Why Englishmen can't dribble

It's the bloody weather. Considering they spend half their waking hours talking about it, not to mention all that dreaming about sunny skies, we'd have been surprised if it had been anything else. So that's allright, then.

But it's the wind that's to blame for all this, you see. Not The Rain. Aha! Gotcha! And you thought the English were predictable. Stereotypes, I tell you. It's killing the game.

Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele Marcotti, writing about the how culture determines the way we play football, in a book rather appropriately named the Italian Job, say exactly this. The wind, it appears, makes it impossible for kids to control the ball, let alone practise dribbling. In Italy, they hate losing and every effort is put into win, at any cost. The end justifies the means. We all saw how the Italians suckered the socceroos. The Italian job, geddit? Basta, Vialli.

Zico Coimbra, the Brazilian legend who coaches the Japs, says that their players are talented but are too scared to miss. This, or so he thinks, has something to do with mistakes being completely unacceptable in Japanese culture. Japanese kids are punished in school if they get something wrong. If he corrects the team during a match because a pass was too long, they automatically start doing only short passes. You cross wrong, you better go home and take out that katana.

In Brazil, their general samba attitude to life apparently translates into carefree football. The Socceroos, rather obviously, didn't seem to have a word for defence in their sporting vocab. The limeys, not ones to miss a chance to moan about the Hand of God, have been pontificating in assorted rags about how this reflected streetsmart deception, which in their invaluable opinion, has more cachet in Argentina than honesty (I'm sure Victoria Regina, patron saint of land grabbers, would have approved). And also something about dribbling having more prestige in Latin countries than passing.

Which begs the question, why are Indians such crap at football? Hmm, let's see. It could be the foreign hand, it could be the Muslims, it could be the Communists, or it could be certain old men in khakhi shorts who spend precious practice time PT drilling. Wait, it could be the pseudo-secularists! It could even be Arundhati Roy! Medha Patkar! JNU grads! How about the 'freeloading working class'? Or the martyred middle-class slaving over their PCs ? Or it could be those funny chaps who insist on wearing white flannels in the noonday sun.

Me, I think it's Arjun Singh. Basta, Arjun.

Bingo!

The holy grail of academic publishing. Here, now, today! Such a long, hard journey. Sweetheart, Dr. S, Dr. D, Dr. B, R & R, all the girls, the department kids, mum, dad, thanks. Some weeks are just purrrr-fect (well, almost). Amma, I wish you were around (I'm sure you are. Nothing can stop you). I miss you, especially since you'd have played it down and pissed me off. But you'd still have been proud, and understood it's implications. One foot through. Bad boys make good. Ha!

Bricks, light and Monet

What happens when art meets architecture? Where were installations invented? Where did abstract expressionism learn about endlessness? That rare thing- a warm, unpretentious review, of reconstruction, light and a rather long painting.

Of visas and smoky vocals

The Home Office, it appears, does a few things apart from eating my money and getting blackmailed by the News of the World. Like giving me a nice, new, safe and flexible visa, which they did today. Needed 65 points, made sure we had bloody 100 (nice round appealing figure). Still, opened the rather intimidating looking package with some trepidation. After we'd dusted off the suspicious looking white powder that issued forth, there was this bland letter telling us.... since you've got more than 65blahblahblah......yipppeeee!


P.S. Ronnie Scott's reopens it's doors today after refurbishment. 47 years of hair-raisingly good jazz, 41 of them on Frith Street. The new menu is described as posh English nosh, not exactly a proposition that gets the tastebuds tingling. Something about gorgeous mash (what's that? sounds like this Zulu chap I know) and crab risotto (that sounds better).

Maybe I'll spring a surprise on the Lady and take her there. But we need to get tested for anthrax before that.

Brixton

Brixton is never far
The tired metaphor, the seeking of buzz,
Jostling, jostling
Sweat, onions and smoking kebabs, a glance of suspicion
Pram-faced mothers and council facelifts,
Patterned bedspreads hung out to dry.
An open window, a snatch of laughter
Arcing, then..... gone..
Matriarchs calling in high singsong
A flash of bling, white horses drawing a hearse
The angst of migration, an expectation of gunfire...

Basketballers on the high road,
Playing passing buses
Exhilaration ends paranoia.

Race as metaphor
Scarman as interpretation,
Sex as equality.
Brixton is the city.

Of glassless windows and fifty rupee notes..

For Dughall McCormick, charity begins on an Indian bus.

Would you bend the rules?

