The sporting life

So far in my 95 entries (wow 100 might requires something special) I’ve refrained from mentioning sport. You may have noticed this, or if you don’t know me you probably haven’t, because if you know me you’ll know that I quite enjoy playing and watching sport. With the Football World Cup around the corner I feel this is a good opportunity to explain why I don’t like to write about sport here and why a lot of sport pisses me the hell off, football (soccer to you Americans) especially.

I made a rule fairly early on in my blogging career (sorry, that is not the right word… ‘Adventure’ we’ll call it), that I would refrain from writing about sport because I find that sport tend to be very divisive and will only really interest a small number of people. Now this same accusation could be levelled at music, but the thing is with music is that one does not just like one particular band or genres to the exclusion of everything else, people tend to be fairly open minded and willing to listen to other styles and other bands of a style they like (on that note I recommend you all go listen to the New Pornographers and Modest Mouse). This is not the case with sport because people tend to support one (or maybe two or three) teams in each sport, and only really like two or three sports if that. So if I started blogging about my favourite Rugby or Cricket team, the likelihood of anyone actually giving a damn is pretty low, unless I advertised on a forum for that particular club, but in my experience people who go to sports team forums are unlikely to be interested in indie music. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I doubted any of you would care about sport enough to read. Even if most of you did care about sport (which you might), it’s unlikely that many of you would care about the right sports or the right teams for my ramblings to mean anything. I am even more reluctant to write about my own personal sporting achievements because, unless you know me personally, you would probably care even less.

Another very good reason for not writing about sport is that a large number of sports and even more sports fans fill me with such uncontrollable rage that this blog would eventually descend into so much bile and hate directed at sporting culture that you would all stop reading it because your eyes would start burning. This leads in very nicely to what I really want to talk about today – the disturbing attitude of many people towards sport and, in particular, football and the upcoming world cup.

You might be asking why I call it disturbing; it is a strong, foreboding word which implied some kind of danger involved. Well the reason is that the kind of enthusiasm and irrational dedication people have towards sports teams is exactly the same as the kind of enthusiasm and irrational dedication nationalists have towards their country. Sports fans (and I’m generalising here, I know many people support sports teams without adhering to this model, but if even if you don’t, you know someone who does, actually you know someone who does even if you don’t support a sports team) want their team to do well; no they want their team to be the best, so much so that it offends them when other people are better than them. In fact they are so convinced that their team is the best that, whenever anyone beats them, they find someone to blame; a player, a coach, a referee (usually the referee), but they never loose the faith that someday they will win. Now wanting your team to do well is fine, but when it gets to the point when you despise other teams for doing well and despise their fans for supporting a team that is doing well, things are getting a little far. The thing is that this allegiance, no matter how strong, is based solely on where you were born of maybe where your father was born, or where you live.

This is worrying enough because it is irrational, but let me do a little experiment. Here is a large chunk of the paragraph I just wrote, with all the references to sport replaced with references to nationalism.

Nationalists want their country to do well; no they want their country to be the best, so much so that it offends them when other nations are better than them. In fact they are so convinced that their country is the best that, whenever anyone beats them, they find someone to blame; a leader, a general, luck, but they never loose the faith that someday they will win. Now wanting your country to do well is fine, but when it gets to the point when you despise other countries for doing well and despise their people for being from a nation that is doing well, things are getting a little far. The thing is that this allegiance, no matter how strong, is based solely on where you were born of maybe where your father was born, or where you live.

I think you get the point; the same basic instinct which drives people to nationalism (and if you don’t get what is wrong with nationalism I suggest you study the history of the 19th and early 20th centuries, or maybe I’ll write a blog about it someday), also drives sports fandom. Of course when the two meet it is impossible to separate them (because they’re the same thing). Support for a national sports team involves lots of flag waving and racism. We start hating people from other countries because they’re from other countries.

This is why the World Cup annoys me. It is such a coveted prize, because if you win you are obviously the best in the world and you can revel in that knowledge for the next decade or so, that people go absolutely batshit loco about it. They get so into the even that they forget that it’s just 22 people kicking a ball about for 90 minutes. People from every country buy into this mad concept, despite the fact that most of them will end up being disappointed because there can only be one winner. People get very excited over something which, ultimately, means nothing. I don’t mind that so much as the fact that they actually turn to violent, nationalistic hatred for other countries for the sake of a cup which they themselves played no actual part in winning.

