Why Romanticism Matters: Lessons From The Legislators of the World

“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”

 

So Romanticist poet Percy Bysshe Shelley concluded his 1821 essay 'A Defence of Poetry'. Nowadays poets are not as much 'unacknowledged legislators' but rather 'unacknowledged' full stop. Romanticism itself is either unknown to the average punter, misunderstood by the semi-literate, or mocked by the rational man. Indeed, there is no greater slur in the modern corporatist parlance than to be called a 'Romantic'.  

Profligate, raffish, over-sentimental, stroppy, narcissistic, and egotistical—the Romantic poets were all these things and so much more. Poetry aside, there is so much we can learn from the Romanticists. From their lives, from their loves, and from their loathes. They should not just be considered an artistic inspiration, but as an inspiration for a way of life. 

The ‘big six’ of Romantic poetry comprised of two triumvirates divided by a generation. The first generation: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Blake. The second: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats. The generational gap wasn’t just marked by an arbitrary few decades, but by the earlier generation experiencing the hope and then despair of the French Revolution. 

Young Wordsworth was an undergraduate at Cambridge during the fall of the Bastille and, like his friend Coleridge, an earnest supporter of the French Revolution. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!”, Wordsworth would write about his revolutionary days. Yet when he was to be old he renounced the revolution, became a Tory, and, with Coleridge and another (lesser) poet Robert Southey, he escaped to the idyllic Lakes District, settling for a life of solipsism, navel-gazing and daffodils. He became, as Lord Byron christened, ‘Turdsworth’. 

The younger generation of poets never suffered the same sickening fate of losing one’s principles—probably undoubtably helped by the fact that none of them would reach old-age, let alone mid-age. In fact the younger generation all died before the older. They were also helped by their views being shaped after the excess of the Revolution—so they weren’t burdened by unrealistic expectations, but had liberal views grounded in reality. 

Wordsworth and Coleridge weren’t just prototype idealistic-liberal-turned conservative-curmudgeons but the pioneers of Romanticism. They left a legacy not only for the next generation of Romantic poets, but for the modern world. They were the rockstars of their age—indeed Coleridge pioneered the use of opiates as a way to enhance artistic inspiration. These early Romantics staring down the face / barrel of the Age of Enlightenment didn’t seek to replace reason but just wished to place alongside it several other qualities equally as worthy and important. Intuition was just as important as reason, and imagination more important than both. They were the first to feel and seek the sublime—that transcendental feeling beyond rational explanation typically witnessed in nature which bathes you in awe and terror. Rather than escape the world and nature, the Romantic poets embraced it. 

While the first generation of Romantic poets was content in embracing nature’s sublime in the calm setting of England’s Lake District, a second generation was forming, who sought not just to embrace but to directly change the world. In the early 19th century a Romanticist coterie was formed around journalist Leigh Hunt while he was jailed for libel (you can measure a journalist’s integrity by the amount of libel cases brought against him). Despite imprisonment, Hunt’s resolve was never stronger; in fact the notoriety now granted to him attracted readers for his liberal, anti-establishment periodical ‘The Examiner’. Published every Sunday, the Examiner was committed to the cause of parliamentary reform and even sought to maintain its political independence by refusing to accept advertisements. 

One young idealist attracted Leigh Hunt’s folds—who shared his fervent hate of tyranny and injustice—was the young Percy Bysshe Shelley. Cast out from Oxford University for writing a pamphlet on the ‘Necessity of Atheism’, Shelley was a lonely, isolated young man who desperately sought the company of like-minded individuals. At the age of 19 he tried his hand at pamphleteering for a second time—this time in Ireland and this time calling for the emancipation and independence of Ireland from Great Britain! In his ‘An Address to the Irish People’—which he casually threw off balconies from sacks to the streets below—he called on Dublin’s poor to take a pacifist and philosophical approach to Irish emancipation. 

All the idealism and passion was not to go to waste though, when a few years later he caught the eye of—or rather his eye was caught by—his mentor’s beautiful and intelligent daughter, Mary Godwin. In Mary, Shelley found his equal. “How deeply did I not feel my inferiority, how willing I confess myself far surpassed in originality,” Shelley would humbly confess to a friend—all the more telling for he was someone rarely so humble. Mary herself was appropriately attracted to Shelley, to his passion, his idealism—he would never be dull. They courted each other at the graveyard where Mary’s dead mother (Mary Wollstonecraft) was buried, and in the idyllic setting Shelley would woo Mary by reading lines from his poem ‘Queen Mab’—which was an explicit attack on monarchy, marriage, and religion. The two then proceeded to ‘declare their undying love for each other’—right there on Mary’s mother’s grave.

