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At least we made the last 5. No one can take that away from us.
Hoping for a Morocco versus Croatia final to prove that Group F was the only group that mattered.
The important thing is that York City won away at Woking and that’s the match that will go down in the history books.
I was gutted by Kane’s miss and by Rashford’s near miss and England deserved it over all, but maybe one day people will realise that sport at this level is basically a crap shoot and in some ways it would be simpler to toss a coin. Or at least just go straight to the penalties. More important is what fine young men this team seem to be. Footballers have not always been (and still aren’t always) the most upstanding members of our community, but these young men seem switched on and decent and between them have done more to help people in our country than any of our politicians and I (ridiculously) feel very proud of them.
They are an inspiring team and I can’t imagine the bollock required to take one penalty under those circumstances. Let alone two. I’d like to see you kick the ball so hard that it went over the goal.
I am so impressed that I am going to try out for the World Cup in 2026. Sixty Years of Hurt. Though I will have only experience 59 of them.
I was in town recording a TV show today and ended up sitting next to one of the contestants from I’m A Celebrity. I’d chatted with Paul Chowdhry on RHLSTP about the possibility of ending up on a panel show with Matt Hancock and it might have ended up happening today, but luckily it wasn’t him. Sometimes you know in advance who other panellists are and sometimes you don’t (hence how I ended up in a sketch with Nigel Farage), and I knew who the guests were today, but if I’d turned up to find I was sitting next to Hancock what would I have done? I actually knew about Farage a couple of hours in advance (though not about the sketch which I was reluctant to do whoever was in it as the This Week skits were always unbearably shit) and professionalism had meant that I felt I couldn’t pull out, and equally I thought I might get a chance to confront him - as it happened he wasn’t on at the same time as me, and by the time I was on screen I was tired and wrong-footed by them changing the thing that I was supposed to be talking about and just rambled incoherently. Would I have felt the same about Hancock?
This was a long show, at the very light end of light entertainment and I don’t think challenging a politician would have played out very well and would have ruined the casual vibe, but equally I wouldn’t have been able to ignore it. I suppose I would have had to withdraw, but again that would be a dick move as well, leaving the production high and dry and wasting the time of researchers and hosts.
I failed to deal with Farage in a dark corridor after midnight and so I suppose I’d fail to punch Matt Hancock in the face, as well.
Luckily it was Owen instead, who seems like a very pleasant and switched on and open young man (perhaps there is hope for us all, if him and the England footballers are anything to go by), but it is still an interesting conundrum. I once turned down a large fee to appear on Katie Hopkins’ show (and so did most of the comedy community, hence me getting the offer and the offer being so huge), but you don’t always get the chance to make the choice in advance.
Maybe it isn’t my place as a guest to make the moral decisions and what’s interesting about Hancock or Hopkins or indeed Trump getting TV shows is that no one really seems to blame the people who are responsible for it, the programme makers who book them in the first place. They have a short-sighted eye on ratings or ad revenue and no real thought or care for the long-term repercussions.
I hope that Hancock doesn’t become a light entertainment fixture though, not because he got off with a lady in his office and broke lock down rules (though that is bad enough) but because of his part in the Covid response that led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people (and it’s interesting that most of the debate is about the former rather than the latter mistake).
As it turned out the group of people I was with were extremely lovely and talented and it was a lot of fun.
Then home to see Morocco triumph and England lose.
