A true story - but, you know, the jobless figures are falling.

THE RED FEAST
(Ralph Chaplin)

Go fight, you fools! Tear up the earth with strife
And spill each other's guts upon the field;
Serve unto death the men you served in life
So that their wide dominions may not yield.

Stand by the flag, the lie that still allures;
Lay down your lives for land you do not own,
And give unto a war that is not yours
Your gory tithe of mangled flesh and bone.

But whether in the fray to fall or kill
You must not pause to question why nor where.
You see the tiny crosses on that hill?
It took all those to make one millionaire.

It was for him the seas of blood were shed,
That fields were razed and cities lit the sky;
That he might come to chortle o'er the dead;
The condor thing for whom the millions die!

The bugle screams, the cannons cease to roar,
Enough! enough! God give us peace again.
The rats, the maggots and the Lords of War
Are fat to bursting from their meal of men.

So stagger back, you stupid dupes, back to
Your stricken towns to toil anew,
For there your dismal tasks are still undone
And grim starvation gropes again for you.

What matters now your flag, your race, the skill
Of scattered legions - what has been the gain?
Once more beneath the lash you must distil
Your lives to glut a glory wrought of pain.

In peace they starve you to your loathsome toil,
In war they drive you to the teeth of Death;
And when your life-blood soaks into their soil
They give you lies to choke your dying breath.

So they will smite your blind eyes till you see
And lash your naked backs until you know
That wasted blood can never set you free
From fettered thrall unto the Common Foe.

Then you will find that nation is a name
And boundaries are things that don't exist
That labor's bondage, worldwide, is the same
And ONE the enemy it must resist.

Comment from David C., of Hull -

On Christmas eve I think it was, two headlines caught my eye. The first one was:

"Hull Council axes hundreds of jobs"

This means nearly 400 people are to lose their jobs at Hull Council as part of wider
efforts to reduce spending. Services across the board face cuts, including everything from adult social care to Streetscene and children's services. The mobile library service also faces the axe, while opening times are under review at libraries, leisure services and museums across the city.

The second headline was:

"Hull ‘among worst places to find work‘"

Employment website Adzuna.co.uk's UK Job Market Report found there were 31.57 jobseekers for each vacancy, which meant the city was with Salford, Sunderland and Wirral as among the worst places on both lists. Not much hope then for the nearly 400 people sacked by Hull City Council. But Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter said Hull had a "great opportunity" to become the next UK City of Culture and this could see large benefits.
His predictions don't make much sense when it has been known for weeks that Hull has already been awarded UK City of Culture status. Methinks however that this dubious honour is something of a poisoned chalice, as this fanciful extravagance is going to cost the citizens of Hull £15,000,000.
The bunch of Scrooges which comprises Hull's business fraternity has offered a
miserly £17,000 each to the pot. While Hull City Council has donated £3million. Now
it tells 400 of its workers that it cannot afford to employ them. Will they, now facing a miserable future of long term unemployment, be happy in the knowledge that their jobs were sacrificed so that the city fathers can bask in the glow of this dubious honour, the status of city of culture?
And where is the remainder of the £15 million to come from? Increased council tax
no doubt. I hope all those who where whooping and partying when the result was
announced will now take stock because they, along with the rest of us, will be
paying through their noses.

"Zionist propaganda may be the very mother of invention but it cannot plug up the massive holes in its own narrative. The holes are big enough to drive one of their bombers through but before the Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid policies most people couldn’t make sense of Israel’s conflict with Palestinians & believed Palestinians were all terrorists. That propaganda coup led to decades of unspeakable crimes, treacheries, & the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

"Some who oppose the BDS movement do so precisely because it is proving so effective against Zionist lies. Others who oppose BDS claim it would put undue pressure on Israeli citizens rather than the government. Is there a problem with that!? If Israelis do not face the facts & consequences of their government’s apartheid policies & stand up to resist them, they become accomplices--whether they know it or not. And they pay a price for it whether they know it or not since money needed for housing within Israel goes for building settlements in the West Bank & for maintaining Israel’s bloated military arsenal.

