I was only about four years old when England won the World Cup in 1966 and I barely remember that unique moment of national footballing ecstasy, but various people have been promising me ever since that “football’s coming home”. That it has yet to do so, clearly preferring to sojourn in more glamorous destinations such as Brazil, Italy and Spain, or – rather spitefully, if you ask me – in France or Germany, has not dampened my ardour one iota and last night found me in front of the game against Scotland, bellowing out a medley of our favourite football anthems with the best of them.

But what makes a great football anthem? Do they emerge from the terraces at the stadiums themselves or are they the brainchild of marketing executives, asks Paul Carr. And does it matter, as long as they’ve got a catchy melody and an easily memorised chorus?

Aside from the lesser-spotted football fan, another creature known for its singing is the nightingale. And it was that famously musical bird that set ornithologist Andrew Ostler on his mission to chart the fascinating history of birds’ names in the British Isles, finding more than 7,000 folk names recorded in different areas for just 150 species in the English language alone.

The markedly suspicious language used to describe China at the recent G7 and Nato summits seems to be in stark contrast with overtures from Chinese president Xi Jinping, who has urged his country to revamp its image to present a more “credible, loveable and respectable China” in the interests of expanding its circle of friends. But, as Astrid Nordin and Graham Smith note, China and the west have distinctly different notions of what friendship means, which is likely to make such a close relationship fairly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

This week we also considered the way in which Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is using homophobia as a political tactic, revealed new research which suggests Darwin got his theory of sexual selection the wrong way round, and visited a graveyard in Kolkata to discover the untold stories of colonial-era Scottish women.

Our colleagues around the world, meanwhile, looked at how Black activists in the US have used grammar and punctuation to make their point, and how New Zealand has one of the lowest number of refugees per capita in the world. Africa, meanwhile, mourns Kenneth Kaunda, a true giant of post-colonial politics.

Do try and find time this weekend to listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast, which looks at how Jair Bolsonaro has militarised democracy in Brazil, and also to explore our growing archive of audio articles which offers a wide array of topics for your listening pleasure.

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