We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
It is often wrongly assumed that a supporter of capitalism has no business complaining if a beloved sports institution, like a cricket or football team, becomes a vast, worldwide brand, or if sports contests are held outside the venue from which the institution sprang. Well, up to a point, Lord Copper (to quote a line from Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop). As a libertarian, the key thing for me is that autonomous institutions, set up and created under certain rules of association by their members, should continue to be run on said principles since otherwise, the whole point of the association is destroyed. Since no coercion is involved, there is no reason, for instance, why a group of socialists could not join together to create their own communes. The only proviso being that people who live in these places have the right to quit and form their own, ‘break-away’ groupings or just leave if they so wish. The same applies to say, professional football. I happen to think that the influx of non-British players and oodles of cash into the game has been a mixed blessing; just because I support the right of people to spend their money how they want emphatically does not mean that good things always happen when they do, nor is it contradictory for a free marketeer such as yours truly to wonder whether sports can be ruined by wrangles over money.
Take the current controversy over the idea of staging Premier League football matches outside England, for example, in order to appeal to the hundreds of thousands of folk who allegedly are desperate to watch English Premier League football. Well, sorry guys, the whole freaking idea of an English premier league is that the games are played in England, not Planet Zog. If fans in England are increasingly priced out of their clubs’ games – which means that crowds often have all the passion of wet cement – and if players become exhausted by a 365-a-year playing season, then the game will suffer. And that, in the end, will damage the game that the heads of sports associations are supposed to be taking care of.
Yes, I know that the purist idea of autonomous sports institutions has been badly eroded in recent years by the attempts by governments to muscle in on sports. That is a key, if separate issue. But stay with me on this: in a free society, it is nevertheless the case that good things, like friendships, clubs and voluntary organisations, do not revolve around the desire just to make pots of money. Sport is something one enjoys and plays for its own sake, not just to win. As Michael Oakshott, the conservative philosopher said, some things, like being a member of a club or having a good friendship, have no external ‘end’. As a supporter of Ipswich Town, I think that is probably just as well.
The 1950s was rather more than about Elvis, Monroe and The Bomb. Slowly, as Britain recovered from the war, the rationing, and the cheerless austerity during the late 1940s, life got better. It is fashionable, for a certain type of writer, to claim that nothing much exciting happened before the 1960s (a classic Baby Boomer conceit); in fact, arguably, the 1950s were as interesting and colourful, albeit with fewer drugs. One institution that came to the fore in that decade of Ealing comedies and curvy sports cars was Manchester United FC, a once unfashionable club (it used to be called Newton Heath). Old Trafford, its ground, was reduced to rubble by the Luftwaffe; a young Scotsman demobbed after the war called Matt Busby, who used to play for Liverpool and Manchester City, took over as manager.
The story of what happened during his extroardinary career at Old Trafford will be remembered as long as football is played. The fortunes of the Red Devils waxed and waned, but inevitably, the tragedy that hit the club in the February of 1958 is indelibly marked on the history of the club. Eight players, plus other passengers, were killed when the aircraft taking the team from a European Cup match crashed in the snow-bound airport of Munich. It is widely recognised that one of the dead, Duncan Edwards, was probably the greatest British footballer of his generation.
Here is a wonderful account of the last game the team played in Britain – against Arsenal – before the European game. It is hard for any English football fan not to wonder at what might have been; at least three, if not more, of the Manchester team could have played in World Cups in 1958, 1962 and 1966. What a waste.
At least it can be said that air travel has gotten a lot safer since. In the late 1940s, the entire Torino football team from the North Italian city were killed in a crash.
May they all rest in peace.
Oscar Pistorius is a South African who has had the lower half of both his legs amputated, and participates in atheletic events with the use of artificial limbs. He has been banned from this year’s Olympic Games because the International Association of Atheletic Federations has rules that his artificial legs give him a ‘significant advantage’ over his able-bodied rivals. He uses carbon fibre blades to race.
A study, carried out by Professor Peter Bruggeman at the German Sport University in Cologne, compared Pistorius with five able-bodied athletes of similar ability.
“Pistorius was able to run with his prosthetic blades at the same speed as the able-bodied sprinters with about 25 percent less energy expenditure,” the report concluded.
This is a small but significant point where an athelete using artificial limbs now has an advantage over normal-bodied atheletes. I doubt that his artificial limbs give him an advantage in day to day life, but in this narrow field, Pistorius does seem to get an edge. I think this is going to be the start of a wider trend.
Patrick Crozier has views on the saga of footballer Al Bangura
Many of you will be vaguely aware of the Bangura affair. Al Bangura is the Watford footballer who is about to be deported to Sierra Leone, where, according to him, he is likely to be killed. For extra colour there is some stuff about a voodoo cult and the bizarre ruling that his being a professional footballer with excellent prospects do not count because Sierra Leone is not one of the top 75 football teams in the world. Go figure.
I should point out that I am a half-hearted Watford fan but this does not affect what I am about to say. I would say the same if the guy played for L*t*n. All it means is that I am slightly more familiar with the case.
