"Racist" Big Brother is good for Britain

It's difficult for most white people in Britain to understand and recognise the low level, everyday racism that goes on in our society.

After all, if you're white, living in a predominantly white country and in a predominantly white area, you're unlikely to feel that your skin colour means you don't belong.

As a white person in the UK, I never understood it until I was in my mid-twenties when I found myself in a mixed-race relationship. Then I started to notice the disapproving looks, the sneers, the whispered comments.

It's unpleasant and it's racist.

And, anyone who's experienced this will recognise it in the Celebrity Big Brother Household.

When Danielle Lloyd said that Shilpa Shetty should "fuck off home", there can be no doubt that the underlying message was that Shetty - and her Indian customs - don't belong.

Fortunately for Lloyd, she'll have a lot of spare time to think about this after she gets out the house as her career as a minor-celebrity WAG is now dead in the water.

Similarly, the odious Goody and O'Meara have killed off their media careers - whatever those were.

However, the loss of those three from the z-list celebrity ranks is only a small part of the benefit of this year's Celebrity Big Brother.

As I said before, most of us have not suffered this type of racism. In fact, many people haven't even understood that this is racism or realised the impact it has on those who suffer it.

Being able to watch Shilpa Shetty suffer gives white British people the opportunity to empathise and understand this problem.

And, to use that understanding to reflect upon their own behaviour and actions so they can remove this type of racism from their own behaviour.

Britain has undoubtedly done a good job in fighting the more aggressive forms of racism from our society. And the progress we've made in the last 30 years is something we should be proud of.

However, we've become complacent about "passive racism". Hopefully, Shilpa Shetty's experiences will allow us to understand that we still need to work on our attitudes towards other cultures.

300 Years and “so what"?

Although I was only 8 years old at the time - and watching on a TV in Scotland - I can still remember seeing the American bicentennial celebrations in 1976.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bicentennial):

"local observances included painting mailboxes and fire hydrants red, white, and blue. A wave of patriotism and nostalgia swept the nation"

And, in 1988, our friends in Australia celebrated 200 years of nationhood. Again, with widespread expression of pride and togetherness.

So, on the day that commemorates our tercentenary, why is there none of this in the UK?

Where are the parties? Where are the fireworks?

Why isn't there even one event that's comparable to the attention given in 2002 to Queen Elizabeth's 50 years?

Gordon Brown can lecture that the union is important to us and Blair can say that "we should celebrate today with pride", but their words fail to resonate on either side of the border.

Where is this "celebration with pride"?

Nowhere.

Instead the response has been "300 years and so what?" … an embarrassing silence followed by a shrug of the shoulders.

And the reason why is the same reason that Gordon Brown's proposition of a "British day" was so laughable: the union has failed to turn many nations into one. There is no nation.

Even after 300 years, people in England are still English long before they are British. And, in Scotland, we're Scots first.

On both side of the border, there's been a refusal to integrate and it would take a fool - and/or Gordon Brown - to think that it's suddenly going to happen after 300 years.

We should look at the Union for what it was: it was a way to prevent destructive in-fighting between England and Scotland and a way for the two countries to work together for mutual benefit.

And, as such, it worked well. And both countries profited from it.

However, this is the 21st century and we no longer need the Act of Union. There's an alternative that covers most of Europe - the European Union.

By being an independent part of the EU, we can still have the co-operation with England but without handing the running of our country to London and without being shackled to the false and unworkable notion that we're "British".

And we can have similar, direct and autonomous relations with the rest of our neighbours.

And the cost?

Only the loss of a treaty that neither the English nor the Scots think is worth breaking out the sparklers and firecrackers for.

Beautiful Beckham’s failure is the true legacy of the Galactico Masterplan

When David Beckham arrived at real Madrid in 2003, the club’s Galactico plan was in full flow. With European Cup victory in 2002 plus league titles in 2001 and 2003 and an attacking line-up containing Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo and Raul, it seemed the addition of one more world class creative player would create a team that would become a football legend like the Real Madrid teams of the 1950s and 1960s.

The new player could have been Ronaldinho, be he was regarded as “too ugly” to be a Galactico and was allowed to go to Barcelona.

Instead, the money was spent on Beckham, the poster boy from England.

But, 3 trophy less years later, Beckham is struggling to even get on the bench at Madrid while, over in Catalonia, Barcelona have replaced real at the top of Spanish and European football and the ugly Ronaldinho is playing the beautiful football that made him the number one star in the game.

So, why has Beckham’s time at Madrid been such a failure?

I think there are two reasons: firstly, Beckham was always going to be a square peg in a round hole.

Given time and space, Beckham can do phenomenal things with his right foot. And this allows him to be lethal at corners and free kicks. And, in the wide-open spaces of English football where crossing is a cornerstone of the attacking game, he was able to create a numerous chances for his teammates.

However, in the tighter Spanish game where strikers tend to expect the ball played through the middle and along the ground, Beckham’s crossing was always going to be underemployed.

Then there are the corners. There are fewer in Spanish football and they tend to be taken short rather than curled into the heart of the box, so Beckham found his ability from corners was also less valuable than in England.

Finally, with Zidane in the team, did Real really need a right-footed free kick specialist?

So, with his three main assets appearing to add little to the team, it was difficult to imagine him becoming a true Galactico.

