The Eden Hazard Incident - and Today's Society

Dear Great Great Grandchildren,

This is late January, 2013. Recent news has precipitated a bit of a storm this week, that is a popular but soon-to-be transient, talking point in this country. Ostensibly, it is that a footballer kicked a ball boy at a football match. That is supposedly the story but wider issues are at stake than cheating in football, casual violence, the representation and mis-representation of that incident by the media and the precipitate justifications of violence (if violence can ever be justified).

The incident itself, is probably documented in the history books so I will not cover that here. This letter is about a series of mails that I started and then sat back to reap the whirlwind. I asked friends with an interest in football how thick (today's slang for stupid) footballers are if they think such an act could be missed by match officials, TV cameras and the 19,500 supporters in a football standium at a high level football match (a League Cup semi-final).

Various of those friend expressed their views and I summarised them in a follow-up mail that circulated the main comments and asked people to think about the social issues that lay beneath the surface.

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This is the mail.
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You will have seen the incident on all the news channels in the last two days, where a footballer appeared to kick a ball boy. This was discussed by e-mail with the football-loving community in my distribution lists. Did the footballer behave badly? Did the Ball Boy behave badly? Should the police have got involved? - that sort of thing. A number of correspondents had a view and were not shy in expressing it. Their views are summarised below.

In reading them, it occurred to me that it was also a matter affecting and reflecting the society in which we live, which, as such - at a more general level, might interest the people-watchers, the parents, the leaders, the managers and the aspiring behavioural scientists amongst you. So, here is a mail which, at the ‘obvious’ level is just about football and the cheating that is such a natural part of today’s game - plus the violent conduct that is so normal in today’s footballers that it’s barely acknowledged as ‘real’ violence. However, when you look at the behavioural and societal issues, these may also interest those of you who observe and have concern for our society and the legacy to our children and grandchildren.

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Of those that replied to my ‘How Thick Are Today’s Footballers?’ mail based on the Eden Hazard news item, here is the essence of those responses, I have grouped and summarised the comments below.

-           What about the grappling and wrestling at free kicks and corners? Soccer has turned into American Football. This is not just a matter of opinion. Watch any match and you’ll see the free use of arms and hands to restrain an opponent. When did this become British Soccer?

 

-           Time-wasting is part of the way football is played today. Yes, it gets penalised when it occurs in its most blatant forms, but lesser transgressions are overlooked routinely. For instance, defending players run TOWARDS the ball at a free kick and stand in front of it to prevent the kick being taken quickly. The rule is (or at least used to be…) ‘On having a free kick awarded against you, retire ten yards FROM the ball’. It is a deliberate breaking of a long-established rule - so clearly cheating, routinely ignored by weak referees. Why aren’t players booked for that? As with so many acts of cheating in football, strong referees could stop it overnight.

-           There were some xenophobic rants against the Welsh, the Belgians, Chelsea, social networking sites and the people that use them, the police, kids, weak parents and the world in general. I can’t repeat them here as giving offence is apparently against European law on Human Rights or something. Still, it’ll be alright once Cameron’s referendum lets us out of the EU and gets us back to making our own laws once again.

Thanks very much for those views though, having no respect for political correctness, they made me laugh. In your comments, I see that reinstatement of hanging is regaining popularity. I wonder if Cameron will extend his referendum initiative to revisiting this old chestnut?

-           Hazard got a mixed reception. A referee amongst you pointed out that the ball had only gone for a goal kick so the time that the not-too-bright ball boy was attempting to waste could easily have been added back by the ref as the game had paused anyway. The red card was deserved as there was no need for Hazard to get involved. In fact, in his arrogant, unthinking act, he hurt Chelsea even more by getting carded, missing the end of that game, and now at least three more games (answering my question from original mail - “How Thick Are Today’s Footballers?”).

-           The BBC didn’t come out of it at all well. On Day One, they showed a clip (repeatedly), of Hazard getting a kick in - from only one angle, which showed him apparently kicking the kid. When you see it from the Sky News angle, he clearly punts the ball clear of the kid’s smothering body, admittedly, giving the chap a tap (at best), in the short punt follow- through, leading to him writhing about like… well, like a theatrical, girly, footballer really - crying about being unjustly treated.

