Recruitment Drive

Spirit of '95

It's out and about in the Village tonight, trying to make sure that in the battle for the hearts and minds of Rugby's neutrals that England comes out on top in support at the weekend. Against any other team than South Africa it would be a hopeless task; however circumstances have conspired to bring together the two teams in world rugby most hated outside their home nation.

Antipathy to England is a time honoured tradition. Despite occasional attempts at more modern justifications about the style of play or allegations of arrogance, still lie largely rooted in ancient grievances, real or imaginary, except perhaps in the case of New Zealand and Australia who seem to believe they should be allowed a duopoly on wild and sometimes over the top celebration of their teams' successes.

The case against the Springboks is one that I actually believe is one that is becoming increasingly unfair, though the South African government and the sport's administrators there must bear no small part of the blame for this unfairness. For all the wonderful scenes of 1995, with a beaming, Springbok shirt clad Nelson Mandela presenting the trophy to captain Francois Pienaar, the question of race continues to dog the national team.

There is no doubt whatsoever that in the early post-apartheid era that the sports administrators deserved most, if not all, of the blame, lagging far behind the average Springbok fan in a whole hearted acceptance of the new multi-racial society. While Afrikaner and English South African supporters learned to sing the new multi-national national anthem with pride, South Africa's rugby administrators did little more than half-heartedly cease to discriminate.

Over time though things changed, as a new generation of coaches, free from much of the political baggage of the past drove home the message that the highest levels of South African rugby would indeed be the very best the country had to offer, regardless of creed or colour. This is how sport should be, but there is a massive problem. For all of the SARU's best efforts, Rugby Union is disproportionately popular, at least in terms of participation, in the white and especially Afrikaans speaking community. The inevitable outcome is that while Springbok starting XVs will, in terms of racial makeup, possibly representative of participation levels at the grassroots, it is unlikely that it will represent the makeup of the country as a whole for some time to come.

In time things will change for rugby in South Africa, but politics is increasingly a sport of the here and now, and element of the South African government and its agencies have tried playing hardball, attempting to impose unrealistic quotas and launching quite personal attacks on senior figures in the game there.

It's all been horribly counter productive. Jake White, who has a better than evens chance of taking home the trophy at the weekend already knows that his reward for any success will be to be forced to reapply for his job, something as a matter of pride he is unlikely to do instantly tainting any victory.

Sure, there are a few die-hards in the South African rugby establishment, there are enough closer to home, but they will pass on and a new generation will assert itself. Is though a young talented coloured player likely to feel more or less likely to aim for the top of the sport, as a result of his government's continuous witch hunt?

To such a player I would say, do not listen to the same government whose attitudes on so many other, even more important issues, defy all common sense. Look instead not only at the team at the weekend, but the crowd, and your countrymen enjoying autumnal Paris. No, the numbers are not equal, yet, but nor is there segregation. The travelling support is that of one nation.

Get away from the politics, both national and supporting, and at least from the pictures I see, the spirit of '95 is alive and well. I just hope it's a spirit that bonds in commiseration, not celebration in a few days time!

A Beginner's Guide

This weekend will doubtlessly see an even larger number of temporary converts to Rugby than the one just gone, and perhaps even more than in 2003 thanks to the kick-off time.

As a public service I felt that I should do my part in explaining the rules of the game. No, for those adept in the art already I do not mean the laws of Rugby Union, but the rules for supporting your team, be it England, or, in the case of the other home nations, the Springboks.

Frankly there has been too much lightweight, socceresque behaviour around the Village. Hopefully the following short film, albeit from a Kiwi perspective, may help teach some amateurs the error of their ways. I would put a 'strong language' warning on it, but hey, I don't do it in the blogroll here, so why start now:



Those that do not drag themselves out of their pit at obscene hours to watch Tri Nations rugby, and indeed many that do so, may be unfamiliar with the voice of the film, Jed Thian. As well as contributing to the Rugby Roundtable blog which, even though All Black focused, is always an entertaining read, he is also the voice of The Alternative Rugby Commentary, which provides a much better audio channel for games involving the ABs than any mainstream broadcaster can muster, especially the rather anodyne NZ output.

How badly we need something like that here. To be able to switch of the ramblings of twat-of-all-trades Jim Rosenthal, and the fairly average Barnes and Harrison that ITV in desperation had to borrow from Sky, would truly be a blessing.

That said, Jed doesn't quite get everything right:



Though it should be said that he is no carping Kiwi, coming out with a much more balanced assessment of the ABs' exit than much of the mainstream New Zealand media could manage.

Some Things Never Change

Fighting...but which cause?