"In one short piece you can’t deconstruct every damn Zionist lie but there are some too egregious to ignore. This photo is a Gazan man holding the body of his 3-year-old niece, Hala Abu Sebakha who was killed by shrapnel from one of several Israeli air strikes on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. The Israeli military claimed the bombing across Gaza targeted a weapons manufacturing facility, a concealed rocket launcher, & Gaza’s “terror infrastructure” & were retaliation for the fatal shooting by a Palestinian sniper of an Israeli civilian doing maintenance on the barrier wall. Of course Israel & media neglect to mention that the shooting of the maintenance man on December 24th followed the murder of Gazan, Odeh Hamad by Israeli soldiers on December 20th. More importantly, doesn't it constitute criminal insanity when you bomb an entire population for the alleged act of one rogue sniper?

"A whole host of Israeli spokespersons defended the barbaric attacks by pointing to an alleged spate of Palestinian attacks on Israel. Israel’s Shin Bet security service reported a rise in incidents of Palestinian violence in Jerusalem & the West Bank. Are they speaking of Palestinian resistance to Israeli land expropriations by Zionist settlers? Because there is considerable photojournalist documentation of Israeli crimes against Palestinians but there isn’t a shred of proof for Israel’s allegations of increased violence by Palestinians--either by Hamas or individual operatives. Netanyahu’s spokesperson, the national police chief, & a cabinet minister all said the increased violence was to derail current peace negotiations between Israel & the Palestinian Authority. Are they for real!? Only Zionists could treat such sarcasms with respect.

"The good news is that BDS is indeed beginning to have an impact on Israeli citizens. A group of Israeli actors who oppose Israel’s settlement policy refused to perform in a play at the state-funded performance center in the West Bank settlement of Ariel. Previously, when the center opened in 2010, 60 Israeli actors boycotted the inaugural performances. Ariel was founded as a Zionist settlement in 1978 when Israel handed over land expropriated from Palestinians for Israeli military purposes (a confiscation method still used today); it now has 20,000 residents."

(Photo by Adel Hana/AP)

To make honoring BDS easier, these links list products & companies to be boycotted:
http://www.inminds.com/boycott-brands.html
http://vtjpbds.org/products/
http://sacbds.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-an-end-to-apartheid3.pdf

(Copyleft, Mary Scully)

BALLAD OF HARRY MOORE
(Killed at Mims, Florida, on Christmas night, 1951)

(Langston Hughes)

Florida means land of flowers.
It was on Christmas night
In the state named for the flowers
Men came bearing dynamite.

Men came stealing through the orange groves
Bearing hate instead of love,
While the Star of Bethlehem
Was in the sky above.

Oh, memories of a Christmas evening
When Wise Men traveled from afar
Seeking out a lowly manger
Guided by a Holy Star!

Oh, memories of a Christmas evening
When to Bethlehem there came
"Peace on earth, good will to men"--
Jesus was His name.

But they must've forgotten Jesus
Down in Florida that night
Stealing through the orange groves
Bearing hate and dynamite.

It was a little cottage,
A family, name of Moore.
In the windows wreaths of holly,
And a pine wreath on the door.

Christmas, 1951,
The family prayers were said
When father, mother, daughter,
And grandmother went to bed.

The father's name was Harry Moore.
The N.A.A.C.P.
Told him to carry out its work
That Negroes might be free.

So it was that Harry Moore
(So deeply did he care)
Sought the right for men to live
With their heads up everywhere.

Because of that, white killers,
Who like Negroes "in their place,"
Came stealing through the orange groves
On that night of dark disgrace.

It could not be in Jesus' name,
Beneath the bedroom floor,
On Christmas night the killers
Hid the bomb for Harry Moore.

It could not be in Jesus' name
The killers took his life,
Blew his home to pieces
And killed his faithful wife.

It could not be for the sake of love
They did this awful thing--
For when the bomb exploded
No hearts were heard to sing.

And certainly no angels cried,
"Peace on earth, good will to men"--
But around the world an echo hurled
A question: When?...When?....When?

