FIFA World Cup 2010

In case you hadn't noticed, the football World Cup starts tomorrow. Over the next few weeks there will be zillions of words typed regarding it, and sadly millions of trees will be cut down in order to provide the space for all those words. The internet will also be going mad, with lengthy articles being churned out by journalists, bloggers, website owners, reporters....

To quote Eddie Izzard in that Labour PPB though - I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to give you my predictions, and we can all sit back and see what happens. If you wish to predict along with me, drop me a comment!

Winner - Spain

Runner Up - Brazil

Third - England

Fourth - Germany

Top Goalscorer - David Villa

Highest Scoring Country - Spain

Lowest Scoring Countries - New Zealand and North Korea

Group A Qualifiers - France, Uruguay

Group B Qualifiers - Argentina, South Korea

Group C Qualifiers - England, USA

Group D Qualifiers - Germany, Australia

Group E Qualifiers - Netherlands, Denmark

Group F Qualifiers - Italy, Paraguay

Group G Qualifiers - Brazil, Portugal

Group H Qualifiers - Spain, Chile

Ewar's Value Bet (from William Hill) - France, Argentina, USA, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Brazil, Chile ALL to qualify. £10 returns £68.

Good luck to all countries not named North Korea!

The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Long-term readers will know how much I enjoy the letters written in to The Sloppy Star by Oswestry's finest, Mr Alwyn Cox. Before we marvel at his latest effort, let's take a moment to enjoy his previous musings:

Alwyn first came to my attention with his frankly bizarre attack on local shops and his brazen defence of that towering monolithic bastard, Tesco.

Next up was his breathtaking arrogance regarding someone having the fucking cheek to phone him up.

After a brief pause, he was back with a vengeance thanks to his scathing attack on a woman on an antiques programme.

And finally there was his contribution to that mad day when The Star's letters page went berserk with nonsense.

But this.....this, my friends, outstrips all of those. After initially being slightly annoyed by Alwyn, I now love him, as I recognise him for what he is - a first class wind-up merchant. Here's his latest effort - and I for one love it:

I have just been watching a bit of Genius of Britain on Channel Four.

I was going to watch that series actually, but I chose not to in the end. Instead I discussed with Dan on MSN who the fittest S Club 7 member was. I think we all know it was Bradley.

And then that "I am a genius in a wheelchair" Steven (sic) Hawking came on and it was time to turn off.

This is bad of me, as a university student, but I'm just going to consult the online encyclopaedia wikipedia for a brief Stephen Hawking biography. Here are the main aspects to his life:

• Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
• Lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
• Awarded CBE
• Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University
• Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
• Best-selling author (book was on the Best Sellers List for 237 weeks)
• Eddington Medal winner
• Hughes Medal winner
• Albert Einstein Medal winner
• Franklin Medal winner
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society winner
• Awarded Wolf Prize in Physics
• Awarded Companion of Honour
• Awarded Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize
• Earned a Ph.D.
• Professional Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
• Awarded Copley Medal of the Royal Society
• Prince of Asturias Award winner

Throughout his career he has studied, amongst other things:

• Quantum cosmology
• Cosmic inflation
• The density matrix of the universe
• Topology and structure of the universe
• Quantum entanglement
• String theory
• Supergravity
• Euclidean quantum gravity
• Gravitational radiation
• Wormholes
• Theoretical cosmology

With all this very firmly in mind, let's carry on with Alwyn's letter...

He was the "genius" of science who said one day time travel may be possible. That sentence alone was enough to show what an idiot the man is.

This is bad of me, as a university student, but I'm just going to consult the encyclopaedia of Alwyn Cox, Alwynpedia, for a brief Stephen Hawking biography. Here's what it says:

• Idiot in a wheelchair

If time travel is or was ever to be possible where are the time travellers. It makes no difference in time when time travel is invented, if it was ever to be possible the time travellers would have been around since the beginning of time, we would not be studying fossils of dinosaurs, we would be looking at films of them, or walking around in the past with them.

Look, I've got no bloody clue about any of this stuff, but I can't help thinking that Hawking would have perhaps pondered this dilemma at some point before. Perhaps you should ask him this stuff, not me. Would take a few minutes for him to reply, mind.

So Alwyn has just thrown Hawking under the bus (not literally, that would be hideous to watch). Who else can he shit on in this letter? Are you excited? I am!

So in my opinion he is just as daft as Einstein, because he talked a lot of rubbish also.

BOOM! HEADSHOT!

First Hawking, now Einstein. Alwyn is ballin' right now!

His biggest load of rubbish was his theory of relativity.

Rubbish. Crap. Bollocks. Fucking shit Albert!

And what was that about bees?

Apocryphal, that's what it was: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp

They are dying out all over the world, but is not the human race?

Sentence. No. Sense. Makes.

Do not forget the world is an orb, not flat like a dinner plate.

No idea, but then neither do you, so hey-ho.

End of letter! End of letter! End of the letter!

Outstanding. In recognition of Alwyn's wind-up nature, I've decided to add him to my list of deserving people who will receive an award on my birthday. The list now stands at:

1. Jeremy Clarkson (services to common sense)
2. Kriss Akabusi (services to the word "Awooga")
3. Jeremy Spake (services to air travel)
4. Maureen Rees (services to the car industry)
5. Alwyn Cox from Oswestry (services to WUMmery)

Keep on writing in Alwyn. We all need a laugh under this government.