All over the shop

Brendan O'Neill has written one of the most ridiculous blogs I've read in some time on today's Guardian Comment is Free site.

As a way of background, Brendan is a member of the deeply suspect Living Marxism sect details of which can be found here, here and here.

Brendan today writes about the cancellation of a concert in Brighton, UK due to be performed by the Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton. This has given Brendan an excuse, like he ever needs one, to rant and rave against the liberal left which he claims is hypocritical and racist.

The reason the gig was cancelled was because of protests from gay rights groups about the hateful anti-gay lyrics that are contained in Banton's work (and in many songs performed by Jamaican performers.) These aren't just anti-gay but actually encourage people to go out and harm homosexuals. Banton himself was charged in 2005 with gay bashing (and acquitted after a botched police investigation).

Now, we can have a debate about how far free speech should be extended and whether people like Banton have a right to air such views in a public concert. That's a fine debate to have.

But Brendan, being Brendan, can't help using the whole episode as an excuse to attack the liberal left. According to him the real reason white liberal (for some reason he associates liberalism with being white) people wish to see these performances stop is because they are racist. They believe that young black music fans are 'a potentially excitable horde whose access to inflammatory material must be restricted by the authorities.'

It is interesting to see how Brendan is injecting a racial element to this when he has absolutely no evidence at all to suggest it is true - all that is guiding him is his pathological hatred of the liberal left. In fact I think this theory exposes his own ingrained prejudices towards black people. This has nothing to do with the fact that the reggae scene is 'black', if these songs were bought by exclusively white people there would still be a valid argument made by the 'liberal left' against them.

The really ridiculous thing about his article though is that he tries to draw a parallel between the left's attempt to clamp down on anti-gay performers and their opposition to religious hatred laws. The two things though are not comparable and Brendan knows it full well. He states that liberals like Rowan Atkinson and Joan Bakewell were against the religious hatred laws - and yes they were. They were concerned, rightly in my opinion, that the law would prevent people from insulting someone's religious beliefs or mocking them. None of the terms in the shoddy bill were defined and so it had the real potential to end free religious debate in the UK. There are a couple of important points to make here:

1) There is no contradiction at all between wanting to prevent a law that may have criminalised valid criticism and comic parody of religion and wanting to clamp down on entertainers that espouse the murder of gays. If a singer produced songs that advocated the killing of Muslims then I somehow doubt that the 'liberal left' would be rallying to their defence. The point is that it's fine for people to criticize homosexuals but when they start to incite hatred and violence towards them it really is on a different level. The liberal argument against the Religious Hatred bill wasn't that it sought to criminalize inciting hatred but because it was an attempt to prevent critical discourse about religious belief. The Religious Hatred bill sought to criminalize 'insulting' religion - the term 'insulting' was left undefined. The liberal objectors to the bill did make clear that if this was removed and the bill was more tightly drafted to just cover incitement to hatred and violence against religious people then this would have been acceptable. Banton has expressed the desire to douse gays in acid, that's not an 'insult', that's threatening behaviour and incitement to violence which is illegal in all decent societies.

2) How does Brendan know that just because the likes of Rowan Atkinson and Joan Bakewell protested against the religious hatred laws that they are also for preventing homophobic reggae singers performing in the UK? Has he asked them? Or is he just stupidly suggesting that all liberal people have exactly the same views on each subject?

I had no firm opinion on whether these performers should be banned from performing in public. Then I thought about if a singer was due to perform in a concert in which they advocated killing all black people or dousing Jews in acid . Would they be banned from performing public concerts? Of course they would and I would agree with such a decision. Why is vitriol against gays deemed less bad?

No country in the world has pure free speech. The debate to be had is how free the speech should be - that's a debate worth having. I think that Western countries probably have it about right. But Brendan is not seriously interested in having this debate. He is only interested in creating straw man arguments so he can rant about the 'liberal left'.

What a cunt.

MP in nightclub shocker!

