Too Much Monky Business

I don't know about you, but the Referee finds that there are, from time to time, things which one feels compelled to do which one nevertheless senses one will regret, but that, despite this, one does, and regrets. This message may be one of those things.

Last week a new film opened here - and everywhere else, I shouldn't be surprised - which seems to be causing disproportionate fuss, not to mention nonsense. I haven't seen this film, nor have I read the book on which it is based. I have no plans to do either. I am therefore in absolutely no position to summarise its plot. So here goes.

A monk - let's call him Brother Sven - is murdered. In the process of investigating this murder, it is discovered that a murky religious society - let's call it the Association Football Association - is preserving an amazing secret. The secret is that Our Lord - let's call him Wayne - didn't meet His end in quite the way described in scripture. In fact, he didn't break his metatarsal at all. Rather, in a mysterious bid to avoid spending the summer in Germany, he faked a broken bone and sneaked off with Coleen to a secret beach location - let's call it Fuengirola. These facts are hidden from the faithful for generations, for fear of sparking chaos and unrest.

Now, some people have got worked up about this story. Some people in the US - including people who know as much about the film and book as I do - have been out on the streets protesting about its blasphemous contents. Other people have gathered together to produce other books and documentary films, now showing on US television, aimed at proving that the book and film in question - both self-declared works of fiction - are nothing more than works of fiction.

The question is: why does anyone feel the need to do this? I don't mean, why does anyone feel the need to disagree with something that they disagree with? I mean, why does any self-respecting person of faith feel the need to put time and energy into earnestly battling with an English bloke in polo neck sweaters who's done quite nicely with a novel, and a balding American chap who used to be in Happy Days and has now made a film of the book? Are these two the sort of folk St Paul had in mind when he exhorted the Ephesians to struggle against the "principalities and powers of this dark world"? I rather think not.

Now, don't get me wrong. The Referee is himself, or at least attempts to be, a person of faith. He is most certainly not a person standing outside, doing something inappropriate into the proverbial tent. He is most assuredly inside the tent, but sometimes bemused about the behaviour of some of his fellow campers.

Think of it this way. Those of us inside the tent consider ourselves to be followers of someone who is - in the final analysis - the Supreme Being. We believe He created us, and everyone else, and the entire universe (although don't get me started on how precisely He might have done it). We believe He is all-knowing and all-powerful (I know there are fancy words for those two, but I can't remember what they are).

Those of you outside the tent may not believe in such a Being, but at least you believe that we do, and that we believe we're following Him, and that will do for the purposes of the next bit of logic.

So, when someone writes a book, fiction or otherwise, or makes a film, which suggests, directly or otherwise, that things might not be quite how we campers believe them to be, do you suppose for one moment that the Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe is quaking in his heavenly boots? Do you suppose He (or She, ladies!) is cowering behind a cloud, wishing that that troublesome English bloke in the polo necks would go away and bully some other celestial beings? Do you suppose He is concerned that this little novel might surpass His own debut work as best-selling book in the history of the world? Do you suppose He is desperately hoping that we campers will protect Him from all this slander by painting up some signs and hanging around in front of the local cinema?

I rather think not. I rather think He might instead prefer the approach taken by Oscar Wilde, when he famously said: "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about".

Or, in the more recent and perhaps slightly less eloquent words of the President of the United States: "Bring 'em on".

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Some of you reading this - how I love to pretend my readers are in the plural! - are, like the Referee, both male and English. You know who you are. Anyone fitting this description should turn away at this point. In fact, one might almost say that reader discretion is advised. Except that that wouldn't make any sense.

A riddle. I am cut short if it rains, and I always stop for tea. What am I?

The church fete? No. The annual outing of the Mothers' Union? Wrong again. Cricket. (See, I warned you.)

Cricket is dull. There's no two ways about it. Dull, dull, dull.

My gender and my nationality, when taken together, suggest that I should be first in the queue (or line, as they insist on saying over here) when it comes to drinking warm beer, wearing a floppy sun hat and discussing the finer points of the Duckworth-Lewis method. But somehow, I just don't get it.

(By the way - two cricket fans in the pavilion. One says, "So, do you really understand the Duckworth-Lewis method?" The other replies, "Well I thought I did. But Vanessa got pregnant anyway".)

I realise that this will make me something of a pariah as far as many of my fellow countrymen are concerned. To them, I can only apologise.

