Watching the Footie

Crisps in a bowl, cold beer at the ready, wandering around the house whilst the pre match commentary goes on.

3pm kick off for the England Paraguay game.

But at 3pm the commentators kept on blathering and showing highlights from yesterdays game. It was obvious the game was not on so we had to jump in the car and go to town to the English bar with a big dish on the roof. We listened to Motson and saw England's rather lacklustre victory over Paraguay courtesy of the BBC.

A few weeks ago we bought a digital TV box that allows us to watch a number of free to air Spanish channels with digital broadcasts. One of the channels we have is a new company called "La Sexta" - the sixth full scale broadcaster in Spain. La Sexta has similar problems to those encountered by Channel 5 when they started up in the UK. Not everyone can get the signal and there often needs to be a bit of aerial work even in areas where the signal is OK. But we were fine with a good clear signal. All the pre event publicity said that La Sexta would carry all of the 64 games sharing some of the key games, including all the games featuring the Spanish squad, with another new broadcaster "Cuatro".

It turns out that La Sexta does have all 64 games but that they are not, necessarily live. The Trinidad and Tobago Sweden game was live though. It must be something to do with the cost of live games as against recorded matches.

And the dilemma. I don't really much care for football but I don't like to miss an event. I remember one of Norman Tebbit's tests of Englishness was whether new immigrants and established families from different national backgrounds would be shouting for their new home or not. I never liked Norman Tebbit much, in fact he's a racist fathead, but I do wonder where my allegiance should lie. Am I with the Spaniards or am I with the English?