I’ve been in Holland.

Well, strictly speaking, since it was on the borders of the Friesland and Groningen provinces, make that The Netherlands.

The good lady’s eldest brother lives there. We had been supposed to visit for years but life got in the way.

We needed to renew our passports first. I sent the applications away late in July. Despite all the talk on the news about delays we got the new ones inside a week. (As I remember it was four days.) Maybe the Glasgow Passport office is more efficient than down south.

So another country visited. Apart from the constituent parts of the UK (though I only just made it into Wales) I’ve been to Sweden (Stockholm,) the Soviet Union (Leningrad as was) and Denmark (Copenhagen) on a school cruise when I was at Primary School, Portugal (the Azores, Madeira, Lisbon) and Spain (Vigo) on a Secondary School cruise, and as an adult to Germany (near Stuttgart) and France twice (Normandy for the D-Day beaches and Picardy for World War I battlefields.)

Since the good lady didn’t fancy being on a RoRo ferry overnight we drove down to Harwich (with an overnight stop) and the same on the way back. I’m knackered.

Hodder, 2010, 496 p.

The usual fare from Turtledove. This time the altered history is that World War 2 starts in 1938 – though the actual Jonbar Point seems to be when Spanish General Sanjurjo survives his aeroplane flight from Portugal to Burgos to head up the Nationalist army in the Spanish Civil War which continues long after it did in our history as, after a failure of the talks in Munich two years later Hitler declares war on and invades Czechoslovakia. Major differences are that Poland then becomes a German ally, the invasion of France is not swift enough (apparently due to the early German panzers not being quite as effective as their later 1940 counterparts would be) and Japan eventually attacks the already war-embroiled USSR in Siberia.

The viewpoints are many, but hardly varied as the characters are as cardboard (or as functional) as always, or there simply to outline the war’€™s progress. The writing is as annoying as ever with its repetitions of information we already know. Particularly irritating was the observation that someone or other didn’€™t like some aspect of warfare ‘€œone bit€’ occurring again and again.

The reading is easy though; something I felt I needed after Gardens of the Sun. I don’t think I’€™ll be following the rest of The War That Came Early series though. There’€™s now another four of the beggars!

I’ve not posted about Euro 2012 yet because I’ve not seen many whole games.

I did catch all of the England – Ukraine game last night, though. If Ukraine had had a striker they’d have won this. England rode their luck and not just with the ball over the line incident.

I take issue with the commmentators over that. In real time I couldn’t tell if the ball was over the line or not. Even with the benefit of the replay using the along the line view I couldn’t tell that the whole ball had crossed the line when John Terry kicked it out. Neither could the fifth official be sure. And he has to be sure to give the goal. It was only when Terry was stripped from the picture and the frame was frozen that I could tell – and how was I to know what other manipulation may have been done to the image? The line official didn’t have that luxury.

Still, roll on goal line technology.

It must be said Uefa haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory over the Niklas Bendtner fine and ban for ambush marketing vivs-a-vis racist chanting and inappropriate banners.

As to possible winners; who knows?

Spain look get-at-able at the back. If it weren’t for Iker Casillas they would have been going home early: both Italy and Croatia would have beaten them. They also seem to have developed this novel way of trying to win football games. It involves not trying to score goals. (To be fair Dumbarton have been using that system for donkey’s years; but not deliberately.)

Against Croatia the Italians did that Italian thing of taking a lead and trying to hold it. The only thing is their defence isn’t good enough these days to sustain it. Had they gone for the second they might have saved themselves a fraught third game. They looked good going forward against Spain though.

Greece? Not likely, but we’ve thought that before.

Germany look impressive and Mario Gomez has morphed from being the German Luca Toni and suddenly found goal scoring form in a tournament.

Czech Republic? I doubt they’ll have enough to beat Portugal who were too fragile at the back against Denmark. But do the Portuguese have enough striking options beyond Ronaldo to get to the final?

France were shown up against Sweden and must play Spain.

England are teed up to lose to a Mario Balotelli goal. They have exceeded their usual Euro performance in getting to the quarter-final, after all.

At this stage it looks like the Germans.

Green Point Stadium, Cape Town, 29/6/10.

This could have been a good game but Portugal were content to let Spain keep the ball and pass it in front of them, restricting the Spanish to long range shots for the most part and as a consequence it failed to be a spectacle.

For all their vaunted passing (up blind alleys most of the time it has to be said) it was funny how Spain only began really to get at Portugal after they replaced Torres with Llorente and started humping it up to the big man.

The commentator (Guy Mowbray?) opined that Piqué was maybe a weak link for Spain. Personally I think given what I saw of his performance in the Switzerland game (and all of the Honduras one) Carles Puyol may have passed his peak.

Like most goalkeepers at this World Cup, apart from Julio Cesar, and Eduardo in this one, Casillas looked iffy too.

Two day break, now. I’ll be getting withdrawal symptoms.

Edited to add: even in real time I thought David Villa was offside at the back heel to him before the goal. We didn’t get the relevant stop-motion replay till after the game, though. Funny that, isn’t it?

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.

With the event looming ever nearer, let us examine the record of “one of the favourites for the World Cup.”

1930: Thought it was beneath them/couldn’t be bothered.

1934: Thought it was beneath them/couldn’t be bothered.

1938: Thought it was beneath them/couldn’t be bothered.

1950: Discovered it wasn’t. Quite the reverse.
Eliminated in first round, famously, in Belo Horizonte, losing to USA 1-0.
An omen? (Also lost 1-0 to Spain.)

1954: Quarter-final, lost to Uruguay 4-2.

1958: First round play-off. Lost to USSR 1-0.

1962: Quarter-final, lost to Brazil 3-1.

1966: Downhill, with a following wind, a suspicious late switch of semi-final venue, not to mention a compliant Azerbaijani linesman, (take a bow, Tofik Bakhramov) drew in final 2-2 with West Germany, then “scored” twice in extra time.

1970: Quarter-final, drew 2-2 with West Germany; lost 3-2 after extra time.

1974: DNQ!

1978: DNQ!

1982: Drew 0-0 in second round (effectively the quarter-finals) not only with West Germany but also with Spain. Eliminated.

1986: Quarter-final, lost 2-1 to Argentina (or, if you like, to the hand of God.)

1990: Semi-final! (which they only reached because Cameroon couldn’t be bothered to sit on a lead.) Drew 1-1 with West Germany after “best goalkeeper in the world” cannot take two steps backwards at a free kick. (1-1 aet.) Lost on penalties.

1994: DNQ!

1998: Second round. Drew 2-2 with Argentina. (2-2 aet.) Lost on penalties.

2002: Quarter-finals. Lost 2-1 to Brazil. Yet another “best goalkeeper in the world” couldn’t stop a lobbed free kick.

2006: Quarter-finals. Drew 0-0 with Portugal. (0-0 aet.) Lost on penalties.

Out of seventeen tournaments only one final – and that at home.

Six no-shows, two first round failures, one (or two) second round exits, four (or five) quarter-final defeats, one loss at the semis stage.

It’s obviously going to be a skoosh, lads.