PATRIOT MISSILES

Now it is not my intention to turn this blog into some kind of YouTube Lite but, as I had never seen this before and was reduced to tears by the 'Surprise Deposit', I thought I'd share it with you.



No wonder Gilliam took up directing. He never could have made it as a straightman.

ISTEN VELED ÖCSI

Puskás Ferenc (1927 - 2006)

Okay, so you did score 357 goals in 354 appearances for Kispest Honvéd and even 154 in 179 for Real Madrid. You might also have been the best inside left the world has ever seen. But, Öcsi, why the fuck did you have to leave Billy Wright sat on his arse in that 6-3 demolition of England at Wembley in 1953? Not only were you responsible for endless black and white re-runs of the exploits of your 'Golden Team' (running at least monthly up to this point and not including 'specials' whenever one of them was selected for the celestial XI) but you also gave the networks a perfect excuse for flying our Billy over whenever England ventured into Hungary to provide what should have been expert analysis. I shall never forgive you.

BITING THE BULLET

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THREE BAGS FULL

There was a parents' evening at the Frog's nursery school yesterday and, as Idris was working, I was the designated responsible adult. So, I picked up Froggy, hared her off to her pre-school lesson and dashed back just in time to catch the start. There were upwards of 30 parents in the room, most shifting awkwardly on chairs made for the support of 5 year old bottoms. I, on the other hand, was advantageously and comfortably perched on a table at the back of the room. I had been here before and knew that comfort was all.

The headmistress(?) began proceedings by expressing the hope that we had all read the notice on the notice board.

I read it today. It invites parents who would like their children assessed/tested to make a prior appointment, in writing, with the Rainbow Foundation who are in town expressly for said purpose.

She continued by informing us that there was a foundation grant which nursery schools in the area had been invited to apply for and indeed that hers had made such an application. In order to comply with the terms and conditions of said application, children in their last year of nursery school had been subjected to approximately half an hour of assessment and testing.

Whoa. Run that one by me again would you? You had my child tested without my permission? By an outside organisation? Not government/Dept. of Education run?

So, with little consequent ado, she handed us over to the Foundation representative/soon to become a colleague, who would further elucidate.

She (a total female hegemony here, I briefly notice. Myself and Zoli are the only males in the room) began by stating that her foundation was set up in the interests of, blah, blah ,blah...development...blah, blah, blah...standards...blah, blah, blah...preparation for elementary school...blah, blah, fucking blah...and that she had tested/assessed all the 3rd year children the previous day.

"Did you know about this, Zoli?"
"No, but..."

She went on to explain that they had been tested under four main categories; knowledge of personal information (date of birth, address, names and occupations of parents etc.), motor skills (following physical instructions, left hand on right shoulder, thumb and four fingers into contact in sequence, hand/eye co-ordination etc.), intelligence and memory (symbolically, numerically and alphabetically, even though counting and letter recognition form no part of the nursery school syllabus) and finally, attentivity and understanding (knocking on the desk whenever a certain word is spoken, concept questions etc.)

Concept questions, eh? I know all about those from language teaching and would readily attest to their being wide open to interpretation

Anyway, points out of a hundred are given according to performance.

She continued by stating that she would personally come into the school twice a week for an hour to give remedial attention to those children that needed it. She adds, in response to a question, that the remedial work can be carried on in elementary school should the child 'need' improvement in their hand/eye co-ordination for example, and even in secondary school if need be.

"What the fuck?"
"Ssssshhhhhhhh!"

It is at this point that the red mist descends and I can feel a full blooded, assegai wielding, rampant fucking slaughter coming on.

"How's your memory, Zoli?"
"God knows."
"Shall we test it?"

I mean, what the fuck? Hand/eye co-ordination, for fuck's sake? Motor skills? What the hell is this any preparation for, visits to a china shop?

So, presentation over, we are led into seperate rooms where the nursery school teachers will consult with the parents of children of their own particular classes. Now, seeing as my own especial frog was born in July, we had the choice of starting her in elementary scholl (a form of pedicentric training, archly recommended) this September or keeping her in nursery school for another year. Inordinately fond of our childish adult, we decided on the latter. Christ, childhood is all too short and the Hungarian education system is such that attendance at any school beyond nursery signals the end of same. Anyway, this meant that the three 'sisters', Lorna, Laura and Izabella, mouseketeers all, were represented by father, father and mother in intimate congress with their two primary carers.