When will men for sake of peace
And for democracy
Learn no bombs a man can make
Keep men from being free?

It seems that I hear Harry Moore.
From the earth his voice cries,
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold--
For freedom never dies!

I will not stop! I will not stop--
For freedom never dies!
I will not stop! I will not stop!
Freedom never dies!

So should you see our Harry Moore
Walking on a Christmas night,
Don't run and hide, you killers,
He has no dynamite.

In his heart is only love
For all the human race,
And all he wants is for every man
To have his rightful place.

And this he says, our Harry Moore,
As from the grave he cries:
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold
For freedom never dies!

Freedom never dies, I say!
Freedom never dies!

Dylan Jeavons again.

L'AFFICHE ROUGE
(Louis Aragon)

Vous n'avez réclamé la gloire ni les larmes
Ni l'orgue, ni la prière aux agonisants
Onze ans déjà, que cela passe vite onze ans
Vous vous étiez servi simplement de vos armes
La mort n'éblouit pas les yeux des partisans.

Vous aviez vos portraits sur les murs de nos villes
Noirs de barbe et de nuit, hirsutes, menaçants
L'affiche qui semblait une tache de sang
Parce qu'à prononcer vos noms sont difficiles
Y cherchait un effet de peur sur les passants.

Nul ne semblait vous voir Français de préférence
Les gens allaient sans yeux pour vous le jour durant
Mais à l'heure du couvre-feu des doigts errants
Avaient écrit sous vos photos " Morts pour la France "
Et les mornes matins en étaient différents.

Tout avait la couleur uniforme du givre
À la fin février pour vos derniers moments
Et c'est alors que l'un de vous dit calmement :
"Bonheur à tous, bonheur à ceux qui vont survivre
Je meurs sans haine en moi pour le peuple allemand."

"Adieu la peine et le plaisir. Adieu les roses
Adieu la vie. Adieu la lumière et le vent
Marie-toi, sois heureuse et pense à moi souvent
Toi qui vas demeurer dans la beauté des choses
Quand tout sera fini plus tard en Erevan."

"Un grand soleil d'hiver éclaire la colline
Que la nature est belle et que le coeur me fend
La justice viendra sur nos pas triomphants
Ma Mélinée, ô mon amour, mon orpheline
Et je te dis de vivre et d'avoir un enfant."

Ils étaient vingt et trois quand les fusils fleurirent
Vingt et trois qui donnaient le coeur avant le temps
Vingt et trois étrangers et nos frères pourtant
Vingt et trois amoureux de vivre à en mourir
Vingt et trois qui criaient "la France!" en s'abattant.

THE RED POSTER

You demanded neither glory nor tears
Nor organ music, nor last rites
Eleven years already, how quickly eleven years go by,
You made use simply of your weapons
Death does not dazzle the eyes of partisans.

You had your pictures on the walls of our cities
Black with beard and night, hirsute, threatening
The poster, that seemed like a bloodstain,
Using your names that are hard to pronounce,
Sought to sow fear in the passers-by.

No one seemed to see you French by choice
People went by all day without eyes for you,
But at curfew wandering fingers
Wrote under your photos "Fallen for France"
And it made the dismal mornings different.

Everything had the unvarying colour of frost
In late February for your last moments
And that's when one of you said calmly:
"Happiness to all, happiness to those who survive,
I die with no hate in me for the German people.

"Goodbye to pain, goodbye to pleasure. Farewell the roses,
Farewell life, the light and the wind.
Marry, be happy and think of me often
You who will remain in the beauty of things
When it's all over one day in Erevan.

"A broad winter sun lights up the hill
How nature is beautiful and how my heart breaks
Justice will come on our triumphant footsteps,
My Mélinée, o my love, my orphan girl,
And I tell you to live and to have a child."

There were twenty-three of them when the guns flowered
Twenty-three who gave their hearts before it was time,
Twenty-three foreigners and yet our brothers
Twenty-three in love with life to the point of losing it
Twenty-three who cried "France!" as they fell.


