Friday's football pieces - bumper edition

• Caron is jolly excited by the way we all got to pay for Boris to go to the World Cup. Super!
  
  
• Andy has spotted a useful round-up of the African blogosphere's reaction to the Cup.
  
  
• Paul Sagar asks whether the England squad need better incentives.
  
  
• Fatima Asmal wonders whether all of South Africa is feeling the fever.
  
  
• David Bond declares that this is the most boring World Cup in history, and we haven't even finished the group stage yet!
  
  
• Paul Mason explains what bank regulators could learn from football referees.
  
  
• The ongoing coverage of from the Watson brothers at back of the net is most enjoyable.
  
  
• The London Progressive Journal has two Cup related stories. One moaning about the way advertisers have treated it like one long sales pitch ("pitch" - get it!) and the other discussing nationalism and hype.
  
  
• Sunder Katwala explores whether we should consolidate our patchwork of useless 'national' teams into one, easily managed useless British team.
  
  
• The Church Times notes that the Vuvuzela is Africa's "revenge on the West". (h/t Splintered Sunrise)