Royalty, poignancy, and racism.....

Now, it may or may not have escaped your notice, but this weekend contained a certain celebration concerning the royal family that we are currently hosting... and while the Beard has never been what you could call or Royalist (despite not being a republican either, he hastens to add...) he does have a certain amount of sympathy for an old woman who has no real choice but to try and look interested as hours and hours of boats pass by in the cold and wet, knowing that at the end of it she also has no choice but to listen to the by-now-superannuated Cliff Richard and (horror of horrors) several screeches from Cheryl Cole... if I'd been her, I'd have faked a bladder infection to get out of it before my Greek husband beat me to it...

But one digresses... The Beard was reintroduced the other day to one of Beard juniors once-favoured tv shows, from his very youth, I hasten to add... i speak of the most poignant childrens animation ever conceived, the heart-breakingly sad "Huxley Pig..."

Now, to the uninitiated of you out there, Huxley Pig and heart-breaking may seem to be unconnected ideas-wise... but the Beard is about to ruin your childhoods (at least possibly) by pointing out to you the finer point of the show, and something that I never realised until a five-year old Beard Junior began to weep on my knee... "why do you weep, oh son of mine?" the Beard did ask, attempting even then to inject an air of pretension into the proceedings... to which the young hirsute one told me that Huxley Pig was "sad..." i the old sense of the word...

Now, the Beard could not, of course, leave this unchallenged, and demanded that the primary school pupil explain himself... after all, i pointed out, in the three episodes we had just watched, Huxley had met a sea Monster, had a day on the beach, and had climbed the Himalayas... "But he hasn't, dad," said the youngster... and he was right...

The poignancy and brilliance of Huley Pig lay in this; the thing that most viewers never realised, or were distracted from by the fun fantasy elements... Huxley was a Pig who had arrived in a small, closed-for-winter seaside town, checked into a bare room in a run down guest house, and stayed there... we were never told where he had come from, and it became obvious that he was not there on holiday... and all he had to his name was "a suitcase full of clothes..." that his Gran gave him, which seemed to contain only dressing up stuff... and, most poignant of all, as pointed out by the son, was this... he never leaves his room... his only friend is a seagull... and he never leaves his room... he has a rich fantasy life, but, and this is very important, HE NEVER LEAVES HIS ROOM! What has gone wrong with his life? After that revelation, neither me nor Beard Junior could watch Huxlety Pig without crying at the futility of his life, and I believe that helped us both over a bit of a dark patch... and even today, I hope and hope that one day Huxley managed to find his own happiness...

But I digress... more important than the poignancy of pigs is the , well, not quite stink but at least slight aroma that has arisen over the plan to send the England Football team to Auschwitz... which even to me seems harsh, though justifiable... but, seriously, the trip seems to have engendered bad feeling over it's publicity-stuntiness... now, like it or not, footballers are role models... not very good ones, admittedly but role models nontheless, and maybe, just maybe this visit may make them better ones... who knows, maybe they can use this to promote the cause of anti-racism... which apparently is the aim... a film is to be made, after all... and as for the worry about whether the WaGs wil somehow desecrate the place... wel, the Beard has it on good authority that a lot of the visitors to said camp of atrocity treat it as a macabre tourist attraction rather than as a shrine or memorial... and to be honest, that is the very nature of things... one friend of the Beard claims to have seen someon eating ice-cream in the gas chambers, but the Beard hopes that such a thing is apocryphal... but regardless of their motives, if this can be turned into a force for good, then the Beard applauds it... but feels that he should mention to footballers, especially the higher paid ones... if you are truly wishing to promote tolerance and get rid of racism, then there is one good way in which you could do it... but you won't like it...

The Beard, you see, would like to ask one of the Premiership teams to take a lead in this... Man U would be a good start, or Arsenal... but whichever, please consider doing this... next time you hear racist chants from the terraces, stop playing and walk off... get changed, and go home... and make it very clear that the reason you are doing this is because you hate racism... if the racist football fans out there see that you treasure tolerance above football, they may think twice, then stop coming to matches and be racist elsewhere... but to the young people who see footballers as inspirational, it may inspire them to take a hard line against racism too... and that could only be a good thing... or so the Beard believes... but please try it... not just once, but consistently... oh, and I know this one will be even harder, but set a good example to the youth when it comes to respect of authority... stop arguing with the ref, and if you get sent off, thank the ref for his time, apologise, and shake his hand... it's amazing how much respect you will receive in return...

But it grows early, and even a Beard must sleep... so, until we all refuse to tolerate intolerance, and we all have the wisdom to fake illness to avoid boring and tedious irrelevances, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!