Rule Brittania

Old Becks is in the US then. Posh alongside of course.

Handling the idiotic questions from the media in the press conference with his usual sweet patience and pleasant smile.

But then it would seem he committed the ultimate sin, at least according to some of our journalists. Just about to say 'football' he quickly changed it to 'soccer', which is of course what the Americans call Association Football.

The radio presenters I was listening to then started acting as though he had somehow betrayed the British Nation, saying he should be working on the Americans to call the game by its proper name.

Personally I have two problems with this. Firstly, the term 'soccer' was created in the UK, providing a way to differentiate between Association Football and Rugby Football. So the inference that the Americans have somehow given it a false name simply does not hold water.

My second and biggest objection, however, is the hypocrisy of it all. How often do we hear in the media disparaging stories about 'immigrants who come over here but do not learn our language or integrate with our culture'. Well in my book if you subscribe to that school of thinking, then it works the other way round too - i.e. when British people go to live abroad they should adopt the language and the culture of the countries they go to.

Funny thing is this is not a mentality I have observed in many of the ex-pats I know.

Could the British still be suffering from a touch of Imperialism do you think?

Makes me feel sick just thinking about it.