Play It Again, Samson

As the furore and demands for a replay continue following our handball-driven elimination from the World Cup on Wednesday (there were protesters outside the French embassy in Dublin yesterday, for God’ s sake), a number of past sporting injustices have been revisited with a view to seeking replays in those cases as well. 

1. The 2007 Irish General Election

Let’s start with the easy one. The current Government won this one by telling the people that it knew what it was doing. In hindsight it is obvious that this was blatantly untrue,  and therefore a clear breach of any principle of Fair Play. There should therefore by a replay, preferably as soon as possible.

Pundits predict the replay will be close, and might even go to penalties. These will be levied against the rogue bankers who destroyed our economy, and could be as high as fifty euro each.

2. The Trojan War

The Greek strikers emerged unnoticed from the horse, which even the Greeks themselves will admit was behind the Trojan defensive wall. As an example of blatant offside, this one is hard to top.

Should victory go the other way in the replay, we may have to start referring to Trojan Salad, and the movie Grease may have to be renamed.

3. Indiana Jones v the Karate Bloke in the First Movie

I’m sure you all remember this one, since it was actually captured on film. Indy was confronted by the Karate Bloke, who threw a few threatening and limb-dislocating shapes, whereupon Indy took out a gun and shot him. While this was admittedly funny, it broke the Fair Play principle that the hero should always take the high moral ground.

A replay may be difficult in this case, since the Karate Bloke didn’t survive the first match. A compromise may be found where Indy is banned for three films, and many who saw the last one feel that this may indeed be the best solution all round.

4.    Adam & Eve v God

Adam & Eve were quite happy until one day God said “whatever you do, don’t touch that apple”. Since God was the one who had actually invented human nature he must have known what would happen next. Clearly therefore this was entrapment, a fore-runner of the trick where the cops sell you drugs and then arrest you for buying them.

If Adam and Eve triumph in the replay (and this is by no means certain, human nature means they may still be dumb enough to eat the apple again) then we all get to move back into the Garden of Eden. While this will be a bit small and has quite tacky garden ornaments (cherubims with flaming swords, for feck’s sake, we might as well get gnomes with fishing rods), on the bright side it has lovely weather, full-frontal nudity and an abundance of food, so long as you like apples.

5. Moses v the Egyptians

Much of the ire about last Wednesday’s defeat stems from the conspiracy theory that the powers above, in this case FIFA, wanted France to qualify instead of a small country like us, and so fixed the game in some way. Those who say such things simply don’t happen should examine the Moses file very carefully.

The race between Moses, his people and the Egyptians was going to be a close-run thing until God (who remember has form in this type of behaviour, see #4 above) suddenly intervened by parting and then unparting (thank you Facebook, for the idea for that word) the Red Sea. Perhaps he had Moses backed in the bookies.

While there is no way of preventing God from interfering again in the replay (would you like to be the one to tell him not to?) the game is going to be slightly evened up by issuing the Egyptians with wet-suits and surfboards.

6. Jennifer v Angelina

The contest between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie for the Brad Pitt Trophy (or, in fact, the trophy Brad Pitt) was never a fair one. Angelina used heavy weaponry such as beautiful eyes, long legs and a mouth that could swallow you whole, while poor Jen was armed with nothing more than girl-next-door good looks and a hairstyle named after herself.

Angie then dealt the final undercover (in every sense) blow by putting out while she and Brad were working together on Mr and Mrs Smith. In essence this was just a standard sordid office affair, though with larger than normal weekly paycheques.

I’m not sure what form this replay is going to take. My first thought was that Jennifer and Angelina should mud-wrestle, and, well, I’m afraid that this has driven all other thoughts out of my head.

Deck the Floor with Broken Brolly

On four different occasions during the seven-minute walk from the Dart to the office today I had to step over the remains of a dead umbrella, lying sprawled on the footpath like a drunken daddy-long-legs in a kilt.

Each of them had obviously belonged to an owner who didn’t know how to use an umbrella in bad weather, which was unfortunate since it is during bad weather that umbrellas are supposed to find their true purpose in life.

The umbrella does have a cousin in the brollus putupus family which thrives best in a sunnier climate. This is the parasol, which is not indiginous to these shores. The parasol’s natural habitat is the deep south of the US, where it is utilised by ladies who say things like “oh, Ashleh”, and whose house gets burned to the ground by “those damned Yankehs”.

(I’ve just read the opening sentence again. It is clear that it’s the umbrella and not me that’s sprawled on the path, isn’t it?)

As with any pet-owners, people who buy umbrellas should learn some of the basic rules about caring for them before adopting one. Fortunately, there is only one basic rule – an umbrella likes to face into the wind. Facing the other way causes the wind to rush up the brolly’s skirt, and they will be quick to tell you that this is not nearly as much fun as Marilyn Monroe made it look in The Seven Year Itch (you just know I’m going to show the picture, don’t you?). Such an event turns the umbrella quickly into a wind-bag, and this can be fatal to umbrellas, though not apparently to politicians (or indeed, certain part-metal bloggers).

