It all ends in laughter

Walking through central London on a Sunday evening is quite eerie. The streets are so deserted that you hope it's not an evacuation. Liverpool Street, Highbury Islington, Kings Cross – names you'd associated with a bustling metropolis – are all quite funereal.

We're told about Old Street being a busy one; we land up there and find three gents walking as aimlessly as us. We remember it's Sunday, suddenly we realise it's Brazil v Argentina in the Copa America final, a game that's supposed to start in a little while. A few frantic enquiries later we settled on Offside, a sports bar just round the corner. The term "just round the corner" can take anything from 10 seconds to an hour. We managed it in ten.

Brazil leading 1-0. The yellow shirts are chatting loudly; the blues and whites are chatting louder. Latin accents bounce around the walls – yellows are happy, blues and whites are angry. Brazil 2-0. Yellows go bananas; blues and whites are slightly shocked, slightly angry, slightly sad before going bananas, angrily. Too much commotion. Brazil 3-0. Laughter from the yellows, a most evil laughter when one is sure of victory; laughter from blues and whites, the sort where one has given up all hope. It all ends in laughter. Who said football was a violent game?