GOOD GRIEF!

For a clearer version, go here.

Plus, see here, here and here for an excellent debate about the ethics of football, and who one should support in some piddling little football tournament that starts at the end of the week. I shall not add to this debate, except to say that I am supporting Paraguay and Trinidad against England (the former because I went there last year, and their cab-drivers were the most generous I have met anywhere in the world, the latter for no particular reason), but will be supporting England against Sweden because I find Sweden rather smug.

Note to Homo Ludens's Swedish readers: please do not be offended by my calling your country smug. It is nothing personal, simply that you come top of all these quality-of-life lists that magazines are wont to publish. This one, actually, puts you at the bottom - but then again, it is the Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace's annual Failed States list. (NB: a glance at the smallprint of this clearly right-of-centre organisation reveals quiet bitterness that the country whose stability increased most during 2005 was Venezuela. Plus ca change!)