What do you do when all around you are screaming, “We’re doomed!”?

It seems the answer is to add to the screams.

When one country starts to make cuts to its spending, that doesn’t matter too much. When they all do….?

Wasn’t this the sort of thing that brought about the Great Depression?

What sense does it make to take jobs in the public sector out of the economy when the private sector is manifestly incapable of taking up the slack? Not only do you not make as big a saving as it might seem – you lose the income tax on the pay of those who are not employed to fill any vacancies and possibly have to pay out benefits instead on top – you also lose the spending power of those jobs in their local (and the wider) economy and so lose the stimulus they might give.

It seems daft to me.

Wasn’t it government spending that brought an end to the Depression? I read recently Congress delayed the US recovery by several years by kyboshing some of FDR’s plans for a stimulus.

Savage cuts and an increase in VAT are both things I had a premonition near certainty about under a Conservative government.

Plus ça change….

Double dip recession (and worse?) on the horizon?

Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg, 21/6/10

Well, Spain got their win. Honduras were almost non-existent in an attacking sense and were there to be taken as North Korea had been by Portugal earlier.

While undeniably delightful on the eye, Spain played dreadfully tippy-tappy, nonsense football at times, Xavi a particular culprit. Give it a welly now and again!

David Villa looked sharp, but then missed a penalty. Torres was out of sorts. Perhaps when his touch returns Spain might have more of a cutting edege.

On this evidence, Spain won’t win this World Cup. They might not even reach round two, as Chile need a point from them to be sure of their own progress. That result would condemn Spain to elimination as Switzerland will surely beat Honduras. Even a one goal win would do the Swiss if Spain manage to defeat Chile by two or more.

Pan, 2007. 522p.

This is Miéville’s first book for younger readers. It is also copiously (and well) illustrated by the author. In it Zanna and Deeba, two of a group of normal young teenagers in London, are beset by strange occurrences. They are attacked by smoke tendrils, freaked out by an ambulatory umbrella and Zanna is addressed as Shwazzy several times during different chance encounters in one of which she is given a card naming her as such.

Soon they are both transported to a strange place where the sun is too large – and doughnut shaped – weird and colourful characters abound and telecommunications work through the medium of what can only be described as carrier wasps. Zanna is revealed as the choisi – chosen – the girl who will save the abcity of Un Lun Dun (unLondon) from the menace of the Smog. She is presumed to know the details of the Armets and their secret weapon the Klinneract which saved real London and drove the Smog to Un Lun Dun. (This parallel existence also contains other abcities such as Parisn’t, Lost Angeles, Sans Francisco and Hong Gone.)

The book which contains the Shwazzy prophecy – and which speaks morosely a la Eeyore or Marvin – turns out to be wrong, though, and Zanna is unable to help. She is incapacitated by the Smog whose attack is only driven off by using specially slit and treated unbrellas made by Mister Brokkenbroll to ward off the smog’s projectiles. With this apparent victory Deeba and the still far from well Zanna return to London. But Deeba cannot forget her experiences, realises that not all may be well in Un Lun Dun and so makes her return. On her quest to find a weapon to defeat the Smog she is accompanied by the aforementioned Book of Prophecy, Bling, a silver furred locust, Diss, a brown bear cub, a four-armed, four-legged, many-eyed man called Cauldron, a half-ghost, half-normal boy called Hemi, and Curdle, an animated milk carton Deeba adopts as a pet.

There are some nice coinages – mostly portmanteau words like smombies, Propheseers and smoglodytes. Mister Brokkenbroll – the Unbrellissimo – is a particularly redolent case. There are also glazed, wooden framed, eight legged things called Black Windows. These are just a few examples of Miéville’s playful linguistic invention.

There is more than a hint of Alice in Un Lun Dun though generally Through The Looking Glass rather than Adventures In Wonderland. This is underlined on page 296 when the Speaker of Talklands echoes Humpy Dumpty by saying, “WORDS MEAN WHATEVER I WANT.” We also have a pair of Tweedledum/Tweedledee-ish mitre-wearing clerics, in white and deep red robes respectively, who only move in zig-zags. There are parallels too with THE CITY & YTIC EHT Miéville’s recent adult novel, which I reviewed here.

