Letters: England and the World Cup

Thursday, 29 June 2006

Share
Close
- Digg
- del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Reddit
- Google
- Stumble Upon
- Fark
- Newsvine
Print
Email

Sorry, but I actually want England to win the World Cup

Sir: Some of the criticism of England's World Cup team from your sports writers appears to err on the vituperative side. I can't work out whether the coverage of England's progress - for that is what it in fact is - through the tournament is a manifestation of a self-flagellating post-imperial guilt or some kind of curious hubris - in that we are not resoundingly thrashing teams who don't have the decency to wilt in our presence. It's certainly pleasing that Germany may now be coming to terms with its past, but, if a football team is a microcosm of the nation it represents, have you come to terms with ours?

I can only proffer my most humble apologies when I divulge that I am thoroughly enjoying "our" progress through the 2006 World Cup, irrespective of "our" admittedly below-par aggregate of Points For Artistic Endeavour. Indeed, I actively hope "we" win it (whilst being concurrently sanguine enough to concede this would be a most unexpected turn of events).

DAVID STEVENS

LONDON SW15

Sir: I've read James Lawton's coverage of the World Cup with great interest and would like to thank him for introducing me to a genuinely new experience: wanting England to win the competition. I may find the attendant nationalism disturbing but it'd be worth it to read his reaction in the aftermath.

JIM GRUNDY

HUCKNALL, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Sir: Brian Viner (26 June) quite rightly condemns Scottish racism against English people (although he remains silent when it comes to inflatable Spitfires and anti-German sentiment). Sadly, with his saloon-bar tales, he damns all Scots as guilty by association with the bigots.

For the record, I am a Scot and I will support anyone who plays against England. I am not a racist. I live and work in England, my partner and vast majority of friends are English. But this is football. Everyone around where I live hates Manchester United and wishes Mancunians dead. So what if, in a sporting context, I wish England to lose? They are my biggest sporting rivals. Always have been, always will be.

Please don't shame me into supporting England just because of the actions of a few racists. So, come on Portugal!

COLIN MCPHERSON

WALLASEY, MERSEYSIDE

Sir: In the weeks running up to the World Cup, and since it began, you will not believe the number of cars I have seen flying French flags in support of the French World Cup squad. One.

MARTIN HOLLYWOOD

ST SAMSON-SUR-RANCE, FRANCE

Persecuting sex offenders is futile

Sir: While Sara Payne (Letters 27June) writes from a position of tragic personal experience, her solution to the problem of child abuse would undoubtedly increase the chance of paedophiles reoffending upon release.

As Johann Hari (Opinion, 22 June) quite rightly states, an atmosphere of persecution and fear can only induce a dangerously fatalistic attitude among offenders, scuppering whatever meagre rehabilitative measures may have been taken to help them overcome their illness.

While Payne criticises Hari's statistics on the relative failure of "Megan's Law" in the States, she fails to mention the convincingly low levels of reoffence achieved through calm, private rehabilitation in the community. That, I'm afraid, is where the solution lies.

TOM EYERS

CAMBRIDGE

Sir: When living in Florida, I witnessed the cruel and vicious persecution of a minor and non-predatory sex offender. Living in the block of flats that I did was a woman posted on the registry website as a sex offender. She did not look like a predator, but was very small, pathetic and epileptic. Her face bore a constant expression of fear.

She kept to herself in cruel and total isolation, in a desperate attempt to be left alone. This didn't prevent her from being attacked. On one occasion she was hit in the face, breaking her nose and permanently disfiguring her. On another she was kicked in the leg, breaking it. Burning rags were pushed through her door, nearly causing a dangerous and fatal fire in the flats. She was blamed for this, as if she had set the fire.

Eventually she took the only escape, by committing suicide. It transpired that her original offence had been to let a 15-year-old boy fondle her breasts, for which she was placed on a short term probation.

Whatever we may do to strengthen the law, we should rely on our own common-sense, not emulate America's inflammatory insanity.