Their relationship was not welcomed by Mary’s father though, so Percy and Mary then did what any other reasonable young couple would in that situation and elope with Mary’s half-sister Claire and proceed to journey through Europe—by foot. First France, then Switzerland, then finally back to London—but not before the scenic route through Germany and Holland. Mary Godwin (soon Mary Shelley) would remain Percy’s lover, wife, and companion until his death. She’s known today mainly for her novel, Frankenstein, which she wrote at the young age of 18. The novel encompassed broad themes such as science, revolution, religion, philosophy, and sexuality—and was not only a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment, but also a reaction to some elements of some of the Romanticists around her. The novel appeared to her in a dream during the couple’s second visit to Switzerland. And it was during this second visit that the couple would meet Lord Byron. 

The Romantic poets tend to get a bad rap for their bawdiness, and it’s often portrayed as though it’s their common underlying theme in both their poetry and life. Mostly it’s overstated, though they did have their fair share—we do not know whether Wordsworth’s intense relationship with his sister was consummated though the same cannot be said about Byron’s with his. Lord Byron is in fact the main reason for the Romanticists acquiring such a libidinous reputation. Most people have heard of the creator of Don Juan, of the habitual seducer who caused scandal in the press in his own time and became infamous throughout Europe. Yet there is more to this former boxing-manager, to the shy Scot born with the clubfoot. For example he was the original champion to the cause of the Elgin Marbles, and he was passionate in defending the Luddites—those rebellious textile workers made redundant by the mechanized loom. When he travelled past the grave of Lord Castlereagh—the chief oppressor of Ireland who acted as bete noir for the Romanticists—Lord Byron wrote this epitaph: 

Posterity will ne’er survey

A nobler scene than this. 

Here lie the bones of Castlereagh.

Stop traveller, and piss. 

The political world affected Lord Byron deeply. In 1814, when Napoleon was defeated and sent into exile to the island of Elba, Lord Byron for four days sat alone in his room mourning and wrote this in his journal: 

“Today I have boxed an hour, wrote a note to Napoleon, eaten six biscuits, drunk four bottles of soda water, and read away the rest of my time.” 

Byron was never just talk, and he got himself involved in the actualities of politics and revolution whenever possible. For example during his stay in northern Italy, in Ravenna, he used the lower apartment of Count Guiccioli’s flat—whose wife he was using as mistress at the time I should add—to store guns and gunpowder for the shadowy and revolutionary Italian nationalist group, the Carbonari. 

It would be an entire misreading to regard Byron, and the Romanticists in general, as lotus-eating layabouts who only ever woke up to chase some whimsical dream. Not only was there method in the madness—as the prodigious lengthy, well-drafted and well-structured poetry can attest to—the Romantic poets, especially Byron, overplayed their reputation, and cultivated an impression of disorder. In fact Lord Byron was very aware of his personal image (especially his painted image) and managed to pull off one of the greatest PR stunts the world has every seen. All that naturalness was very unnatural and the spontaneity not very spontaneous. 

Another common misconception about Romanticism is that it led to Fascism or that Hitler was somehow a ‘Romantic’—this is both a furphy and fallacy. It’s true that the Nazis portrayed themselves as the heirs of past German Romanticist culture, but it was effectively just a triangulation. The Nazis picked and chose when it came to culture—choosing mostly reason-based classicalism I might add—and were attracted to Romanticism since it fostered a nationalistic spirit from old folk stories and traditions. The literally imperishable Jacques Barzun had this to say in his 1943 essay defence of Romanticism: “Perceiving all forms and conventions to be relative, the romanticist is an individualist, a democrat, and a cosmopolitan.” The Romantics were against customs, traditions, and monarchy. What they held closest and dearest was imagination, individuality, and expression—qualities which are the very antithesis of those valued in a totalitarian state. 

This is not to say that the Romantic poets are so individualistic that they are at home in classical liberalism. The Romantic poets were very critical of the agrarian and industrial revolution and the accompanying liberal economics. The earlier generation were almost politically conservative in their valuing of the traditional rural social fabric. William Blake mourned the loss of England’s ‘pleasant pastures’ and ‘mountains green’, which had been replaced by ‘dark Satanic Mills’. And Wordsworth had this to say about contemporary economics: 

Economists will tell you that the state

Thrives by forfeiture—unfeeling thought 

And false as monstrous! Can the Mother thrive

By the destruction of her innocent sons

  (The Excursion) 

The Romantic poets were disgusted by the destruction delivered in the name of profit and progress. They thought the industrial revolution had removed humans from nature and had mechanized their lives. They saw firsthand the physical and spiritual deformity wrought on the factory workers. The Romantic poets, who had always highly valued childhood, especially abhorred the child-labour which was very common at the time. While the Romantic poets were not socialists (though Marx did praise Shelley as a “revolutionary through and through, and consistently would have stood with the vanguard of socialism”), they were at heart conservative humanists. 

