2002-11-28 - 4:39 p.m.

Just to clarify, the people at the party mentioned yesterday were English people paid to represent Canada, not actual Canadians, whom I hold in constant moist affection, being compatriots to 25 per cent of me.

Oh, Canada.

Ooooooooooooooooohhhh, Canada.

Phwooooooooooooooooooooooaaaarrrr Canada.

My boyhood ambition was to play football for Canada, being eligible via my grandfather. They were likeable and had a kind of trademark mediocrity that appealed to me. I saw them as the kind of international also-rans that you could relate to, and I had an excitable correspondence as a twelve year old with one of the directors of the Canadian Soccer Association, who took a shine to me as I assume he didn�t get much post from schoolboys in small towns in northern England who dreamed of donning the red and white of possibly the least glamorous football team east of Grimsby.

Of course, it came to nothing and my CV remains unfettered by any major international sporting achievements. I hit late adolescence, started drinking (about 3 pints every other Friday if I could blag fake ID) and discovered girls, though it was, of course, only some years later that they noticed I�d discovered them.

But anyhozza, I just wanted to be clear that my one quarter Canadianity remains unscathed, apart from the recent removal of one of my four saliva glands which, let�s face it, could have been the Canadian one. Rest assured that my Canadian flag flies high on the flagpole in my room. Well, nicely covers the table where my CDs are arranged, in any case.