Football's staying home

HOW long have you been unemployed?

Two weeks? Three weeks? Months?

Years? Personally, I'm in the months bracket. It's a bit of a vicious circle, isn't it? We spend weeks with nothing more mentally invigorating than the daily, bewildering pirouette of complex antipodean plots, housed in that hotbed of blistering, harsh reality that is Neighbours. As a result, more and more chambers of the brain close off and shut down, leaving a haggard shell. In the interview, as your mind goes blank yet again, you yearn, tragically, to get across any impression of intelligence. Haggard, for example, is derived from the falconer's term for an untamed hawk. But say this out loud and they look at you like you've just suggested a bout of naked mud wrestling. The tragedy of being unemployed is this: it makes you stupid. And each time it matters, it's a little harder to summon up that bright, chirpy, prince of a future employee. But fear not, this is Dream-time for the unemployed. At last a time when it's positively an advantage to be jobless. At last we have a retort for their smug bank balance conversations, and the "I'm paying for your dole" jibes. Firstly, it's summer again. Gone are the sunny but essentially cold days where we see the traditional old English figure, already in shorts, vaulting from determined grin to agonised grimace as the frostbite spreads to their undercarriage. Summer is truly underway. Secondly, it's the World Cup. Eight years since we were last in it. Eight years. And we can see every last game. Finally, an outside chance of seeing Ronaldo get back on the plane with Ince's boot firmly wedged between his buttocks. The employed may be able to see a few matches, they may even be able to sneak in a pocket radio to listen surreptitiously when their boss isn't flouncing around slamming wads of files on over-varnished desks, screaming: "I want results!" But we can see every single match. "Oh you didn't see the South Africa v Denmark match? Oh wow, that was honestly the best game I've ever seen. Did you see it? Oh you were in the office. I see. Oh they allow you to wear short sleeves do they? Wow. Yeah that's really good. What was that? Cor, you had the radio on and everything. Amazing. Still, it's not quite the same is it? What was that? Not quite the same. As the TV I mean. Yeah." Couple the above with the old "I may be unemployed, but look at this tan" technique and you'll have revenge. They won't buy you any more drinks, but still, revenge of sorts.

Copyright 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.