The British Empire Strikes Back : I’ve Never Met a Nice South African

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It is now 00:17 hours in the UK and I am knackered.

Therefore, as my arse…or ass if you prefer…prevented me from posting on time last Sunday I’m posting very quickly on a Sunday now….I am then going to bed to shag my wife and snore…possibly not in that order….

…Then again…at my age who knows?

People of America. What the f*ck is ‘The World Series’?  Seriously! What is it?

From the perspective of an Englishman, it is a group of men in extraordinarily strange attire waving a ‘stick’ at a small ball in the hope of hitting it a long way.

All said gentlemen are American – I believe the odd Canadian team have occasionally entered – same difference over here.

The ‘World Series’? Excuse me America. No offence intended but the world spreads a wee bit further than your Eastern seaboard. Honest! I know this to be true or I’d be living in the sea and would be a fish.

The ‘World Cup’ is shortly to begin. America has a team in this truly ‘world‘ event.

Obviously you aren’t going to win it. You have a decent team who, on their day, might cause an upset or two. You may even claim a ‘scalp’ such as England or Brazil or, current World Champions, Italy, but that’s about it.

Your ‘World Series’ has nothing whatsoever to do with the ‘world.’

‘Hello? This is the world calling. What did you do? Blink and miss us?’

We even sent over the ‘Great God Beckham’ to try and help you begin to comprehend the truth. He played for something called LA Galaxy until our manager (who is, bizarrely to me, Italian, advised him to play for somebody sensible in order to keep his squad place for The World Cup.) Becks promptly ‘upped sticks’ and went to Italy and played for A.C. Milan (who are a ‘real’ football club as opposed to American Football where only one man in a team of seemingly 50 people actually ‘kicks’ the ball with his feet.)

Anyway, later this year we’re all off to South Africa for The World Cup. You’ll be there…albeit briefly…and you can all watch a real ‘world series’. One which includes a lot of athletes from around ‘the world’. That’s the large mainly blue thing that can be seen from space that, amazingly, consists of more bits of land than America.

Sadly you won’t win anything in South Africa. England possibly won’t either, but we have a real chance. America haven’t.

You have a chap called Landon Donovan.

‘Herbal Life’?….oh dear….

Never mind. I’m sure you’ll recover and go back into your womb of baseball and basketball and ‘world series’ things that excludes the world soon enough. (Actually, as America is in Englands ‘Group Stage’ I could be easily embarrassed here if you beat us)……noooooo waaaaaay!!!

Actually, despite this being a ‘world’ event tickets to it are selling alarmingly slowly. The general belief being that if you go to South Africa you’ll be mugged / shot / attacked by Zulu’s or, conceivably, all three at once.

My late father’s nephew – I have no idea what relationship that makes him to me – a cousin of some sort? – moved out to South Africa in the mid 70’s.

If he is any indication of what football fans should expect out there then the slow sale of tickets is not entirely a surprise.

He popped over for a visit a few years ago and, on taking him to a nice pub in Uxbridge, I was slightly mortified when he insisted on buying the first round of drinks and called the nice black barman over with a shout of  “Oi! Kaffir!”

South Africa is not a very nice place really. Certainly it’s a damn site better than Zimbabwe next door – governed by a lunatic called Mugabe – but it isn’t really much better. I know. My ‘vague’ cousin advised me he had shot three black men in February alone for trying to burglarise his home.

Suffice to say, I will watch The World Cup from the relative safety of my armchair rather than pay an exorbitant amount to follow England there and get mugged or murdered or, probably, both.

“The bloody Kaffirs are out of control” advised my ‘vague’ cousin.

Quite. Unpleasent as he may be, I suspect he is probably right. Name me an African country of previous colonial rule that has thrived on ‘independence’….oh dear…the black chaps, on being put in charge are even worse than what came before……I expect I’m not allowed to say that but when did that ever stop me eh?

‘The World Cup’ eh America?

‘The World Cup’. The world. That round thing. Lots of countries and other stuff.

I’ve met a few South Africans and, in all honesty, I can’t say any of them have comfortably fitted into the word ‘nice’ but at least they realised that The World Cup is The World Cup as opposed to The World Series.

You’re about to get your sporting arses kicked America!

England 3 – USA 1…..I’m being generous. Landon Donovan may get a goal.

Come this summer you’re about to find out what a real ‘world series’ actually is – and you’re gonna get mullahed.

Engerland Engerland nah nah! Engerland Engerland nah nah!

Mind you….when South Africa get mullahed and fail to make the next round, I’ll be so so glad to be in England.

Nasty sods are those South Africans you know – well those like my ‘cousin’ anyroad.

