Sore Thumbs from World Cup Flag Waving

Sore thumbs... and let us hide the thumb screws just in case it sets minds a-racing.

This is the time where nationality, being British, cannot be hidden, we have procured the flag, we loyal to home turf. I am the Standard-bearer via an Astra combo car window. It all means a car stands out like a proverbial sore thumb - the foreigners are revealed, the spies in their midst revealed, our flag adorns window to show support, red and white flag ~the "home" flag ~ alone amongst other colours of the rainbow to show loyalty to "foreign homes" where the Pryce family have laid some temporary roots.

Foreign or home flags, depending on your birth certificate, adorn outside ex-patriate walls, hung like old-fashioned washing from a window. We dare to risk the wrath of a yob at 1 o'clock in the morning by showing loyalty to the homeland in sporting rivalry. Apparently yes.

This is not good. Our car has colours that fly in the wind and fly in the face of the home nation loyalty.

This wind that catches the flags is sadly apparently less of a force than that of footballers' deep breathing judging by TV replays. TV replays have to be explained now, where once it was "you watch nothing but football", now there is nothing but football and its somehow ok with the wife, because the magic words were not 'abra cadabra' or 'I love you' , but "World Cup".

The four year anniversary-time when wives ask to watch football. When the offside rule appears as important as a Jamie Oliver recipe. The sad thing is we both know, as our secret, an unwritten law, the skeleton in our closet, that wifey knowledge at football ended with the closing credits of 'Bend it with Beckham'. But here she - the wife - will watch, wave arms, makes claims of wrongdoing, and I will murmur contentedly in the knowledge we are not arguing about how much time I watch footie.

Instead I want to argue that explaining the offside rule mid-game is not on. A thousand lads in a thousand pubs would not be surprised if I espoused the "ball is moving in the air" and understand this was a genuine concern for national hopes, yet my wife thinks it strange that any goal is scored without the ball moving in the air... I ask you...the World Cup will be long.

Friends are invited around to celebrate a score draw that should have been a win, the ladies discussed on the sofa mid-game the important topics of their work and hairdo's. Mid-game! I point out, as one does, that gossipping is not exactly watching the game and I am told they know how to multi task. Unfortunately this multi-tasking female-over-male superiority, Venus-Mars duopoly, inherent alleged girlie evolutionary multi-tasking advantage rarely translates to ironing and making me a cup of tea. Instead it is a skill transformed in tasking my patience and yes I did say "he had the legs on him". And it makes sense to me.

Together we sit, all husbands, wives and home nation friends sit aghast that another player is felled by deep breathing and unless garlic is involved, we are not suspicious of evil spirits as the only source of foul play, we suspect play acting. We watch as flailing arms make forceful wafts of air seemingly able to floor an opponent clutching a face in agony and football is decided by actors. These footballers are like flags in the wind. Flags at low mast at that.

The kids support the team, the local team, the team that their freinds supports, the foreign national team, a pryce to pay in ex-pat integrated life and it is Ok, as long as my father turns in his grave and enjoys the views.

I am alone in the house dominated by the Plasma God, in supporting my roots, roots that were torn from the ground in search of the Euro-dollar and this thing called bread on the plate. I am alone with my flag, the kids are double agents, the wife is supporting Venus, the locals are local.

England will play Germany..... England expects, I expect penalties and a John Terrrrrry could be a great rugby player.

Result 4:1 - the flag is briefly at half mast, as it is downed to save it from the eggs. I prepare myself to talk long and hard about goal-line technology. Tomorrow will be long and hard in the office, I may need a testerone injection to hold off the tears.