A Viscount Speaks

On the pressing problem of proles on tour

What ho, oiks!

Ah, this is more like it.  This, indeed, is precisely what we men of the shires fervently wished for when we reluctantly passed our pencil over the UKIP candidate and instead wrote our 'x' next to the Tory candidate's name at the last general election:

"We don't want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays".

No, old bean, we certainly do not!  Poor old Pedro has quite enough on his plate without being subjected to a summer influx of Yorkshire yobbos puking their way across the Costa del Sol.  But why, I ask, are these same oiks permitted to ramble across an Englishman's land from dawn until dusk?  I quite agree that the ghastly stench of the proletarian classes ought not to be inflicted on our poor Continental cousins, but surely the same courtesy should be extended to me and to other landowners?  I spend most of my summers chasing shell-suited plebs off my estate with a shotgun and frankly, chaps, it gets rather wearying.  

Let us hope the admirable Mr Letwin turns his attention to this much more pressing problem. The leafy shires of our own realm require cleansing before we even think about protecting Pedro from the barbarian hordes. 

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

 

 

Let's give Ghadaffi a jolly good beasting

What ho, Britons!

Well, well, well.  So Mr Cameron has a bit of spine after all.  It's bally magnificent to see our Prime Minister standing up to this rotter Ghadaffi.  We should have nailed the blighter after Lockerbie, but better late than never.  The British Empire was built on gunboat diplomacy, so we should have no qualms about despatching a few Tornados to spank Mr Ghadaffi's farty bottom.  He's been a very naughty boy indeed.

Equally pleasing is the manner in which the British and French are palling up to take the lead on this.  It's the old Suez dynamic duo back in action.  At Suez, of course, the British cravenly backed down under American pressure.  Thereafter, we have scarcely been able to take a trip to the potty without Uncle Sam there to hold our hand.  The French, in contrast, drew the opposite lesson from Suez and have been consistently bloody-minded in upholding their proud independent stance in the world ever since.  If this Cameron-Sarkozy operation signals that we are about to take a leaf out of the Frogs' book, then I heartily approve.

However, I fervently hope that we don't stop at Libya.  It's all well and good smacking a few Bedouin tribesmen around, but Britannia should have higher goals, namely to chuck Mugabe and Zuma out of southern Africa and restore Rhodesia, Cape Colony and Natal as sovereign British colonies.  If freedom from barbarism is good enough for Libyans, then it is jolly well good enough for the Anglo-Saxons of Africa too. 

Yours, etc
Viscount Crouchback

P.S. I thought you might enjoy the Sun's front-page.  It really is a marvellous organ for instilling a bit of patriotic pride in the lower orders; furthermore, I really do believe that the splendid knockers on Page 3 help to keep our young men from the dark path of homosexuality.

Jean-Claude prepares to bend over . . .

What ho, Englishmen!

So this Lievremont chappie has rather put the cat amongst the pigeons, what?  Funny little fellow, isn't he?  I had him down as a wrong'un from the moment I saw him and his coaching team dressed in matching velvet smoking jackets and polo neck jumpers at his first match in charge.

I said to my gentleman: "Look there, Smithson.  Those chaps on the television are either raving homosexuals ... or French.  Which do you think it is?"

Smithson pondered for a moment and replied: "I'm not sure it matters, My Lord.  Don't they amount to the same thing?"

Smithson was quite right of course.  It is damnably difficult to spot the difference between a stark raving nancy boy and a Frog.  Quite apart from the obvious shared interest in fashion, cheese and heavy male petting, it is the case that nowadays even the gays are permitted to soldier; hence, if a camouflaged figure suddenly appears over the horizon brandishing a white handkerchief with an exceedingly limp wrist, one cannot be quite sure whether it's a queer or a Frog living up to tradition. 