Maybe I don’t quite ‘get’ something that is going in here, but all the emotional investment people make into sport is a complete waste of time, effort and money because most of the time, most teams will loose in the end. The entire concept of supporting a sports team is highly irrational and is indicative of a dangerous attitude which I think we would all be better off without. I’m not saying we should not follow sport, or even support a team, but I think our support should be somewhat less fervent and much less like nationalism, because that kind of attitude it a dangerous one.

Question Time

This Thursday evening BNP leader Nick Griffin appeared on the BBC’s Question Time, a show where a panel of five politicians or public figures face questions from an audience made up of ostensibly ordinary people. If you haven’t already seen it then I suggest you watch it on iplayer. If you’re not from the UK then I expect it’s on youtube by now. Obviously to get such a controversial and disliked figure on Question Time was somewhat of a coup for the BBC and I’m sure the viewing figures will reflect this. I certainly tuned into the show for the first time in a while. While I’ll discuss what actually happened on the program later, I want first discuss about the issue of whether or not Griffin should have been on Question Time at all.

In the week or so leading up to his appearance, many politicians expressed their concerns that the BNP should not be given such a mainstream platform from which to express their views. Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary was the most outspoken critic of the decision by the BBC, saying that ‘you cannot treat the BNP like all the other parties.’ I would argue that we have to. Freedom of speech and democracy are values that are fundamental to our society, to deny the BNP a platform from which to speak would be to fly in the face of those values. We may rightly abhor Griffin and his party’s views, but we cannot stop them from expressing them. Similarly we cannot stop broadcasters like the BBC giving them a platform. Freedom of speech is not up for debate, it is not something we can choose to adhere to or not depending on who’s speaking; it is an absolute which is fundamental to civilised society. This not to say of course that we should give Griffin a free hand to say whatever he wants; it’s not like question time is a party political broadcast. The only way to show the BNP up for what they really are is to enter into open and frank debate with them, and this exactly what Question Time is for. To deny Griffin a place on the panel would be to try to sweep his vile policies under the carpet, rather than face them head on and challenge his sick assumptions. We cannot try to ignore Griffin because if we do that we allow his insidious ideas to fester, rather we must face him head on and show him that we reject absolutely all that he stands for.

I’m not going to claim that this was wholly achieved on Question Time on Thursday, but it did go some way to showing exactly how vile a man Nick Griffin is. The show was not without its problems; with a clearly hostile audience and even David Dimbleby, the host, at times unable to hide his bias, it occasionally descended into farce. I would not go as far as to say, as Griffin has said following the program, that it was a ‘lynch mob’, but the atmosphere was at times rather more hostile than I would have liked. Much as we might want to take our righteous indignation out on Griffin, we have to restrain ourselves or we lend credibility to the his cause. Dimbleby needed to be seen to be more impartial; he is the moderator of the discussion, it is not his part to take sides. Because he showed such clear bias it felt like the entirety of the show was out to get Griffin, rather than engage him in a proper debate.

That being said enough was done to make Griffin come out of the evening with a few very bloody scars. The absurdity of the BNP’s concept of an ‘indigenous Briton’ was shown up on several occasions and his statement that Winston Churchill would support the BNP where he still alive was made to look absurd time and time again. Griffin repeatedly contradicted himself and dodged awkward questions. He tried and failed to squirm and slime his way out of difficult situation, trying to apply empty phrases about ‘British, Christian values’ to everything. The other panellists were having nothing of if thankfully. Overall then Griffin was made to look like a fool. His racist policies were shown up for what they are; thoughtless bigotry. The embarrassment was not as total as many would have liked, but it did enough to mean that the BNP will have lost far more than they gained from this week.

Despite some problems, then, I think we can say that Peter Hain was wrong. We should allow extremist to have a voice, both because of the principle of free speech and because we need to publicly show extremist and hate based ideologies to be absurd. We cannot ignore them; we have to battle them head on in a civilised debate. While Dimbleby may have made the debate into a farce at times on Thursday, in principle what happened was exactly what should have happened. Griffin was made to look the fool and with any luck many more people country wide will be aware of just how absurd and hateful the BNP are.

It's political correctness gone mad

I don’t watch Strictly Come Dancing because I have better things to do, like gouge my eyes out with shards of glass. If I did watch Strictly Come Dancing I would probably have been filled with indignation at the recent ‘racist’ comments uttered by Anton Du Beke, who said his dancing partner looked like a ‘paki’ after she had had some spray tan put on. Instead I am filled with scorn for the media explosion that this throw-away comment has caused.

Du Beke has of course apologised unreservedly and said that his comments were not intended to be offensive. His partner, Laila Rouass has accepted the apology. So now we can move on, yes? No? Apparently we now have to have a debate about what is appropriate to say on TV and whether we should use words which could potentially be offensive so some people.

