Pasta La Vista

After a relatively slow start the world cup is shaping up nicely, already the last world cups finalists are on the way home and today the pre tournament favourites Spain could be joining them, though I don’t realistically expect Spain to lose to Chile but who knows.

Italy and France deserved what they got both sides performed terribly France with a fractured camp and the Italians with an ageing squad, so its pasta la vista to the Italians and Bonsoir to the frogs.

This opens up the tournament beautifully for Brazil or so it would appear but Brazil have not been firing on all cylinders yet  either,  they have played fantastic football in parts but not nearly consistently enough.

My pre tournament fancy Argentina still look the team to beat though my heart is with England, as expected they got past Slovenia the score flattering the opposition, England were better value than just 1-0 but it made for an exciting final 10 minutes.

If or should I say when England send the Germans packing it will set up a mouth watering clash with Argentina, we have waited a long time to settle the score with Maradonna and his” hand of god goal” 24 years to be exact but July 3rd could be when we get our revenge.

COME ON ENGLAND

DurdensView Tags: Italy, France, Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany

Viva La French

I never thought the day would come that I would praise the French, anyone who knows me will testify that I am not their biggest fan, I find the French very arrogant and completely racist, though I will concede they are consistent, they hate everybody. Whenever I have been to France  and I have limited my visits there,  I have had a bad experience, whether  it be a shop assistant, waiter,  a policeman, ( or Gendarmes as they are  called there) what a ridiculous word that is. I have returned with a complaint. The French have an exaggerated sense of importance and tend to look down on everybody else.  I am not really sure what they have to be smug about, it’s claimed in some quarters that they excel at food, I have two words to counter that Frogs and Snails . Anyway I digress the reason for my temporary about turn on the French is President Sarkozy’s stance on the Burkha, he wants it banned in France, and I agree that it should be. Sarkozy will get his way, eventually, and it will be banned, the idea already has a lot of support, it also has a few dissenters but then liberals always crawl out of the woodwork when anything remotely controversial is mooted.  Apart from looking ridiculous the Burkha is a security risk, when a motorcyclist enters a bank or petrol station in this country he is required to remove his helmet so his face can be seen,  also security camera’s can record his face in case of anything untoward. The Burkha is much more concealing than a helmet and yet they are allowed.  Not so long ago one of the  the 2007 London bombers tried to escape Britain by wearing a full length Burkha and pretending to be a woman. Apart from the security implications it looks awful, and imagine how very young children feel when confronted with this  black monstrosity walking along the street, to a  toddler the sight would be Frightening. I wish just one of our politicians had the guts to raise this issue in this Country and at least get a debate started, but as usual the PC brigade have shouted it down. So spray me with garlic and call me a Frenchman, temporarily of course.

Iran Bullies us again

Diplomatic tension between Britain and Iran deepened yesterday with the news that Tehran is holding five British sailors after their yacht apparently strayed into Iranian waters.

This is not the first time British hostages have been taken by the Iranians, as recently a 2 years ago 15 British sailors were held hostage for 13 days, at least that time the Iranians could say it was a military type  vessel that strayed into their waters though that was not admitted by the the British who claimed they were in neutral waters, satellite pictures backed up the British version of events.

But this time its clearly a Yacht with a team of youngsters on board that apparently strayed a measly 500 yards into Iranian waters. The Britons were delivering the yacht to the annual Dubai to Muscat race, a 360-mile voyage through the Straits of Hormuz scheduled to begin the following day.

I suppose  we must now suffer the public humiliation of having our people paraded on TV, denounced as spies, and threatened with trials,  after all that and showing how toothless we are eventually releasing them.

We are viewed as such soft touches around the world, one more thing the Labour Government has done to this once great and proud Country is to extract  it’s teeth and remove its bite.

That’s why we are led by the nose in Europe to, having let France and Germany dictate to us for so long without standing up for ourselves. 