They began by stating that the marking of the tests was so strict that a failure to answer any one question correctly, or perform any exercise to the representative's satisfaction in any section, resulted in a zero mark for the whole section and, as a result, they would not be telling us, the parents, the mark achieved. Heaven help that we would become competitive and resent each others' child on the basis of some abitrarily awarded point.

*Huh?*

They proceeded to go through the entire test in some detail, stage by stage. The questions asked..."Can you tell me the days of the week?" Do they understand that yesterday is past, today is present and tomorrow is yet to come, etc. etc. etc? Do they know their own telephone number?

*Fucked if I know my mobile number, I never use the fucker.*

Can they follow a simple 'Simon says' sequence, rapping on the table in front of five symbols in the order in which they were rapped by the assessor/tester?

"Er...excuse me. You said that you don't want to tell us the results, yeah? But just who will have access to these results?"

Cue great sniggering on the part of Laura and Izabella's parental representatives whose brains are obviously not fully engaged at this point.

"No. Wait a minute. Will elementary schools have access to these results and be able to refuse to accept a child simply because their hand/eye co-ordination isn't up to scratch?"

"And just who decides what is an acceptable level of performance in each section?"

"Oh, well, it's obviously an average." states father Laura although mother Izabella pricked up her ears noticably at the first question.

First answer is in the negative.

"But representative stated that the remedial work would/could/should (the exact modality escapes me) continue in elementary and secondary schools."

"Well, yes. But they wouldn't know the exact results."

*These guys should run for office.*

The second query remains unanswered.

They inform us that part of the test involved determining which part of the brain was the dominant. Left hemisphere, right handed and all that. They then went on to state that they, as nursery scholl tweachers (see above but with a tweak in their sobriety), would have to perform exercises designed to strengthen the weaker hemisphere; close strong eye and view the world through a toilet roll attached to the other etc.

*You are fucking kidding, right?*

I had to leave at this point as I had to go and collect the Frog from her pre-school class. As I was leaving, the primary carer informed me that Lorna was an entirely normal child.

*Fuck. Let me down again, the bitch.*

I came home and ranted profusely about the whole fucking rigmarole of such an assessment to Idris and her friend Kati. It transpired that Kati's son, Boti, a 5 year old turbo charged, charming bundle of sugar fuelled aggression is, and I quote, "catastrophic" according to his speech therapist/logopediatrician and was thusly informed in front of every parent of every child in his speech therapy class. He lisps and is lazy in his enunciation. Fucking charming to me. I understand him.

I go and pick the frog up today and am buttonheld by her primary carer.

"I didn't want to tell you yesterday in front of the others but Lorna was way ahead of the rest of her age group...wiped the floor with them, in fact. First in every category. Out of the whole year. 3rds and 4ths."

*You just don't fucking get it, do you?*

On the other hand..."Who's your daddy?"

DAMP SQUIB

Jamming on the brakes does have the rather wondrous effect of waking one up to one's surroundings even if the shopping in the boot does remain vertical and leak free, a state I often have trouble in attaining but that is by the by.

I was heading home post supermarket trip and decided to hit the main road route as opposed to the shorter in distance, through town trip. Leave town, over the flyover...screeeeeech. Zero forward mobility in a very short time indeed.

I ignore lane discipline in an attempt to ascertain the problem and espy a squad car some 500 metres away, an accident thinks I. Wrong. I approach the obstruction and it becomes all too clear that there is a tractor parked/abandoned on the oncoming lane. It is the work of but a moment for me to espy the rather large Hungarian flag flying from a pole inserted into its vertical exhaust system and my reactionary circuits hit overdrive.

The tractor is hauling, or would be if it wasn't parked, two trailers. They are both festooned with more Hungarian flaggage than I have seen wielded by a victorious water polo team and several and sundry cars are parked behind them. All of the cars bear banners. One reads, and I translate, "Gyurcsány, resign!" and another, I do not translate, "Justice for Hungary".

