I mentioned on the Mundane Thread the other day how I'd picked up a half price Camembert from Tesco. There's something wonderful about a culture that encourages you to stick a huge lump of cheese in the oven and then attack it with a three foot long pole of crusty bread. It's sort of ushered in a period of sort of semi French cooking. I made a French onion soup, chicken provencal, and I've been getting food I normally eat, and lashing it full of butter, garlic, white wine, and double cream. Which as far as I can make out is the cornerstone of Gallic gastronomy.
I've also a new career mode on FIFA, with Marseille. Binned off all the old, shite players, and built a new, young, exciting fast team that spanners everyone in sight. Droit au but as motto and tactical instruction. Ansu Fati, Adama Traore, Lilian Thuram's lad, that Saka kid from Arsenal. Plus Juan Mata, because why not. We battered PSG 5-0 in the Parc des Princes, then went back and did them 6-1 in the league Cup. Aux armes, motherfuckers!
That World Cup Stories about France was on the other day. From Kopa and Fontaine to Zidane and 98. Black, White and Blue. A sort of prequel to the brilliant, but annoyingly currently unavailable Les Bleus, the documentary charting the changes in French society and politics through the prism of football from 1998 to 2006.
That 98 team was great. I supported Brazil in France 98, because I was still sulking at Aime Jacquet for not picking Eric for Euro 96, which was foolish of me, as his name is literally Loves Coats, and there's nothing more Me than that.
But by the final I was all France. Zidane, Blanc kissing Barthez's little baldy head, Thuram, Desailly. A group of rogue mates representing the multicultural makeup of French society, bonded together and succeeding when they'd already been written off by a stuffy and pretentious media. They played like they were mates eating merguez on a apartment block roof. Tight, together, united, thumbing their nose at perceived wisdom and a vile, right-wing atmosphere. Zizou and the lads won the mundial then queued up to take turns to headbutt Le Pen right in the middle of his fascist fucking chest to usher in a new period of understanding and cooperation.
Except right, it didn't. A lot has happened globally to change that, granted, but seeing that horrible little pig Macron carry on the way he has about Islam and Muslims sickens me. Preaching secularism as a way of masking his racism. I hate him, and I fear for Muslim, Jewish and other minorities in France. This isn't so much dog whistling as him leading the hounds of Paris down the Champs Elysees with a big funking bagpipe.
I remember Cantona comparing Macron to Mbappe. Young, appeared from nowhere, and able to play on the left or the right. I laughed then, but it's less funny now he's found his favourite position. And far be it from me to turn this and every thread into an Eric thread, even though that was my sworn intention when I joined OTF two decades ago, I also remember him saying this:
"It’s important not to say, that a Muslim, is “moderate”, if he’s just a citizen like you or me. What does “moderate” mean anyway? Does it mean that Islam is an extremist religion? This is a latent provocation, you see? And it’s very dangerous. We don’t have to paint everybody with the same brush. That’s the danger I think.”
“It seems to me that all this is linked to the economic crisis,” he noted. “It seems to me that if there hadn’t been a crisis in 1929 then Hitler would never have obtained power. And unfortunately, during crises, people fall into despair, they don’t know anymore what to hang on to and all this gives birth to extremism.
“What is dangerous, once again, is to take advantage of the despair of some people, to spread crazy ideas. Those who do it, create and develop hate for political purposes, for power purposes. And I think it’s sad and reprehensible.”
We get more sense out of our celebrity footballer actors than we do our politicians and leaders, and I think that's sad and frightening.
There's a TL;DR here, and that's basically this. Love France, Hate Bastards. I despise Macron and his ilk, and I fear that we're so focused on the likes of Trump and Johnson we ignore the fact that even the so-called respectable politicians are slickly preaching hate. We can't let them win, right?
I've also a new career mode on FIFA, with Marseille. Binned off all the old, shite players, and built a new, young, exciting fast team that spanners everyone in sight. Droit au but as motto and tactical instruction. Ansu Fati, Adama Traore, Lilian Thuram's lad, that Saka kid from Arsenal. Plus Juan Mata, because why not. We battered PSG 5-0 in the Parc des Princes, then went back and did them 6-1 in the league Cup. Aux armes, motherfuckers!
That World Cup Stories about France was on the other day. From Kopa and Fontaine to Zidane and 98. Black, White and Blue. A sort of prequel to the brilliant, but annoyingly currently unavailable Les Bleus, the documentary charting the changes in French society and politics through the prism of football from 1998 to 2006.
That 98 team was great. I supported Brazil in France 98, because I was still sulking at Aime Jacquet for not picking Eric for Euro 96, which was foolish of me, as his name is literally Loves Coats, and there's nothing more Me than that.
But by the final I was all France. Zidane, Blanc kissing Barthez's little baldy head, Thuram, Desailly. A group of rogue mates representing the multicultural makeup of French society, bonded together and succeeding when they'd already been written off by a stuffy and pretentious media. They played like they were mates eating merguez on a apartment block roof. Tight, together, united, thumbing their nose at perceived wisdom and a vile, right-wing atmosphere. Zizou and the lads won the mundial then queued up to take turns to headbutt Le Pen right in the middle of his fascist fucking chest to usher in a new period of understanding and cooperation.
Except right, it didn't. A lot has happened globally to change that, granted, but seeing that horrible little pig Macron carry on the way he has about Islam and Muslims sickens me. Preaching secularism as a way of masking his racism. I hate him, and I fear for Muslim, Jewish and other minorities in France. This isn't so much dog whistling as him leading the hounds of Paris down the Champs Elysees with a big funking bagpipe.
I remember Cantona comparing Macron to Mbappe. Young, appeared from nowhere, and able to play on the left or the right. I laughed then, but it's less funny now he's found his favourite position. And far be it from me to turn this and every thread into an Eric thread, even though that was my sworn intention when I joined OTF two decades ago, I also remember him saying this:
"It’s important not to say, that a Muslim, is “moderate”, if he’s just a citizen like you or me. What does “moderate” mean anyway? Does it mean that Islam is an extremist religion? This is a latent provocation, you see? And it’s very dangerous. We don’t have to paint everybody with the same brush. That’s the danger I think.”
“It seems to me that all this is linked to the economic crisis,” he noted. “It seems to me that if there hadn’t been a crisis in 1929 then Hitler would never have obtained power. And unfortunately, during crises, people fall into despair, they don’t know anymore what to hang on to and all this gives birth to extremism.
“What is dangerous, once again, is to take advantage of the despair of some people, to spread crazy ideas. Those who do it, create and develop hate for political purposes, for power purposes. And I think it’s sad and reprehensible.”
We get more sense out of our celebrity footballer actors than we do our politicians and leaders, and I think that's sad and frightening.
There's a TL;DR here, and that's basically this. Love France, Hate Bastards. I despise Macron and his ilk, and I fear that we're so focused on the likes of Trump and Johnson we ignore the fact that even the so-called respectable politicians are slickly preaching hate. We can't let them win, right?
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