I always enjoy those videos when England score a goal and limbs fly about the place as if everybody has simultaneously become Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tubemen. You know those guys? Made famous in an episode of Family Guy but also real: colourful clown-like characters with flappy arms that dance around manically when pumped full of air. Apparently they were originally created for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, when they were called “tall boys”, which is probably a better name than all their other monikers. “Sky dancers” and “fly guys” are less funny.
The World Cup has returned and as I write this England are gearing up to play their first game. Croatia will be a test (after the print edition last week, this article is going online after a triumphant England win). For many, so is finding somewhere to watch it, if not at home. There’s an argument to suggest watching football matches with a group of pals — whomever has the biggest TV, I suppose — with a Kerry Katona buffet (don’t say picky bits) and a bucket of ice full of beer. But then the World Cup is likely to save quite a few pubs and bars this summer and we should enjoy going out and watching football; feeling camaraderie, joy and fear and desperation all together in unison amid the raucous chants and spilled pints, the fever pitch, the unadulterated rapture of “the football”.