He’s forgotten he was born in England. He thinks he’s a Boer and has the arrogance to go with it.

That being said…Mugabe only misses out on being a Boer ’cause he’s black. The madness and racism is there in spades…if you’ll pardon the expression…

Anyroad. England will progress and might possibly win the bloody thing.

The USA will, probably, fail to qualify from the Group Stages and go home again.

Actually I hope you come in second to England in the ‘group stages’ America and progress a wee bit. At least that way you’ll realise that Baseball / Basketball / Ice Hockey / American Football(?) / etc etc etc actually means absolutely fuck all to most of the ‘real’ world.

The ‘real’ world is bigger than you.

Get used to it!

So there…

So good afternoon / evening until next Sunday when The British Empire will strike back yet again…..

ps…we are having a General Election over here. Labour will lose as they’re impossibly corrupt. The Conservatives will win as they’re impossibly corrupt.

We’re f*cked……..again.

Perhaps you should send a skimpily attired woman to South Africa. Then you might win. Every other bugger would leave before a ball was kicked!…oops…

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Four Dinners

An outspoken contributor from the UK.
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13 years ago

AH! Yes! Quite right. Losing finalists, I beg your pardon. Never the less I was hooked. Perhaps that’s why The Dolphins have done bugger all since…I am obviously a jinx!…;-)

13 years ago

My apologies for not responding to comments and behaving in such a tardy manner. I have been training as a Driving Instructor – and today I passed my ‘practical’ exam! In about 4 weeks when the car arrives I will be teaching people how to safely drive with one hand on the wheeel and a vodka in the other hand…

I’m joking of course…(Shut up Barnsley Sime!)

What was I actually saying here? Well….er….’ang on while I go and check again….call me ‘Al’ short for Alzheimers…

AH! Yes!….Right.

Firstly, I reluctantly admit to quite enjoying American Football (I’m a Dolphins fan from the first year it appeared on British TV and the Dolphins, who I chose at random, went on to win the Superbowl. Dan Marino et al?)

I was merely pointing out that Americans can be somewhat ‘insular’. An endearing trait to those, like me, who love Americans. Sport being only one example.

I then went on to point out that colonialism, whilst generally a bad thing, often leaves even worse in it’s wake. Mugabe being one of the worst examples.

The vast majority of African states have no idea how to operate independently – and for that I blame Britain / France / Holland etc etc – but absolutely nothing has been done to rectify the problem.

I’m sorry. Rome has absolutely bugger all to do with it.

Generally speaking, African regimes are so corrupt they make our own Labout Govt look like angels. Nixon was a God of Honesty in comparison!

Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone….let’s make it simple…every African country bar 1? 2?….I’ll be generous…3 is irresolutley corrupt as no other country on the planet outside of Africa. (Yeah yeah…China etc etc etc…but that’s in a completely different way)

Black African leaders are the worst ‘leaders’ this planet has ever known in purely ‘corruption’ terms.

I wish it wasn’t so but it is.

The West is ignoring the situation mainly ’cause it created the situation – also, stating a black African leader or a black African government is corrupt is not politically correct.

Black African leaders are ‘bad news’.

Come on then America! Leader of the Western World! The West created the shite that is Africa. What are we gonna do about it then?

Oh come oooon! We got shot of Sadam!

(Please note….when my tongue moves firmly into my cheek it tends to remain there for some considerable time)

BigHarryH
Reply to  fourdinners
13 years ago

Nelson Mandela didn’t do badly in his attempts to unite a divided country.

Dan Marino never won a Superbowl, played in one in his Rookie year, lost that, and never went back again.

SJ
Reply to  fourdinners
13 years ago

@4D
I heard you loud and clear my friend and agree totally. Baseball’s “inclusiveness” however is a great window into our American nation’s narcissistic pride, -and even some of our finer moments despite what the “World Series” does and doesn’t mean. That all said, Real Madrid fans, Real Sociedad, Real Zaragoza fans scare the living shit out of me. World league football was marketed here for many years as a true “world” sport, and it genuinely is, but when I saw the welcome that English teams like Arsenal got in Spain and then hearing my uncle trying to excuse it I had to just tune it out.
@BigHarryH
That always pissed me off about Marino, damn shame. As a NY Giants fan I have to say he is one of the gretest QBs I’ve ever seen. Hell of an arm.
-SJ

SJ
13 years ago

@4D
Firstly… I’m so fuckin’ bummed about Malcolm Mclaren’s passing last week. I went through so many periods of loving him and hating him. All in all, what would the last 35 years been without all the great bands and music he brought along?…
Malcolm McLaren RIP

