England Car Flags, the World Cup etc.

It's still 16 days to go, but it's now almost impossible to leave the house without passing at least one car sporting not one England flag (like we saw become popular during Euro 2004), but *two*...I think Tesco are partly to blame for stocking a "Value" range of England supporter accutrement (still not sure that is entirely appropriate) meaning it is possible to bedeck your vehicle with the double St. George for the princely sum of £1.98 *and* throw in a large silk-style England flag, to be worn batman's-cloak-when-you-were-a-kid fashion with an otherwise naked torso (prefarably sporting some nice celtic tattoos) while yelling "IN GA LUND", for only another 99p (I didn't spot red and white face paint, but I'm sure it was there somewhere)...

Anyway, all this means that there really isn't very much excuse not to sport some sort of England supporters kit, especially if begging small children are in any way involved during the trip around the supermarket (as I saw happen the other day)...the tired resignation to the fact that you are going to have to drive around everywhere looking like a bit of a prat just to keep the kids happy, and the quiet hope that we get knocked out early so things can just get back to normal were all evident in the look just before the flags went in the trolley (joining the crates of beer) and the kids started jumping up and down cheering (as dad may have secretly done later)... ;)

I, for one, will be watching as many of the England matches as I can (mais sans drapeau, as I think wishing your contries team well is sufficiently implied by your continued residence) I'm not normally much of a football fan (preferring motorsports) but the World Cup is something a little bit different...I am, however, wondering how the company that I work for at the moment is going to handle it...when I worked for GE (during the last major football occurence) they universally resigned themselves to the fact that a number of people are quite fanatical about their sport and would probably fall mysteriously ill/take lots of holiday/vanish for periods of time during the working day or a combination of the above *regardless* and so basically decided to turn over several of the meeting rooms to be TV rooms and every member of staff was free to go and watch during any match featuring their home team no matter what time it was on...the result? People were coming in *early* to catch the start of their matches, no-one went off sick or vanished or took any time off and the office continued pretty much as normal...clever lot at GE... ;) Certainly in the opening rounds this time though we have got off pretty lightly, there's only one England match that looks like it's going to impact on the working day, and that is at 5pm on Thursday 15th June when we play Trinidad and Tobago...