The Curled Wup

You thought the World Cup was about football? Oh how wrong you are. It's significance is so much deeper than that. Enter Martin Jacques, who uses China's spectacular performance to illustrate how unzeitgeisty and generally fucked-up Europe is. Well, no he doesn't - because he can't in this case. So he complains about the lack of proportional representation instead:

"Unlike virtually every other human activity - from politics and economics to universities and the military - football has managed to give a growing place in the sun to those who are normally marginalised and unrepresented. The growing importance of Africa and Asia in football are testimony to this.

But, alas, not in this World Cup. In the last sixteen there was only one African side and no Asian. In the last eight, there were six European and two Latin American: the last four was a European monopoly."

The dark shadow of colonialism is not difficult to discern here. The not scoring enough goals thing - a rule that positively reeks of imperialism, I think you'll agree. Here's Norm, who has the ideal solution for people in Mr Jacques' sorry condition:

"Presumably the Martin Jacques World Cup would settle these matters in a way more sensitive to the multi-continental nature of the planet we live on and not so slavishly attuned to the outcome of the actual games. The perfect sporting competition would be one - call it the Curled Wup, involving not football, but curling a wup into its matching thrup - in which the outcome always exactly mirrored the great heterogeneity of nations. Exciting wouldn't be the word."

I think I detect a hint of sarcasm there.

Anyway, who is everyone going for? Vive le France, I reckon.