Freedom of Speech isn't Meant to be Pretty

John Terry will be subjected to a criminal trial for mouthing some words in the direction of Anton Ferdinand*. The more I think about this, the more disturbing I find it. It is possible to commit a crime with words, when they are explicitly threatening in tone and content, when they are an effective substitute for physical violence, when they are intended, and may readily have the effect of bringing about violence, theft or other recognisably criminal activity, when they cause, and are intended to cause, loss of honour or income, and doubtless in some other cases, too. What Terry did was none of these things. The words, if indeed he said what he is alleged to have said, were spat out after some sort of disagreement on the field of play, much as we swear at a motorist who doesn’t stop at a zebra crossing, and were not heard by anyone, and certainly not by the presumed referent of the words.

The important question is not, in fact, why the ****ity *****ing ****** is a man being brought to court for mouthing the word ‘black’, because that’s what it comes down to. No, the important question is, do you- yes, I mean you, and you, and you, yes, even you at the back there who’s not paying attention- do you want every word that leaves your mouth, or every movement made by your lips, to be analysed by a court which will determine aposteriori (and arbitrarily, I suspect) whether you were ‘allowed’ to say it? Before you answer, think- do you never lose control of your tongue, do you never speak without thinking, are you absolutely certain of how everything you say will be interpreted? You never say racist things, you say; well, neither do I, and unlike some of our prominent anti-racists, I don’t think them either, so I don’t have to worry about what I might say in an unguarded moment. But is there no one, no group, no type of person that you sometimes think of in stereotypically, contemptuously, despectively, generally rather than individually? Hmmm, remember, you may not be a racist, but it’s not you making the rules here, is it? Do you still want someone to apply the whimsical judgement of the day to every word you say, or appear to say, with all those CCTV cameras about? I thought not.

Is John Terry a racist? Probably not. Is he a thug? Probably. Is he a criminal? No, not as far as I know. Is he fit to captain England? Yawn!

Luis Suárez today refused to shake the hand of Patrice Evra at the start of a Man Utd- Liverpool game today. This story goes back to the start of the season when Suárez was banned for eight games for using racist language to Evra. He should ahve just kicked him in the nuts. It would have only cost him two games. At the time I recall some confusion about what language he had said it in and what it might have been intended to mean. I don’t know if it was ever clarified. I hope the FA did, at least. The press, of course, would not even understand what there was to clarify.

Today, Evra went to shake Suárez’s hand. Not seeking him out, just treating him like any other opponent as they moved along the line before the match. A gentlemanly gesture, putting it all behind him. But as far as Suárez was concerned, this was the man whose complaint had cost him an eight-match ban, which he was not prepared to put behind him. He refused the hand that Evra offered. A pity, on the face of it, but there you are. Alex Ferguson, never a man to waste an opportunity, said that Suárez’s behaviour could have caused a riot and seemed to suggest the police should have got involved. Is it normal in England now to go screaming to the law about every little thing that might not be in the true spirit of gentlemanship and brotherly love?

*It’s alleged that he called him a ‘fucking black cunt’. I can understand Ferdinand wasn’t too happy about that, and when they meet again I can imagine his tackling of Terry will be robust and full of vim. But he, and most players in the game, have heard and said worse during a match, and forgotten it afterwards. Nobody gets locked up for it.

In fact, the position of Ferdinand is probably complicated. I don't imagine he wants to make such a fuss, and I'm certain he didn't want the ridiculous spectacle of a trial, and a possible sentence, and a criminal record. On the other hand, he is probably wary of shrugging it off,  in case the fact of not taking it seriously should lead to other, more serious, incidents. I dare say there is no shortage of new 'friends' helping him to reach a decision, either. Not a  happy position to be in.

On Government

The only legitimate function of governement is to stop us being repressed by someone even worse. In every other regard, they are the enemy.

Fishing?

I have long thought of fishing as the quantum unit of human activity: it is impossible to do less than to fish.

