This God Damn House

Low Anthem "This God Damn House" from Lake Fever Sessions on Vimeo.


This world cup is taking its time sparking into life, although I haven't seen a fat lot of it, being at work when most of the matches are on. I didn't even see any on Saturday, as I spent the whole day and half the night in the garden, cooking, eating and drinking.

So, I don't know how poor England were but judging by the reaction in the papers and on the phone ins, we may as well pack up and go home now. Being old, I can remember loads of tournaments and I can also remember that we started badly in just about all of them. It is probably a bit early to start panicking; after all, a 0-0 defeat to the USA still gives us a point, and the other two in the group look poor. Now everyone is worrying  that we will have to play Germany in the first knock out stage. Ye Gods......keep yer hair on, comrades.

Being a bit obsessed with the football, and against my better judgement, I have been listening to 5 Live in the morning. To my horror, I discovered that the entertainment guy is there. What the hell is he doing there? His job is to gush witlessly about empty headed celebrities, why do I have to put with him reporting from the world cup? How much has it cost to send him? In fact, how many people have they sent out there? Is there anyone left in the UK?

The BBC also seems to have  developed an obsession with foreign footballers as summarisers. I am not against this, in the past non English summarisers have been a refreshing antidote to our regular wizards of drivel, but I am struggling with this lot. I can barely understand a word that Adeboyer says, and the bits that I can decipher hardly seem worth hearing. Edgar Davids looks and sounds arrogant and bored, I quite like Viera though. While I was typing this I heard Seedorf, but couldn't see him ( I have to stare at the keyboard as I type) and I half hoped that when I looked up I would see it was Steve Mclaren.

I hesitate to praise Sky, but the commentators on the Spanish programmes are usually very good, much better than ITV and BBC and the the blokes on the Guardian podcast are sharp, witty and knowledgeable. Couldn't the Beeb have borrowed a few of those chaps for the duration?

Christ. Italy V Paraguay has just finished and who has appeared on my screen, in all his egocentric glory? Colin Fucking Murray. I am starting to feel depressed. Actually, clinically depressed.

The Guardian is running a previously unpublished blogpost by the dear departed Stephen Wells every day this week. It's OK, if you like that sort of thing, which I do, when it is done well.

The increasingly aggravating toff bastard Nick Clegg seems to have public sector pensions in his sights, you know, the gold plated ones. For about 20 years, I have put up with below inflation wage rises and poor working conditions happy in the knowledge that I would at least have a decent pension if I ever make it to retirement. I had a letter few weeks ago telling me that I was heading for a pension of about 9 thousand quid. People seem to forget that this isn't a freebie, we pay into it, all our working lives. I read somewhere that the average pension in the public sector is about 4 grand. Yep. Gold plated. I wonder what the multi millionaires in the cabinet, with their inherited wealth will have to manage on.