football in london

This is so weird. My (sometime) Chargers are playing the New Orleans Saints in Wembley Stadium right now. I guess the NFL did this last year, this kind of “foreign exchange for football” program, but since it didn’t involve MEE or MY team in any way, it didn’t even blip on my radar. Now, however, it’s personal, Peaches, so I am all agog. Still, have I mentioned this is weird? Well, it’s weird. Although, on the other hand, anything to evangelize the heathen soccer world to the joys of “grid-iron,” as the Brits call it, I should get on board with pronto. Yes. May it spread, dear Lord, like the chicken pox in Miss McGinty’s 2nd grade class. Amen.

Still. It’s WEIRD. The stadium there is packed, 81,000 people, pippa, but I have to wonder — in a totally non-condescending way — how much does the British crowd even understand of the game they’re watching? I mean, I don’t know much about their “football” — just enough for vigorous mocking. So seriously, do they need my assistance? If I were there, perhaps, in the stadium, sitting with a bewildered group of Brits, I could help them know whom to root for-for whom to root. Explain to them about La Dainian. Point out Cocoa Bear, my football boyfriend, known to them only as “Antonio Gates.” Assure them that, yes, 43 is wee, but he’s lightning fast and hard to catch. Tell them that even though the Chargers summarily dumped quarterback Drew Brees after 5 years of steadily so-so service and New Orleans picked him up as their quarterback so that there might be an undertone of, well, bitterness or payback or something to this game is no reason to go all soft and smushy on me and root for the New Orleans Saints. These are things they need to know. Things someone needs to tell them. See how invaluable I might have been if someone had just found me in a sea of 300 million people, appreciated my vast expertise of all things football, said “Hey, will you share your awesome knowledge with the struggling Brits,” offered to pay a couple of thousand dollars for my plane ticket, put me up at the Ritz, limo-ed me to the stadium, and plopped me in the stands, the football savior to a confounded people? Is that so much to expect in this lifetime??

Additionally, I could have helped them realize how inherently lame their National Anthem is. At the start of the game Ne-yo (uhm, ???) sang a lovely, somewhat subdued version of The Star-Spangled Banner. Next, Joss Stone sang a truly Mariah Carey-like version of God Save The Queen. And I’m sorry, Brits. Those lyrics are boring. Tepid. They don’t inspire. They don’t soar. Vocal fireworks are simply inappropriate here. I mean, please, does this really send a chill up your leg: “Send her victorious, happy, and glorious ….. G-O-O-OD SAVE THE QU–EE-EE-EEEEE-NNNNN!” That’s just how Joss Stone sang it and, frankly, it was just sad. Are those really the words that sum up the hopes and dreams and values of the British people? “Uhm, yeah. Don’t mind us, God, or the country at large. Just please save our queen. Make her happy. And victorious. Don’t forget glorious, God. She’s 153 years old, but please save her. And her little dog too.”

Why is this your anthem, England? Why?? It makes me sad that this song is thrust upon you. That would be like us singing Hail to the Chief as our national anthem. You know, there are actually lyrics to that and they are basically retarded:

Hail to the Chief because the chief’s the one we hail to

WHAT??? Thank God that’s not our anthem. I would vehemently oppose it based on piss-poor logic alone.

Sing it with me, people: “Shoot dead your gammie cuz gammie’s who you shoot dead.”

Uhmmm ….. what was this post about again? Football in London or somesuch nonsense? Okay. Well, look, I’m trying to watch the game and write this at the same time. Clearly, I cannot multi-task, but I’m pretty sure you can’t even tell — not one tiny little smidgie. Besides all that, the Chargers are now losing and every Brit in that stadium is clearly rooting for the Saints. I don’t get it. Is San Diego, the Rodney Dangerfield of American cities, now being dissed on an international level? What up wi dat, Crackie?

Anyhoo.

So, yeah, I’m sure England would deeply appreciate my pointing all of this out for them. That their anthem is ridiculous. That the rewritten American version called My Country Tis of Thee is a better song. That maybe they could use that instead, if they … well, maybe just changed that part about pilgrim’s pride.

Look on the bright side, Britain. Perhaps soon, you’ll be allowed to change the lyrics to “God save sharia law …. pry us from freedom’s claw …. God save the law …..”

I didn’t say that. Erase that from your minds. This post is about football, man.

Football and knowledge and helpfulness.

That’s what this post is all about.