Un Lun Dun is an enjoyable romp. For its target audience I would have thought it might be more than a touch too long, though its young readers may welcome a long immersion in Miéville’s skewed world.

Green Point Stadium, Cape Town, 18/6/10

Well; this was dire. Apart from Algeria, of course. At least they could pass to each other.

Emile Heskey in this game managed to redefine the epithet “donkey” as applied to a football player. The ball kept bouncing off him at all sorts of odd angles as if he was composed entirely of sharp edges. “Donkey” is way too complimentary. I couldn’t understand why Crouch wasn’t sent on to replace him at half time.

During the second half my thoughts kept going back to 1986 when England’s start was even worse than this. (Yes that is possble.) They reached the quarters then, if you recall.

A more chilling parallel is with 1990. They drew their first two games that year. Surely they can’t reach the semis with this team?

Accordingly I fully expect them to hump Slovenia on Wednesday.

TV bloke’s moment to make you splutter?

Adrian Chiles before the game moaning that England never seem to get any luck.

Oh really, Adrian?

Have England ever been drawn in a group of death? (As opposed to a deathly group, that is.)

I didn’t see their second half but congratulations to the US for their comeback.

One more relative obscurity from the sixties. The song was written by Dr John but this version by Marhsa Hunt got a lot of radio airplay when it was released.

It was also said to be one of Mick Jagger’s favourites.

Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane, 17/6/10

The better team (by a country mile) won this game.

A France side which in retrospect was in decline even as long ago as when Scotland beat them twice in the last World Cup qualifiers, had no invention, no spark and looked disinterested.

Mexico by contrast were bright and fluid and constantly looked threatening.

France are out unless they hump the hosts and there is not a draw in the other game (or, if head-to-head results count before goal difference only if Mexico beat Uruguay.)

The TV pundits seemed to think Uruguay and Mexico might collude to draw and thus eliminate both Bafana Bafana and the French.

But….

Would you want to come second in this group?

Okay you would have got through but it would also mean most likely facing Argentina in the second round. (I can’t see Greece beating them to come first in Group B.)

What with family birthdays, work retiral dos and a football extravaganza all ongoing at the moment I may not be posting overmuch in the next week or so.

Green Point Stadium, Cape Town, 14/6/10

Contrary to the TV panellists I thought Paraguay were worth their lead at half time as a couple of times their front two looked on the verge of opening up a ponderous looking Italian central defence.

Yet had Italy gone about the game in the first half as they did in the second they would surely have won it. Why do they only start playing when they are a goal down?

Both goals showed up the truth of the assertion that a team scores only when their opponents make a mistake.

Poor Italian marking at a corner is a phrase I never thought I’d type.

And another goalkeeping howler. Again not due to the ball.

If the ball is having an effect it’s that players are over-hitting it – especially on long passes or crosses.

There hasn’t been a classic so far; but first games in a group rarely produce one.

Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg, 12/6/10

Honours even, then. Possibly a fair result.

Contrary to the TV pundits I thought it was a thoroughly disjointed and lack-lustre performance from England in the first half – which the US dominated even if they didn’t work Robert Green enough. (As it turned out working him once was enough.)

Rooney was anonymous, Lampard was anonymous – I don’t recall him being on the ball at all till the second half.

The US, by contrast, seemed to have an idea of what they were trying to do: at least their passes were crisp and reaching their team mates.

It was noticeable that after the US goal the commentator suddenly remembered that the US pushed Brazil hard in the final of last year’s Confederations Cup.

In the second half things opened up a bit late on, Rooney began to make an impact on the game, but neither side looked totally convincing.

So. Did we see potential winners tonight?

Let’s put it this way.

I don’t think Brazil, Spain, Argentina or even Holland will be quaking in their boots.

Edited to add: I see from the highlights that Lampard was involved in the goal – but that was his only contribution to the first half.

I was watching Doctor Who so I didn’t catch the build up to tonight’s game. I switched over just in time to catch the kick-off.

And seven seconds later?

Mark it: seven seconds.

That’s all the time it took for the commentator (Clive Tyldesley?) to mention a certain event in 1966. I think that makes some sort of record.

Not as satisfying a record as the original 7 seconds, as by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry, which I append below for your pleasure.

7 seconds is, I believe, the only song to feature a lyric in Wolof to trouble the British charts.