I have no idea if what Bangura says is true. Frankly, it could be a pack of lies for all I care. Given the stakes involved: the best job in the world or exile to some African shithole, it would hardly be surprising if he were telling the odd porkie. But it does not matter. The way I see it the guy has every right to be here. Not because he is fleeing persecution, not because he is a good footballer, not because he pays his taxes or ‘enriches’ British culture…
But because he is a human being.
I think everybody should be able to live everywhere, subject, of course, to the usual libertarian provisos about property rights.
My guess is that sense and political manipulation of the judiciary will prevail. This has the potential to become a real cause celebre – you can just imagine the stink if he gets sent back to Sierra Leone and does indeed wind up dead – and because of that I do not think it will happen. Or if he does get deported he will soon find a job somewhere else. I hear LA Galaxy are looking to strengthen their midfield.
But it makes me think about all those who are not professional footballers – the ordinary joes who just want to make better lives for themselves or to escape the hope-crushing Kafka-with-machetes world that is so common in Africa. They have to face the more ordinarily-Kafkaesque world of the immigration system without the support of football clubs and their umpteen thousand supporters. For them the difference between prosperity and poverty hangs on a civil servant’s whim. The more honest must be tortured by debates over when to tell the truth and when to lie like crazy. It must be agony.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to a work colleague about the kind of sport shown on the BBC television channels (not Sky or the satellite stuff). One thing that came up in conversation was how little boxing there was on the BBC. Was this just because Sky and the paid-for TV channels had bagged all the top fights? It seemed so, but was there something else going on, like a PC revulsion on the part of the BBC top brass about puglism? It seemed a bit odd. When I was a youngster, there was always some boxing match in the offing featuring the likes of Barry MacGuigan, or Joe Frazier, Lloyd Honeygan, Nigel Benn, Frank Bruno (“know wot I mean, ‘Arry?”) Chris Eubank, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Sugar Ray Leonard… the list was endless. Some of the matches were brutal and there were tragedies: Michael Watson was seriously maimed in a fight; Ali, of course, suffers from a severe form of Parkinson’s which must, surely, be linked to the injuries he sustained. Boxing has always had a sleazy side too; some of the money-men involved in the sport probably have spent a lot of time brushing up against the law. In the early days of the big fights in Las Vegas or London’s East End, there was more than just a whiff of organised crime involved.
But – there is a but here – boxing is more than all that. Competitive pugilism involves a lot of skill, just as martial arts do; it is a terrific way to keep and get fit and it is also a good way for potentially wayward youngsters with lots of testosterone to channel their aggression and learn to act like a man in a fair fight under the guidance of a referee. And for all that boxing can be and is a brutal sport, I have watched some matches that had me sitting on the edge of my seat in excitement: I particularly remember the epic fight, in 1985, between MacGuigan and Predoza. Absolutely electrifying fight. And I defy anyone to watch an old video of Ali, in his fights against Patterson or Frazier, and not admit to be astonished by the man’s athleticism and skill.
British boxing is now in the best state that it has been in for years. Boxers like Ricky Hatton and others are blazing a trail; the countries of the UK look to be able to field a decent bunch of entrants for the Beijing Olympics next year. And even the BBC, which recently seemed to be turning up its nose at the sheer vulgarity and general non-PCness of boxing, seems to be covering boxing quite a lot all of a sudden, invalidating my earlier wonderment about whether the BBC had killed the sport from its programmes. No longer. Good. Boxing has been through a fallow time in Britain over the past few years and there remain legitimate worries about the potential injuries that can be inflicted. But if you accept – as a genuine liberal must – that grown-up adults can and should be able to consensually fight and accept the consequences, there should be absolutely no suggestion that boxing be banned, any more than say, wrestling or other contact sports which can cause injury, including life-threatening ones.
There is also a cultural issue worth throwing into the mix: boxing seems to be one of the few sports that have drawn in young Muslim men in Britain, apart from cricket. That has to be a good thing.
Samizdata readers who are bored senseless by team sports can scroll down – Okay, this evening yours truly watched as England’s football team lost 2-3 to Croatia in the qualifying stages of the European Championship to be held next year. As a result of the loss, England will not take part in the competition; England’s manager, Steve McClaren, who seems to be out of his depth in the role, will either resign – not yet at the time of writing – or be sacked. Many of the players, who often earn vast salaries to play for their Premiership teams, played with a lack of guile and commitment that was embarrassing to behold.
I would like to put on an act and claim I do not care about all this, that it is “just a game”, blah, blah, but that would be lying. I enjoy watching football but England’s football team was abject, terrible.
I wonder whether there are every any political or cultural implications of things like this – I am not sure. But the crapness of the football team does rather reinforce the glum mood of this country right now: lost data, Northern Rock and a rapidly cooling economy. Football is the English national game – even more than cricket or rugby union. But it might not stay that way much longer.
These – suddenly – are great days for England rugby, but astonishing days, too. In front of a media-packed room yesterday, Brian Ashton, the England head coach, was asked: “What would it feel like to be Sir Brian?” And his genuine look of astonishment said it all.
