This last week has been very busy – partly with the usual mix of things, but also because the World Cup started last Thursday.

Despite living in the USA for over a decade I am still very English. And one aspect of that is that I am obsessed with football (or soccer to the Americans reading this). I started playing when I was five years old with the other kids in our road – and I still play here in the Bay Area. And I have always watched my team (Queens Park Rangers) and watched major tournaments. That’s just an essential part of life for a high percentage of the English population.

And every four years the world simply stops for a month for a very high percentage of the world population – when the World Cup is on. It has become more visible here, but Americans really do not understand how important football is everywhere else.

For example, there are 209 national football teams nations affiliated to FIFA, plus a further 13 nations who are members or associate members of one of the FIFA affiliated continental confederations, but who are not members of FIFA. That contrasts with the United Nations only having 193 member states.

Similarly, in England or Brazil or practically anywhere other than the USA, the nation practically grinds to a complete stand-still when the national team is playing in the World Cup. There might still be official bus and train timetables but somehow nothing actually runs. And employers know that if they do not provide giant screens in-house to watch matches, their employees will almost all be “sick” or "working from home".

For the first two weeks of the World Cup, during the group phase (8 mini leagues of 4 teams each) there are 3 televised matches a day (even on US television). Which means that for the last week and for the next week to come, I have had to be very careful with scheduling. It has been quite interesting – moving from one intense experience to another very different intense experience – and sometimes watching a match while still feeling the excitement and power of having an adoring slave at my mercy only a few minutes before.

I think that I have been managing to compartmentalize things reasonably well, but perhaps I might have taken some of my frustrations out at England losing their opening match against Italy on the unfortunate (or is that lucky) slave who had a session booked later that day?

Ms Emilie