I went to watch the draw for the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa. It was a great evening organised by London England Fans. They normally have a Christmas party in the Offside Bar.

Garry Napper was there. He’d come up from the south coast for the day. I met Gary in Japan in 2002 and have been going to England games with him since. We have an apartment booked in Cape Town for the 2010 tournament.

Springbok

There was South African Gum-boot dancing and South African Food. I had to try the Springbok. It was different and tasty.

The event featured on Sky Sports News and the national press.

The draw looks good for England. We kick off on June 12 against the USA. Then on June the 18th England face Algeria. The final game of the group will be England v Slovenia on Wednesday 23 June.

I am happy with the draw. The match against Algeria is in Cape Town near where where I’m staying. England face Slovenia in Port Elizabeth. Which I’m told is an hour’s drive from Cape Town.

Only the game against the USA will be difficult to get to. It’ll be in Rustenburg on the second day of the tournament.

There’s still lots to sort out.

The US plans to spend nearly US$2 trillion to stimulate the US economy and has been critical of some EU countries for not planning similar big spending stimulus packages. Germany has been particularly reticent to splurge out.

Prime Minister Topolanek was reporting back to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on last week’s EU summit. He said EU leaders had been disturbed by calls from the US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner for EU stimulus spending similar to the US’s.

Topolanek said:

“The US Treasury secretary talks about permanent action and we, at our spring council, were quite alarmed at that.

“The US is repeating mistakes from the 1930s, such as wide-ranging stimulus’s, protectionist tendencies and appeals, the Buy American campaign, and so on.

“All these steps, their combination and their permanency, are the road to hell.

“We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the (EU) is the refusal to go this way.

Wednesday’s outburst comes eight days before President Obama is due in Europe for the G20 summit of the world’s developed and emerging economies.

After the summit and a NATO meeting, Obama will fly to the Czech Republic for an EU-US summit, at which Prime Minister Topolanek will represent all 27 EU member states.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the EU parliament it was:

“Not helpful … to try to suggest that Americans and Europeans are coming with very different approaches to the crisis.

“On the contrary, what we are seeing is increased convergence.

US officials have so far declined to comment on Topolanek’s remarks.

I’d bet with my heart and not my head. I never could bring myself to bet against England or Chelsea.

But politics, especially US politics, is another matter. I love the US presidential elections. From this side of the Atlantic, distant from the fight, I can make dispassionate bets. For the second presidential election running I amused myself by trading on the Intrade political futures markets.

You trade contracts with other members of the exchange. If a candidate wins the contract is worth $10 if he/ she lose it is worth nothing. You do not have to hold a contract till the end, so you can change positions whenever you want.

For instance, after Sarah Palin made her appearance at the Republican convention, the odds swung for McCain, I sold McCain and bought Obama .When the Palin bounce evaporated, I bought McCain and sold Obama, making a nice profit. This strategy reduced the amount I had at risk on election night to an acceptable level.

Maybe there was some market manipulation going on. Perhaps McCain supporters were trying to create momentum by forcing his price up. Compared to what was spent on TV advertising it would have been a cheep way to create buzz.

Or maybe it was irrational exuberance of GOP supporters in the market. Either way, I did rather well out of it. You can see the results below.

I did similarly well in the primaries.

This is a truly historic moment for the US and the world. I have avoided any analysis on TV or on-line. I want to get my own thoughts in order first. This could be one of the most important election results in my lifetime.

I stayed up until 02:30 this morning watching the results come in. I went to bed shortly after Pennsylvania was called for Obama, then a senior Republican strategist all but conceded, so I figured it was all over.

I have been a fan of Obama since I saw an early appearance of his on The Daily Show. A charismatic, able young African American, but what impressed me most was that he sounded reasonable. Missing were the straw man arguments, the false choices, the mysticism and the bullying.

He has continued to impress me over the last year or so. He strikes me as someone who is truly interested infinding solutions, rather than the usual peddling of interests.

There can be no doubt that the USA has firmly ended the Bush era, but what next? There is a feeling of possibilities. Paths have opened up that were never present in the Bush / Blair years.

Perhaps most importantly, the US will regain some of its self-confidence, and some of its moral capital. There will be opportunities to rebuild and strengthen the Atlantic alliance. The problems we face are global ones, they require global solutions.

Change I can believe in? I am willing to give it a go.