Tuesday afternoon at 3.40pm, as Bafana Bafana scored their second goal against a sulking French team, I began frantically messaging the Yahoo! France news editor. He's usually a very chatty fellow but on this occasion he was surprisingly quiet. "OK a total shame I confess" was all he offered in reply. It's never as fun when they agree with you.
Thankfully, as a Welshman, I don't have to worry about my team letting me down during the World Cup. It's the one perk of never qualifying. Yes, I realise therefore that me criticising a football nation such as France is the equivalent to somebody with a Walkman having a pop at the iPhone 4 ('What!? You can't even hold it? I can hold my Walkman no problem...') but that's not the point.
While we may laugh at the French attitude displayed during the World Cup, news on both the front and back pages of the British press this week has made me realise that we're not as dissimilar to the French as we might think. 'Sacrebleu!' I hear you cry.
It became evident to me that the French philosophy of 'If you're not happy, strike!' is increasingly becoming part of our culture. In fact I hear BA will be using that slogan in their next advertising campaign. This philosophy has settled right alongside 'If something bad happens to you, sue!' which we learnt from 'Ally McBeal'.
Why are our traits never adopted abroad? You don't see people from other nations constantly complaining about their food at a restaurant and then when the waiter asks "Is everything alright?" they hop to a chirpy "Yes, it's all lovely, thank you." Those of you who have been to China and tried queueing will know that little custom of ours hasn't travelled too well either.
The good news is, while we are striking an awful lot (BA, Royal Mail, London Underground, teachers, firemen to name but a few), we're still not very good at it, mainly because British people generally don't like inconveniencing each other for very long.
We're certainly not as good at striking as the French. When Nicolas Anelka was sent home from South Africa the entire French squad refused to train but when John Terry attempted a mutiny the England team just ended up watching a video of themselves against Algeria, while Frank Lampard, Terry's Chelsea teammate, laughed at him in front of the world's media the next day. Vive la resistance!
We haven't always been this bad. Striking in this country used to mean something, people used to take notice. Take the miners' strikes in 1984 and '85. They've gone down in history as an iconic battle of the classes. Will we remember the BA cabin crew strikes of 2009 and '10 in 25 years? Do many of you still reminisce about the 2007 Royal Mail walkouts? I'm guessing not.
Sadly, and herein lies my complaint, we only seem to revolt if we have grievances in our work place rather than issues of national importance. Not the French on the other hand. They do both. Often.
On Thursday thousands of people took to the streets in protest against Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. On the same day Cameron announced plans to raise our pension age from 65 to 66 and where were we? Imagine what it would have been like in France if the MPs' expenses scandal had happened in Gay Paree. The Eiffel Tower would probably still be burning.
This country is great at organising thousands of people to flash-mob at a train station but when the government forces us to work another year of our lives we're all on the sofa shaking our fists at 'Question Time'. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of France's book. Just a leaf, mind.