| Perfil de 李照興照明室FotosBlog |  Herramientas  Ayuda |
|
22 junio 卓皮聖經改為新欄目 周末床上 敬請留意周末语录
看热闹者自有其乐趣。报纸上说，霍金访港京，瞬即掀起研究科学与宇宙探索的热潮。噢！连科研都要趁热闹。但多年前的我们又何曾不是。读到大学，不翻一下＜时间简史＞，也不算有半点知性与面子。（文化虚荣是我们求上进的原动力）。
于是我翻开床头已封尘的＜时间简史＞，重温宇宙大爆炸的光景。只记起伍迪艾伦在那部＜安妮荷尔＞中的童年往事： 年少的伍迪对老师说：我不再读书了。老妈问为何？ 孩子答：老师说宇宙正在爆炸！读书还有什幺用？ 霍金这次访问唯一的金句语录：我相信上帝一定十分沉闷，因为祂再无什幺新东西去探索。 （噢！还有另一个也可勉强算在内：我的发音机整体上都不错，只是说出来带美国口音。） 看完霍金就看球，美国人真没意思。在酒吧中看世界杯的人寥寥无几，布什为趁热闹，硬说白宫内都有不少员工是球迷。 如果美国人都会像美国以外的人一样有共同的视野一样的沉迷，或者她倒可避免她现在这样自我中心与无知。 说回看球：一个女人在床上看着似乎己沉迷了五小时而打救无望的丈夫，已经一个星期没理过她，只顾看球。妻子说：有什幺可争？不就一人派他一个球可了。 后来，夫妻立下约定，世界杯一个月期间，就分开居住好了。不好打扰各自的生活。 过了几天，妻子开始怀疑，丈夫离家不是为了看球，他是否有外遇？ 丈夫回答： 日常的工作及看球的时间表已挤得满满了，实在没有时间再插入一个女人。 这个妻子，大抵不会是巨蟹座。 巨蟹没这样不知情识趣。巨蟹，一就是好好照顾你的伴侣；一，就是很操纵你的。没有这样抱怨的。 在芸芸星座中，巨蟹算有婚姻命。巨蟹女好明显不及巨蟹男（巨蟹男仍是最佳老公），因为巨蟹那种倾向照顾他人的性格，埋于女人身上，就容易变本加厉，好听一点叫照顾周到，不好的就是：你以后就要听老婆话。 巨蟹之月到了，若你的另一半是巨蟹，当你准备要跟他／她庆祝之时，要同时考虑到：你是否这样一个愿意给别人摆布的人？21 junio 貝托魯奇橙
貝托魯奇橙
文：李照興
１ 事實上貝托魯奇有點變色龍。第一部摺高衫袖鼓起少年勇氣去拍的作品The Grim Reaper，師承柏索里尼，走的是寫實主義路線。那年他廿一歲，書都未讀完。后來的貝托魯奇（大抵是The Spider's Stratagem開始），某程度上是一種視覺風格，有人稱之為橙色年代──我或者會說是他跟Vittorio Storaro（攝影）與 Ferdinando Scarfiotti（製作或美術指導）合作的高峰期──而題材的關懷面，已不可同日而語。 雖然橙色年代的題材勉強都可用“情欲”兩個字去形容，但比起柏索里尼和貝洛奇歐等明顯較統一的主題與意識形態取向，后來的貝托魯奇就已不是左翼陣營的同流者，而是愈來愈有點布紐爾所形容的小資產階級的懷舊拘謹（＜情陷撒哈拉＞是模糊開始，＜戲夢巴黎＞已証實定案）。但最適宜統一地去記念貝托魯奇的，我想還是那種橙色調。或者說，是一種decadence。詳細一點來說，是一個臨近崩潰墮落之前的男人那最後風光。真夠頹廢末世。
