Chiswickite - formerly The Croydonian

First up, who do they blame for their, ahem, World Cup debacle:

Among the French overall, the finger is pointed at the players - 35%, then the manager (32%) and then the equivalent of the FA (24%).  Nine per cent either knew not or cared not.  Among those claiming interest in le foot, the figures were 30%, 37%, 28% and 5%.

That French surveys routinely include a detailed demographic breakdown is again making me glad to be alive, as those most likely to blame the players are extreme left voters, at 42%.  Shome mishtake, shurely? What with the players being the toiling masses in this instance....  Also amusing is that Frontistes are the least likely to blame the players - 23% - nothwithstanding J-MLeP making odious comments about non-white players a few years back.  Liberals are the most likely to blame the manager.  In all of these instances, the numbers are low, not that I was ever going to let that stop me.

Geographically, easterners take most against the players, Mediterraneans against the manager and south westerners against the FFF.  The survey also asked what the Plain People of France thought of the various players, and Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka saw a majority wanting them to play no further role for Les Bleus.  Running true to form, Frontistes were the most anti the black players and Greens were the most likely to not know / not care.

And there's more.  Closer's French edition (which should be called 'Plus Proche', or better still, 'Fermeur') has been asking some spectacularly impertinent questions:

'Which star's body would you most like to have?'.  And among female celebs it is Angélina Jolie ahead of Scarlett Johannson.  Our own dear Ms Moss and Ms Cole / Tweedy appear in the lower reaches.  For the chaps it is Yoann Gourcuff, a footballer who appears to have a penchant for taking his shirt off, followed by Brad Pitt (who is older than me.  Hope springs etc).

It gets seedier:  'Who among the following would you dream to have as your lover?'. 

Yannick Noah (28%) leads from Ashton Kutcher (24%).  Both these chaps are married, so I imagine amorous French women would have to contend with Isabelle Camus and Demi Moore respectively.  Also in the list of 13 are Jerome Kerviel (France's Nick Leeson equivalent) at 7% and the following politicians - Dominique de Villepin (9%), Dominique Strauss-Kahn (3%), Olivier Besancenot (3%) and Sarko himself at 2%.    Rather unkindly, an equivalent list of female celebs was no polled.  Tant pis.

The least believed love stories are Sarko / Bruni (40%) and Cruise / Holmes (24%).  Paris Hilton is the least liked on the list of female celebs, as well as being deemed a hypocrite.  The male equivalent is Mickael Vandetta.  He would seem to be a reality TV star, and his motto, apparently,  is "I'm Brad Pitt for the body, Napoleon for the ambition, Columbus for the conquest!".  Uh-huh. 

Labels: France, surveys, this sporting life

And they have not let me down (too badly):

"The league match of the 2010 World Cup between the DPRK and Brazil took place at dawn (Pyongyang time) on Wednesday.  From the outset of the match the two teams fought a seesaw battle. The DPRK footballers created good shooting chances, not losing their confidence even after losing two goals.
At about the 88th minute of the match Jong Tae Se headed the ball before passing it to Ji Yun Nam who powerfully kicked it into the rival's goalmouth, scoring a goal.
The DPRK team will meet its Portuguese rival on June 21".

Labels: DPRK-watch, this sporting life

Just seen this at the BBC website.  The blighters do not appear to provide direct play urls for videos, and this will not work outside the UK.  That apart, enjoy.

And this, gifted to me by Dizzy, because he's a preux chevalier:



While I'm awaiting a KCNA report on yesterday's game, revel in the adventures of the Taedonggang Combined Fruit Farm:

"The Taedonggang Combined Fruit Farm in the Wonhung area of Pyongyang has increased its capacity five times..The farm, with well-arranged and vast orchards, ring-shaped roads and waterways and fruit tree nurseries, has put fruit farming on a scientific, intensive and modern basis...The apple slices are turned out through such processes as washing, separation, hot-air drying and vacuum frying and finally packed".

Still nothing from KCNA, but it might be a bit like this, as found in The Guardian:

"Victory!" screams the front page banner headline of North Korean daily the Pyongyang Democrat, above a report outlining how the Democratic People's Republic of Korea torpedoed hapless Brazil in a 29-0 rout, in which bespectacled man of the match, chairman of the National Defence Commission, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, supreme leader and midfield general Kim Jong-il scored 28 goals, with his late father eternal president Kim Il-Sung chipping in with a victory-sealing 30-yard surface-to-air missile in injury-time.