JACK KOVAL

LONDON E1

Committed to rights of disabled people

Sir: Your article "Charity Boss quits after backlash at home closures" (16 June) was unjust. The "backlash" has come from parents or staff with a vested interest in the status quo - not disabled people themselves.

Tony Manwaring was an exception among non-disabled people. He was completely committed to disabled people's rights, as well as ensuring that Scope reprovisioned its services, fit for the 21st century, not, as the media keeps proclaiming, closing them. He was also determined that Scope work with disabled people for change in society at large.

To suggest that the Free to Pee campaign, one facet of an overall campaign called Time to Get Equal, was a "headline grabbing gimmick" was insulting and disablist and illustrates the complete failure of the media to recognise disabled people as human beings with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else.

Parents may like to have their disabled adult children safe behind institutional walls, but disabled people want to live independent and lives in the world outside.

Just as the ANC needed the support of white anti-apartheid activists, so do those of us fighting for the rights of disabled people need the support of non-disabled individuals and organisations.

Tony Manwaring's attempts to turn around the charitable and patronising oil tanker that used to be Scope were exciting and unique. The challenge is whether the trustees and staff can continue that undertaking.

RACHEL HURST

HULLAVINGTON, WILTSHIRE JIM ELDER-WOODWARD ALEXANDRIA, DUNBARTONSHIRE

Our demolition of the natural world

Sir: I was strangely touched to read of Deborah Orr's childhood belief in the message contained in Born Free and Ring of Bright Water (24 June). Having acted in both films in the 1960s, I would like to tell her that, as an adult, I too believed in them being "unanswerable statements of the animal conservation movement". For me they were also life-changing.

In spite of man's singular lack of understanding and how our thoughtless and greedy demolition of the natural world has inevitably brought us to the stark plight we - and the animals - face today, I still believe that any message, however old or new, that moves or inspires us to love and respect has power to save the earth and its amazing creatures.

Gone are the days when you were seen as a person who cared about animals or humans - or believed that "It will be sorted out tomorrow." We are joined at the hip and it is crisis time.

VIRGINIA MCKENNA

CO-FOUNDER, THE BORN FREE FOUNDATION HORSHAM, WEST SUSSEX

The supermarket is here to stay

Sir: I suspect that Terence Blacker ("Tear down these ugly cathedrals of capitalism", 27 June) is like the husband in a happy family I know who "doesn't do shopping".

I am a 70-year-old widower living alone. My nearest shopping town is four miles away, my nearest large supermarket about seven. I shop in both, and enjoy both, but shopping in the near town involves wandering from street to street and carrying bags back to a distant car park; but I do see friends occasionally, and chat to shopkeepers.

For the supermarket, I have my shopping list on a computer database, with the shelf numbers as well. I tick the items I want and the computer prints out my shopping list in shelf order. I can complete my big shopping trips without doubling back on the aisles and with the minimum of effort and time. The supermarket is the only shop I know of where I can find such odd things as tins of smoked oysters and squid, or a large choice of tea, coffee and dried herbs. My car is outside and takes me and my load home.

In my near town the shops doing well are the ones that provide a service that the supermarkets cannot, such as the hardware shop, the news agent, and a secondhand book shop with the most varied range original of greetings cards I have ever seen.

I am afraid the supermarket, ugly as it may be, is here to stay for those of us that have to "do shopping", and I think life will adapt to it, because that is how life evolves.

DAVID FOSTER

WHATFIELD, SUFFOLK

Cyclists' behaviour is getting worse

Sir: I cycled to work in central London for about eight years, covering about 20 miles each day. Two years ago I gave it up, and then restarted last week.

In two years there appears to have been a fundamental change in behaviour. Cyclists are much, much worse today. Apart from cycling through red lights, there seems to be no respect for other road users, including other cyclists. Car drivers on the other hand seem to be much more aware of cyclists than two years ago and if treated with courtesy cause few problems for experienced cyclists.