Now, being one of the very few who could possibly understand that last message and, in reaction to the waves of the demonstrators and the sounded horns of their supporters, I did only what I could in the circumstances.

I electronically wound down my window, mechanically raised my middle finger, left hand and mouthed, "Fuck off!"

Thuswise are the politics of the UK introduced into Hungary.

One likes to think one does one's bit.

DER, DER, DER, DER BRAIN

Frank Lampard said: "I knew things were raining down but none of them hit me. There was a bit of banter with the Spanish fans and that was good."

Banter? Hmmmm. With? That would imply some sort of dialogue, Frank. And even if the Catalans were speaking Spanish entirely for your benefit, I wonder if you know what 'Concha tu madre, chanchito de mierda' means.

ARSE. ARSE. ARSE.

I’ve been thinking. Not, on the face of it, an unusually demanding activity you might surmise but if one pauses for a moment to consider, one would have to concede that, for most of us, it remains an ability almost entirely self taught and, though it pains me to admit it, tragically under utilised.

Now I do not concern myself here with the processes involved in making the admittedly important and mood defining decision of, “I think I’ll go with the Bunnahabhain tonight” or even in reaching the conclusion that, “I think you’d look rather fetching with your knees somewhere in the vicinity of your ears” and nor that which would allow me to explain such important consequentialities as why men have nipples and quite how American Foreign Policy can best be meditated upon only with a thorough understanding of the theory of entropy. No. For these I give not a fruit of the ficus carica or wouldn’t even if I had one, which I don’t but I digress.

No, what concerns me mightily at the moment, has set the synapses abuzzing in an optimistic attempt to jump start cells either pickled or too long dormant is the ability for the kind of thought which would allow one to attain a state of true individuality and certainly not that long considered to have allowed us to attach the species sapiens , to our genus, homo . That after all is far too closely associated with knowledge and knowing which is a biscuit of an altogether different provenance. No. In short, the nub, kernel, central point or even G-spot of my cogitations is education.

Now maybe it’s the malt soaked old buffer in me coming to the fore but it would seem to me, even in my more sober moments, that the whole purpose of education is to teach one to think for oneself. To see through the assorted fripperies of advertising, received wisdom, newspaper editorials, state of the nation addresses and serving suggestions and actually reach informed conclusions and opinions of one’s own. A triumph over ovine ignorance in other words.

And it is in this respect that the education system of the UK certainly failed me and is quite demonstrably failing others even yet. I was told. I absorbed. I regurgitated. It was only after the passage of some fifteen or so years, during which I read widely and took far too many drugs, that when I returned to university as a mature(r) student, I was finally able to exchange the intellectual currency I possessed for anything more than face value.

We do not educate any longer. We train. We trammel. Like a vine trained along wires we are pruned and led. And to what? Our own little cubicle if we’re lucky but most will end up as wage slaves, mortgaged to the hilt and running the wheel ever faster and with increasing desperation.

Education, if it means anything, must surely mean freedom. Freedom from the ignorance and prejudices of our elders and yet freedom hardly informs the thinking of our governments today. Oh yes, the freedom to buy shares, to buy one’s council house...freedom to buy, to consume and be afraid. Afraid that one might somehow fall behind, catch bird flu or be rendered into one’s constituent molecules by terrace. Freedom to do all of this but the freedom to think, to challenge, to question, to change?

God help me, I am not perfect. I know nothing. I am hopelessly ignorant and prejudiced to the nth degree. All I would ask is that my daughter has at least a chance, however small, of being better than I am.

I know that if I leave it up to the education system here in Hungary, her knowledge will certainly exceed that of the average Brit but she will be programmed and inculcated all the same. There is so much to do and I am not sure if I am the man to do it.

And should I think about my motives? Am I looking for redemption through my child? Oh, fuck it. I think I’ll have another drink.

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

Having stirred Hungary into a couple of nights unrest by suggesting that their 6-3 win at Wembley was entirely down to the ideas of Jimmy Hogan, the English coach working with them at the time, and as it would appear to have settled down somewhat, I'm off to Croatia to see if I can't nick a few more of their vowels.

