Dangerous T-shirts, testing tea bags,raving coaches and dodgy defenders!

Rather than the beginning, which always seems to get more than its fair share of starts, let's go back a couple of weeks, to when this colyoom showed surprise and disgust at Prince Charles' apparent lack of grey matter.
For those of you who managed to escape my blather that week, we're talking about how the heir to the British crown had appeared nonplussed when (the then) President Reagan served him up a cup of Rosy Lea with a teabag in it.
"I didn't know what to do!" grumbled the Prince, precipitating a mean-spirited diatribe from your scribbler.
One sensitive local soul, who shall remain nameless for fear of being outed a staunch monarchist in this Republic of Ireland, took the time and trouble to point out that, quite possibly, I had missed the point; shot my load in the wrong direction, as it were.
She reminded me that over in Yammerikka, it was quite possible that Chazza's cuppa was in fact not a cup at all, but a mug, served without saucer.
Given that set of circumstances his Princeship might indeed not have known what to do, as in 'what to do ... with the bag'.
After all, you wouldn't want to dump a wet squidgy payload onto the polished oak desk of the White House's Oval Office, would you?
Hey, leave Bill Clinton out of this.
The obvious question that follows is 'Do we care?', and the temptation is to say 'Only as much as Bertie Ahern cares about repaying those 'loans' from his mates.
But this colyoom is nothing if not fair. That item slammed the Boy Windsor for being even more brainless than his host. Now, thanks to time taken by an absurdly caring and ridiculously imaginative Galwegian, I retract my accusation.
Yes folks, it is possible that Prince Charles is an eentsy bit brainier that the (late) Ronald Reagan, even if Big Ears hasn't yet had an airport named after him.
While we're looking back at recent colyooms, thanks to Chris from Yorkshire (who reads the colyoom on the blog) who, inspired a few weeks ago by the wee item about logos lost in translation, alerted me to a certain T-shirt that was, up until recently, on sale in Burton, the male clothing retail giant.
Helping lads look all 'ard and effnic, said T-shirt sports a quasi-imperial crest, surrounded by well-foreign-looking letters; a look, no doubt; that makes you want to get drunk in Nottingham and beat up a few police after the pub.
Well, while you'd be okay wearing it darn va nick in Nottingham, don't go displaying it in Moscow's Red Square, because the shirt's crest turns out to be the emblem of the Russian equivalent of the fascist National Front Party, and those funny lickle shapes spell out the heart-warming message:
'We will cleanse Russia of all non-Russians!'
How charming! How scary! How did that happen?
Or, to be more honest, how come this kind of thing doesn't happen more often? In our modern yet tiny global village, so many, like me, live our lives in foreign countries, it is only a matter of time before tremendous linguistic faux pas dribble forth.
Giovanni Trapattoni, who I strongly suspect might be Italian, is the coach of Austrian soccer champions, Red Bull Salzburg.
Showing a poetic talent that, despite his managerial achievements, suggests he might well have followed the wrong career, Snr. Trapattoni let rip at a bunch of German journalists (what, pray, is the collective noun for more than one journalist? A 'haemorrhoid' of hacks? Perchance a 'claptrap'' of correspondents? Or what about an 'emetic 'of Editors? ... email suggestions...) who were criticising his fitness coach, Fausto Rossi.
Breaking with timeless and sacred journalistic traditions, the German hacks delivered their revenge by printing exactly what the national coach said, word for word:
"Our training is strong. Is modern. Training wins also. I have 21 trophies. There is blah, blah, blah from you. Fools write who know nothing. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I can understand people paying. No problema! Let whistle, is right. Have lost. But run 90 minutes! I am a professional when it comes to psychology. We train, make fitness. You people always make qua, qua, qua! Shit fools!"
Very well said sir! I speak no Italian and only a little German, but reading that just makes me want to learn both languages, so that I can fully enter into your fascinating mind.
While we're on the subjects of words and footballers, David Hills of The Observer reminds us that we don't have to go to mainland Europe to become dazzled by footballing crassness.
Manchester Untied and England defender Rio Ferdinand (yes, the very same fella fined and suspended for 'forgetting' to turn up for a vital drugs test) decided that the time had come to put something back, to nurture his youthful roots, by fronting a major anti-knives campaign, alongside an anti-guns initiative.
Heading off to Downing Street, Rio talked to Tony Blair about how playing shoot-em-up games on PlayStations and other consoles is turning young lads into deadly marksmen, which has resulted in many young people in urban English 'sink estates' wearing body armour to protect them when they go outside.
One of the PM's staff later declared: "Kids have no male role model. Rio's just the man!"
Sadly, Rio turned out to be 'Da Man' more than the man, when a few short months later,
he listed in a magazine a few of his favourite things:
Rio's Favourite Rapper: Notorious B.I.G.
Nice one Rio! After all, what better music could you suggest to vulnerable young things than an artist whose tracklist includes such exemplary role model ditties as 'Somebody's Gotta Die'; 'Fuck You Tonight'; 'Niggas Bleed', and wholly enchanting 'Me and My Bitch'. B.I.G., an ex-dealer, was shot dead in a drive-by shooting during a gangland war.
Rio's Favourite Book: 'Cocky' which is the story of Curtis Warren, the notorious gangland criminal mastermind who made a fortune out of drugs and murder.
Rio's Favourite Console Game: SOCOM US Navy Seals, which is described in a review as:
'A game that lets you yank victims into the darkness and do the deed. There's a cool animation as the knife runs along their soft flesh...'
Clearly Rio Ferdinand is an all-round heads-up guy, more than able to lead Britain's at-risk youth into a life of violence, crime and... well, I suppose they could always become footballers instead!
cadley1@eircom.net
Double Vision
More cartoons.