The first of the Romantic gang to die was, true to Romantic form, the youngest: John Keats. Despite being the youngest, Keats was probably the most mature of the poets—the most accepting of the paradoxes of life. Born a ‘delicate child’ (to quote M. Amis), Keats sympathetic and sensitivity was heightened by his experiences as a student surgeon—from his experiences witnessing anesthetic-less amputations. His medical training had taught him enough to know that when he coughed up that deep red blood that he knew it was his ‘death warrant’. And so, staring up at the flowers on ceiling as he lay, Keats died at age 25 of tuberculosis. 

A year later, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had once boasted of being able to steer a ship with one hand while reading a book of Plato in the other, was to die drowned off the coast of Italy in his boat the Don Juan. His body which washed up on the shore a few days later was only recognisable by his book of Keat’s poems found in his pocket. Shelley’s last major poem was the unfinished ‘The Triumph of Life’—which isn’t only ironic, but tragic, as there was so much more Shelley had to offer the world and had planned. Lord Byron died two years later from a fever in Greece—where with his own helmut, sword, and battalion of 150 mercenaries he had been fighting for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. Never a dull moment. 

Eccentric and idiosyncratic, the Romantic poets, despite all their faults, often showed a boldness and strength to follow their own personal passions and principles in a time much more conservative and cynical than our own current. And it's worth remembering that in their own time the poets were either ignored or reviled in the press and in decent society. They appealed to that side in all of us which reason and logic alone can never fulfill. They did not reject reason, but rather they embraced intuition. For them, the great manmade terrors of the world stemmed from a lack of sympathy—which in turn stemmed from a lack of imagination. They strove, to quote Christopher Hitchens, to "synthesise private anguish with the millennial sufferings of a broader humanity". Deeply spiritual atheists, centuries before Lovelock's Gaia Theory they were deeply aware of the interconnectedness of the world, and deeply respected the beauty and power of nature—warning of dire consequences if man dared interfere too much. They were conduits for the currents of a zeitgeist which started with the industrial revolution and really hasn't ended yet. 

The France Football Fracas

The French love scandals. From the French Revolution to the Dreyfus Affair, from the affairs in the novels of de Maupassant to the current allegations of rape against Strauss-Kahn. A sweeping generalisaiton? Oui.

In recent times nothing French has courted as much controversy and drama as the French National Football Team, affectionately known as Les Bleus.

First there was the World Cup South Africa meltdown (their mere appearance at the game also controversial due to Thierry Henry's handball incident against Ireland in qualification).

Raymond Domenech lost authority over his players and with the players divided and Nicolas Anelka sent home, France duly losing 2 games and drawing 1—never making it out of the group stage.

(We can learn much about Domenech's authority and judgement with his decision on the playing squad based on the players' astrological sign—he didn't include any Scorpios because he thought their violent temper could cause problems).

Then there was the Les Blues underage prostitute scandal. Bayern Munich star Franck Ribery and Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema both accused of soliciting the then 16 year old prostitute Zahia Dehar.

Assou-Ekotto and Bassong

And then two months ago there was the racial quota scandal. French football officials were revealed to be planning to implement a quota system to whiten the national team by ensuring that only a maximum of 30% youngsters entering French football academies will be Black or Arab.

The official argument for this implementation (as opposed to the unofficial sinister racist one) is that France produces too many "large, strong, and powerful" players, to use French national team manager Laurent Blanc's own words.

And of course, the players which tend to be large, strong, and powerful are predominately non-white. To a certain extent he is right. The French Ligue has a well-known reputation of physicality. But clearly this can be solved in other ways than a racial quota.

Tottenham Hotspur FC players Sebastian Bassong and Benoit Assou-Ekotto came out in the British press attacking this quota despite both players choosing to play for the national team of their heritage, Cameroon, and not of their birth and nationality, France.

When Bassong and Assou-Ekotto first came to Tottenham, they'd ask fellow black English team-mates such as Jermaine Defoe, and Aaron Lennon where they came from, and they'd just respond 'England' or 'Britain'. Unlike in France where Assou-Ekotto says the person will respond with their ethnic background because 'there isn't a sense of belonging'.


And what they said was really eye-opening to me. For years I was lead to believe that France was really accepting of its citizens from former empire colonies. I thought everyone was considered 'French' regardless of race.

