3-0!!

The famous Man-Eating Sofa is in unstoppable form just at the moment. It wiped me out in my dismal attempt to watch the Portugal v Czech Republic game last night as well.

Actually, last night's football-viewing was even more than usually ill-starred for me. I began watching the game in a bar at midnight. Both sides began fairly cagily, and it didn't look like there was going to be any early flurry of excitement, so I slipped off to get a cab home. In the 10 or 15 minutes it took to get back to my apartment, the game had, of course, exploded, and two goals had been scored. It would appear that I probably missed Portugal's opener just moments after I quit the bar (and the Czechs' equaliser just a few minutes before I fired up my TV set at home).

I thought I was then sufficiently excited - and pissed off - to stay awake for the further action, but....... NO, the Man-Eating Sofa had its way with me within minutes.

I woke up just in time for the final whistle. For once, Chinese television showed extended highlights of the entire game almost immediately after it had finished. At least, I thought, I can see the goals now. Well, no: the highlights were so extended that it seemed to take forever to cover the first 7 or 8 minutes I'd seen in the bar...... and I got drowsy again. I did at least catch Ronaldo's opener this time; but then dozed off for a moment, coming around in the middle of an ad break. I couldn't believe I'd been out for very long, assumed that CCTV was showing ads at 'half-time' in the highlights roundup. I dozed off again. I woke up to find the highlights back on. The Czechs had the ball. I pinched myself to keep conscious and attentive for the conclusion of the game. It took me several, sleep-impaired moments to realise that this was now highlights of the weekend's Swiss v Czechs encounter. Bugger!

I seem doomed not to be able to watch any of this tournament - at least, not LIVE. (I did at least manage to catch the 2nd half of Sweden v Turkey on an afternoon re-run yesterday, after I got back from a jog round the lakes.)

A final twist of the knife: The Portugal v Czech Republic game was shown again in its entirety on CCTV5 at lunchtime today. Blundering upon it by chance, I found that I had - once again - missed the first two goals. Even more gallingly, I judged that I had only just missed them, and was still fairly early on in the otherwise uneventful first half. (Amongst the most annoying features of CCTV5's coverage - yes, worse even than the braying laughter of the commentators, the largely impenetrable Sinicization of all the players' names, and the almost total absence of timely replays of key moments of action during the game - is that they do not display a game clock. Bastards!) This was especially annoying because I had to go out to work before 2pm, and thus seemed certain to miss the 2nd half of the game yet again. Even more gallingly, I discovered that I had been mistaken: we were in fact in the midst of the 2nd half..... and I missed Portugal's 2nd goal while I was taking a shower..... and had to head out of the door just before their 3rd.

Really - Someone Up There is taking the piss........