２ 貝托魯奇、Vittorio Storaro與 Ferdinando Scarfiotti三人共合作過＜同流者＞、＜巴黎最後探戈＞、＜末代皇帝溥儀＞、＜情陷撒哈拉＞四部作品（＜革命前夕＞Storaro是助攝，而同樣由Storaro攝影指導的The Spider's Stratagem、1900、月亮和小活佛，Scarfiotti則沒參與）。善用光線與電影鏡頭動作，加以濾光，考究的場景設計，確立了我們所知的貝托魯奇橙。 對於Storaro來說，電影意味著以光與鏡頭郁動去繪畫。Scarfiotti提醒我們，道具置景也會成為一種motif一個角色。他們當然不是第一個這樣重視光影與置景的電影創作人，但他們用作品足夠把這系統化，學術化。那個七十年代，美國電影人紛紛受這股歐陸浪潮影響，奉這些新近大師為真理。Storaro及他後來的荷里活化，的確是影響了一整代美國（再透過美國影響世界）攝影師的一套標準。
３ 那究竟是怎樣一種風格呢？ 驚為天人的＜同流者＞仍然是那最初與最終的解釋。就像那種一拍即合的各自演繹，有了些少經驗今次不妨去到盡而結合出來的效果只可用無懈可擊來形容。這個真是彩數來的。很多創作人，就說，像這種導演攝影與美術的鐵三角，日后的轉變與風格，不是某個太搶就是互相消磨，最早的作品，雖然有點爆燈，去得太盡（事隔多年，重看時你就會奇怪當年為何會為此部些微矯情帶點造作，甚至稱得上是kitsch的＜同流者＞有點臉紅），但你那時欣賞的，也就是電影歷史發展大潮下的一種突破（當然還看當時你的心情及文化修為）。 若干年后重看＜同流者＞，＜巴黎最後探戈＞，你感到視覺上過份飽和是在所難免，但你也得佩服那份cinematic感覺及那樣豐富的視覺層次。那是電影也真是電影的年代。 我會單單為一個貼地前進郁動的鏡頭前面飛過枯葉而一生記住這部片的某一種細節；譚家明說當中角色對鏡起舞搖搖擺擺，那種自憐頹敗，啟發了＜阿飛正傳＞張國榮鏡前跳cha cha一段（我後來記起女主角的裙子，不知徐小鳳是否也受到啟發）；又或者＜巴黎最後探戈＞開場，那Munch式的街頭呼喊，那種人海中的流離孤獨，如果不是這樣衝過火車橋飛下來拍，又可以怎拍？清潔工邊在浴缸洗擦，一走進玻璃，她就變成Bacon畫中的扭曲臉容，而白蘭度的化妝又何曾不是按這種表現主義色彩造形而來。貝托魯奇把電影帶返那個電影仍舊可視為一種全能整合藝術的年代。我們在他電影中看到詩、畫、文學、音樂、攝影。 在訪問中，Storaro重提那份攝影與取色的張揚刻意。＜探戈＞那室內空間一景一物的橙色調絕配；向Bacon致敬的畫面；＜末代皇帝溥儀＞簡直用不同色調去劃分不同的角色生平（黃代表童年、綠代表少年、藍代表入獄及老年）。顏色與情節都是瀕臨委靡地唯美。在墮落之前，大抵也最快樂。那是眾多角色在故事中那綿綿之舞，一舞既罷，那就死得無憾。
４ 所以說，要把貝托魯奇脈絡化，就是說，把他的作品安放到電影史的綜向與橫向發展來欣賞。在那個七十年代，當新浪潮成為前衛時髦的東西，但從未真正進入到主流。而貝托魯奇用顏色與鏡頭跟你說：這是電影這是視覺的勝利，而且可征服全球。他用一種普羅公眾可接受可理解的表現主義精神與色彩，巧妙地把新浪潮的激進實驗與主流敘事套路（而非主流可接受的情節，特別是＜探戈＞）連接起來，代價是放棄了左派的批判性，甚或被label成了情欲片大師。在新浪潮以前是未有的，在同期的作者導演中，其商業上的成功也是突破性的。到此，你可以說他是一個通俗的作者導演。 七月香港 兩個大師回顧展 忙看戲 一個是奇斯洛夫斯基 逝世十周年 多少個晚上我們用他的音樂入眠 ; 另一個是貝托魯奇, 同流者 依然是一部那時看是經典 現在看很cult / kitsch 的片子.
