Friends last night were debating whether XFM Manchester’s daytime schedule consists of five or seven songs on constant rotation. They concluded seven, after listing them all.

Not one to listen to music radio normally, I tuned in while in the shower this morning. The sequence went: Embrace � Some Adverts � Coldplay… an inspired ten minutes, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The Embrace song (World At Your Feet) is England’s official World Cup song and it sounds, as somewhere else put it this week, more like Coldplay than Coldplay themselves.

What were the FA thinking? I presume - after months and years of controversy, sleaze and the like - they just opted for the most MOR, least offensive act they could find.

But David Blunt wasn’t available that day.

Thankfully Sham 69’s alternative World Cup song sounds more promising. It features Graham Coxon and is produced by Stephen Street (of The Smiths and Blur fame).

You can hear a bit of it via the BBC Sport website, where singer Jimmy Pursey attempts to pick a fight with the Yorkshire band.

Jimmy isn’t a stranger to an argument. You may remember that he had a bit of a spat with The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Lydon at the US Embassy last year. True punks - still angry after all these years.

I saw Jimmy a couple of month’s later at Manchester’s In The City conference. He was a very eloquent speaker on stage, despite not being part of the panel.