Back in a week. Play nicely now.

WHAT'S GOIN' ON?

BBC report on violent demonstrations in Hungary.

Basically, what the report describes. The whole truth is a little more complicated.

Gyurcsány, the current socialist PM as a result of an election a couple months back, was addressing MPs in his party at a private meeting and made the basic political error of telling the truth in a situation where he could be surreptitiously recorded.

The background is that the election took place at a time when Hungary is basically up to its nostrils in the effluent...huge debts, no longer able to afford to subsidise gas and electricity prices etc...and, as people seemed to be of the opinion that 10 years since the change of regime was long enough to get the country and economy on track and end the years of austerity and belt tightening, there appeared to be an unspoken pact between all the parties contesting the election to not make waves. The political reality was such that any party who actually told the truth about the economy would not stand an Unsworth at left back's chance of being elected.

Also, two of the major reasons why 10 years has not been long enough are the usual post regime change corruption whereby state industries are sold and contracts awarded to cronies for respectively nominal and extortionate fees in exchange for bungs and backhanders to politicians and the fact that the black market here is larger than the legal one. In other words, every single person in Hungary is corrupt to some extent whether it be the housewife who accepts the plumber's offer of not issuing a bill for the work done and thus gets a cash discount, the teacher giving private lessons after school, the manager diverting company concrete to his patio or the politician abusing his position to stuff his back pocket. Fact is they're all at it. The only difference is in the amounts involved. And people being what they are, they do not equate their own, small financial scale corruption with that of the politicians and bureaucrats.

So, tax base therefore very small or at least smaller than it should be given the extent of the black economy and therefore, taxes themselves on a par with those of Scandinavia...very high.

Result of all this? A population not at all receptive to any notions of further belt-tightening and cuts in government expenditure. A simple political formula that telling the truth equals electoral suicide. Plus the fact that the sheer scale of the corruption makes it almost impossible to deal with. How is the guy with a small allotment style vineyard going to be persuaded to declare his earnings on a few litres of illicitly sold wine which will help him pay the increase in his utility bills when he is aware that people in higher positions have made billions at the same game?

Gyurcsány understands all this and attempted to tell his party a few home truths. The two most quoted parts of his speech, both in the BBC report, sound pretty damning but, without either the context of the whole speech or knowledge of the political situation here in Hungary, are succeptible to being used to manipulate those bears of little brain that make up the target audience of huckstering politicos.

The first, "Of course we lied to win the election" breaks the unspoken contract between any electorate and its politicians that 'we know you lie but we will accept this as long as you do not say so to our faces'. Hypocritical? Of course but a fact nonetheless. Home truth number 1 anyway.

The second refers to the Socialist's 4 years in office before the latest election. "We did nothing for four years. Nothing." Again, out of context, pretty damning.

But, if we take both in the context of an intelligent man talking privately to the members of his party doing what all voters profess they want their politicians to do, that is to tell it how it is and attempting to hold up a mirror to the MPs and shake them up enough to at least attempt to change the status quo, to say that this is how it has been and I am heartily sick of it, then they become something else entirely. That which should be a kick start for real political change, an acceptance of responsibility and a new contract with the electorate.

The cassette containing this speech was broadcast on Hungarian radio on the 18th of September. Gyurcsány himself published his entire speech on his blog on the 17th. Okay, he knew of the existence of the tape by then either, and here is the interesting bit, because he had been told of it or because the whole thing happened with his knowledge and approval. Either way, he is standing by his speech and will not apologise for nor retract one single word of it.

I have read this and, although my Hungarian is not up to understanding it in its entirity, the gist of it seems to be that 'the country is fucked, we have been content simply to be in power and in denial of the real situation and we have to try to break the culture of lies and actually do something to try and fix the problems'.

So, the tape is broadcast on the 18th. On the 19th, demonstrations break out simultaneously in all the major towns and cities in the country, including Nagykanizsa. The focus is on the 2 quotes above and there is a lot of Hungarian flaggage in evidence.

