Germany win! Hurrah!

I'd have thought it would have felt odd to have cheered on Germany, but it didn't. Maybe it was because Germany played in white like England. Maybe it was because the game felt like an England game with its almost total lack of excitement. Or maybe cheering on the German team felt so natural because I hate and detest with a gushing, unrelenting, near heartbursting passion, the Argentinian football team.

I hate hate hate them. To lose against them is not just to have to swallow defeat, but to also suffer their taunts. Every team celebrates a win, but Argentina like a matador skewing the bull long after it lies dead and bleeding on the dusty ground, use victory it as a weapon to wound their opponents still further. They have absolutely no sense of sportsmanship and no sense of what, other than winning, makes football the great game it is. Playing them leaves a bad taste in the mouth, win or lose.

Although I prefer to see them lose, just like they did today. Hurrah!

But best of all though, oh yes, best of all, is that if we play Germany in this World Cup it will be in the final. I do believe that when England hosted Euro '96 it was Germany who kicked us out in the semi-finals. I remember it hurt. It hurt bad. I also remember saying that when next we play against Germany and they are the hosts that we will crush them into the ground as far as the depths of hell and wrench from their grasping thieving hands the prize that was ours by right.

Oh Klinsmann. Ye shall taste of our pain. Once you took the cup from our Queen and so shall we smite you down and take it back.

(offensive? unsuitable? get stuffed)

Hopelessly old-fashioned

"Do you have any bookcases?"

"No, we only sell modern furniture here."

Who Shall Defend the Defenders?

I am in a line of traffic waiting to turn onto a busy two-lane road at traffic lights . The traffic on the main road is backed right up leaving little space for anyone turning right to move into, thus holding up the flow of traffic.

My line of traffic is like goods on a halting conveyor belt. We all shunt forward in jolts. Some make it through the lights. Most don't.

I am lucky. When I reach the lights there is space for me to turn right. I join the traffic of the main road feeling as if I have been allowed to join a prestigious club.

Soon I realise the problem. There might be two-lanes, but one lane is blocked by a monster sized SUV. The thing is black all over, including the windows, and it just sits there, squatting defiantly like some enormous evil-intentioned beetle, holding up traffic and not caring.

I allow myself a roll of the eyes. Only days before I had been moved on from a very good parking spot, where I was doing no harm to man nor vehicle, by a dead-eyed traffic warden. And yet, I cry to the gods, where are the guardians of our roads when some huge road beast causes chaos in rush hour traffic? I hate traffic wardens, I thought. They only want to hurt me.

As I passed the vehicle I stared at it so that it should know that it had earned my displeasure. But to my shock and quick delight, who should I see just behind the SUV? Why, it was my very own dead-eyed traffic warden! There he was, getting off his scooter wearing his fluorescent jacket and his dead-eyed look.

Robot with low IQ no more. Fierce defender of road regulations, he is.

Zebras of Anxiety

With thanks to the ever readable Matt M and this post of his, I am reminded that I meant to do a post on the article by Joseph Harker in the Guardian:

"Flutters of anxiety - flag waving patriotism before the World Cup is fair enough, but is the BNP secretly smirking?"

"I've been looking at the drivers of these flag-waving vehicles, and - OK, I admit this isn't exactly scientific - half of them are in white vans, and the rest are white, male, tattooed, pot-bellied 35 to 55-years-olds: exactly the type I've been seeing on TV for the past month complaining about "our houses going to the asylum seekers", or that "we're losing control of our country". I can't tell if these drivers come from Barking and Dagenham, where the BNP gained 11 seats, but that borough is just a short drive from where I live, so who knows?"

After first reading this article Scribbles did concur that there were lots of flags for sale well before the England team got within sight of a pumpernickel. Since then I've been doing my own unscientific test and made a point of noticing who was flying the flags on the cars in my area. What I have invariably found is that most of them are flown on private cars, a lot are on vans, most drivers are Asian, a fair few are white, a handful have been black. Age, i'd say 25-45.

From this extensive research I conclude thus:

One. I think those people who make flags are canny so-and-sos. They must have realised there was a World Cup on this summer and deliberately went out to make as much money as possible by getting their flags in the shops as soon as they thought they could get away with it.

