World Cup is now the talk of the town

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America is waking up, rather groggily, to the fact that there is a World Cup on. Of course, it helps that the big stars have come out in Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi and Harry Kane.

The US loves a superstar but they also love winners and have less time for 'plucky losers' in sport, or arguably in life. The US national team starting off with two impressive wins in a row has piqued the interest.

The acid test for any culture is to travel on public transport and listen to what the people are talking about. They are beginning to talk about the tournament now.

Be it cab drivers or those working on Amtrack trains, they want to engage more and more, day by day. New York is different, many of the public-facing people in the transport industry seem to have arrived straight from central casting and appear to believe they are in a movie 24/7.

Overacting isn't frowned upon in this scenario and I love it. A guy organising the cabs in the rank outside Penn Station talked to me for 30 minutes advising me against getting a cab over to Jersey City. Not only did he do that, he did that clearly thinking he was Al Pacino after 10 strong espressos.

On his advice, I walked to the subway, caught the Path train, it broke down, took 90 minutes but I saved $70. I think I was happy.

This job is a dream gig

Back to Boston and I was able to enjoy a day off before the Scotland v Morocco game. On the way up we watched an off/on feed of the England opener against Croatia. It wasn't a shock that England won but it was mildly surprising just how many fellow travellers, some not wearing kilts, came over to check on the score.

Even the ticket collector was interested, though to be fair he only wanted to know who was playing not what the score was.

What was really surprising was the fact that England were enjoyable to watch, for most of the game.

It wasn't really a day off, I was DJing at the Del Amitri gig at the famous Royale venue downtown. No surprises that the Tartan Army of Scotland fans took over the building as they did every building serving alcohol in the city.

It was a fantastic night with the band on great form and the crowd being just as vocal, if not more. At times, it seemed like a friendly competition between the band and the fans for who was going to sing which songs.

I have rarely enjoyed one of my DJs night more than this one.

Scotland move on with spirits still high

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This was all build up to the Scotland game against the crack Moroccan national team, and they did seem a talented outfit from the start. They were 1-0 ahead in less than two minutes, they refused to give Scotland a kick for the first quarter of the game, and a mauling seemed on the cards.

Steve Clarke's men fought back valiantly and by the end they could reasonably argue they deserved a share of the points, a result that would have seen them safely through to the next round.

The game hinged on a couple of refereeing decisions and neither went in Scotland's favour. Penalty claims by both Scott McTominay and John McGinn were waived and the chance of glory was gone. I think McGinn's was probably a penalty, but once more the word probably is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. It was a subjective call, that had the referee given it, then it wouldn't have been overturned.

As it was he didn't and it wasn't clear and obvious enough for the VAR to overturn.

On balance, Scotland did deserve a draw even if they didn't create a single clear-cut opportunity, but they did dominate the second half, no mean feat against such a talented side.

The Tartan Army will leave Boston with many great memories for themselves and for the locals, but their qualification hangs in the balance. As for Morocco, they are almost certainly through already as are Brazil after a cruise against Haiti, just as the experts would have predicted beforehand.

Any mistakes now could be final

I am now ready to travel again to see France take on Iraq in Philadelphia before joining up with the Scots again in Miami for the crunch game against Brazil.

Brazil are through already barring some very extreme results and there is the hope they will send out a second-string team against my country, but it is only a hope.

I suspect the Brazilians will want to send a statement to their competitors in the future, so anything could happen. When we get to the final games of the group stage it is going to get very complicated.

To some degree this is when the World Cup really starts, there will be real jeopardy at last, which is as it should be.

France look unstoppable yet nothing is certain

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I am also looking forward to seeing the French team again for a variety of reasons. Going forward, they look unstoppable and very entertaining. These competitions do however evolve and change with many unexpected twists and turns.

It seems likely France will go deep into the latter stages but you cannot take anything for granted. An injury to Kylian Mbappe or Michael Olise might have a huge negative effect even if they have some very special players ready and waiting to step into the breach.