Naturally, a beasting awaits the blighters at Twickers this Saturday.  The disappointing thing for us, however, is that the French rather enjoy bending over and taking six of the best from John Bull.  They even have a term for it: la vice Anglais.  Indeed, I rather suspect that Lievremont's impudent words are just cheeky foreplay designed to make Johnno and the chaps spank harder.

Which rather spoils it for us eh, chaps?  It's a jolly good jape to chase after a squealing Celt for 80 minutes and apply the stick to his resentful rump; it's not quite so fun to roar out at Twickers and find Jean-Claude already lying on the turf smoking a Gitane and waiting for his punishment to commence.

Oh well.  A win is a win, and a Slam awaits.  Let's make it 3 from 3.  I have my eye on a certain weekend in Dublin: something tells me that Seamus will not take his Saxon beasting quite so lightly . . .

Yours, etc
Viscount Crouchback

The Footer World Cup

What ho, gentlemen!

I’ve kept my counsel thus far on the FIFA world cup shenanigans.   I understand that tears were shed on council estates across the land as England's proletarian class came to terms with the awful realisation that the footer world cup wouldn’t be gracing our shores.   It didn't bother me so much.  I think footer is rotten from top to bottom, so if some Swiss gnome wants to send the tournament to Russia then that’s fine by me.

However, I did not relish the sight of our future King crawling on his hands and knees to the bumptious little toerags who make up the FIFA Executive Committee.  Nor did I enjoy the sight of our Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, dropping everything at Westminster to do likewise.  I expect my Prime Minister to concern himself with matters of state, not with where some oikball tournament happens to be played every four years.  It was - how can I put this? - somewhat infra dig. 

It seems to me that there is a very obvious problem with football.  Quite simply, too many foreigners play the game.  And not just any old foreigners either but the very worst type of foreigners: greasy, dusky, devious breeds from the darkest corners of the globe.  Sinister peasants who shake you by the hand and remove your watch in one smooth, cunning movement. 

It is no surprise that our robust colonial cousins in the other English-speaking countries treat the game with scorn.  They are quite right to do so.  But I do hope that the disgraceful events in Zurich give the RFU pause for thought the next time they are tempted to "spread the rugby gospel".  For if spreading the gospel means sharing power with assorted Georgians and Russians and Portuguese, then I think rugger is better off remaining a sect than a religion. 

Rugby is perfect as it is: the Englishman rules the roost in benign and benevolent fashion, the colonials and Celts do as they are told, and the greaseballs are grateful merely to be included.  It is just as the world ought to be.  We tamper at our peril. 

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Entente Cordiale?

What ho, men of Britannia!

I say, chums, all this chatter about Anglo-French defence co-operation sounds a bit rum, doesn’t it?  Has Cameron lost the plot?  Relying on Johnny Frenchman to stand by your side under fire?  The mere thought of it gives me the shivers!

No doubt the Grenadiers could do with a few Froggie chefs to improve the food in the officers’ mess, but sharing equipment?  Doesn’t sound too clever to me.  How the dickens will our chaps learn to drive tanks that only go backwards?  Surely that type of specialised, high-speed reverse driving takes centuries of practice?

And if this supposed Anglo-French brigade happens to be ambushed by the Hun, then how the deuce do our chaps know that Jean-Claude won't be caught unawares out on the Left flank with his trousers round his ankles and his todger inserted in some Belgian milk maid's front orifice? 

And the SAS – the SAS! – under Froggie command?  I rather fear that our special forces chaps will return to Hereford as expert cheese makers and distinguished sommeliers and, no doubt, as unparallelled writers of randy love letters – but what will have happened to their war fighting skills in the meantime?  I have my suspicions!

What do our ex-officers make of this curious development?

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

I say, what a gesture by the French!

What ho, chaps!

