Two World Wars and One World Cup....

Apologies that I've not posted for a while, but real life has been getting in the way. Actually, I'm not that sorry at all, if you really have nothing better to do than read ill-concieved polemics on the internet than you could always have posted something on the comments section. You didn't though, so one can only assume that either you had something better to do, or you're just another memeber of the gaping-mouthed bone-idle common herd demanding constant passive unchallenging distraction. In either case, my apology is insincere so we'll say no more about it.

I'm getting very excited about the World Cup. Everybody is, who doesn't live in North America. North Americans have a vague handle on the notion that the Football (not soccer) World Cup is a big deal across most of the the globe, but they don't fully appreciate the significance. Their main exposure to the event is the coverage that their admittedly competent football team gets, so and as a result people here think it's a sporting event. This is nonsense, of course, since the World Cup has absolutely nothing to do with football. Most professional footballers are overpaid coke-snorting wife-beaters against which NBA basketball players seem quite charming. It's absurd to think that billions of people would get excited about watching 22 of these workshy prima-donnas kick a leather ball around. No, the true importance of the World Cup lies in its bigotry.

For just a few weeks every four years, it becomes perfectly acceptable to be as blatantly prejudiced as one likes, with absolutely no factual justification. In capital cities around the globe, one is almost expected to air the sort of views that at any other time would have you locked up in David Blunkett's Brave New Labour World. Being English, my main targets are of course European - proximity and similarity only serve to heighten minor differences. Thus Germans are now to be known as The Boche or simply Bloody Krauts. Italians become referred to as Wops, Spicks, or under a number of names that refer to their proud military history of bravely showing their back to the enemy. I'm sure there are potentially hundreds of appropriate monikers for those idle collaborators across the Channel, but I see no reason to expend effort to think of them, so I tend to just stick with Frogs when I can't avoid referring to France at all. Similar prejudices are played out the world over. In South America, for example the Brazilians can't stand the Argentinians (rightly so - those cheating bastards still owe us for 1986), the Argentinians can't stand anybody, and Paraguayans are bandits that are only good for supplying moody electronic goods.

Here in LA this sort of behaviour would no doubt induce cries of indignation, free-loving tree-huggers that they are. In fact though, this outpouring of bile serves a very important purpose, in that it releases tensions, gets it out in the open, much like Hate Week in George Orwell's 1984. The USA retains some dignity by rising above all this petty, tasteless nationalism, but with occasionally catastrophic consequences. Two to four hours of training in 'warrior ethics' is no substitute for a couple of lagers and a decent gag about rag-heads.

Postscript
The comments board has been rather empty of late, so to liven things up I'm announcing a competition for the best nationalist insults - closing date is Friday so that everyone is ready for the opening rounds. Insults should be original and witty, with extra marks awarded to for insulting the French. A special mention will be given to whoever most cruelly insults the eventual winners in Germany. For those of you who are new to this sort of game i.e. Americans/Seppos, a good place to start is the War. Grievances that are genuine or less than 40 years old just aren't that funny.