Of course this is not one issue but two; what is appropriate for television and what language it is appropriate for us to use in our day to day lives. Let me put my cards on the table and say that I don’t think Du Beke’s comments were appropriate. He is a figure in the public eye, watched by millions countrywide. He should not be using sensitive language like ‘paki’. While he made the comment in jest, it is a word which has many unpleasant connotations. In the public eye a comments which is supposed to be interpreted as a joke made between two friends are taken out of context. When the camera start rolling nothing you say or do is private, which is what makes reality TV such terrible viewing.

This is not to say that offensive words should not be used on TV; most comedy shows would lose all their material for a start. But Strictly Come Dancing and other show like it are meant to be light, family entertainment, they are not meant to be scandalous or racy. Bruce Forsyth, the presenter of the show, defended Du Beke’s comments, saying that people should have a ‘sense of humour’ about these things. The problem is that Du Beke’s comments weren’t even funny; it’s the kind of crass, immature comment I would expect from a 5 year old.

Which doesn’t lead me on at all well to the second and most interesting issue; what language is appropriate in our personal lives? In a multicultural world in which awareness of different social, racial and national groups is greater than at any point in history surely we should watch what we say? Well that goes without saying, but that does not mean that we should remove words like ‘paki’ from our lives. What we have to be careful of is context and intent.

Of course comments specifically intended to be offensive to a certain racial or social group, or indeed any individual, are inappropriate and never justified. Similarly a throw away comment which may not be intended to be offensive, but is taken to be offensive is inappropriate and we must be careful of what we say. There is such thing however as offensisensitivity (actually that word is made up). Some comments are not supposed to be taken to be offensive and people who interpret throwaway comments made in jest as racism need to get their heads out of their backsides. I think what Forsyth means when he said ‘we need to have a sense of humour’ is that we need to stop getting offended at comments which are not supposed to be offensive and are not even potentially offensive to us. While he may have been wrong regarding the Du Beke issue, he is right that people need to stop being offended on behalf of other people. I doubt very much that many Pakistanis were all that offended by Du Beke’s comments, and yet a several hundred people complained about it. I would bet that most of these people were not from Pakistan.

Essentially what I’m trying to say is that we need to understand that most of the time, people get offended in contexts where comments were meant as jokes. The thing is, when we joke about racism, we are acknowledging that it is wrong and indeed that it is ridiculous. By trivialising racism it is made to look even more ridiculous and hence be discredited. Now I very much doubt Du Beke had this in mind, but that’s not the point. The point is that when people get indignant about throw away comments, it puts them closer to a par with actual racism, doing nothing to solve the problem, simply muddying the water.

The Not-So-British National Party

Earlier this week the results of the European elections were published and amid the utter collapse of the Labour vote countrywide the British National Party (BNP) managed to grab two seats in Yorkshire and the North East. The BNP are a political party which claims to represent the indigenous population of Britain and to that end wants no-one but these indigenous Britons to live here. This means that all ethnic minorities will have to go, no matter how long they have lived here and no immigrants will be allowed entry to the country. They claim that these non-Britons are stealing jobs which should go to British people and blame any unemployment on these foreigners.

Essentially the BNP appeals to the sense of a British National Identity in order to conceal what is little more than racism; they believe that certain people, based on their race, should have exclusive access to an island simply be virtue of the fact that people of the same race have lived their for centuries. Not only is this an absurd belief, it is also built on a complete misconception of the history of Britain. Britain is not and never has had one indigenous race of ‘Britons’. Even in prehistoric times when the country was populated by Celtic tribes, these tribes were not united politically or racial. There was no country of ‘Britain’; just a whole host of different tribes competing for dominance of small areas of the island. Under the Roman occupation Britain was just part of the greater empire which spanned Western Europe and most of the Mediterranean. Romans were integrating with the tribesmen whom they had conquered. After the Romans had left Britain, the island was occupied by again competing tribes of Germans which only united under Alfred the Great after the Viking invasion. This is seen as the founding of Britain as a nation, and even then it was a hodgepodge of Celts, Saxons, Romans, Angles and various other smaller yet still distinctive groups. The Norman invasion made the makeup of Britain Even more different given that it was now occupied by a foreign power. For a long time after the invasion the aristocracy of Britain all spoke French and indeed much of north east France was part of Britain, or rather Britain was part of north east France. Britain was not ‘united by a common language’ until long into its history. In fact it is hard to say when this happened given that it was more of a gradual integration than a cosmic shift. ‘Britons’ are a peculiar racial mix of Germans, Vikings, Romans, Celts and Normans. This ill defined boiling pot is wrongly perceived as ‘Britishness’; there is no such thing as a British Race.