South Australian Democrat MP Sandra Kank did a remarkable thing recently. Rather than believe the fountain of lies and distortion regarding the nightclub scene, she thought she'd go along and take a look at it herself. Rather than seeing ghoulish drug fucked freaks trying to murder & rape people whilst simultaneously trying not to collapse from double dropping she saw a bunch of people having fun and dancing to music (although the former scene is of course seen at hard house clubs across the world on a weekly basis). She said she learned that 'there are a lot of happy people [at dance parties]' and that if she had the choice of going to the pub or going to a club she'd 'go to the rave party every time'. Brilliant!

Of course this small slice of reality about drug use in the political world went down like Grossi in an Australian penalty area and the South Australian health minister John Hill said 'if people want to know about the impacts drugs have they should go to some of our emergency departments Saturday nights and they should go to mental health institutions as well'. I'm sure if she had visited a hospital her assertion about preferring clubs to pubs would have been confirmed as there would have been many many more people there seeking treatment for alcohol related injuries/diseases than there would be people affected by drug usage.

In fairness the Education Minister did sound more sympathetic to the MPs adventure saying ' I think it's always a good idea to find out what it's actually about and get the facts'. Indeed.

If only more MPs were prepared to do this. I can see it now. Peter Costello up on the podium, shirt ripped off, reaching for the lasers. Little Johnnie Hunt scurrying around trying to score some drugs. Tony Abbott gurning at the front waving his glowsticks around. Maybe even Amanda Vanstone could be there - the fat girl that is a bit *too* sweaty and that everyone avoids standing next to on the dancefloor. Ah, just imagine....

More World Cup Post Mortem

Simon Hattenstone writes an excellent piece about the World Cup in today's Guardian blog.

He writes that he knows he should be getting over it but he can't. I feel much the same way, Simon. I'm still thinking about it about every 45 minutes which is an improvement on Sunday (every minute) and yesterday (every 30 minutes). Soon it'll be down to hourly and then daily before tapering off when it will be mainly forgotten until Euro 2008.

He also writes about some of the tabloid headlines regarding Sven's departure:

They [British Tabloids] might be bilious, intrusive, venal gratuitous soul-suckers, but they sure as hell know how to reflect the national mood. My favourite headline of recent days: Goodbye tosser: end of an error - Sven's reign of shame. You're probably looking for the clever pun on "tosser", but I think you'll find it isn't there - this is pure abuse. My theory is that the Sun ultimately settled on "Goodbye tosser" because "Fuck off wanker" - if you'll pardon my French - didn't fit. The Mirror opted for the more subdued He banked, he bonked, he ballsed it up. It took me back to the glory days: It's Swedes 2 - turnips 1 (News of the World, 1998).

Great stuff!

The Beeb doing what the beeb does best

Oh how I've missed the BBC coverage of this world cup. I'm sure I'd have been sobbing (like I did at World Cup 1998) if I had seen this just after the match had finished on Saturday.



HT: Andrew Sullivan

Revolting!

The moral outrage over the Big Brother 'incident' is getting louder and louder.

Little Johnnie Hunt has joined the chorus of 'middle Australia' and has called for the program to be axed. Of course a man who lied about refugees throwing their children off boats knows all about upholding fine moral standards.

Yes, the incident (rather amusingly known as 'Turkey Slapping') was unpleasant but the Big Brother producers took the right action and evicted the boys involved. What else were they meant to do? No criminal charges are being laid on the boys and Camilla herself has said that it was just a joke that got a little out of control and as soon as she asked them to stop, they did. I'm not trying to excuse what they did but let's not blow this out of proportion eh?

The best quote so far comes from Queensland Premier Peter Beattie when asked if he believed the program should be taken off air:

'Look, we have so much American crap on our television I think a bit of Australian nonsense doesn't do any harm, frankly.'

Quite.

The Age

The Age's inferiority complex regarding AFL reaches new heights of ridiculousness in this front page article.

A few days ago the Age were printing 5am specials celebrating Australia's wins in the 'soccer' world cup now they are doing the very predictable 'we only watched it because there was no AFL on' rubbish.

