England win over Paraguay

Above: someone brought these celebratory World Cup iced buns into the office and handed them round.

The sense of euphoria that resulted from the England win over Paraguay on Saturday lingers on. It is one of the features of the World Cup competition that the matches are so close together that the rush of emotions associated with winning (elation, excitement, exultation) are still reverberating when another win sets the cycle in motion again. The escalating nature of this emotional sequence builds to such a state of intensity that forms of release become imperative – it is typically at this point that waves of consumer spending take place (as members of a spectator-nation “self-actualise” their new persona of winners-by-proxy by equipping themselves with the trophy material goods associated with “success”). Emotional release can also take the form of excessive binge-drinking. There is also the possibility of violence (usually irrational and spontaneous). Feeding every stage of this experience is the desire and demand for information, provided through multifarious channels (especially real-time), and pitched at every level from sardonic (The Guardian) to shameless (The Sun).

The England team itself has been so saturated by media commentary that the individuals have acquired mythological and heroic status (so that when Joe Cole appeared in a sports item on the Today Programme yesterday, it was surprising how ordinary he sounded).