Presiding as the Chairman

Much of this conflict over the significance of the new post of "European President" is little more than language based. "President" in English is definitively the top donkey however you look at it, whereas in French "président" translates as both "president" and "chairman", and a chairman at best will have the casting vote when it comes to making decisions. They've even been saying in the English-language media that the French and Germans among others consider the role more as that of a "Chairman" than as a "President", when for reasons just stated this amounts to the same thing.
So why not just call the new top honcho the "Chairman of the European Union"? Not grand enough I suppose.

Herman Van Rompuy, new EU "supremo"

Thierry Henry - La Honte!, or, Gods with feet of clay

If "L'Equipe", France's national sports daily, were impartial - or, let's face it, not French - the headline blazing out on its front page today would surely read "LA HONTE!" - "The disgrace!" - after the scandalous way in which Eire was eliminated from the World Cup Qualifiers by Les Bleus last night.
Instead, it runs with "La main de dieu" - the, oh!, so evocative (for English fans) "Hand of God" line, and that in itself speaks volumes.

It speaks volumes of everything that is wrong with football today and, indeed, of why football is the world game and, arguably, the one true religion in this godless age, when other "true" religions appear either whimsical at best or dangerous at worse to the public at large.

The whole language of worship has been transferred from pew to kop, with banners unselfconsciously proclaiming "My team - a religion"; "My manager the god". The faithful congregation gathers to sing hymns of praise every week to the deities whose icons adorn their children's bedroom walls.

These latter-day deities have so much in common with the Roman gods in so many ways; aside from the manifest falsehood they stand for that we all try to deny lest our lives appear as meaningless as they surely are, the old gods (with lower-case "g" for good reason) were all feted for representing a particular characteristic: Mars the god of war; Bacchus the god of bacchanalian roistering; and so on. In other words, they were all one-trick ponies, just like footballers.

Craig Burley, nephew, of ex-Scottish manager George, blew the gaff on the "cream" of that nation's footballers by declaring they were "too thick" to understand his uncle's management strategy. Yet, to quote the song, "Is it any wonder?" All they know is how to kick a ball about and their dedication was invariably at the expense of their education. Yet they are all - at the summit - as rich as Cresus for all that, and live in their bubble like the immortals on Mount Olympus.

So what are gods - indeed God - for? Surely the answer is: to provide lessons in how to live, ostensibly "righteously" (though a moot point when it comes to Muslim fundamentalists).

So what lessons do we learn from the gods of the football field? How to live venally, in celebration of philistinism, selfishly (even small clubs are going to the wall as all football's "largesse" is greedily hoarded by a relatively small cabal) and as filthy cheats.

Thierry Henry, and all of France this morning to give them their due, are looking and feeling sheepish about the events that transpired last night. If he'd been a cricketer (Andrew Strauss this summer springs to mind), he might have held his hand up in a show of good sportsmanship and called a foul on himself (like a snooker player would). But cricket and snooker are not the world's game. Football is. And such an admission would be unthinkable in football. So maybe, at the end of the day (as football pundits like to say), we get what we deserve.

And the legacy for Thierry Henry? They call him affectionately "Titi" in France, the name given to Tweety-Pie as it happens, the bird that "t'ought it saw a putty-cat". Well the world all saw what you did, Titi, and your name will go down in history as "Tricheur Henry", i.e.: Henry the Cheat.

Anyone for tennis?

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

It strikes me on this Commemoration Day that each of the leading world nations has sent into battle in the great wars its own unknown soldier, and this soldier has always ended up getting killed. Talk about cannon fodder!

Sarkozy the Liar

Not only does Sarkozy come out with the most blatant piece of historical oneupmanship at the Berlin celebrations of Nov 9, when he tries to echo the famous Kennedy utterance: "Ich bin ein Berliner" with his own "Wir sind Berlin" (neither of which the Germans would have said, the first notoriously translating as "I am a doughnut", and the second being pure invention, since the famous chant was "Wir sind das Volk" ("We are the people"); the cocky littly upstart also claims to have been there in the madding throng on that auspicious evening.
I can demonstrate that this has to be complete bollocks.
I was living in Germany then, in Hamburg to be precise, and, like the death of Lennon or the attack on the World Trade Center, moments like this are etched in the memory.
I was sitting to watch the news at home, waiting to go out and see the Pogues in concert. The German evening news begins at 8pm and finishes at 8.15, and I remember distinctly the look of surprise on the (female) newsreader's face when it comes in over her earphones, just before the end of the broadcast, that there was a breach in the wall and that the Easterners were flooding through.
So even if you lived in Germany, you had no idea what was coming, no idea of how the night might have progressed (repression? bloodshed?) and a cat-in-hell's chance of organizing your travel arrangements to get over to the city.
So what of the likelihood of some ambitious French would-be politician just beaming down to enjoy the thrill of it all, apparently accompanied by today's Mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppé??
Give us a break, you duplicitous toe-rag.

Photo of me sporting unfortunate moustache, hammering away at the wall alongside all the other "Mauerspechte" ("Wall-peckers")