Roy and Peter
Roy Hodgson is probably one of those guys who shouldn’t tell jokes, anytime, anywhere. But he chose to at half-time, in the most important football match of his life, probably to ease the tension that must have been filling the room at the time. The gag he pulled was an old one, told a million times before and never, I’ll bet, has it been construed as racist. Thanks to a treacherous member of his squad who ran to the press, that label was hung round Mr Hodgson’s neck, briefly, until it was laughed out of court by every other person in the room at the time, and firmly squashed by the FA.
Yet there are people who still won’t let it lie. A complaint has been made to the FA by something called Race for Sport, which has been described as an offshoot of the Society of Black Lawyers, which is run by a man named Peter Herbert. ‘You’re kidding, QJ’ I hear you gasp. Well no, I’m not; it really does exist and it is given credence and airtime by our media in its endless search for headlines. Here’s what I believe: any organisation that is based in ethnicity alone is potentially racist in its outlook and should be prohibited. Anyone who thinks that’s extreme should imagine the reaction if a few barristers . . . I resist the urge to call them ‘baristas’ . . . were to get together and establish the Association of White Lawyers.
There are people, possibly Mr Herbert among them, who will brand me as racist for committing that thought to print. I can assure them that I’m not. All I want is a level playing field; I want Martin Luther King’s dream world, where we are judged not by the colour of our skin but by the content of our character. Those who foster and play upon ethnic distinctions are blocking the road to that goal.
Persecution
If I was a young man today and faced with a choice between being a professional sportsman and a traffic warden, I’d probably opt for the peaked cap. Why? Because traffic wardens are treated with more dignity and respect.
Take the case of Andy Murray as an example. Andy has had back surgery recently. He is in the early stages of rehab, still many weeks away from resuming his tennis career, but mobile enough to keep an important appointment this week. There he was, spruced up and ready to go to the Palace, with his partner and his parents, to pick up his OBE, when there was a knock on his front door. He opened it and there was a man, a stranger, demanding that Andy piss in a bottle, and that he witness him doing so. And he had to, no choice, even though it made him late for his investiture. It’s called out of competition testing, it’s compulsory and those who do not make themselves available are labelled ‘drug cheats’ and banned from their chosen sports. Human rights? They don’t have any.
Such is the crazy world of any modern professional athlete. If I picked up a squash racket again, even at my advanced age, maybe there’s a Masters’ circuit I could play on. Would I consider it? Only if I could give the man with the bottle a simple message when he turned up at my door.
How to embarrass oneself
Som
e guys invite you to play in a bounce game, and you’re photographed in their shirt, something your Barça pals will never let you forget.
BBC non-headline of the week
‘Andros Townsend: Roy Hodgson’s joke did not cause offence’
A welcome history
He didn’t send me a review copy, (I had to buy one!) but I’ll plug Kenneth Roy’s new book, ‘The Invisible Spirit’, anyway.
How to embarrass one’s wife
You take her to Madrid, then talk some local guy into having his photo taken with her, in his work clothes even, just to prove she was there.
Que?
Just back from Madrid of which more later, but first, a quiz question.
What are these?
How are the mighty fallen
This is what our broadsheet journalism has come to. This is a non-story with no substance at all, as the reader comments make very clear. I must give up the Torygraph and switch to the Sun, where they seem to have a greater regard for truth and accuracy.
Who, exactly?
So, the increasingly pathetic organ that used to be the Daily Telegraph has decided that it’s against Scottish independence. If this is the best counter-argument it can offer up, Alastair Darling will be begging its editor to shut up. Since the UK has never been a member of OPEC, why should the view of its Secretary General on the future of Scotland have any relevance to the debate? Yet according to the Torygraph, it’s a ‘serious blow’. Not half as serious as that newspaper’s current Scottish sales figures, which are likely to slump even further in the light of its apparent Westminster bias.
The trouble with Harry
Thing is, ‘arry, most people like you, apart from Arsenal fans and Chelsea fans, but your CV didn’t justify your appointment.
‘He would say that, wouldn’t he.’
From the days when journalism was journalism, and news was news, this resumé of one of the greatest stories, and greatest personal tragedies of the 20th century:
We get the media we deserve
We’ve all heard plenty over the last few days about the Daily Mail‘s crass, crude and clumsy attack on Ed Milipede’s father. Anyone who’s been watching telly has seen plenty of it too, as one Mail exec after another has been rolled out to take a kicking on news and current affairs programme . . . apart from Paul Dacre, the editor, himself, that is, although his absence did not spare him from being slaughtered by Alastair Campbell on Newsnight.
But for those who think that the Mail is the only rotten, stinking, vicious, suppurating organ on our newsstands, take a look at this nasty insidious little story.
Is this news? No way in 100 years, but it is grotesquely slanted reporting.
We know all about John Bercow’s background, but nothing at all about that of his accuser. I’d like to know a little more about the background and agenda of someone who picks up her old man off a plane from Texas then pops off in the Range Rover with him and her two sons to Gauchos for lunch. I’d like to know a lot more about the ‘newspaper reporter’ who ‘happened to be passing by’, and saw the alleged incident.
But I don’t need to know any more about the standards of the profession which I joined when I was 19 years old. They weren’t exemplary then, as I discovered, but today they seem to be completely down the crapper.
Jaws
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24372134
The stricter the controls the better. What’s the difference between a payday lender and a loan shark? Not a lot that I can see.
‘Nuff said
Further to ‘Please explain’;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/01/ny-daily-news-shutdown-house-of-turds_n_4021642.html
Quote for those with a 35 year memory
‘Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.’
Ronald Reagan
Please explain
Here in Great Britain we go on at Great Length about our politicians. Their stock has never been lower, in the wake of decades of sleaze stories capped off by the MPs’ expenses scandal. But there’s one thing they have never done, and that is close the country down because of their political strife.
As I read the story this morning, as of midnight around 700,000 federal employees in the USA are effectively out of a job, and many others may be expected to work without pay. National parks will be closed today and for the foreseeable, as will the Smithsonian and other federal institutions, all because the folks on Capitol Hill are having a pissing contest over health care. If they don’t sort it out by mid-month, America might default on its debts, with untold effect on global financial markets.
My one question this morning, as an outside observer is: having managed to step over the line that lads to melt-down, will the senators and congresspeople, and all their staffers, continue to be paid? If the answer to that is ‘Yes’, perhaps the President could use his executive power to ensure that they share the pain, personally. If the answer is ‘No’, then maybe they too should be told to stay at home.
Danger, Kenny at work
“Corroboration in our legal system is a barrier to obtaining justice for the victims of crime committed in private or where no-one else was there.”
Q. Who said that?
A. Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary.
Sometimes I worry about Kenny. No, that’s wrong: often, I worry about Kenny. Corroboration in our legal system is also a barrier against wrongful conviction of the innocent on the word of one person, who may be malicious, may have misinterpreted what he or she saw, or may be just plain wrong. It is one of the cornerstones of a system that is admired around the world, but our man Kenny wants to sweep it away. His thinking is that this dangerous step will increase the number of convictions for rape and sexual assault cases. That may be so, but will it always be the guilty who are convicted? And what will be the effect when it is applied to other crimes?
The proposal is a charter for miscarriages of justice across the board.
Dickensian
This morning’s big story in all UK media concerns the Chancellor’s intention that welfare claimants will have to work for their benefits . . . or ‘dole money’ as the deeply unlovely Daily Telegraph calls them.
In fact, there is nothing new about that concept. It used to be called The Workhouse. There’s progress, George!