Using this misconception of what it is to be ‘British’ leads the BNP to believe that this small group of islands belongs to this ‘British’ race. The entire history of the British Isles is one of invasion and integration; new peoples have invaded or settled and become part of the populace. They have become part of the ‘British’ race by virtue of the fact that they have lived here and integrated with the populace, sharing their culture and shaping our history. I see no difference between German tribesmen settling this island and Indian or Polish or African families moving here and settling. The BNP misconstrue the facts to help conceal their blatant racism. The reason they want to expel people who do not fit their ill defined conception of British is basic and irrational fear of foreigners. They alter their conception of history to justify this absurdity.

Not only is the pillar of their beliefs completely unfounded, their leader and many of its members are completely insane. Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP is quoted as calling a holocaust a ‘holohoax’, most of its members seem to think that Hitler was actually a pretty decent bloke and we could learn a lot from his policies. Some members even think that we would be better off living in Nazi Germany. This from a party which claims to fight for civil liberties. They don’t seem to have an issue with rape, but think that homosexuality is wrong. They believe in Corporal Punishment for petty criminals, they’re opposed to globalisation and believe in governmental control of large swaths of the economy. Is this starting to sounds at all like Iran to you? The BNP wants to reduce Britain to the level a fascist state which has one of the worst human rights records of any country on the planet. This goes contrary to the beliefs of almost all great British thinkers through time; like John Stuart Mill, John Locke and Adam Smith. So much for British values, but we’ve already established that the BNP ignored historical facts which do not sit with their racist bullshit.

Fortunately the BNP’s election success was not actually a result of many more people voting for the BNP; they only managed to gain 1.4% of the vote on the last European Election. However their success does mean that Nick Griffin and co will represent, at least in part, British interests in the European Parliament. Given that only 6.3% of us voted for them this is a disgrace. The BNP are a sorry part of British politics for whom only a small number of racist bigots vote. It is a sad reflection of the state of politics in this country that they are able to win seats to represent the people of Britain, whatever the colour. If you too think that the BNP are a disgrace to this country then I urge you in the strongest terms to sign this petition. It is to be delivered to the European parliament when Nick Griffin sits in his first parliament on 14^th July. You can and should also join the facebook group 1,000,000 united against the BNP.

The BNP are a blight on the face of British politics. The best thing you can do to stop them from gaining any power is to vote at the next election (which will probably be next summer). Racist bigots will always be in the minority – less than 6.3% of the country actually agrees with Nick Griffin, but it was the fact that people did not vote that allowed them to enter the European Parliament. Do not let the loud mouthed minority of racists overpower the vast majority of reasonable, tolerant people. One vote every few years is all the say we get in our ‘democracy’ so use your vote wisely. While I have my own preferences, I do not mind of you vote for Labour, or the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats or any other party, but I strongly urge you, when Gordon Brown does call an election, to use your vote wisely and don’t allow the travesty of this weeks European Election repeat itself.

What double standards?

Recently, well last week, but I only do this once a week (thankfully) so I can get a little behind, there has been a lot of controversy over some comments made by people who work for the BBC. It feels a little like I’m going over the same ground here after my rant about the royal family saying racist things, but this is what’s been getting on my tits recently.

If you live under a rock (or maybe the in United States, or anywhere other than the UK for the matter) you won't know what I’m talking about and probably won't care and I think I used that line or something similar last time, ah well. Last week the news broke that Carol Thatcher (the daughter of Maggie… no comment) had referred to a black tennis player as a golliwog in a private conversation in the ‘green room’ after an episode of ‘the One Show’ for which she is a roving reporter. Ironically Joe Brand, who was part of this conversation, took offense and reported it to her boss. Weird how Joe Brand can be offended by that when she herself says some highly inappropriate things at her comedy shows. In any case some big cheese at the BBC demanded an apology from Carol Thatcher, which she gave, but it wasn’t good enough and she found herself out of a job.

Inevitably I think this is completely absurd; it was a private conversation and all we have is a single word quote with no note of context or tone. I think it’s pretty unlikely that Carol Thatcher was genuinely being racist; if she was she deserves to be sacked purely for being stupid enough to make it so obvious. It was probably little more than a terrible joke in very poor taste that went horrible wrong. I didn’t realise that it was BBC policy to sack people who make poor jokes; actually it might be a good idea to do that, it might mean that we have to suffer fewer horrifically poor sketch shows and sit coms.

The absurd thing is that the comments were in a private conversation and yet she is out of a job when Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross can deeply offend Manuel (Andrew Sachs) and get away with a few months suspension. Ok so the moron who allowed that to be broadcast was sacked for being a fuckwit, but even so I think Thatcher was treated a little harshly. Then again she is hardly a big celebrity who is hugely popular and gets millions of viewers watch her every week, unlike Ross and Brand.

Another example of blatant double standards by our beloved BBC was when Jeremy Clarkson called Gordon Brown ‘a one-eyed, Scottish idiot’ in a live show of Top Gear in Australia recently and got away with nothing more than an apology. Again it seems that the BBC has one policy for people who they consider expendable (like Thatcher) and another for people who they can’t afford to loose (like Clarkson, Ross and Brand). Who needs principles eh? I am not of course saying that Clarkson should be sacked; Gordon Brown is an idiot, although linking that with the ‘one-eyed’ comment was probably a little inappropriate. I’m sure Gordon has better thinks to do than worry about what a big-headed arrogant twat like Clarkson thinks of him; he’s too busy trying to save the world (and failing it must be added).

So the BBC has not come out of the last week or two very well. Sacking Thatcher was the wrong thing to do and their complete lack of consistency was highlighted by the fact that Clarkson got away scot free for something far worse (not that he should have been sacked either; we expect that sort of thing from Clarkson by now). I guess that’s television for you.

I know I probably don’t have many (if any) readers from Australia, but I feel I should extend my sincere condolences to anyone who has lost anyone or anything in the bushfires Down Under. I guess it would be in very poor taste to use this as a spring board to talk about something else, so I think I’d better end it there.

Laptops and royalty

No longer do I have to wait several hours for my computer to warm up enough to actually do anything. No longer do I have to sit staring into nothingness as I wait for my computer to do rudimentary tasks. My laptop is here and I am happy! I won’t sat it’s perfect but let’s face it, what is? I haven’t had any major problems with it so far apart from transferring my music library across, but I put that down to Sonic Stage freaking out when you take it out of its comfort zone.

I do not even hate Vista like everyone seems to think I should. Maybe I’m not nerdy enough to know what is wrong with it, or maybe I can adapt to change better than your average computer geek and can accept new features, even if they are stolen almost completely from apple. It’s really odd how, as soon as Vista came out, computer geeks the world over were preparing to march on the Windows headquarters and demand the severed heads of everyone in charge. It’s not that bad. In fact it’s better than XP is many ways (cue many angry emails from my many adoring fans…); it has helpful features like the panel at the top that allows you to access all the things you need without having to even press the start button.

Moving away from Vista, the laptop itself is very nice, although the touchpad can be somewhat temperamental and the speakers are woeful, a problem that I solved by stealing the speakers from my old computer. The nicest thing is that the keyboard has roughly the same dimensions as a normal desktop one, so I’m not constantly missing buttons like I normally do when I use a laptop keyboard.

Well that’s my new laptop, I didn’t want to talk about it for too long because some other things have been bothering my lately, namely the ‘scandal’ over the royal family being ‘racist’.

In case you have been living under a rock for the past week, or not in England I suppose, let me fill you in. Last week Prince Harry called an Asian friend a ‘paki’ in a documentary about his time in the military or some similarly pointless piece of television, then a few days later is came to light that Prince Charles had been calling a black friend ‘sooty’ for years. The press, as you can imagine, immediately leapt on this story like a very clingy whore and started throwing accusations like ‘racist’ like monkeys hurling poo. As they normally do, the press conveniently ignored both context and the concept of banter. In both cases the princes did not mean offence and both ‘victims’ have publicly said that they don’t mind the nicknames.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I in no way think the royal family have any place in our constitution and should be forcibly removed, inbred bunch of over-privileged toffs that they are. However they are human beings (barely) and so deserve a little privacy. The press in this case has simply ripped a quote out of context and spun it into a scandal so that they can sell newspapers to the gullible public who will leap wholeheartedly on the bandwagon of political correctness.

It is important to not the difference between racism and banter. Racism is when you discriminate against someone because of there race. This can often entail verbal abuse and the word ‘paki’ has often been used in this way, much like the word ‘nigger’. Obviously I think that sort of behaviour is abhorrent and anyone who uses it should be kneecapped and they beaten to death with the corpse of a porcupine (there has to be a fetish like that somewhere). However when it is used between friends it is generally banter with no ill feeling whatsoever. I have quite a few ethic minority friends and we do this all the time. If I was being really pretentious I’d call it irony, but it’s best not to over think things that much or you get dragged into a horrible spiral of stupidity. Much like the press has over this story.