Sarah was Palestinian, Christian, 67 and single again. This was courtesy a process of familial attrition which started when her family fled Haifa for the Lebanon after the Jews moved into the Arab areas of Haifa. The family settled (if you want to call it that) in one of the refugee camps in East Beirut. Her father died soon after the move, though I don't quite remember how. Her husband and eldest son were tortured and killed by Samir Geagea's Phalange when they attacked the camp during the Civil War. She fled with her daughters across the Green Line to Muslim West Beirut, where she found more kindness than she had with her fellow Christians. Towards the end of the civil war, their home (donated by the PLO, if I remember correctly) was hit by a suction bomb from an Israeli warship. One of her daughters died immediately, the other a month later, in hospital. She remained in Beirut until the end of the war, with her son and daughter-in-law. Through a series of moves I didn't have the time to track, what remained of the family found themselves in Jenin (of all places) in the late 90s. They were in Jenin in 2002. To cut her long story short, the son died. Sarah and her daughter-in-law came over to the UK soon afterwards. The daughter-in-law, during the last of a long series of breakdowns, killed herself a year after arrival.

Sarah had been granted asylum ('I'm Christian, so.......', she said sadly, by way of explanation. Whatever. Thank God). The problem was accomodation. She'd been put up in a series of grotty, dangerous hostels where her neighbours included the odd crack addict, pimp and knife-wielding extortionist. Sarah, throughout her years of suffering and exile, had managed to keep herself defiantly middle class. She'd worked as a secretary for a few years after coming to England, and had some money. This was a matter of great pride to her. It also made her a prime target in the hostels. Now she was too old and too sick to work. But since she was not a priority, Housing kept her at the bottom of the list. She didn't have a ghost of a chance of getting a proper flat anytime soon. Rather than live in a hostel, she's been relying on the kindness of a succession of friends, mostly people from her church.

Sarah had arthritis and depression. She'd been depressed for years, and the idea of treating it with a pill or therapy had been given up a long time ago. The idea that this woman's demoralization could be reduced to a diagnosis was as ludicrous as it was useless.

The only thing that could make her life a bit more bearable was a flat.

As the social workers and doctors involved in her care, we could spin her situation in such a way that she'd become a priority for housing. The question is, should we?

After all, she's just an old, unemployed, sponging asylum seeker.

Blogging as conversation

When people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds who are hearing/speech impaired meet, they communicate far more effectively than people who are not. This is because their respective sign languages e.g. International sign language, Chinese sign language, Indian, British, Catalan etc. share a lot more common ground by way of symbols, metaphors, slang etc. than the spoken languages themselves viz. English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi etc.

In effect, they have far richer conversations than those who can actually speak the respective languages.

There's a message somewhere here for bloggers. When one thinks of it, there's a message here for everyone trying to bridge divides of all sorts (and those not too keen on bridging them as well).

On an unrelated note, most television programming in sign language happens late at night, as does most blogging.

Interesting, no?

A question of intervention

This chap, returning to college after a visit home, obviously believed in social capital, though he may not have heard of it. He did something about what he saw. Now he’s dead, as a consequence.

Some time ago, I met a teenager who’d been gang-raped. A regular, sober, sorted out kid, getting good grades and headed for University who’d taken a short-cut through a park. Now, you often come face-to-face with this sort of thing in inner-cities. Wide gaps between the privileged and the underprivileged, drugs, alcohol, migration, the clash of cultures and old-fashioned criminality all play their part. Years of encountering it sort of resigns you to some aspects of it, and you just buckle down and help people as best as you can. However, there was something about this kid that was different. Of course, she had bad psychological and not-so-bad physical problems. But what struck all of us was that she seemed so remarkably composed and dignified while coping with all of this. I mean, she had two broken ribs, a broken metacarpal, nightmares, flashbacks, panic, depression et al. But she was smiling on the surface and seemingly more worried about her mum than herself. And this was three months afterwards.

This started me thinking. What would I have done if I was walking alone through that park at the same time, and heard her cries? What would anyone else have done? Call 999 or 100? Sure. But that takes time. What else? I mean, she is getting assaulted while you think.

Change of plan

I am hard pressed for time and not quite all there these days. I need to study, wind up some papers which I better send out soon, run more, go out less and get out of this vagueness which appears to have descended upon me, courtesy an unfortunate coming together of a bunch of the usual stressors.

So, I am now going to ask some questions. I would be grateful for answers, because that might help me sort some things out in my mind. The questions will continue until I get at least the papers out of my way.

If all this works well, I hope to try explain why medics leave India (in response to a line in Harsh Mander's letter) and then what happens to them once they arrive overseas.

All in good time:-)

Btw, what on earth happened to the sun ? This is the worst English summer I've seen.