– Owen Slot of the Times reflects on the transformation achieved during the World Cup by the England team (but Bryan Habana may prove too much of a handful for England next Saturday).
Maybe you recall that this time four years ago much was made here of the Rugby World Cup. This was because England fans like me genuinely reckoned England could win the thing. England went into the tournament on the back of two great wins in the Southern Hemisphere against the might of Australia and New Zealand, and when the tournament began they were the top ranked side in the world. If England played as well as they were capable of, they would win in some style. Actually, they did not play quite that well, but they still won, by the skin of their teeth and a famous Jonny Wilkinson drop goal in the final minute of extra time.
This time, it was all completely different. The only Samizdata coverage of this event so far has been Johnathan Pearce’s piece about how the shirts worn by New Zealand and Scotland in their group match were impossible to distinguish (I felt just the same).
I for one make no apology for this. I think that the way to enjoy sport is to pay close attention when your team is winning, but otherwise to relax and treat it all as only the game that it is.
England arrived at this current tournament in a state bordering on shambles. They won their first game against the USA, a rugby union minnow, but scored no points at all in the last half hour of the game while the USA even managed a try. And in the next game England hit rock bottom, being utterly annihilated by South Africa by the crushing scoreline of 36-0. Meanwhile, the other Southern Hemisphere sides were storming through their early games, winning by cricket scores. Any thought that England might be able to make a serious defence of their title was, frankly, ridiculous. → Continue reading: Quelle surprise!
I have quite enjoyed watching the rugby so far; the Argentinian side has been a revelation; some of the South Pacific sides have played with their customary bravery and gusto; even England, after a stuttering start, look a bit better. The side that is – supposedly – fancied to win the contest this year by many observers are the New Zealand All-Blacks.
So you can imagine my befuddlement yesterday afternoon when I watched the game with friends down in deepest Suffolk. The shirts of the ‘All-Blacks’ were covered in a sort of grey-blue, while the Scots, instead of their old, neat blue shirts with the old Thistle emblem, instead had some weird grey-blue stripes on top of some other colours. At a distance, it was actually pretty hard to tell the two sides apart, colour-wise. I understand all the marketing stuff that goes on in sports these days but is not a fairly basic notion that you can tell one side apart from the other? I mean, during the thick of a rugby match, for example, it might actually be a good idea for teams to be easily able to recognise one another. As a friend of mine put it yesterday, the referee should have ordered one side off the pitch to change into recognisable shirts.
The whole thing was bizarre. Mind you, New Zealand won by a large distance, to no-one’s great surprise.
(Alert: if you are bored by sport or just want to read about politics and supposedly more serious stuff, scroll down).
The England football team need to win their match this week’s match against Israel – yes – to qualify for the European Championship tournament next year. I guess it says something about the state of what is often regarded as the country’s national game that England are in this situation. But this week, I have tried to freeze out the dire state of our national game and have been reading a bit about a man from England’s glorious football past, both in terms of how he played the game, and the sort of person he was and still is.
Bobby Charlton. It is a tired cliche, but they just don’t make em like that any more. His thoughts in his new autobiography about colleagues Denis Law and the late George Best are wonderful and in the case of Best, who was without doubt a sporting genius, very moving.
The presence of Andrew O’Hagan, the novelist and columnist, remains something of a mystery to me in the Daily Telegraph. This week’s offering is a bleat about why we stingy Brits cannot get more excited about the 2012 London Olympic Games:
A wonderful Olympic Games – such as those held in Sydney – requires a vast harnessing of common belief, as well as a momentous investment of private and public sector funding. If we cannot rise to these occasions, we should not have bid for the Games. If we don’t get our collective finger out, the terrible (and unsporting) truth is that we will end up looking like a cheap little place with no quality or inspiration to offer the world, and that is sad, too sad to bear, when we are faced with such a gold-getting opportunity.
Ah, yes, we must get our “collective finger out”. We must stop moaning about the cost of these wonderful Games, put on a cheery smile, put a big hand in the wallet and pony up. Well sorry, Mr O’Hagan, that is not quite good enough. If the Games are quite as wonderful as he claims them to be, they should have had no trouble getting funding via the market. Within a few yards of the Games, there is Canary Wharf, with its huge investment banks and legions of financiers versed in the arts of financing long-term infrastructure projects. For example, if the facilities built for the Games could be used for 30 years or more, then why don’t the organisers issue 30-year bonds, rather like in the days of the 19th Century railway boom? It always makes me suspicious when some character like this says what a tremendous idea X is, but then immediately demands public funding for it, as if no one would pay for X out of their free will. And that of course is the problem; the OIympics will not be commercially viable – not if the incompetents who run it can help it.
As the late, great Milton Friedman once put it in Free To Choose, it is – I paraphrase – so much more fun spending other people’s money.
The other week, I wrote about the Bridge card game ploy known as the Yarborough – taken from the third James Bond story, Moonraker. The names given to various card game gambits can be wonderful. Consider this one:
The author has an amusing, though unkind, name for a holding of Ace King. He calls it ‘Kournikova’ because it is very pretty but never wins.
Well, I rather liked her.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
