15 December 2005
Pipes of Peace
Jonny says: “I light a candle tooooo our love,” warbled Paul McCartney, one of the most talented surviving Beatles in his really very good Christmassy song.
The video featured the famous bit in the first world war when we stopped shooting each other and played the Germans at football. Pretty well everybody who claimed to take part has died, apart from Jeffrey Archer, but people still remember the event as a spontaneous bit of love in an era that was, in general, a bit of a bummer for civilisation.
We don’t really know much about the match, but I would think the Germans won it, as otherwise the song would go: “Two world wars and one world cup and the game we had in the middle of the war at Christmas”. It doesn’t really matter. It was only a friendly and nobody really takes those that seriously. The football that is, not the war. The war was so serious that we had a rematch, but the result stood so there could be no argument and nobody would ever mention it again apart from ‘Little Englanders’ who go on and on and on about it at every opportunity in a tasteless manner.
I’ve lost my thread. Oh yes. It’s a tribute to the universal language of football that despite all that war business with the Germans, our nations are now great friends, in Europe together, all drive BMWs etc. You can compare that with the relationship between the Germans and the Americans (who did NOT play them at football during the war), where they continue to argue over foreign policy, get sent David Hasselhoff, etc. I think my point is made.
The thing is that in the interests of future world peace, I’m trying to get a few people together for a game against al-Qaida so if anybody is interested please get in touch and we’ll take things from there.
Modern warfare being a bit different to the simple ‘trench vs trench’ model of the 1910’s, getting the logistics sorted has been a bit more difficult that I thought, but I’m hopeful that we can arrange something that’ll work out.
As I understand it, al-Qaida (UK branch) is from Yorkshire, whereas I suppose our front line has been Central London. That would make no-man’s-land around Peterborough which would seem eerily appropriate. I will be OK to supply the ball (it is just down the A47) but the ‘either for us or against us’ line is proving unhelpful in sourcing a good neutral referee.
I am hoping that Hans Blix will reply to my email soon, although if we can’t get him I will try Stephen Fry, as nobody could ever have anything against Stephen Fry or accuse him of cheating. I’m not sure how up with the rules he is, and he will have to be quite firm to deal with the notoriously physical approach of the Qaida boys, or any dubious ‘hook of God’ goals.
One issue I have yet to resolve is that of date. Of course the two sides don’t actually share a holy day, so my provisional plan is to split the difference and hold it on pancake day, when there is almost as much joy and goodwill around (due to delicious pancakes). That gives us around two months to get everything together and... oh hang on, thinking about it, this blog is meant to be about Christmas things only.
I really didn’t think this one through.
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