As I wrote, as slowly and drunkenly as I write this this, my previous post, the news came in that John Howard had announced the date of the Australian General Election, November 24th, showing guts that our own Prime Minister so clearly lacks. OK he had to go soon anyway, but his demeanour was so different to the skulking Brown.

Sadly though, I was listening to News 24, who yet again trotted out the predictable line that it Howard's electorally precarious position was entirely due to Iraq and climate change. It might not fit with the opinion of any anti-Howard Australian I've ever met who generally just feel "it's time for a change" or any more methodical polling which tends to rate these issues as being pretty low down the priority list, but I suppose it fits better with the BBC agenda and I guess that's what counts.

How weird it would feel in these days of a spin, to hear a voice that reported the news as it is, rather than the news as those reporting it wished it was.

Drained

England v France
Saturday, 8:00PM...
Next Week Too

To paraphrase, nay pretty much quote the words of one of my favourite tunes, 'These days turned out like nothing like I had planned'.

I'm still almost more surprised by the way the game panned out than the result. There's always a question about France, the traditional line being being 'it depends on which French side turns up on the day' but even having watched most of the game a second time already Laporte's game plan still eludes me. That's it for neutrality though, let me say the only two words that really matter.

We won.

Tomorrow every English rugby supporter can watch Argentina battle South Africa battle for the privilege to play the defending champions in the final from the best seat in the house.

It's been a huge top flight day of sport for me. I'm not that bothered about the Sri Lanka result, and the fact that some overpaid chav got off his fat arse and finally did something vaguely useful has thankfully been relegated to the 'other sport news' section of most TV news bulletins pleases me immensely.

By 19:50PM though, as a Leeds boy, lucky enough, despite a Union background, to appreciate the stunning intensity of both codes I'd seen the only hometown team I support, mercilessly destroy the overwhelming favourites, St Helens, in the Rugby League Grand Final. I thought that that would be as good as it would get...

The Rhinos go home with the title in the bag. On the Union front there is still work to be done; I still need a result at the club level to make the weekend complete, but I have faith on that front, and England know the challenge that face them be it from the Boks or Argentina. It's going to be another great week, whatever happens.

One more step England, a big one, but one that you've proved you are more than capable of taking.

Hostilities Resumed

England v France
Saturday, 8:00PM

It's less than 24 hours now before England face another huge test, in their World Cup semi-final against France. The tournament has produced too many amazing results to make any predictions with too much confidence, but I think Jackart's instincts are not too far off the mark.

Up front I'd expect England to still have the edge, though honours will be likely to be shared in the loose unlike the exhibition of the art of the turnover that the England forwards gave the Wallabies last week. The France side though has much more creativity in their back line, and the flair to score points against anyone, and they will. I doubt that twelve points will be anywhere near enough for England this time. Whether it's Wilkinson back to his metronomic best with the boot, or finding chinks in the French line for seven pointers, England needs to keep the scoreboard ticking over; I would expect France to score over 20 points even with England's defence performing well.

For most of the last year I have been saying that reaching the semi-finals would be a very respectable defence of England's 2003 title in view of their wretched build up to the event, so in one sense I'm already happy. The opportunity to play on the biggest stage of all and make the attempt to become the first team to successfully defend their crown is just one game away though, so defeat would still hurt for team and supporters alike.

In the build up to 2003 England fed off the memories of the pain of humiliating defeats on their previous visit to Australia, and the media gibes that accompanied the opening to their title bid. It's been noticeable how the tone of the French media has differed to that of the Australian press a couple of weeks ago. They have realised, as has Bernard Laporte, that England rugby teams don't get upset about mindless insults in the press, they feed off them. They bond, grow stronger and fight back.

One little battle that might be won off the pitch might be that of the crowd. I will always remember the chorus of 'Swing Low' that filled the stadium for the Australia v New Zealand semi-final in 2003, so ingenious had the vast travelling England support been in securing huge numbers of tickets to the game. Initial reports suggest that there could be a similar phenomenon tomorrow, and at the very least the advantage of the home crowd behind France should be very substantially neutralised.

It's been a pretty good week in the Village with the local Gallic contingent celebrating their own remarkable fight back alongside the English, much to the chagrin of some of the antipodean bar staff, who, at least in the case of the Australians have become universally life-long Rugby League or Aussie Rules fans. Traditional hostilities will be resumed from 8PM tomorrow.

The other semi-final is a tricky affair support-wise for me. Contrary to the famous Spitting Image song I actually do know quite a lot of nice South Africans, and their current squad seem to lack the supercilious arrogance of some of their forebears and also have the discipline to play the game within the bounds of acceptable aggression.

For all that, though the achievements of Argentina in raising their game to a new level, and raising the game's profile in a new continent cannot be overlooked. I think I will have to do it the proper English way and support the underdog.