Memorial to the executed partisans of the Manouchian Network, men who fought and died for the country that gave them refuge from the Nazis, Mussolini's Fascists, Franco's murderers and torturers. Their killers sought to make propaganda from their alien identities, and failed.

Copyleft FW D.J. Alperowitz

"Previously undisclosed evidence held by the US intelligence authorities backs up long-held suspicions that a Palestinian militant group, rather than a single Libyan national, masterminded the Lockerbie bombing, according to a new investigation broadcast by Channel 4."

"Undisclosed", not "fresh", as described elsewhere.

Many years ago I saw a photograph of a painting by Jack Yeats entitled "My Beautiful, My Beautiful", which I thought a strange title. It was sometime later in a copy of "Ireland's Own" (my mother's favourite read) I read the poem by Caroline Norton which gave the painting its name (and its subject?). The author was the daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Apparently a much wronged woman in her marriage she became a radical campaigner for reform of marriage law. She appears also to have used her talents to highlight to treatment of children in the workplace.
The poem is not really one I'd find to my taste. It's just that painting and its title that drew my attention.
Jack Butler Yeats has a poetic connection through his brother, William B., and I remember reading that he encouraged the English poet John Masefield to pen verse of an Irish Nationalist sentiment under the pseudonym "Wolfe Tone MacGowan" (or was it "O'Gowan"? Memory fails).

THE ARAB’S FAREWELL TO HIS HORSE
(Caroline Norton)

MY beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by
With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye;
Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed—
I may not mount on thee again—thou’rt sold, my Arab steed!
Fret not with that impatient hoof—snuff not the breezy wind—
The further that thou fliest now, so far am I behind;
The stranger hath thy bridle rein—thy master hath his gold—
Fleet‐limbed and beautiful! farewell!—thou’rt sold, my steed—thou’rt sold!

Farewell! those free untired limbs, full many a mile must roam,
To reach the chill and wintry sky, which clouds the stranger’s home;
Some other hand, less fond, must now thy corn and bed prepare;
The silky mane I braided once, must be another’s care!
The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee
Shall I gallop through the desert paths, where we were wont to be:
Evening shall darken on the earth; and o’er the sandy plain
Some other steed, with slower step, shall bear me home again.

Yes, thou must go! the wild free breeze, the brilliant sun and sky,
Thy master’s home—from all of these, my exiled one must fly.
Thy proud dark eye will grow less proud, thy step become less fleet,
And vainly shalt thou arch thy neck, thy master’s hand to meet.
Only in sleep shall I behold that dark eye, glancing bright
Only in sleep shall hear again that step so firm and light:
And when I raise my dreaming arm to check or cheer thy speed,
Then must I starting wake, to feel—thou’rt sold, my Arab steed!

Ah! rudely then, unseen by me, some cruel hand may chide,
Till foam‐wreaths lie, like crested waves, along thy panting side:
And the rich blood, that is in thee swells, in thy indignant pain,
Till careless eyes, which rest on thee, may count each started vein.
Will they ill‐use thee? If I thought—but no, it cannot be—
Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed; so gentle, yet so free.
And yet, if haply when thou’rt gone, my lonely heart should yearn—
Can the hand which casts thee from it now, command thee to return?

Return!—alas! my Arab steed! what shall thy master do,
When thou who wert his all of joy, hast vanished from his view?
When the dim distance cheats mine eye, and through the gath’ring tears
Thy bright form, for a moment, like the false mirâge appears.
Slow and unmounted will I roam, with weary foot alone,
Where with fleet step, and joyous bound, thou oft hast borne me on;
And, sitting down by that green well, I‘ll pause and sadly think,
“It was here he bowed his glossy neck, when last I saw him drink!”

When last I saw thee drink!—away! the fevered dream is o’er—
I could not live a day, and know, that we should meet no more!
They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger’s power is strong—
They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long.
Who said that I had given thee up? Who said that thou wert sold?
’Tis false—’tis false, my Arab steed! I fling them back their gold!
Thus, thus, I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains;
Away! who overtakes us now, shall claim thee for his pains!

