100 Things I'd Rather Do Than Watch the World Cup*

1. Read a book
2. Watch a film
3. Listen to some music
4. Cook dinner
5. Make sweet love [with me, baby, it's always sweet]
6. Sleep
7. Partake of one's daily ablutions
8. Sort out the loft
9. Sell stuff on eBay
10. The washing up
11. Hang around a playground while the kid rolls around in a sand pit
12. Hoover up sand from the carpets and furniture
13. Read the kid some stories
14. Encourage the use of so-called 'modelling clay' [in actual fact some kind of weaponized filth that recognizes no terrestrial detergent]
15. Quickly discourage the use of 'modelling clay'
16. Play one of the current favourite games: Dinosaur Emergency or Mountain Crashdown
17. Do a sabre-toothed tiger puzzle [strictly speaking they're cats, not tigers, but the consensus misnomer persists]
18. Wash the car [and maybe valet it, if I'm feeling particularly motivated]
19. Go to work [Jesus, man, we're only up to 19!]
20. Desperately scour the internet and the press [local and national] for another job
21. Look for a house
22. Go shopping
23. Sit on the beach and throw stones into the sea
24. Eat out
25. Go to a pub that doesn't have Sky Sports blaring out the door 24/7
26. Go clubbing
27. Have a post-night out kebab
28. Suffer an epic hangover
29. Go somewhere by train and/or replacement bus service
30. Stroke the cat
31. Expect a superspy
32. Do some gardening
33. Glug a nice Carménère
34. Smoke some fags [I don't smoke, but I still need to bump this up to 100 somehow]
35. Get in long-overdue touch with friends and family
36. Organize a party
37. Test-drive a Hummer
38. Purge my wardrobe Stalin-style
39. Start a scrapbook of entertainingly hyperbolic Daily Mail articles
40. Stream-of-consciousness doodling
41. Arts and crafts
42. Visit a zoo, a museum, or perhaps an ornamental garden
43. Indulge in unapologetic, character-assassinating gossip
44. Sew up holes in my clothes
45. Polish my boots
46. Make a fancy dress costume
47. Clear moss out of the gutters
48. Decorate a room
49. Rearrange the bookshelves in whichever whimsical order grabs me
50. Play reprehensible videogames
51. Lay down some MC Hammer dance moves
52. Make sure all the numbers in my mobile phone are written down somewhere
53. Surf the net
54. Social networking
55. Subscribe to some worthwhile podcasts
56. Try something new in Photoshop
57. Back up my grossly distended iTunes library
58. Defrag the laptop
59. Eat a whole packet of Haribo Tangfastics
60. Walk random streets
61. Indulge in some light iconoclasm
62. Make a rubber band ball
63. Watch a big analogue clock tick the precious seconds of my life away
64. Make a nice cup of tea
65. Hoover out the toolbox
66. Tag a bus shelter
67. Iron a shirt
68. Help an old lady across the road
69. Find the funniest name in the phone book and bombard them with hoax calls
70. Discuss religion or politics with someone whose views violently oppose my own
71. Make flat pack furniture
72. Defrost the fridge
73. Stalk a celebrity
74. Pop a load of bubble wrap
75. Create an army of killer robots and conquer the world AH HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAH!!
76. Grow a luxuriant moustache
77. Fancy pigeons
78. Get abducted by a UFO
79. Experiment with mind-bending hallucinogens
80. Ponder the nature of existence
81. Panic about the lack of real achievement in my life and the dwindling number of years in which to rectify that situation
82. Embark on a journalism course
83. Write a book
84. Make a film
85. Learn how to use the requisite software to be able to make bass-heavy but ultimately pedestrian dance music
86. Learn Japanese
87. Travel the world
88. Train for a triathlon
89. Do a skydive
90. Start horse riding
91. Learn ice sculpture
92. Swim with manta rays
93. Practise mixed-discipline martial arts
94. Buy a restaurant
95. Set myself up as a spiritual guru
96. Scandalize polite society
97. Kick a football around the park
98. Try to write an entertaining blog entry
99. Give up and write this blog entry
100. None of the above

* Especially if England are playing