Ban the World Cup

This morning the public are being treated to a video made by Staffordshire police regarding the "rise in domestic violence" during the football World Cup.  Someone in the force must have unfulfilled ambitions to be a film director.  Is this really an intelligent use of public money at a time when the coalition government are releasing cryptic messages every day concerning  imminent "austerity measures".  I believe everyone in the country is going to be forced to wear a hessian sack tied round the middle with string and do everything by candlelight as the electricity goes off for the next 5 years to save energy.  Anyway...

According to statistics (and we all know how reliable they are), during the last World Cup, domestic violence incidents rose by 25%, and if  - sorry, when - England were knocked out of the competition, this number rose to 30%.

I have a radical idea to bring these percentages down.  It doesn't involve making videos, or stopping the supermarkets from selling cut-price lager.  If these numbers are directly correlated to the World Cup - and the Home Office says they are - how about this:

Ban the World Cup.

I know it would upset those people who are responsible for selling the  stupid tat that goes along with it (flags for your car, football earrings for the missus, bibs for your baby etc.), pub takings would stay the same, people would carry on going to work as usual instead of creatively skiving off, broadcasters wouldn't go on their usual foreign jolly for four weeks, but hear me out:  wouldn't it be nice to avoid the tornado of madness that this country subjects itself to every four years?  The dizzying highs, the crashing lows.  Thinking about it, being a football fan must be a bit like being bipolar, and you wouldn't wish that condition on your worst enemy.

Let's just do something else for a change.  The World Cup is like anything else: Christmas, the Olympics, it's just there to mark the passing of the seasons in case our lives have got too monotonous and we've forgotten what year it is.