BEATLEMANIA 4, WORLD CUP FEVER 1

I don't pretend to know much about football, but even I could tell well ahead of the World Cup that the England team's campaign would end badly. The signs were there for all to see, to wit:

When the Group Draw was shown last December in Trafalgar Square right outside the Embassy (above), you could hear the crowd mockingly laugh as each of England's opponents were announced -- confidence which seemed misplaced given their spokesperson Beck's hair at the time looked part-Flock of Seagulls, part-Wembley Stadium arch.

Speaking of Wembley, the LLDD-Hyphen-L and I got to see the England v Mexico friendly, the England team's last tune-up game before they left for the World Cup. Again, you didn't have to be an expert* to see that Mexico, despite losing 3-1, played much better than England for most of the game. Heck, even the "Clap-clap, Clap-clap-clap, Clap-clap-clap-clap, England!" chants" (better known in the Philippines to my age-group as the "M-I, M-I-L, M-I-L-O, Milo! chant") got swept aside by El Mexican wave.

*I did learn by listening to everyone in the stands that you can sound like a football expert just by mixing and matching the following conversation clichés; interestingly, these also serve as British stand-up comics' go-to double-entendres.

1) "We can't get any width"

2) "Where's the service upfront?"

3) "There's no invention, no adventure"

4) "They're packing everything in the box"

5) "Why's he playing so deep?"

6) "He's a bit lively, isn't he?"

7) "All we're doing is kick and rush, kick and rush"

8) "He couldn't get his foot around the ball"

9) "Oh, that's just quality"

10) "We need a holding midfielder"

11) "Too much pace"

12) "Goooooooaaaaaallllll"

Surprisingly - or maybe not surprisingly - many English fans started leaving the stadium (above, top) well ahead of the final whistle, and skipped the team send off (above, bottom) altogether.

Unlike the LLDD-Hyphen-L, who loyally stayed behind for the "Players-Take-Off-and-Exchange-Shirts" tradition.

As the tournament drew nearer, public support visibly grew stronger -- shirts, car flags, streamers and other national team matériel began appearing in full force in every home and on every street corner. The kick-assity of it all, however, was fatally undermined when someone made the unfortunate decision to also release official England team false eyelashes.

When the World Cup did roll around, the mayor of London actually banned giant-TV screens from being set up anywhere in the city. So for the England-USA match, the best I could do to get a full football festival feel was to crash some boy scouts' viewing party (above). You think I'm kidding.

By the time England drew with Algeria 0-0, the puns were as weak as the team.

But the final straw, the definitive sign that not many believed the England team would go very far, was the staging of the massive Hard Rock Festival on the same day and at the same time as England's knock-out match against Germany. The concert organizers apparently didn't think the English team would still be around and playing that day. So tens of thousands of Londoners had a choice between watching the England team and watching Hard Rock -- and went with Hard Rock. Still, it was not necessarily an easy decision for everyone. Take me, for instance; I much preferred the company of down-to-earth sports fans over pretentious festivalistas.

Because at festivals, you all too often encounter the Triple-Douche: people who take up too much space, hold up their cigarettes to other people's faces AND constantly update their Facebook pages.

On the other hand, given the match results that afternoon, well -- great call Hard Rock!! The festival's nostalgia trip line-up - featuring such timeless wonders as Elvis Costello ("I Write the Book"), Crowded House ("Don't Dream It's Over") and Crosby, Stills and Nash ("I Don't Know Any of Their Songs, I'm Not That Old") - was exactly what the crowd needed to lift its spirit, as it harked back to happier times, to when the England team was, you know, good.

Indeed, the England team was never better than in the 1960s.

And in the 1960's, there was no one bigger than Hard Rock's headliner...

...PAUL FREAKING MCCARTNEY!!!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I never, EVER thought I'd get to see a Beatle perform live! And he was goddammed awesome!!! I mean, the man was pushing 70, yet still effortlessly delivered a mind-blowing, high-energy two-and-a-half hour quality performance!! (You hear that Rooney? Not 90-minutes. Two-and-a-Half fraking hours.) Seriously, it was just hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, with some All-Time greats thrown in:

...The All-Time Sing-along Song...

...The All-Time End-to-a-Concert Song...

...and The All-time Holy $*%!-That's-Freaking-Awesome Fireworks Song.

Wow, just wow. He still has it, and then some. An absolute classic. There was just no way to describe the joy the LLDD-Hyphen-L and I felt, no way to gauge the profound impact on the concert crowd, and simply no way to measure Sir Paul's enduring appeal to the world.

