800 up!

I’m getting loads of error messages each time I post saying it was unable to complete my request before completing my request.  Maybe one day this blog will permanently crash and all 800 entries (plus any posted in the future) will be lost.  Ah well, not the end of the world and until then…

Eurovision Wrong Contest

The cliché is that all publicity is good publicity but Russia has inadvertently exposed the hypocrisy of the 21st century editions of Eurovision. Russia gave Azerbaijan’s entry the maximum 12 points but Baku gave Russia absolutely nada. Now, irrespective of the merits of each song, the Kremlin is accusing the Azeris of a diplomatic snub. With its old imperial master stamping its feet, this outpost of the Near Abroad dutifully complied, saying it was all a mistake and Russia should have had ten points (the benefits that accrue to a country without any independent oversight). Basically, Moscow is saying Baku should have voted politically. The quality of the song (any song) is irrelevant. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, is going further and making vague, ominous threats towards the Eurovision organisers, as if this is another Western conspiracy to harm the peoples of the Federation.


The government of Finland didn’t throw such a hissy fit after being treated in exactly the same way by Estonia (12 points from Helsinki to Tallinn, none from Tallinn back across the Gulf of Finland) and Estonia wouldn’t have changed its results if it did. Maybe Finland is in mourning for its disappointing overall result. Maybe Finland is more mature than Russia. Maybe Finland is biding its time for next year.

Azerbaijan could happily award Russia ten points (not the maximum to leave the rigged nature of the decision open to doubt) as it didn’t affect the standings at the top – Russia remained fifth. If it had changed the nature of the winner, Azerbaijan could have been facing a lengthy ban from Eurovision, wiping away all the prestige it had from hosting it last year. Politicking cuts both ways as well – neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan gave each other anything, old enmities from the unresolved ‘frozen’ Nagorno-Karabakh War still trumping everything else.

It is just about possible that Baku cocked up their counting (though by a suspiciously large margin) as Montenegro struggled with this independent sovereignty lark, forgetting the age-old gripe of phone-in radio hosts that callers switch off their own radio whilst on the line, with amateurish feedback throughout Podgorica’s awards. I think it was Bulgaria whose link went down actually for several minutes (though the Swedes were prepared for such an eventuality with pre-prepared filler). Ultimately, though political voting damages the integrity of Eurovision (the reason why 50% of each country’s vote is now decided by five professional musicians from each state, cutting back the public’s hitherto 100% choice, to partially counter such a trend), justice does triumph. Denmark did not win because it received 12 points from Sweden – it won because it was the best song and romped home by a considerable margin. The Kremlin controls many things but not that.

The misguided progressives and the true progressives

With the Government hierarchy joining with Labour to beat back a significant bulk of the Conservative parliamentary party on all elements of the gay marriage bill has led them to reject all avenues that do not exactly follow their writ (and what a disaster David Cameron’s modernisation agenda has been, supposedly trying to make the party look progressive to the public, but merely showing the Tories as hidebound and divided to the latter). Allowing same-sex marriages ends a very particular form of discrimination and in a modern liberal democracy is inevitable, but, in a separate vote, not allowing registrars to opt out essentially legalises discrimination. People who feel uncomfortable marrying people of the same sex may be seen as holding views that are old-fashioned or even immoral by politicians, but it is not the job of politicians to legislate morality. This particular rule could have emanated from the Lubyanka in its heavy enforcing of whatever is deemed ‘progressive’ by those in charge into people’s mindsets as well as general administration. If you do not comply with the Government’s wishes, you are not acceptable to society.


It has the tang of New Labour authoritarianism and may have been the price the Government had to pay to get the deal with Labour to pass the whole programme, despite the Government being in a very strong position to claim Labour had sunk the same-sex marriage act. Now, a person with any qualms about marrying two people of the same gender (and this not just raging homophobes who seem to be the only ones in politicians’ minds who would perform the function) cannot become a registrar. That this profession is forbidden to them is now reinforced. Even if there were other registrars available and happy to step in, people who feel uneasy will not be allowed to sit out the odd gay marriage. If they do not accept the direction of an uncompromising and awkward boss, they will be fired, if they were hired in the first place. People who, at a pinch, would officiate a civil partnership but could not stretch to a gay marriage, yet were told in no uncertain words that they must do it would be shown the door.

It’s probably to bring it into line with the position on civil partnerships, in which regard the whole situation should be reviewed but that’s not going to happen, is it? New Labour ended the legally accepted 500 year-old rule that ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’ (i.e. property is inviolable without the consent of the owner). In conjunction with the Government, they have once again landed a hammer blow on freedom of conscience, as they are inflexible about the flexibility of others. It is not about competing rights as the rights of homosexuals would have been unaffected – it is about denying rights. It is about persecution.

By contrast, the Church of Scotland has been eminently sensible, allowing liberal parishes to opt out of the convention forbidding practising homosexuals from becoming priests today. So long as they are in a civil partnership (or from next year marriage), sexually active homosexuals will be allowed to take up posts where parishes are relaxed about that kind of thing. It is a victory for decency, flexibility and, appropriately, moderation, where differences are recognised but not used as a wedge to drive people apart. Where true progressiveness lies (not a hollowed-out, diktat-enforced one). Even the BBC can’t spoil the party by listing on News at Ten the Right Reverend Lorna Hood as ‘Moderator of the Church of Scotland’ when she is the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It’s not hard to remember as it is in most style books and is quite distinctive (though maybe hard to fit on a TV byline). That’s a Grauniad mistake.