For ignorance and incompetence, the British Royals are in a class of their own!

Many thanks to all the readers who couldn't wait to contribute to my personal debate on what it means to be English.
A couple of weeks ago this colyoom was floundering about, trying to find one definitive certainty that might be applied to the English.
Thanks to you, I am once again reminded that one thing that an Englishman can always rely on is the eagerness of the Irish to offer their thoughts on the English. Whilst none of these particular pearls of philosophical and political opinion presented anything new to me, there was one email, from John in Renmore, that separated itself from the usual bowl of hate spaghetti and post-Famine racist begrudgery to which an Englishman living in Ireland must become immune.
There are only so many times you can say
"It wasn't me. I wasn't there."
So in the end you don't bother.
Renmore John reminded me that to be English is to exist as a subject to the crown; to be a subject of the Queen, while each Irish person is a citizen of the republic.
It would be great to believe merely because the Irish are not nominally 'subjects' that they enjoy greater freedom, liberty and societal status, but we all know that is hogwash. Hierarchies exist everywhere, and my personal quest for independence from intrusive powers does not seek to dethrone our leaders, but merely to identify which ones might be least harmful.
My Gran was a staunch monarchist, and she loved to remind us of how hard life was for the Royal family. I would go as far as agree with her that if you're just looking for a quiet life, then to be born to rule might be a bit of a bummer.
For years I thought that Prince Charles was probably an okay dude. He liked his Scottish croft; did a bit of watercolour painting; wrote the odd children's book; grew his own veggies and very probably sampled a little home-grown in front of the fire of an evening.
There were stories about his ineptitude as a human being; how he had a valet who squeezed his toothpaste onto his toothbrush for him, but I pooh-poohed such talk as small-minded frippery.
During the early 1980's, had someone asked me whether I thought Ronald Reagan or Prince Charles was the most intelligent, I would have scoffed and snorted at having to make the comparison. Clearly the then US president was a mindless plastic puppet, while Prince Charles was maybe a tad eccentric, but well educated and intelligent.
How wrong I would have been.
Just after being shot in an attempted assassination, Ronald Reagan made a most fascinating entry in his (recently-released) diary:
'.then we learned I'd been shot and had a bullet in my lung. Getting shot hurts.'
Some more cruel than I might think this description of what most would consider a major life-event lacks power and poetry, but maybe it's brilliantly concise and to the point.
Whatever your criticisms may be, the man clearly knew what was going on.
Back in 1981, when Prince Charles visited Washington, President Reagan observed in his diary:
'Highlight was noon visit by Prince Charles. He's a most likeable person. The ushers brought him tea - horror of horrors - they served it our way with a tea bag in the cup. It finally dawned on me that he was just holding the cup and finally put it down on a table.'
Reagan goes on to explain that at this point, having for a while watched the heir to the British throne scrunching his nose and appearing confused, deputy Chief of Staff Mike Deaver had escorted the prince back to the White House, where appropriate apologies were made.
Perhaps because his ancestors had already lost ownership of the entire continent after a war of independence started by the Boston Tea Party, Prince Charles made an effort to minimise the chances of another tea-based international incident, by explaining:
"I didn't know what to do with it."
Good gord lord above mutha help us now. It scares the hell out of me that I could have been so wrong. The man didn't know what to do with a teabag? And there was I thinking that he was generally as able as the next person to play king to my subject.
Thanks, John in Renmore, for making me wonder once more about the Royal family, and (never thought I'd live to see the day when I said this) thanks to President Reagan, for showing me that on a scale of ignorance, stupidity, incompetence and inanity, the British Royals are truly in a class of their own!

*****

Mind you, the yanks are well able to upset foreigners themselves, and not just by waging war against them. Major American corporations seem to specialise in thinking up potentiallyoffensive gems.
When US beer giant Coors unleashed their slogan 'Turn It Loose' on the massive Spanish-speaking market, they were clearly unaware that they were telling their potential customers to 'Suffer from Diarrhoea'.
The Coca-Cola Corporation upset millions of Thai people, by suggesting that the soft drink would 'Add Life', which translated into the local vernacular as 'Coke Will Bring Your Dead Ancestors Back To Life.'
Back in 1996, some genius in the marketing department of shoe giant Reebok decided the time was right to introduce a new woman's tennis shoe called the 'Incubus'. Just a bit of a shame, really, that nobody told them how Incubus was in fact a demon from medieval mythology who performed unspeakable sexual acts upon unwilling and unwitting women as they slept.
For my personal favourite we have to go to Brazil, where the quintessential American car brand Ford launched the 'Pinto' model with their customary multi-million dollar razzmatazz, until some gentle local soul had the courage to point out that they might just have a lickle ickle bit of a problem flogging a car that had the same name as the popular local slang term for tiny male genitals.
Anyone fancy a Peugeot Cocklet injection? How about a spin in an Alfa Romeo Fat Arse GTi?
cadley1@eircom.net