Avoiding the World Cup: Day Two

By John Freeman on June 9, 2006

World Cup, 1, Avoiding it, nil.

Wouldn’t you believe it, now it’s in my mailbox. I’ve just been sent a link to The Baarmy World Cup Sheep song, their version of “Land of Hope and Glory”. It’s bloody awful, frankly, although I did enjoy the video.

What next? Football playing cats?

(Actually. maybe I should just video our one cat that loves football and add a music track to the video…)

It turns out that the guy who came up with this, Charley Darbeyshire of Bright Blue Studios, Ulverston, is actually the cousin of Designer Bob in our office. (The video was filmed by Tony Wilkinson of Red Onion Video).

Also disappointed that little old lady in our street has put England flags in her window. But so far, only two cars with flags (according to some boffin, these add to your fuel consumption by an astonishing litre a day if you drive at 70 mph . Like anyone can get up to that kind of speed around Lancaster).

There was a discussion on BBC2 last night where film director Richard Eyre challenged all the flag waving, particuarly by politicians (a discussion made interesting only by Michael Portillo describing David Cameron as “naff” for doing it too). It’s all bread and circuses, apparently, which is why the whole thing’s got hyped to distraction. I think there’s some truth in that.

Still, avoided any metatarsal-oriented news reports by going to see The Da Vinci Code, but what a dull film. Even an assesment of Trinidad and Tobago’s chances would have been more interesting…

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.