'God bless the Germans ...'

It might sound as if the country’s reeling in vexed misery after yesterday’s defeat of England - seen by 13½ million in UK alone - at the hands of Germany at Bloemfontein. A cyber-friend - a most successful author - wrote this morning:

...of filling the yawning space left by yesterday afternoon's apology for a football team. When they (?) (his interrogatory) come to write the history of this Blessed Isle, I've a powerful feeling that June 2010 will be the hinge on the door: the collapse of BP, a huge dose of budgetary masochism masquerading as economic policy, followed by the empty conflations of all the pre-match hype and...finally...the coach to Cape Town Airport. God bless the Germans for a glimpse of the real world.

Football’s not my scene but like punters who watch one big sporting event a year - the Melbourne Cup or the Grand National – we’ve actually been discussing what happened with each other, with neighbours and friends on the phone; pretending we understand; chat so despised by Frank Skinner. Mrs Thatcher would have said "Think of the poor flag-sellers!" I needed to go out to Handsworth Park - a hundred metres (sic) down the road - where on a sunny Sunday afternoon the greenery was teaming with a motley crowd of my fellow British citizens and no doubt a few others for whom it was clear this drama had no resonance.