At least one group are singing from the same songsheet

Last Saturday, I had the benefit of listening to a male voice choir. For a small donation to aid restoring the essentials of the church roof, I watched the 25 strong (and they were some members light) group perform many different tunes - Unchained Melody, Bohemian Rhapsody, You'll Never Walk Alone (from the musical Carousel) and the Lord's Prayer - in a most delightful manner. There were also duets, a saxophone solo and a piano solo. When I first saw them in their yellow blazers I thought of Hi-de-Hi. Apparently, some were discontented at this choice of colour since previously they had been in scarlet, then blue torso apparel; and it was chosen by the conductor who wears his own white jacket, black trousers tuxedo suit. But I felt it added to the nostalgia of times past, old-fashioned popular culture.

This David Abrahams affair in politics is certainly most bizarre and it's hard to remember (though I just about do) how it all came about. He seems like a protagonist in a Shakespearean comedy: to paraphrase Geoffrey Regan, he appears in various guises, confuses everyone including himself and turns serious matters (such as party financing) into farce. Now the whole Labour party are scrabbling around trying to find out if their resources are all above board and have received no contributions from third parties. The odious Harriet Harman, who equates supporting the family unit as demonisng single parents - the with-us-or-against-us totalitarian mindset that her supporters so deplore of the current US administration - is now demanding her pound of flesh from Gordon Brown after less than unequivocal support from her leader , and, as the porter in the Scottish Play warns us, equivocation can be dangerous. Brown, for his part, must be pondering whether to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous monetary fortune or take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end donations (and renew efforts to institute state funding). The lucky chancellor has become, after an initial early glow, the distinctly unlucky prime minister.

Home, chickens, roost, to, coming. Unjumble

As I passed comment on the Israeli football result, I feel I must pass some words on last night's nitwitted display. First, of all, it was a dreadful incident not unforseen, but if you can't even secure a draw at home against capable but far from outstanding opponents (though in 1974 the Poles went to the World Cup semi-finals and in 1994 the Dutch made the quarters), then you don't deserve to be called a big team or go anywhere special and good. The opponents lost a regional Yugoslav derby when something was riding on it (at least til half-time), but last night, with nothing but pride to play for, easily outclassed their hosts, who were desperate in all senses. There again, pride was something very real to play for, because the national press of the lower order gave the visiting coach's teamtalk for him (as they so often do with other opposing national coaches); though in some ways what was said was true, because not one of the visiting team's players would get in the host's side - the visitors are far better than that, especially in team cohesion. There has been a whole catalogue of errors (sponsored by cliche) since the remainder of Sven-Goran Eriksson's contract was terminated. Overall, 2007 has been a pretty dismal year for sport regarding the nation, from the start until now, occasional highlights unable to prevent ultimate failure. The only two exceptions have been the Great Britain Rugby League team and the Davis Cup tennis success (against a certain Balkan nation).
But it's only sport, a recreation. It pales in comparison with the horrifying news that extensive personal details of 25 million people has been lost by the government. It just gets worse the more one thinks about it and it has been called by leading computer experts a disater waiting to happen. Last year, Private Eye ran an article, headlined "Gordon is a moron" in which the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, slashed the budget available to Customs and Revenue, including in a department for staff redundancies which gathered in more money than the removal of their wages from the bill would accrue. So a minor piece of bad housekeeping is symbolic of the corner-cutting measures involved in this government, that has led to the calamity that has befallen the nation if those two discs don't turn up. Experts are warning identity fraud could dog Britain for years now.

