Its half time in the Euro 2012 clash between England and Ukraine. I woke up late so I only caught the last five minutes of the first half. From what I gather I haven’t missed much. Rooney has been rusty. Milner has been rubbish. Ukraine are certainly not weak.

 

I make the effort to watch England play. I mean they hardly play the most attractive football, but fuck, I’m a fan.

 

My relationship with England starts with my Dads side of the family. Dad is an Essex boy born and raised. We used to go over there as a kid. Back then I used to think it was a very pretty country (we always went over in summer). I thought their junk food was awesome (Sugar Puffs, Prawn Cocktail Walkers). It was a different world yet it somehow just felt normal. Like home.

 

ROONEY! 1-0

 

In the 90s I thought their kids TV was a bit more intelligent than what we had over here. They had the MC Hammer cartoon and they had the Big Breakfast. We had Agro’s Cartoon Connection which seemed way too white bred for my cosmopolitan eight year old tastes.

 

As I got older I learned to love the fact that music actually means something to the English national psyche. While Australians backpack through the world arrogantly talking about our superior skills in Rugby and Cricket (two games people really don’t give a fuck in most parts of the world) the English modestly just know that The Beatles. The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Massive Attack…actually pop music in general was created there as we know it. They had Shakespeare. James Bond. Hitchcock. The lot.

 

The English, for the most part, value the arts. At least more than we do. As an Australian adolescent I really respected this about my English brethren. We played sport, they play guitar..That’s just the way it is.

 

One thing I found to be equally unpleasant and charming about the English is their class system. The English have Chav Supermarkets (Iceland) and Posh Supermarkets (Waitrose). Footballers the lower classes respect and admire (Wayne Rooney) where as those slightly more well to do think he is just a thug. They have Chav TV networks and newspapers (The Sun, Daily Sport, ITV) and the same products tailor made for the opposite end of the spectrum (The Guardian, Independent, Channel 4). Coming from Australia, the fact that this class divide exists is initially rather confronting but when you think about it the thing seems to work and nobody really complains about it.

 

People also cue up in England a lot. They really love it. They have these weird little Soviet department stores called Argos which are like K Mart except that instead of walking into a big shop with a trolley and picking up what you need you have to walk into this room and look for what you need in a catalogue, write down the product code then go to a cashier and pay for the items. You then have to wait until what you have asked for is collected from the storeroom out back. Your number will come up and then you can take your eight AA batteries and spatula home. It reminds me of some kind of post war rationing inspired spin on capitalism. Argos also made me think that for better or for worse Australia was more like America than we would care to admit.

 

I love English people too. I generally find them to have a great sense of humor and a passion for the finer things in life.

 

The English love a drink. In England you can buy booze from the supermarket for not very much money at all. In London especially I found everyone to be pissed come seven o’clock at night. Alcoholism is a real issue in the UK but instead of treating the population like a bunch of four year olds (like in Australia) the powers that be feel education and taxation is the way to combat the problem. I put this down to the history of the place. The English have been through a shitload more than we have as a country and one thing they seem to do is give the citizens a bit more respect. Riots and race related conflicts aside (these things happen in most big cities at some stage and are unfortunate symptoms of high density living in areas where some people don’t have the advantages others have) the English seem to learn from their mistakes pretty well. They give a shit about the society they live in. Sometimes they don’t like it but they move forward, try to make things better and if that fails they will start all over again.

 

ENGLAND 1 – UKRAINE 0 (England to face Italy in the quarter finals)

 

The last time I was in the UK was seven years ago and to be honest I miss it. London is the only other city on earth where as soon as I arrive I know exactly where I’m going. I have family in the UK, friends in the UK and I know that if I went back I would instantly feel at home again. Australia is great for many reasons but in my opinion we lack an attitude here which the English possess. They are hungrier than us. They sing more. They want it. We just think we already have it.

 

I’m glad England are through to the next stage of the Euros and I hope they win the fucking thing. I just want them to be happy again.