No matter how many times they tried, the enemies of Rasputin could not kill him. Like some beheaded zombie who continues to drag its carcass towards you, the mad monk just kept coming back for more. And that’s how I’ve been feeling lately about the return to the popular consciousness of two foes that I thought had been vanquished and banished to the dark recesses of the dog-eared history book or yellowing newspaper clipping in a dusty archive. Yes, Margaret Thatcher and Thierry Henry are akin to Robert Patrick’s T-1000. Seemingly indestructible and hell-bent on rising from the dead.
Tag Archives | Thatcher
Justice For The 96
For the lost.
For the survivors.
For the campaigners.
For the families.
For twenty-two years they’ve waited.
For twenty-two years they’ve been weighted.
By the untruths spread to be dispelled, negated
Home Is Where The Hate Is
Part two of Dispatches From A Football Sofa’s season opener looks at the connections between football and the geography of the London riots.
The darkest dystopian fictions of Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick came shockingly to life across towns and cities in England last week but instead of the bowler hat, fake eyelashes and white overalls of A Clockwork Orange’s gang of droogs dispensing their nihilistic brand of ultraviolence on a terrorised public, the uniform of choice came in the form of an upturned hood, a pair of designer trainers and a masked, scarved face. This is England, 2011. As Blur put it in their homage to Burgess’ masterpiece, it really, really, really has happened.
Marriage of Inconvenience
A year ago, soundtracked by a score of ethereal tranquillity and the desolate scattering of rustling papers in the wind, Nick Clegg went for a walk across this country’s dales and tower blocks. He looked us square in the eye and decried that politics had let us all down. He called it “a trail of broken promises” and he vowed that should we vote for him and his party, fairness would be restored to a society that had been ravaged by the gluttony of the Thatcher years and the self-serving transparency of the Blair era. He believed his words and so did I.
According To Type
In his machine gun tone of delivery, Chris Rock eloquently captured the distinctions in class within America’s Afro-American population. According to him, there are black people and there are ‘niggaz’. Rock has been criticised for his willingness to confront racial tensions in his stand-up shows and although much celebrated, this particular routine could be seen as reinforcing certain cultural stereotypes. However, to say that would be to miss the diatribe’s point; that there is a distinct separation in terms of class and attitude amongst America’s black communities. It is more a case of how black people perceive themselves and how there will always be a minority that allows the media to stoke public perception.
Walking Alone
With Liverpool’s humiliating elimination by Northampton Town in this week’s League Cup, coupled with yet another installment in their stuttering start to their League campaign against Sunderland yesterday, perhaps it is time for us to begin a re-assessment of what this famous club’s purpose is in the modern era. The instability of Liverpool’s ownership situation continues to rumble on but Liverpool’s decline as a football club has been long-standing and can more or less be traced back to the abandonment of their much-fabled Boot Room ethic, that appointed managers from within the inner sanctum of the club’s coaching staff, with the hiring of the divisive figure of Graeme Souness in the early 90s. With the renouncing of the ideals which formed the foundation of the club’s imperious domination of the game in the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool Football Club has lurched from one transitional crisis to the next in the intervening years and despite having achieved such an improbable victory in the Champions League in 2005, a generation of fans has grown up viewing the club’s devouring of League titles as a fast-receding dot in the distance.
-
In Defence Of Luis Suarez by Rachael Singh
-
What’s The Point Of Scottish Football?
-
Captain Caveman: The De-evolution of John Terry
-
Alan Davies Is Here All Week
-
Liverpool Football Club, 1892 – 2012 – An Obituary
Subscribe / Connect
Make sure you don't miss any Dispatches by staying connected.
