Henry, quelle con

One cannot help but have a certain regard for the French - jammy, cheating bastards they may be. Which other country, having sneaked into the World Cup through a blatant bit of robbery would turn to their philosophers to make sense of it all?

They hauled a star philosopher onto the radio this morning to expound on the implications for the national soul. "There was cheating," said Alain Finkielkraut, a specialist in moral matters. "We are faced with a real matter of conscience," he said on Europe1. "From the moral point of view I would almost have preferred a defeat to a victory in these conditions. We certainly have nothing to be proud of." The key word there is "almost".

Quite. At least the Irish know how to respond when on the receiving end of a blatant injustice. If the roles were reversed I'm not certain they would know how to cope. Just as if, to give a prediction now, England go out on penalties in the quarter finals and the Germans go on to the final, we'll all know how to behave. For it to happen the other way round would be strange indeed.

Curious fact about this World Cup - of all the nations that lie on the Eurasian land mass between Korea (both bits) and Greece, not a single one has qualified.