Labels: DPRK-watch, this sporting life

An EDM:

Labels: EDMs, this sporting life

Bad news for Arsenal, good news for Arsenal haters?

83.7% of those responding to a website poll think Wenger would make a good next manager of the French national team. 13.9% think otherwise, and 2.5% thought it worth voting 'don't know'.  One does wonder what more the man would have to do to convince the nay sayers. Courtesy of someone who knows, Arsène is grace and charm personified, apparently.


Elsewhere, scientific research is judged the most prestigious career in France, while quacks and nurses are reckoned the most useful to society.  At the other end of the scale, bank cashiers are reckoned to be the least prestigious, and financial market traders etc and TV presenters the least useful to society.  Doubtless both will find their wage slips a comfort as they digest the findings and cry into their pastis this evening.


The limited political demographic detail has right wingers deeming CEOs of multinationals and cops under-rated relative to the national average while lefties opt for teachers.

Labels: France, this sporting life

No, it isn't an oxymoron. The French, being the French, had to survey the Plain People of France on 'the hand of Henry'.

Are you proud of the French national team qualifying for the World Cup?

And by age:

So, our Gallic chums are pretty shamefaced about the whole exercise.  Further, a simple majority by each age and gender think Thierry Henry should have 'fessed up, and all demographics bar the morally nihilistic 25-34 year old age cohort want a replay.

Labels: France, this sporting life

but it is still funny:

Labels: Light relief, this sporting life

Yes, it is another French one.  Only over there do newspapers think it worth forking out the readies to pollsters to find out what the Plain People of France think about the chances of Les Bleus qualifying for the World Cup. And hurrah, there's demographic detail.

Anyway, the big one - 63% think they can beat our Hibernian neighbours.  Having checked my favourite bookmaker, France are 6/4 and the RoI 9/4.  So, there is a fairly pessimistic 23%, plus 14 don't knows / don't cares.  (Given the odious fix that FIFA cooked up in seeding countries, I am a bit torn between our two neighbours, as the Irish have been shafted, but then again my Gallic connections are stronger).  

However, onwards:

25-29 year olds are the most optimistic at 78%, with the next age cohort up (30-39) the gloomiest  - 35% think France will stuff it.  Roughly speaking, the higher the respondent's level of ediucation, the more pessimistic they are.  As to politics, it is the Trots who /believe/ - 81%.  Gaullists take the opposite approach - 25% think that Irish eyes will be smiling.  But the really odd bit is the geographical breakdown, based on some spectacularly misshapen, ill-named and ahistoric regions used by pollsters.  Which look like this:

   
The South East and South West regions have 70% thinking France can do it, compared to 48% in the Western Paris Basin. I told you the names were hateful, didn't I?.  WPB could also be described as the regions of Normandy and Centre.  Maine/Touraine is my preference for the latter.  Elsewhere, 20% of those in the West don't know / don't care, compared to 5% in Gtr Paris.

Labels: France, this sporting life

Now everyone loathes Man U supporters who live in Surrey and have no connection with Manchester, ditto Chelsea and other Sky big four teams, but it looks as though our American friends are even worse when it comes to glory hunting, baseball-wise:

"When asked to name the Major League Baseball team they consider to be "America's Team," the Yankees were named by 41.6% of respondents with an opinion, in a national poll conducted by the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute. This was followed by the Red Sox at 16.3% and the Braves at 6.9%."  (In the table it gives a figure of 7.3 for the Cubs, trumping the Braves' 6.9.  Hence my chart. C)

"Other teams named with less frequency included: Chicago White Sox, Toronto Blue Jays (Yes, really.  Snigger.  C), Oakland As, Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay, LA Dodgers, Texas Rangers, Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinatti Reds, San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins and LA Angels.

Granted, deeming a team 'America's Team' is not the same as supporting them, but if someone asked me who I considered to be England's cricket, football, rugby or whatever team I'd name who I follow.

Anyway, a graph:

 
Note that all of those teams are to the east of the Mississippi except St Louis (which is on the Mississippi)  and only the Braves hail from outside the NE quadrant of the lower 48.  So, what's with Texans and Californians showing so little loyalty?

For what it is worth, here is a map of where MLB think that people's loyalties should lie:

Labels: EU fun and games, this sporting life

Maybe I am over-egging it a tad, but I am a little concerned by the prospect of white goods in the livery of a football team. Yes, really.

"Here’s something for the FC Bayern Munich fan who has everything: a high-efficiency washing machine and vacuum cleaner set kitted-out in the football club’s colours....German industrial giant Siemens has the two Bayern-themed appliances on display at Berlin’s sprawling IFA consumer electronics fair, which kicks off for the public on Friday".

