England's un-shock departure from the World Cup was quite a relief as it meant we could stop the hand wringing, take the flags off the white vans and simply enjoy the rest of the tournament.
Who to support once England got their latest implosion over and done with was based on a different set of criteria than where you were born. People wanted Ghana to win as the last African nation; people liked Brazil for their skill and others rooted for the team they got in the work sweepstake (my boys North Korea were a real let-down.) When our two old enemies Germany and Argentina played last weekend Maradona swung the balance towards the South Americans, as he has proved such excellent value on the touchline and in press conferences (telling Pele to "Go back to the museum" and the rest.) His popularity here, given his role in one of the genuine injustices perpetrated against our national team, seems to further demonstrate that this nation is not the dumbed-down, jingoistic place that would ever appreciate tabloid front covers of Wayne Rooney in a World War Two helmet. In fact Rooney and the other pampered millionaire England 'players' have been the only targets of English rage and hatred.
"Obsession with football" was one of the characteristics attributed to British people in a recent survey of asylum seekers carried out by Ipso Mori, along with being "friendly" and "polite" with a vast majority of respondents saying they believed the average British person welcomes refugees. The BNP's hopeless showing in the election is partly due to their policies contradicting fundamental British principles of fairness.
The Obama administration had clearly decided to play the nationalist card to deflect the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Obama's repeated reference to British Petroleum despite the company greenwashing its name to Beyond Petroleum (at the same time it launched the equally deceptive sunflower logo - to see some more apt versions of the logo have a look here) indicated from the outset which way they'd decided to spin the environmental catastrophe. This caused a knee-jerk response this side of The Pond in a sort of hands-off-our-oil-rigs-you-bloody-Yanks type way.
This sort of nationalism is particularly unhelpful in dealing with environmental issues, because they're truly global and require a joined-up solution from governments acting internationally, and trying to imagine that, although the Gulf of Mexico is in US waters, it is part of the Earth which (sorry for going all '60s' here) we are all citizens of. In the same way the Amazon rainforest is mostly in Brazil but the world has a responsibility to help protect it as its demise will affect us all.
Don't Panic were part of the Stop Esso campaign back in 2001 which targeted the American company responsible for the Exxon Valdez mega spill and all sorts of other behaviour, such as lobbying against the Kyoto protocol and backing Bush. Now we're opposed to BP (see film below) regardless of their country of origin and would urge anyone considering their own stance to approach the issue in the same manner us Brits are known for.
Supporting BP just because they're British is like saying Frank Lampard played quite well and that Aaron Lennon and Mathew Upson are world-class players. We need to adopt an international approach to environmental issues and remember we're on the side of the pelicans, not the company that's killing them.