United Europe

Despite yesterday’s awkward mention of dvisions, here’s something celebrating cohesiveness and that the UK will participate in even if it leaves the European Union – a competition that predates the EEC by one year. The Eurovision Song Contest had its annual hogging of the Saturday night schedule and once again, the UK submitted a deeply average song by an over-the-hill star. It may have worked with Katrina and the Waves but Eurovision has changed. Denmark epitomised it – it was clearly the best song, combining the standard courtly love lyrics with zest and flair. Bonnie Tyler was not very inspiring, despite the Finnish man deputed to delivering his country’s points saying that he loved her (Finland as a country gave the UK no points). Still, other countries had it worse. Ireland had the humiliation of finishing bottom of the pile, though the entry wasn’t bad. Baltics Lithuania and Estonia had a tough gig (though Estonia received 12 points from Finland, they gave none to their northern neighbour and Finno-Ugric kin) and Finland also had a mare – maybe Universal are rethinking the contract they offered to Krista (prior to the event it was a reversal of the career suicide the British view Eurovision). Maybe having a gay kiss at the end caused them to come unstuck, as maybe the competition isn’t such a gay gala outside this island. Royaume-Uni also came ahead of Spain, Germany and France, the latter two failing to emulate Denmark’s success with a generic blonde songstress in a suggestive outfit (although Denmark’s singer looked like Kate Winslet’s long-lost younger sister).


Armenia had a Christian message in their entry Lonely Planet. Graham Norton said it was a surprise that this progressed from the semi-finals – why, because we must all exist in a secular bubble where deeper matters must not intrude? It finished with almost double the points of the British entry, so maybe the UK could not do worse than follow the Armenian example for 2014. Then again, bar a brief reference in the Finnish entry and in Sweden’s interlude while voting was happening, there was no mention of the modern mania for promotion of homosexual rights. Disgusting behaviour of the organisers – there should be a mandated 3% of the viewing given over to overt gayness commensurate with the population.

The contest was held in Malmö rather than Stockholm and there was much imagery concerning the Øresund Bridge connecting the Swedish mainland with Copenhagen. The competitors entered the Eurovision arena on a mock-up of the structure and Eurovision will be going across that same bridge for 2014 appropriately (unless the Danes hold it in Aarhus or somewhere other than the capital).

Love thy neighbour

There was an interesting piece in The Washington Post which mapped the most racially intolerant countries in the world, according to whether people would mind or not whether their neighbour was from another race. This was to examine a thesis that material wealth decreases racial intolerance. As with all such studies it relied on people being honest rather than replying with what they think is an acceptable, politically correct answer.

In Europe, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Andorra and, surprisingly given the long-standing tensions with the Russian minority, Latvia were the least intolerant countries with less than 5% objecting to a neighbour with a differing racial background. Around the world, where data existed, northern Europe (plus Spain and Croatia) were fairly tolerant, as was much of the Americas (bar Venezuela and the Dominican Republic and even there less than 20% of the respondents), South Africa, Taiwan, Australia (another maybe surprising finding given deep-seated hostility among much of the political class towards immigrants, although the same could be said of the UK) and New Zealand. Pakistan was also in the mix, described as an outlier.

The most intolerant places were India, Bangladesh, Jordan and the outlier of Hong Kong (by contrast with HK, Singapore was quite relaxed), in each case more than 40% were hostile, answering “people of another race” when asked to pick from groups of people they would not want as a neighbour. South Korea was quite high, being another outlier. France seemed to be more racist or at the same level against any other country in Europe bar Albania, falling in the 20% - 29.9% category along with the likes of Bulgaria, Moldova, Turkey and Georgia. Even Bosnia-Herzegovina had a less intolerant score and by some margin. This in the same week that a study suggested that the French were the most homophobic nation in western Europe. Other prominent intolerant countries were Rwanda, Nigeria, Egypt and Indonesia, all with communal tensions, plus the restrictive societies of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Vietnam. Of course, when such statistical surveys are carried out, journalists are loath to declare the degree of confidence the statisticians have in their findings (hint: it is never 100%).

Some of the ‘less than 5%’ in the UK may draw conclusions that this is why Indians and Bangladeshis form their own communities in northern England (an argument undermined by the integration in the south), while not having the paedophile gangs preying on largely white girls that the Pakistanis have (because the Pakistanis are relaxed about racial background?). I make this point, despite its inherent unpleasantness towards peoples of the subcontinent and my own queasy concerns over it because I want to demonstrate that is how racism takes hold, grabbing at a kernel of truth and extrapolating it to condemn an entire people.  A lie easy to create because most people are not in full command of the facts.  Although not framed in this way, such views are prevalent on the message boards of the right-wing media (although on The Telegraph, if reported, they get deleted). Such repugnance is crafty but is too often encouraged by the right-wing press. It as if Stuart Hazell, molester and murderer of Tia Sharp, never happened. Nine out of ten paedophiles are family or friends of the victim(s), though racists will use anything with which to bash immigration.

