Whose World? What Cup? (Day 17)

As a British citizen, born and raised in East Anglia, I have more right than many of my readers to be supporting England in their quest for glory at the 2010 World Cup. However, I must confess I feel a sense of extreme disquiet in having to support this particular team.

It is true that they are getting better, I suppose. It is also true that they are reasonably good performers. But I think that compared with the other footballers I've seen at this World Cup, they are paid about 5-7 times too much. I am quite sure that a certain player who earns about £140,000 a week should not be earning more than £20,000, and if people do want to pay him more, it shouldn't be much more than £30,000. At least, based on his performances thus far.

If I had to say who was England's best player so far, I'd have to say James Milner. And I'd have to agree with a friend of mine who said Aston Villa might have played better than England if they had to use only their England players.

In contrast, Germany. I can't say I've ever supported them. After all, if you grew up in England and in the presence of adults who seemed to always be talking about the previous world war with one wary eye on the next, you probably would be squeamish about supporting Germany (East or West, in those days) or Russia (the USSR, then) too.

But tonight, I think my extreme disquiet with the present underperforming, underentertaining, overpaid England side might just spill over into a sneaking sense of admiration for the Germans. And even, dare I say it, the desire that they win it.

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Germany went 2-0 up in the first half-hour with goals from Klose, then Podolski. The central defenders Terry and Upson appeared asleep. Upson, on the other hand, redeemed himself with a good header to score and make it 2-1. Lampard then scored. Or at least, it bounced into the goal and out again — and was not given! What a scandal! But I guess the English deserve it as karmic burden from Hurst's non-goal that was given in 1966. I shall laugh if that proves a critical difference.

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Thomas Müller scores two in five minutes. It's 4-1 for Germany! Haha, now England bring on Emile Heskey to save them. It's tragicomic. You have to feel for an England team which is now under the cosh of the universal dharma. And that's how it ends. And if England had had that second goal, it would have been 4-2, probably.

Whose World? What Cup? (Day 13)

Tonight is going to be entertaining. In Group C, England, the USA, and Algeria all need to win to have a chance at progression; Slovenia need a draw but face a desperate England side who have looked to be worth about 5% of their nominal market value. The amusing thing is that the sides that win will certainly get through.

This is similar to Group D, where Ghana need a draw against Germany but the Germans need to win to book their place. Meanwhile Serbia meet Australia, with the Serbs needing a draw but Australia needing a win to have any chance. Nobody is safe, but Ghana is safest; they would have to collapse against Germany and Australia would have to win big against Serbia.

I am also amused by the presence of two former Yugoslav territories and three former British colonies. Then again, the odds of a former British colony turning up in any given random sampling of the world's nations are very high.

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At half-time, I am glad to see that England have shown more life than in their previous two matches combined. John Terry is still a graceless fellow with no sense of movement, though. But England lead 1-0.

Meanwhile, the cousins across the Atlantic should be leading 3-0 against Slovenia. I have no idea why they aren't.

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At full-time, the cousins have somehow conspired to both qualify for the next round. 1-0 in both matches. Tsk.

Whose World? What Cup? (Day 08)

So the Germans can be beaten by the Slavs from Serbia, and the USA can only play football when taunted by old rivals. Same old, same old. It is shaping up to be a magnificent World Cup. Ideally, every favourite should be beaten at least once to heighten the tension and make the whole world sing (in rage, disappointment, joy or incredulity, it shouldn't matter much).

I'm going to sleep and watch England getting beaten by Algeria later on. Or at least, in a perfect world, this would be the case. Nadir Bel-Hadj, anyone?

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I woke up to a world in which the United States of America are better-looking than England even at football. Or at least, for now. From 2-0 down, they were almost 3-2 up, except for some confounding referrals, so to speak. Huh.

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I am in a world where Algeria look better than England. Maybe my dream will come true and anyone except England will qualify from this group. I'm normally an England supporter; after all, that's where I was born. But so far, this team has not made me feel good about English football.

Word of the Day: Brythain

For some strange reason, people keep asking me what this word means. I shall attempt not to digress too much as I dwell on its convoluted history.

The word brythain is actually cognate with the Welsh prydain, from Celtic pritani — 'painted people'. This came from the habit of the original inhabitants of the British Isles of painting themselves with various plant dyes (especially blue woad). If this etymology is true, it's probably related in parallel to the Roman term Pict for the northern 'barbarians' who painted themselves likewise. Pict, of course, is related to 'picture' — a painted thing.