Two. People might be flying the flag of England because they too realised there was a World Cup this summer, and have sort to get into the spirit of the thing by flying it in support of the England team. Just like everyone else, in every single other country that's taking part, is flying their own flag.

So there you go. I can hear hoofbeats, but i'm thinking horses, not zebras. Radical.

ENGLAND v EQUADOR: indepth analysis

Beckham is as Beckham does.

Someone should tell Gary Lineker that too much sun causes premature aging of skin.

Unjust ice-cream circumstance

The ice-cream van has just been round again, and yet again my neighbour's kids get an ice-cream. The van comes round every day and every day they get an ice-cream.

I find this outrageously unfair.

When I was a kid I got an ice-cream once a week if I was lucky.

Don't Fuck With Will

Don't fuck with Will.

He outed "Luniversal" "Jack the Bear" "wear-reside-Jack", regular Harry's Place commentators, alleging they are all one Kevin Scott, thug, criminal, BNP member.

Here's the kind of stuff friendly "Jack the Bear" likes to post:

After counting up the amount of Jews, possible Jews, shabbos goy, goy sounding names, and lecturers in 'Holocaust studies' (notorious as a preserve of Zionist apologetics, apparently) amongst the original signatories of the Euston Manifesto, Scott comments:

"HP is very keen on exposing Respect as a front for the SWP, but its own stables are scarcely less Augean. Maybe the Left at large has seen through the stratagem-- since the Manifesto has attracted under 1,800 mostly obscure signers in two months, some from professed non-leftists and many from foreigners who do not know or care about the British Zionist origins of the scam."

Nice sentiment there, I think you'll agree.

Will also outed Graham, now a poster at Harry's Place and previously a regular commentator, as a vile piece of work.

Here's a snippet of the type of stuff Graham likes to post:

To "Schmuel"
"Jewish racial supremist"

To "Hak Mao"
"Hak Mao - The Vanguard of the Revolution?
Only if it is held during the Gucci sale .
I'll keep digging the knife into your back you ridiculous snobby arsehole!"

I believe he also called Will "middle-class".

If you haven't been following the fight between Will and Graham over the whole Kevin Scott debacle then let me just say it's better not to let Will know if you are either a neo-Nazi, or if you think that neo-Nazis should be left unhindered to express their nasty hate-sodden world view. Like I say, don't fuck with Will.

(although, as you would expect I have made my displeasure known to Will over the whole whale-harpooning mice-hammering comments)

...and what's it got to do with you exactly?

Vanessa Redgrave is speaking out against a huge mining project set to go ahead in Romania because "our planet is dying and we have no right to destroy an ecosystem."

Canadian mining firm, Gabriel Resources, wants to turn an area of central Romania into Europe's largest open cast mine, displacing a village and destroying a few mountains. It sounds quite bad when you put it like that, but consider:

Half the villagers of Rosia Montana, the village that will be destroyed, do not have running water and most have an outside loo. Most of the mines in the area have been shut down leaving 70% of its 2000 population unemployed.

And the mine, should it be built, "will employ 1,200 during construction and 600 during operations, creating a further 10 indirect jobs for each direct one in service and catering industries." Every displaced villager will get good resettlement money, and the company will build a new model village "with a school, library, community centre and plaza."

The project will cause pollution and will also destroy some historic sites of interest, but with so much to gain many of the villagers support the plan. So I ask, what has it got to do with Vanessa Redgrave? Will her life be bereft if she cannot visit the Roman mining galleries anymore, not that she ever did in the first place? Will the view from her expensive London house be destroyed by the loss of the mountains, not that she can see them from there? Or is it more that for her holidays she likes to pop along to destitute villages and get down with poverty?

The fact is that if this mine happens or does not happen it will not make one jot of difference to Redgrave's life. Yet whether this mine does or not not happen will mean everything to the people of Rosia Montana. This is not a simple case of big bad international company versus the people. It's more a case of the people being stuck between poverty and having a socking great big mineshaft on their doorstep. It's not a great choice, not like having to choose between St Maxine or Sorrento for your holiday, but unless Redgrave has a better idea this mine is the only a prospect of a better future these villagers have.