Shock! Horror! A benefit of the European Union

What joy. On the same day that 114 Tory MPs criticise their own government’s Queen’s Speech for not promising to leave the EU (well, force the government of whatever hue in the next parliament to grant a referendum – it’s the same thing in their addled minds), the European Commission intervene to protect British consumers from alleged price-rigging by oil companies. Understandably, the EU doing a good thing has been soft-pedalled by the right-wing press, hiding it with a brief sentence in plain sight. This is after a British inquiry gave the oil companies a clean bill of health – an inquiry described by Robert Halfon, Conservative MP for Harlow (who replaced Labour’s Bill Rammell – remember him? – in 2010) as ‘lettuce leaf’-like. Though he has form in campaigning for lower prices at the petrol pump, Halfon may not be as instinctively anti-continental European as his swivel-eyed Tory counterparts, given that he took the National Union of Students to the European Court of Human Rights (a body that right-wing Tories detest because it decrees human rights judgements, interfering with these being trampled underfoot by tabloid populism) for making its membership at university compulsory – his case was thrown out as manifestly ill-founded.


If those Tories who wish to leave the EU and hang the consequences think we can be as isolated and irrelevant as Norway, they should think again. Norwegian company Statoil also had its offices raided by EC investigators. In an intrinsically interdependent world, there is no true thing as national independence.

The Galaxy in microcosm

In an act of wanton cultural barbarism, reminiscent of the Earth being destroyed because it lay in the way of an inter-stellar highway in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a construction company has destroyed the largest Mayan mound in Belize because they wanted to use the ruins as gravel for road filler.  Now, I am the first person to be sceptical (an adjective much abused in recent times) of the value of anything manmade, knowing how transitory and fragile it is, but the deliberate annihilation of a historical treasure for pure greed and used for such a base purpose has shocked me.  Even the zealots who burnt the library at Timbuktu had some misguided higher principle behind their revenge at being evicted by French forces.  Apparently, only a smaller inner core remains of the mound.  If some developer did that to a run-down part of the Great Wall of China, they would probably be executed.  As with rainforest deforestation and rare animal poaching, there are too many people willing to sacrifice all their morals for the sake of a quick buck.  These developers should be bankrupted if true justice operated.

The sword falls

On the sacking of Roberto di Matteo at Chelsea (or was it Andres Villas-Boas or even Carlo Ancelotti – the revolving managerial door at Stamford Bridge spins so fast), The Wall Street Journal penned a comment “Who would be a Chelsea manager?” As Rafa Benitez has shown, a person who lives by the sword and expects to die by the sword. Roberto Mancini was not prepared to follow the second part but the decision was taken out of his hands by the Manchester City board.


Mancini had succeeded Mark Hughes as City boss in particularly shabby circumstances, even though Hughes is no pussy cat. Taken on by the previous regime, Hughes was tossed aside by the Arabian owners after just two league defeats (but more damagingly drawing at home against the likes of Burnley). It emerged Mancini had been lined up for months, waiting for an opportune time to be parachuted in to the field. Manuel Pellegrini has had nothing like that time kept in cold storage, mostly because he has been doing a very fine job against the odds with Malaga – ironically something that could see him move to Manchester. The moment it was clear that City would nor retain their league title, moves began to search for Mancini’s replacement. It is just as well that Wigan Athletic won the FA Cup because even winning it would not have saved the Italian and would have been regarded as just a bauble by the owners. At least to the Latics, it really meant something, rather than just a trinket collected along the way to supremacy.

Man City’s other objective was to progress beyond the group stage of the Champions League. Despite being drawn in the Group of Death for two consecutive seasons, Mancini’s prior European experience is deeply unimpressive anyway. This was the other reason Mancini was fired. What is crazy was that he was given a five-year contract after hoisting Man City to the Premier League summit, only for the owners to not re-invest in the team. As Roman Abramovich sometimes does not understand, even a team of starlets needs constant reinvigorating. Jack Rodwell and Scott Sinclair were ones for the future and only a ‘maybe’ at that.

Having said all this, once the club refused to quash the rumours about Mancini’s removal, they had to act. They still need one more point to be guaranteed second place and the Sven-Göran Eriksson saga under Thaksin Shinawatra would have been salutary. After losing at home to Fulham after leading 2-0 at one stage (thereby throwing Fulham an unlikely lifeline that they grabbed), Shinawatra made it clear that Eriksson would not be around the following season. As City had nothing left to play for by that stage, performances tailed off dramatically, culminating in the humiliation of an 8-0 drubbing on the final day by a deeply average Middlesbrough (who would be relegated the next season). Still Eriksson continued in post, bizarrely taking City to a Hong Kong tournament. When that ended, Shinawatra realised that Eriksson would not quit no matter the coals of shame heaped on his head, sparing the Thai a payout and so the Swede was relieved of his duties. Given that the players hated Mancini anyway, the indiscipline would have been epic with the knowledge that he was a dead man walking; Reading and Norwich, unthinkable a month ago, might have nicked wins and Chelsea pipping the Sky Blues (no, not Coventry City) to runners-up was a real possibility. At least the players might be the professionals they are supposed to be now rather than trying to stick one to the gaffer. The departure of Mancini is as fitting as his arrival.