Inversely proportional to the enduring appeal of this England team's merchandise would seem a good starting point.

INDIE CULTURE

Ah, June. When in the spring a young Philippine FSO's fancy desk job lightly turns to thoughts of a British dry cleaner ruining the barongs he brought for all the Independence Month cultural activites.

And there were a lot of them.

Salo-Salo Together

June kicks off with a simple but meaningful Thanksgiving Mass and Salo-Salo with the London FilCom. It's a chance to reflect and to stop and smell the roses after such an eventful year in our history.

The LLDD-Hyphen-L is caught being unironic again

Let's Have Some More Vin!

I've made enough posts about Vin d'Honneurs and Receptions in the past that you should have a good feel for them by now. What I think I've under-reported is the impact of the Filipiniana everyone wears to the occasions - they quite simply steal the show. They are just so elegant and beautiful that it's impossible to take a bad picture in them.

And believe me, we tried.

By the way, when I said it's impossible to take a bad picture in Filipiniana, I didn't mean...oh never mind

Stage Presence

A newly formed theatre group made up of UK-based Pinoys staged an award-winning play about living abroad. Highlights included one character bursting out of a Balikbayan Box holding a can of Spam, another one walking around in a leather catsuit, and a couple of others playing married diplomats who affectionately call each other Milky Way and Big Dipper. My question: how did the writer know what the LLDD-Hyphen-L and I do on weekends?

Launch One! Launch Two!

In quick succession, there were two London book launchings by Filipino authors. The first launch (above) had a weighty, intellectual feel to it. The book itself was positively reviewed by the British media, but its socio-economic-political commentary was something I already dealt with at work everyday. No, my personal Fil-Brit lit-fix was met by a different set of criteria:

One - Was the book launched in the Children's section of a bookstore with a fun, catchy sing-along?

Check.

Two - Did the book's front cover feature an 8-ft. tall Filipino basketball-loving boy, and the word "Philippines" on the back cover?

Check.

Three - Did the book have a catchphrase that I wish I used as my high school yearbook quote?

"So many armpits, so little deodorant". Major check.

Art-eh Mo

In what now has become an annual event, several young artists were brought over from the Philippines to tour Europe, showcase their talent, and maybe even sell a few of their works. Now, as I've mentioned several times before, I'm not really an artsy person, but I do know what I like.

Mainly, what the artist and the LLDD-Hyphen-L tell me I should like. They had to take turns explaining to me why the painting we bought above is called "Plaza Mayor."

Jusi is The New Black

The LLDD-Hyphen-L attended a fashion show featuring a young Filipina designer who incorporates a lot of native materials into her pieces.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!", every husband out there who just read the foregoing cries out. "You don't take your wife to any event where there are fashion models, you just don't!! Are you insane?! Nothing good can possibly come of this!!!"

Pish-posh, my good men. You underestimate the innate hotness of the LLDD-Hyphen-L. She more than held her own in the presence of the walking mannequins. If anything, I couldn't keep my eyes off her.

Not the least because her dress was slinky and had our baselines law embroidered on it.

Because - ooooh, baby - nothing is sexier to a Philippine diplomat than a cocktail dress that extols the archipelagic doctrine.

Filipiniana gowns whose skirts suddenly unfurl into "Mabuhay" banners come in a close second

Ang Magandang Laro

My idols at Philippine Generations (the Fil-Brit youth organization that I like because, you know, I'm so youth) outdid themselves again by holding a great Philippine Independence Day World Cup. The tournament featured 16 teams named after Philippine geographic locations (Manila Ice! Inter-Laguna!), and had all the trappings of a quality competition, such as high-intensity football (above)...

...heated arguments with the ref...

...players from England missing penalties...

...a former Miss Saigon singing Bayan Ko during the awarding ceremonies (ok, maybe not all football tournaments have this)...

...a total dork of a bureaucrat who can never get right when he should be hanging the medal and when he should be shaking the player's hand...

...and, of course, a WAG who immediately seeks out the best player.

And Finally...We Put the "Bad" in Badminton

Members of the Embassy had the audacity to join happily took part in an ASEAN badminton tournament. We fought gamely (and looked damn cool in our archipelagic doctrine shirts) and actually won all of our first round matches against Singapore, before most of us had our asses whipped by the teams from Thailand and Malaysia.

The look of poor technique

"Most of you?" the LLDD-Hyphen-L asks. "So there was actually one Philippine entry that did well? One ladies-doubles team that went undefeated throughout the tournament?"

Lemme check.

(Oh, no)

(Oh, no no no)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's gonna be like this all the way 'til next June