If she really cared about these people, and this area, a better way forward might be to find ways to put pressure on the mining company to try and salvage as much from the historic sites as possible, use the most of modern mining techniques to do its best by the environment, and get as good a deal for the villagers of Rosia Montana concerning resettlement fees and the building of the new model village - in short, to ensure that the least damage is done and the most benefit gained.

But that is probably not as sexy an idea to such an "advocate of liberal causes" as Redgrave, and would not make such a grand central theme for rousing speeches at film festivals -

"What do we want?"
"Pragmatism!"
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"

Or perhaps I've got Vanessa Redgrave wrong. Maybe she's just playing up to her role, knowing the media will lap up the "grande dame of theatre gets into a ruckus" business, bringing the world's attention to the actions of an international company in an obscure part of the world, thus forcing the company to play fair. But to be honest, she's never seemed that bright to me.

SUV you

Drivers of 4x4s are more likely to flout road laws because "Researchers... say people feel safer in four wheel drive vehicles and therefore take more risks."

Yes, it goes a bit like this:

I drive a car that takes up two spaces in busy car parks. Fuck you.

I drive a car that is a major polluter of the environment. Fuck you.

I drive a car that will be damaged far less in a collision than your car. Fuck you.

I drive a car that is more likely to kill a person, especially a child, in an accident. Fuck you.

I drive a car that means I can take more risks because I won't be the one paying the price. So fuck you. And fuck you again.

Midsummer Madness

It started when I saw the next neighbour's dog in my back garden. There should be no dog in my garden. Only cats. I go out to shoo it off. It remains. It barks at me. Then it runs at me. I do not expect to be run out of my own garden.

I walk to the shops. The traffic lights at the top of the road are out. Yet cars swim elegantly in and out of one and other as if guided by some super sixth sense.

Reaching my corner shop the shop keeper is shooing people away in the manner that I had shooed my neighbour's dog away. I am allowed in. There are no lights on. I pick out a birthday card for a friend in semi-darkness. I discover there is a power cut. The shop keeper is only allowing in familiar faces.

Walking back home, house alarms bleep with annoying insistence. People stand on their doorsteps looking up into the sky as they will seek revenge. I pass a man wearing a fluorescent jacket trying to get into an electrical substation armed with WD40 and crowbar. A car breaks down just as it levells with me.

I am back in my house. Four collared doves are on my lawn, sitting casually as if they are on lunchbreak. Two have just flown onto the roof of an outbuilding in front of me. One is trying to shag the other.

A mouse appears on top of my washing machine.

I drive to get some chips. For once I have no trouble parking. I sit waiting in the car as Mr Scribbles gets the food. The chip shop displays a big sign saying there will be free chips for everyone "when England wins the world cup".

A man on a scooter pulls up in front of me and comes to my window. He too is wearing a fluorescent jacket. He tells me, with all the style and grace of robot with a low IQ, that there is no parking. I have been parking here every Thursday for thirteen years. I ask him since when was no parking allowed? Since always, I am told. Words came out of the man's mouth, but his eyes are dead. No parking until 6.45pm.

I am home again, the first article I see on the local news is about the confusing parking laws in this country and the over eager enforcement of them by incentivised robots with low IQs.

I eat my chips. We put on the football. An Albion player is playing against Brazil.

It is past eight o'clock at night and it is as light outside as if it were mid afternoon.

ENGLAND v SWEDEN: indepth analysis

Good Things

We did alright First Half.
Cracking goals from Cole and Gerrard.
Ecuador.

Bad Things

Second Half flagging. Again.
Corners and throw-ins met with bemusement by the England side as if they had never seen such a thing in all their lives.
Loss of Michael Owen leading to scary few number of strikers left.
Walcott. The point? If not now, then when?

Why, Mr al-Zarqawi, with your death you are spoiling us!

Al-Qaida in Iraq close to collapse.

"We believe this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaida in Iraq"

First official death from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

From the New Scientist.

