Hypocrisy wins

The picture on the left is the face a of a cheat.

I'm outraged by the triumphant reaction to drug cheat Christine Ohuruogu's win. She should never have been allowed to compete in the first place.
 
We Brits are at our worst when we are hypocritically righteous. We bang on about how pure we are, how it's those bloody foreigners who are all cheats and how we lead the fight against drugs.

Remember the fuss about Ronaldo winking at the Portuguese bench when Rooney was sent off last year? 'Cheat!' we yelled. For winking. 

But when a British athlete misses three appointments for drug testing - not one, not two, but three - our athletics authority says 'oh, she can't possibly be banned, she's a Brit, and we Brits are above suspicion'.

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Where else?

Fabulous line from Frasier quoted by Martin Samuel today:

We misread football in America. We just thought it would be rubbish. We didn’t realise it would be rubbish and physically endangering because that is an unfamiliar combination, like the moment in the comedy show, Frasier, when Niles is being taught ballroom dancing by Daphne. “This is boring, yet difficult,” he says, bemused.

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Inept Tories at it again

Oh dear. Is this really the best the Tories can come up with?

Don't Let Brown Let EU Down

While I was away I watched on with amusement the utter cock-up of the Tory NHS campaign. Serves the gutless social democrats right for pledging to throw ever greater sums of our money down the NHS drain.

UPDATE: Iain Dale has the same reaction.

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Those wacky Andorrans

It seems Ron Paul has a lock on the Andorran vote.

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Silence says it all

I've been away, I've come back, I've been away, I've come back. And in all that time, I'm still waiting for his 'details'. 

Not a word, of course. And certainly not an apology. What else to expect from a Milosevic worshipper who thinks Iraqis deserve to die at the hands of terrorists?

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Where's the beef?

An odd piece by Michael Henderson in the Telegraph.

What a fantastic intro:

'You spend too much time talking about music," said Daniel Harding, as he prepared to conduct The Marriage of Figaro at the Salzburg Festival. "Why don't you come and see at first hand how musicians make it work?" Not many music-lovers are granted such a golden opportunity, no matter how long they live. And that is how I found myself this week in the pit at the Haus für Mozart, sitting next to members of the great Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra as Harding, the 31-year-old Englishman, took them through Mozart's masterpiece.

"Wear something dark," said Danny, "sit behind the violins, and don't applaud." Instructed thus, I occupied a seat close enough to turn the score for the fiddlers if they wanted, which, oddly enough, they didn't. In fact they weren't in the slightest bit put out by the appearance of an Englishman among their ranks.

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Beige Bruckner

I have to agree with the ever-interesting Intermezzo about Bernard Haitiink's Concergebouw concerts. It pains me to say it of my favourite orchestra and a conductor I revere, but they were plain dull. The Bruckner 8 was - it goes without saying of the Concertgebouw - beautifully played, but there was no there, there. 

As Intermezzo puts it:

Flashes of colour illuminated great yawning swathes of beige.

Although there were moments of pure inspiration, it was mostly hard work, a real effort to listen to. At times I wondered if the orchestra was simply tired - I understand they had a very tight schedule getting to London. That luxurious melted chocolate sound of theirs certainly seemed to lack a little of its usual sheen, though technically they were as ever spot-on, with some outstanding displays of individual virtuosity. The last movement was especially pallid, though the big finale did grab the attention.

Perhaps I was expecting too much. This concert came hot on the heels of two really outstanding performances earlier in the week. It would have been hard for anyone to match the passion of Dudamel's Venezuelans, or the elegiac intimacy of Abbado's Mahler. But the chilly efficiency of Haitink's interpretation left little room for any kind of feeling. What a difference from the Concertgebouw's last London visit, when under the baton of Mariss Jansons at the Barbican it was not difficult to think them the greatest orchestra in the world.

I remember once hearing the former leader of the LSO, Michael Davis, make a remark in the wings on the fly-on-the-wall TV documentary about the orchestra. The concert in which he had just played was, he said, "one for the mortgage". The Concergebouw concerts this weekend had just that air about them.

Anyway, Thursday brings Beethoven 9 with Jansons and the Bavarian RSO. Somehow I doubt there'll be the same criticism.

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Chaos at Spurs

There's an excellent piece today by Kevin Mitchell on the incompetence of the owners of Spurs. It's an object lesson in how to ruin a potentially wonderful revival and undermine talent. The handling of Michael Carrick is, I learn from the piece, mind bogglingly stupid:

It was Commoli who told Levy that the club could dispense with Carrick because he believed Zokora was a better player. Carrick was happy at Spurs in April 2006, when he went to talk to Levy about a new contract, with two years left on his existing one and his World Cup inclusion imminent. He had been Tottenham's best player and was central to Jol's plans.

How negotiations unfolded, then collapsed, provides a fascinating insight into the running of the club. Carrick was on £25,000 a week and started talks by asking for £40,000, expecting to negotiate. He was laughed out of the room and told to re-sign on Spurs' terms, or be sold.

Carrick, who wanted to stay, felt unwanted. He then discovered Sir Alex Ferguson was interested in him. At that season's Premier League annual meeting, David Gill of Manchester United put in a £10million bid and Levy dismissed it. The club denied at the time there had been an approach and have always insisted that Carrick was sold because he wanted to leave. He did, in the end - but only because he was so disenchanted at the way he had been treated. Before he went, Levy made a lame and late increased offer of £50,000 a week. It was a prize piece of botched dealing.

Meanwhile, Levy had negotiated a new contract with Jol, who was unaware of the Carrick situation. The manager was livid when he found out he had committed himself to the club and simultaneously lost his main midfielder to such a formidable rival. When he was lumbered with Commoli's choice of replacement, Zokora, he was even less impressed.

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Where's the justice?

A few weeks ago I wrote in defence of the sentence handed out to Chris Langham.

It is, however, sentences like this, which bring the criminal justice system into disrepute. Micahel Porter admitted that over fourteen years he committed 24 indecent assaults on children, one of whom was an 18-month-old baby.

His sentence? A three-year community rehabilitation order. 

Langham is now in prison, awaiting sentence. However vile his crime, he was not convicted of a single assault.  Porter spent fourteen years abusing children, and walks free.

What justice? What consistency? What sense?

(Maybe they just ran out of space.)

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All's normal

Just another few days in the life of a Spurs fan. I've been following the farce from the US. Just to recap: we lost our first two games, and suddenly it's 'crisis at White Hart Lane' headlines. We beat Derby 4-0 on Saturday and it's 'Spurs back on track for the Champions League'. After three games.

On Sunday it's reported that Martin Jol has been, or is about to be, sacked.

On Monday he's not been sacked; he's had a full and frank exchange of views with the board.

Oops. Also on Sunday, the Sevilla manager has been offered Jol's job. Or he hasn't. No, he hasn't say the board. But then he says he was made a 'dizzying' offer. But he's staying. And then he says he was never made an offer. 

What a bunch of twats. Is it any wonder Spurs are a laughing stock with a bunch of idiots running the club? How to undermine your manager and ruin your season - object lesson number one, with due debt to Newcastle United.

Then yesterday, just in case the off-the-pitch farce wasn't having an impact, Paul Robinson has a merde. 

Come of Steve M - even the Spurs fans don't think Robinson should be England keeper anymore. He's been decidedly average since the World Cup.

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