Spontaneous eruption of public feeling? My arse. Just further evidence that the right is more organised than the left is all. They hardly needed their political antennae set to maximum sensitivity to recognise this as a perfect opportunity to make political capital. Firstly, just how many people would take the trouble to actually read the whole speech and not rely on the selected soundbites? Secondly, what party could resist such a golden opportunity to brand the opposition as congenital liars thereby keeping their part of the contract whereby we know they lie but they have not told us so to our faces and can therefore, be trusted?

It's the flaggage on display that gives it away really. I mean, what normal Hungarian voter would think, "In a whore's life! The PM lied to us. Now, where's my flag?"?

Again, a bit of background. Before the election, the main opposition party, FIDESZ, was running a tad short of policy ideas and, as afraid of telling the truth as the ruling socialists, decided that their best chance of victory was by playing the nationalist card. Thus, whenever they held rallies the faithful were instructed to turn up not with their party flags and colours but with Hungary's red, white and green.

Anyway, as demonstrations do, some turned pretty nasty, particularly the ones in the capital. Finding the parliament building closed and/or too well defended, they turned their attention to the State TV headquarters where they overpowered some 100 riot police and stormed the building. To what end? Ostensibly to have a petition read live on air but I doubt the majority were even aware of this. Most of the participants seemed to be the Hungarian equivalent of our own dearly beloved BNP supporters and were probably acting on some genetic memory from 1956 that storming the TV building is what one does on these occasions.

As ever with the really important political events, this one will play itself out on an emotive rather than rational level especially since the election was only narrowly won and the country split almost 50/50 between the Socialists, a kind of New Labour/Third Way lite and the right wing, nationalist FIDESZ. I can't help feeling that, despite his best intentions, Gyurcsány has handed the opposition a lethal weapon and that his days are probably numbered.

Which, for a lifelong socialist (champagne or otherwise) and rabid anti-nationalist such as myself is definitely...Not. Good. News.

ALLONS LES ENFANTS

The current prime minister of Hungary has been secretly recorded during what we might call an unguarded moment admitting that, "Of course we lied before the election" and an even more illuminating, "We did nothing during our previous 4 year administration, nothing."

Well, strap me to a tree and call me Brenda, says I. You were expecting something else, maybe?

Apparently they were.

There are increasingly violent demonstrations taking place in all the major cities and towns in Hungary including this one, as I type. A mob gathered outside the Hungarian TV building in Budapest momentarily overpowered 100 odd riot police to gain entry before being repelled with water cannon and tear gas. Watch this space.

It would seem we live in interesting times.

TOP OF THE POP-UPS

Roger is right, one could have hours of fun with this.



Well, maybe not hours exactly. That may have been a slight exaggeration. Okay, if I'm honest, five minutes tops. Unless, like me, one is desperately bored and looking for something to take the edge off a Blades induced mild weekend depression. Naah, it's back already. Plan B it is then.

Your very good health.

THIS ONE GOES OUT TO...

Okay, I've tried everything. Short of prostituting myself or mortgaging my future sperm count...a dodgy proposition given the general dissipation of the X chromosome in the human gene pool but fuck it (or not, as the case may well be), there are some things worth selling one's soul for.

Namely Mike Leigh's Naked and Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books.

Anyone with a more than negligible opportunity of putting either of these into my exceedingly grateful possession is encouraged to get in touch via the comments.

I love you all.

LIFE UNDER HEADPHONES

I always tune in to FM4 out of Vienna in the car to tickle the stamens of my musical curiosity but the chances of me ever getting any work done now I've found a live internet feed are minimal to totally non-existent.

Carlsberg don't do radio, but if they did...

clicky

Stompin'

COLD SWEAT

I had the strangest dream last night.

I was having a deathbed revelation during which it was revealed to me that everything I had ever believed up to that point had been wrong.

It was then that I woke up.

Before I'd even had the chance to enquire about Piers Morgan.

TRAVEL TIPS: No. 1

If ever you should suffer a, shall we say, agricultural diversion when attempting to steer with your knee while rolling a cigarette, it would be wise to ensure that you are driving a Trabant at the time.