Tory Civil War

Although the consequences could be profound, I find it hilarious that the Conservatives are tearing themselves apart over Europe as they did in the 1990s. To afford them the sobriquet ‘Eurosceptic’ is deeply dishonest, as scepticism implies the involvement of rationality whereas they are howling at the moon. If they were rational they would not be repeating the mistakes of the 1990s. The reason why the Labour Party won such huge majorities in 1997 and 2001 was thanks in large part to the Tories being hopelessly riven by infighting (starting with the Maastricht rebels in 1993) in ’97 (despite an improving economy) and reducing themselves to a single-issue party (over the Euro) in ’01. The EU-phobes (for what that is strictly what they are) remind me of the dogs in the Pixar film Up! who lose sense of everything else when they think a squirrel (substitute: ‘EU’) is in the vicinity. After a calamitous distraction, one canine laments, “I hate squirrels.”


The mania of Peter Bone(head) and John Baron(s Court Theatre) is so great they arguably should be sectioned. They are prepared to wreck not just the country but their own party as well, just to gratify their own febrile desires. Malcolm Rifkind rightly scolded them on the Today programme like the children they are. And who from outside the parliamentary party are carping? Nigel Lawson who took the UK into the ultimately disastrous Exchange Rate Mechanism and who is now a shill for any passing corporate interest. Norman Lamont, chancellor when Black Wednesday hit in 1992. And then there is Michael Portillo. One of Major’s bastards, he is now indirectly encouraging the parliamentary party to undermine David Cameron when he couldn’t even get it to support his leadership bid in 2001. These three, if they ever did, now have no idea how to be constructive, just destructive.

The intellectual poverty of their position is that they claim to be Atlanticist, trying to act in the USA’s interests, but Washington D.C. firmly wants the UK to remain as a member of the EU and not on the sidelines either. Indeed, that is where David Cameron is now But you can’t reason with those with liquid on the brain (there must have been many careless nannies in the past). Gavin Barwell, PPS to the Cabinet turncoat Michael Gove, argues that it is of vital importance that the electorate know that politicians keep their promises and this is why he will vote in favour of the no-hope amendment criticising the Queen’s Speech for not having a ‘paving law’ for a referendum in 2017 (Tories still can’t comprehend that they didn’t win in 2010); yet if the public distrust politicians as Barwell says they do, why should they trust him just because he casts a vote? It has exactly the same value as David Cameron’s promise – either they trusted him before and will continue to do so or they will continue to distrust him no matter what he does. Barwell, being inside the Westminster bubble doesn’t understand this, or does he understand that he is trying to convince himself why he is voting against his own Government and Tory high command. Michael Gove must love having such a dullard to dazzle all the time.

The comments from Gove and, unusually, from the usually reliable Phillip Hammond are not missteps where they let their tongues run away with them. They are positioning themselves for the post-Cameron era. With Boris ‘the Animal’ Johnson still the Prince Across the Water, Gove and Hammond must fancy their chances against the derided George Osborne.

And as for the frothers demanding a referendum before 2015 and before negotiations have begun in earnest, if they the public votes to stay in the EU, then Cameron has lost a bargaining chip. Demagogues, though, don’t understand nuances – everything is black and white to them They see the EU as a negative and if Cameron succeeds, it will be for them slightly less negative but still a negative. Cameron’s guff about ‘clawing back powers’ as if they need to be prised from the bunched fingers of Brussels (I wonder how many people’s aversion to sprouts has affected their attitude to all things EU?) does not help his cause. Does he not understand the dangers of appeasement (to his foaming, head-banging backbenchers). Marx’s aphorism that history repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as farce could be coming true.

I admit freely that I believe that the UK is better in the EU and better together (the SNP would gain a massive boost to their indepence plans if the UK left the EU).  If this country did leave, it would not be the end of the world but very disappointing as we decline more quickly than before in importance while having to apply all the EU rules in order to trade with the bloc, without having a say in their formulation.  The days of Europe ruling the world is over and Britain's future, if it is not to be totally obsolete, is between being a servant of the USA (like Puerto Rico) or a partner in Europe.  Personally, I prefer equality.  The Commonwealth would be granite-like in rejecting a resurrection of 'imperial preference' because the other members did not benefit from it when it was in place (Richard Lambert, the former Director-General of the CBI, obliterated Lord Lawson's foolish fantasies).  Nor do we have a sovereign wealth fund like Norway because Margaret Thatcher frittered it all the North Sea oil wealth away on tax cuts to get herself re-elected.

