Was it just me, or did anyone else hear a collective groan at about 4.50pm yesterday?
Nothing to do with any sense of relief that England had managed to come through and qualify for the tournament's last 16. (The biggest sigh of relief coming from James Corden).
No. More the fact that Gabby Logan actually thought Fabio Capello would be able to understand the word 'shackles'.
Not sure what the precise translation would be in Italian, but sadly our Fabio didn't have a Scooby Doo what Gabby was on about.
Still, at least she didn't sing to him like in a previous one-on-one joust.
To be fair, Gabby is one of the better media operators out in South Africa and has been doing a grand job keeping us up-to-date on events with 'Team England' as it now seems to be called.
And lest we forget the media can get caught up in all the hype and adrenalin after such an important victory in much the same way as the rest of us.
Heck, I'm sure I even saw Alan Hansen shuffle ever so slightly forward from the completely horizontal after England's nail-biting win.
Speaking of pundits it has to be said without any fear of bias or favouritism that a certain M. McCarthy has put forth some of the more knowledgeable and entertaining opinions of the tournament thus far.
And I've also been kept entertained by a clearly spoof and sometimes crude Twitter account set up in the Wolves boss's name.
Someone appears to be engineering some fun in the name of tweets as there's also a similar - and again clearly unofficial - such entry for both Fabio Capello and Sam Allardyce (apologies but I daren't include the links).
Anyway, back to 'Team England'. And what a rollercoaster ride that has been so far.
At the start of the tournament we were great. Then we were not so great. Then we were absolutely hopeless. And now we're not too bad again. Only in a World Cup eh?
Still, at least we're still there. Unlike our friends from across the Channel.
I have absolutely nothing against France or French people apart from the considerably rotund geezer who once tried to push to the front of the queue to meet Mickey Mouse at EuroDisney.
Mickey soon sorted him out with a rather angry-looking jab of the finger.
But the way that France reached the finals by virtue of the infamous 'Hand of Henry' does make their complete disintegration over in South Africa extraordinarily comical.
All made worse by the dreadful way coach Raymond Domenech handled himself in the aftermath of their departure by refusing to shake the hand of South African coach Carlos Alberto Parreira.
Have you ever seen Domenech and Paul O'Grady in the same room by the way? No, thought not.
Anyway, apparently French President Nicolas Sarkozy is now going to lead an inquiry into the French performance. What on earth has it got to do with him?!
I could just see David Cameron getting his chalkboard out to tell the English team where they have been going wrong.
Maybe Fabio could do the budget in return - free the 'shackles' of the recession and all that.
Take that back though.
I don't think Fabio has got that much time on his hands due to the amount of apologies he's having to receive or orchestrate from his squad.
Rooney apologises to the fans, Terry apologises to Capello. I half expected Ronnie Corbett to pop on screen in the Eighties' comedy of the same name. 'Language Timothy' and all that.
Apparently 'Girl in the Office' has found some footage of Capello keeping a straight face while being entertained by a close and personal dance during a chat show.
No shackles involved though.
Finally, back to yesterday's game and taking place as it did in the afternoon, some folks who couldn't get time off work were hoping to avoid all knowledge of the result and watch it 'as live' when they returned home at the end of the day.
Shades of that famous 'Likely Lads' episode of TV classic past.
Well anyone that did that should think themselves lucky.
I took the same approach with the Mahut/Isner tennis match at Wimbledon…
Paul Berry
PS: By the way, 'anelli di trazione' is the word you were looking for Gabby.......
PPS: 'The Girl in the Office' says ...
In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy, "I'm gonna put it out there; if you like it, you can take it, if you don't, send it right back" … If a country has a population the size of Birmingham and is ranked 17 places below us in the world should we REALLY be crowing about beating them a paltry 1-0?
Yes we were all over them, but they had one or two chances too many for my liking AND we need to be asking why we can't cash in on all these so-close-but-yet-so-far chances that we keep having.
Anyway, I digress, surely it's time to talk about what's REALLY important - Capello's face. It NEVER cracks. Ever. When Defoe scored his arms and body were convulsing with glee, but his face … nothing. It's remarkable.
And while Paul is on the subject of lookalikes, I reckon Capello also looks remarkably like Mr. Fredricksen from 'Up'. Agree? I thought so.
In other news Wimbledon is on - And it's provided me with more entertainment in three days than the World Cup has in three weeks.