Levantine liberation

Thank you, Israel, for beating Russia in Tel-Aviv. I may be sometimes at variance with the application of the policies pursued by the government of Israel, but its football team brought forth a huge issue of relief. Now, the Russians are in the position that in England were in, namely not in control of their own destiny. It is such a good result that England only need to draw at home with Croatia on Wednesday. Apparently, the Israeli footballers were piqued by British press reports that they wouldn't try because they had nothing to play for and/or were being bribed by rich Russians. So xenophobic derision does work as a motivator then. Even so, as one Israeli reporter put it, Israelis rather like England, from the usually political friendliness to the English Premiership/Premier League; if it had been France in England's positon, Guus Hiddink, Roman Abramovich and the Russian players could have already booked their hotels in Austria and Switzerland. Tal Ben Haim, the Israeli defender who plays for Chelsea, said that Joe Cole promised him a holiday if Israel beat Russia. He didn't know if Cole was serious, he added, but said it would be nice to find out. Okay, that's a weekend break in Bognor Regis lined up.

Back in the USSR

Well done to Zenit St. Petersburg for wrapping up the Russian championship. It's the first win since 1984, when I guess they were called Zenit Leningrad. What's happened since then? Glasnost, Perestroika, Chernobyl, Armenian earthquake, end of the Warsaw Pact, collapse of the Soviet Union, name changes galore, Yeltsin shells the Russian parliament, Chechnya, Yeltsin first ever Russian leader to be democratically re-elected, Chechnya again, Putin assumes presidency, cooling in east-west relations. Apropos the film, Goodbye, Lenin, Hello St. Peter.
Well done too, to Vladivostok, for staying in the top division. On one of the far corners of Russia, along the Pacific Ocean, those away trips must be gruelling. And Newcastle think they have it bad! I'm just hoping some Russian oligarch sinks a fortune into the team to put them into the Champions League and force all those moneyed, famous clubs to make a journey across eight or nine time zones to near enough the other side of the world.

Who's right?

Roughly just under two years ago, Alan Pardew unwittingly provoked a spat with Arsene Wenger when the former felt unable to support any of the English teams that had progressed beyond the group stage of the Champions League because they had so few English players. Wenger took it very personally since his team contained the least number of home-grown footballers. He could have charged Pardew with hypocrisy since the then West Ham manager had taken an Arsenal fringe player on loan who happened to be French. But he went down the inflammatory route, saying there was an aspect of racism to Pardew's comments. Pardew, an often agreeable man, was shocked and apologised if his words had been misconstrued.

Now, twenty-three months later and seven years after Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, said he thought it disgusting that Chelsea fielded a starting line-up entirely of foreigners (though they brought on an English substitute), pressure is building up again on the lack of English players in the Premier League. Chelsea backed down and did not do that again after the Southampton match, but Wenger has been unrepentant about not just having a starting XI of non-English or even British men, but staffing his bench frequently with no-one who could represent the English team.

Pardew has kept quiet, but others are coming forward, like Steven Gerrard or the usually softely-spoken Steve Coppell, plus two Scots - Sir Alex Ferguson (somewhat disengenuously) and Gordon Brown (less so). Even Michel Platini, Wenger's own countryman, scoffs as he laments the lack of English footballers in English football teams. Blatter is rapidly accruing allies who no longer will be silent.

Wenger says he is committed to building an entertaining and successful (in that order) team. That is undeniable. He implies that this would be impossible with English players. So why does Arsenal have such a Francophone bias? Does Togo have better academies than England? Obviously, Wenger has better things to do with his time than trudge down to Hackney marshes and that is why he has never uncovered a Wayne Rooney. It is not just Wenger. Liverpool with a Spanish manager has a very Spanish language bent. Many other teams are quite cosmopolitan. But Wenger by his actions and by his temperament has made himself the figurehead for ignoring English players if possible, with the token Theo Walcott his one sop.


It depends how far you take localism. Do you only take players from the same country or the same region or the same city or just the streets in the immediate surrounds of the stadium? The Hampshire clubs are closer to France than Newcastle. And if and when Everton move to Kirkby, where is the community anchor; Wimbledon emasculated and defenestrated itself when it re-branded itself MK Dons and moved to Milton Keynes. Some says fans should come from the locality - what about those they support on the pitch via the agency of the nebulous entity that is the club. I'm not saying yay or nay to players coming from overseas, but asking how at what level does something or someone have to be for a person to identify with. Ironically, given its excoriation, MK Dons have produced a fine set of young English players, several of whom have gone on to reach the top of the league tree.