The Daily Telegraph understands the electoral danger that it has helped bring about with very pro-UKIP stories, but after so comprehensively poisoning the well of EU debate with the other members of the right-wing press (who fail to see the peril to the Tories), it may be too late. And even then they can’t help themselves, dismissing Rifkind as a ‘former Cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher’ with an unspoken portfolio, rather than Foreign Secretary under John Major, as if they are implying he is a relic of the past. Neverthless, they wheel out Bojo to say that leaving the EU wouldn’t solve everything and there are other pressing matters, something their editorial also emphasises. Rarely does the EU top the priorities of more than three per cent of the populace. It’s the economy, stupid, as Bill Clinton remarked and never could that saying be more appropriate to the EU-phobes.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

For Wigan.  Some may take issues with the cheesiness of the opening line from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, but it perfectly captures the context for Wigan Athletic Football Club.  Less than 24 hours after the unbridled jubilation of winning the FA Cup, they saw their Premier League survival hopes virtually disappear as Newcastle United and Norwich City won and the great unwashed got a point.  With their inferior goal difference only two wins will suffice, starting at the Emirates against Champions League qualification chasing Arsenal who will have had a nine-day rest.  It's not going to happen and very soon 'End of the Pier' jokes with accompany Championship reports.  They made history by winning the FA Cup for the first time and will make history again by being the first side to be relegated from the Premier League in the same season as winning the FA Cup.
With Newcastle Utd's safety assured (and that of Norwich - I like Chris Hughton), I am glad now that the Latics were triumphant at Wembley, despite it being a mare of a game.  They were well worth the trophy as Manchester City were abysmal.  It doesn't matter if the manager looks like he might be sacked at any minute - if you're in a major cup final, you play to win (a league game maybe sees a slackening, not a final).  But none of the City players showed any heart apart from Hart (who wasn't even meant to be playing originally).  This is the biggest giant-killing in an FA Cup final in 25 years (arguably even topping Birmingham City's toppling of Arsenal in the League Cup final a few years back), but no further back as when Wimbledon beat Liverpool in 1988, the Reds were indomitable and dominating - nowhere near as flaky as the Man City of today.  Going by today's reports, Roberto Mancinin may not even make the end of the season.
Newcastle had some important stats today: a first win when Lee Probert has officiated as referee on the eighth occasion; escaping matching the worst away record for the club, by having at least two away wins (and beating the relegation away points total of four years previously; 14 to 12 then); and finally ending a hoodoo of not winning the last away game of the season while in the top flight - an unwanted stat going back to the 1970s.  It's been a stressful season, punctuated by bursts of joy but at last one can relax without the spectre of relegation ever-present.  Comfortable mid-table mediocrity accompanied by a decent cup run next season would be most appreciated.  I hope Alan Pardew does stay.  He's made a lot of mistakes in terms of selection and tactics but sacking him would be a repudiation of the long-term vision that the club had set out and keeping him in place is needed.  In his second full season in charge (after a good first full season) David Moyes and Everton finished on 39 points in 17th place, a year after West Ham were relegated with 42 points.  I remember Moyes lamenting that his side were winning only once a month. A season later they finished 4th.  Now he will be taking over as Manchester United manager.  I'm not saying that Pardew will match the 4th place league position, let alone being a future occupant of the Man Utd hotseat, but retaining him will give the continuity the Magpies have not had since the days of Sir Bobby Robson.  Every time a manager is sacked, I take a little pride that Newcastle have had a manager longer in place than that club.  This was often fleeting as the club often committed hari-kiri with the head coach.  I hope they avoid such self-inflicted wounds this time round.

A man(ager) for all seasons

Though many football fans will rejoice at the impending retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, there will be plenty of those same fans who will have a tinge of regret.  I am one of them.  As contemptible and objectionable as he could be, especially with those mind games with the fragile Kevin Keegan (the only time Ferguson felt sorry for deploying such wind-ups), he has been part of the football furniture for as long as I've known football.  I would have liked to see him win a third European Cup, thereby matching Paisley - Liverpool fans would still carp that their cups were achieved in a shorter period but that was in a time when there were half the number of matches as there are in the current Champions League and by only playing the winners of national leagues (instead of the continental elite) the quality English sides faced in the 1980s could be very variable.  This was why Ferguson was so upset after being eliminated from the Champions League this season because he knew it would be his last.  This is why he talked up Rio Ferdinand never winning an FA Cup medal when he had not had the ultimate triumph in this compeition since 2004 (and over any top-flight opposition since 1999).  Apparently, by mid-February he was determined to retire at the end of the season and wanted a high, hence Man Utd slogging their guts out in a win over Everton a few days before their Champions League first leg at Read Madrid, thereby at least wrapping up the domestic league.  Had he prevailed over Madrid, there was a path where he could be playing the Champions League final against another retiring coach who has won his respective domestic league at a canter, Jupp Heynckes.
For me, Ferguson is simply the best manager these isles have ever produced and, allied to his work at Aberdeen (showing he could win at unfashionable clubs), he is in the top five in global history.  The veneration is so rarefied though it would appear to the uninformed observer that Ferguson has died.  By departing at the age of 71, he leaves at the same age as his fellow footballing knight, the late Sir Bobby Robson, when the latter was foolishly sacked by the Newcastle United hierarchy.  I just hope that Ferguson has many more years of life to enjoy retirement as one fears that such a ferocious workaholic could feel a little redundant without planning the challenge of a new season.
David Moyes was identified as a Mini-Me of Ferguson eleven years ago by a cheeky photoshopper in a Guardian gallery competition.  It has now become reality (or will very shortly).  Despite his only managerial acquaintance with silverware being a FA Cup loser's medal, I like the idea that Moyes is promoted to the top job in English club football, rather than going for a foreign import as the other big clubs do (of course, after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, he could well become foreign). He will get to compete in the Champions League proper for the first time and will have the kind of money to spend that Everton never had.  Good luck to Moyes (but not too much).  I just wonder how long before Moyes' performance prompts a return for Ferguson to sort out the 'mess', as Matt Busby had to do in his time (although that was part of the problem as well).  Moreover, will the new man at Everton continue Moyes' levitating trick with thrift.

