THE LENNY BRISCOE II REPORT

                         KNIGHTMARE : A MOMENT OF EPIPHANY She had had the bitterest argument with her boss. Her boss had swift and radical mood changes and niceties of language were never her strongpoint. And she was almost the same as her, character-wise. There was no turning backwards. Even she was amazed by the string of expletives she had let rip at her boss. The writing was on the wall, she had to jump before she was pushed. She had resigned verbally there and then. All that was left, was to put it in writing. This had been the fieriest of a series of heated confrontations. There was not going to be smoking of peace pipes, no rainbows, no doves, no fig or olives, no white flags, no nothing. Oh well, she knew she had a lovely war veteran husband whose muscular shoulder she could always lean on. He was her knight in shining armour. Her soldier in camouflaged army fatigues. He had lost his left arm in a roadside bomb in Kabul. He had not worked since leaving the arm

                                                     ENGLAND vs ITALY Italy kicked it all off. Statement of intent came within 3 minutes, when attention addict M Balotelli tried a lame shot from distance. De Rossi was next to make his mark. The man with a shirt that bared his right fore-arm, but strangely had a long left sleeve, struck the ball viciously with his left foot from 25 yards. The ball came back off the woodwork. England replied with an attack of their own as G Johnson hit a clumsy close-range shot. Buffon’s sharp reflexes kept the score at 0-0. All that action was within 10 minutes, so fans knew they were in for a thriller. M Balotelli had a great chance to put the Azzuri ahead when he broke free, but a moment of hesitation -just like in the game against Spain- allowed J Terry to block his attempted lob. A Pirlo jogging in the middle of the park was pulling the strings like Don Corleone, while his less sophisticated opponent S Parker played “destroyer”. M Balote

                                                         ENGLAND vs. FRANCE       I really do not know why panellists would slate it as “Roy Hodgson vs. Laurent Blanc”. It certainly would really be more attractive (pause) to pitch anybody against anybody else on the pitch, no? Like Oxlade-Chaimberlain against P. Evra? Or perhaps even F. Ribery against J. Lescott?   OK, well, maybe not. Anyway, after the first 14 minutes, there was nothing really to blag, I meant blog about apart from F. Ribery nutmegging A. Cole. Then just before the quarter-hour mark, J. Milner rounded the French goalkeeper Lloris only to miss an empty net. No, really. To be honest, after 24 minutes, it felt as if this was a Bordeaux vs. Stoke City game in disguise, no disrespect to those teams. On the half-hour mark, J. Lescott got on the end of a S. Gerrard free-kick to put the Queen’s boys one nil up. It was a great header by the centre-back. Ten minutes later, A. Oxlade-Chamberlain committed a foul

                                                         ITALY vs. SPAIN Euro 2012 by far has been dry goal-wise - apart from Russia, no team had scored more than one goal before this game’s big kick-off - and with the Italians playing, not many people were expecting a goal storm. It certainly must be cliché by now, but yes Spain played very much like Barcelona FC in the first fifteen minutes, playing very high up Italy’s half. Somehow Italy still had two corners in quick succession within that same time. Andrea Pirlo’s free-kick was saved magnificently by Iker Casillas, the Spanish number one. Just as expected, Mario Balotelli picked up the first booking of the game for reckless play. (The bookies predicted right). He had been warned previously by the referee after displaying his displeasure at a decision that didn’t go his way. Mario Balotelli was at it again a few minutes after. This time it was for something different. He stood by the touch-line when a ball was lobbed

                                                         POLAND vs. GREECE The first game kicked off at exactly 16:00 GMT between Poland and Greece. Greece had put economic crisis and woman-beating neo-nazi politicians behind them and in unison sang heartily to the first National anthem blared out of loudspeakers in the tournament. Within three minutes, Poland had had a purposeful shot on target which was tipped over by the Greek ‘keeper. A real statement of intent. Just before the quarter-hour mark, Robert Lewandowski   missed a header that would have put Poland ahead. The Greek defence had been carved open by some crisp Polish passing. In almost a replay of the earlier chance, “Kuba” Blaszczykowski crossed for his club team-mate Lewandowski but this time the latter headed in brilliantly for the first goal of the tournament. That was in the 17 th minute. Just before half-time, the first red card of the tournament was flashed in the face of Sokratis. It was his second of

LIFE “I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, However I begged at evening When I counted my scanty store “For Life is a just employer, He gives you what you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task. “For Life is a just employer, He gives you what you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task     “I worked for a menial’s hire, Only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have willingly paid.”   - Anonymous