一種so so 的人生觀
文：李照興
當年少的蕭邦早早揚名，彈奏著那輕柔中帶憂傷的琴韻，他二十歲那年離開自己國家之時，不知道自己的生命從此便成流放。或者弱小的國家，出來的就只配是流放的作品。然而，浪漫的精髓深入波蘭的傳統。儘管足足有近數世紀，波蘭人的浪漫，被壓迫在不同形式的極權統治、外族佔據之中，要算是1918年波蘭的名字重新在地圖出現，兩次世界大戰、德國納粹、共產政權、蘇聯幕後操控，都塑造了波蘭的文化特質，他們一方面對自己的文化自傲（畢竟是一個出產過哥伯尼與蕭邦的國家），另方面卻委屈於無數鄰國強權的壓力，變成一種扭曲，對著時代，命運究竟掌握在誰手裏？政府嗎？外人嗎？教宗嗎？上帝嗎？個人嗎？
一種對大環境的無措，造就對命運的思索。形成了奇斯洛夫斯基的題旨：宿命、神秘、意外、巧遇、不可知。
這種對生存狀態的疑問，巧妙地以奇斯洛夫斯基不同的電影體裁記下。他早年的紀錄片記錄了那個鐵幕時代的所謂真實（部份當然類近於政府宣傳片）：為達至宣傳或教育功能,一切都是計劃生產（那種工廠到街頭的場景，也難說不是另一種現實的刻意堆砌）,是唯物的，生產關係與階級設定了一切。然而，隨著七十年代到八十年代波蘭社會的自由風氣抗衡，其作品中亦流露出一點點反諷的意味，這也成了鐵幕時代東歐流行文化的重要特色：表面上合乎官方標準，但其實人人都讀得出當中的SUBTEXT。
奇斯洛夫斯基中期的劇情片（如政治三部曲）卻提出了另一種觀點：生命難以計劃,他未必會承認他拍的是政治片,但那又無可避免是政治性的。因為那是唯心的。 於是，奇斯洛夫斯基這時期的作品，變成一種對嚴肅呆板下生存狀態的反叛,但那也不是樂觀的激進或革命性的；而是轉而告訴大家，是未可知的,要算不是因政治、體制，人們的命運,無論是個人的,國家的,最終也只會走上未可知的結果,而我們不用大驚小怪。
所以說，奇斯洛夫斯基的作品本質是政治的,但態度是非政治的。有沒有納粹、共產黨,大抵都會走著同一條路，是未可知，也可能根本是命定。追不追上火車？是否遇上車禍？路上撞倒流浪狗與否，當中真有關連嗎？
電影只不過用全知的目光告訴觀眾命運的作弄,而現實中有更多的人海錯遇，歷史轉折不為人知。
它跟虛無主義不同的是：明知道人世的無常，虛無會放縱尋樂以自我為衡量一切的準則。奇斯洛夫斯基的，是有根的，雖然也明知人世無常，卻讚美人性的美善，對道德價值的試圖重拾，也是他最後一部親自完成的電影《紅》的題旨：博愛。
奇斯洛夫斯基作為導演傑出之處，是把觀眾引進到不同的兩難困局，然後告訴大家，人仍可如何好好活下去。
卡夫卡寫荒謬,點出了父親或上帝的缺席,官僚系統成了生存的困局。生命變成無止境的等待與浪擲。 奇斯洛夫斯基寫荒謬,把世情化為蝴蝶亂舞,上帝是否在場已不打緊,要算是在，他也只能袖手旁觀。救贖靠的,還是人世間的博愛關懷憐憫。也就是做人的本份。
所以，不要稱奇斯洛夫斯基是那種什麼照亮人性，什麼控訴共黨治下亂象的大導演。那一個充滿大師的年代已然過去，他說得對。回答那些宏大的人性題問，就正如在他那些紀錄片中的工廠經理、醫生、工人，不是為了任何偉大目的，而只不過是為了把工作做好。正如導演只會平常心的說一句：I’m so so。
生命本是如此。沒什麼大不了。 他最想的，是在一滴水中看世界。後來他真的拍出來，Veronique乘著火車，手握著玻璃球，折照飛快而過的窗外世界。對我來說，這是最動人的奇斯洛夫斯基時刻。女子不知道自己的方向，只有我們，後來把《紅》的結局在自己腦海剪接進去：玻璃球再看下去，大抵看到沉船生還者，當中有一個，披著一件大紅圍巾。 如果Veronique在當時就看見，她與觀眾，都不會慨嘆什麼。倒是我們後來看了,又重組，把兩者結合來看，就生出了人生機緣無常的慨嘆。奇斯洛夫斯基最大的成就是讓我們一次又一次做了一位全知的旁觀者，雖然影響不了大局，看透生命的循環因果，感覺極為so so。
15 junio 利群附近拆得七七八八利群附近拆得七七八八
由外銷口碑轉為京城內聞名的利群，最近被發現耍大牌之嫌。事緣朋友訂了九點一只鴨，去到等了半句鐘仍不見鴨踪，而鄰座老外去到差不多即時就有兩只。是生意太好不鼓勵國人幫襯還是另有原因，最近就為此特地查探。 發現另一回事：整段通向利群的胡同已拆得七七八八，可能是最后一次到利群了。 首先要改善的衛生條件，自然不見好轉。可能是這胡同內的鴨店，短期亦會遭逢拆遷命運。但做生意的基本操守，要為顧客好處著想這一點，已犯規。 烤鴨質素仍有水平，脆皮依然是最大賣點，而其他餸菜依然是不叫也罷，應該一人一只鴨就可以了，但環顧京城，可在舊胡同內領略烤鴨風味又有哪家？ 於是，帶朋友遊京，兜兜轉轉，還是要回到這家。 07 junio 婚礼杀人游戏婚礼杀人游戏
有没想过：婚礼同时是葬礼。 不是，我不是说恋爱坟墓那回事。说的，是一个人，特别是女人，她会用婚姻去跟前半生割断，婚礼就是这项割礼。在婚礼上，她可能第一次见识到男家的一众亲戚，相关的不相关的，她害怕在其少女荒唐日子里的一点一滴给男方的任何人耳闻目睹。她甚至怕被人家知道，自己原来有像你这一种朋友。只有你对今天这位漂亮新娘最清楚，因为只有你曾在夜深中在闺房内听过她哭诉，她的傻，她的不忠，然后她如何下定决心改投向今天那个新郎的怀抱。 在每个新娘子与她过往的密友之间，大抵都有一线危险的闪光划过，眼神像要说：恨不得把你去掉，这个世上再没有人懂得我的秘密。借着婚礼，新人将过往的历史埋葬。 所以，婚礼都是一场最模糊的杀人游戏。每个现身的人都貌不符实，加上有心人的刻意逃避，与及大部份新娘化妆的不似人形，几可断定：婚礼像一个威尼斯化妆舞会，每个人都要披着一项面具。 看到这因，就解释了那个果。说的是婚礼上旁观者的眼泪。 出现在婚礼上的眼泪有三种。第一种是媚俗的眼泪（昆德拉式用法），你看到在座每个人都那样感动，见证人的神圣庄严，与会者的眼泪盈眶，你无法不跟全人类共同经历这一份震人心弦的感动。第二种是最常见的感怀身世，如何一个个好友出嫁了，而我就永远只是坐在下面观看。 第三种，是领悟。从那新娘子回望群众时刻意回避了你的眼神，你知道，生命中曾经的一个重要朋友，从此以后就不再是你朋友，而不无重要的是：你毫无婉惜。只是禁不住掉了一滴不知是哀悼还是解脱的泪儿。 放心，旁人是不会知道个中私密的。就当是你感怀身世罢了。从而令人更欣赏你的念旧与自怜。 对于男人而言，参加婚礼也越来越教人失望，因为你开始发现过往鼓动你现身婚礼的原因，今天都不成理由：算了吧，你是不会在婚礼上遇到OK的女孩的！因为婚礼上的化妆与衣着，都不是人穿的。就当给面子朋友，只是现一现身，未等到公证人说完，又或者新人刚刚要开口，有一个黑影就已快快溜出了外面。或者是因为便急，或者是再受不了，或者是因为要掩饰快要掉出的眼泪。
06 junio NICK HORNBY說出了男人愛足球的真相England by Nick Hornby
Adapted from The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. HarperCollins, 2006. It was all so straightforward back in the 1960s, when I started to watch football. England had just won the 1966 World Cup, and, therefore, unarguably, was the best team in the world: fact, period, end of story. It's true that the winning goal in the final shouldn't have counted; true, too, that the Brazilians and Pelé were systematically beaten up in the '66 tournament, Pelé to the extent that he was carried off on a stretcher after the umpteenth brutal foul. But still, eh? The best! Probably! And we were the second-best team in 1970, clearly, although one has to be a little more creative with the evidence. Yes, England was knocked out in the quarterfinals. But they really shouldn't have been—they were 2–0 up against the Germans with twenty minutes left, and contrived to lose the game 3–2. Brazil won the 1970 World Cup, easily, but they only just beat us in the group stage of the tournament, 1–0. And Jeff Astle missed a sitter toward the end, so that game should have ended 1–1. Brazil thumped everybody else. So, to recap: easily the best team in 1966, and pretty much the best team—let's give the Brazilians some credit, and we'll settle on equal best—in 1970.
