Green Tea

The suspense is finally over. The agonising build-up is now complete.

Yes folks, we now know the winner of Junior Apprentice, the ever so slightly annoying (surely precocious? - Ed.) Arjun.

Meanwhile a few thousand miles south, the World Cup got under way with a cracking opening fixture followed by four rather ordinary ones.

England's result and performance was fairly predictable. The technical frailties as evident as always, against opposition that we inevitably underestimated.

Given that Americans consider us Brits as tea-obsessed, it was a gift to their headline writers that they were handed a valuable point by a player called Green.

Moreover at least this was one British spill that the Americans were actually quite pleased about.

It was a horrific mistake of course, but somewhat understandable.

If you're a nervous keeper making his World Cup debut, the last thing you want is time to think about a straightforward save you need to make. The instinctive point blank save meanwhile is far more welcome.

But let's not let Green off the hook too easily. The second-half save that Clive Tyldesley described as 'redemption' was actually very clumsy rather than accomplished. It nearly lost England the game.

I must confess that I'm not remotely emotionally involved with the England campaign.

They are just another team for me in the much wider and wonderful football festival that the modern World Cup has become.

I have no problem getting behind our nation's rugby players, cricketers, athletes or golfers for example, but the England football team leaves me stone cold.

It may well be because my love of Charlton conquers all (indeed I felt more engaged on the rare occasions in recent times when our own players were represented).

Or if I'm brutally honest, it's probably just a form of snobbery on my part. It will be a cold day in hell when I adorn my car with not one but two St George's flags.

On a different note, my blog posts are becoming more infrequent, and I'm contemplating finally putting it to rest for good. It was fun whilst it lasted.

Either way, unless something in the World Cup piques my interest, there probably won't be much to read here until the new season.

Until then, as David Cameron recently said (in an accent that I've certaintly never heard inside a football ground): "Come on England!"