Nervous moments in New Zealand
ANXIETY grips the Land of the Long White Underpants. Can the All Blacks shake off the jinx they have been saddled with since they last won the World Cup in 1987? Or will the French again prove their nemesis as they have in two previous competitions?
It goes far beyond rugby. Defeat of the All Blacks at home could lead to civil disorder, to lemming-like leapings from every available cliff face. It could make Haiti look like a picnic. Perhaps the United Nations should stand by, just in case.
It ought to be a one-horse race. France have been mediocre. They lost to Tonga. They improved against England but not enough to beat the Kiwis. The only side realistically able to match them for brawn and guts – ourselves – is out of it.
Yet the French can turn it on, given the occasion. They have that flair. They have history on their side. And rugby is an unpredictable game played with an awkwardly bouncing oval ball. It's an unforgiving 80 minutes where anything can happen and often does.
North versus South; Six Nations versus Tri-Nations. This is for real. And the Kiwis are justifiably nervous. The moment of truth approaches.
PC evictions
BRITISH TV has focused in recent days on the bailiffs moving in on a community of "travellers" in Essex to evict them from land they occupy. The issue has been going backwards and forwards through the courts and the council chamber.
Who are these travellers? Rail commuters? Overseas tourists? Backpackers?
No, it turns out they're gypsies. It's become politically incorrect to refer to them as such, even though it's the name they use for themselves. (I know, I've worked in Essex and met the gypsies). Why the PC class have decided gypsies should be referred to as "travellers" is one of those mysteries of Islington.
I suppose the term does have the meaninglessness that seems to delight the politically correct. Waiters and waitresses become "waitrons". The fellows who hang about Medwood Gardens drinking meths are no longer tramps and hoboes, they're "homeless people", indistinguishable from victims of fire and flood. Alcoholism and drug addiction are "substance abuse" – like pushing putty up your nostrils. But it's still not clear what the objection is to the word "gypsy".
Even more difficult to understand is why the TV stations and the rest of the British media play along with this bizarre nonsense.
Send in the bailiffs! Turn them out of their caravans! But don't insult them – or rather the sensibilities of the politically correct - by calling them gypsies!
PC whippings
IN A SIMILAR category is this limit to the number of times a British jockey may use the whip on his horse during a race. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says the whips used by jockeys are humane and don't really hurt the horse.
But it looks bad to see a jockey using the whip, it upsets the politically correct and the animal rights lobby, so British jockeys are now limited to a certain number of strokes with the whip during a race. They need to be not just skillful horsemen but human computers as well.
Prize money has been withdrawn for infringing the new rules on whipping. The jockeys are furious and have threatened to go on strike. And it's all just pointless.
Just wait until a case arises involving a gypsy jockey.
SIGN outside a restaurant: "Eat now – pay waiter!"
XXX
GEIGER counters in Tokyo started going crazy, causing fears that radiation released into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant during the earthquake and tsunami in March might have been swept by winds 150 miles into eastern Japan.
But that has now been ruled out. The radiation hotspot has been traced to some empty bottles in an unoccupied old house in the Setagaya residential district.
However, it's a bit of a mystery what caused the radiation. Inspectors believe the bottles might have contained radium, a radioactive material once used as a luminous paint for watches.
Or maybe not. Setagaya moonshine packs a punch!
Tailpiece
CUSTOMER in Chinese restaurant: "Hey, this chicken's rubbery!"
Waiter (smiling and bowing): "Thank you berry much."
Last word
Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.
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