Say what you like about the Frogs but they do exhibit a certain spirit of chivalry even in this rude age.  This gesture by the FFR - pulping a match programme at the cost of £220,000 because it contained close-to-the-bone comments about our under-performing colonial inside centre, Riki Flutey - was a superb example of traditional rugger decency in the 21st century.  It makes a stark and welcome contrast to the uncouth chirping of colonial oiks like Eugene Hoskins and the risible John O'Neill.  Such Old World courtesy is anathema to these poorly bred New World ruffians. Well done, Pierre Camou.  You offer yet another reason why the centre of rugger gravity must forever remain in the ancient cities of Europe.  

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Mike "Le Boeuf" Tindall is back

What ho, Englishmen!

I called for it, and it's happened.  England's foremost - only? - beefcake back, Mr. Tindall, has been selected at outside centre for Paris.  This is a splendid move by Johnson.  Tindall is no glittering firefly of a runner, but he offers heft and punch and brute strength.  England's backs have looked much too lateral thus far and Tins ought to be the man to sort things out.  His clash against Bastareaud will have beef lovers across the world reaching for the Kleenex.

The best thing about Tindall is his phlegm and poise.  He is one of those rare specimens who seems actually to enjoy playing rugger for England.  Too many of his team-mates appear scared out of their wits. Encouragingly, Ashton and Foden seem to be cut from the same cheeky cloth. 

The Hask can have no complaints about being dropped.  He needs to add some nous and cuteness to his rather one-track game.  Wilko, too, deserves to be omitted.  The only surprises about Monye and Armitage were that it took so long.  Johnno is perhaps loyal to a fault.

All in all, a much more exciting XV.  One wouldn't back England if one was a betting man, but there's just something about this fixture that seems to play with the minds of the French.  The sight of fifteen plucky shire yeomen seems to stir the Frogs' natural cowardice.  We could well be celebrating another famous victory in Paris could Saturday night.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

On the nature of Anglophobia

What ho, chaps!

Interesting blog by Mick Cleary over at the Telegraph.  He asks: Who hates England the most?  A timely question indeed.  For it often seems as if half the world is engaged in a ferocious battle to be Champion Anglophobe.  Oddly, one tends to find that the more indebted a nation is to English genius and pluck, the more bitterly it detests us.  This is true of the colonies, the Irish, and the infernal French.  I suppose it's some kind of Oedipus complex.

I also wonder whether the sheer moral presence of the Englishman sometimes discombobulates these poor foreigners.  Hugh Farrelly, the Irish Independent rugger columnist, recently wrote a column in which he stated that he "felt like a bumpkin" when surrounded by the English rugger press. 

This is the thing you see, chaps.  We Englishmen don't always realise just how inferior these foreign johnnies can be made to feel by our mere presence.  Our natural articulacy, our straightforward common sense and good humour, our superb breeding, our dandy threads - all those aspects of our bearing that bring to mind Tennyson's "genial, broad-shouldered Englishman" - are, to a chippy sort of chap, precisely those things which invoke a kneejerk Anglophobia born of a deep-seated sense of inferiority.  Note that it is always the more self-confident sort of colonial or Celt - Sir Terry Wogan, say, or Jan Smuts or the superb Tony Abbott - who disdains Anglophobia.  These naturally confident fellows have the rare courage to value what is great about the Englishman rather than to disdain it.

So bear all this in mind the next time some red-faced Celtic hedgerow-dweller buttonholes you at the rugger and launches into some interminable tirade about "English arrogance".  English arrogance is not the problem; Celtic inferiority is the problem and will remain the problem until they jolly well grow up.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Yet to be convinced

What ho, Englishmen!

So what do we make of the England XV to take on the Scotch then, chaps?  Rather underwhelming, no?  I'm happy enough with the pack - lots of beefy yeomen who won't let Her Majesty down - but the backs trouble me.  I tend to agree with Jim Telfer about Monye and Armitage - they are a lazy pair of blighters who ought, by rights, to be eating melons in an African kraal rather than representing Blighty at rugger.  It baffles me that Ashton and Foden (regrettably oikish though they may be) haven't been given the nod.  Moreover, I think we lack a Will Carling-type character to marshal the backline.  There are too many footballer types and too few officers. 