Regal Swans

Last night and today, Michael LAurdup is a very beautiful person. Indeed, his whole Swansea City team are delightful and best of luck to Michael Vorm in recovery after a nasty looking neck injury (though of course I would say the same for anyone in the same position). Many had them cruising to their summer holidays and letting Wigan Athletic beat them, but like unfortunate West Bromwich Albion (who also gave it a real go at the weekend, yet came away with nothing) they had distinct honour in playing their hearts out. A full third of the Premier League were hoping that they would deal Wigan a hefty blow. Even a draw would have left Wigan very menacing.


It is time they went down after nearly a decade. A small club who can rarely pack out their own ground in what is a rugby town and sometimes struggle for 5,000 punters in cup games. They have been kept afloat by shrewd managers and hungry unknowns who can become big stars (in other teams), but gravity will eventually take hold. Bigger clubs than they have been relegated in their time at the top table and though some enjoy the triumph of the underdog, Wigan have commonly defied the odds and can no longer be regarded as such.

In their desperation to escape, they have lost their class. They promised to apologise to Massadio Haidara for a player of theirs almost ending his career and as yet that has not arrived. Instead, the miscreant was repeatedly lauded by the Wigan manager (despite previous such form in the past) after the FA, madly, did not take action.

It’s not over with two games to go. Wigan beat Arsenal at the Emirates last season but surely lightning cannot strike twice (especially as Arsenal will be well rested after nine days off and Wigan will have played only three days before). Defeat would mean that the sides immediately above them would need only a point for survival. Newcastle United face QPR on Sunday and though ‘Arry Redknapp will want his team to finish on a high in their last home game and Loic Remy will be out to prove a point and boost his inevitable transfer fee (though he is not worth wages of £84,000 a week, which is immaterial to him when he gets to play computer football games with the owner), despite all this, surely the Magpies can claim at least a point against the side with the worst home record in the division and only two home wins all season, a side who have nothing left to play for bar pride.

Crossing the Styx

In the wake of UKIP's victory, one can't expect tabloids to be balanced because they don't respect their readers but at least The Times and The Telegraph give voice to pro-EU voices to give both sides of the story.  Oh, sorry, how remiss of me - both are run by EU-phobes, where the prevailing attitude is that (continental) Europe is a lovely place, shame about the (continental) Europeans.  Indeed, 'Europe' is configured as elsewhere.  Even Boris 'the Animal' Johnson knows this isn't true (asked by Mark Lamarr a decade ago about Europe-as-code-for-EU, Bojo replied, "Ha ha, trick question, of course we are in Europe." to which Lamarr changed the subject to his rhetorical flourish).
David Davis was given space in The Telegraph to demand an early referendum on EU membership.  Nigel Lawson in today's Times says he would vote for an exit in 2017 (the likely date if the Conservatives get their way).  The former chancellor of the exchequer seems not content with spreading anti-climate change lies by his Polish coal firm-funded institute (the financial backing is just a coincidence, I'm sure), but now wants to complete his selfish baby boomer image by floating Britain off into the Atlantic (no doubt begging to be formally admitted as the 51st state.  The Byzantine empire is the only polity in the last thousand years to be absorbed by a former surrogate - Venice).  What's the matter Lawson - have you not received your Bilderberg invite?  Is the memory of Alan Clark and his diaries increasingly filling you with bitterness?  Lawson thinks he can spout any old rubbish, just because he has a luscious daughter, a so-called domestic goddess (and that he was such an arse he effectively named her after him).  Bearing this in mind and that he was once compared by a film reviewer of Disney's 1997 Hercules to one of the evil demons (notably his ostrich neck, to which he shot back at Clive Anderson also mocking him, "At least, I've got a neck."), in fact he is no underling but Hades himself.
On a sidenote, a study done by Electoral Calculus said that UKIP would need to have at least 24% of the vote to get one Westminster MP (on 23%, they get nothing), though it rapidly improves thereafter and at 34% they could form a government.  They are never going to get 34% of the vote.  The research indicated broad but not deep support (which is why Edward Kennedy lost to sitting president Jimmy Carter when he challenged him in the Democratic primaries in 1980), a lack of strong candidates, a lack of well-known candidates (apart from their leader) and tactical voting unlikely to occur as they are to the right of the two main parties.  For all those anti-EU right-wingers who voted against change in the AV referendum... hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Misfire

Reported today is the manufacture of the first gun produced by 3D printing.  Its maker, Cody Wilson, was quite unabashed, saying, as a gun, its purpose was to kill people.  The difference between previous guns is that it is virtually undetectable and even comes in parts not easily identifiable as gun components - not as sleek as Francisco Scaramanga's in the film The Man With the Golden Gun, but almost as easy to conceal.  Wilson - from the footage seemingly quite handy with shooting himself - acknowledged the dangers but then, in the same breath, said that wasn't a reason to not make it, sounding just like Davros in Genesis of the Daleks when confronted with releasing a 'virus' (the Daleks) that would kill everyone.  Unfortunately, there was only a BBC journalist quizzing Wilson, instead of Doctor Who (not that the presence of the timelord changed Davros' mind).  How long before heavy-duty assault rifles are 3D printed?  How long before the first public massacre (or aircraft hijacking) from a 3D printed gun?
Over the weekend, the National Rifle Association trumpeted its defeat of background checks in Congress (whither democracy).  This is not surprising as 90% of the NRA membership is insane (ruling them out of gun ownership), with the other 10% being corporate shills.  The NRA leadership said they were in a long war, which should have led the FBI to swoop and arrest the lot of them for inciting (armed) insurrection against the Federal government.  Lincoln didn't stand for such nonsense.