Add that to the way Jeremy Vine started his phone-in radio programme at noon the next day - “A man kicked a child in the ribs yesterday…” and you see that the BBC is fast becoming the Sun of TV and Radio, favouring the sensational to stir up emotions rather than reporting the news fairly, even-handedly and dispassionately. Considering their increasingly poor use of the English language, the protective shielding of Jimmy Savile so he could continue his hobby in peace and the inexplicably generous payout to their sacked Failure Of A Boss, it looks like they are determined to attract a lot more contempt and ridicule in the future.

But, back to the Hazard incident:

-           lastly, the kid didn’t come out of it at all well. No one had a good word to say about him or even the slightest sympathy. Some hoped his parents would disown him, discipline him or disinherit him. Realistically, if he behaves like that at 17, perhaps they have already failed as parents as he seems to have little grasp of decency - and judging by his well-publicised Twitter pronouncements, no moral code. Happily, the Universe is setting things to right as he has received a number of death threats (Those Chelsea fans… eh?  What are they like…?)

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And now to the broader issue -

Can I say to those of you who replied or even those who simply got vexed by the issue or any of the responses, Thank You - for being human. We live in a world where shrugging our shoulders and accepting bad behaviour meekly and without comment has become the norm. Where ‘not showing emotion’ is encouraged (Why?), even though emotion is what sets us apart from robots, and is a key part of being alive and incidentally, staying alive, e.g. fear and surprise - preservation instincts, and lust - our procreation instinct.

If you prefer not to have your cage rattled or your chain yanked, for fear of experiencing an emotion, please let me know, I will happily remove you from the dist lists. Anything I send you is designed to generate a reaction. Not only a fiery one; more often, it’s intended to make you laugh, perhaps cry - and once in a while, angry enough to think beyond the tramlines and paradigms favoured by the herd. I can’t see the point of going through life avoiding feelings, as that seems to me to be avoiding life. However, I respect your right to go for the anodyne if that’s what you choose.

Let me know if you would prefer not to receive potentially contentious mails. I won’t be assessing and sifting them to try to find the right balance for you. I’ll just take you off the mailing lists, erring on the side of caution.

If I don’t hear from you, life will go on as in the past. The mails will continue, some of which will offend. Sorry for these but I’ve got so much wrong in my life that I’m hardly likely to start getting it right now, am I? On balance though, I hope to contribute positively to your lives.

 

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That was the mail I sent to my friends.

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So g-g grandchildren, a mere 12 years after I started this project, I begin, and only just begin, to meet its intent; which is to show you how life is now - how we think and behave, to give you the chance to compare our world with yours.

 

As I mention somewhere in the early letters, as you will read this about 100 years after I wrote it, you will have different standards, different values. Please don't judge us too harshly as clumsy and uncivilised. This has been the way of humanity forever, as far as I can see. The superiority afforded by Hindsight is shortsighted in that it makes little allowance for evolution.

 

Whatever stage of social enlightenment you are at today, will most probably have been achieved by standing on the shoulders of our mistakes.

 

Sir Isaac Newton is credited with the 'shoulders of giants...' phrase that I have adapted here, and while an engaging humility, I prefer another of his:

 

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

 

 

 

Jan 21 - The Year Ahead

Hello again. Happy New year to those of you to whom I haven’t already managed to wish in person. Well, here we are well into 2013, a year that for me, is brimming with promise and potential. I find myself excited at the prospects that lie ahead, there’s so much to look forward to; pleasures to be sampled, tears to be shed - from both good and bad causes, knowledge to be acquired and new experiences to be had. On top of that, as ever, there will be news that’ll make us spit feathers (generally the antics of politicians and people claiming to be celebrities), gasp in amazement at scientific discoveries (life on Mars?), or laugh out loud (at, say, another Gangnam dance craze).

Whatever, it brings, I sense a year of promise ahead. Inevitably, setbacks will arise. On balance though, I expect a good year. Don’t know why, I just do. Life has always brought gifts. Bangs on the nose too of course, but more kisses than slaps have probably coloured my outlook. I expect undeserved gifts - all the time, let’s see if this is what transpires. Life continues apace. Here are a few thoughts on things that came into my field of vision since the last letter.