And then everything went wrong, pretty much forever. For a start, I became a grown-up, and became much more troubled about what it meant to belong to a country; meanwhile England's football team was hopeless. The equal-best team in the world didn't even qualify for the World Cup finals of 1974 and 1978; the world-class players we'd been blessed with during the 1960s had gone, and anyway, by the 1980s, the whole subject of patriotism and football had become much more complicated. In the mind's eye now, England games during that decade were frequently only just visible through a cloud of tear gas, used by European police to disperse our rioting hooligans. England fans were fast becoming a pretty sinister bunch; and though our club games were frequently plagued by riots, it never felt as though the yobs were setting the tone. If you went to see England play at Wembley, as I still did, once in a while, you could observe people around you making the Nazi salute during the national anthem, and abuse of black players—even the black players playing for the home team—was commonplace.
In those days, Wembley held 92,000 people; neatly, there were (and still are) ninety-two professional football clubs in England. Sometimes it seemed as though the thousand worst scumbag fans from every single league club were gathered at Wembley so that they could make monkey noises and sing anti-IRA songs. It was these people who helped create the commonplace fear and loathing of our two national flags. If you saw someone coming toward you in a T-shirt sporting either the Cross of St. George or the Union Jack, you'd have been best advised to cross the street. The T-shirt was a graphic alternative to a slogan which might say something like, "I'm a racist but I hate you no matter what color you are"—or, as a piece of graffiti captured by the Philadelphia photographer Zoe Strauss read, F*** YOU IF ARE YOU READING THIS. And if he didn't get you, his pit bull terrier would.
And so, perhaps understandably, some football fans started to feel a little conflicted about the national team. In 1990, when England played Cameroon in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, it wasn't hard to find people in England—middle-class, liberal people, admittedly, but people nonetheless—who wanted Cameroon to win. I watched that game with some of them, and when England went 2–1 down (they eventually won 3–2 in extra time), these people cheered. I understood why, but I couldn't cheer with them, much to my surprise. Those drunk, racist thugs draped in the national colors. . . . they were, it turned out, my people, not (as I'd previously thought), the nice liberal friends I was watching the game with, and England was my national football team. I mean, you can't choose stuff like that, right? The 1990 World Cup turned out to be something of a turning point. The team wasn't embarrassing—not after the opening games, anyway. The fans weren't embarrassing either, apart from the odd skirmish. And in the end England lost, narrowly and bravely, to Germany, on penalties, in the semifinal. (England, incidentally, has been sent home in four of the last six World Cups by either Germany or Argentina, two countries we have had Issues with in the past. Those familiar with the bellicose nature of English tabloid newspapers can imagine that these misfortunes have done little for the cause of world peace.) After a horrendous couple of decades, the national team, and the national game, were once again basking in the warmth of the nation's affections.
The rebirth lasted about five minutes. There was a disastrous managerial appointment, which resulted in yet another failure to qualify. And by 1998, football was a different game. France won the 1998 World Cup, but only a couple of their team played their football in France. Their key men, Zidane and Desailly and Deschamps, played in Italy; the rest played in Spain or England or Germany. Meanwhile, the big stars in English football were Zola of Italy, Bergkamp of Holland, Schmeichel of Denmark. Manchester United, the biggest club in England, had retained a core of young English players, including David Beckham; but Arsenal, my team, had comfortably won the championship with a mixture of English grit and Franco-Dutch flair. Foreign players were, for the most part, better, fitter and cheaper, and they didn't drink much, either. (People like Bergkamp and the brilliant French striker Thierry Henry clearly regard abstinence as the price you have to pay for a career as an athlete, but this attitude was viewed as something akin to cheating by a lot of English footballers.) Before long, the majority of the players in our top division came from outside the British Isles.
The globalization of the transfer market was beginning to rob international football of much of its point. In the old days, you used to look at the best players playing in the club teams and think, What would they be like if they played together? And the answer was that they looked like the national team—that was the idea, anyway, even if in reality the national team, especially the English national team, was often an undercoached and ill-fitting mess. Now, Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, the Milans and Barcelona have replaced the national sides as fantasy football teams. If your national team doesn't contain players from those clubs, it's because those clubs don't want them, which means your national team is no good. Over the last few years, England has even been reduced on occasions to choosing players who are not automatic starting choices for their club sides, an indication of how it's all changed. In the old days, an international-class footballer would have been first on any club's team-sheet. Now, it depends—on the quality of the club, and the quality of the country.