Just because football is the most popular and most watched sport in the world does not mean the tiny niche sport of AFL is threatened. They can both co-exist perfectly well, even in Melbourne. Articles as pathetic as this only show up the inherent insecurity of the AFL journalists of the Melbourne press - as does the name of the mini site on which this article is hosted, 'realfooty.com' and indeed the headline of the article itself: "'our' football returns".

63,000 people turned up to watch Collingwood V Richmond on the weekend. The sport is very popular (in Melbourne) and deservedly so - it has a rich history and is followed passionately by millions. About that number stayed up till 3am and braved the cold to watch Australia V Italy on big screens across Australia. Just because one is hogging the headlines does not mean the other is 'threatened'. We all know that Melburnians love their footy, we've been told a billion times. Enough already.

England are out.

ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

No more. Not again. Not like this.

Against my better judgment I was cautiously optimistic – Portugal didn’t look that great, they had key players missing and Rooney was getting into his stride for England. All of the teams left in the tournament looked beatable. It was possible, I hoped. And as I said in my previous blog, it’s always the hope that kills you – and killing me it is.

I’m sure everything that needs to be said about the game has been said – England put in a ‘gutsy’ passionate performance that ‘deserved’ a goal whilst the Portuguese played a cynical, underhand and negative game to force a penalty shoot out. Whilst that’s the favoured view no doubt of the News of the World etc it does hide the severe shortcomings of England’s failure at the World Cup.

England were utterly woeful in their first 4 matches and won purely due to the poor opposition. The first good team they came up against held them at bay with relative ease and once it went to penalties they had no chance of winning it. It’s clear that we are never going to win a penalty shoot out again (unless it’s against Spain!) and so I hope that if McClaren ever finds himself in a situation where England are 10 minutes away from going to a penalty shoot out he throws caution to the wind and changes things so that England really try and win in extra time. Don’t bring on a defender to take penalties, as Sven did with Carragher, bring on two more strikers and try and win the game before it gets to the dreaded 12 yard kicks.

But England didn’t go out of this World Cup due to our inability to take penalties. We went out because our supremely talented players were utterly mismanaged by a man who was making it up as he went along. He deserves the blame for this debacle and the FA should be ashamed that he has collected £25million and has simply not delivered – nowhere near.

I felt very deflated after the match but the grimness of it all only really sank in when I woke up, slightly hungover, the next day. My brain appeared to have been replaced by an internal DVD player which was stuck on a loop replaying the missed penalty kicks over and over and over again. I literally thought of nothing else all day. I felt numb and physically sick at times. Of course I spent the day trying to take my mind off it by pouring over every single word written about it in the English press. The post mortem of the game. The Wife kept telling me to stop but I couldn’t – it’s all part of the mourning process, it’s a necessary catharsis.

Today I’m feeling a bit better but it’s still there, painful, right in the guts. The pain will dull over the next few weeks of course and I can start looking forward to it happening all over again in Switzerland & Austria in 2008. That’s if we get there of course and with McClaren in charge that’s by no means certain.

These are dark days for an English football fan. The Sunday Express summed it up in their simple front page headline:

‘It’s the end of the world.’

And so it begins....

It's begun.

The low level feeling of uneasiness that has been apparent in me for the last few days has now morphed into an all encompassing queasiness - my legs are shaking, my stomach is tied up in knots, I'm chewing pen lids like there is no tomorrow. It's that familiar feeling I get every two years when England start reaching the higher stages of the World Cup or European Championships.

I've ranted and raved about the way England have played so far but now I really don't care how we play - winning the next three games is all that matters and if we have to do that playing like Watford then so be it. Greece did it in 2004 after all.

I think by this time tomorrow I will be found gazing at a pack of Malboro Lights in a newsagent seriously considering taking up the habit again just to stop my body going into uncontrollable spasms of nervousness and excitement.

This is it. The business end of the tournament. The bit that really matters, that really hurts. When not even a cuddle from your mum can make it alright.

But I'm ready, I'm ready to cry tears of bitter disappointment once more, ready to curse Ericsson, ready to feel hollow for the next month. I'm prepared.

Fuck, who am I kidding? I'm not ready at all. I'm all over the shop. Why? Because no matter how many times it's happened before there's still an optimist in me - still some hope that we can do it this time. The hope is always what kills you. Always.

So let's hope that this year is the year when our dreams can be realised. At last.

Come on England!

Britney! Naked! At Last!

Finally! A nude Britney photo!! I've been waiting for this for years. But goddamn it she had to have it done whilst pregnant didn't she? Some men find pregnant women attractive but the only benefit of it as far as I am concerned is that it makes the breasts grow and I must say that Britney's do look fandabbydozzy in this picture. I also like the hair colour as well - adds a bit of class innit?

The wife remarked that it looks like she has lost weight but I reckon that's down to clever airbrushing. Gotta love those air brushes! I call for a whole lot more airbrushing and a whole lot less reality when it comes to my Britney. Let me keep living the dream eh?

World Cup Round Up

So, that's the 2nd round of the World Cup over and done with and I have to say it was a fairly disappointing round for football fans. Many matches finished up 1-0 and we saw very little of the creativity and attacking flair that was present in the group stage - I guess the stakes have risen considerably now and so teams are naturally more cautious. I was sad to see Ghana and Spain go out after they had contributed so much already to the tournament.

Where do I stand on my predictions? Well, half of them have fallen over. Australia didn't make the quarter finals & Italy got through their group. Still looks possible that we'll have a Germany V England final and I reckon if England can get past Portugal then Brazil will be beaten by us, they are too lax at the back in my opinion. Maybe it's destiny that 40 years on from 1966 a Germany and England final is on the cards!

The fallout from the Australia v Italy game continues with some ludicrous columns in today's press. Firstly, the LA Times reckons it was all a FIFA conspiracy to get Australia out of the tournament (and like all conspiracy theories does not any evidence for it whatsoever) and predictably The Age publishes a 'soccer is a stupid game anyway' piece. Funny how it wasn't a stupid game a few days ago eh?

The guy who writes the piece does have a few good points but his lack of knowledge of the game is there for all to see. Just because there has been some dodgy refereeing in this tournament does not mean the sport itself is a bad one. It simply means that the officiating of the game should be reformed and video technology introduced. That would see the end of the cynical game that the Italians & others play. Football is not without it's faults, what game is, but I guarantee that if Australia had been granted a penalty like that there would be no complaints at all and the author of the piece is gracious enough to admit this in his last sentence...

Australia are out!

Myself, the wife, and friends joined 25,000 other people and watched the Australia V Italy game in the centre of Melbourne yesterday. My observations on the match:

- Australia ultimately suffered due to their lack of class upfront. Viduka is a good battler but he's not the kind of player that is going to open up a well organised Italian defence. Without Kewell, Australia just lacked that special something and for all their possession they had very few chances.

- Australia were certainly the most entertaining team but I'm not sure they were the 'best' team. Italy looked a lot sharper going forward and had more clear cut chances than Australia. When they had a man (wrongly) dismisseed they reorganised and defended superbly. Yes, it was not pretty but it was very effective.

- The penalty at the end was dubious but it definitely wasn't a clear cut decision for the ref to make. However, I do believe that with 8 seconds to go the Ref should give the defending team the benefit of the doubt unless the foul was blatant.

- Australia should be proud of their country's achievement in this tournament. They've played really good football with a load of passion and have put themselves on the world stage.

As for England against Ecuador - well we scraped through again. That's all I'll say. Let's hope we raise our game against Portugal.

Australia are through

I must admit, as an Englishman, my feelings about the prospect of Australia doing well in the World Cup were slightly mixed. I would like football to get bigger here for sure and for the standard of the A League to improve; Australia doing well in the World Cup will surely help this. But there was still a part of me, unable to escape that age old Aussie V Pom rivalry, that simply wanted them to get walloped. But I must say that this desire has been completely vanquished since the tournament started. Why? Because they are playing the kind of football I really like - pacy, direct, passionate, committed football. Exactly the kind of football that England should be playing.