Carling, alas, is retired.  But we have the next best thing in Mr Tindall.  This son of the Yorkshire soil is a magnificent beef merchant with a cracking taste in fillies.  He might not be the most elegant centre of all time, but he has phlegm, he knows how to defend, and he can carry England over that all-important gainline. 

One more thing: what the dickens is Johnno playing at including a dashed Boer in the squad?  Good heavens, "Hendre Fourie from Burgersdorp" wearing the Red Rose?  Whatever next?  First Maoris, now Boers: which ancient tribal enemy of the English will Johnno pick next?  An Aborigine on the wing?  A North American Indian packing down at hooker?  Some psychotic Pashtun at centre?  Quite frankly, chaps, I think it's getting beyond a joke and it's high time that someone at the RFU had a quiet word in Johnson's ear.

Not sure about this Johnson fellow.  An over-promoted sergeant major, if you ask me.  Time will tell.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Must we continue to suffer for playing by the rules?

What ho, rugger buggers!

Well I'll be deuced if those Irish rotters haven't done it again!  The scoundrels from across the water stole into HQ and pilfered an undeserved victory for the third time in four visits, and I'm getting rather fed up with it.  Of course, no upstanding Englishman minds losing a fair fight between two honourable sets of chaps playing by the rules.   But one absolutely minds a pack of crafty, cynical, duplicitous Paddies skulking around Twickers, holding back the England scrum half at every opportunity, and generally lying over English ball and illegally sacking English mauls!

This is the problem with international sport, chaps.  Back in the day, we English invented these games so that hearty fellows from the shires could run around in the fresh air and have a good old “sesh” afterwards.  Sport was not to be taken seriously.  It was not, contrary to Orwell, ever supposed to be “war minus the shooting”.  That regrettable development occurred only when all  these horrible foreigners latched onto our games and took them all far too seriously.  For the English, rugger is an amusing jape and a welcome excuse to get down and dirty with a few beefcakes.  (In a purely platonic and non-homosexual way, of course!)  For the Irish – and all the other countries – it’s an excuse to rub English noses in the dirt.

So our brave English lads took to the Twickers turf on Saturday with the intention of playing a jolly good game in the most honourable manner possible, at all times extending due courtesy and respect to the opposition.  The Irish, on the other hand, took to the Twickers turf with the intention of re-creating the Battle of the Boyne and winning by whatever nefarious means necessary.  

Of course, throughout history we English have been exceedingly generous to our poor Irish neighbours, rather as a wealthy landowner occasionally doles out a few splodges of wonga to a feckless serf.  We industrialised the place, sought to ween them from their barbarous mystical Celticism, protected them from the dastardly Jerries in WWII (for no thanks, I hasten to add!) and even gave the blighters work on our building estates when they could find none at home.

And what do we get in return?  Outright skulduggery, that’s what.

And what we do we get when we play the Australians at cricket?  We get called “Pommie cunts” for five days.

I’m jolly well fed up with it, and I think it might be time that we either a) take these games as seriously as all these chippy foreigners do – which means performing in sport as we do in war, i.e. always winning (which would be rather dull) – or b) forget the whole thing and just play amongst ourselves, thereby avoiding the insidious deviancy of these lesser breeds.

One only has to look at English soccer players – who now dive as often as the Latins do  - to realise that option (a) has the potential seriously to  undermine the moral fabric of our nation.  Indeed, is it any surprise that our politicians began to fiddle their expenses only after encountering the corrupt moeurs of Johnny Foreigner at their European Union meetings?  

I do believe that we spend far too much time in the company of foreigners, and that we have no hope of restoring Britain to greatness until we jolly well tell them to bugger off, and stick to our own kind in future.  Therefore, I hereby call for English sporting autarky until such time as the dastardly Celts and ferociously aggressive Antipodeans can prove to us that they are capable of playing like gentlemen. 

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback