Brexit
By Mark Daniell
07/07/2018
Checking your emails on a sunny Saturday morning? Of course you are, what else would you be doing on a sun-drenched, wedding-filled day when England play Sweden in the quarter finals at the wedding-popular time of 3pm?
Anyway, we haven’t got long. The mouse has to get dressed in his wedding clobber to at least look like he’s going to attend, and I’m sure you have some drinking to get started.
To business: there are no more South American teams in the World Cup, and this disppoints the mouse. For some reason, having purely European semi finals feels a bit drab. Also, it would have been nice for Brazil to get through, if only so that France could have knocked them out too and continued on what is evidently Didier Deschamps's World Cup Risk board game strategy: Start in Peru, work through Argentina and Uruguay, securing South America and the extra two armies, then bung all your armies in North Africa as a buffer and head up into Southern Europe. Tant Pis, Didier! No extra armies this time!
Also, Russia. What to say? (without getting poisoned). How can a team from a country whose athletes are banned from all Olympic games for systematic, state-sponsored doping, be outperforming so much on home soil? No idea, but there are theories, and where there are theories, there’s the mouse:
1. The players have been threatened with deportation to Siberia and so are playing out of their skins.
2. The players have literally been taken out of their skins and replaced with sophisticated robots controlled by the eGames winners of Fifa2018 and pro-Evo.
3. The matches don’t actually take place, instead we’re watching rigged computer simulations. Do you know anyone who’s actually been to the games? Even Adrian Chiles can’t get a visa. Meanwhile the real players are held in bunkers, being gaslighted with footage of games they never played in.
There you go. One of those three. Either that or they’re doping. But I can’t believe that. FIFA are super hot on doping in Russia.
But let’s cut to the chase, dem kids:
Who’s going to win between Brazil and Belgium?
3 year old: Belgium!
Who’s going to win between Uruguay and France?
7 year old: (Long, considered pause) France.
Clean sweep. You’d have thought someone would be rich by now.
Kit of the day:
France’s lick-spittled away kit. Looks like a nice, clean white away strip, right? Wrong! Look closer and you’ll identify flecklets of tricolor spittle spattered all about. Why? They don’t want you to like it. They’re French.
Name of the day:
Neymar Junior
As in: Junior! Get upstairs this instant you cretinous little weasle. Have you be using my Britney Spears Curious again?
Neymar!
Don’t you Neymar me you little bastard. You’ve been creeping about in my dressing table looking for perfumes again haven’t you?
Neymar! I promise!
Come here and I’ll beat the living shit out of you.
Neymar! Neymar!
And quit rolling around on the floor like that or I’ll break my spoon.
Celebrity spot of the day
Kylian Mbappe = that alien from The Fifth Element
Goal of the day:
Kevin De Bryune linking with a powerful Lukaku run to spear a long range effort into the bottom left corner. How do you negotiate a hostile Brexit? Belgian battering ram. Doesn’t bode well for next year, does it Bojo?
Moment of the day:
The Evening Standard had it right when they published this back page. Who has a wedding during the first England quarter final in 12 years? Annalisa and Kane do, that’s who! (namechecked on your wedding day! Kudos!) The mouse for one expects lots of football-based puns in the speeches or he’ll be watching Russia Croatia on his phone.
Kidictions:
Who’s going to win between England and Sweden?
3 year old: England!
Yesss!
Who’s going to win between Russia and Croatia?
7 year old: (shakes his head and sighs) It's going to be a tie. And Croatia will win on penalties. (he didn't sound happy about it)
Now come on lads, you heard the lady, let's go make some Swedish meatballs!