June 13 (Sunday): I wake up just past 5 AM. Insomnia, I can’t get no sleep. I go back to nod and reawaken around 9 AM. I am feeling so low after last nights MSN session with Sarah, been down this road before, how come all females I meet are insane and they always spill their guts via MSN: Alice, Sara and now Sarah, wackjobs. These things really do effect, get me down and today I can’t get out of bed, instead I have a fucking headache and I lie watching Curb Your Enthusiasm (although it is a classic episode where Larry’s last minute obituary for his “beloved aunt� gets published as “beloved cunt�).

My intention for the day is to go to my parents to watch the England v France game. I wasn’t intending to go there this weekend but I have left some stuff I have sold on Ebay behind (the selling swag CDs is going really well). The day is saved though when Mark texts asking me what I am doing for the game, HE IS BACK! Words are said and moves are made to watch it together. I go round his house and blag dinner and hang out with his brother Steve, who is the funniest person in Colchester, this (along with the Blitters) is the act that could have saved Gringo Records. Steve tells us a joke about a man having a tapped out with and taking her to doctors, the punch line being “she either has Alzheimer’s or AIDs. Take her to the woods and leave her there, if she makes her way back, don’t shag her�. We chip off and head to Clacton/Holland. Today is the best.

We arrive home and Mark gets to see my parents modest crib (in comparison to his). Shortly after we arrive there is a knock on the door, it is our neighbour Cecil/Cyril checking whether we are burglars. Now that is neighbourhood watch! I don’t know how handy Cecil/Cyril would be, he doesn’t even recognise me. What a brave man. Before Croatia and Switzerland kick off we go for a wander to the beach. It looks fantastic, it makes a good day even better.

Croatia vs Switzerland is a genuine shower of shit, it makes our group look so easy. If we don’t fucking thrash both these sides we don’t deserve shit from this Euro 2004.

Between games I check the Millwall website and it turns out that Division One will now be called “The Championship� and each division gets a bump in number meaning this coming season Colchester will be in Division 1 and the old Division 4 will now be Division 2! The world has gone one more step insane. I also receive an email from Azmei: “HOW ARE YOU? HOPE YOU ARE OK AND KEEPING WELL. I HAVE MY FONE BACK BUT IS OUT OF BATTERY. I WILL TEXT YOU FROM TIME TO TIME AND I HOPE YOU WILL TEXT ME. WE HAVE BEEN THRU' ALOT AND BEEN THRE FOR EACH OTHER, I KNOW I HAVEN'T SAID IT BEFORE BUT IT MEANS ALOT TO ME. YOU CAN'T GET FRIENDS WHO WILL LISTEN TO PROBLEMS. WE HAVE BOOKED TICKETS FOR THE PAKISTAN TRIP. COMING INTO THE OFFICE TOMORROW TO GET NADIA'S FOTO, WILL SEE YOU TOMORROW. TAKE CARE.� I am unmoved, especially as I have her sister texting me again, all doom and gloom.

Stevo then telephones from Portugal. As he said, he has got into the game and he is phoning me, his football mate “Millwall�, to impress his friends. So cool.

Post crap match, me and Mark proceed to cook dinner badly and then it was England v France. It is actually a really good game but we hardly look good. Of course when Frank Lampard scores we look SO good. And Wayne Rooney really lights up the show (and our lives) and the Sol Campbell/Ledley King is the stuff of winners. Our team is solid and professional, impressive. And then we get a penalty. You could see Beckham missing it coming a mile off but I wasn’t too concerned, whereas the world was predicting a 1-1 draw I was predicting a 1-0 win to England, so at least the penalty miss was preserving that. And then Sven-Goran Erection substituted Wayne Rooney in the most arrogant of gestures imaginable (yeah, points in the bag hey Sven). When France got the free kick in the 90th minute you could see them scoring a mile off, which was made especially worse when the kick did look saveable but James. What gutted me more was now how my 1-0 prediction had given way to the nations 1-1 prediction. However, Gerrard then plonked a back pass similar to the one Maradona handballed in 1986 and James should have been sent off when he hauled the frog down for the penalty. Zidane scored the perfect penalty (see that Beckham?) and I could only laugh in disbelief, quietly satisfied everyone’s lame/boring prediction had gone tits up. I have the perverse mind of a tabloid writer (maybe it’s island mentality) but when we fail like this it is kind of “like told you so� when you watch the faces of those overpaid arseholes who blow it regularly for England. I’m not the biggest fan of Sven and this shows it. Realistically though, France were the better team but we did (until the last minutes) stand tall/strong and put in a performance worthy of victory. Its not like we were put out though. Mark is more vocal on me on the subject, I feel I have just become jaded for having seen this happen so many times. For me, losing 3-1 to Australia was worse than this and this cannot compare to the World Cup when we just curled up and died for Brazil. We’ll be all right.

I get home to find Emma on Big Brother throwing a wobbler at Victor, my black hero. Big Brother is fantastic. These are good times.

np: MF Doom – Tick, Tick