Unlike in Maggies day when she struck the fear of god into Europe and the rest of the world when Britain was respected. We need another Thatcher, roll on May lets kick this spineless bunch out and give Cameron a chance. Maybe we can get some of the Great back into Britain.

DurdensView Tags: Iran, Hostages, Maggie Thatcher

Iran Isolated

World powers united in condemnation of Iran’s nuclear activities yesterday in a rare show of international consensus on the threat posed by Tehran’s continued nuclear defiance.

China and Russia joined the United States, Britain, France and Germany in backing an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution censuring Iran and ordering it to halt construction of a secret uranium enrichment plant.

This looks like the green light albeit covertly that Israel was looking for to begin preparation to destroy as much of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure as it is able to. Though Ahmadinajad is making his usual threats about retaliation he appears to lack the conviction of earlier rants, my opinion is he has bluffed and blustered believing that Russia and China would stay onside, thus watering down any proposed US sanctions. now that his two former allies have shifted their stance the writing looks on the wall.

I did think that and have stated on these pages previously that I believed Israel would be in a position to attack installations by years end, I see no reason to change my opinion.

DurdensView Tags: Israel, Iran, US. Sanctions

Europe, A Powder Keg

Race riots in Italy threaten to get out of control, in the Midlands we have had consecutive weeks of  demonstrations in Luton and Bedford, by BNP supporters on one side, and anti Fascist’s on the other culminating in violence on our streets, 12 months ago in Roquetas del Mar in Spain riots erupted there after the death of an African immigrant.

I could go on with examples but you get the pattern Europe  is beginning to become a cauldron of resentment and hate, since the EU was founded and borders opened, migration has exploded, sadly a proportion of people moving from Country to Country are not the model citizens you would want, but rather the low life's and criminals that have no future in their own places of birth, so they are transporting their misery to others.

The freedom to just move from Country to Country was always going to be exploited, and even the most liberal and welcoming Nation would start to feel resentment as the “foreigners” came in and started to take their jobs by working for less pay, in this Country our builders have felt the brunt of it as cheap labour has all but forced the British Labourer out of the market, never mind that quality of the imported labour is not as good.

The European Union of today is the result of a process that began half a century ago with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. Those two industries then still provided the industrial muscle for military power, France and Germany formed the union really as a means to make sure war could never happen between the two Countries.

The other four founder states (Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands), also saw the new Community as a means to ensure peace by binding Germany within strong European institutions. For the most part they too, like the Germans, saw the Community as a stage in the development of a federal polity and have largely continued to do so.

If the union had stayed as that, “Just a business arrangement” with peace thrown in as a perk it would have been a fantastic creation, but we have unelected faceless people in Brussels with this desire to mix the whole of Europe so much that no Country has an identity left, and this is where  the problems start,we are all basically to different, its fine to visit each other for a couple of weeks a year, and broaden each others horizons, but to live with each other peacefully you need to embrace each other culturally..

To go live in a Country and not embrace their way of life , to settle in a community then shut yourself of and stay with your own kind, to criticise your hosts way of life, and then to try to make them adapt to yours, to encroach on each others houses and job’s, burden each others  health services, take advantage of  other more generous benefits systems, these are the causes of the unrest across Europe.

Sadly I don’t know what the answer is the EU is to big a beast to control it’s rules and laws are like a juggernaut running downhill with nobody at the wheel, but what I can tell you is that when it does hit the wall at the bottom and it surely will the resulting bang will be heard all over Europe.

DurdensView Tags: Race Riots, Brussels, Italy, Germany, EU

French Farce

Around a thousand Refugees were removed from a site in Calais yesterday, in a matter of hours the site had been cleared and then razed to the ground. The refugees were from all over the world and were hoping to travel to Britain to set up home where they wanted to begin a better life.

Protesters spent Tuesday morning trying to stop the refugee camp in Calais, northern France, being closed down. But Ultimately had to accept their fate.

