is it just me?
Or does this subheader from the Guardian have a certain, er, resonance?Lukas Podolski's goals maintain Germany's unbeaten record against the Poles
posted by Peter The Great @ 11:07 AM
Monday, June 09, 2008
Lukas Podolski's goals maintain Germany's unbeaten record against the Poles
Oh, it's you. How lovely to see you. Come in, browse a while. You're welcome.
11 Comments:
It seems clear to me that any Germany-Poland fixture should, by law, have a section of the stadium into which only English fans are allowed, with tickets available at a discount. The situation cries out for our fans' famous sense of 'humour'.
A double blow for the Poles given that Podolski is Polish...
He's also not the sharpest tool in the box (although he is a tool, and he does get into the box quite a bit).
Interviewed in the German paper Der Spiegel (which translates as the Mirror, so I suppose we whould already be lowering our expectations), he explained that "Fußball ist wie Schach, nur ohne Würfel" - "football is like chess, only without the dice". Genius.
To make matters worse, the ChessBase site which alerted me to this howler (ChessBase are the leading chess software provider and also hail from Germany), then came up with the following:
"While we are on the subject and have an excuse for discussing football here, are we the only ones to notice that the American version of football – played with an oval ball which you are allowed to handle – is much closer to chess than the European 'soccer'? American Football, which in the US is known simply as 'football' (just as Chinese food in China is simply called 'food'), is played on a checkered field by two players, who have eleven pieces each, some white but most black. The players, known as quarterbacks, plan moves and strategies, which they attempt to execute, with the other player will use his pieces to try and refute the moves of his opponent. In football, unlike in chess, physical violence is condoned, which is why players come to the field heavily armed and padded."
I have to say that I was left still struggling for the analogies, frankly. I did like the idea, though, that in China, Chinese food is simply known as 'food' - reminiscent of "it's a race of people but it's also a food".
Also the reference to the 11 "pieces" (as opposed to the 16 each player gets in chess) being "mostly black" (chess is firmly committed to equality with exactly the same number of white and black pieces - although discrimination has still not been eradicated entirely as White gets to go first and tends to score slightly more than 50% as a result).
siokoaoPlease, someone - take the keyboard from him.
Look, I've got a very complicated Bill to deal with at the moment and I need my moments of recreation. Get back to your steak like a good Pellet.
I'm with ya Dump. 52% at grand master level but hey, someone has to go first and the selection process for who is white is random so everyone has an equal chance in the end.
FG
without allowing for skill of course and if I were playing you I would stand precicely a 0% chance of winning,white or otherwise.
I've got a complicated Bill as well, but you don't see me holding forth on the esoteric intricacies of, say, the relative merits of air or ground source heat pumps....
Quite right - but nor was I holding forth on the definition of qualifying earnings for the basis of pension contributions or the impact of allowing people to buy back lost year's National Insurance contributions ...
Anyway, it's given you all something to bleat about in Peter's absence.
Could we have something light hearted? And not about David Davis?
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