The British summer has arrived, which means that it is the time for us Brits to moan about how hot it is. There are two temperatures in Britain: too hot and too cold. There is one day a year, usually in May, when it is, as Goldilocks said, just right. With the end of the football (what, they are still playing out there?) there has been a general de-St George-flagging of England. Football shirts have been put away in the drawer until the start of the Euro2010 campaign or simply burnt en masse in the village squares and high streets of the country.

I have been out and about in the capital doing pieces of promotion for the book and had some time to waste in central London yesterday, so I wandered down to Trafalgar Square to see how the tourists and the pigeons were getting on. I was not disappointed. They were there in their droves, some wearing Union Flag hats or clad in London Underground T-shirts and clutching bags full of replica London buses and snowdomes containing Big Ben in a blizzard. The recession may still be ongoing, but tourists young and old are still coming to Britain. Though they seem to be buying a few cans rather than risk our delicious ale and trying out British pubs, at least they are if the groups I saw are anything to go by. They were mostly downing cans of lager as they enjoyed dangling their feet in the pools by the fountains.

The title of this post is stolen from the wonderfully funny band Half Man Half Biscuit. It seemed apt as it describes a snippet of very British conversation about the weather. And the song is, at least partially, about London.

On Sunday morning the nation woke with a feeling that we could do it. We could beat Germany, put in a performance and finally look like a proper football team. As it was we got to watch a bizarro re-enactment of the 1966 World Cup Final. There was the goal that never was (which was way over the line, unlike the 1966 one), the poor performance from a West Ham centre back (unlike that of Bobby Moore in 1966) and the resolute sticking with the number one striker (unlike 1966, when Hurst replaced Greaves).

But no one performed for England during the entire tournament. Milner’s cross and Defoe’s positioning for the goal against Slovenia was the highlight. Bread and butter stuff that should have happened several times a game. Neither showed any promise again. Capello took off strikers, missed the chance to add height and speed early on and showed a lack of tactical imagination and defensive discipline. He has to go. Roy ‘Woy’ Hodgson looks the best bet. We should grab him now before someone else does. We may need a new defensive coach as well.

In other news, I have been spending my week sweating in the streets of Soho on the way to thankfully air-conditioned radio studios to promote the paperback of We’re British, Innit. You should be able to catch me in some regions around the UK tomorrow. No doubt the debate about a new England manager will still be going on then.

Well, the first piece of business is to tell you that my book We’re British, Innit is out in paperback today, so you should go out and buy it or simply get it from a well-known online discounter.

England managed to scrape through in the World Cup and we now face the Germans, which means a slew of Stan Boardman-esque gags from the tabloids and some serious analysis of our warring psyche from the liberal broadsheets.

We will always have a natural emnity towards the Germans, though maybe it is finally time to knock the war stuff on the head. Anyway, here is my entry from the book, which gives my take on at least part of our relationship.

Schadenfreude
It is said that we use this German word because there is no direct, pithy equivalent in the English language that means ‘taking joy in the misfortune of others’. Obviously we could have thought of such a word by now, but this usage remains to remind us that it is the misfortune of Germans that we enjoy the most. From economic downturn to car manufacturing errors and footballing setbacks, nothing brightens a Brit’s day like turning on the morning news to be greeted with a story about Germans in distress.

*It was actually Steffen Freund who used to play for Spurs, becoming something of a cult figure for his inability to shoot on target.

Was sad to hear of the death of Chris Sievey aka Frank Sidebottom at the untimely age of 54. I never met him but I saw him perform a couple of times, as well as buying some of his records way back when you could buy records. RIP Chris and Frank. Our thoughts are with Little Frank and Frank’s mum at this sad time. He has been on Match of the Day in his big shorts, but now he has gone, he really has.

With We’re British, Innit coming out in paperback in just one week I thought I would talk about some of the updates in this new edition. There have been a few updates throughout the text, but the biggest change in the new edition is the addition of some new entries, which were suggested by readers of the hardback.

The new entries include Bank Holidays and ice cream vans, with the latter entry discussing Tufty, cider ice lollies and the use of Greensleeves. You may just be in time to order it from Amazon in time for Fathers’ Day (as they are dispatching already) or you can simply buy it in the shops from Thursday for £7.99 rrp. Also featured are the Dagenham Girl Pipers, though you will have to buy a copy to see how and why.

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events I have been engaged by the wonderfully British Lady magazine to write a weekly column on all things British, which sits amidst the weekly diary entry. You can read the most recent entry here.

Another not bad England song that I hadn’t seen before. They seem to have teamed Terry and Brown in the middle, but other than that it is pretty good. It is based on an old Studio One track by Anthony Ellis.

The usual plethora of England World Cup songs is making its way across the net, though the lack of a chart show like Top of the Pops means that no one song is really dominating. This particular track Grab a Stella Nelson Mandela is my favourite, though you can decide your own in a vote at the always amusing Who Ate All The Pies site. World Cup songs didn’t really start becoming popular until England’s Back Home in 1970 (they were back home sooner than expected, though Bobby Moore never touched that necklace).

Anyway, son of Lonnie Donegan, er, Lonnie Donegan Jr has released a version of his father’s 1966 World Cup Willie, which brings back the days when the Union Flag rather than the St George’s flag was the one the fans flew. Sadly, the rest of Britain is not represented at the World Cup, so there will be no repeat of Ally’s Tartan Army from 1978 or We Have a Dream. Sadly I could find no trace of Dana’s World Cup song with the Northern Ireland squad from 1982.

Nice to see five Spurs players in the England squad, especially the ever-smiling Michael Dawson. Enjoy the World Cup. This time, we’ll get it right!