However all is not as it first appeared, this looks to have been just a huge PR exercise because new camps have sprung up just a couple of hundred yards away from the original, it all looked very impressive for the TV French Police backed by the Army fighting the protestors but once the cameras were turned of it was business as usual.

Shame on us fooled by the frogs whatever next?

DurdensView Tags: Refugees, French, Calais

Cheryl Cole Mime Artiste

The media really have to stop describing Cheryl Cole as a singer, yet again at the Brits last night she mimed and even her pre- recorded smartened up digitally enhanced voice was rubbish.

We were told that she had thrown herself in to rehearsals to take or mind of her marital woes after her husband Cashley had been caught cheating, yet again, (when will she learn), if that performance was the result of intensive rehearsal then she should pack up, cant sing cant dance, how on earth is she an X factor judge passing comment on people week in week out who can sing live.

there was a section of her song where a backing singer sung a short solo live and showed Cheryl  up, a great voice serving to highlight the fact Cheryl cant sing.

I’d like to say just a pretty face but I cant even honestly say that, perhaps she should move to France and study mime properly, maybe a career there beckons.

DurdensView Tags: Cheryl Cole, Cashley, Mime

Euro in Trouble

European leaders are poised to announce a multibillion-pound rescue of the Greek economy today to try to stop its debt crisis spreading to other countries and wrecking the euro.

Last year Britain was being urged again to dump the pound and join the Euro so as to “rescue” our economy and telling us that how by adopting the European Currency we would strengthen our financial future, how quickly things change.

Germany will be expected to put up most of the money and after years of misleading Greek statistics, fiddles and broken promises of reform, the rescue plan is likely to infuriate conscientious German taxpayers. Nevertheless, it is increasingly seen as the least worst option.  Another would be for a German state owned bank to buy the debt but that would only expose Berlin’s exposure to a crash.

One possible outcome of the crisis would be the break-up of the euro.

Another longer-term plan under discussion is the creation of a “European monetary fund” to avoid the humiliation of having to call in the IMF to save the euro. France and Germany in particular have invested a great deal of prestige in the Euro.

Would it be so terrible if the Euro ceased to exist, Personally I  think it would be a good thing for Country’s to take their identity’s back, this one glove fits all strategy was always going to unravel, and the Greek’s could be the catalyst.

DurdensView Tags: Euro, Greece, Germany

Iranian Trickery

Iran demanded important changes in a crucial international nuclear fuel deal yesterday, challenging the basis of the agreement struck with the US, France and Russia.  They hinted they wanted to export the fuel only in small batches while simultaneously importing the higher-grade fuel.

That would be a deal breaker because the UN wanted to remove temporarily three quarters of Iran’s nuclear fuel stockpile, to prevent it from acquiring material for a bomb.

The deal being haggled over would buy time. An agreement between Iran and the UN would defuse tensions, put off sanctions and avert the threatened Israeli strike on nuclear facilities.

A blind man can see what Iran is doing Just buying time until they have a weapon and then it will be to late, when will the West learn you cant appease tyrants, its time for action Now.

DurdensView Tags: Iran, UN

Garlic is not a perfume

That garlic reeking cheat Thierry Henry in a pathetic attempt to deflect some of the anger towards him over the cheating row has said that he believes in the interest of fair play the game against the Republic of Ireland should be replayed.

Interesting that the frog only suggested this after the games Governing body emphatically stated a replay is impossible as the rules of the game do not allow it, I suppose this two faced behaviour from a Frenchman is to be expected, last season after the Champions league final against Barcelona Henry called the Catalans cheats and said he could never play for a side that cheated, a season later he signed for them.

Eric Cantona has today said if he had been an Irishman he would have hit Henry after the match for his nerve in sitting with a distraught Richard Dunne after the match and trying to comfort him after he himself through cheating had put Ireland out.