Rock the Casbah (and airport)

Good old Israel.  As the West quivers timorously over how to stop (or at least slow) the bloodshed while not getting their own militaries directly involved (Obama's acceptance speech in November 2012 spoke to such war fatigues feelings), Tel-Aviv takes matters into its own hands and makes a mockery of the Syrian air defence systems that Europe and the USA are so keen to talk up (saying that they are better than Libya's is obvious in hindsight, but then in 2011 Colonel Gaddafi was reputed to have vaunted weapons systems).
True, it is was a limited objective of destroying highly accurate missiles from Iran destined for Hizbollah rather than open-ended nation-building, so it was easy to achieve success.  Further, it has mounted raids on Syria before, even destroying a proto-nuclear power plant, so it knows what it needs to do.  Yet all the same, it showed that it could get in and out without being touched.
Israel may have a justified reputation for violating the sovereignty of other countries that would constrain (normally) leading world powers, but it has shown the way for action to be taken before jihadists gain too large a foothold in the civil war.  Russia (and China) are still smarting over the liberal interpretation for the no-fly zone over Libya and will not grant any UN mandate that even criticises Syria, let alone permits more concrete action (even the Yemen option of replacing the man at the top but essentially leaving the existing government in place was dismissed).  A strict no-fly zone that leaves ground installations untouched would only infringe Syrian airspace, thus a partial erosion of sovereignty and the numbers of Syrian dead have exceeded anything that happened in Kosovo.  Of course, the danger is that without air support, the regime will resort to surface-to-surface missiles and chemical warfare more than they already have so far.  This though would prompt full-scale intervention.  Thus, if the West ever got its act together like Israel, the Assad administration would face either a slow death or a quick one, instead of the Russian/Iranian-sponsored stalemate that exists today.

Mr UKIPling makes such exceedingly good fruitcakes

Well, that was incredibly boring. English local elections (and Anglesey) are just like the general election ones – just suck all the oxygen out from the process. The Americans do high drama, worth waiting through the night. Here you can go to bed knowing that the result still won’t be finalised by the time you get up (I know some US states go to recounts but that’s just a minor snagfu). It’s like BBC Parliament with added tranquilisers (Ed Miliband was off message when he said it was boring to watch him and David Cameron insult each other across the dispatch box, flatly contradicting the bombastic BBC bigging-up of their Parliament channel).


This is why the British Tea Party UKIP garner so much attention; sure, they’ve won around 150 seats (though the Tories still won more council seats than everyone else combined – little mentioned); in some counties a quarter of people voted for them (meaning three-quarters didn’t); and that they finished second again in a by-election (meaning no parliamentary representation – again). It’s because everything in British politics is made to seem so dry, a few lunatics jazzing it all up is box office.

In a way, the reprobate Nigel Farage is right – this is more than a protest vote, it is an anti-politics vote which is slightly different because a protest vote would in theory vote – why not the Greens, for example?  True, tabloid reporting and opinion-forming has often mimicked UKIP policies - anti-EU, anti-immigrant, anti-environmentalism - but this time economic conditions have brought out people's prejudices (though tabloid drip-drip over decades has poisoned the well).  As one focus group of Ukippers displayed, the only thing about Britain that they are proud of is the past. But like Beppe Grillo’s Five Star movement (and the Tea Party), UKIP are not interested in compromising and would stall political engagement if they reached any kind of parliamentary power.  Yet if the economy was motoring along, there would be few grumbles about David Cameron's 'metropolitan'agenda.

Farage reminds me of the flamboyant Pim Fortuyn and his List party in The Netherlands. Fortuyn was gay, but also ferociously anti-immigrant and he seemed to be at least a king-maker in the Dutch parliament with imminent elections before he was assassinated. Farage almost died in a plane crash while campaigning in the 2010 general election and if he had I can see UKIP withering on the vine as the List party did in the wake of their leader’s death. The SNP were dead in the water under the leadership of John Swinney, prompting the return of Alex Salmond, despite health problems. Elections are now more about personalities than policies, hence the (usually justified) abuse hurled at UKIP candidates, rather than their policies which could be torn to shreds by any veteran debater. Without Farage, UKIP would be like the burglar who got stuck in a chimney and perished there, only being discovered after several weeks (now that’s natural justice – well, he did decompose).

