England wins world cup! by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR This week was supposed to start with the glorious sight of the Union Jack flying again over this city, an image as comforting and traditional as a rock star wearing a Montreal Canadiens sweater onstage. Of course Germany, not England, played in the finals against Brazil. But the Krauts only got there because the draw had them playing Lower Kiribati and Bashkortostan, whose players had been sleeping on unwashed blankets from the small pox ward. England vs. Brazil was the real final. England should have known that the secret to beating Brazil lies in harmlessly bouncing the ball off Brazilian knees, an act that inexplicably causes them extreme convulsions. When a Turkish player did such a thing to Brazilian player Retardo, the Brazilian fell into an epileptic seizure the kind I haven’t seen since my father used to have ’em when I was a kid. Don’t swallow your tongue! Turned out the Brazilian was being sneaky and manipulative. Hey, a hollow victory is better than no victory at all, right? Such sleaze doesn’t make Brazil all bad. Back when I was a hipster doofus living at 4010 deBullion, I was so fascinated with Brazil that I bought a classified ad in La Voz de Portugal looking for a “a nice looking woman” to teach me Brazilian. My ad neglected to mention that I wasn’t a senior citizen and pretty soon Brazilian grannies were ringing my phone off the hook. One younger Brazilian chickie, wed away from her tropical village to an East End home, called me without hubby knowing. Much hilarity ensued as the husband tried to hunt me down so he could beat me up. So with Brazil and England deadlocked at one goal apiece, it looked like penalty shots were forthcoming. Those are easy. You look one way and shoot the other, as one of the Brazilian grannies explained to me. But suddenly a player with the inexplicable advantage of having only one name (how can you keep up with guys named Zépé when your name is Heathcliffe Nethercoate-Jones III?) ignored the unwritten soccer tradition wherein you kick the ball 15 feet over the net then walk away clutching your head. During this violation of custom, the English goalie was checking his e-mail on his cell phone as the ball went in, costing me my chance to gloat over my lower NDG Italian neighbours and write a legitimate column rallying readers to anglophilia. But England wins my World Cup anyway, not just because James Bond is an easy pick over that guy with the triangle haircut, but also because it produced the greatest lazy man who ever lived, Lord Sandwich. Sandwich was immortalized by islands bearing his name as well as an excellent lunch food—all accomplished without him even getting up from his game of cards. Sandwich once said, “If any man will draw up his case, and put his name at the foot of the first page, I will give him an immediate reply. Where he compels me to turn over the sheet, he must wait my leisure.” This guy was too lazy even to turn a page over! England’s also spawned such subversives as Ronnie Biggs, football hooligans, punk rock (seemed like a good idea at the time) and Guy Fawkes, who once tried to blow up Parliament. Authority, they understood, was to be questioned, a spirit that led Merseyside factory workers to walk off when they realized that they were contributing to slavery in the colonies. Commoners would routinely knock down any fence the king would put up to exclude them (Westmount pool or railway tracks in NDG, anybody?). Brits also have cool names like Lord of Frampton and Lady of Copston Magna, titles on sale for two grand each at elitetitles.co.uk. But best of all, flying the British flagpole rag over Montreal would be great because it would have the same effect on our separatist overlords as bouncing a ball does off the knee of a Brazilian soccer player. : Comments? kgravy@openface.ca