Maybe Sven could go along and take notes at the Australia V Italy match? He'd see something called 'passing' happening. Yes 'passing', spelt 'P A S S I N G'. It's when one player gets the ball and kicks it to another of his team mates. Strange huh? What Sven will also notice is that the ball travels along the floor in the majority of these 'passes'. It isn't continually twatted 60ft into the air in the vain hope that some lanky cunt at the other end of the field can get his head on it.

Another phenomena Sven may detect is what the Aussies call 'passion'. This is something that has been AWOL from the England team since 1996 but basically refers to a deep seated desperate desire to win. That's 'W I N', Sven. Other novelties he will see in action include 'self belief', 'pace' and the most important one, 'good management'. Make sure you write that last one down eh Sven and study it carefully.

Anyway, onto Australia who were excellent against the Croats this morning. The match encapsulated for me everything that is great about football - the drama, the unbearable tension, the release of passion and of course the shit refereeing. What the fuck was Graham Poll doing? Had he decided before hand to unilaterally change the rules of the game?

'Well, I was looking through the rule book and I thought to myself why not give players 3 yellow cards before I demand they are sent off? I mean come on, it's time to shake this game up! I'll try it out at some tinpot tournament where the results don't matter.'

What would have happened had the Croatian who should have been sent off (as he had collected 2 yellows) scored? Would the goal have stood? If it had stood then would the result of the match been allowed to stand or would it have been replayed? Shambles.

Poll also missed two blatant penalties for Australia including a handball offence by the Croats which was identical to the one they committed in the first half and which was punished by Poll with a penalty to Australia.

But the most laughable of all his errors was blowing the whistle for full time as the ball crossed the Croat goal line (from a Tim Cahill shot). Yes, he blew the whistle mid shot. Simply unbelievable. Australia should have won that match 3-2 but the records will always show a 2-2 draw.

Luckily, Australia went through anyway as a score draw was enough but just imagine if they hadn't. How much longer can FIFA resist in introducing instant video replays to assist in refereeing decisions? When fuckwits like Graham Poll are refereeing then the game can (and did) turn into a farce. The referee should never be the story of the game!

Anyway, onto the next round for Australia and they're up against the cunting Italians - my most loathed international side without doubt. So once I again I'll be supporting the Sheilaroos and I quite fancy putting a bet on them to reach the semi finals - after all, their potential quarter final opponents, should they get past Italy, will be either Switzerland or Ukraine.

Meanwhile, I'll be asking my money back for my bet on England and will desperately hope that Sven does take notes at the next Australia match and passes them onto his successor, Steve McClaren.

Wanting England to play like Australia in the football. What the fuck is going on?

It's all Labor's fault!

I won't go on about this because frankly I am too tired to. But I did notice an incredible editorial in yesterdays Australian. It talks about the Government's proposed changes to parliamentary procedures which will mean that oversight of it's legislation will be reduced. Now The Australian rightly thinks that these changes are bad for Australian democracy, which they are. But guess who they apportion blame to? Howard? No, don't be silly. The Liberal Party, yes slightly. But of course the real villians are Labor! Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up. Choice quote:

'The major obstacle to the Senate carrying out its review role is less Senator Minchin's planned cuts than that the Howard Government controls both houses of parliament. That it does so can be sheeted home to Mark Latham's disastrous leadership of the Labor Party at the 2004 poll. If John Howard is in a position to steamroll legislation through the Senate, the ALP must accept much of the blame. The fact that non-government parties form the Senate minority means they lack the numbers to set up select inquiries into matters of national concern.'

Simply unbelievable. I need say no more.

Poverty Wage

A proposed minimum wage rise in the US has been voted down by the Republicans.

The current minimum wage in the US is $5.15 which is £2.79 OR AUD$6.95!!!

What a sad indictment of the state of US society that is.