To make things even worse, I have for many years harboured a secret regard for baseball. Long before our move over here was even a twinkle in my employer's eye (or something), I could occasionally be found staring at Channel 4 at 2am, trying to follow the mysterious statistics being measured during a passionate clash between the Cardinals and the Astros.

But I wasn't an instant convert. At first, I couldn't work out why I was fascinated by a bunch of fat blokes in baby suits playing rounders. But fascinated I was. Perhaps it was the lightning-fast fielding; perhaps it was the explosive power of the home run; perhaps it was the unfathomable terminology. Yes, I know that cricket has the equivalent of all these things - but it's still very dull.

Last week, for the first time since moving over here, I took my kids (and visiting father) to the legendary Yankee stadium. New York Yankees v Oakland Athletics. A tight and fascinating game, which the Yankees won 2-0, thanks to home runs from Rodriguez and Williams, and some brilliant pitching by Wang. The atmosphere was astonishing - particularly in the 5th inning when Johnny Damon came up to bat with the bases loaded - despite a damp evening and a relatively thin crowd of 47,000.

This - and the fact that baseball is known here as the "national pastime" - got me thinking. Sitting in the crowd, I came to the conclusion that cricket - despite all the similarities - is the wrong comparator. The place that baseball holds in American hearts makes it much closer to football (Asocceration football, that is), seen from a European point of view.

I have long had a theory that everything a visitor needs to know about Blighty can be picked up by sitting in the crowd at a football match. Foul-mouthed blokes with tattoos; women and children left indoors; cold, damp weather; dry, self-deprecating humour; suspicion of outsiders; cold meat pies. I rest my case. (Now, don't get me wrong - I love the homeland dearly. But, if you think any of the football staples mentioned here doesn't have a resonance with wider British society, you'll have to tell me which it is.)

Perhaps the same was true of baseball. Was it possible, I wondered, to get to the essence of America by sitting in the Yankee stadium? Well, it's early days in the development of this new theory, but the initial results are encouraging. Communal singing of the Stars and Stripes; prayer for the troops; communal singing of God Bless America; top-notch hot dogs; giant, flashing signs; three strikes and you're out.

You know it makes sense.

Reader Discretion Advised

It's very difficult to watch American TV.

No, hang on a minute. There's supposed to be a bit more to that sentence.

It's very difficult to watch American TV for long, these days, I find, without coming across the phrase "Viewer discretion advised". Very often, when the upcoming program(me) is going to be a bit racy, and just as often when it's not going to be racy in the slightest, TV stations over here are apparently obliged to announce, or display, or both, the mangled and dehydrated phrase "Viewer discretion advised". Just add water to get a sentence in English.

Now, I don't want to blind you with grammar, so to speak, but pause for a moment, if you will, and see if you can work out what that sentence actually means. I don't mean whether you get the gist of it. The gist is simple enough: "You are about to watch something with racy bits (except that you're probably not). There, you have been warned. If the racy bits upset you, please don't ask your lawyer to write a letter of complaint to our lawyer. If you do, our lawyer will write back to your lawyer pointing out that the offending program(me) was preceded by the magic words "viewer discretion advised". No, we don't know what it means either, but there it is."

In trying to get to the bottom of what these magic words actually mean - on your behalf, dear reader - I have consulted not one but two dictionaries: the Oxford English Dictionary (on the assumption - perhaps slightly hasty - that the base language we are dealing with is English) and the Webster's New World Dictionary (to ensure that I didn't miss any local subtleties or Americanisms).

The good news is that, on this occasion at least, we are indeed divided by a common language, in the sense that both dictionaries led me to the same conclusion, which is as follows. The word "discretion" is a noun which relates to the adjectives "discreet" (careful, prudent) and "discrete" (separate, autonomous). In the former sense, it is commonly used to mean judgement. The "viewer" is the object of the sentence - ie the person who may nor may not be about to watch something racy. And "advised" is the closest this phrase comes to a verb.

If you buy this, as they like to say over here, then the magic words must have one or more of the following meanings:

1. You are about to watch something a bit racy. We therefore suggest that you don't mention this program(me) to anyone else, unless it's strictly necessary.

2. You are about to watch something a bit racy. We therefore suggest that you don't sit near to any other viewers.

3. You are about to watch something a bit racy. Unless you decide not to watch it.

So there we are. I'm glad to have been able to clear that up.

The Referee, at your service.