Shortly after he got the England job, somebody on Twitter (and, as far as I can tell, nobody remembers who) said that Gareth Southgate resembled “an anteater gradually realising it isn’t supposed to be able to talk”. It’s a description …
Can Wales harness football nationalism?
I watched Wales play the USA in a packed pub in Cardiff last Monday. When the anthem began, everyone stood up and belted it out as loud as they could. No one was self-conscious; no one was embarrassed. Unlike in …
How Britain became an American colony
It is difficult to imagine Ralph Waldo Emerson enjoying the World Cup. As the champion of the Transcendentalist movement, the sage of Concord was the embodiment of 19th-century high-mindedness, far more comfortable discussing the beauties of nature and the oneness …
The architecture of autocracy
For a building project marketed like a Hollywood blockbuster, the latest footage from the deserts of northwestern Saudi Arabia is a little underwhelming. A column of trucks is moving sand, a row of diggers poking at the barren landscape like …
Should England fans support Iran?
Neymar smirks down at me from a billboard. Nearby, Ronaldo and Mbappé gaze off in the direction of the sea. A few streets down, Lionel Messi holds a ball in the crook of his arm, looking sweet. Here in Dubai, …
Why we need World Cup nationalism
The tyranny of globalisation finally seems to be waning, but the liberal Left aren’t too happy about it. Writing in The Guardian this week, Gordon Brown complained that “nationalism has replaced neoliberalism as the dominant ideology of the age”. For …
The World Cup has never been beautiful
James Maddison in. Ben White and Marcus Rashford restored. Kalvin Phillips and Kyle Walker risked despite injury. As the England squad was announced yesterday, the familiar excitement began to kindle. Even if the reported viewing figure for the 2018 final …
Our Queen’s sacrifice
It seems that it should be a near spiritual ritual of Britishness to live through the end of the reign of one sovereign and the beginning of another. The emotions around the death of a monarch are, for those who …
