Rod Liddle

The general public seems split in two over who to blame for England’s latest abject failure at the world cup and our consequent exit. People who support one of the big six or seven teams in the Premier League blame the England manager, Fabio Capello. The rest of us blame the players. The division reinforces my opinion that the Premier League fans are as deluded as the players. That being said, Capello was tactically outwitted with great ease by the sinister looking Joachim Loew. James Milner and Glen Johnson were crowded out, so no crosses came in. We surrendered both flanks to the Germans. And there is something terribly McLarenish in seeing Emile Heskey come onto the pitch when we are 3-1 down. Still, I hope the Germans win the thing. Or Holland or Slovakia.

I’m not quite sure where I stand on the subject of Chris Huhne and his new weird-looking quasi-lesbo missus, Carina Trimingham. I don’t entirely understand why Huhne has copped so much flak for having left his wife, divorce – as I know – being a sort of occupational hazard of the modern middle classes. Huhne has been fingered, if you will excuse the phrase, for hypocrisy, in having made various pro-family statements both in the lead up to the last election and years before. But I never heard him say he that he wished to repeal the divorce laws, or that divorce was de facto wrong. I suppose you might question his taste in chicks, but that’s about all. And even then Ms Trimingham might be a warm and loving person, or go like Rommel in the sack.

I suppose it’s a good job we don’t have capital punishment. Having spent the last two days speculating upon ways of executing England’s goalkeeper, Robert Green, I’ve now conceded that it really wasn’t his fault. Every goalkeeper is having trouble holding the ball; invariably shots are spilled and gathered at the second attempt. It is making the games a lottery and, further, persuading outfield players to shoot from ridiculous distances. But it’s not just the goalies who suffer; the ball is far harder to control, bounces higher and heads off at speed away from chasing players. Passes are therefore often overhit and teams which rely upon an expansive passing game are disproportionately punished.

I can understand why one might not want to be associated with these comments. I can also understand why, for the same reasons, one would wish to condemn them, with great fervour, to the press. All for pragmatic reasons, of course. But has anyone yet been able to argue against these comments from a position of fact and logic? Maybe it’s the time the PCC got involved………… Well said, Herr Bundesbank. Now resign.

I wonder what sort of animal it was that attacked the twin baby daughters of Nick and Pauline Koupparis in Hackney, East London? The Koupparis’s are insistent that it was a fox, but its behaviour sounds more like a wolf or even, perhaps, a basilisk, although there are no previous reports of basilisks in that area. Given the location it would not surprise me if it was actually Diane Abbott, dressed up as some sort of beast and stealing into constituents’ homes in the dark of night and biting their children. Whatever it was, it did not budge when Nick Koupparis “lunged” four times at it. I suppose it could have been a mentally ill fox, a fox with grave delusions.

Just an idle thought, really – but didn’t it take the police an awfully long time to catch up with that Cumbrian nutter, and by which time he was dead? Derrick Bird was able to continue shooting people for a good three hours, entirely unhindered. According to press reports, the tv news seemed to be aware of the route being taken by the killer and warned local villagers to stay inside. The Cumbria Constabulary is small, sure, by comparison to other forces – but it does have 1,500 officers, plus the usual complement of “Blunkett’s Bobbies”. To find and apprehend one man. I wonder what their orders were.