A quiet evening. The football result was fairly predictable, so I only allowed myself 5 or so minutes of wistful sighing. Unlike these 5 people who aren't so sanguine. (Don't click on those if you have work firewall issues, like I do. You'll regret it, like I did. And thanks to for the research.) I particularly enjoyed the moment in the commentary after Campbell's goal had been disallowed by the Swiss referee, which went something like:

John Motson: The grocer from Zurich didn't balance the scales for England, there.
Joe Royle: Fantastic, John.

In my attempt to start some kind of health kick, I had steamed trout and steamed pak choi for tea, and resisted the overwhelming temptation to put a fried egg on the top and bung the whole lot in a sandwich. Exercise took the form of pacing about during the penalty shoot out, and vigorously, rhythmically washing up to the strains of “Police Officer” by Smiley Culture which I had set on “repeat”. I'm sure the pounds will be simply falling away…

Once again BBC4 had me awake until 1am, this time with a fantastic documentary about Basil D'Oliveira, the “coloured” South African who played cricket for England in the late 60s and whose exclusion from our 1968 touring squad to South Africa led to an enormous public outcry. The selectors claimed that he'd been left out purely because of his form (which, actually, had been excellent.) In fact, research shows that selectors had bowed to pressure from South African and British politicians to leave him out of the squad, as the tour would surely be cancelled if he went. Research also shows that various members of the board of selectors at the time were linked with far-right, apartheid supporting organisations. But such was the public and media pressure that when a player dropped out through injury, D'Oliveira was re-instated, and sure enough, the tour was cancelled by South Africa. They showed a chilling speech from John Foster, the SA premier at the time, saying that they would have welcomed an England touring team, but not this team, an anti-apartheid team – followed by hearty cheering from the assembled all-white audience. Anyway, this incident prompted South Africa being excluded from international sport for the best part of 20 years. I'm a sucker for old sporting docs. The one they showed on Bjorn Borg during the wet weather at Wimbledon the other day almost had me blubbing.