Anyhow, Beach Bum is right, there was Mexico petitioning, and before that Cuba in the late 19th century, but matter-of-fact racism kept that from happening. Not to outdo your just criticism, but I should point out Hispanics and Blacks who happenned to be American citizens also asked what did a “world Series” mean, when even swathes of the dosmetic population weren’t even allowed to participate for the first half of the 20th century*.
There’s not much truly competitive Baseball being played outside of Mexico, Cuba, PR, DR, (we take all their players) and countries in South America like Venezuela and of course powerhouse Japan. Interestingly enough, the various Star Trek TV series, especially “Deep Space Nine,” did much to address this narcissistic idiosyncracy in the holodeck, where Commander Sisko frequently confered with fictionalized heroes of baseball from a conjectured past century (although still in the future for the viewer) in which the Japanese pitchers and Chinese teams dominated.
The truth is, Football has a true world following, always has.
But football also has some of the most frightening remnants of nationalism and fasco-racism from the mid century war. I cannot watch Spanish football matches because of the groundlings overt race baiting and harrasment. I know it doesn’t represent the teams, their enormous fan base, but I’ll tell you that in American Football (which I know the English laugh at heartily because the ball is more often thrown than kicked) just ten years ago, a group of skinheads decided they were going to show up with White supremacist signs to welcome a visiting quaterback (Donovan McNabb). White fans of the home team (Denver’s Broncos) ejected them from the stadium before the game even began or before security could respond. I’m sure American sports look decided self-concerned and obnoxious, but honestly, I’ve never been too excited about World Football (Futbol) to my uncles coming to America. We’ve got a lot (a real big lot) of extremist nuts in our country, thankfully they’ve never felt comfortable flying their colors at a stadium in my lifetime. Even Hank Aaron’s enemies stuck to writing letters and sneaking around.
Sadly for me as a baseball fan (My Yankees won the “world” Series), last Time I checked there aren’t as many baseball bats being swung in Australia, Germany, Russia etc. as in North America as a whole, even the Canadians prefer their hockey.
In baseball’s defense, it desegrated racially before the United States as a nation did, which is something to be proud of and embarrassed of.
For the record:
I’m a Manchester United supporter.
-SJ

13 years ago

This information I could be VERY wrong but I heard years ago there was talk of including a few baseball teams from Mexico in the Major Leagues and the American owners had a freaking hissy fit. But it would not surprise me if it was true, I do remember people freaking over the idea of the Seattle Mariners being bought by some guy from Japan in the 90’s.

13 years ago

Nice post there Old Boy. Anytime you Brits want to field a team of nine for a game of baseball feel free to join in, till then the “World Series of Baseball” will continue. Japan has not been able to contest any of the teams in the event though they are on this big round ball also. What, I wonder is the value of colonialism if it leaves nothing behind in its wake. Much like the French left nothing behind in Haiti. We may be one of your few success stories old boy but we are also the success stories of the Dutch, Spanish, French, Italians, etc.

13 years ago

4D, you make me smile… you provoke deeper thought, you do. But I’ll echo Infidel / Holte’s thoughts here.
I am a large baseball (rounders to u?) fan and I ‘get it’ … what pure ego “World Series” …
S. Africa is stirring up again… kind of a reverseologic going on. Seems to be a global phenom tho, take a look at MM’s piece on Teabaggers…eh?
Fotball, huh? I enjoy it… have enjoyed it in UK on trips. Cricket bores me hopeless.

I adore watching team sports, the older I get.
What up with that?
Certainly the political feature of this article has valid points yet I came away with;
how the sports field can even the politics out
even if only for the duration of a game.
Good conclusion?

osori
13 years ago

Among the many evils of colonialism was Divide and Rule which served colonial masters in Africa,Asia and the Americas so well. It is the gift that keeps on giving, particularly in light of the fact that a colonial power doesn’t effect an orderly transition but rather departs like a thief in the night, leaving mountains of debt and factions whose differences the colonials magnified and exploited.

13 years ago

Name me an African coun­try of pre­vi­ous colo­nial rule that has thrived on ‘independence’….oh dear

Give ’em time. After the Romans withdrew from Britannia and the place collapsed back to a pre-civilized state, population density didn’t recover to Roman levels until near Shakespeare’s time, and hygienic standards didn’t reach what they had been under the Romans until the early 19th century. Africa has a long road ahead of it to catch up, but I doubt it will take them 1,200 years.

Reply to  Infidel753
13 years ago

Agreed Infidel, they do not call the period between the Roman collapse and the Renaissance “The Dark Ages” for nothing. If the non-Africans ever stop screwing with Africa, we might see an African rebirth.

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