So last night whilst fortunately for me, Meg was soundly asleep, I settled down to watch the England vs. Spain Euro finals match. After the end of the first half, I thought that it was a fairly evenly matched competition with Spain probably having the slight edge. But after half time, it was a different story. The Spanish went ahead with a well deserved goal although it did appear to me that there was a woeful lack of marking of the Spanish forward who seemed to have a clear run at goal. Then the Spanish played much better football but then England managed to score an equaliser. For about 10 minutes, it looked as though we had a real match on our hands as England pressed forward perhaps confident that a second goal would secure them the match. But this did not last and the Spanish started to overwhelm the England team with much superior football and then scored the winner some four minutes before full time and not leaving enough time for England to mount a counter strike. So at the end of the day, the Spanish victory was very well deserved as they had played much better football not only in this match but throughout the whole competition and were therefore worthy winners. Why we can only play ‘properly’ with an attacking intent when we are a goal behind and not throughout the whole of the match is undoubtedly a topic that will engage acres of newsprint and much discussion but points to the fact that a very cautious and defensive strategy is never going to win you a football competition although it might work for a single match.
There are certain photographs of historical events that live on in our collective memory. Many will remember the images of people in business clothing falling from the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, shortly before the towers collapsed. Or, going further back in US history, the photo of soldiers raising a US flag on the battlefield on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, during the final stages of World War II in the Pacific. It looks like there’s another image for the history books now: the photo Evan Vucci, a photographer for the Associated Press news agency (AP), took of Donald Trump seconds after Trump was shot in an assassination attempt during a rally on Sunday. Already, people are comparing the photo to the iconic flag raising picture from WWII. A user of social media platform X called it the ‘Iwo Jima picture of this generation.’ Renowned The New Yorker magazine pointed to similarities too. It is easy to see where the comparison comes from. Trump’s raised fist and his facial expression, accentuated by the blood splatters across his cheek, can be read as a declaration of defiance in the face of adversity. And then there’s the flag itself, the center piece in the Iwo Jima image, and the perfect patriotic background to Trump’s ‘I am still standing’ gesture. However, to my mind there is something that does not ring quite true about the image that is being flashed across the world. For a start, the sky was not a startling blue but a little overcast. Secondly, I do not actually recall an American flag flying ever so conveniently just over the image of Trump defiant fist pumping the air and mouthing ‘Fight! Fight!’ I am sure that the photographer opportunistically took his moment to capture an important image, But without saying that the resultant image has been doctored or even enhanced, I suspect that some judicious rearrangement of certain elements of it have been made perhaps with the photographer unconsciously aware of the ionic Iwo Jima image. If one decomposes the image – a flag, a wounded but defiant hero exhibiting strength in the fact of an assassination attempt- then it all seems a little too good to be true. I do not suscribe to conspiracy theories as such but if the Republican party in their wildest dreams had thought of an image that exemplified Trump’s heroic status, then they could hardly have bettered the image that has now been flashed around the globe.
Last night, I needed to ‘help out’ the care agency by being the second pair of hands to help to prepare Meg for bed in the evening. I was not a particularly happy bunny by being asked to do the same again this morning but fortunately with a carer with whom I find it easy to collaborate. Staff shortages/illnesses are being blamed for the absence of staff but the cynical side of my nature wonders wether the absence of a second carer last night might be football related and the absence of a carer this morning hangover related. However, I am pleased that this Euro competition is now well and truly over and in the near future we have the Olympic games to be held in Paris to entertain us. I do have the feeling that advance publicity about the Olympics is incredibly sparse this time around, perhaps because they are to be held in France. But normally there is quite a lot of news in the build up to the Olympics, highlighting the anticipated successes of locals.
After breakfast this morning, Meg and I went on our way to the park. We called in at our Italian friend down the road but she was not in but fortunately another set of church friends from down the road happened to be in so I could return the dish in which a cottage pie was baked for us. In the park, we had a conversation about football with a local dog walker and were then passed by a group of an older woman and two younger females walking their collective dogs. When the elder female cast an admiring comment about Meg’s hat, I explained that it was very similar to the hat worn by Tonya (played by Geraldine Chapman) in the classic film of Dr Zhivago. I briefly went through some of the plot of the film and how Zhivago was torn between two women – the blond Lara (Julie Christie) and the brunette Tonya. The film ends with Zhivago on a tram espying a woman who he believes to be Lara on the streets of Moscow. He struggles to get off the tram and runs to try to keep up with the blonde Lara only to have a heart attack and to die before he could actually meet up with her again. The older lady explained that she had wept buckets at the conclusion of the film and the younger females thought they might try and see if they could view it for themselves.
© Mike Hart [2024]