A Fuuny Old Game

I'm pretending the cricket doesn't exist at the moment, so here are a few words on the Spanish football. (You have been warned.)

A team from the Second Division B (about equivalent to the old English 4th Division, and mostly semi-pros with a day job) reached the semi-final of the Cup. They did it by winning through to the major stages where the top clubs join in (equivalent to the 3rd round of the FA Cup) and then beating three First Division teams, over two legs, coming from behind late on in two of the ties.

This team was Mirandés, from Miranda de Ebro, a pleasant little town in the north of Spain best known as a nexus on the rail network; you had to change there to get to Bilbao, Santander, San Sebastian etc, or going the other way, to head south. The captain of this team is a bald bank worker called Pablo Infantes who may well find a statue of himself erected in the main square before long.

Having beaten Villarreal and Racing, they were 2-0 up in the first leg at Espanyol when they conceded three goals in the last ten minutes. That should have been the end of it , and in the return leg, on their ground, they went a goal behind, meaning they needed to score two goals, in the last few minutes, and the team that was 5th in the League. They did. The winner was in injury time. Espanyol were distraught, but the rest of us had been sort of expecting it, which was when we realized that this team was not a norml ragbag bunch of minnows.

In the semi-finals they drew Athletic Club de Bilbao (the second great love of my life. I am too old and too well-educated to suffer with the fortunes of a football team, but these things know no logic). Do not fail to take them seriously, do not imagine that this is an easy tie, and do not imagine that they are just a low division team. They are not. They were, at that moment, a Cup team on a run, who had shown they could play with the best and beat them, and they knew it. Their belief in themselves was terrifying, and absolute.

The whole of Spain, except in Bilbao (and they say that we Bilbainos get born where we damn well feel like it) was behind Mirandés. Not just because they were the underdogs, but because they were playing football like no underdog I've ever seen. They never tired, they never gave up, they never lost their shape on the field. They were a very serious threat. On the other hand, we are, it is generally agreed, playing the best football in Spain at the moment, and we knew what we were facing.

The first leg was in Miranda last week. We scored two goals in the first half hour and had the game under control and the tie half won. Mirandés just kept on playing good football, atacking, trying everything, believing in themselves. They got one back in injurt time, which meant they still had a chance in Bilbao.

Yesterday they started badly. Out of position, not sharp enough. For the first time in months they looked like what they were. Only for about half an hour, but we took all our chances and after 20 mins we were 3-0 up. Mirandés needed to score four goals to win, and they weren't going to do it. The tie was over. Nobody told Mirandés, though. They got their game together, played the way they had planned to play, and kept coming at us. Like Bruce Willis in that film, they didn't know they were dead. They were as physically fit as any First Division team, and they had a plan, and they knew how to play football. They got a goal back, and celebrated as though their job were nearly done.

But there was no way back. In the end we beat them 6-2. They didn't deserve such a pounding, but they forced us to keep playing out hardest till the end. Those six goals are a tribute to the way they fought. We had to score six to feel safe. The last one was an own goal by Cesar Caneda, who was brought up in our youth team, and played a few games for us years ago, and who must have imagined a happier ending to his return to San Mamés. But he's a forward. In the 88th minute, losing 5-1, exhausted, he went back to help the defence. He hadn't given up. Amazing stuff. That's how you win games. And it's how you get on in life. It's how you do what you want to do, instead of whining from the sidelines about the unfairness of life. Yesterday the belief and the work and the plan and the fitness were not enough, but you can't win 'em all. Without all those things they would have got nowhere near the semi-final, and without them they would not have had the chance they had in Bilbao.

Mirandés are out of the Cup, and we play Barcelona in the final in May. So we Athleticos are happy. Mirandés, when they recover from the shock of losing, will have much to look back on and enjoy. They left the field to a standing ovation. It's something like cutting two ears in Las Ventas. San Mamés does not politely clap losers. It respects only courage, fight and very good football. We saw it yesterday, and acknowledged it freely.