I stated in an earlier post that I did not expect anything to come out of this in terms of a replay and it would be forgotten in a couple of days, but there are no signs of the fuss dying down, I hope France get stick between now and the World cup next year and then jeered and booed at every match they play in South Africa, The garlic munchers have in my opinion dropped a massive PR clanger by not insisting the game be replayed in a one of circumstance bypassing the rules, any victory’s they have now in the competition will be hollow and meaningless.

DurdensView Tags: Garlic, Thierry Henry, Cheats

Grim Reaper

After reading about Johana Ganthaler I wont ever call myself unlucky again. She was the pensioner who after turning up late at the airport was not allowed to board the doomed Air France flight 447. She was killed yesterday in a head on car crash in Austria. Ironic that the last week of her life she was consistently reminded by everybody about just how "lucky " she was. Now in death she will be remembered for being the opposite. The Grim Reaper has a warped sense of humour.

Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski the film director is being held in custody in Switzerland on an outstanding arrest warrant that was issued some 30 years ago.

Polanski was accused of rape in 1977 after photographing a teenager during a modelling session. The girl said Polanski plied her with champagne and part of a Quaalude sedative pill at Jack Nicholson’s house.

Polanski was allowed to plead guilty to one of six charges, unlawful sexual intercourse, and was sent to prison for 42 days of evaluation. Lawyers agreed that would be his full sentence, but the judge tried to renege on the plea bargain.

Since then he has been on the run though he has travelled freely throughout Europe in that time. for some reason that I don’t fully understand there appears to be a lot of sympathy for Polanski as if he has been hard done by, though he does not deny having sex with a 13 year old.

Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, revealed that he had written to Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to call for the release of the director. I know they do things a little different in France but surely they recognise his crime, for the French foreign Minister to intervene like this is a disgrace.

Unless I am missing something major here Polanski is a paedophile and only escaped a long prison sentence because he absconded, I don’t see or know of any reason that he should be pardoned just because 30 years has expired, as far as I am aware there is no statute of limitations on crimes of this nature.

It will be fascinating to see how this story develops.

DurdensView Tags: Roman Polanski, rape, Paedophile

Nigerian Porridge

You really cant make this stuff up, the latest brainwave from the Government is to spend one million pounds of taxpayers money in Nigeria to bring one of their prisons up to British prison standards, so that we can start sending the hundreds of Nigerian convicts back home to serve their sentences. Apparently their own prisons are not up to much, and we don't want the poor convicts to suffer. But it does not finish there, we than have to maintain those prisons, so we will feeding cash over there for the foreseeable future. Now everybody knows that Nigeria is one of the most corrupt Country's in the world, and the money that we send will be siphoned of and never reach a prison. All this is again because of the cursed Human rights law that we are signed up to. Britain is the only Country in Europe to adopt every line of this legislation. Italy France, Germany to name just a few cherry picked the best bits and left the rest out. Thanks to Blair and his cronies we took the lot, at that time Blair was eyeing up the European Presidency and wouldn't say no to anything, so we continue to pay the price.

EU Arrest Warrants

Deborah Dark from Richmond in West London is on the run from the French Judicial system, there is a Europe wide arrest warrant out for her. the 45 year old grandmother is the victim of Europe’s fast track extradition system. Her problems started when she went to Spain to visit her sick father.

On her way home she was arrested at French customs when cannabis was found hidden in her hire car. she was tried and acquitted after 8 months on remand. The alleged crime took place in 1988 when she was 24 years old, Deborah was stopped while driving a hire car home from a holiday in Spain with her 8 year old daughter, customs found cannabis hidden in the car.

Miss Dark claimed at the time that a boyfriend had asked her to hire the car in her name as he had no licence, and she knew nothing of the drugs, the court believed her and she was acquitted. She ended her association with the boyfriend and returned home.  The prosecution appealed her case 2 years later and she was sentenced to 6 years jail in her absence. Neither Miss Dark or her lawyer were made aware of this.