One of the saddest things was observing how the umbrellas, after many, well, minutes of devoted service, had simply been left on the street by their owners, who hadn’t even had the decency to give them a decent burial in a nearby litter-bin.

Please remember – an umbrella is for life, not just for drizzle.

And A Final Thought…

When Trappatoni’s out in the technical area at the side of the pitch yelling at the players, why isn’t his dark-haired interpreter girl standing beside him yelling it out in English?

But Now Its Getting Embarrassing

Oh God.

Our Football Association has demanded a replay.

Our Minister for Justice has demanded a replay.

And now our Taoiseach has demanded a replay, and is to raise it with Nicolas Sarkozy.

They know this will not happen – cannot happen. There are referring mistakes in every game, and to allow a replay here would open a floodgate which would mean no tournament would ever end, ever. The most that could possibly happen, and I would support it, is that Henry be suspended for three games, starting at the World Cup. FIFA could also finally bow to those who see video technology used in sports such as rugby union, rugby league and cricket, all of which are far less financially well-off, and can’t see why the dinosaurs at the top of soccer refuse to allow the same. These steps would show that FIFA’s continual preaching about fair play is not just empty words. To do any more would show a lack of support for a referee who, let’s face it, cannot give a handball that he doesn’t see.

So why have the politicians jumped in? Some sort of attempt at currying favour with the electorate?

I’d rather the Justice Minister found a way of dealing with gangland killings and tiger kidnappings.

I’d rather Brian Cowen challenged the AIB bank which is laughing at his government’s attempt to force change upon their management culture and pay rates.

We were great, we were unlucky, and we lost. The French scored what proved to be a winning goal by cheating, but it was scored with 17 minutes to go, not with the last move of the game. We can’t say that, had it been disallowed, we’d have won, or that we’d have reached penalties, or that we’d have lost.

We should accept that with dignity, taking the higher moral ground, while still secretly suspecting that if the situation were reversed we would be quick to pour scorn on any suggestion of a replay.

All we’re doing now is making eejits of ourselves.

Trying to Find a Bright Side

So, we’re out of the World Cup, thanks largely (though not of course entirely) to Thierry Henry’s handball.

I’m trying to think of something to cheer myself up, and can think of only one thing.

You know those really dreadful Gillette Fusion ads, featuring the world’s greatest golfer, the world’s greatest tennis player and a bloke who plays 70 minutes of football each week for Barcelona?

We probably won’t have to look at them on RTE any more.

Ungood Words

I read in the paper today that the word “unfriend” – as in, for example, ”you slagged my blog, so I’m unfriending you” has been named word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary.

They said “it has both currency and potential longevity. In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice”. You could say exactly the same thing about the word “shite”.

Still, you gotta love (or at least unhate) the NOAD. As an American dictionary they don’t even know how to spell the word “colour”, yet still feel they can set themselves up as a lexiconological (I can make up words too) authority.

Is the word “unfriend” really going to end up in everyday usage? If I thought so, I’d throw up.

Or “de-lunch”, as I’ve decided to call it.

Weekend Break

Mrs Tin and I were away for the weekend, at this hotel here, photographed courtesy yet again of my trusty mobile phone:  

 

(Sometimes the photography in this blog is better than the content).

It’s the Slieve Russell Hotel in County Cavan (note to my overseas readers, Slieve is from the Irish word for mountain, and is pronounced “shleeve”, and Cavan is pronounced, well, Cavan, unless you’re from Cavan, in which case you pronounce it “KYAvun”).

You can tell by the picture that it’s quite an upmarket hotel, and if you needed any further proof, this was parked outside: 

 

 

I was given a free night’s stay there in a work-related thing, so we added in the extra day and off we went. We ate a lot, drank a lot, and were surrounded in the bar each evening by wedding guests, which means I spent the weekend staring at pencil-thin women, strange arrangements of leaves laughingly known as hats, and more cleavage than is good for a man with a heart condition to look at.

We came home yesterday to a pizza-box mountain and three children who looked suspiciously as if they hadn’t been to bed all that early.

And that’s it really. There’s no real story (or indeed point, I hear you say) to this post, but, having had no holiday this year it was nice to have even a short break.   

 

Golden Slumbers

Since I have started to sleep a bit better, I have noticed a strange habit that I have developed (normally people will sit up and pay attention when a blogger announces they are about to reveal a strange bedroom habit, but then most bloggers aren’t my age. Remembering to leave out my surgical truss for the morning is about as strange as my bedroom habits get these days (that’s not true, by the way, I’m just trying to be funny (yeah, well, we’ve told you before, don’t try that (shit, how many close-brackets do I need now to get out of this sentence in one grammatical piece?)))), (think that’s right).

When I turn over in my sleep, I always turn to my right.

If I am lying on my left, this is of course quite simple, and indeed blindingly obvious. However, if I am lying on my right, and wish to face the other way, I will still turn to my right, dipping my right shoulder and dragging my sleepy face across the pillow and then finding some way of squeezing my left shoulder under me so I can emerge triumphantly (though too asleep to feel smug) facing in the desired direction.

