The Great Cucumber Debate

I went grocery shopping and the woman at the check out asked me what I was planning to do with the cucumber.  This caught me off guard, more so as the rest of my shopping (meat, lettuce, spinach leaves, carrots and celery) seemed to lend itself to the idea that I might be about to make a salad of some sort.

She wanted to know how I was going to eat the cucumber.  What sort of question is that?  When I advised her most of it was going into the salad and the rest might be used with cheese and crackers she found this puzzling and told me that was a foreign thing to her and anyway most people don't buy cucumbers. Whole thing was just bizarre, do Americans not eat cucumbers? Am I the sole cucumber seeker in U.S. super markets?

Bastards, Bleeps and Bias

&$#@    &$#@   &$#@  Bleeeeeeep.

That went on for some time for me following the England-Portugal match today. So I'll spare you the grisly details and the near group suicide that followed our loss and just focus on the bits I think you ought to know about.

Owen Hargreaves- FIFAs man of the match and he earned it too, he played well and he converted his penalty kick.

Beckham came off in the 52^nd minute or so. Yes, I think sometimes people are overly critical of him, but let me say this: Are you mad? YOU BASTARD!

I cannot, CANNOT, believe he came off. He practically took himself out of the game and gave up. Fine, he was limping about a bit, alright maybe he was hurting but that's what the World Cup is about. You're the given the armband, you lead by example. I'm truly hacked off about that ESPECIALLY as it came down to penalties.

Which brings me to Mr. Rooney. What the hell were you thinking? You get sent off with a red card ostensibly for stomping on Carvalho. I've seen the replay and it looks like he was just trying get his footing as they were all tangled up, he wasn't even looking where his feet were for Gods sake. But Wayne- did you have to PUSH Ronaldo after? I know he was being a complete w*nker trying to get you booked, but hold your temper in check man because we need you for penalties too! Christ then he missed that perfect opportunity from Lennon before. Aaarrgh, I don't want to think about it.

On the subject of fouls, apparently just being English was enough to get you called on a foul. I don't know what the final count for the match was but at some point, England had been called on fouls something ridiculous like 17 times to only 3 on Portugal. And those guys deserve Oscars for best dramatic performance. Every time they were challenged they took a dive and rolled about. They should have been getting yellow cards for buggering about instead of PLAYING FOOTBALL. Useless officials today. 

If you were wearing white it looked like this:

Oh, you're English- foul.

Look you kicked the ball- foul

I distinctly saw you running on the pitch- foul

Oops, you're a Portugal man- here have a free kick.

Another Englishman trying to run- foul

And on and on it went. Horrible. Call me biased but I don't think Terry deserved a yellow card for a mid air collision either. And the referee (Argentinian- typical. We won that war fair and square.)... bastard. And, AND, you made Carragher re-do his penalty kick after he scored the first time! BASTARDS!!

The only good thing about today is that the place I go to watch matches was packed with England fans. Until the actual official loss, the atmosphere was electric. The owners had free breakfast for everyone, beer was flowing like water (there was actually a glass crisis by 11am as they had run out of clean ones so you had to hang on to your glass for refills). And the footballs songs were sung by all including the guy from my bank, an American who showed up to see what all the fuss was about. By the extra time, he was abusing Portugal as much as the rest of us. He seemed to be entertained by our songs as well and sung along to such classics as "The ref-er-eeeeeeeee is a wank-eeeeeeeer" and "You're shiiiiiiiiiiiite and you know you aaaaaaaaaare."

I'm pretty certain the owners (Americans also) were overwhelmed with our, er, enthusiasm as 50 people were transitioning between shouting at players, rousing choruses of Rule Britannia then back to England chants. Interspersed of course with the inevitable orgasmic build up anytime it looked like we might actually score: yes, yes, come on, yes, yes, YESYESYESYESYESYENOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anyway, its a good experience. Everyone should try it even if youre not even remotely English.

So. That's it then. We're done. I don't think the best team won but there you are (this is saying a lot based upon the fact the I previously admitted how crap we were when we won). Our lads played their hearts out today. Playing 2 hours  in the heat, one man down after Rooney was sent off. I think everyone should be proud of them. Its too bad half our team will probably not be on the roster for the next WC in four years but there you go.  

Beckham I'm sure will probably regret leaving the match as it was likely his last World Cup appearance. And Rooney had better learn to keep that notorious temper in check.

Now it's down to France v. Portugal and Italy v. Germany for the Cup and *sigh* not a single team I can get behind in the bunch. Although, Portugal had better not win. Bastards.

Other than what can be said?

"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England and Saint George"

We wait for four more years. Sigh...