Season's greetings from UK City of Culture 2017

Also called 'Ull, John Bull (rhyming slang), Cod City, Bridgetown (CB radio), Kingston upon Hull, Villa Regia (Latin version).

Wayhay! The Cameronian desperadoes have publish an "educational aid" to be distributed to schools. It's probably illegal, but so is slavery, and the Tories are reintroducing that under a variety of euphemistic titles. A few quotes -

“Regardless of our political affiliation, almost all teenagers of the 80′s are Margaret Thatcher’s children. By applying Conservative principles and values, she was able to achieve a real, lasting legacy for this country.”

“The Conservative Party is the party of fairness. Under the last Labour Government, people got paid more to stay out of work, top pay got out of control and bankers’ bonuses ballooned.”

“What is the most important thing the Conservative Party has accomplished whilst in government?” [Asked four times with responses from different MPs]

“The modern Conservative Party is on the side of those who want to work hard and get on in life.”

"Who are the winners in the new situation? One is Assad because the opposition to him – which started as a popular uprising against a cruel, corrupt and oppressive dictatorship in 2011 – has become a fragmented movement dominated by al-Qa’ida umbrella organisation the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil); the other al-Qa’ida franchisee, the al-Nusra Front; and the Islamic Front, consisting of six or seven large rebel military formations numbering an estimated 50,000 fighters, whose uniting factor is Saudi money and an extreme Sunni ideology similar to Saudi Arabia’s version of Islam.
The Saudis see this alliance as capable of fighting pro-Assad forces as well as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but Riyadh’s objections to the latter appears to be based on its independence of Saudi control rather than revulsion at its record of slaughtering Shia, Alawi, Christians, Armenians, Kurds, Turkomans or any dissenting Sunni."

Patrick Cockburn

There is a degree of logic in Allam’s plan. Overspending linked to Hull’s last flirtation with the Premier League, 2008-10, ended with bankruptcy looming before Allam rescued them. Through Allamhouse Ltd he has since loaned (not given) £72m (at five per cent interest), bankrolling losses of £20m, £9m and £26m in successive seasons. Allam, notes the current Private Eye, can use these losses to reduce tax on profits by Allam Marine, but would rather turn a profit and cut that debt. Premier League TV income will help, but there may not be much left with a mushrooming wage bill to meet.
It is not just the club that is in the red. There is a reason Hull’s shirt sponsors are a company specialising in pawnbroking and payday loans. Last month the government’s Money Advice Service identified Hull as Britain’s most heavily indebted area, with 43 per cent of the population enduring serious financial problems. Clearly there is a limit to how much money, either individual or corporate, can be leveraged from this supporter base, especially as the KC Stadium is council-owned (another source of contention with Allam).

(Glenn Moore, The Independent)

THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER
(William Butler Yeats)

Although I shelter from the rain
Under a broken tree
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.

Though lads are making pikes again
For some conspiracy,
And crazy rascals rage their fill
At human tyranny,
My contemplations are of Time
That has transfigured me.

There’s not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,
And yet the beauties that I loved
Are in my memory;
I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.

Well, I don't spit in Time's face, but I do pull faces behind its back.

"The Alzheimer's Society has called for a sevenfold increase in research funding into dementia as health bosses gather for Wednesday's G8 summit in London on the issue.
David Cameron, who is hosting the summit has pledged to double funding for dementia research from between 2015 and 2025 to £122m"
(The Guardian)
Which reminds me -

"Brazilian physician Drauzio Varella has calculated that the world invests five times as much in male sex stimulants and female silicone implants as in finding a cure for Alzheimer's.
"' In a few years', he prophesied, 'we will have old women with huge tits and old men with stiff cocks, but none of them will remember what they are for.'"

Eduardo Galeano (tr. Mark Fried)

A POETRY SEASON I think this is my fourth. Nothing planned, I'll set the blog to random.
Here's a gent whose work has featured before, Idris Davies, and here's another poem about striking miners, also about their enemies in their own communities.