This Mirandés will be remebered for many years, and may literally go down in legend and song. Someone will be working on a ballad even now. They deserve no less. Football is not war, it's entertainment. And yesterday we saw one hell of a show.

Things we Learn from the Guardian

An article I was struck by is this one, about how tourists are getting tribeswomen in the Andaman islands to dance for the cameras in exchange for food, in collusion with the local police/military. At first glance it appears to be a lot of fuss about nothing. A group of people have discovered that exhibition of their normal behaviour is worth something to others and so they sell it. There is a lot of nonsense about them being half-naked, which they are, but because that's how they dress- they haven't been forced to strip or anything like that. The dance is clearly a simplified version of some ceremonial moves, and nothing they wouldn't be doing anyway. On the other hand, the Indian press has made a lot of this too, as though the girls were being exploited. Presumably they have a better understanding of the cultural relations involved than the Guardian, or me.

This one is about a possible change in the marking of GCSE's to include an assessment of the candidate's spelling and 'grammar', which I hope means the ability to form in the mind of the reader the idea that they had formed in their own mind, to communicate successful through written language, though I suspect it will literally be a count of misspelt words and broken rules, because it's much easier to get a number that way. The headline suggests that marking on spelling and grammar will penalize those who don't know how to do it, which is not only obvious but is rather the point of the exercise. The rest of the article is a bit more intelligent, fortunately. The comments aren't, but I don't expect much from the Guardian commenters. The comments on the first article are also spectacularly crass and ignorant, in the main.

And one from the Independent (which I sometimes believe is the best paper in Britain, perhaps with the exception of the FT, not that there is much competition. I tend to get my news from agencies and specialized sources who actually know what they're talking about).
The writer of the article has been told to rehash something which is very old news and which he quite clearly has not understood. To hide his ignorance he tries to copy directly as much of the press release as he thinks can get away with, but he still makes a complete mess of it, producing a barely coherent and sometimes contradictory piece that tells the reader precisely nothing. It is 'not even wrong.' Fortunatelysome of the commenters are on the ball, and one provides a very useful link for those who want to understand more of the subject.

From the Guardian, an article about the things that dying people regret. In summary:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
"This was the most common regret of all."
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
"This came from every male patient that I nursed."
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others"
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice"

 It amazes me how unaware most people are of what they will feel at the end of their lives. Much of what I do is done in the knowledge that life is short, there is only one of it, and most of the things we choose to think are important, do not in fact matter in the slightest. It is easy enough, it shouldn't require a greater than average imagination or intelligence, to use how you will look back on it as a criterion for making choices, but very few people do it, and so they reach the end of their lives with a sense of disappointment and waste.

Perhaps I shall also feel that sense of waste, perhaps I have not made the right decisions, despite thinking about them this way, perhaps I am wrong. I certainly haven't always done, and don't always succeed in doing,  what I decide I should do. But I do know that 'because it's Thursday', is a bad reason for polishing the floor, that work is for paying for life, that you are never as tired as you think you are, and that what other people think you should do is part of them, and means nothing to you.

There is much we have little choice in, even we lucky ones, but getting the rest of it wrong, through laziness, cowardice or lack of imagination, will cause us to suffer at the end of our lives. It can be avoided. I think.

Аз мразя зъболекари

This post was brought to you by my first lower right molar (my 46, as the dominatrix with the black mask and the shrilly whining instrument called it, with objectionable familiarity) and includes nuancing by my bank manager:

μισω μαλα τους οδοντιατρους
Ich hasse Zahnärzte
Ma vihkan hambaarste
मैं दंत चिकित्सक से नफरत है
Dentisten gorroto
Je deteste les dentistes
Aš nekenčiu stomatologų
Mimi chuki madaktari wa meno
私歯科の嫌う
Mae'n gas gen deintyddion
أنا أكره أطباء الأسنان
אני שונאת רופאי שיניים
I hate dentists
Odio a los dentistas