This would be harmless enough if it weren’t for the fact that turning all night in the one direction causes my body to act like the key on a sardine tin, with the duvet playing the role of the lid. I end up effectively mummifying myself, tightly wrapped in a tog-cocoon, while unfortunately leaving Mrs Tin cold, in every possible meaning of that sentence.

I don’t know how to explain it. Perhaps in a previous life I was a chicken on a rotisserie. Or a pig on a spit (which would account for my dislike of apple-tart).

Anyway (oh God), what strange bedroom habits do you have?

Medal Of Honour: Rising Sum

An article in yesterday’s Irish Times was headed “How Nintendo can help your child with Maths”. I didn’t read it, because it was very long and I have the attention span of, er, sorry I forgot what I was going to say there, but anyway I’m sure they are right. Here is the Department of Education’s first ever Nintendo-sponsored maths test:

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1. Tinson2 queued outside Xtra-Vision till midnight on Monday last to be there for the release of Call of Duty 4. How long did it take Mrs Tin to wake him for school on Tuesday morning?

2. You ask your Grandmother for a Nintendo DS for your birthday. She buys you a nice warm jumper instead. By what percentage does your love for her fall?

3. On a scale of one to fifty, how ridiculous is Mario’s moustache?

4. Before Tinson2 went to school on Tuesday morning, he hid his new game (which in fairness he hadn’t even taken out of its wrapping) so that Tinson1, who’s off this week, couldn’t play it while he was gone. How frosty, in degrees celsius, has their relationship been since?

5. The highest you’ve ever got in World of Warcraft is Level 13. What level is it acceptable to tell your friends you are on?

6. Your father is trying to learn the solo from Smoke on the Water on Guitar Heroes. How many times will he play it badly before your mother leaves him for good?

7. You buy a game for 90 euro and trade it in three months later for fifty per cent less. How is this different from what Liverpool did with Robbie Keane?

8. Draw a Venn Diagram of the 25 people  in your class based on the following information: 10 of them have a Wii, 22 have an X-Box, 19 have a PSP, and 2 have none of these things, but occasionally have a suntan.

9. Why don’t they bring back Breakout, the video-arcade game from the 1970s, and the only game Tinman was ever any good at?

10. Your uncle and you are playing Table Tennis on the Wii. Your uncle says to your aunt “you should try this, you could do with the exercise”. Just how far up his bum does the doctor have to stick his hand to get his console back for him?

Wheat, Maize and Grain

When I was at school Geography was the educational equivalent of the Big Mac gherkin, unloved and discarded by virtually everyone.

This was because it was unrelentingly dull. We were a given a light snowfall of information about a number of countries, none of it deep enough to actually stick. Generally speaking we were taught the name of the capital city and the chief exports. As far as I can remember the exports always included wheat, maize and grain, and these three words featured in the first sentence of every exam answer I ever gave (“the chief exports of Ireland are wheat, maize and grain”…. “the chief exports of Antartica are wheat, maize and grain”… “the chief exports of the Sahara…” etc, etc).

Doing “projects” meant being a handed a map of Ireland stripped of all characteristics other than an outline of the counties, and being asked to fill in the names. This was as exciting as Geography got.

And because it was so dull, we all ended up forgetting about half of what we learned. I presume that’s why, although I can tell you where the North and South Poles are, I haven’t a clue about the whereabouts of the East and West ones.

When people slag Americans for how little they know about Europe, they assume it’s because they never learned about it. In fact, they were taught about it, but just couldn’t be arsed remembering. And, if we’re honest with ourselves, the same goes for us in reverse. One night in my local we managed to name 48 of the 50 US States. I was told to find out which two we were missing and returned the following night to report that we were actually missing five, since one of the ones we had listed was actually in Canada and two others weren’t States at all.

But somewhere along the way Geography upped its game. I think it began when the six-nation Common Market evolved via a series of leaps and bounds into the 27-nation EU (well, to be strictly accurate, 26 and Britain, who were given Free Trial Membership back in 1973 and still haven’t fully decided whether they like it or not). Suddenly Geography was no longer a dead, fixed subject, like Latin, it was changing all the time.

The collapse of communism halved the number of Germanies, while the number of Balkan countries exploded, often explosively. The roll-call of world nations changes with a rapidity that keeps atlas publishers in Ferraris and World Cup organisers in therapy. And climate change and global warming means that the very shape of countries and continents is changing.

The Burren

Tingirl is doing Geography and has three projects to hand in by Christmas. These are on the Burren, earthquakes and tornadoes. The Burren is a wild and lovely part of County Clare, earthquakes are strictly speaking Geology and tornadoes are just weather, but all three are more exciting than drawing the path of a river or a relief map of a fjord, which is the kind of crap homework we used to get. As a result kids these days love Geography.

Everyone has a Trivial Pursuit achilles heel. I’m sure you’ve guessed mine. I’d slide my wedge-filled pie-dish into the very centre, my fellow players would say “geography” in unison, I’d be asked some baffling question containing the word “scree” or “delta” and I’d retreat in humble embarrassment.

Hopefully the kids of today will be spared that humiliation.