Gaddafi could win England the world cup

In three weeks time I’ll be on my way to South Africa, where, according to a thousand news reports and gleeful warnings from family and friends, I can expect to be mugged, stabbed, shot and most likely raped within moments of setting foot off the plane. My Dad is clear in his mind that I have no chance of surviving the trip and has not been shy about gravely informing me of my imminent demise. That said, this is the same man who believes that anywhere further than the boundaries of Chichester is some form of post apocalyptic, lawless waste land. Mad Max was a documentary about Guildford in his eyes.

Normally I invest far too much hope and emotion in the England team prior to major tournaments. This has, without fail, been paid back only in crushing disappointment and vehement anger as the latest shower of wasters to wear the England shirt break the spinal column of my hopes and piss over the twitching corpse of my dreams. This time, conscious of prior heartbreak and certain that my physical presence will serve as a poisonous curse, I am solidly expecting nothing but miserable failure. It’s not that I am superstitious. People that genuinely believe in the factor of luck are clearly in the same league as Voodoo shaman, Scientologists and Christians. I just think England are far more crap than I generally believe they are when we start approaching a tournament and I want to set the bar low.

Another factor which adds to the bizarre sense of ominous foreboding that, now I think about it, I wouldn’t normally associate with two weeks paid holiday, is the fact I’m stopping in Libya. Nothing personal against the place, despite the instant connection you’d make with planes falling out of the sky onto Scottish villages, but there is a currently a raging diplomatic bitch fight ongoing between Libya and my country of residence. To sum up the situation, the son of Colonel Gaddafi, the esteemed, self titled leader of Libya and his charming wife, beat seven shades of shit out of a couple of staff in a luxury Swiss hotel. The two were arrested and held, before, as is obligatory for rich and famous people in such situations, all charges were dropped and they were released. Gaddafi, acting with commendable restraint and dignity, then responded by withdrawing billions of assets from Swiss banks, cancelled flights between the countries, had Swiss people in Libya arrested for no reason, shut down Swiss subsidiaries and, as a final, totally understandably flourish, called for Islam to declare a jihad on Switzerland and it’s residents. I shall therefore, in all likelihood, not be wearing my I ♥ Zurich t-shirt during the lay over

...unless of course you believe in fate, luck and the inevitable failure of any team I support in a tournament I am attending. In which case I will happily hand around a petition in the streets of Tripoli, calling for Gaddafi's son to be expedited, whilst eating Toblerones, yodelling and performing any other manner of offensive stereotype you can think of. That should do the trick.