I was just performing said manouevre when a sudden jolt and the sight of tobacco parting company with paper caused me to look up and witness the perfect point perspective of a ploughed field which, on a closer inspection, I discovered to be some metre and a half below the level of and, on the other side of the road from, the lane from which I began said escapade.

Trabant...chassis like a tank and with limited moving parts, none of which could remotely be described as fragile...completely undamaged, an assumption at the time but confirmed on later inspection. I just rammed it into first...bumpity bumpity bump...tractor exit, back onto the blacktop and...now, where did I put those cigarette papers?

The moral of the story is...next time I'll take the Octavia. Much less of a tendency to veer.

TEARS ARE NOT ENOUGH

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE...

I have a feeling I might regret this but there is bile in the Amstelladagain liver which no amount of single Islay malt can flush away.

Wasn't it Spitting Image who first accused Israel of attempting to rewrite the Old Testament and improve on it a bit with respect to the smiting? Whoever it was, they got it pretty much spot on.

So, where shall I start? Talking about the who, why and what of the birth of the state of Israel will do me little good here...although it might be worth reminding the Israelis that, were it not for their own acts of terrorism, it would not have come into being at all.

Should I deal with the facts on the ground? Shit, there aren't any. If truth is indeed the first casualty, then it was stretchered off on a drip to the field hospital before I was even born.

Sod it then, I'll add my own take on events and the hell with it. If you think me ill-informed, I can only say that of course I am. Along with the rest of the world.

So, as I see it, the biggest problem is that you have a whole shedload of people, the Palestinians, who were kicked orf their land and are;

1. almost totally without any form of what we would recognise as representation and independence. Israel is in almost complete control over their water supply in the West Bank and Gaza, for example.

2. because of their lack of a viable state and their diaspora, subject to being used as pawns in other States' political machinations...most other Arab states look down on the Palestinians and yet this does not stop their using them as an emotive issue at home to demonstrate Arab solidarity and divert attention from other, more potentially dangerous domestic issues.

Hamas and particularly, Hezbollah arose in an attempt to solve these problems. The latter runs schools and hospitals in southern Lebanon and provides an infrastructure which includes social services, student grants, help with medical expenses...all those things which no state can provide for them. Hearts and minds? Maybe, but for a poor Palestinian refugee family it's manna from heaven. Even now, who is it that is ensuring a supply of food and bottled water to those suffering as a result of Israel's bombardment? Who is it that funds rebuilding programmes after the dust has settled? You got it. Hezbollah.

There are all the elements of statehood in the above and yet this exists within other states outside of the control of the host government...another problem but I'll skip that for now...so why is it that we are surprised when such a state, demonstrably existing to serve its constituency, decides it needs a military to protect it?

And, by God, did it need protection. Just who else was going to look after their interests? The US? Britain? Syria? Who was Israel going to sit up and take notice of? The UN? Israel does what it damn well pleases and always has done and is still the subject of more ignored UN resolutions than all other countries combined. Who else was going to respond to Israel's acts of aggression?

Were any other country in the world to have followed the same actions as Israel's over the years, the Marines would have been sent in ages ago. So why haven't they?

Is it the Jewish lobby in the US? The fear of being thought anti-Semitic? A post WWII sympathy? Is it that we just hate/fear the fucking arabs? The fact that Israel's got the 'bomb'? Probably all the above, I don't know.

What I do know is that, if one were to look for examples of rank hypocrisy anywhere in the world, the ones of stupendous, off-the-scale magnitude will be found here and I, for one, am heartily sick of it.

You commit acts of terrorism. We wage war.
You commit atrocities. We talk about collateral damage.
Your actions are wanton. We merely defend ourselves.
You fire one rocket. We drop 20 tons of ordnance.
You are non-people, refugees at best. We suffered a diaspora.
Your democratic government is illegitimate. We are exporting democracy.
You abduct and kidnap. We capture and arrest.
You are unlawful combatants. We are prisoners of war.
You can rot without trial in Guantanamo. We expect the Geneva convention.

Our state has the right to exist. Yours? Who gives a fuck?
We enter your territories with armour and uniforms and are therefore, within our rights to do so. You enter ours with explosive clothing and are therefore, not.
We have the right to protect ourselves. You can just get on your knees and assume the position.

