I’d like to inform you that I was absolutely delighted by England’s sensational extra-time dismissal by Portugal in the World Cup quarter final this morning. (Jakarta Time)

I really wanted England to lose, in a veins-in-the-forehead-bulging "come on Portugal don’t let these Sassenach scumbags win" manner. I’m not proud of it, and I know such small-mindedness diminishes me as a human being.

And the most ridiculous part of this behaviour is that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Scottish nationalist. I find it hard to believe that, almost 300 years on, some people are still questioning the value of the Union - and I have no respect for those who use the language of Bannockburn and Culloden, whether it’s to stoke up fervour for a sports fixture or as a rallying call for independence.

I also like the English. Some of them are friends and one or two are relatives. They’re our nearest neighbours, and together we’ve been the greatest force for civilisation and economic and social development the world has ever seen. So why is it, then, that I know deep in my heart that if the English football team played North Korea - a deplorable nation which tortures its own people and holds a nuclear threat over the rest of us - I’d be rooting on the boys from Pyongyang and chowing down on boiled Shih Tzu?

I’m not alone. When in 2004, the Scottish rugby team, flying back from Australia after their own routine humping in the Rugby World Cup, were invited to wish England well in their semi-final against France the players responded by belting out ‘La Marseillaise’. England manager Clive Woodward complained that he’d received good luck messages from the Welsh and Irish rugby teams, but that the fax seemed to be broken at the Scottish Rugby Union.

Remember Andrew Wilson? He was regarded as the brainiest man in the SNP until he famously called on Scots to back England at Euro 2000. And what happened to him? He was blown out, first by his own party and then by the voters. He was last seen working as a public relations man for a bank, which seems an excessive punishment even for that crime.

Not that it is acceptable to back England’s opponents just because so many other Scots hold exactly the same prejudice. In January 1973 more people bought ‘Long-Haired Lover from Liverpool’ by ‘Little’ Jimmy Osmond than ‘The Jean Genie’, by David Bowie. In sport as in music, comfort in numbers is no excuse for unacceptable behaviour.

Support Eng-er-lund, impossible... many have made passionate requests for me to do so, but, certainly not enough to persuade me to break the habit of a lifetime and root for the English.

I’m not proud of this, as every sensible, politically-correct fibre in my being tells me that I should put such petty prejudices aside. There have been many suggestions as to why I - like thousands of Scots - cannot do that. It’s small nation syndrome, say some, the product of centuries of domination by a bigger neighbour, first on the battlefield, then on the sports field. It’s plain old jealousy, say others. If true, neither theory says much about our self-esteem and world view.

But it would be so much easier to support England if they weren’t so English. They are patronising in victory and bitter in (recently rare) defeat. Centuries of pink bits on maps have left them with an out-of-date impression of their own importance.

Worse, they don’t see their own faults. I heard one of the English squad on the news this week enthusing about how nice it was to be part of a team which was doing jolly well, (SIC).

Here in Jakarta there is always a bright side! The sun shone last night! Thank F**k there will be no more 1966! At least for the rest of the year!