I mention ‘tears to be shed…’ above and that makes me think of a phrase I read today, which is: “Better safe than sorry”. Really? I mean Really?! What an appallingly pitiful way to justify negativity or dodging life by sitting on the fence. If you stay safe, then for sure, you won’t make a mistake, won’t look foolish, get a bloodied nose or skinned knees - but also, you won’t tread the path less travelled, or learn anything from Life’s capricious twists & turns and body swerves. Most importantly, you won’t contribute to your mates’ amusement. What kind of friend are you if you can’t make them laugh once in a while?

On the subject of making mistakes; a poem that my Dad introduced me to as an 11 year-old was the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám. I read it every now and again but one quatrain stuck in my mind from all those years ago:  “The moving finger having writ, moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit can lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all they tears wash out a single word of it.”

Such blinding truth - written a thousand years ago by a Persian poet, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician (strange bedfellows indeed, our logical and emotional sides - yet still appearing hand in hand regularly throughout history). However, back to the moving finger…

Far too often for comfort, we act or speak more harshly, more quickly than is wise. Once the words are out, the deed is done, whatever regrets prevail in the instant that follows- it’s too late. What’s done is done. You can’t change it however hard you wish. In other words, don’t have regrets; accept your mistake or misfortune; move on. What will regret, wishing it hadn’t happened and indulgent annoyance do? Other than prolong your suffering, not much. Look ahead, not back.

Which leads me to a philosophy that I have tried to bake into the New Year Resolutions every year for the last 20 years at least, and that is:

Don’t criticise - Don’t complain - Don’t Apologise - Don’t Explain.

Now, straight off, I have to break the last one by qualifying this in that I mean ‘Don’t Apologise and Don’t Explain’ unnecessarily. It is a curiously British trait to assume that you are in the wrong and should start any conversation with “Sorry”. An apology is warranted once in a while, when, in your own estimation, you’ve erred - but to start, by default, a conversation, with an apology - well that’s just pitiful, pathetic and wishy-washy. This follows on from my last letter where I noted how easily politicians, police, bankers, cheats and liars apologised for things that they or their predecessors had done. What an easy way to pretend you care and in doing so, dodge a bullet. When an apology leads to someone going to jail, then it will have the welcome and pervading fresh coffee aroma of sincerity. Saying “Sorry” is easy. Meaning it, now that’s another matter.

However, the Don’t Criticise, Don’t Complain bit holds good. Avoid those two and your life becomes a lot easier. Now, I’m sure a couple of you at least will say, “Hang on a tick. You’re always whinging about things”. How unfair! What I do is comment as an Observer of Life. They’re not criticisms or complaints per se. I’m surprised you can’t tell the difference.

Naturally, over the Christmas break, there has been a lot of special TV. One programme that caught my attention was on BBC4, The Best Songs Ever Written. When I see “The Best Ever (anything)” I smile, as it is usually only an opinion and therefore questionable as to whether it is truly ‘The Best Ever’. In this case the rationale was based on using Royalties as a measurement of quality - which makes some sense. ‘Sales’ are an unreliable guide as we have more disposable income than, say, 40 years ago. Today’s songs should win easily if measuring by Sales alone - before considering that record companies have been known to buy their own songs to distort pop charts. However, if several people want to record a song you’ve written, then all of those Sales and more importantly, Performance Royalties, due every time a song is played, are a better yardstick.

It was interesting that melodic love songs dominated the list - White Christmas, Stand By Me, You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, Every Breath You Take, Unchained Melody et al, but what was most interesting was the runaway winner - Happy Birthday (not the Stevie Wonder version).

One of my sister’s Christmas presents was an electronic photo frame. Photos, in our family, have always been important. Our collection has been boosted by Mum’s B&W pics going back to her days in Burma as a nurse, and Dad’s love of photography - which he passed on, precipitating the enthusiasm that you’ll have detected in prior letters. It may be a family thing as my Aussie cousins also snap away happily and in this digital age, share their treasures freely. Consequently, I was able to set up a card for her frame that had 600 photos of our parents, grandparents and the Aussie cousins across the last 10 years.

It’s this setting up of a memory card that I want to talk about. What a fine game that was. I started by loading photos to a card that steadfastly refused more than 255 pics, even though there was plenty of space left. This turned out to be a technical limitation overcome by simply reformatting the card. PCs offer up to FOUR different format systems, so I chose another, reloaded the pics and sailed well past 255. I was happy - until the new format, while allowing the card to load 600 photos, wouldn’t work in the frame. The frame being new, didn’t like the (old) format system I’d chosen.

More reading of user manuals and no little trial and error, led to yet another formatting, in what was now a third format system, whereupon all was fine and dandy and the frame worked perfectly. ('O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy. - Jabberwocky: Lewis Carroll). Mimi was delighted to see so many photos of which she was unaware. These included the Aussie cousins and Mum & Dad, plus our grandparents and aunts & uncles - in India in the 50s.

Unfortunately, the same 600 photos going around and around soon palls, so I set about loading some new ones to a USB memory stick. This time I was aiming for about 1000 and loaded 1087;  memories from four Chelsea Flower Shows, explorations of the Cornish harbours of Charlestown Bay, Polperro and Mevagissey, plus visits to the Eden Project and The Lost Gardens of Heligan.

On top of this, when I send you PowerPoint presentations of beautiful or unusual photography or clever Photoshop work, I keep the presentation, save its pics to this PC and look at them from time to time so I can gaze upon those wonderful sights.

Adding these to my own, the new collection reached, as stated above - 1087. Once again, like an annoying Jobsworth, the frame refused to work, tilting it head, sucking its teeth in and quoting Health & Safety, collective union agreements and the real reason - technical limitations.

Again, I deleted large swathes of pics till it worked, then added back in small bites, till, in baby steps, I found the new limit. It was 1001, which gives you 1 hour 20 mins of photos in five second bursts before it starts at No. 1 again. That’s quite enough. This is, I believe, a limitation of the photo frame’s internal slideshow programming and not the way you format the card. If you have an electronic photo frame that you can’t get to work, get in touch, I’ll see what I can do. My own frame is on every day in the kitchen and I am warmed constantly by those memories.

Over the Christmas period, I lost two mates. Firstly, Jim Carville from the long-established September Golf Tour. Jim was a source of some of the e-mails that I forward so his passing will diminish all your lives in some way as well as our mutual golfing mates. What a turnout for his funeral! It says something about you when you fill a church with people coming to say goodbye.

Then, on new Year’s Eve, my best friend from my teenage years died, Ron Mulrenan, who was lead guitarist of The Sabres. Ron treated me like a little brother and looked after me - as did his family. Carole Devlin, his girlfriend from those youth club years sent me her photos from that time, as did Colin Parsell who was our rhythm guitarist - so I now have about 20 B&W photos of The Sabres and our families from the 60s - apart from my own snaps. This has stirred the urge to find more old photos and negs to introduce some nostalgia to the next photo frame collection. As you know, I have a scanner that turns negs the right way around into jpegs so finding ‘negs only’ is no obstacle.

I may mention these guys in some of the e-mails that I forward. It is an indulgence. They are still on my mind. I miss them and look fondly on my memories of them. Please bear with me till I adjust.

In all of these letters, I mention the Herculean Task that is the clearing up of this study. Although supposedly an exercise in ‘tidying up’, it is really a Voyage of Discovery. Last week, I discovered an old Big Issue from 2009. About to chuck it, as I was sure I would have read it, I noticed something about poetry on the cover so started to read the first few pages. There were several short articles from new authors praising a site called ABCtales, where unknown authors can publish short stories and poems - http://www.abctales.com/.

So far, I have published three poems and a short story and will use it to test the water for future works. Up till now, I have been trying out my short stories on Ruth Underhill and Phil Burrell. While their comments have proved useful, they are only two and as friends, probably tend to be kinder than strangers with their observations. The reception I have had on ABCtales has been for the most part, friendly and complimentary but (unfortunately, fair) criticism has appeared too. Luckily, I have seen the worth of those comments and noted them. Future works will bear that in mind. It is all part of the gauntlet of apprenticeship that aspiring authors have to run.

You have to be a member to comment on any piece and I think most people join to publish their own work for feedback - so comments are likely to be from aspiring authors. If you like writing poetry and/or short stories, this site gives you the chance to publish your work.

With the inclement weather of the last few weeks, I’ve stayed in a lot, giving me the chance to write more. Short stories from night school homeworks are being reworked and while demanding, takes them in a new style, to a new version.

Heads & Hearts is getting a major rewrite and is growing into a much bigger tale. Those of you who read it first time around will find the same story, wrapped in perceptibly different, hopefully more visual language, with many more characters from the Irresistible Forces appearing in small cameos. They just flit in and out to add lightness, otherwise a story written initially for a nine year-old as a birthday present, is in danger of becoming undesirably serious.

After that, there are three or four stories that progress in my head every day. They’ll have to wait; focus on Heads & Hearts is key. For once, I’d like to finish a story to my satisfaction.

I see this letter is already on page 4 so let’s close with a couple of things that caught my attention recently. Before sleep, I like to watch something light, Castle, Body of Proof, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Big Bang Theory, that sort of thing. In watching QI recently, the sage Stephen Fry mentioned that, when something is lost, saying out loud the name of the thing you are looking for, will help you find it. I lost all my USB flash drives recently. One day they were on this desk. Next time I looked, the rascals were hiding. Surprisingly, ‘Say it out loud’ worked. I recommend it. I also lost and found something else with this approach but for the life of me, can’t remember what it was. The technique doesn’t seem to have much effect on a flaky memory once the lost thing is found.

Let’s close with a few snippets as they cross my mind… I see Mo Farrah, double Olympic Gold medallist, got stopped from re-entering the U.S. where he does his training. Initially, he was banned from the country for 90 days while they investigated whether he was a terrorist or not. As usual, the Americans declared to the world how insular, ignorant of world events (The Olympics!), neurotic and paranoid they are, unaware that he was a double Olympic Champion even though he showed them his gold medals. It took an FBI agent who was a friend of his coach to get them allowed in. The unworldly, self-absorbed insularity of Americans is staggering.

“Police in India are due to formally charge…” the five men accused of rape. Apart from the split infinitive in this BBC News banner headline, I wonder… can police charge ‘informally’? We should expect more from the BBC, formerly the standard-bearer for the English language. Do we pay a licence fee to have our children taught bad English by illiterate example?

HMV not honouring their gift vouchers is interesting. I wonder, is that legal? Surely they’ve taken money in exchange for an IOU? (Incidentally, how does this differ from a share issue?)Their accounts should record a liability for the cash accepted as no goods nor services were sold. What’s puzzling is - though they have a stock of goods, they refuse to use that to settle the vouchers. If it’s legal that companies can go into administration and then not honour these vouchers, why would anyone buy vouchers in the future, not just from HMV - FROM ANY SHOP? If you ever buy a gift voucher again, look in the mirror. Chances are you will have MUG tattooed across your forehead. Potentially, you’re just giving money away - and not to a good cause like a homeless Big Issue seller but to a profit making organisation whose directors will smile at your gullibility as they pocket your kind donation. Perhaps that’s the ‘gift’ part of ‘gift voucher’? An interesting twist.

Well, this is 2013, the Year of Much Promise. Just 20 days into it and already we have the drug use of Lance Armstrong, the Indian Police’s casual attitude to rape and the insularity of Americans - being publicised worldwide; a helicopter crash over London, an avalanche in Scotland, a 62 year-old Taff in Oz wrestling a shark away from paddling toddlers; riots in Belfast once again, several of the latest Boeing model being grounded, and despite no longer having a country awash with outlaws, murderous Red Indians, bears and mountain lions roaming their streets, Americans still feel the need to carry guns so they can kill schoolchildren. What with all this, plus HMV’s mystifying behaviour, Adele winning an award for a song about scaffold and a lovely blanket of snow covering the country, what a start to 2013! Our cup runneth over.