We know you won't take a step back England, but one more painful, exhausting, but exhilarating step forward could see another remarkable chapter written into the story of this World Cup.

Those Prizes in Full

Nobel Prize Medal

Like most people I was somewhat taken aback by the latest Nobel prize announcement. So it's time to look at the complete list of winners (the Economics prize is not a real Nobel prize). I found this summary on the official prize website:

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg "for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance".
Looks complicated, and a quick google scan reveals that indeed it is.

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Gerhard Ertl "for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces".
Very worthy I'm sure, not exactly someone chasing headlines, just doing what he does well I suspect.

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans and Oliver Smithies for their discoveries of "principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells".
Valuable work in a very promising arena for human progress.

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Doris Lessing "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".
Don't know Lessing's work but she seems widely admired, and rejects most of the left-wing tags people try to attach to her.

The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize goes to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr.

They didn't include any citation for Gore et al.'s award, so I'll have to fill in:

...for services to mass hysteria and scientific dishonesty as proven in a court of law, and, in having an elephantine carbon footprint, to gross hypocrisy.

I'm tired and can't be bothered hyperlinking so many other better efforts at ridiculing this ridiculous award. Follow some of the blogroll links on the right...it's worth your effort.

SNAFU

Same old rubbish

I only managed to catch a few snippets of the Barroso/Brown joint press conference, but it looks like Brown really is out of the game at the moment. This was a much safer environment for Brown, despite the subject matter, when compared to the full assault by the press core earlier in the week, or his Commons destruction, but still he seemed unsure, hesitant and distinctly not Prime Ministerial.

Daniel Hannan's blog post at the Telegraph may be taking it a little far, but it does seem as if the events of recent weeks have opened up a whole new range of psychological flaws in Brown.

Sadly the media kicking I was expecting looks unlikely to materialise, other than in the usual quarters, simply because in essence, bereft of anything useful to say, they fundamentally said nothing new at all. At least someone seems to have beaten it into Barroso's thick skull that the 'R' word is one best avoided entirely by people such as himself whose democratic legitimacy is so thin.

One thing that both failed to do in any sense whatsoever was to add even the slightest semblance of credibility to Brown's almost universally derided position.

What I heard was, frankly, incredibly dull even for someone interested in the subject, and I suspect that was the plan. For more interesting thought on matters Brown a propos the EU treaty, you'd be better off musing on Dizzy's interesting hypothetical.

It sounds quite plausible, but fundamentally it's hard to assess the likelihood of such a play, you'd need to know which Brown has in greater abundance, cowardice or a propensity to cynical opportunism and that's a damn tough call.

The Good Old Days

A blast from the past

It's highly unusual for me to quote that renowned journal, Socialist Worker, however now I shall do it for the second time in less that a week.

Anyone who wonders whether or not the less thinking type of unionism that blighted this country for decades has been wholly eliminated by the actions of the Thatcher administration, and the merciful inaction of Blair and Brown thus far, should take a look at this gem.

Fortunately strikes such as the current postal workers' dispute and the recent shenanigans by Bob Crowe and his merry men are now sufficiently rare that for all the inconvenience and disruption they cause it is possible see such neanderthal rubbish as amusing from time to time.

I don't know why I found this particular effort so amusing, just something about the breathless style of the coverage of the posties' misguided actions, as they wreck their own job security. It finally struck me that it came over like a report in the local rag about the local soccer team's latest outing in the lower reaches of the football leagues, with a bit of Sid James 'Carry on at your convenience' style unionism as a bit of an afterthought.

Just to show you how some parts of the union movement have moved with the times:

The last day of the national postal strikes saw a fantastic spontaneous march by 100 postal workers through the centre of Ipswich chanting "What do we want? Fair pay! When do we want it? Now!".

...

Monday's strike saw four deliveries turned away including the weekly delivery of the canteen's food.

Source: Socialist Worker

"What do we want? X! When do we want it? Now!"...for God's sake this is the twenty-first century. Hmm, and I wonder who they will blame their empty bellies on when they finally do get back to work?

It even has the equivalent of the Opta statistics for the game, with 'shots on target' replaced with 'scab numbers'.

On a serious point, I've always despised the language of hate that fuels so much of left-wing rhetoric. As little time as I may have for the Human Rights Act, I do hope one day that a 'scab' takes legal action under it against one of the old-school unions - there seems to be ample cause.

For now, the CWU's campaign to destroy their member's job security Scargill-style continues unabated. Postal services across the continent face a very uncertain future, thanks to the CWU the Royal Mail faces probably the future with even less confidence than their European counterparts.

