The Other Civil War for Golf

Is Very Beautiful. And Not a Peasant to be Seen Anywhere

Everyboth of my readers is knowing by now that the main reason for fighting the Civil War in Spain was being to save Christian civilization for golf. Have a trip along the south coast of my fine country (if we let you in) and you will see that where once there was marauding non-golf-playing Muslamics there is now verdant vistas of something else that begin with v. Say what you like about the Russian gangster oligarchy and their stripping their nation's wealth to set up in the lap of luxury, at least they have their priorities right and understand the importance of landscaping. And now, I am happy and also intrigue to see, another country which have fought a civil war is also reaping the happy benefits.

You must understand that I am not normally read Sports Illustrated magazine. However, I am for one reason and another up by the airport the other day, and because I have to do some shopping, I am pop into Deiland into Playa Honda and see that it have all manner of foreign papers and magazines, I espect for the espatriates on the run from injustice. I know already that it stock Sports Illustrated because I make here one visit a year to get the 3-D Swimsuit Edition with the special glasses. Is all in colour and everything. Is like watching the beach volleyball from my terrace with magic binoculars!

So from force of habit I pick up the latest issue and put it in my shopping basket, alongside with my mint sauce, lubricants, bikini wax, Gloria Estefan CD, and box of colouring crayons: Deiland truly have everything! And then, while I am idling at the traffic lights, waiting half hour for them to change, with Gloria wassailing in the background, I flick through my magazine and I see a facsinating article all about the Ho Chi Ming Golf Trail in the former U.S. colony of Vietnam. The article tell how a former marine name Ron go back to Vietnam to play the same places he previously bomb and pillage (I espect the magazine was secretly hope also that he probly meet up with the same prostitutes from all those years ago and maybe even meet some new family).

The interesting aspects of the story, of course, from a human interest angle, is how the golf courses owe so much of their beauty to the war. As you can see from the picture above, the bomb craters is now gently undulating sandtraps. The roughage is fertile verge because of the calcium in the soil thanks to all the bodies that has been buried underneath. And of course, the glorious broad fairways are pristine and tree-free thanks to the Americans' deployment of the chemical depillatory known as Agent Orange, which not only remove the hairs from your legs but also the trees from the land, the skin off your back, the scabs off your knees, the cheese off your plate, and so on. Be careful with using it on your moustache or your anus, ladies!

The Ho Chi Ming Golf Trail is made up of seven courses, all aimed at Americans. As you know, the Vietnamese are very good at aiming things at Americans. But whereas once upon a time they want to drive the Americans out the country, now they want Americans to drive their balls around the country. There is another 60 golf courses being built in Vietnam to lure back the vets, which I assume means the Vietnamese have none of their own. In my esperience, vets tend to be the least aggressive of the medical professions, which is probly why they lost the war.

Not all the Viets are happy about the vets, though. The article is saying that the Vietnam people have a love-hate relationship with Americans. This is pretty much like Europeans have with Italians, I espect: We love their culture but hate their people. Nonetheless, the Vietnamese recognize the necessity of reconciliation with the old enemy if everyone is to move on and the Americans' pockets are to be emptied. This is a lesson the Basques and the Welsh could usefully learn from. Is no point living in dignified poverty when you can fake forgiveness and fleece the wealthy winners. But I espect that is one reason why they lost in the first place. They did not have the cunning wiles that the Vietcong was in possession of. Nor the splendid geography or climate, either. Is a lesson for us all there, though I have not yet decide what it is. Something to do with Our Lady, I espect.

Which remind me of a nice joke I remember: Why do golfers prefer to go to church on Sunday morning instead of having sex? Is because they get five holes with the son of God!

Is a joke!

Spain Is Show Its True Colours!

Los Hermanos Menendez . . . Come on Down!!!

I am being heartened this week by the story I read in the papers (English version is here) about the innocent young parricide Cyril Jacquet and the decision to remove him off from the show Around the World* just because it turn out that when he was a teenager he kill his mother and father! Is a very multifaceted story that fill me with renewed warmth at the perseverance of the human spirit, and also in these times of recession that a plucky, can-do attitude is all that we really need to succeed.

"Some people won't let you put the past behind you," say Mr. Jacquet, very understandably. I think Leon Trotsky said the very same thing, escept he wasn't taking part in a globe-spanning competition with a grand prize of €200,000. And, to be fair to Señor J, or Cyril, as I think we can call him, he have the right to feel indignate. After all, he have paid the price and done the time for his crimes, and now he is going straight (although there is some doubt about this because he is work as a flight attendant). Neverthenonetheless, some of you I am hear saying, "Harumph, Manuel," and also "Get your hand off my knee. Cyril was only spend three years in a youth detention centre for killing his parents. You have clearly not been in such a place, Manuel. Is like Toys R Us escept with heroin!"

