Not that this should really be something to gloat about but I have just discovered a sweet little bit of info. One of the most popular searches that has directed readers to this site over the past week is the following “anti + inter”.
Neat.
Chi non salta…nerazzuro….
Non si scrive solo quando si vince. C’é modo e modo di perdere pero e questo definitivamente non é un modo di perdere. Se non si azzecca la formazione e se la squadra non dimostra abbastanza carattare per gestire una partita che basterebbe pareggiarem allora i conti non tornano per l’allenatore. Dispiace per Ferrara, un giocatore professionaista DOC e molto stimato, ma e ovvio che il suo modo di allenare non entra nella categoria necessaria per gestire una squadra con le ambizioni tale quelle della Juve. Ieri la scelta del rombo ha segnato il disastro e crollo della squadra che tre giorni prima se la giocava e vinceva coll’Inter. Un Bayern senza Ribery e con mezzo Robben a segnato quattro gol all’Olimpico. Ben venga la pausa natalizia allora per scuotere un po l’ambiente. Stasera conterebbe tifare Inter – almeno per sperare che un eliminazione tardiva della squadra con quindici scudetti possa distrarre un po dalla corsa per lo scudetto. Oppure tifare Rubin, cosi ce la vedremo coi quindicenni nella famigerata Europa Ligg.
Per il resto ieri la squadra risulta non pervenuta.
Bocciati.
In which J’accuse marvels at the mind-numbing effect that the retiling and relighting of a square has on “the people”.
Every now and then a bit of news comes along that serves to remind us that we are after all a very tiny island with a small population that is the size of a medium town in most European countries. The fanfare around the inauguration of the re-looked (I know the verb exists in Frog so it must exist in Rosbif) Saint George’s Square is a definite case in point.
J’accuse has often poked fun at the manner in which governmental achievements that would occur without so much as a bat of an eyelid in any other country are somehow portrayed and treated in a manner deserving of a new Renaissance complete with patrons and cultural savants. It is thus that a ribbon cutting exercise in some obscure alley in Hal Bubaqra by nothing less than a Minister and a set of VIPs (Malta standard) is never a tongue in cheek exercise but a very serious manner – often completed with commemorative bronze plaque.
Is this the future of the demos?
One of the Times’ quotes of the week was by Prof Kmiec, the latest US ambassador to grace our shores. He kicked off with a provocative question regarding Malta’s Constitutional neutrality status:
While I respect how Malta values its neutrality, the question I ask is: neutral to what? Is it neutrality to peace? Is it neutrality to assisting those striving for peace?
First of all this begs the question as to what exactly Prof Kmiec is respecting since, by his own admission, he has no idea what the whole business of neutrality is about. I know that the business of an ambassador involves being diplomatic and all but this sounds hideously like diplomatic speak for “I respect the fact that you’re a country that loves to be neutral uselessly because there is nothing to be neutral about.” Prof Kmiec would have been better off directly questioning the utility of the neutrality clause that was framed in a different era with different realities.
There is an even more insulting inference to be made from Kmiec’s questioning. Essentially Kmiec provocatively implies that our neutrality prevents us from assisting nations on a mission for peace. The Times fell for the bait in its editorial egging for change, presumably to accommodate Kmiec’s requisites (sweetened with lucrative ship repair contracts for the peaceful US navy). The problem, Prof Kmiec, lies mainly in understanding whose peaceful whims and missions we would choose to accommodate in the future. Would it be a US quest to eliminate a future Saddam and uncover his plentiful hoard of “weapons of mass destruction”? (All those Rocks in Babylon). Or would we use it to assist the US intelligence agency in their peaceful mission to fly suspected criminals to areas of the world where Fundamental Human Rights are an expensive extra? Mr Ahmadinejad too has a peaceful mission of his (at least he likes to think so)- that of providing his people with nuclear power – how would the US read any Maltese efforts assisting Ahmadinejad in his peaceful aims?
In short, and avoiding caricaturised models of world peace, Prof Kmiec (and the Sunday Times Editor) would do well to note that our neutrality may be anachronistic and hard to define in today’s world but it has kept us out of more than a spot of bother. The day we need to redefine our neutrality in terms of peace I am quite sure we can do it in our own terms – particularly since peace and neutrality do not seem to be the best kind of US Premium Export.
Bafana, Bafana my backside. Portugal, Ivory Coast and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the mantra I have been repeating ever since the nail-biting draw for next summer’s World Cup ended. Not even the radiant presence of South African beauty Charlize Theron and her tongue-in-cheek remarks about things best left unsaid (she’s talking about you Raymond “Bloody” Domenech!) could assuage my disappointment at the cruel, cruel draw that had just resulted in Brazil being placed in this edition’s group of death. Kaka’, Ronaldo and Diver Drogba will be vying for one of the two places to emerge from Group G – that is unless there is no 2010 version of 1966’s Pak Doo-Ik lurking in the shadows.
So while I resigned myself to the idea that it will be sufferance for me and my nails as from day one (15th June for me), I contemplated the cruel system of seedings, groupings and geographic divisions that separated the weak from the tough before you could say alea iacta est (the die has been cast). You see, even in matters as frivolous as sport (I cannot believe I am saying it), eight decades of trial and error have resulted in a neatly polished system of meritorious classification known as “seeding”. It allows FIFA to spread the ‘best’ teams into different groups and ensure that we do not end up with World Cup semi-finals featuring Switzerland, Slovakia, Honduras and New Zealand.
The commie in you might ask, “What is wrong with all the teams getting an equal chance in an FA cup sort of way? Doesn’t the system favour the bigger, better teams giving them a greater chance to get through to the final?” Well. Yes it does. And that’s because the system is designed to make sure that the winning team gets a fair chance to prove itself against teams of all kinds of calibre. Otherwise a lucky draw could result in the likes of New Zealand (I love them, I really do) marching all the way to the final simply by being drawn against weaker teams. The “fair chance” theory that is a natural reaction to the seeding-based kind of selection, as we witnessed in Cape Town this Friday, is a load of bollocks after all.
