my life as a artist
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letter to the corinthians
Tuesday 4th September 2007 11:02 PM
I notice in my Guardian guide that on Saturday morning, the entire funeral of Lady Di was re-broadcast on the BBC Necromancy channel. 'Candle in the wind' was apparently one of two songs that Elton Ben wrote in memory of the princess, the other being an upbeat, jaunty folk song called 'Di died and Dodi died'. The royal family were so grateful to Elton for singing the former, that after the funeral, they let him take home all the floral tributes.
On Sunday morning, despite, or maybe even because of, the continuing troubles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Somalia, Palestine, Manchester, etc, etc, etc, I played football for the Corinthians Over 35's. It was an inter-club game between the morning team and the afternoon team, and because I play for the morning side, and the game was played in the morning, it felt like we were the home team.
The Corinthians is a charitable body, (we give away cheap goals), founded in response to a letter sent by a man from a civil war-torn village in Mozambique, eleven years ago. That man was Christiano, known to us as Christo, and last week, he died. I was tempted to slip in the word 'sadly' there, but I refrained. For those left behind, there is always grief and loss surrounding any death, but for Christo himself, his soul freed from the slow dream of matter and Richard Dawkins, it might have been a joyful revelation.
In quiet celebration of this possibility, we gathered round the centre circle before kick-off, and held a minute's silence. Although I've never met him, I addressed him in my thoughts, and though he was from southern Mozambique, I used the language of Chi Nyanja, which is spoken in North West Mozambique. Either out of gratitude at hearing a neighbouring African tongue, or compassion for my appalling grasp of the same, I believe that on Sunday morning, Christo reached out a helping hand, from across the chasm of death, and enabled me to score a hat-trick. There's no other explanation.
We won 6-1. The grassy expanse of our Sim Balk Lane pitch might as well have been the open tundra of a sun-soaked Samburu wildlife park, for the morning team were lions and lammergeyers, and the afternoon team were dik-diks.
In the dressing room afterwards, homo-erotic steam rising in girly curlicues from the quivering, muscled mass of our bronzed, heroic bodies, our almost Namibian centre-half, Derek, asked me how many I'd scored.
'I scored a hat-trick' I replied, as matter-of-factly as I could, my little heart pumping with manly pride.
' I bet it's a long time since you said that sentence' said Derek.
'Yes' I replied, 'and I suspect it was in a high-pitched, squeaky voice.'
Comments
Yes, lets have more Noam on " The best form of oppression is depression".. or ... "Hegemony or 4-4-2"... my validation is "wealth"... ironic!
Posted by Noam , on Friday 7th September 2007, 9:11 PM
The Validation word for me is "kick"...
Posted by Tom , on Friday 7th September 2007, 9:06 PM
Dear Rory I am glad you're back from overseas but at first glance, you're back on the football thing again too. How about some more on Naom Chomsky's theory of oppressive tolerance,for example,which you mentioned in an earlier blog?
Posted by hippy in the horn , on Friday 7th September 2007, 12:21 PM
Well done! I remember scoring once, the ball hit my nose and went in. Interesting to see the validation word is ' result'.
Posted by Les Miserable , on Wednesday 5th September 2007, 6:27 PM
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