MRS.EVANS, FACH, YOU WANT BUTTER AGAIN

Mrs. Evans fach, you want butter again.
How will you pay for it now, little woman
With your husband out on strike, and full
Of the fiery language? Ay, I know him,
His head is full of fire and brimstone
And a lot of palaver about communism,
And me, little Dan the Grocer
Depending so much on private enterprise.

What, depending on the miners and their
Money too? O yes, in a way, Mrs. Evans,
Come tomorrow, little woman, and I'll tell you then
What I have decided overnight.
Go home now and tell that rash red husband of yours
That your grocer cannot afford to go on strike
Or what would happen to the butter from Carmarthen?
Good day for now, Mrs. Evans fach.

'Fach', in case it's not clear, is a Welsh form of address, literally meaning 'little'. It might be taken as a term of affection. But here it could be interpreted as an intimation of superiority, from the big man to the little woman.

No, you can't have the stadium. The banks want their money. Will you be declaring bankruptcy? When you are gone the City of Hull will still be here, and its football club will be called Hull City.

Yesterday marked three years since our old comrade and drinking crony, John T., alias Homebrew, died. The poem below was read out at his funeral mass and created an emotional moment. The gaps represent the names of John's friends mentioned in the poem, who I would not name here without their permission. Other proper names are mostly pubs.

HOMEBREW
(for John Tempest)

FRANCIS D.

In the Trades Council Club, Beverley Road,
sucking stout from his Shavian yellow beard,
a sparkling mischievousness made me welcome in
Humberside, Land of Green Ginger, Polar Bear,
and picketing anti-union Wilberforce.

Down a dark passage in Saint Hilda Street,
opened a world of sulphurous parrots, giant
poodles and backyard rotationally stacked with
home-brewed India Pale, a brown, muddy stout
parlour ay brimming with step dance and song.

The Station, Sandringham, Star and Garter -
weekend paper rounds with United Irishman
and Rosc Catha, pricking consciences, organising
action by those who folded their politics neatly into
jacket pockets, building a gentle subversion.

After I left, from corner hides, outcasts from Kerry
Reek and Black Sod, ---------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
built a piece of home with you as Architect, Site Agent
and Steward who would never evict for lacking rent.

------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------- Dick Whittington,
Airlie Birds and Hessle Bank, smell of smoked cod
on hot summer days mowing grass in Pearson Park'
but most of all, decades later on Howth Hill, when

I think of Hull, I think of Home-Brew -
laughing company, generous friend, courageous comrade,
ever youthful, minding me of great, fearless days when -
no matter how high the wall we ran along - we never
ever glanced down, our eyes set firmly on the stars.

Portrait by Xavier Ghazi

"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians"

"The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel’s racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a “Jewish” state.
Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children."

"Israel should withdraw from all the areas which it won from the Arabs in 1967, and in particular Israel should withdraw completely from the Golan Heights, from south Lebanon and from the West Bank."

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

Farewell, Madiba, the fight against apartheid will go on.

Dershowitz v. Chomsky

"Dershowitz is presented, again accurately and on the basis of abundant documentation, as a dirty fighter with a readiness to twist the truth to serve his Zionist predilections, which include support for the post-9/11 drift toward authoritarian governance, and an outrageous willingness to play the anti-Semitic card even against someone of Chomsky’s extraordinary academic achievements in the field of linguistics and of global stature as the world’s leading public intellectual, who has an impeccable lifelong record of moral courage and fidelity to the truth. Dershowitz has devoted his destructive energies to derailing tenure appointments for critics of Israel and for using his leverage to badger publishers to refrain from taking on books, however meritorious, if they present either himself or Israel in what he views to be a negative light.

(Richard Falk reviews Howard Friel's "Chomsky and Dershowitz: on endless war and the end of civil liberties"

The bad old days will end: Why Oh why can't we be more Korean?

"Fewer teenage pregnancies and more teenage suicides is clearly the way to go ..."

The bad old days will end: Why Oh why can't we be more Korean?: Why are we so crap? Our national football team is a waste of space, cricket wise we are being shafted by the Aussies and now we find that ou...

(Continues here, link at the end of the post does not work)

Brace yourselves men - incoming headscarf!