Futbol and Other Stuff

I may not be a first rate writer, but I am a first class second rate writer. Okay that's not a completely stolen line, I changed the word "composer" in Richard Strauss' version to "writer" in order to make it mine. So sue me.

The World Cup starts today and if I remember correctly, a thing that happens less and less frequently, four years ago I wrote something along the lines of The World Cup is not, as you might think, a device used to protect the planet's groin area. I mention this only because you might have missed it four years ago and also because I didn't steal the line from Richard Strauss. It was completely my own. You, however, are free to steal the line from me as plagiarism is flattery. Just don't make any money from it without giving me a cut.

Since moving here to Peerless Panama I have learned to love futbol as the game is called throughout the world excluding the U,S. where it has been dubbed soccer in an effort to keep it from being confused with football, another game entirely in which the ball meets foot far less than in futbol and should, by all rights, be called something else, say, Mayhem or Large People With Helmets and Protective Pads Fighting In A Semi Organized Manner To Score Points And Impress Cheerleaders, shortened to LPWHAPPFIASOMTSPAIC to save newspaper and Internet column space. Futbol is also referred to as "The Beautiful Game" and it is that, although, in slow motion it can be a mind number while football becomes far more dramatic. I should probably add that basketball, when slowed down becomes a graceful ballet and a graceful ballet becomes a series of still portraits, but that's another subject, Now where the hell was I?
Oh yeah, futbol. The World Cup kicks off today and yes, that is an intended pun, with a couple of games featuring teams I have no rooting interest for. (Never end a preposition with a sentence.) Tomorrow though, The U.S. takes on England and I will be siding with the Red, White and Blue principally because they are the underdogs and because I was accidentally born there. (Woowoo Charly says we choose our parents so my U.S. birth may not have been an accident, but that too, is another story.) My loyalties will be somewhat divided in that I follow the British Premiere League and will know all the players on the English National Team. And also, of course, because I am an Anglophile. One reason for that being this "News Flash" sent to me this morning by a friend: The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been a "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the Great Fire of 1666.

That's good stuff. Really really good stuff. Wish I could steal it but I can't. You know, conscience and all that Old Chum.

Alrighty then USA, go kick some...ball!