There's no doubt, however, that the foreign imports have dragged the cream of the English players, sometimes reluctantly, toward something approaching competence. We used to be very game, and very limited (and by "we," I may be referring to every single inhabitant of the country); we didn't have to worry about other countries much, because we only played them every couple of years anyway. Now the English players play with or against the best in the world every single week, and they've had to learn very quickly just to stay in the game, and in the profession. Even sane people are beginning to argue that the England team contains some of the best players in the world. Wayne Rooney was a teenager during the 2004 European Championships, but when he limped off injured in the game against Portugal, the team fell apart. He's very strong, incredibly skillful, and as likely to get a red card, possibly for swearing, as he is to score one of the best goals you've ever seen. (In a game against Arsenal last season, Rooney was estimated to have told the referee to f*** off more than twenty times in sixty seconds. As "foul and abusive language" is supposed to be a yellow-card offense, one can only presume that there are some really really bad words, words worse than the f-word and the c-word, that footballers know and we don't.) Frank Lampard and John Terry are Chelsea's most important players, which in the current economic climate means that they are two of Europe's most important players; if they weren't, they would have been sent to the salt mines by now. Ashley Cole is perhaps the world's best left-back, which means that he won't be playing for my team, Arsenal, for much longer. At least half of this England team is seriously good, so when they are beaten in the quarterfinals, as is their custom, there will be pointless anger rather than weary resignation.
Toward the end of their uninspiring 2006 World Cup qualifying campaign, England contrived to lose 1–0 to Northern Ireland, most of whose players come from Britain's tinier club teams; during the game, you could almost see the England stars thinking, What the f*** am I doing here, in this dump, playing against these losers? (The fact that the losers were winning seemed of only marginal interest to them.) It was hard to see the ideal of international football lasting the whole ninety minutes, let alone until the World Cup finals and beyond. And then, a few short weeks later, after a meaningless but enthralling last-minute win over Argentina, we all decided that England was going to win the World Cup. This represents progress of sorts: usually, national self-confidence would have been boosted by a narrow win over the hapless Irish, and demolished by a proper team. Now we have a group of cosmopolitan sophisticates (or blinged-up prima donnas, depending on your worldview, age and newspaper of choice) who can't be bothered, unless the occasion warrants it.
Sixteen years ago, England played out a goalless draw against Sweden, a result that helped ensure qualification for the World Cup in 1990. The enduring image of that game is of the England captain, Terry Butcher, swathed in bandages, his white England shirt and shorts covered in blood that had pumped steadily out of a head wound throughout the duration of the game. "Off the pitch I was always an ordinary, mild-mannered bloke," said Butcher in an interview years later. "But put me in a football shirt and it was tin hats and fixed bayonets. Death or glory." That was the old England: the war imagery, the crucial nil-nil draw against modest opposition, the unavoidable replacement of style and talent with blood and graft. Those who loathe David Beckham, the current England captain, and everything he stands for would claim that he will wear a tin hat and bandages only when tin hats and bandages become de rigeur in some ludicrously fashionable European nightclub. That's not fair, because despite his looks and his cash, he too has worked surprisingly hard to compensate for the things that he lacks as a player, notably pace. But there's no doubt that he is brilliantly illustrative of a new kind of English sportsman: professional, media-aware, occasionally petulant and very, very rich. The England fans who went to the friendly match against Argentina (played, as is the way of these things now, in Geneva, for reasons that remain obscure) were still singing their "No Surrender to the IRA" song, and there's more than a suspicion that they'd rather watch Terry Butcher and his fixed bayonets than David Beckham, a man who, after all, has been photographed wearing a sarong. But then, that's England all over at the moment. We'd still prefer to be bombing the Germans; but after sixty years, there's a slowly dawning suspicion that those days aren't coming back any time soon, and in the meantime, we must rely on sarong-wearing, multimillionaire pretty boys to kick the Argies for us. We're not happy about it, but what can we do?
My most thrilling moment of the 1998 World Cup came when Vieira of Arsenal slid the ball through to Petit of Arsenal for France's third goal in their 3–0 win over Brazil in the final: I was on my feet. (The following morning, the Daily Mirror, then edited by an Arsenal season ticket holder, had a front-page headline that said ARSENAL WIN THE WORLD CUP. I had the cover framed.) These were definitely my people: I spend much of the year hating most of the England players anyway, and if any of those Manchester United or Chelsea bastards are in direct competition with any of my beautiful, talented French boys, then there's no agonizing to be done. It turns out that you can choose these things after all. Allez, Les Bleus. 大分歧密码
|
|
|
