This town has dragged you down

Not impressed by the football so far. England "won", in the loosest sense of the word, that is to say, we didn't draw with those paragons of football excellence that are Paraguay because some unfortunate bloke on their team scored our one goal of the match for us. Hurrah for England.

As a result of my over-optimism, and Trinidad and Tobago's amazing 0-0 draw, I am currently fourth from bottom on our office predictor game on a measly 27 points, four points below my boss, who's doing rather well. The Italy-Ghana match was, in fact, the only one to which I have given my full attention, or at any rate, I have given my full attention to Italy's players, who are rather lovely. I can tell you everything about that match - who got a yellow card, who scored the goals, who was substituted for whom. Luca Toni and Andrea Pirlo, in particular, have my vote.

Of course, it's not only the gloriuosness of Italian men (although that's a big factor, I admit) that has set me searching for a way to move to Rome. There's the fact that London drags me down that bit more every day. Rome was absolutely the opposite, and while I realise I am at risk from sounding a little like My Catholic the idea of a three-month or so sabbatical teaching English or running museum tours for Americans (Why did they build the Colosseum right next to a main road?") is an attractive one. So, I've signed myself up for an Italian course where I work, and we'll just have to see what happens.

My life is so mundane at the moment that I don't have any news. I was furious, though, with America's empathetic response to the suicides of three of its prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, namely "it was just a PR stunt."

It might well have been. They're still dead.