Knocked-out

It was with considerable shock and sadness when I learned today that Stuart Hall had pleaded guilty to 14 charges of indecent assault against 13 girls over a 20-year period.  His pleas were only detailed now after reporting restrictions were lifted as he appeared at court again. Though mud sticks, I stuck to the 'innocent until proven guilty' idea.  I used to enjoy his match reports and interviews on Radio 5 Live, waxing lyrical about Everton's 'school of science' or the People's Republic of Wigan.  I remember an affable profile of him in a newspaper awhile back.  Always cheery and slightly eccentric.  His worst crime had seemed to be the bit of lèse-majesté on It’s a Royal Knockout. The Jimmy Saville scandal has brought a shaking of the rotten media timbers and seeing the woodworm fall out. Admittedly, Hall’s behaviour wasn’t as bad as Saville’s but then few could top such sustained depravity. Hall is “opportunistic predator” and, through his lawyer, confessed that his disgrace is complete, for everything he has achieved is warped because of his paedophile activities. He has contested the rape claim from a 22-year old and that has been left to lie on file but what he has done anyway is heinous. What was very frustrating when it became clear the monster that Saville was, despite his name blackened, his tombstone removed and his legacy essentially destroyed, was that he escaped justice. Thankfully, Hall will certainly face it, starting with signing the sex offenders’ register, followed by prison and the stripping of his OBE.
The BBC were right to immediately suspend him from their sports coverage, so although some (on the right) who detest the BBC - believing that it uses a licence fee (tax) to advance a left-wing, progressive agenda – will deploy this as a stick to beat the Corporation, that fact that such deviance was not exposed (as with Saville) by newspapers just proves that the flawed media culture was everywhere. I must say when one radio presenter said the Leveson report would stop journalists breaking stories such as about Saville, it defied logic as they didn’t break such stories when he was alive and they had maxed-out sense of impunity full stop. If newspapers want to criticise, they should look in the mirror first.

Digging up an old story

After a period away from any easy Internet connection whilst visiting my grandfather (so he could see his great-granddaughter) in Leicestershire, I popped into Leicester Cathedral to see what is was like.  Richard III was everywhere and he still divides opinion more than 500 years after his death (what hope for Margaret Thatcher then?  At least the opportunity for mischief is reduced, such as sitting Boris Johnson next to Michael  Howard, the man the mayor was supposed to have lied to regarding an extramarital affair).  There is even a Richard III Society who aver that it was Henry VII and not heir man who slew the Princes in the Tower (although not really accounting for Richard reducing them to bastards so he could take the throne or failing to produce them when Henry landed in Wales).
When the remains of Richard III were found beneath a car park, there was much hoo-ha about where he would finally be laid to rest and under what confession.  To avoid a controversy over reburial, given that he died a Roman Catholic, it was decided that there should be a fudge of an ecumenical memorial service for the re-interment.  This is a bit tricksy, since from the excavations, Richard was not accorded a royal burial, but shoved into a casket too small and dumped in the ground, the attendants not even bothering to untie his hands which had been bound for the journey to the resting place.  If anything, he deserves a royal burial, not a re-interment, when the original interment was slipshod to say the least.
Where he should be buried is unresolved.  Leicester Cathedral is determined to bury him there, even though there was no established cathedral at the time of his death (though there was in Saxon times, this was not re-introduced until 1926).  Leicester Cathedral is probably one of the smallest in England and resembles more a large church (which it was before 1926) than a fully-fledged cathedral.  I can understand that the Leicester diocese  believe they are the ones in possession and are desperate to bolster the reputation of their cathedral for tourism purposes.
This is despite the wishes of surviving family members of the last of the Plantagents that he be buried in York Minster, for he was fondly remembered for his administration in the north of England during the reign of his brother.  Even after he failed "the supreme test of his right to rule" (Anthony Cheetham) at Bosworth, the civic records at York detail great "heaviness" and even express - bravely - that he was murdered.
My own feelings is that he should be buried in York, given that his family line was the House of York and also where he was most beloved.  Leicester is displaying opportunism to accrue revenues from tourism and boost its own prestige.  So he died nearby; so what?  Admiral Lord Nelson wasn't weighted and dropped to the bottom of Cape Trafalgar.  Major-General James Wolfe wasn't buried in Quebec.  The Persian emperors Cyrus the Great and Peroz I didn't have their funerals in the Central Asian fastness where they died in battle.  Harold Hardrada wasn't laid to rest in York following his death at the battle of Stamford Bridge, but transported back to Norway.  Likewise, after being fatally floored in combat operations, Swedish kings Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII were brought back from the foreign fields where they perished, rather than being entombed in the nearest cathedral.  Charles the Bold of Burgundy was initially buried in the ducal church in Nancy following the battle for the town, but his great-grandson, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, thought a more fitting tribute would be to move the body to Bruges, given that the hereditary territories were long-held and firmly established there.  Ottoman sultan Murad I died in the wake of the Battle of Kosovo and though his internal organs were buried in the field of Kosovo, the rest of him was taken to his Anatolian capital city of Bursa.  Given that King Richard's internal organs have long since become dust in the Leicestershire soil, Leicester has its bit of history and so the skeleton should be placed in York.
The case for York seems overwhelming to me.  I have nothing against Leicester, its cathedral, nor the university team that exhumed the late English monarch.  It just appears to me that it is akin to Ptolemy I hijacking Alexander the Great's body en route to be inhumed with his forebears in Macedonia and having it placed in a mausoleum in Alexandria.  The Graeco-Egyptians gained immense kudos from this coup but it wasn't strictly justice.