"On Tuesday, coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley of Brighton and Hove Coroners Court, UK, recorded the cause of death of a 32-year-old woman as acute aneuric renal failure (failure to produce urine) due to dehydration as a result of CFS. The deceased woman, Sophia Mirza, had suffered from CFS for six years."

Sophia had refused any further medical intervention after her doctor, disbelieving her illness was real, had her sectioned under the Mental Health Act. She was one year younger than me.

Here is Sophia's story as told by her mother.

(with thanks to my anonymous friend)

Question

Can you OD on pistachio nuts?

ENGLAND v TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: indepth analysis

The thing about football is that there are two teams playing, and both those teams want to win.

Some, previous to the Trinidad game, seem to have forgotten this. England were just supposed to walk onto the pitch have a bit of a kick around and then score several goals. Trinidad's part was merely to provide a party atmosphere and then good humouredly let England have their win.

Ah funny little Trinidad, how honoured they must feel to be playing England. Funny little team. Now play nice and hand over those goals chaps!

Well that funny little team had already held Sweden to a goalless draw and managed to keep England there for 83 minutes. And do you know why? Because Trinidad wanted to bloody win. They didn't want to just turn up and be everyone's pet team to be patronised and smiled about, they wanted to bloody win matches.

England did what England needed to do. They took Trinidad seriously, and as the captain said after the match, they stuck to their game plan and finally broke them down.

True, I would rather they not have left it quite so late to score, but they were finally creating chances a good twenty to thirty minutes before the goals. And with a team with the quality of England if you create enough chances the balls will go in. The players believed that, even if it was slightly harder for those of us watching to believe.

So, Scribbles is happy. She recognises professionalism when she sees it. And she much approved of Stevie Gerrard's goal.

A further reply from the BBC to my accusation of sexism

Dear Mrs Scribbles

First of all we're very sorry you received a response in this way. It's not good enough. We are investigating and will try to improve the way we handle responses to e-mails in the future as the result of this exchange. For the record we always try to answer an editorial complaint like this in as individual and proper way as possible, and generally we do.

As far as your comments about the report are concerned, I believe the item was of interest, and for some viewers the light-hearted treatment would have worked. However I also accept that it should have included an element to reflect some of the points made in your e-mail, and in particular those people who believe this is another sign of the growth of a legitimised sex industry.

In fact our post-programme debrief prompted a debate about this very issue. I'm sorry if it caused offence as a result. We will bear this in mind if similar subject matter becomes part of the agenda of Midlands Today in future.

I hope you'll continue to watch the programme.

Yours sincerely
D**** H*********
Head of Regional and Local Programming
BBC West Midlands

***

A much better response, I think you'll agree. I'm especially pleased to learn that this had already been a matter for debate in the post-prog debrief, without a member of the public having to make a complaint. My faith is restored.

The odd thing about this further reply though is that I never contacted the BBC complaining about the first one. My site stats however do show that after my first post on this I did receive visits from a couple of people from the British Broadcasting Corporation.

This is the power of the blog people. Beware.

And if you're reading Mr H******* I always watch Midlands Today - Nick Owen's droll delivery cannot be beaten.

Alastair Campbell's got a new blog

With thanks to STWAOS, I discover that Labour's finest has a new blog. Not sure yet whether it's as good as his old one. He's not swearing nearly enough. Here's a snippet:

Alastair Campbell
So here we go. After all the build up, the billions of words spoken and written, in a few hours the World Cup starts as Germany take on Costa Rica. Within a matter of few days, we will have that four yearly rash of women newspaper columnists suddenly imagining that the world needs to know their views on Ronaldinho, or how confused they get that there is a Ronaldo playing for Brazil and another playing for Portugal, who have a Brazilian manager who almost came to England but it never happened because England have to have an English manager but isn't it very confusing because at the moment they have a Swede in charge with a glamorous girlfriend and what a coincidence that England will play Sweden in the opening stages. Blah, blah, blah.

Hazel Blears
Great blog Alastair, but hang on a minute. Loads of women know a huge amount about football and thousands of them are out in Germany backing our team. Come on England!

