Regarder, français ! Juste pour le jour de Bastille. Et non mon Français, mais Google. Ce qui signifie que ce paragraphe ne semble probablement aucun raisonnable
Although I am a little surprised that Google hasn’t changed its logo thingy. At least it hadn’t when I checked both google.ie and google.com. I suppose I could’ve checked google.fr, but you know, effort. Any French people living in Ireland might like to know that your Ambassador is having a party to celebrate, or you can head along to Smithfield for a weekend of Frenchness. So I’ve heard.
If you do a search for Zinedine you’ll be told by google that there are over 3,034 results for news stories relating to the headbutt incident. Never mind all the other stories listed and linked to. or just blogs about him. Isn’t it amazing? And don’t you feel just a tad sorry[1] for Italy whose world cup win is being ignored by the world?
But Zizou’s apology wasn’t really an apology now was it? I’m sorry for the kids that saw it, but I have no regrets? I wonder did he pay attention to what Roy Keane said after the Saipan Incident? Saying sorry, but I’d do it again if I had to? Is that really an apology? Surely if you are sorry for something then you wish you hadn’t done it?
Despite Zidane’s red card, he was handed the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player. It’s a testament to both his brilliance against Spain and Brazil, and to his personality.
Err, no. He got the Golden Ball because the voting happened before the red card, so it can’t have been despite it, cause it hadn’t happened yet.
I finally got around to taken some photos of the new art in Dublin. There is a collection of statues on O’Connell St, and as Tues was a sunny day you can also see blue skies. If only there was an Elmer Fudd to go wabbit hunting it’d be great.
Although they are actually hares.
There are a collection of these bronze sculptures along O’Connell St & Bridge. Mainly hares, although there is one which looks like a monkey sitting on an elephant[2] but according to Dublincity.ie it is actually a cougar and an elephant.
I’ll have to take a walk up Parnell square to see if I can see the rest sometime over the weekend. Unless I can’t be arsed. Or it rains. Or I forget. Or something else intervenes.
So that’s it. World Cup 2006 over and done with. And its a bit strange, cause despite the fact that there weren’t many great games[1] I thought it was a great competition. Then again I’ve always liked good defending, almost as much as good goal scoring, and this was the World Cup of Defenders. Player of the tournament has to be Cannavaro. He was just fantastic. Still, it did lack those moments of great play didn’t it? And the diving and spoofing.
Which reminds me, it was a great move by RTE to use the Apres Match team to do all of the punditry for the 3rd place play off between Germany & Portugal. After all, no one really cares who wins that. Bill’s analysis in particular offered some wonderful insights, but they all did a great job:
How can I analyise something that I haven’t seen?
there with a loopy shot
a smackaronny of a shot. He’s given that some pelt hasn’t he?”
Look at the floppy fingers Bill
But its easy enough for the Germans because the Portugal have been so rubbish Bill. If you look at your man, the spoofer… he says “I’ll do my trademark nonsense… where am I going, my brain exploded, have it back Germany… you win nothing with eejits
I’ll stop now, cause otherwise I could just quote everything they said.
And you can watch them all on youtube; The half time show is where all those quotes are taken from, around two and a half minutes in is the start of the “spoofer” section. But there is also the introduction which had to be split into three sections, and of course the full-time analysis
And Incident of the Tournament must be awarded to Zidane and the headbutt. There’s been a lot of instant condemnation, and while yes it was a stupid fucked up thing to do, we don’t know what Materazzi said to, I want to say deserve but that isn’t right, provoke Zidane’s response. Now obviously a football field is not the place for a headbutt[2] but I want to know what Materazzi said.
It is really fascinating to see the b’verse covering the world cup and Zidane and the variety of opinions on the headbutt, or as Clicker Conspiracy would have it the “Zizou”:
Zizou - a diabolic bull charge to the chest of an adversary [...] My first reaction when I saw the slow motion replay of our new bovine ritual was to leap out of my seat shouting Thats Impossible! I couldn’t control my glee. And it has only gotten better with repeated viewing. I don’t know what it is about completely random and senseless petty violence that sets me off but this has to be the most poetic execution of such behaviour I have ever seen.