At root, it comes down to money. Firstly, for some strange reason, there are more non-English footballers in the world than English ones. Once you've got your breath over that bombshell, supply and demand tells us that the more supply there is, the cheaper the price will be, since demand will not pay over the rate for something it can get somewhere else. There is a limited supply of English players who are half-decent at the highest level, hence demand for them pushes up the price. Also, English players don't need the acclimatisation process of getting used to the English type of football. Brazil exports players all over the world - South Korea, Russia, Spain, etc. - but Brazil has a population of 170 million of whom a large proportion are very poor where football is both seen as the only leisure activity and a way out of poverty, compared to England's 48 million people who are largely sedentary and have far greater leisure distractions.

The second reason it comes down to money is that the financial implications of staying in the Premiership or qualifying for Europe is so great that clubs can't wait around to develop English players, so they buy developed foreign players, for hoped-for quick success, marginalising the chances Englishmen get. Wenger takes this to the extreme by nurturing teenage foreigners, denying all English players bar Walcott even the reserves. By having one of the best scouting systems there is, he can pluck the most precocious of foreign youngsters to keep Arsenal in the European elite.

Steve Coppell earlier in the season complained of Carlos-Kickaball, the term coined and discredited in the same instance by then plain Mr Alan Sugar. It is suggestive of a foreign mercenary of a footballer only in it for the money. His recent remarks could be seen as sour grapes coming in the aftermath of his Reading side being well beat by Arsenal, so in Wenger's view Coppell might want to take Arsenal down a peg or two by forcing English players on him. but that doesn't invalidate Coppell's remarks automatically. The Arsenal manager, give him his due, is a top coach and has bonded the players under his charge. They aren't in it for the money; but they are for him. When Wenger goes as he must one day, will they stay with such willingness? Wenger believes and says foreigners improve the standard of the Premiership, but foreigners aren't, intrinsically, better than English players. To suggest that is being racist towards English people which in an irony cannot be ruled out of Wenger. For every Francis Jeffers he has bought, there is a Pascal Cygan or Gilles Grimandi, but Wenger is silent on those acquisitions.

It is a canny strategy by Arsenal as all the big clubs are now global brands and foreign players will not only not matter to foreign fans, but may attract them if they see one of their national number represented (and for English fans?). Manchester United used to be massive in South Africa when Quinton Fortune played for them.

Even British Arsenal fans are confused. Before the Pardew-Wenger spat, there were murmuring that there should be more English players at Arsenal. Then Wenger spoke and the cult of personality ensured all Arsenal fans adhered to his line, even though Pardew could and should have taken Wenger to the cleaners through the libel courts. Then there was talk of Arsenal being taken over by an American or Uzbek-Russian. The Arsenal board currently ensure a strict policy that no matter how many foreigners are employed, the club will remain in British hands and they see that as important. Arsenal fans, when questioned, at first agree with this, then remember Wenger and swiftly say the matter is irrelevant. Not to the Arsenal board! It is a complex philosophical conundrum the knots Arsenal have tied themselves into, but if the Arsenal fans can't get to grips with it, Wenger is at fault through his consistent advocacy of foreign footballers and unspoken derision of English ones. Arsenal is now principally about entertainment, but isn't that one of the arguments the much-castigated MK Dons used to justify their move.

Former England manager Ron Greenwood once complained about too many foreign players, but he was being rather cheeky, since he was talking of Welsh and Scottish footballers. But now there is a growing clamour, home and abroad, not to rid foreigners from the national game, but give Englishmen more of a chance through developing them from an early age. Arsenal subvert their own academy by taking in foreigners. Sometimes they don't make the mark, but then these don't get reported. Who remembers young Dutchman Lloyd Owusu-Abeyie? They are far from the only academy practising this though. There were previously voices in the wilderness ranting about too many foreigners in the English game, but they deserved to be there for their overt xenophobia; now more moderate voices are coming to the fore with suitable solutions for what they see as an overbearing problem of not enough Englishmen getting a chance. Ultimately, it can be boiled down to the old maxim that if you believe the whole world is mad, but you are not, in fact, proves that you are the mad one; and Arsene Wenger associating Pardew with racism was unworthy, but as the world seems to agree with Pardew so maybe it is Wenger who needs to look in the mirror.

