Good Stuff, Bad Stuff, Inbetween Stuff, In Fact Just Stuff

You're English - piss off

Alain Rolland and Steve Walsh - I've berated both these chaps before and here I go again. But before I bore you with it once more, please let me make it entirely clear, I do not in any way contend that South Africa deserved anything less than their victory over England in Johannesburg yesterday. There is nothing remotely so compelling as a Springbok team in full-on smash-mouth mode at the beginning of a test match.

However, however, however, Rolland and Walsh both officiate with a supercilious veneer of infallibility and when you do that you should get it right bloody nearly all of the time. To fail to do so risks looking a twat. Walsh crossed this line aeons ago, Rolland more recently, probably at the precise moment when he decided he should be the decisive influence in a world Cup semi-final.

Je suis plus important que vous

Yesterday? Exhibit A: a scrum on the English line, Rolland stood on the English loosehead side, Walsh touch-judging close at hand on the other. Ball in (fed of course and if Roland had chosen to penalise that infringement none of this would need to be said) - ball out again without passing behind the foot of any front-row forward - ball picked up by SA flanker - the infallible duo look at each other, exchange knowing nods - try given. Bollocks, wrong, wrong, wrong, indisputably wrong. Out of such things are persecution complexes born.  But then again it's only a game.

Hey ho. The Olympics - it was more volunteer training for me on Friday. The day started badly with a sub-amateur prologue of PC earnestness but your correspondent is delighted to report that underlying enthusiasm and optimism overcame the encumbrance of the soul-destroying mumbo jumbo in which any great public venture has now to be encased. I'm looking forward to being a part of it and, done well, I think it can be of importance to a national revival. This is an unusually (one might think unfittingly) innocent attitude for the Overgraduate but pray allow me these occasional childish moments.

Now I shall revert to type. A mere week ago the stock markets rallied as a 'solution' to the Spanish banking crisis was announced. Then markets (the denizens of which do not read this blog) had dawn upon them the realisation that this solution was no less (and admittedly no more) a bag of shite than earlier sticking plasters applied to the Euro farrago. Then for reasons beyond any sensible analysis we had another dead cat bounce. As all of this went on the most intriguing piece of politico-economic commentary came from my Turkish waiter in a Hackney cafe. To him I had entrusted the manufacture of the best sandwich he could come up with - this trust he discharged with distinction and thus we engaged in casual conversation provoked by the feature on the Greek election issuing forth from the ubiquitous Sky News feed. Having first checked that I would not mind his saying so (this is a most peculiar figure of speech because one is expected to assent to the mouthing of an utterance whose character you have no means of prejudging) he opined that the trouble with the Greeks is that in his experience 'they've always been a bunch of lazy bastards.'

Now some praise. The subtler skills of golf are often missing from its modern professional incarnation where the run of the ball has almost been outlawed. The USGA have brought it back to intriguing effect at the Olympic Golf Club in San Francisco this week. Nice job lads. There has also been the treat of watching Tiger Woods yesterday fighting poor form to stay in contention. A treat not because of any animus against Woods but because he is so thoroughly effortful in such circumstances. The rage for perfection is what marks the truly great.

We welcome Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to readership of The Overgraduate, this being the only plausible explanation for Maggie Alphonsi having been recognised in the birthday honours list. My positing of Alphonsi as the world's best rugby player has obviously resonated in the corridors of power. I am however a little bemused that Gary Street has not yet been knighted - what Has Kenneth  Branagh done that Street has not? My point being that Gary could probably play Hamlet but I doubt Branagh could play scrum-half, kick goals, juggle with traffic cones and perform magic.

If I could write like this
do you seriously think I'd be
talking to you lot

Finally, a happy televisual accident last night. We saw again the finest flower of Channel 4's early days, Jack Rosenthal's P'tang Yang Kipper Bang. If you have never seen this film (broadcast as I recall on the second ever night of 4's transmission) you must do so and ponder how the same organisation might also have given us Big Brother. I'm just saying, that's all.