriksson said: 'When we decided to play Hungary and I phoned up Lothar Matthaus to ask if he wanted a game, maybe at Wembley, but that's gone.

'When he said yes, I told him he had to play like Sweden. He said that was okay, but now the manager has gone.'

You what?! He's finally gone bonkers. He asked Hungary to play like Sweden? How was the manager at that time, Lothar Mattheus, going to manage that? He might be able to play the same formation but how, exactly, will they play like Sweden what with the fact they're the Hungarian team and not the Swedish team? I would suggest if he wanted to test us out against a Scandinavian style team, that Denmark would have been a good idea rather than Hungary.

100% barking mad.

I haven’t posted much recently, especially about anything Cricket related. That is because, to be honest, I haven’t had anything nice to say about England. I watched, in parts, their performance versus Sri Lanka and although the batting was decent in the 1st Innings and there was some good(ish) bowling in the Sri Lankans 1st Innings, the rest of it was pants.

9 dropped catches in Sri Lankas 2nd Innings. There was poor body language from the team. Only 27 overs bowled by the spinner (Pasenar) in two innings. The tactics from Flintoff were unimaginative and the bowling, at times, was pedestrian and without guile, bite or venom.

The game should have been won but yet again we conspire to let a team off the hook. It is becoming a worrying trend.

We should have won the 1st Test in the winter versus Pakistan. If we had, I suspect we would have won the series. We should have won the test match versus India at Nagpur as well, had we been a little bit more adventurous. That would have also meant a series win. We should have won the Lords Test Match.

The difference between England and Australia is that when the Australians have a team on the rack is they don’t ease up; they apply the words “never give a sucker an even break”. The England side just doesn’t yet have that same mentality.

I realise England have a long injury list but its not getting any better. Simon Jones may make some of the Pakistan Test Matches. No one knows when or if Vaughan will be back. Giles may come back into the side during the Pakistan series. Harmison will hopefully be back for the 3rd Sri Lankan Test Match. So we need to make sure that the back-up plans for these guys is firmly in place now, ready for Australia in November.

Flintoff looked like he was trundling in to me throughout the Sri Lankan match. He certainly wasn’t the bowler of the winter or last summer. I think Strauss needs to take over the captaincy for now and Flintoff should concentrate on what he does best. Batting and bowling with all his heart and mind.

The World Cup is nearly upon us and millions of men around the world rejoice whilst millions of wives and girlfriends despair. This is the time of year when men become “incommunicado” with their female companions unless, of course, the female companion happens to like and understand football. Or they happen to be offering to get them a beer or food whilst a game in on.

I love the World Cup usually right up until the time England get knocked out at which point I then take a lesser interest in what then comes to pass. I like watching the Final and I always find Brazil entertaining but I had little interest in the semi-final between Germany and South Korea in 2002.

The England side this year has a genuine chance to win the tournament even if Rooney isn’t fit. In some ways I think Rooney not being fit might do us a favour. He is a fantastic player but if he is in the starting XI, then we always play 4-4-2, although the way Rooney drops off, it’s often a 4-4-1-1. The trouble is, the dozy Swede can’t seem to get Gerrard and Lampard to play well together and that leaves our back four exposed. If they can’t work out what to do between them then one of them has to give way to a defensive midfielder whilst the other pushes up but I can’t see Sven having the nads to do that.

Taking Theo Walcott was an odd decision. The lad doesn’t have any experience even at Premiership level and I would much rather have taken Darren Bent, who is used to playing in a 4-5-1 formation, in case Owen breaks down and Rooney isn’t fit. It just seems a huge, huge gamble to me. If you were going to take him, then at least have the prudence to name 5 strikers in your squad and include Bent in that 23.

If we had a manager such as Terry Venables, Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho I reckon we’d have a big, big chance to win. I just don’t think we have got a World Cup winning manager in Sven “Shagging” Eriksson.

Putting all that to one side though, it is now just 16 days to the World Cup and lots and lots and lots of beer drinking. Hurrah!

Sometimes I worry about the intellect of people in this country, I really do.

If you read this, you'll see what I mean.

Does he really think that watching your football team suffer a premature exit from the World Cup (in Englands case, not qualifying from the group or being knocked out in the second round by a lesser nation) could possibly trauma you in such a severe psychological way that the insurance company would ever pay out?

No Doctor on earth is going to put that down as the cause of severe psychological trauma. You'd have to be a basket case in the first place. I mean, I like supporting England and as with any fan, suffer the ecstasy of winning and the trauma of losing but not in any way is it going to do me lasting psychological damage!

In essence its an insurance company taking the piss out of people too stupid to actually live on this planet.

What a moron.