Without Let or Hindrance

I still have on a shelf in the attic my very first passport which features me in my indiepop prime with a seventeen-inch-long fringe looking (in my considered opinion) more like Stephen Pastel of the Pastels than Stephen Pastel of the Pastels ever managed himself.  They have tightened up the rules governing photographs now so that not only are seventeen inch long fringes frowned upon (not that I could manage one of those nowadays) but also you are not allowed to affect either glasses or a smile.  I followed these instuctions to the letter with the result that my new passport which arrived today (on a Sunday, I know- they must have some crack firm of round-the-clock couriers in charge) features me gazing morosely and myopically into the middle distance.  I don't look like Stephen Pastel of the Pastels at all, at least not like I did when we were both twenty-three, which is perhaps not surprising.

Anyway I was very pleased to note that the inside front cover of the passport retains the personal message from the mysterious functionary known only as  'Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State', who 'Requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty all those who it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let of hindrance,' etc etc.  I will admit to experiencing a slight frisson of patriotism while reading this and for a moment I felt some appropriate gesture may be in order, such as a lone rendition of the national anthem right there in the front room, perhaps accompanied by a 21-gun salute.  

 

Thankfully the moment of fervour passed, and by the 3PM when the England- Germany kicked off my default state of practiced ambivalence towards the national team had returned.  Which is a good job, considering the abject humiliation which was to follow for Fabio Capello and his men.  I would consider sending the passport back and requesting one for the People's Republic of Tyneside, except that I'm not sure they have started making them yet, and also we've got a holiday in France due later in the summer and I'm not sure how Charlotte would react to the news that I had unilaterally renounced my nationality in a fit of pique at Matthew Upson's poor positional sense.  

 

Anyway now that England are out we can all get on with the serious business of actually watching the World Cup.  For me the first question is who to transfer my notoriously fickle allegances to between now and the final.  A quick check of the When Saturday Comes Wallchart reminds me that Greece (who Frankie's class were doing a World Cup related project on) have fallen by the wayside, as have South Korea (who our boy has developed a strange fixation with, to the extent of copying the names of random members of their squad from his Panini sticker album into his homework book, and liberally decorating the house with the stickers themselves- there's a midfielder in Charlotte's wardrobe and one of the full-backs keeps peeking at us from inside the knife draw).  

From those who remain I'm quite taken with Holland (because of the reputation for total football and vicous, self-destructive infighting), Mexico (because I've got a not-quite-official replica shirt which my sister Abby bought me from a back-street vendor in Queens NY), and Uruguay (because they play in Man City colours and were, according to a pub quiz fact which became lodged in my head in the mid 90s and has stayed there ever since, the first country anywhere in the world to adopt a National Health Service). 

In the end though I have plumped for none of the above and am instead throwing my support four-square behind Ghana, for these three reasons:

1- they are the last of the African nations to survive and it would be a shame if the home continent were to be unrepresented in the closing stages

2- they have eyecatching green shirts

3- one of their midfielders (as I noticed during extra-time in the USA game) has the name Jonathan emblazoned on his back.

Well, OK, just for the last reason really, and of course I do reserve the right to rediscover a long-dormant admiration for all things Argentinian at any point between now and July 7th.  In the meantime, though, come on Jonathan and our boys.  Now where do you think I would pick up one of his replica shirts? 

Comments

[looby]

Lucky Charlotte, a ripped well-paid man in her wardrobe...or maybe he's got a secret side that wouldn't go don to well with his colleagues during collective bath time.

Ghana are interesting - they've got two brothers by different mothers or the same mother and different fathers, or something. And havent they got two Jonathan's with the same surname too? Or I might be confused in a blizzard of misremembered binaries here.

My fallback position is always Portugal since I used to live there and had the passion with Kirsty arisen at a different time I could have three Portuguese daughters.

Plus they're way better than us and you get to follow a team in a tournament for longer than a week.

[Simon]

With my old man living out there the Chappell household is also rooting for Ghana - well those who aren't rooting for Germany (ie. me)
But I'm more concerned as to whether you've put your specs back on since the new passport photo was taken. The Black stars "eyecatching green shirts"are either all White or Red with yellow stripes. Not the standards we've come to expect from crinklybee.

Ben has taken the sensible option and narrowed his teams down to Ghana (family), Germany (family), Brazil (friend), Argentina (Messi), Spain (Torres, Alonso) - oh to be 7 again!

[ISBW]

I can't help wanting Japan to pull off a miracle and win. They're currently holding Paraguay to a nil-nil draw, which probably wouldn't have been predicted at the start of the tournament...

[jonathan]

Looby it looks like as of an hour or so ago you're going to need a fall-back fall-back position, although there's no shame in going out to the Spaniards, who looked World Class tonight even after they replaced the talismanic but out-of-sorts Torres with some big clumsy outhouse of a bloke who looked and played just like the ex Ipswich Town forward Paul Mariner. They're my tip for the title, although admittedly yesterday it was Brazil and tomorrow it will probably be Holland. I'm quite fair-minded like that.

Simon you will not believe this but while writing that bit about Ghana I was thinking 'I'd better get my facts right here as Simon will arrive in the comment box to show me up if I don't'. Also I now quite clearly remember you playing 5 a side on many occasions in a Ghana replica shirt that was quite clearly not in the slightest bit green (and couldn't have been, since we have played whites against reds every Tuesday night since time immemorial) . I can only apologise profusely for my schoolboy error.

ISBW well they nearly pulled it off didn't they? I've enjoyed watching the Japanese though. Come to think of it I've enjoyed watching pretty much everyone apart from England (who I thought made compulsive viewing, but only in the same way that you can't help peering out of the side window when you catch sight of the gruesome aftermath of a motorway car-crash).

[Abby]

Eee, I am the most excited to hear about Frankie's Panini sticker book -- should we be sending him packets of stickers from the corner shop? I have vague memories of this from when we were little but I think the stickers only cost about 10p then and there was money left over for a sherbet fountain.

[jonathan]

Abby they come in orange packets and are available in all good Tyneside streetcorner newsagents if you are passing any, or at least they were 20 years ago (also the important thing is not to mistake them for Tesco's inferior and vulgar 'Match Attax' stickers although I don't imagine for one moment you would make such a schoolboy error).

Meanwhile as of tonight our new favourites the brave Ghana have fallen by the wayside to the tricky Uruguayans, who, when it came to the test of nerves of the penalty shoot out, showed the self-assurance you would expect from a nation who have benefitted from 70 years of socialised Health Care, free at the point of use. I'm tipping them for the final, at leats until Tuesday.