Reason to be cheerful

It looks as if the liberal wing of the Liberal Party has won the day over Howard's proposed capitulation to Indonesia.

Hurrah!

Anti Porn

Look's like the Government has been rummaging around the back of it's sofa for small change again as it has found a whopping $116 million to spend on anti-porn filters to 'protect' children from the evils of internet pornography.

Surely if people want the internet in their homes it is their responsibility to buy filters if they are worried about their children logging onto www.bangmyass.com ? Why should I have to pay for this addition to their IT set up? Once again the government is subsidising services that should be paid for by the individual while things like education and health are left wanting. Hey, my future child may have debts of $30K leaving uni but at least they never saw Silva Saint take one up the shitter! Thank you John Howard for helping the moral fortitude of the nation once again.

Sherman Yellen, of the Huffington Post, writes about Bush's anti gay marriage stance.

Ingerland Rant Part 2,00,000

For 45 minutes yesterday it looked as if England may actually not be quite as bad as I feared. They passed the ball reasonably well but still created very few clear cut chances. They were quicker and the Rooney effect was obvious. Joe Cole scored a screamer and all seemed right in the world again. Bring on Ecuador I thought!

They went off at halftime comfortably in front with the lion's share of possession and with Sweden denied any meaningful attempts on goal. Sven Goran Ericsson is seemingly incapable of inspiring his team during the half time break as when England came back out they were a different team. It was back to the standard of their 'performances' against Paraguay and T&T - passing was woeful, gave the ball away too much, long balls were being sprayed around here, there and nowhere. Even the area that has looked the strongest thus far, the defence, comically collapsed and in the end England were very lucky to get a draw against an average Sweden side.

Maybe, just maybe, the gods of football are smiling on England. I mean they have played abysmally but still finished top of the (poor) group and their opponents in the second round are the mighty Ecuador. That gets us to the Quarters without having to play a decent team. By the time we get there Rooney will be approaching full fitness and due to Owen's injury Ericsson will be forced to drop his, IT CLEARLY DOESN"T WORK YOU CUNT, rigid 4-4-2 formation. I reckon a 4-5-1 with Hargreaves the holding player and Lampard & Gerrard playing behind Rooney will be the best option.

Who knows with this formation England might actually start to play well. But let's be clear about this, if it does happen then it's in spite of Sven not because of him. Everyone knows that these players are more than capable of winning the World Cup (just as they were capable of winning Euro 2004 and WC 2002) but Sven simply cannot manage them, is too loyal to players out of form (David Beckham anyone?) and does not have the courage to embrace any other system than long ball when England come up against a resolute defence.

The crying shame is that this is the most talented English team in a generation and the potential is being squandered by a man who has collected £20million in wages so far but clearly does not know what the fuck he is doing. His replacement, Steve cunthead McClaren is a chip off the Ericsson block so don't expect things to get better. The FA should be ashamed of itself.

USA and 'Soccer'

The Guardian World Cup blog has an American perspective on the World Cup.

Lots of the usual anti 'soccer' nonesense from American contributors as well can be found below the main piece. My favourite is this:

'It's fun to watch the fans and soak in the excitement. But the game itself is not exciting to many Americans for the following reasons -
1. Not enough scoring 2. lack of control of the ball 3. the team that gets ahead almost always wins 4. ties.
What would help? Do away with offsides. Let players use their hands at least in some capacity (we do have four limbs). No ties.'

What would help? Does the most popular sport in the world need help I ask you? The arrogance of Americans in suggesting that the sport be changed just to meet their particular sensibilities is breathtaking. The fact is we like it that the Yanks don't like football. We don't want them to get involved and ruin it (yes that includes you Glazer), they can take their 'PKs' and their stupid club names and fuck right off*


* saying that, I did support USA the other day against the Italians. Not because I wanted America to win however, I just always enjoy seeing the cunting Italians lose.

Howard out of touch

It may have energised his far right bigoted base but it appears that Howard's shameful decision to overturn the ACT law re civil unions may not have been to his electoral advantage after all.