What is it about the English? Leaving Marseille via the Gare Saint-Charles very early on Saturday morning, it was possible to experience one of those cultural collisions which are unique to World Cups.
The French believe this competition to be an epic novel written in blue ink and their team's fans, principles in this grand story, were leaving Marseille on Saturday having put the first chapter to bed with a 3-0 victory over South Africa.
Arriving at the station on the overnighters from Paris, meanwhile, were the English, with Union flags trailing from their shoulders. For the English, this World Cup is a journey on which the stepping stones are marked by the tabloid headlines.
Nothing happened at the Gare Saint-Charles. No joy. No violence. Just bad vibes. Anyone who has witnessed the noisy blending of fans at previous World Cups will understand the eerie strangeness of that.
The French merely eyed the English and gave a visible collective shudder.
The English were a tame enough bunch, fellows who'd saved for years to get to the party. Yet with their beer-sloshing and their flags trailing, their lingering reputation never far away, they suggested menace.
It's hardly breaking news to say that the English and French rub each other up the wrong way. The English seem to feel the resentment for the French that the pigeon feels for the dove.
One pigeon wearing a Wolverhampton Wanderers shirt staggered into the breakfast bar in Gare Saint-Charles, barrelled past the queue and addressed the woman behind the counter:
"Speak English?"
"Non, Monsieur."
"Well f*** you then."
And as six pairs of eyes rolled towards heaven there was a sense of foreboding. Marseille is a tough town and it will take care of itself tonight if the English further stain this competition. That's not the point, though. The English surliness hits le Coupe du Monde like a dose of radiation.
There is room for grotesque misunderstanding in Marseille today. The local desire to foster bonhomie and joie de vivre may turn ugly.
The plan is to celebrate le Coupe du Monde with beach parties on the Plage du Prado, where fans of rival countries will be encouraged to mix, drink and sing together. It seems at once a little too mature and a little too innocent.
High winds last Friday caused the cancellation of the first beach party. The English (and the hapless Tunisians) are scheduled to be the first recipients of this experiment in hospitality.
More high winds might be a blessing, lest Marseille be consumed by dervishes tonight.
Let's hope not. The English game needs to grow a little if it is to fit the fine clothes it is wearing these days. The last traces of ugliness must be sucked out. A culture which has as its lingua franca the crudest excesses of tabloid subeditors must develop.
Everywhere the English team travel an unfortunate thundercloud of tension hovers over them. You sense it like the air in a home with a bad marriage. Will there be trouble?
From within the team camp last week there came the sound of blades being scraped across whetting stones. If England fail today, some big machetes will remove Glenn Hoddle's holy head, presenting it on a tabloid platter.
The English media are holding a finger up to the wind today. If England look convincing, the media will need access and the knives will go back in the sheath. If England are in trouble, there will be blood on the floor - literally and metaphorically - tomorrow.
Hoddle has handled the media badly and with something less than total honesty. If his oily predecessor Venables spent most of his time massaging media egos, Hoddle has been the opposite: prickly, cold and disdainful.
If England win out in four weeks' time, he may have much to be prickly, cold and disdainful about, but those reporters travelling the circuit are openly relieved to be away from the English base camp, away from the poison. When the English season begins in August they'll still have their relationships with the best English players intact.
The game in England still beats with a brassy tabloid heart, from the terrace to the touch-line. The relationship is symbiotic.
Walk into any English league dressing-room and you are more likely to spot a cross dressing camel than a broadsheet newspaper. They're reading about how X slams Y, A says COME AND GET ME to C and how M's BOOZE'n BIRDS NIGHTMARE is over.
It's not just the news and rumours that get absorbed; it's the entire argot which soaks through the game. From grass to terrace. If a tabloid screams that the Frogs need a kicking, does not a smile break on some thin Combat 18 lips as they contemplate the summer's ugliness?
Players despise the tabloids but the outlet for settling scores, flogging stories and pocketing cash is always a red-top newspaper. A prying tabloid might ruin your career but, hey, you can always sell your story back to them. Struggling through France Football magazine (how selfish to write it in French) this weekend, it was possible to read a piece in which nine of the French squad with connections to Marseille discussed the merits of Jean Buffi's architecture within the Stade Velodrome.
Jean Francois Demorgue, a full back on the European Championship-winning side in 1984 (which reminds us, is Platini a great tournament organiser or just a good tournament organiser, Eamon?), discussed the spiritual bond between the French team and the citizens of Marseilles that summer, while Zinedine Zidane examined social determinants on those who, like him, grew up in Castellane, un quartier de Marseille
Back in England, the tabloids are bashing the Frogs, Hoddle is suing a spoon-bender, Sheringham is on the raz. Beckham is squiring Posh, Merson and Adams are recoverng alcoholics but big-bellied Gazza, the potential alcoholic, has gone home to guzzle and grumble.
Little wonder that the French and English are baffled by each other.
In the sleepy Gare Saint-Charles on Saturday morning, mutual disdain was all that passed between the fans of either country. The French seemed happy enough to leave it at that.
Something odd happens to the gastric juices when we examine a World Cup menu. Knee-jerk prejudices. We like Brazil to be adventurous, we accept that the final itself will be disappointingly overcooked. And once upon a time it helped a little if England disgraced themselves by way of dessert.
Now it's different. The French deserve a happy World Cup. Their puzzling neighbours from across the Channel desperately need one. Those of us watching the carnival need no sour distractions.
