My husband has been pining for the FIFA World Cup to begin. He doesn’t have long to wait now as it starts on Friday, and he’s going to be watching as many of the matches as he possibly can.

This is the Association Football world cup – the biggest sporting event on the planet bar possibly the Olympic Games – played with a round ball as opposed to the game that men play with funny shaped balls and lots of padding.

As I would generally rather watch paint dry than view a football match, I’m going to be a bit of a ‘football widow’ for the next month or so. Somehow I think I’m going to get a lot of reading done then.

Unfortunately, Scotland didn’t qualify to take part this time. My husband says that the good thing about that is he can watch the whole thing and just enjoy it with no pressure and stress. I bet the hospitals are looking at it that way too as there should be fewer men admitted with heart attacks.

As ever, England are in the easiest group. (Scotland are always grouped with Brazil, Germany, Holland and the like.) According to the pundits on the radio though, they are all terrified of their first match, which happens to be against the U.S.A. on Saturday June 12th.

Those are the very same commentators who drive us (Scots) round the bend with their arrogance and assumptions that England somehow have a right to be the winners at everything, just because they aren’t ‘Johnny Foreigner’. I bet with the first touch of the ball they’ll claim they’re going to go all the way.

So, not that I’m racist or anything – but just for that day, I’ll be supporting the U.S.A. – for the sake of my sanity as much as anything else.