Is a fair point. Some people may look at Cyril and his record, and then also see that he was being flown around the world for this competition, and they will say "Lord luvva duck. Life is just one big holiday for some people! Three years in holiday camp we laughingly call prison, his whole life now without parents beating him or telling him what to do or making him do homework or eating vegetables, and then he get nationwide publicity and treat to world tour. I just wish my parents was not already dead or teetering on the brink in retirement home with Alzheimer's, incontinence, arthritis, colostomy bag, and Alzheimer's. Some people have all the luck!"

But the take-away message from this story is I think altogether differents (and it is not Give a parricide a second chance.) It is this: Consider the fact that Cyril have been remove from the competition as soon as the organizers are finding out that he kill his parents. This would happen only in Spain! In Italy, for esample, if the organizers had find out half-way through, they would immediately have gone into hush-hush mode, and do everything to keep it quiet until after the show have gone away and everyone have forgotten who these unimportant people are. In Russia, on the other hand, they would have hired international hitman to kill the offending participant and then never mention them ever again and pretend they had never even been in the show. In England, if they had find out half-way, they would deliberately fix the show so that the killer would win (although it probly would not need a fixing; the British public love killers). And in America, the organizers would have stipulated at the very beginning of the show that you cannot go on it unless you HAVE kill your parents!

Thus it is that I have heart-warm feelings because of this story. It tell me that Spain is still not so cynical, depraved, sophisticated, decadent, corrupt, and other words, that it would take advantage of multiple murder for financial gain and publicity. We still live in what is, deep down, a decent, innocent, just, civilize society where people are not always thinking about the bottoms line. If this make us naive in a disgusting sinful shit-stain world, then so be it. It does not stop us from being salt of the earth, fruit of the loom, or chicken of the sea. And what is more important, it does not stop us from having the number one best football team in the entire universe and everywhere else!!

Is true!





*Not to be confused with the pornographic show of the same name on the XXXX-KOCK Cable Channel.

All's Well That Is Ending Well

Si, is the Social Partners: Is Totally Unnatural!

Is a photo of ICTU leader David Begg and fat-lipped Irish Taoiseach Biff O'Cowen engaged in one of their lurid dances around one another that is only educational in a negative way and children should not be allow to watch.

My soul has receive a sick note from God this week. Not because I am any sicker and disgust with the state of this world than usual, but because I am come out in a sarcastic show of solidarity with Irish public sector workers, who will now be working 10 percent less hard than they already were not because the government has made the unilateral and bold decision to impose a levy on their pension. Is a big disgrace! If there was any justice in this world, no worker would live long enough to be able to draw a pension. Is a typical sign of the lax management practices that go on in the public sector. You can bet that it is not allow in the private sector, where union leaders are reviled by honest decent ordinary unemployed workers, who take the lead in following what their priest and boss tell them.

Biff O'Cowen was very smart in making his unilateral decision, though. He was deliberately provocating the unions with his last-minute demands in the knowing that they would refuse, so that he would be "forced" to impose the levy. This now make him look like a strong and decisive leader willing to make the tough decisions about hurting other people after having being lamb-basted in the medias for being indecisive for months and not having a clue what he is doing. He is much smarter than that: he have at least half an idea.

There is one bit of Biff's argument which nobody is buying, however. Biff is saying to everyone that it is important that the pain of the knacked economy is shared by everyone equally. The burden must be shared around and the misery universal. Nobody is falling for this persiflage for one second. Is clearly a big difference between the public sector and the private sector in terms of the suffering. Telling someone that they have to pay a pension levy is much much less painful than having to tell someone that they are out of a job, and in Ireland, I know for a fact, many bosses are in the estremely painful position of having to tell their own wives, sons, daughters, mistresses, grandmothers, and so on, that they will have to take a pay cut or even stop working altogether outside of the home. That must make mealtimes totally unbearable!

Biff doesn't really know what he is talking about in this regard. Some of the CEOs and bankers and bosses in the financial services sector are sacking thousands of people. Think how painful it must be for Michael Dell to have to tell 4,000 people that they are fired. For each one of those minions, of course, for them is only one job, and in any case they are ignorant plebs and their senses will no doubt be dulled by years of beer and television and chips. But for Michael, is like death by 4,000 cuts. 4,000 job cuts. It must be an esquisite agony for him every time he has to personally endure the responsibility of telling someone their job can be done more profitably in Poland. THIS is why CEOs deserve to be paid so much money, by the way; they take on the heavy burden of doing the horrible jobs in society that nobody else want to do.

Telling civil servants they must pay some money to their pensions is a stream of piss by comparison, so Biff is kidding nobody when he say that the pain he feel is equal to that suffered by the likes of Michael Dell or Peter Conlon at Xsil or John Hennessy at Ericsson or the poor bosses at IBM, Boston Scientific, Celestic, GlaxoSmithKline and cetera, and cetera, and cetera. THEY know what pain is, Biff, so stop pouting!

Bring back Bertie the Herne. At least he make us laugh!