Do the England squad need better incentives?
One has to feel a bit sorry for North Korea’s football squad. Despite a spirited performance against Brazil yesterday on Tuesday, and managing to go in 0-0 at half time, they lost 2-1.
By any normal standards it was a remarkable result for a squad in which only 3 members play overseas.
Indeed cheer might be taken from the fact that the 0-0 draw between Portugal and Ivory Coast was probably one of the worst world cup games ever, suggesting that North Korea might produce a surprise upset and qualify for the knock-out stages.
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The football world cup is not xenophobic
We’re only three days into the World Cup, and already I’m tired of the drone. I speak not of the Vuzuvelas, but of the naysayers who dismiss the World Cup as being somehow xenophobic.
Laurie Penny was at it last week, now quoted approvingly by fellow Orwell Prize nominee Madame Miaow. Even my friend Ste Curran was at it earlier, and I expected better from him.
These curmudgeons assume that any time two teams from different sides line up against each other, it is inherently warlike.
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Why I find it difficult to cheer England at football
contribution by Madam Miaow
Football — the continuation of war by other means.
The trouble with football (collapsing a whole long list into a handful of bugbears) is that its mindset bears an uncanny resemblance to the belief in “my country/party right or wrong”. It appears designed to programme the collective brain out of thinking and nuance, making those same synaptic connections that can only deal with black and white, binary three-minute hate. Us (good) and them (bad).
Coming out of the Second World War, which devastated huge swathes of the globe, we valued our intellectuals and artists for helping to make the world a better place.
Nowadays, changing social conditions means social engineering, militarising society and the creation a nation of gladiators. From Sky to Skynet, turning you into a combat machine. Prepare to be assimilated.
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Semenya and paranoia about being a woman
This is painful for me. I was scribbling notes in ‘The Female Eunuch’ and ‘The Whole Woman’ before I lost all my milkteeth; I worship her irreverent, punchy prose; but there’s no escaping it. These days, Germaine Greer is a prejudiced, ignorant dickwad.
In her rather confused verdict on the Caster Semenya controversy, Greer comes up with the following gem today:
Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women’s names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn’t polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man’s delusion that he is female.
Greer hardly does any better in the grand game of unthinking prejudice bingo than the disgusting commentators who have decided that just because Semenya, a phenomenally high-achieving athlete, is big, butch and brilliant at sports, she can’t be a girl.
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London 2012: Cheap ‘n’ quiet
BJ the Mayor Bear has told MPs that he expects London 2012 to be “cosier” than this summer’s Olympics in Beijing. Considering the current economic woes, and the enormous scale of the Beijing games, surely this is something of a no-brainer?
From the BBC ::
Updating MPs on progress, the London mayor pledged to deliver a games “every bit as good as Beijing” without spending “colossal” sums of money.
He repeated his vow that the event would not go over its £9.3bn budget.
In light of the financial problems experienced building London’s other major “event” developments – Wembley Stadium and the Millennium Dome, you’ll forgive me if I remain sceptical that budgets can be honoured.
Has Britain really been ‘buying’ medals?
Now the last glittering firework has sputtered and died and Beijing has regained its industrial atmospheric fog – our Olympic athletes will amble through airport security with less chance of a cavity search than… well, a state-educated person has of winning a medal. Or an inhabitant of a “low-income nation” apparently.
That is according to Matthew Syed who does a good job in stating the bleeding obvious really. Private sector schools have more money to throw at sports, never abandoned the competitive ethos, haven’t sold off quite so many playing fields to make ends meet, etc – and when were the Olympics ever ‘egalitarian’, anyway?
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Roll on 2012
Of course I know all the arguments about the cost, the human rights issues, the corporatism, the exploitation of athletic achievement for chauvinistic purposes. But there’s still something about the Olympics that shines through it all and when that gorgeous torch went out in the Beijing sky an hour or so ago, I felt more than a tinge of emotion about the whole affair.
I think, on balance, it was right that the Olympics went to China. I think it was right, too, that there were widespread protests, most notably as the Olympic flame made its way around the world from Greece to Beijing. I think that both the presence of the Games in China and the protests against them can only help the cause of liberalisation and democracy there.
Am I trying to have my sporting and political cake and eat it too? I don’t believe so.
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How the left should resolve their problems
After much serious thought on the subject I have come up with the answer to all the squabbles on the left.
I considered serious political theoretical and strategic discussion but decided to cut to the chase, yep all the old bitter battles as to who did what in 1981 or more recent spats with the SWP could be settled by a cage fight.
Apparently :
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Forza, Viola
The notion that sport and politics should never mix is a curious, and also deeply political, one. Sport, after all, is just the waging of international politics by other means. Ask the East Germans.
Rarely has the mix been quite as fruity as this weekend’s end to the Italian football season continue reading… »
A Resignation Matter?
Cue the analogies.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» Why the Zakir Naik ban is wrong
» I didn’t vote Libdems for this
» Shock as council refuses to endorse gay blood donation
» Why we’re making the case against government cuts
» Do the England squad need better incentives?
» Which Labour candidate can social democrats be proud of?
» Is the Telegraph censoring criticism of climate-change deniers?
» Three years on, Israel’s blockade is still illegal
» Did New Labour suffer from a contradiction in policy ideas?
» Labour leaders debate on Newsnight: quick thoughts
» Bloody Sunday: when it’s right to reopen history
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