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Doctor this afternoon. After asking if I smoked - no - listening to my chest from both sides and inspecting my throat with a torch, she said it was just a virus and didn't need treatment, and that it's the smokers who get chest infections.

Triple relief for me, since I'm not only spared from having to shell out on medication, not going on antibiotics means I'm able to have a beer when the Oranje kick off their campaign tonight. Kushti.

Dutch Masters

Oh, what a night.

Before the Oranje kicked off against Italy I noticed Van der Vaart was wearing 23, when the away shirt I bought off ebay has his name and number 10. With that, and the little numbers on the front being simply laid over the thin red, white and blue stripes rather than the stripes being broken to accommodate the number (as the picture on ebay had!), I'm now thinking the shirt is either a reject or a snide. And I shelled out £31 plus p&p to win a bidding war for it!

All that was forgotten once we took the lead against Italy on 16 minutes. At first I thought Sneijder's shot had gone straight in and didn't notice the ball touch van Nistelrooij. Neither did the ref, since he gave the goal. I was too elated to care about Ruud being clearly offside; as the commentators constantly repeated that little detail, I found myself saying 'Shut up!'

Even if the Netherlands were a little lucky with that one, nobody could complain about our second or third, both beautiful Total Football goals built up all the way from the back. The Oranje played fine football all game, and I'm confident we will go through to the next phase *crosses fingers*

After we'd gone 2-0 up, Clive Tyldesley mentioned that the last time the Oranje had beaten Italy was 30 years ago. Naturally that got my hopes up that they'd show us Arie Haan's magical goal. After the match, not only was there the pleasure of hearing Steve Rider and Andy Townsend, who'd dissed the Dutch on Saturday, now singing their praises, but Rider said "The Dutch score a classic goal that sticks in the memory every 10 years" and we did indeed see Arie's strike from 1978, plus Marco van Basten's Euro 88-winning goal against Russia and Dennis the Menace's goal against Argentina in '98.

So that's one reason why England must get to host the 2018 World Cup - so I can be there to see the Oranje's next immortal goal in the flesh :)