England-Germany matches are sometimes tense affairs: football minus the shooting But football remains, conceptually, a war game. We can hardly be surprised if a few fans take it all a bit too literally, when what we value above all is the wounded hero, the bloody headband.When Wellington surveyed his troops (“the scum of the earth”, in his gentlemanly description) he said: “I don’t know what they do to the enemy, but by God they frighten me.” He could almost have been talking about the modern-day fan, yelling foul-mouthed obscenities at his own beloved “lads”.Of course, to the victor go the spoils. And Wellington was spoiled rotten, showered with amazing gifts from the grateful kings of Europe. The king of Belgium gave him rents from 2,600 acres near the battlefield, which are now worth around £100,000 to the present Duke.Wellington’s most precious trophy, however, is the collection of old masters he picked up in Spain. Napoleon’s brother, Joseph Bonaparte, was caught fleeing with a fat roll of canvases pillaged from the royal collection. It contained paintings by Brueghel, Goya, Correggio, Van Dyck and many others These are not Elgin marbles Indeed, Wellington himself tried to return them.

But the Spanish King replied: “His Majesty, touched by your delicacy, does not wish to deprive you of that which has come into your possession as just as they are honourable.”A noble exchange. Quite what Keegan will get, should he win his own personal Waterloo this evening, is anyone’s guess. The days when a grateful nation might make him Prime Minister and throw in a country estate are probably long gone. Nor can we really expect him (should the fates so conspire) to match Wellington’s sorrowful eloquence in victory. “Nothing in life, except a battle lost,” said the Duke, surveying the wreckage (nearly 50,000 dead or severely wounded), “can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”Faced with a tearful footballer, a sense of proportion on this scale is probably just too much to hope for.. This is a love story, a true one, which if I were Eric Segal or that fellow who wrote The Bridges of Madison County, I would probably turn into a best seller.

It’s about a young French student called Jean-Jacques from Pao who came to London a year ago with a broken heart. I know about his heart condition because he described it at length when we met as the result of an ad I regularly place in my local library: “Visually challenged journalist seeks hawk-eyed amanuensis to read press releases, rude letters, small print on contracts etc.”

This is a love story, a true one, which if I were Eric Segal or that fellow who wrote The Bridges of Madison County, I would probably turn into a best seller. It’s about a young French student called Jean-Jacques from Pao who came to London a year ago with a broken heart. I know about his heart condition because he described it at length when we met as the result of an ad I regularly place in my local library: “Visually challenged journalist seeks hawk-eyed amanuensis to read press releases, rude letters, small print on contracts etc.”
Jean-Jacques made a welcome change from the usual crop of out-of- work actresses who read me my bank statements as if they are auditioning for Chekhov. Unfortunately Jean-Jacques’ English was even sketchier than Basil Fawlty’s Manuel and twice as preposterous. After two minutes of hearing him read a leader on national health waiting lists which could easily have been a recipe for Coq au Vin, I did the usual “don’t call me I’ll call you” bit. And then, because he looked so dejected, I offered him a cup of tea What was he studying in London? Nothing, he said.