The Lost World (Cup)

As the England football team 'limber up' (copyright all media outlets) for their World Cup match against Italy this evening in Manaus, one's thoughts naturally turn to Britain's other great moment in this Amazonian town.

Because it was here, in 1911, that Professor Challenger joined his colleagues - Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton and Edward Malone - at the start of their first adventure together.

'Outside lay the yellow, brassy glare of the sunshine, with the shadows of the palm trees as black and definite as the trees themselves,' wrote Malone, in his account of the expedition. 'The air was calm, full of the eternal hum of insects, a tropical chorus of many octaves, from the deep drone of the bee to the high, keen pipe of the mosquito.'

Sounds idyllic. Of course, the four men were later to find themselves assailed by pterodactyls, iguanodons and the odd megalosaurus. But that's what happens when you stumble upon an elevated plateau that's home to a prehistoric lost world. Tricky blighter, Johnny Jungle.

Not that I'm suggesting the Italian team are a load of dinosaurs with all the slow-moving, slow-witted charm of a stegosaurus, of course...