It turns out that it is not that dramatic after all: "The Bayern designs are limited to a simple logo strategically placed on the washing machine and vacuum cleaner".

Perhaps Siemens could have some fun with the more obsessive fans by unleashing a new paint job for each year's new strip.

Labels: Germany, this sporting life, Truly the Apocalypse is upon us

Labels: France, surveys, this sporting life

From Der Spiegel:

"German Bundesliga soccer club Schalke 04 has received more than 100 complaints from Muslims about its club song which contains the verse: "Muhammad was a Prophet who knows nothing about football. The song with the title "White and Blue, How I Love You" has been around for decades but only recently came to the attention of Turkish media which said it insults the Prophet. Muslims are now demanding that the offending line be struck from the song, which is chanted by Schalke's fans before every match".

And here's the German original (1):

Mohammed war ein Prophet
Der vom Fußballspielen nichts versteht
Doch aus all der schönen Farbenpracht
Hat er sich das Blau und Weiße ausgedacht

By my reckoning (C/O a 25 year old German O level and a dictionary), the third and fourth lines are something along the lines of 'And from all the beautiful colours it is the blue and white he would have picked', these being Schalke's colours.

First things first, that is the *sixth* verse in the Schalke anthem - with a chorus after each one - so clearly German fans have the patience to go a little bit further than 'ere we go'. One might think that the priests and pastors of Gelsenkirchen would want to have a word with their flocks about the basics too.

(1) - There's much entertainment to be had at that site, but it comes with my warning that there is the risk of losing one's day, plus there are rude songs therein ....

Labels: Germany, this sporting life

From, just for a change, France. It concerns the Tour de France.

Do you follow the Tour de France?

27% of our Gallic chums say yes, but those lovely people at IFOP give a full demographic breakdown, and that is where it gets interesting:

38% of chaps say yes, compared to 17% of women. Interest peaks with the 50-64 age cohort, folk in rural areas are more interested (33%) than Parisians (20%) or other urbanites (25%). Maybe they should finish it somewhere other than La Ville-Lumière, as geographichally North Easterners are the most interested. Lille, maybe?

The political split is my favourite bit, with Greens (18%) the least interested. One would think that they would approve of people getting around by pedal power, but apparently not. Frontistes are similarly underimpressed at 19%, presumably because a Frenchman is unlikely to win. Gaullists and Socialists mirror the general population at 32%, the Extreme Left is pretty keen too (30%), but Liberals are the most likely to be glued to the TV, or who knows, actually going outside if it comes through their locale - 36%.

Lance Armstrong's return appears to be controversial, given allegations of his having used banned drugs in the past. Liberals are the most upset at 40%, and the Extreme Left the least, at 22%. Said Trots and Tankies are the most likely to think he might win (74%), and Gaullists the least (44%).

As a footnote, I doubt whether there is any sporting event that makes its entrants toil quite so hard and quite so long relative to the final reward.

Labels: France, surveys, this sporting life

Sure as night follows day, MPs kiss babies, get photographed looking concerned in hospital wards and congratulate the local football team when it wins something.

Not, however Kitty 'Wingnut' Ussher:

(see what I mean?)

Here we are, a day after Burnley won the Championship play off (yay) and she still hasn't had anything to say on the matter.

Labels: this sporting life

Borrowed from Knees Up Mother Brown, the West Ham forum:

"Angry Chelsea supporters want to get their own back on Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo, who made a number of controversial decisions in the Blues' Champions League semi-final, second leg against Barcelona. They have set up an internet campaign to stop Norway winning the Eurovision song contest".

Labels: popular culture, this sporting life

Something cheering in these dark and terrible times:

Sport: British Formula 1 Grand Prix
Question for Short Debate

"Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I declare an interest as unpaid honorary president of the Motorsport Industry Association. I always try to approach this subject in a totally non-political and non-partisan way. I very much look forward to the response of the noble Lord, the Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. It is comforting to see sitting alongside him the noble Lord, Lord Drayson. On behalf of the whole House, I wish him the very best of luck in the upcoming 24-hour race at Le Mans....I urge the Government to give a clear, positive statement of support for the British Grand Prix at Donington and to use all their influence to bring together resources from the regions, central and local government and the respective tourist boards to ensure that Britain hosts for years to come the world’s most prestigious motorsport competition. Such a confident statement will influence bankers, investors and overseas companies to confirm their investment plans to support the British Grand Prix and so bring welcome employment and job security to many in the regions and the wider Motorsport Valley business community.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I put my name down on the list to add to the bipartisan approach of the noble Lord, Lord Astor. We have not compared notes, although many of my points will reinforce what he said. I also want to reiterate our best wishes to my noble friend Lord Drayson. I have only done Le Mans once as a tourist—an anorak.

