In Verse

There's just no getting away from you-know-who, David Beckham, that is. Fresh from surgery on his achilles tendon injury, Golden Balls is still in the headlines and has been invited to the World Cup in spite of his injury.

With the coverage, one would be tempted to think that England has lost one of it's most important players for the World Cup. Realistically, Beckham would have been a substitute coming on in the last 15-30 minutes of the game, if at all. A very useful substitute, but a substitute nonetheless.

Still........ it is DAVID BECKHAM, you know. The one whose right foot has been mentioned as one of the things that make Great Britain great.

And that's why, among his sacks of get-well-soon messages, there's one from Britain's Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, shown below :

Achilles

Myth's river - where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boy flowed on, his name on its lips.

Without him, it was prophesied, they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs ...

But when Odysseus came, with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd's roar,

And it was sport, not war, his charmed foot on the ball ...

But then his heel, his heel, his heel ...