Bad Timing

Prats from the same pod

McStalin desperately needs something that will allow him at least the semblance of a fight back against Cameron's resurgent team. Some kind of big name visiting Number 10 would help. Mandela, Sarko, Merkel, Putin, even George W. would probably help restore some force to the great clunking fist and give Gordon a break from his now daily diet of domestic humiliation and allow him to play statesman for a day. Unfortunately for the dour one, the Prime Minister's next big public engagement is with Manuel Barroso, the ever unpopular president of the largely despised European Commission.

If you want to restore trust in your premiership, who worse could you go into conclave with than one of the few people more generally distrusted than yourself?

As someone who does not especially like, to put it mildly, Gordon Brown, the knowledge that he goes to bed knowing that there is no remotely likely positive outcome from this meeting that will leave him anything other than more damaged than his is already suits me just fine.

The meeting will, as we all know, be focussed on how to pull the wool over the eyes of the people of this country, rather than looking for positive outcomes for the UK, or for that case the EU. They could show true grit by coming to the decision that the only way to get the British people to support their decisions is to involve them, in the form of a referendum. That though would require courage and vision, qualities that it is becoming increasingly obvious that both are pretty much completely devoid of.

They will stand outside Number 10 and praise each other. Barroso will tell us all that Gordon has skilfully negotiated some fantastic red lines, Gordon will tell us how different the reform treaty is from the proposed constitution. They will join in unison on the key point, that the British people must never, ever be allowed to let their opinion on the veracity of their statements be properly heard.

They will beam, and smile and indulge in mutual congratulation. There is though, one little fly in the ointment. The majority of people in this country don't believe a single word they say.

I suspect that even Brown's closest friends wish it was anyone but Barroso lined up for Thursday. His now open hatred for anyone but the elites having a say in how we shall be governed will be a huge problem for a media team looking for the slightest glimmer of a good headline, when even members of the grim one's own party are openly questioning the truth of their leader's own vacuous assertions on the reform treaty.

This time tomorrow I'm pretty sure Brown will be back on the floor receiving the kicking he deserves, or at the very least skulking in private ignominy behind closed doors as wee Millibore takes it on behalf of his weak boss.

Brown will be back in his corner now, the blood washed away from his multiple knock-downs in the last few rounds, but it's far from over. Things can only get worse Brown.

Traditional Entertainments

Back to basics

So it's back to school, and back to the same old games. There have been a couple good live blogs today covering the return of PMQs. It says something for the renewed interest in matters political in the aftermath of the non existent general election that the sound was turned up in the pub in the Surrey hills where I was grabbing some lunch, to hear the dour one receive, what seemed by common consent, his well deserved kicking.

Most media reaction seems to have been that Cameron scored some points, but the invitation by Bob Neill for Brown to visit a bottle bank in his constituency seems to be the most widely quoted jibe. There were the inevitable sufferers of leftism who seem to have been watching a different contest, especially among those commenting over at Political Betting, but in reality Brown would know he had lost this round before he rose to the dispatch box. To be fair, Brown had managed to improve his PMQs outings after his poor debut, but right at the moment he looks as if he is back to square one.

It was a pretty effective line by Cameron, though as Shane Greer's live blog points out, there were possibly a couple of easy punches that were spurned.

Despite enjoying the performance, and being personally happy to see Brown getting beaten up like this on a weekly basis, I do think it's maybe time to move on now for Cameron and rise above this line. The areas of the media that are normally somewhat hostile, but gave Cameron a fair hearing over the conference season, did so, as far as I can see, largely because of the power of the way arguments were put over, not least by Cameron himself, and because a positive agenda was being put forward.

PMQs is obviously not the best forum for advancing opposition policies, and it is there mainly as an opportunity to bring the spotlight on the failings of government policy and its actions. That said, it can be done in a way that seems considered and statesmanlike, and too many knockabout sessions like this may distract the media's attention for more positive Conservative developments.

In the end, the 'bottling' lines will start to wear thin, as even the best of jokes do through over telling. They are still a nice jab to be landed now and again, but any collection of half-articulate back benchers high enough up the PMQs batting order would be more capable of keeping this particular wound open.

To continually look for fresh lines of attack, or even wrong-footing lines of support must be the way forward for Cameron.

The Prime Minister is, without doubt, a very intelligent man, but that is not the same as being a quick thinker on his feet, as his first PMQs outing showed. Give him enough time on one topic and he will find a way to spin himself out of trouble, even on occasion within a single session. I prefer the approach where the leader of opposition's questions are split across two or more distinct subjects, tackled with a varying delivery from outright hostility, to constructive criticism, as it denies the Prime Minister the chance to build up a head of steam and move the debate on to ground that is more fertile for spin.

Still, it was entertaining to see a return of Punch and Judy politics, even if I hope it is only temporary, and as someone generally, even increasingly sympathetic to the Cameron cause, it was good to see who clearly held the big stick.