Some etymologists propose that the Romans used the term Britannia as somehow related to the mythical founder of the island realm, Brutus of Troy. I think that's nonsense. It's a sort of post facto brutalisation.

The problem with the British Isles is that they are the most hospitable lands in the northwest of Europe. Britain itself, on which most of Scotland, Wales and England can be found, is the ninth largest island in the world and currently hosts about 60 million people. Over the centuries, they've been invaded by just about every tribe that migrated north and west, ran out of mainland space, and decided to cross the North Sea or the English Channel. This makes etymology hazardous and has spectacularly enriched the English language, which now seems to have about five different words (at least) for everything.

Britain itself is said to mean 'the Isle of the Blessed', and brythain therefore must mean 'man of the Blessed Isle'. In 1884, Professor Sir John Rhys introduced the word 'Brythonic' as a specific term of reference for matters related to the ancient cultures (pre-Saxon, pre-Norman, non-Roman) that inhabited the island of Britain.

At this point, it's good to get the geography sorted out. 'Britain' is the island which has Scotland (capital: Edinburgh) in the north and Cornwall at the southwestern tip, England (capital: London) in the southeast, and a lump in the west called Wales (capital: Cardiff). Great Britain is the term used to differentiate it from Brittany, the former British holdings in what is now France which were called 'Lesser Britain'. 'The British Isles' refers to all the thousands of islands in the region, including (well, that's a touchy issue for some) Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Shetlands, the Scillies, the Channel Islands, and the Orkneys.

The 'United Kingdom' is actually the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In the old days, it would have been the United Kingdom of Great Britain (under the Act of Union, 1707, in which the kingdoms of Scotland and England became politically a single unit). In 1801, Ireland was taken over by the UK, a most unhappy turn of events which was undone some time later.

It is this curious history which allows the British Isles to field more football teams than some confederations (it seems): Republic of Ireland (capital: Dublin), Northern Ireland (capital: Belfast), Wales, Scotland, and England each have their own teams.

Oh yes, one more thing about England. 'England' literally means 'land of the Angles', and for some time, it was more or less the area called 'Anglia'. Somehow, Alfred the Great managed to manipulate everyone into giving him more space, and England became larger than that. If not for old Alfred, the Pritani would probably be fielding nine soccer teams or more. Haha.

Diaspora

I watched them fly away, to warmer places and better times. Today I sat with two of them, now thriving in another garden. We had the makings of a golden generation, but the gold was adulterated and the meaning was lost. This is what happened in pre-Elizabethan England, when the king made money by shaving his own gold to finance spurious endeavours. O Henry, Henry, if it were not for your ghastly sense of economic policy, England would never have learnt the mastery of the world.

What an odd history it is, that spawned the merlion.

This Island Race

Yes, I've been reading a lot of Churchill these days. A quintessential leader for dark times, his caustic wit and declamatory style burn through the fog like a beacon on a hill. It was he who appropriated the phrase 'this island race' for the British, he who said, "Do your worst, and we shall do our best."

I am a man of two parts, geographically and literarily; born on one island and living on another, I find the poetry of the first almost sufficient for all things and the poetry of the second infuriatingly sparse in resonant metaphor. Which island is it that goes with 'race'? It might seem a trivial issue. But listen to this, taken from Shakespeare's Richard II, II(1):

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands, –
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Who could read this, born upon the 'sceptred isle', and not wish that it were true in every detail? Then again, my second island too has poets. One of them wrote these lines:

Peoples settled here,
Brought to this island
The bounty of these seas,
Built towers topless as Ilium's.

They make, they serve,
They buy, they sell.

Despite unequal ways,
Together they mutate,
Explore the edges of harmony,
Search for a centre;
Have changed their gods,
Kept some memory of their race
In prayer, laughter, the way
Their women dress and greet.
They hold the bright, the beautiful,
Good ancestral dreams
Within new visions,
So shining, urgent,
Full of what is now.

It is hard to choose between one island race and another, at times. One has a surfeit of history, a long and tangled tale told in dark rooms; the other has an earnest of history to come, but the shadow of doom upon it, that it might fade before that earnest comes to pass. It is hard; it is hard. Sometimes, though, it is worse.