Speaker’s Corner
Daniel Carey
THERE are still seven months of the year to run, but I’m pretty sure that the weirdest photograph of 2007 has already been taken. No, not the one of John O’Mahony and Beverley Flynn in their night attire (marking National Pyjama Day), though that is in the running. To my mind, the political duo’s spell at the top of this dubious honours list is officially over. This is because last Wednesday, the Irish Daily Star ran a picture of a border collie named Blue lining up a shot on the pool table of his local pub in England.
Blue is described as ‘the Hurricane Higgins of the dog world’. He jumps up so his front paws are resting on a pool table and then, standing on his hind legs, sights down a cue held by his owner Jeff Davies. When he has a shot on, he sinks the ball into the pocket – with his paws.
That sounds like cheating to me, but then again, I suppose he’s entitled to some leeway. Mind you, his stardom has brought Blue some special privileges. He has his own bedroom – with double bed, TV and en-suite – and works with Jeff on building sites. It was difficult to know whether to be amused or horrified looking at what the newspaper’s caption called a ‘pot-ty dog’.
There is, of course, a long and sometimes controversial history of animals in sport. Racing in Ballinrobe drew large crowds last week, and though some people are uncomfortable with the danger to horse and man involved, John Flannelly didn’t have to fend off hordes of placard-wielding protesters. Greyhound racing is also becoming hugely popular even if, in the words of one disgruntled visitor to Galway dog track, picking a winner is ‘just a pure lottery … you’d have better luck in the Valk’. And last September, one woman dressed her horse in green and red, brought it into her sitting room, and put it watching a video of the Mayo-Dublin match. Whether the gee-gee understood the significance of Andy Moran’s goal is debatable, but the resultant photo won its owner two tickets to the All-Ireland final courtesy of Mid West Radio. Presumably the horse had to stay at home, though if it watched the subsequent massacre against Kerry, it was probably pleased that it hadn’t made the trip to Dublin.
Sporting massacres of a different kind – those in the bullfighting ring – continue to be a bone of contention in Spain and elsewhere. People who abhor that particular spectacle may allow themselves a little smile when they hear about footbull, a sport which is popular with rodeo fans in rural Brazil. A football pitch is improvised, members of the crowd are chosen to make two five-a-side teams, and then a bull is released into the arena. “Footbull is real crowd-pleaser,” comments former rodeo champion Gilberto Mega. “The bull doesn’t go after the ball, he goes after the players.” Emilio Carlos dos Santos, director of Brazil’s largest rodeo, says the beast must be really bad-tempered. “It’s no fun if the bull just stands there,” he says. “Sometimes the bull even goes after the ref.”
Supporters of animal rights might appreciate the irony of the bull attacking the man rather than the other way round. Sometimes, however, the anti-blood sports lobby take their advocacy too far. One such campaigner was charged with assault in Tarbert, Co Kerry, and received a suspended sentence, on condition that he pay compensation to his victim.“You must be f***ing joking, lady,” the defendant told the female judge, and the suspended sentence was promptly unsuspended.
Of course, the general election is the biggest blood sport of all, and last Friday, the Progressive Democrats were left more red-stained than most. Just two PDs will sit in the 30th Dáil – Mary Harney and Noel Grealish, who have been non-committal about the party’s future. Galway man Grealish evokes fanatical loyalty, and his campaign director James Walsh told RTÉ’s Jim Fahy that ‘whatever Noel wants to do, we’ll stand by him’. Asked if he and other supporters would follow Grealish into Fianna Fáil, Walsh replied: “We’d follow him naked up Croagh Patrick and down again”. Now there’s a photograph that would better even Blue the pool-playing dog.
