Jottings in lieu of listening to people talking bollocks about football

Children, if you are reading this because you think that old uncle Vicus is quite funny in his depraved way, then read no further. This article contains a very naughty word. It is not clever to use it, and you will get into trouble if your parents find out.

There. That should have done the trick.

The BBC has chosen as it theme music for the world cup "See the conquering hero comes" from Judas Maccabaeus by Handel.

You know the one - da da de dum dum, da dee da dee da dee da.

A lovely tune, very memorable and uplifting.

Unfortunately, it was written to celebrate the achievements of prince William, duke of Cumberland. He was a complete cunt. Even by the standards of the British royal family, even by the standards of the worst manifestations of British imperialism he was a complete cunt. The only good thing to say about him was that he helped in the downfall of Charles Stuart, who was also a cunt, but not quite such a complete one. I suspect that God might have intervened in this one, to make sure that neither of these complete cunts became monarch.

Back at the music, an analogy would be for Joni Mitchell to write a song about Dubya's marvelous foreign policy.

So, here we have an interesting paradox. Is it fitting that the current world cup be linked with a wonderful piece of music, or that it be linked with one of history'’s complete cunts?

I haven'’t seen all of the games in this competition, so I do not know whether there have been any memories that would do justice to the music of old Georg Frederick. None that I have seen, for sure. Argentina looked good against teams that allowed them to look good. But on the quality that I have seen, then perhaps, at best, Henry Mancini would be the composer to pick. Or have songs written by Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Or sung by Petula Clark.

I will remember this tournament more for the continued appalling rule breaking and wishy-washy enforcement that has characterised almost all World Cups. The continuing theme seems to be to cheat the better teams and players out of the competition.

My remedies to stamp out this behaviour are as follows:

• Introduction of the 10 minute sin bin for a yellow card.
• A fine, based upon a percentage of the weekly wage of the player, for all dissent; for example holding your arm up to indicate to the referee that the throw-in should be 10% of your weekly salary. Remonstrating with a referee or linesman should be a 100% fine. There should be no limit on the number of times these fines should be levied during a match. (Therefore it would be possible to be fined 3000% of your weekly salary during a single game). These fines would have to be paid by the player, not the club or country.
• Any player going to the floor injured (or, obviously, pretending to be injured) has to leave the field for a minimum 5 minutes for treatment.
• Tribunals should decide on diving. Penalties for diving should be a multiple of 1 match missed.

I saw the opening game of the tri-nations yesterday. Not a classic, but far more worthy of the epithet "“beautiful game"”. And I haven'’t even got around to writing about Freddie Trueman yet.

Go on, France and Italy, prove me wrong.