I’ve just chanced on an interview with Ian Botham in which he speaks of his pleasure at being made into a Sir by the Queen of England.

Usually, I avert my eyes from this sort of thing, and strive the meantime to understand. Didn’t Martin O’Neill accept a bauble of some sort from her Majesty a couple of years back?
And there are others skulking in the vicinity of Dublin who, when not dreaming up buildings to ruin the landscape and boost their own bombast, have abased themselves before the Brit ruling class. Personally, I blame the parents.
But Botham’s behaviour goes beyond these betrayals. Becoming beknighted, he drools, was “the greatest day of my life.”
This is a man blessed by three fine healthy children. Three not-bad days there, I’d have imagined, as they bawled their way into the world.
Then there was the day that nonpareil Viv Richards described him as “my best and noble friend.” Was that not a golden occasion to glow in the memory?
And there was June 6th 1981. Headingley, the Ashes, Third Test, Australia one up... I had my ear pressed to a transistor in a crumbling villa in the Dordogne.
Botham took six for 95 in the opening innings but couldn’t halt the Aussies hitting 401. England responded with a weak 174, and were forced to follow on. In the second innings, England collapsed to 135 for seven. Three wickets left and more than a hundred still needed to make Australia bat again.
Botham sauntered to the crease, hit 149 off 148 balls, backed up by Graham Dilley, 56, Chris Old, 17 and a couple from Bob Willis.
Willis then produced the most overlooked sporting sensation of all time, taking eight for 43 to skittle Australia out for 111. The feat was overlooked because what Botham had achieved earlier defied not only the odds but rational belief. England had been on offer at 500-1 when he walked to the wicket.
But that day, remembered forever by all with appreciation of the beauty of cricket, apparently doesn’t compare with the day he bowed the knee to an inbred Germanic octogenarian as she tapped him on the shoulder with a ceremonial sword.
What madness is this?
His mind seemingly made into mush by the occasion, Botham babbled on. “The monarchy stands for everything that makes me proud to be English.”
Then he turned his ire on that gallant band of undefeated Cromwellians, the English Republicans who have kept the flame of freedom aflicker through centuries of cant and imperialism.
“I listen to all these republicans, and if it was down to me, I’d hang them. I honestly would. It’s a traitor’s game for me.”
Did you ever hear the like?
Oliver Cromwell may have blotted his Drogheda copybook with blood. But he was a fount of wisdom and sound common sense when it came to the monarchy.
“They who are not prepared to cut the head off a king, go now!” he told his troops before the Battle of Naseby.
If only he’d stopped at kings, we wouldn’t hear a word said against him.
But Ian Botham. Plonker.
He gave one of his children the name Liam. I wonder if we can ask for it back?

Nobody who starts life in a log cabin can aspire to the presidency of the United States.
Take the solidifying consensus that the Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination and favourite to win the White House come November next year. The confidence is based on the fact that she’s pulled ahead of Obama in raising mazooma.
Ray O’Hanlon, ex-Irish Press, as canny an analyst as ever sank a pint in Poolbeg Street, now with the Irish Post in New York, wrote recently that a new Clinton presidency suddenly seems short odds-on.
What’s odd indeed is that, on the face of it, Clinton is well out of step with the mass of the electorate on the main issue which will face the next incumbent – Iraq.
For more than a year, the polls have been consistent: a majority believes the invasion was wrong and that US troops should be withdrawn as fast as logistics allow. But Clinton voted for the war and for every resolution which has since come along to keep the war going. She’s out front with the worst of the worst of the war-mongers.
Resolutely opposed to setting a date for withdrawal from Iraq, she says she wants also to “keep the option” of attacking Iran.  
How come the only candidate whose views match majority opinion, Dennis Kuchinich, is lagging behind and fading fast?
O’Hanlon points to the answer.
Running for the American presidency is hugely expensive. If you don’t have big money, you might as well stay home. And big money doesn’t back opponents of oil wars.
Ray’s reasoning is that Clinton will win the nomination because she’s raking in more money than Obama, with the others scrabbling for pennies in their wake.
“Hillary has pulled clearly ahead of Obama... The cash flow is veering inexorably towards her... Hillary led by $27 million to $20 million in third quarter fundraising...”
The phraseology says it all. To measure a political lead in terms of money is to take it for granted that policies which meet the hopes and needs of the mass of the people are irrelevant to the running of the race. What gets you ahead are policies which meet the interests of the class which is rich enough to bet millions on the runner of their choice.
Says it all, really.

“Repeat that remark and people will think you are sexist,” warned the Cork blonde I’m shacked up with.
It was the last line in the Family Guy episode featuring Kiss, wherein Peter – an OTT fan of the flamboyant ‘70s rockers, it turns out – drags an unwilling Lois along to the Quahog leg of the reunion tour. He blaggs their way backstage, where the reason for Lois’s reticence is revealed: she’d shagged singer Gene Simmons at high school.
Bur far from being miffed at this momentous discovery, Peter is chuffed more than somewhat, deliriously kissing Lois on the sidewalk – “Lois, you are the coolest girl in the world” – then boasting to jealous fellow boozers, “My wife did Kiss.”
Interviewed later on Kiss TV about the Simmons shag, Lois is asked: “What advice would you give to young girls out there today?”
“All I can say is,” responds the serene shagee, “you never know who’s going to grow up to be famous. So make yourself available.”

If you fancy something funny, political, irreverent and feisty, take note that Black 47 is coming your way.
Larry Kirwan and his New York fusion-ensemble of trad-Irish, punk-rock, hip-hop and soul are taking time out from a Times Square residency to play the Roddy McCorley, Belfast, on November 9, Whelan’s in Dublin on November 10 and the Talbot in Wexford on the 11.
Larry promises to wear his green suede shoes.
And new CD Iraq will be freely on sale.
These are serious rock-and-rollers with radical sharp ideas that they never let get in the way of making music that defies you to sit there not dancing.b