MARTIN THOMASON

WELLING, KENT

Sir: We should all celebrate the phenomenal growth in cycling in Britain over the past few years, despite the almost complete lack of real investment in cycling infrastructure. But while we are still waiting for continental-style bike lanes, the cycling community has been overwhelmed by the plethora of "national bodies" to promote cycling, more often than not at the taxpayer's expense.

The organisations include British Cycling, Scottish Cycling, Cycling Scotland and Cycling England. Sustrans and the Cyclists' Touring Club, who have long done an admirable job, are now finding their work being duplicated, often undermined, by new quangos with identical remits.

The long-term work of the CTC in promoting leisure and commuter cycling is at risk now that British Cycling has branched out into this market, away from its traditional work in sport cycling. It is also now aiming its activities at school children, a laudable aim were it not that Sustrans has spent years setting up a reputation in this field, with travel plans, safe routes to schools and Bike It projects.

Government, both at Westminster and in the devolved administrations, prefers to set up yet more organisations rather than actually spending money on infrastructure. It is not websites that will increase cycling and make it safer, it is proper cycle lanes.

MICHAEL MCNAB

EDINBURGH

Sir: Motorists hate cyclists because they don't pay road tax nor the penalties imposed when motorists are caught breaking the rules. Pedestrians and motorists hate cyclists because so many of them break the rules and get away with it. We cyclists who scrupulously obey the rules hate the cyclists who don't, because we all get blamed for the dangerous anti-social behaviour of some.

If cyclists had to take lessons and demonstrate their knowledge of the Highway Code and to carry L plates until they pass proficiency tests, and had licences to lose for their misdemeanors, might they not only gain respect as road users but be better and safer cyclists?

PETER FORSTER

LONDON N4

Salacious magazines

Sir: Claire Curtis-Thomas wants to restrict the display of lads' mags denigrating women (Opinion, 28 June). I presume she will now call for similar action on women's magazines that are crammed with pictures of half-naked men, articles dismissing men as stupid and useless and salacious drivel about sexual positions dressed up as lifestyle and health advice. No? Thought not.

JUDE SHEERIN

GLASGOW

Aggressive war

Sir: I'm sorry that James Goldman (letter, 28 June) still seems to believe in a link between the perpetrators of 9/11 and the then rulers of Iraq. Bush and Blair could find no link, and had to cook up WMD to justify the invasion. In the absence of WMD or such a link, I shall continue to agree with Dr Ian Melley (letter, 27 June) that the US and UK are unjustified aggressors in Iraq. This is not to say that I liked Saddam Hussein any better than the other dictators we have not attempted to depose.

DAVID WATSON

GORING HEATH, OXFORDSHIRE

Secular state

Sir: The Rev Mike Haslam confuses the state with the nation ("Don't ignore the faith of millions", 27 June). The state is secular. It is only on this secularist basis that any state can provide equality and fairness for the variety of individuals within the nation. Some of these individuals, as Mr Haslam correctly notes, are religious, and they certainly should not be discriminated against, so long as they do not attempt to undermine the secularism and pluralism of the state. We had quite enough of that in 1687. Never again.

DR MICHAEL HALLS

EXETER

Off-road machismo

Sir: I have followed the discussion on 4x4s, and agree that they are largely pointless. However, we are fortunate enough to live in a free country, where an individual's choice of vehicle has to be indulged. However, a minor adjustment to the law might solve the problem. Instead of being all black and chrome, with names like "Trojan" and "Warrior"; all 4x4s would have to be painted soft pink, with lime green plastic upholstery, and have names like "Twinkletoes" or "Fluffybunny". That way, only those with a genuine need would drive them.

SAM LITTLE

HALE, CHESHIRE

By any other name

Sir: I welcome The Independent's campaign for declining plant life but the picture that you printed on 28 June is of a Phalaenopsis, not the lesser butterfly orchid, the subject of the article. Phalaenopsis is sometimes known as the Moth orchid. Perhaps that is where the error crept in.

MICHAEL DE SWIET

LONDON N6