World Cup agony

I would rather spend an whole week discussing tactics in this man's tactics truck than feel the pain of another day at work without the splendour of the World Cup on TV.

Capello's boys are yet to crash out, but I am already feeling the growing agony, frustration and that sickening feeling you get when England face anyone in a penalty shoot out . . .

I can't seem to get the online streams from the two World Cup broadcasters to work properly.

What with the modern wonders of the Internet, you would think that Executives all around the country could watch Slovakia vs New Zealand in blissful peace (in addition to getting on with whatever eye-gougingly painstaking work you have to), but no.

Its bad enough for us office schlubs to miss out on 9 hours on the sofa parked in front of the TV reaching through the festering beer cans trying to find some live crisp-packs. Offices should cater better for the most earth-shatteringly important event every 4 years.

BBC streams seem to work fairly well, only with intermittent interruptions, although they are ruined by the comments box on the left of the screen. The BBC obviously thinks it is a good idea to intersperse text commentary with idiotic tweets from Tittish twonks saying things like:

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

"more boring than work"

"Can I see more of the BBC World Cup Bus?"

"My ears hurt, Vuvuzelas are loud"

"When is the Premiership starting again?"

"#worldcup#england#capello#anythingthatwillgetyoutolookatmystupidtweets."

The other feed simply does not work. ITV have already committed several crimes against humanity

- ruining Adrian Chiles' career (although he is also to blame for this)

- allowing Andy Townsend to stay in gainful employment

- Big Ron-gate

- Showing advertisements during games (instead of England goals)
- ruining a lovely song by Jonsi of Sigur Ros.

I could go on.

We tried to go back to the 20th century in our office and tune in to the analogue service on a battered TV found lying forlorn in the basement. Some kind of government conspiracy means that analogue channels will be switched off soon, and it seems that MI5 had gained control of the last remaining TV in our office. Even after purchasing an old-school aerial the blasted contraption would not show any kind of football in fuzzy black and white.

I must add that we first attempted to plug a coat hanger into the back of the TV with limited success. The steaming turd-box would not even turn on, but the world has one less wire coat hangar to worry about.

Totally Official Reports suggest that morale in the office would rocket by 400% if employers provided adequate screen to show the games. Employees could be made to form orderly queues and intersperse 30 seconds of viewing with 5 minutes of work.

Sporting life

Once in every four years, the unique spectacle of the World Cup disrupts offices across the country.



I say once in every four years, but it doesn't have to be football (e.g. the ashes) or even England (e.g. Usain Bolt) to provide a welcome distraction to the nation's disgruntled office based bipods.


When it is a matter of national importance, such as an competitive England football match during work hours, companies usually cave in and set up a screen for employees to watch (rather than running AWOL from the building to the nearest public house, Dixon's, or wherever will take them).

However, for many young males, the World Cup provides a sense of multicultural acceptance, the greatest talent is on display and a sense of ultimate competition.

No game can be missed, if you are to fully immerse yourself in the greatest tournament on earth.

Come Friday, eyeballs, ears and brains will be diverted and 50-75% of the workforce will instantly fall into zombie-like states. Their faces will belie nothing but a thousand yard stare and an encyclopedic football knowledge attempting to burst its way out of their cranium. Internet systems will crash from streaming the games, heads will be buried in Newspaper analysis and any vaguely round object will be picked up and kicked around the office for an impromptu game.


A word of advice to office managers: Screen it or suffer