Rt Hon Hazel Blears
MPLabour Member of Parliament for Salford & Labour Party Chair

Alastair Campbell
I know from my own experience following Burnley that there are loads of women who both care about, and know about football. I just don't think any of them are primarily current affairs newspaper columnists.

ENGLAND v PARAGUAY. Indepth Analysis

When the team is flagging you take off your best striker. That's what you do. Everyone knows that.

The World Cup: Let the games begin

There is a sickness in professional football. It is slimy with money. Racist chants have been sung from the terraces. Women are at best comedy wives, at worst fit for roasting. The cheating, the machoism, the commercialism. I should hate football.

But I don't.

I don't hate football because all of the above is not football. Football is what happens for 90 or so minutes on a grass pitch. And football is fucking fantastic.

For the next month in Germany a story will unfold, a story full of heroics, betrayal, sadness, regrets, brotherhood, vendetta, euphoria and triumph. It's a treasure hunt. A saga. A love affair.

In moments, nothing, but nothing, will seem as important. That moment when the ball is sailing towards the net, when the penalty-taker sizes up the goal, when the striker makes a run, that moment will grab at the roots of your soul. If the moment succeeds, your soul will burst into life and it will feel like the universe is on fire. If it fails your soul will be yanked from you and all life will drain away. Triumph brings communal joy. Defeat, aching isolation. The extremity of human feeling experienced many times over in under two hours.

And the anticipation. A world springs up where living the normal life feels like pretence. We shop, we eat, we go to work. But it's all a charade. Walking down the High Street wondering just how many people are thinking, just as you are, of the game that night. Reality as you know it disappearing, normality replaced with a new reality containing danger and glory and everything that daily life lacks.

Whatever mattered before, doesn't matter anymore.

For 90 minutes footballers are no longer over-paid prima donnas. They are not even sportsmen anymore. They become romantic warriors. For King and country, their legacy is that of the Knights of the Realm fighting in foreign lands. Their talents seem beyond human, even supernatural. Equally cursed and blessed, they fight in an arena where one must crush or be crushed. The prize can only be won by stifling pity and killing.

That, my friend, is football. Ignore the beer commercials and silly hats. This is a serious. We get one chance every four years. Let's win.

I punched the air with glee

Logging onto my computer yesterday my yahoo homepage told me that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed by coalition forces. I punched the air with glee.

Later I reflected upon whether it can ever be right to feel or express delight upon hearing of somebody's death, even the death of someone like al-Zarqawi. I decided that it is never right, and lacks a certain human decency, but that as delight was what I felt when I heard of his death there was very little I could do about it.

I have since further reflected that perhaps I should at least try not to feel glad at his death. This I have decided would be the decent thing to do. But, you know, it's complicated and I'm sort of busy at the moment. I've got lots of ironing to do and the World Cup starts today and so realistically I just don't see that I can fit it in right now.

For other people's reactions Scribbles recommends:

Fisking Central's Personality quiz. What your reaction to al-Zarqawi says about you.

Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal, Got the Motherfucker.

Oliver Kamm, Justice dispensed.

Christopher Hitchens, A Good Day's Work

Norm, Zarqawi is dead.

A reply from the BBC to my accusation of sexism

Dear Mrs Scribbles

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the BBC Lunchtime News, broadcast on 1 June [it wasn't the lunctime news, it was the teatime news].

I understand you have concerns that there was a report on a topless car wash which they [they? who they?] deem to be sexist and inappropriate news reporting. It is never the intention of the BBC, or indeed our employees to upset or cause offence to any of our viewers [no shit].

Therefore, please be assured that your comments have been fully registered and added to our daily audience log [what's that?]. This is an internal document that is made available to all BBC staff, including the BBC News production team and Senior BBC Management [and ?]. Feedback of this nature helps us when making decisions about future BBC programmes and your comments will play a part in this process [so? are you going to show sexist stuff in a funny way in the future or not? Do you agree the report was sexist or not?].

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us with the strength of your concerns [it's on my blog too mate, and has literally reached a handlful of other people].

Regards

Pxxx Kxxxxx BBC

6.6.6.

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom: let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number. Its number is six threescore six.

Pollen

Traditional advice given to hayfever sufferers to get through the summer months

Take anti-histamines.