And then you've got that fucking chimp, Georgie boy stating for the record on prime time Republican TV that he cannot in all conscience sanction stem cell research because of his regard for the sanctity of innocent life. 'Kinell.

And then all the political media machinery in the US oiling its cogs over the prospect of WWIII. Give me strength.

I realise that all this seems pretty one sided but hey, whaddaya know? Bush and Blair are hardly balancing the arguments, are they?

We're fucked. Absolutely and totally.

A patriarchal world, eh? I'm lovin' it.

THERE IS NO EFFIN FIFA

The referee didn't see it, the assistant referee didn't see it, so how can FIFA's insistence that video evidence is inadmissable stand up after tonight?

I am in no way condoning the action of Zinedine Zidane, although I would love to know just what Materazzi said to him; there just remains a suspicion that the fourth official (whose verdict has so far in these championships been restricted to timekeeping) only decided to radio his opinion to the referee after Zidane's marvellously aggressive headbutt was relayed to the entire audience via the video screens in place at the stadium. (Whoops, according to eye-witness reports, the replay was not shown in the stadium but you're not telling me that the official did not have access to TV monitor replays).

Now, were similar evidence to have been admissible during the rest of the championships, Italy would probably not have progressed beyond Australia, whose fortune at this World Cup was determined by a decidedly dodgy penalty decision which would not, under any reasonably fair video scrutiny have stood up to even the most cursory examination.

I'm agog at the possibilities for FIFA to explain away this one, but I'm sure they'll find a politically acceptable press release, one which absolves Materazzi, as a World Cup winner, and the referee, as a FIFA appointment, of any wrong doing whatsoever.

But I have this nagging suspicion that Materazzi was extremely well briefed. Any lip readers aware of Algerian insults?

ALLITERATIVELY SPEAKING

I guess advertising agencies have known for some time that there is nothing like alliteration when it comes to embedding marketing slogans into a consumer's psyche (P-p-p-pick up a Penguin) but it would appear that in the quest for fantastically effective fricatives...the 'voiceless' and 'labio-dental' both sacrificed here for their assonance...consonantal consonance has begun to take precedence over any semantic considerations to the extent that a manufacturer of bath and shower gel will accept a marketing presentation containing the words 'Family Friendly Formula' without instantly dismissing it as mere babble from the sick bed.

Given that even the less sentient among the populace would probably have among their expectations of such a gel the assumption that it would not corrode their epidermal layer to the extent of necessitating a visit to their local NHS provider, one wonders just how this formula can demonstrate its acclaimed chumminess.

This aside, what really grates is the ubiquitous shorthand of 'family'. The use of the word by advertisers, politicians and apostrophe unaware signboard writers has rendered it absolutely meaningless or, more accurately, to a state of such vagueness that it can safely be used by such masters of the art of saying absolutely nothing while sounding deeply profound as huckstering political candidates in the sure and certain knowledge that heads will nod among the electorate at any mention of the phrase, 'family values'.

Family holiday, family meal, family fun, family butcher...now there's an image for you...family car, family shampoo and family bloody values; all intent on conjuring an image as unreal as that of a nostalgic reminiscence of the supposedly halcyon days of the 1950s where fratricide, incest, spousal abuse and child battering all, no doubt, took place without the confines of the family and idyllic Sunday afternoon picnics formed the focus of a fun family weekend.

Would it were just a laziness abroad in the land but I fear it is but a symptom of a deeper malaise; a desire, especially on the part of politicians and the media, to reduce even the most complicated issues to an easily remembered soundbite using enough emotive language to trigger an emotional response among the intended audience in an attempt to stifle any rational debate on the subject. The word 'family' has already been hijacked, 'democracy' would appear to be going the same way. We are indeed, a civilisation in decline.

All I can say is that any family containing Warren Terrism and Laura Norder is not one among which I would wish to spread my genes, that's for sure.

I must go now. I think my family pizza is just about done.

MADE FOR TV

"...and we'll be covering that two minutes silence live, as it happens, here on CNN."

I'll probably be joining in. Words fail me.