Twenty years later on a holiday to Turkey she was arrested at gunpoint, detained strip searched and handcuffed, only after Interpol conceded there was nothing on their database was she released, only to be arrested again a year later this time in Spain, who after investigation refused to extradite her to France. The warrant is still active. Our own legal system also refuse’s to extradite her.

What a nonsense of a system where  a trial could take place without the defendant or any legal sort of legal representation attending, then once this shambles produced a verdict how could the “guilty” party not be sought out and informed. another example of European law that falls on its face in practise. Our own laws have served us well enough for hundreds of years, the sooner we revert back to them the better.

The Blues Have The Blues

Chelsea have been banned from signing any players for the next two transfer windows, after being found guilty of inducing a player to quit his contract, in this case Gael kakuta from Lens back in 2007.

Along with steep fines for the both the club and the player Fifa also banned Kakuta, 18, a skilful left-winger who had been named in Chelsea's Champions League squad, from taking part in official matches for four months

At first glance this does seem a harsh punishment, but when you look closer at the Chelsea policy of signing young players you see that something has to be done, This policy will save  many if not hundreds of millions of pounds in transfer fee’s for Chelsea in the years to come, by snapping up talent for peanuts at an early age  Chelsea look to produce a conveyor belt of talent in the future, and even if the player does not mature to a standard good enough for the Blues they would still have a future in football and would have a sell on value. just fining a club with Chelsea’s wealth would have zero effect but this will bite deep.

Gervais Martel, the Lens president, said “The player was under contract with us, and they came and stole him away, Chelsea think they are immune from  following the rules they contacted the player when he wasn't even 16 and while he was  contracted to our training group, he had been with us from the age of eight.

Kakuta is a fantastically gifted left winger, who was already at the tender age of 17 in the full Champions League squad for Chelsea this season, having just watched some clips of the lad in action http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/2621362/Youre-a-bunch-of-thieves.html I can see why the Blues were so keen to secure his services, this is definitely a superstar for the future.

This type of punishment however  is not unprecedented recently Fifa punished Switzerland's FC Sion for a similar offence the club was told it could not sign players until the 2010 off-season. This was punishment for signing Egypt goalkeeper Essam El Hadary in 2008 before his deal with Al-Ahly had expired.

My own team Manchester Utd could have similar problems in the very near future over their actions in recruiting French under 16 Captain Pogba from Le Havre in France last month. Utd stand accused of giving large sums of money to the youngster’s parents to get them to persuade their son to sign for the League Champions.

United  deny the accusations but could face the same charges as Chelsea did over Kakuta. The Champions claimed they were within their rights to sign the player, as he had not signed any legally binding Le Havre contract. A United spokesman “ We have nothing to fear everything has been done within the UEFA guidelines.

The case is still to be heard.

DurdensView Tags: Kakuta, Chelsea, Fifa, Ban, Utd, Pogba

Flight 447

All kinds of theory's are being put forward for the awful tragedy that struck flight447 on its way from Brazil to France. Severe electrical storms are a possibility as the last contact with the doomed airliner indicated that they were experiencing extreme turbulence passing through the eye of the storm. Apparently at 50,000 feet the power of these storms increase many fold. A  Spanish pilot and passenger on a separate flight some miles away reported seeing a spectacular white flash which lasted 5/6 seconds before it descended rapidly then vanished from view. this lends credibility to a explosion on board possibly caused by a bomb, also why there was no time for a mayday to be sent. another report published in a tabloid paper today claims that 6 electronic messages regarding failures on board were automatically sent one suggested air had got into the cabin further consolidating the bomb theory. whatever the cause 228 people now languish at the bottom of the sea. and the cause of their death isn't going to matter to much to them now. But for the sake of the living I hope this wasn't caused by a bomb. The family and friends of the dead will mourn their loss whatever the cause and an accident will make the grieving process a little easier to cope with. The random slaughter of so many people will not.