THE BEAR 2018,THE LION 0

Those of us who read a lot of crime fiction are somewhat less surprised by the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar than the British media. Modern crime fiction provides us with information about the real world, and not to the out of date Bulldog Drummond/Richard Hannay dream world, in which one Englishman can thrash ten foreigners, that appears to be inhabited by our Government and establishment.

We have to face reality, FIFA wanted to take the World Cup into Eastern Europe for the first time, and there was very little we could do about it. This was apparently not recognised by anyone involved in the bid, with the result that David Cameron, and more importantly Prince William were totally humiliated. We got only two votes, one of which was ours!

Our multicultural video presentations did not seem to have much to do with England. The case was inadvertently made that because the very successful Premier League had the biggest stars playing on English grounds every week we really did not need to host the World Cup.

During the videos I had to concentrate to spot the few English participants [Harry Rednapp, Rio Ferdinand and Adrian Chiles??] who were outnumbered by Roberto Mancini [Italy], Arsene Wenger [France], Fernando Torres [Spain], Didier Drogba [Ivory Coast] and Carlos Tevez [Argentina].

The idea that our team of high profile "celebrities" would go to Zurich and clinch the deal was incredibly naive.

David Beckham, David Cameron, and Prince William against Roman Abramovich, Natalia Vodianova, and the unseen presence of their overseer, Vladimir Putin.

Eton against the Russians!

No contest.