I can’t believe that, watching the re-election of sole FIFA candidate Sepp Blatter today, I was the only one transported back to the 1960s, and all those Praesidium robots on Soviet television applauding wildly as the USSR’s Party Chairman smiled beatifically at his creatures.

With 185 votes out of a possible 203, Blatter’s show of strength should send a chill through the veins of everyone who loves The Beautiful Game: for it demonstrated not only that Nosforatu is running things, but also that this Slimeball from Hell has almost every delegate tucked neatly into his various hidden pockets.

“We’ve nothing to worry about,” said Beckham on the eve of the last World Cup Bid, “After all, these are football people”. As usual with Becks (who is a nice man, but a plank) this was British bollocks at its best. The 21-2 vote against England as the 2018 host the following day was yet another ‘punishment’ by the Blatterites who continue to suck the game dry: yet amazingly, the following week there were still FA pillocks blaming the BBC for ‘the timing’ of its anti-Blatter documentary. Perhaps they should join the Praesidium audience next time around: after all, getting down on your belly and spreading your legs is all that Sepp requires. Well – that, and a whopping cheque.

The truly barking bit of all this was the German FA, which afterwards said there should be ‘a reconsideration of the 2022 Qatar World Cup award’. Surely not? After all Fritz, you just voted for Blatter: he oversaw (and announced) the award: what exactly makes you thing this slapheaded sleaze-merchant is going to change his mind?

“I am proud” said Blatter tonight. But there is pride before a fall. There are times when soccer needs an Aleksander Solzhenytsin, and this is one of them. The FA is badly cast in this role: now isolated, it remains a spineless organisation in all it dealings with filthy lucre. Were I running the Resistance to this rotten soccer supra-State, I would lobby the sponsors. For these are the folks with the real power….and they above all are sensitive to just how the smell of decomposing, corrupted flesh permeates all things FIFA.

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Further afield, commercial life in general felt equally fixed today. There was weak US data and more pressure for rate rises – but much avid buying of US debt bonds. Only secret Federal manipulation can begin to explain this. Illogically, the FT headlined ‘Fears for US recovery boost Treasuries’. Somebody at the Pink’un needs to get a grip, go into a quiet room somewhere, and remember which way is up. In what’s left of the real world, the Dow closed down 279.65 points, or 2.2%, to 12290.14 – the biggest drop since June 4, 2010. All 30 of the blue-chips finished in negative territory.

Although the FT may not have noticed, Gold is quite happily creeping up again. This is the truest barometer we have of what’s really happening. At a $1541 closing price today, the shiny stuff remains irrepressible. I sold my tracker note out of fears for the supplier – RBS – three weeks ago. I’d like to buy real bullion; the problem is finding enough of it in one place such that twenty sets of trade fees don’t negate all the gains one was after in the first place. Sadly, I have no advice to offer re this one – but I’m open to ideas.

Greek debt, meanwhile, is now below junk – wherever that place is. But all will be well, because Athens has ‘agreed a process’ with the IMF/ECB/Brussels troika. The ‘process’ is now so far beyond parody, it would be very hard to make any of it seem funny. Seedy is the best that The Slog can manage; this was revealed earlier today in my post about the Greek elite ensuring a feathered nest by embezzling $27 billion of Greek public money.

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Finally, although the German press has spent the last ten days destroying the Spanish cucumber industry, it now transpires that the ecoli outbreak is, um, entirely unrelated to cukes, Iberian or otherwise. Suppliers in Germany, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Hungary, Sweden, Belgium and Russia have nevertheless halted imports of Spanish cucumbers.

This represents an accidental but nevertheless pernicious combo of Eurocrat panic and sloppy journalism. Both these groups would do well to remember that their actions do have consequences.