BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

Have you ever been to an evangelical Christian shindig? It's quite an experience. There's old blokes in jumpers, gurgling phrases like "SLAMIDAMISMANGMANGMANGMANG" into microphones. There's half-blind, warty, bumfluff-sporting youths, strumming improv pieces on acoustic geetar and looking slightly dazed by it all ; there's grannies and housewives, fainting and hitting the deck, overcome by the intoxicating nature of the ritual babbling in tongues ; oh, and foxy girls in extremely tight mini-skirts and too much make-up.

"Why so the latter?" you may demand. Well, it's a good question, and one of the many questions I've spent years pondering, alongside such enigmas as, "Why do I keep thinking Hitler's dog was called 'Goldi' instead of 'Blondi'?" AND "Why haven't government inspectors raided the kitchen in Jamie Oliver's restaurant and presented the public with a full breakdown of the REAL nutritional 'value' of the fare he's dishing up to his punters?" (BTW - parents - feeding your kids pre-packaged junk is NOT going to make them under-achievers ; why, as a child, I devoured tin after tin of alphabet spaghetti, and by rolling the toxic salt and tomato puree'-soaked letters between my lips, greedily sucking these arcane pasta texts like a vampire felching a bullet wound on Candi Staton's inner thigh, I attained knowledge and came to truly appreciate the mysteries of the English language, learning the meanings of great words like 'ISTHMUS' and 'BESMIRCH' by the age of eight. As for Oliver - "THAINBURYTH NEW POTHATHOTH!!!"?? - I rest my case)

But yes, why do evangelical gatherings draw these girls? There's 3 possible answers. Firstly, is that they dress in this way so as to attract random blokes off the street. This practice was most commonly utilised by the Children of God (AKA The Family) in 1970s America, and was referred to as "flirty fishing". Basically, it was a simple trade-off ; pull a bloke off the street, promising him umpteen bouts of debauchery, bring him back to meet the group, and then convert him and get him to join the sect. Jesus doesn't mind a bit of smut if it catches Him a live one.

Alternatively, they may simply have been testing the resolve of the male members of the group. Even St Marcello, the holy man of Bergamo Alta, was tempted away from an 122-day fast by the Devil, who offered him a teenage Egyptian concubine who could piss pure wine, if only he'd relent and take a nibble on some foccacia bread. For this lapse in discipline, the monk was chased out of Italy and relocated to Scotland, where he made a killing by exploiting his bride's streams of pee, which he sold by the bottle under the brand name 'Buckfast' (he literally bucked his fast right off). He was later canonised as the Patron Saint of Pelvic Well-being .

But no, Explanation 3's the most plausible - these girls were there to meet some well hung Christian boys. And seeing as I was there purely to meet some Christian girls, having grown bored of punkettes in Conflict T-shirts, we all went home empty-handed, save for the haunting memory of 40 people clapping their hands and singing a raucous ditty called "LORD, YOU PUT A TONGUE IN MY MOUTH". Give me the crypto-fascist Catholics any day - I know they're responsible for blighting millions of lives, but at least they use incense...

Ah, but a better question - and indeed, the point of this whole fucking post. You are me. Your parents are Irish. You were born and reared in England. England are in the World Cup. Who do you support?

Well, I'm proud to announce that BTi is now officially the Blog sponsor of PARAGUAY, the greatest national team ever. I've always loved Paraguay ; they represent the unacceptable face of South American football, the true punk rock rebels battling on, regardless of the fact that the rest of the world would rather smugly champion Brazil as its 'second team', while lambasting Paraguay for the minor affront of kicking seven shades out of anyone who tries to take the ball off them.

Ah yes, Brazil and the 'beautiful game' ; as beautiful as lying back and toking up to an 18-minute Santana guitar solo. Face it, all you self-satisfied prudes who'll be posing in your ugly yellow shirts on the Portobello Road this summer, should England exit the tournament early on (though let's all sincerely pray that Brazil are dumped out of the first round) - you just want the 'certainty' of backing a supposedly 'legendary' team. A team that nobody dares to slag off, because they're so nice and 'cool'! And most of you hypocrites then have the audacity to slag off Man U's fanbase for being glory-hunters and not actually coming from Manchester!

Right, sod all you 'samba fascists' ((C) Mark K-Punk, 2005) - I'm putting my money where my mouth is, and have just entered the final ballot for (relatively cheap) World Cup tickets, including the Paraguay vs Trinidad game. I'm already getting my 'PARAGUAY YIDS' banner ready in preparation. I've also put in for Argentina vs Serbia, as the thought of another mighty but despised South American team taking on a load of fascist skinheads is way too tempting to miss! ((Sorry, England - I like Argentina too, but that's mostly because Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles used to play for Tottenham. And cos it reminds me of the time my sisters used to wind up the neighbours by singing "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! / ARGENTINA WIN THE WAR!", after next door hung up a Union Flag in the window))

Oh, and I've also gone for Angola vs Iran - let's hope nuclear war doesn't break out first. Never mind the statistics, tactics, and reasonable post-match analyses - get out to Germany and back yourself a proper team. Why, Paraguay are so utterly underground, you can't even get their team shirts in the UK. Prior to the 1998 and 2002 World Cups I actually resorted to ringing up the Paraguayan Embassy in London, to find out how I could get one, and ended up severely bugging some poor guy called Alberto, who sadly couldn't understand what I was on about. I'll let you know in a month or so if Alberto still works there, but in the meantime, if any representatives of Asociacion Paraguaya de Futbol fancy sending me a free shirt, please get in touch.