The second reason was timing. Beckham arrived at the point of the greatest excesses of Real Madrid’s ambition.

Commercial ambitions and the promotion of the team as a “Harlem Globetrotters” of football had caused footballing fundamentals to be ignored.

The first sign of this was the departure of Claude Makelele. The French midfielder had been at the heart of the team’s success. His ability to break down opposition attacks and redistribute the ball to his more famous teammates was an essential part of their success. After all, a Galactico isn’t a Galactico if he doesn’t have the ball.

However, the club’s president didn’t see things that way and was unwilling to pay the Frenchman more than a fraction of the wages that he was offering Beckham.

So, Makelele took his ugly football to Chelsea’s (and won two championships) and Zidane was left to remark "why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?"

So, without their engine, Real Madrid’s success ground to a halt. Individually, they played some pretty football, but they never looked like a team.

After three years of failure, the plan was finally abandoned when Capello was brought in to coach the side.

With the team chosen for effectiveness, the prettiest Galactico soon found himself marginalized, starting only 5 of their 17 league games to date. And it was clear that the end was in sight.

LA would appear to be the ideal destination for a footballer who, despite his talents, was always more famous for his looks.

Only time will tell how Beckham will be remembered.

Will his legacy be that he was the person who broke 200 years of tradition and turned “soccer” into a major American sport? Or will he only be remembered as the Golden Boy who turned Real to rust?

Iraq - the same words, just said louder

It's well known that Americans in a foreign country tend to handle the language barrier by simply repeating the same words, just louder.

So, "which way to the railway station" becomes "WHICH ... WAAAY ... TOOO ... THE … RAIL ... WAY ...STAYYY ... SHUN."

Today George Bush showed the presidential version of this tendency when he responded to his lack of effectiveness in Iraq, not with a change in strategy, but with the same old strategy escalated by the assignment of another 20,000 troops.

Perhaps Bush will come out and say why he thinks these extra troops will solve the hostility that exists between Iraqis. However, this looks like a lousy idea that is, sadly, the only idea.

It seems unlikely that Iran or Syria would be happy to work with America to stabilise Iraq as that would free up American military resources. And that freed capability could be used to menace Tehran or Damascus.

They’d probably prefer America to continue to be bogged down in a messy conflict that will sap the American public’s tolerance for casual invasions. This way, when the US has to finally leave Iraq in failure and disgrace, they can be confident that whoever is in the White House at the time will think twice before gamble his political future on another oil war.

Iraq gives up

The Iraq prime minister has had enough. His comments that he wants out of the job is a reflection of how little faith he has in Bush and Blair’s plans to save his country from destruction.

The cock-up of Saddam’s execution was probably the final straw. What should have been dignified justice became a racist lynching that was broadcast around the world.

He must surely have lost confidence in his colleagues who lack the sense to do things the right way. In fact, he’s probably lucky they didn’t play football with Saddam's head while Al-jazeera filmed them.

So, what now for Iraq?

The best new strategy the Baker-Hamilton Commission could come up with was to work with the Iranians and Syrians.

That's how bad things are.

Firstly, the Iranians and Syrians aren’t really behind what's going on in Iraq.

Even if they were, they wouldn’t just stop because the Americans asked them, particularly as that would allow a stable pro-US government on their own doorsteps.

So, the only "idea" on the table is a non-starter.

Can we pull out and allow the oil supply to be disrupted ... or to be sold to the Chinese?

Nope. We need Iraq’s oil for our economy.

I thought the idea of a war was a bad one when it was first suggested but, looking back, it was even more stupid than I thought.

The idea that, having failed for decades to export democracy to Northern Ireland, we'd create democracy in Iraq in a couple of years was staggeringly naive.

Saddam - justice or revenge?

Just when you think that they've run out of ways to cock up Iraq, they manage to trump themselves ...

The invaders quite sensibly cut the sound from the footage they released. However, one of the "top Iraqi officials" who filmed the hanging allowed the truth to get out.

So, rather than being a symbol of Iraqi justice, the world saw the hanging for what it was. Shia officials chanted the name of Moqtada al-Sadr leaving the world thinking that this was al-Sadr's victory over his Sunni enemy, rather than justice handed out by a fully-representative government.

Can anyone be left in any doubt that this Iraqu government is not a democratic goverment "of the people, by the people, for the people" but is the government "of Iraq, by the Shia, for the Shia"?

Edinburgh's Hogmanay - a busted flush?

Edinburgh's hogmanay street party was cancelled for the 2nd time in 4 years. This will surely mean that, from now on, the event is dead in the water.

As much as the organisers are trying to spin it, the main attraction of the multi-day festival is the party on the 31st and no tourist is going to have full confidence in an event that has such a poor track record.

It's hard to feel sorry for people that missed out on the dubious honour of standing in the cold waiting for a firework display and being snogged by a bunch of drunks, but these people were promised a party and they ended up empty-handed.

To remain a top tier Hogmanay destination, Edinburgh council would need to make sure that there's always something worth coming for. And that would mean good events over a 3-4 day period that take place indoors.

However, there simply aren't the venues to cater for an extra 100,000 people, so they must accept that their stomachs have been bigger than their wallets and they simply can't take care of these big crowds if the weather turns against them again. So, I believe Edinburgh should go back to the informal Hogmanay Street parties of the past.