Use a nasal spray daily and eye drops for sore eyes.

Keep all the windows and outside doors of your home shut and the curtains closed.

Pets are pollen carriers, so kill them.

People also carry pollen on their hair and clothes so you might like to consider living alone and refusing visitors. If this is not possible a good idea is to build a walk-in-shower in your front porch. Before entering your home all visitors must strip and wash the pollen off in the shower, leaving their contaminated clothes outside.

DO NOT GO OUTSIDE BETWEEN THE MONTHS OF MAY AND OCTOBER.

If you must venture outside for any reason wrap thick cloth around your head and face and keep your eyes and mouth shut. If breathing becomes necessary be prepared by carrying around your own oxygen mask and tank.

If you travel by car, keep the windows closed and the air vents shut off. If things get a little hot, a hand held fan is often of great use.

***

Flags On Cars

Scribbles pronounces:

I will not be putting the England flag on my car, not because I think it is racist or offensive to do so, but because it is common and I am a snob.

No Token

Me neither.

You're All Sexist Bastards

Two things have made me fume today. And I don't often manage that twice in one day.

First, Fisking Central brought my attention to this Catherine Bennett piece from the Guardian's comment is free.

In it she talks about the political blogosphere as being full of ridiculously geeky, sexist, red-necked, middle-aged, men, with silly nicknames who talk about women in a humiliating way, and who have created an exclusive male-dominated community only just "penetrable" by women.

Is it? Is it, really Catherine? Where the hell have you been looking for blogs then, because every male person I have encountered through the blogosphere has been unfailingly polite, distinctly not patronising and anything but sexist. There is a blokishness to some blogs, but not being a delicate little Victorian lady taken to fainting at anything improper I don't actually find it a cause for concern. Being blokey does not automatically equate with chauvinism.

The political blogosphere is fast with news, debate and thinking, and I don't understand why such a "community" should be seen as only something men should be interested in. The fact that it is undoubtedly male-dominated does not mean that the female bloggers are crouching by the table waiting for crumbs. Hak and Ophelia are two females who punch high, but I bet Catherine Bennett never got anywhere near their blogs, why would she? They're female.

Anyway, that was Fume Number One. Fume Number Two was watching the local tea-time news. The following is a copy of the complaint I have just sent off to the BBC:

I have just watched the regional tea-time news on BBC1 (1st June) and I am fuming at one of the stories covered on it.

It was a piece by Ashley Blake and concerned a topless car-washing business in Coventry, and by topless I mean that the young women cleaning the cars were topless. My complaint rests on the jokiness of the report when news of this type of business is deeply depressing. Just how is such a job that is so thoroughly degrading and feeds on such a nasty stream of sexism, funny?

To have a woman carry out such a mundane job with her breasts out purely for the entertainment of some inadequate male who will get as big a kick out of the humiliation of the woman as he will out of seeing her naked, is just sickening. This was not news fit for such a lightweight report.

I make no specific complaint against Ashley Blake. My complaint is against whoever decided that this would make a funny report at the end of the show. It was wholly inappropriate.

Now that is worth complaining about, Catherine Bennett. Have a look in your own backyard. A completely indefensible business trading on the degradation of a human being receiving a nudge, nudge, wink, wink from the media. The car industry is testosterone fuelled enough without reducing women's role further to one of tits-out comedy characters.

The media does like to have a bit of gender humiliation does it not? I wonder if Catherine Bennett has picked up on today's "story" where BBC Breakfast presenter Kate Silverton has been made to say sorry for wearing "an eye-watering green and yellow psychedelic blouse with matching scarf." Just a funny thing, you might say. Bright coloured blouse. Funny. Ha. Ha. Only note the article also takes time out to tell us that Kate "hit the headlines last year when her News 24 co-host Philip Hayton quit after 37 years, claiming he could not stand working with her." It's also a bit sniffy about her previous work presenting "the home improvement show Big Strong Boys and religious programme". A difficult women then, who's only ever presented silly rubbish, with bad taste in blouses, eh? Don't know why the article doesn't just suggest she takes the damn thing off and sit there on the sofa with her tits out.