Hup! Hup! Hup!

Around this time of year the lungs of London, spaces so tailor-made for wandering into of a balmy evening with a football that one's lack of faith in a creator is sorely tested, are routinely defaced by territorial markings on the turf like beach towels on loungers, soon settled by nimbies who ride roughshod over the one fundamental rule of right to park space: you can occupy it if you actually need it. Softball does not qualify.
Of course, the fact that it makes my blood boil may also be attributable in part to the relentless septification of our society, something that even our shared language is proving to be no defence against. Some while back, a gaggle of school girls panhandled in my direction on a North London street. 'Izz for our prom, innit', the slack-jawed glue-hairs beseeched. I'll tell you where to go and take your prom.
But back to sport. After years on the grail-like quest of the ultimate and most irrefutable argument to squash US sports, primarily the one which I cannot type as italics or quotation marks are no substitute for sneering, it is with delicious irony that I find one of them doing it for me. This immaculately minceskulled moron - sample:

Another reason why soccer will never enthrall Americans is that the game is contrary to nature.

- has saved me so much time and trouble and, indeed, vitriol that I could use on worthier opposition, that I feel like sending the poor oaf a BHS gift voucher. The evolutionary argument in particular is absolutely inspired.
By extension of this idea, of course, their ball-carrying sport is modern. Which therefore makes football post-modern.