BELLEND, BOOK AND BACKHANDLE

SENSITIVE AND KIND-HEARTED PEOPLE will no doubt share my sportsmanlike attitude towards recently re-elected elderly president of FIFA Joseph S. Bellend Blatter, the victim of a cruel campaign by the United States government and the British media over allegations that, as he himself termed it, "wrongdoing" had been enacted by members of the governing body of the world football association.

NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH, as we all know now, and, as he stated yesterday, if it had been the case he would not have known anything about it but has nevertheless been doing his best to stop it happening, although it wasn't happening, over the last four years, and has this morning announced that he has a plan to stop what wasn't happening happening anymore within the next four years.

WHILE THIS IS EXCELLENT ALBEIT PUZZLING NEWS, it should not be allowed to overshadow the recent announcement by former British Prime Minister the Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair that he is standing down as Middle-East special peace envoy after successfully completing his mission.

ALL DECENT PEOPLE WILL SURELY JOIN with me in congratulating Mr Blair for his good work over the recent years, now that we have arrived at a situation of peace in the middle east that is unprecedented in its scope. I must admit that although I have not been an assiduous visitor to the region in the past, I am now tempted to take my good lady wife on a relaxing shopping trip to Syria later in the year.

YET EVEN MR BLAIR pales in comparison with the achievements of former Portuguese socialist prime minister and electrician António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, who was appointed in 2005 as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. His ten-year tenure as the single and most highly-paid official in charge of solving the problems of refugees throughout the world has been a resounding success.

THANKS TO THESE GOOD PEOPLE, it is clear today that there has never been a better time to be a refugee, a citizen of a Middle-Eastern country or a member of a football confederation in a third world country. Or perhaps more specifically, to be one of the three gentlemen mentioned above, with a collective, undeclared, but estimated earning capacity of over 600 million US dollars per annum. Tips not included.

NOT SO GAY ON THE WESTERN FRONT

MANY COMMENTATORS ON THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS last week have correctly attributed this past weekend’s events as being something of a ‘gayfest’, as popular parlance deems it today. Very rarely do we have the Eurovision Song Contest, the Chelsea Flower Show and a referendum on same sex marriage taking place over the same 48-hour period. On the face of it, this would certainly be a reason for celebration for those good people among us who like their liberty to be liberally spread.

 

ALTHOUGH EUROVISION SONG CONTEST RESULTS hardly ever go the way of what would be sensible in the mind of any discerning adult with an ear for music, this time the race between Swedish Mans Zelmerlow, a singer who does a very good impression of a guide at a pony trekking club, and Russian Polina Gagarina, who does a very good impression of a girl who hasn’t eaten for a year, kept excited Eurovision fans on the edges of their pouffes almost to the last minute.

 

HOWEVER, DARKER RUMBLINGS MAY perhaps be at play judging by other, somewhat less newsworthy, activity over the same period. Germaine Greer, the famous one-time spokesharridan for the "women's lib" movement in the sixties and seventies, has come out to criticise cuddly former pop star Elton John because his husband David Furnish is named as 'mother' on birth certificates of their two sons. According to Greer, the freedom granted to homosexual men to indulge in marriage and then adopt children should not extend to one of them being allowed to call himself a "wife" or "mother".

 

ALSO SOMEWHAT DISTURBING FOR FREEDOM LOVERS is the fact that the Russian singer Gagarina is apparently in trouble back home for having "hugged and kissed" the bearded Austrian Diva Conchita Wurst, thus, according to some sources, having given a good image to homosexuality.

 

NOR IS ALL WELL IN THE EMERALD ISLE if comments broadcast on one of the major news channels are an indication of popular feeling. Two bearded motorcycling gentlemen interviewed on Monday, fiancés "Ginger" Monahan and Frankie O'Tèardrop, proved that the motivation behind the changes in Irish law are perhaps more sinister and vengeful than one thinks. Said O'Tèardrop, "Thirty-five years ago Catholic priests could shaft you up the arse and you were afraid to tell your mother. Now we've shafted them."

EUROVISION NEWS 2015

ONCE AGAIN, ANNUALLY AND DESPITE the fact that I have more to do on my plate than countenances average understanding, I feel it is my duty to inform my readers about the import and outcome of tomorrow's Eurovision Song Contest, which, barring sport, is without any doubt the most important media production of the year, should viewer figures and production costs be an indication.

ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT aspects of this year's festival is the somewhat unusual inclusion in the umbrella term 'Europe' of Australia, a country which, if history tells us anything, will wipe the floor with the Europeans and win the competition without having to include cripples in wheelchairs, tattooed vampires, manic street preachers, bearded ladies, dwarfs or women so obese they would probably not even make the cut for the last song in an Italian opera for fear of breaking the stage.

YET, I HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO UNDERSTAND, the major talking point of the event this year is the fact that very few of the countries who have entered will be singing in what one used to be able to call their "native tongue". English seems to be the language of choice for those who (presumably) wish to jolly up our lives tomorrow. Nothing, of course, is wrong with this, as anyone who listens to what the children call 'pop' music nowadays, knows that this is generally produced in English. However, some countries have decided to buck the trend, and will be performing in the languages of the countries in which they were born. What follows is my own personal guide for those who may not understand these languages, thus, I believe, doing my own bit to aid mutual understanding among nations.

LUXEMBOURG -- JOHNNIE JUNK

FRESH-FACED JOHNNIE will be hoping to emulate his success in his domestic career with the sparkling, witty ditty "Taxevasiöhaven", telling of the tribulations of someone desperately in love with money, a love which is unrequited, forcing the singer to seek out more and more money until, perhaps, albeit an unlikely event, true money can be found.

BELGIUM -- LUKE NUTTER

IT WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT for this year's entrant to manage to go beyond the result of Sandra Kim, with J'aime la Vie" in 1986, but, more importantly, there is the enormous shadow hanging over Belgians after the phenomenal success of crooner Herman Humpty von Dumpty Doo, who remained top of the charts for almost five years with his Belgian cool jazz dialect song "Udontnohuaiam".

PORTUGAL -- KIKA CUNHA E CUNHA

UNFORTUNATELY FOR KIKA, PORTUGAL has not managed to enter the final stages of the competition, despite great efforts from the internationally-renowned designers Panasque et al., who managed to cover her in a latex tube in an attempt to win the competition if it had been held in the nineteen eighties. Portugal's Eurovision situation will no doubt be problematic for several years to come, with them finding it extremely difficult to follow on from the major star Duran Duran Barroso and his hit "Robiustilchitfulufucustitchiupe", which resonated throughout Europe for so long.

ON THE MATTER OF WHO MAY WIN this event, given that it would somewhat embarrassing to award the prize to Australia, I am minded to opt for Hungary, a country which, through machinations beyond my intellect, has managed to persuade Catherine "Kate" née Middleton Cambridge to sing for them.

THE LABOUR PARTY

WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED earlier today that Catherine Elizabeth "Kate" née Middleton, nowadays the Duchess of Cambridge, had gone into labour there were whoops of joy from those involved with the media throughout the countries who care about such matters. The atmosphere in front of the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital was that of a party; more specifically that of people who had been sitting around in the cold and drizzle for two weeks waiting for a party to start.

 

FIRSTLY, OF COURSE, THERE WAS the fact -- almost explicitly admitted live on Sky TV by a fruity, girly journalist from a French glossy magazine -- that news outlets worldwide would now be able to call their correspondents back to their desks instead of allowing them to carry on with their exorbitant expenses while they look into blank lenses at closed hospital doors and spend money in London cocktail bars.

 

SECONDLY, THIS MEANT THAT we would soon be able to see the appearance at the same doors of dapper, balding Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, giving a much-needed boost to two of the most relevant campaigns in recent history: fresh calls for the succession to skip the mentally-challenged Prince Charles in favour of his son, and a welcome fillip to the British fashion industry as half of the young 30-something ladies in Britain and almost all of the same type of women in France go out to buy whatever she is wearing, or at least a copy of it, hurriedly produced by Primark and cobbled together in Hindustan.

 

BUT THE HAPPIEST FOLKS this morning in the run-up to next Thursday's General Election will no doubt be the members of and those who follow David Cameron's Conservative and Unionist Party. The birth of something royal, with the subsequent unfurling of the Union Flag and Standard, tends to naturally make people feel more British. This will certainly put the dampers on the campaign being waged by the Scottish Nationalist Party, and may adversely affect Ed Miliband's anti-nationalistic, pro-European stance.

 

WHETHER, HOWEVER, ONE SHOULD agree with David Cameron's absurd statement that "the birth of a royal baby makes the whole nation feel happy" is rather more questionable. And even if many people who were feeling depressed suddenly do feel happy about babies being born, then I am sure that Cameron will find ways to return them to their current state when he introduces cuts in children's benefits after he is returned to office next Thursday.