So, a good natured and intelligent debate. I have excised the facts and figures that appear in the exchanges, but they are quite significat.

However, here comes the stand out contribution:

Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I had just stood up when a ghost passed over my grave. I am not quite sure why, but I am going to say something slightly different from what I had planned to say, because the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has done that. Motor racing and motor sport are part of British culture. We are embedded in them, as was your Lordships’ House historically.

I go back perhaps 60 years to when I was minding my own business in the second form of my prep school. The noble Lord, Lord Geddes, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, were at the same school. The French master, Major Hunter, who had just got back from the war, had lost part of his skull and had a metal plate—we always remember that—suddenly got up and said, “Vous avez gagné le Mans”; “You’ve won le Mans”. I was not quite sure what he was talking about. He showed me Le Monde, and there was a Ferrari with the name “Lord Selsdon”. I was not sure that my father was a Lord at that time; I had hardly met him. About five days later—we had asked him to come to the parents’ match at cricket—I looked around and saw out of the window a red sports car with “22” on it. We were so interested in the car that we did not notice the man who had driven it. He came up and introduced himself; he was my father. As he had been a fast bowler at Winchester, he said that he would open the bowling. He bowled an aerial wide, which was pretty distressing for me. I had been a wicket-keeper, and the parents had not brought one, so I was keeping against my own father. He then bowled another wide, said he had trouble with his knee, and was taken off. My friends remembered that moment and years later one, whose name I had probably better not mention, told me it was the defining moment of his life"

There's plenty more of note in the debate and it is an extremely anecdote-rich environment, but reckoned this might whet the appetite. Can't say I am hugely interested in F1 these days, but was an obsessive from 1979 to 1990 or so.

Labels: Parliament, this sporting life

And it is the non-satellite lead at the KCNA - allegations of foul play over a World Cup qualification match between the DPRK and their dear, dear friends south of the 38th parallel.

So, part one of 'the fix':


Given their medical problems, I hope they at least made it to the lavatory.

And part two of 'the fix':

"Moreover, the Oman chief referee was so seriously biased in refereeing at the match that he insisted the ball headed by our player into the goal mouth at about 6 minutes after the start of the second half of the match was not the goal. He also declared that the foul committed by the rival side about 3 minutes before the end of the match was our player's though it was an obvious foul on the part of the rival side, thus resulting in the loss of our team".

And part three:
"It was something surprising that the Japanese refereeing supervisor tacitly connived at this shameless behavior though he was obliged to ensure the fair refereeing".

And the conclusion?

"The match thus turned into a theatre of plot-breeding and swindling. It is as clear as noonday that it was a product of the Lee Myung Bak group's moves for confrontation with the DPRK and a deliberate behavior bred by the unsavory forces instigated by it. We sternly condemn the attitude of the Lee group, which runs the whole gamut of evil doings in violation of the noble idea of sports after betraying its fellow countrymen, as anti-reunification and treacherous moves to incite confrontation with the DPRK. We strongly urge the south Korean authorities to own full responsibility for such serious incident and promptly make an apology for what happened".

Seoul's finest won one nil by the way. No mention of the yellow card for the ROK's Dong Jin Kim, naturally.


It is quite the group of death, AFC B. Both Koreas look well placed to qualify.

Labels: DPRK-watch, this sporting life

Block book the week of 15-21 November, as it will be 'England's first-ever 'Inter Faith Week'.

This will aim to:

* to strengthen good inter faith relations at all levels;

* to increase awareness of the different and distinct faith communities in the UK, in particular celebrating and building on the contribution which their members make to their neighbourhoods and to wider society; and

* to increase understanding between people of religious and non-religious belief.

Sounds harmless enough, although the folk who cannot get on with other folk will not be participating, will they?

Anyway, this is the good idea that jumped out at me:

"a football match involving young people from different faith communities".

I doubt it would take until the first crunching tackle by Methodist United's centre back on Zen FC's star striker for the choice epithets to start doing the rounds both on the pitch and off it.

Or am I being overly cynical?

Labels: this sporting life

....Japan.

Labels: Japan, they do things differently in...., this sporting life

Labels: Parliament, this sporting life