Open all hours

Once again, I hear today on the radio that the USA is planning to shut down Guantanamo Bay. To be fair, Radio 4, at least, prefaced it with "the detention camp at" but it was only the briefest of mentions and never re-appeared again in the news item, abbreviated to simply "Guantanamo Bay." What is being shut down is Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay. But even the US State Department colludes in the confusion by only talking of the Bay. It is a PR trick to make Amercians think they are becoming more ethical again in their foreign policy. If Guantanamo Bay was really being closed down, pundits the length and breath of America would be denouncing it. It would be even more heavily criticised than the handing of the Canal Zone back to Panama because by evacuating the huge naval base, they would be turning it over to Castro's Cuba. The mystification and myth-making will continue because of trickery and laziness, but be under no illusions, Guantanamo Bay will remain open.

Hicks on a sticky wicket

Does Bill Hicks' line on celebrity advertising still ring true, if ever it did? His socialist idealism produced the credo that if you are a famous name and you do advertising, you lose the right to have an opinion, period. Leaving aside hypothetical musings about whether a more mature Hicks would have compromised his youthful beliefs - like Alexei Sayle did - had he lived longer, can it apply to everything related to advertising?
What if you promoted a charity that paid you for the work - would that forfeit your right to hold forth and be heard because you didn't chalk your billing down to a good deed for charity X? Moreover, don't we earn the right to be listened to through our relevance, irrespective of our interaction with the commercial world?
Hicks was cheesed off that his heroes - the 'good people' - like Jay Leno were selling out (that phrase an instant perjorative). Sure, there are plenty of nauseating celebrity ads out there which are utterly shameless, such as Justin Timberlake saying that he and McDonalds share the same values(!). But should Mikhail Gorbachev be excluded from all future keynote speeches and have all his invites ripped up because this last leader of communist Russia has signed a deal with Louis Vuitton - should his obituary be published now because he has nothing worthwhile to say anymore?
What about Alan Hansen, the new face of Morrisons? He is the foremost football pundit of his generation, though in Hicks' sight his money-for-old-rope contract with the BBC, I guess, should be binned, since footy fans must be protected from his corrupted words. This is not forgetting that old traitor to the cause, Stanley Matthews, who earned virtually nowt from playing but got £20 a week from the Co-Op for letting them use his name.
Angus Deayton's cynical asides on Have I Got News For You lost their piquancy not because he did advertising but as a result of being found snorting coke off prostitutes when not indulging in orgies with them while his wife was pregnant (yet, after the penance of not being on TV for a year, he was welcomed back into the media fold, disgustingly).
And for Transformers' fans, was Orson Welles diminished in his voiceover for the movie from his promotion of Japanese whiskies? (I would argue he was diminished because of his voiceover).
Hicks was frequently very funny and explained the Iran-Contra scandal better than anyone, but it doesn't make him a total authority. The jibbing of celebrities who use their celebrity to make money stems simply from the fact he didn't like these people. It's an easy populism since most of us will never be in such a position. What about the irony of a celebrity pushing a Hicks' video compilation on TV - would a certain grave turn at that? There is a greed at the heart of those we like e.g. Robert de Niro, who ruminate, "why should Paris Hilton get all these lucrative gigs to herself?" But this does not make Robert de Niro contemptible, maybe because celebrity marketing has become so commonplace in a way it wasn't maybe twenty years ago. Yet Hicks' reasoning lives on; however, just because a phrase is repeated often, such as Dr. Johnson's "only a fool would write for anything else than money," doesn't make it right.