Bouncebackability

Who cares if the world is imploding? I'm off to (fingers crossed YET AGAIN) the Caribbean coast this weekend and we have a lovely lunch planned at work today (where I get to bring potato salad - homemade, of course - then scoff everyone else's gorgeous food). I also have a bar of the chocolate on your left to share. I may not actually get round to the sharing part. Just because we always eat so much that we don't end up eating dessert. Ahem.

However, I have now detected a disturbing trend among columnists, in Spanish and English, in a variety of publications, that is upsetting me and I'm trying to work out why. This was a typical article in the aftermath of the Zidane meltdown. Title: Zidane put Family Honour before Ad Campaign. But it wasn't his family honour, but the honour of his mother and sister - i.e. the women in his family. You can't imagine him having the same reaction if Materazzi had insulted his father or brother, really - unless he'd said they were gay, of course, which is what happened with Sol Campbell's brother. It is upsetting that the only real way, it seems, that a lot of men get angry about insults to male members of their family is a question of their "manliness" - i.e. they must be straight and not likened to women.

This is discomforting to me. I think it's due to the idea that it's women who bring shame on the family; women whose virtue must be uncontested and protected and saved at all costs. Let's ignore the sons' ruttings. It's on the continuum with "honour killings" (the most horribly ironic name, in my opinion). Again, our sexuality must be hidden; if it comes into the open or is commented upon, denied and either in private or public, acted on with violence. My reaction to this is, well, I understand perhaps contradictory and hypocritcal. But if the insults had been racist, as I thought they were originally, there would be more understanding on my part. Because they weren't, simply about virtue of women, I have retracted my sympathy, somewhat. And that relativism probably isn't a good idea. But there it is...

not going to explore it further. I am, however, going to direct you to this, which is the now surely infamous headbutt-as-seen-by-different-people and the most amusing thing to come out of all of it. The Japanese one is, by far, the best.