 And in the eyes of the French Republic this is true. Everyone is considered equal regardless of race or religion, all are French, even the French national census doesn't ask what a person's race or ethnic origin is, unlike most other countries.

But the reality is a lot different. Like a lot of other European countries, far-right political parties are increasing in popularity and views which may have once be held as intolerant in a liberal democracy are becoming mainstream.

For a deeper understanding of just what is going on in France, I read Laurent Dubois's 'Soccer Empire', published just last year. And while the book doesn't really dwell on the actual football side of things, it does give great background to the issues which surround multi-ethnic Les Bleus and France in general.

The first part of the book goes into great detail on the history of football in the colonies of France. Such as the role in played in acting as an outlet for nationalism in the African colonies, despite its original encouragement by French Empire authorities as a means of distraction from any political movements.

Lilian Thuram

Or the role football played in helping the liberation of France from Vichy and Nazi rule in World War II when football supporters after a match in the French Antilles marched to their town centre chanting 'Vive le goal!', at first just a chant of celebration, and then with a change of pronunciation started chanting 'Vive de Gaulle!' which soon brought about a riot which led to the eventual take over of an anti-Vichy governorship of the Antilles.

The second part of the book deals with the Les Bleus World Cup campaigns in 1998, 2002, and 2006 and the correlation with French society around those periods. It heavily focuses on how the 'black, blanc, and beur' multi-racial rainbow team which won France's first World Cup in 1998 put to rest racist rhetoric from Le Pen in the mid-90s.

Dobois takes time to recount brief biographies of two of the most significant players on these World Cup teams, those of Zinedine Zidane and Lilian Thuram.


Both grew up in the banlieues of France (massive housing projects normally on the outskirts of cities), with Zidane being of Berber Algerian background while Thurman migrated from the French Antilles island of Guadeloupe to Paris when he was a child.

While Thuram would be outspoken in regards to politics and racial issues, becoming the voice of coloured France, Zidane was distinctively quiet on issues of politics, yet he became symbolic of coloured France and of France itself.

Car-burning during French riots

And though the rainbow team would come out victors in 1998 symbolising the win of multi-ethnic France, a poor performance in the 2002 World Cup opened the Les Bleus to criticism from Le Pen and his Front National Party, with the overwhelming non-whiteness of the National Team being criticised. 

And after 2005's unrest in the banlieues, with the pendulum of intolerance swinging backwards, a strong showing by the Les Bleus was about to set things straight again.

The team made up of 'fake frenchman' was looking good to take home France's second World Cup win, that was until the coup de boule—Zidane's headbutt. A moment of so much scandal and controversy it would be analysed for political meaning, and symbolic meaning for days after in the French press.

Zidane's 2006 head butt

And that brings us to today, where a meltdown by the Les Bleus in the most recent World Cup is largely attributed to a 'racial divide' between the players, with most of the blame by French society going to the black and/or Muslim players on the team.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter, Marine Le Pen now leads the Front National and although they are unlikely to gain Presidency, they do have large support. Whether or not Les Bleus success is a reflection of their contemporary society, they play a large role in the nation's identity and racial quota does unfortunately reflect France's current disposition.

Lives with Weller

I don't think there's anyone cooler than the late 70's Paul Weller. If I'd grown up in the late 70s without a doubt I'd be one of the many thousands of devotees who identified with the anger and class of the great Modfather. Those thousands of fans who identified with PW's philosophy on life and most other things. Recently I read two books both by men who grew up with Paul Weller. The first by megafan David Lines who wrote his 'The Modfather: My Life With Paul Weller' purely from a fan's point-of-view. A testament of a young mod-revialist infatuated with Weller in the model of Nick Hornby's 'Fever Pitch'. The second is 'Paul Weller: The Changing Man' by writer Paolo Hewitt, somebody who actually knew Mr Weller, who actually in Hewitt's own words, was "his closest friend from 1980-2006".

Why did their friendship end in 2006? Paolo never tells us in his book yet seeing that it was published in 2007, one can only guess that either the subject of their dispute was the publication of this book, or either Paolo Hewitt took the opportune conclusion of their relations to publish a tell-all biography. Scanning through the reviews on Amazon most comments attack Paolo Hewitt for his obviously biased account of Weller and many suggest that it sheds Weller in bad light. I'm not sure of this since when reading this book (and still ignorant of those reviewers opinions) my opinion of Weller never lowered and I wouldn't think there was anything in the book which would. But in hindsight I do see that Hewitt pried too long over what some may say are Weller's 'negative sides'.

Nevertheless for someone who isn't a PW-expert this book is an insight into him and is a very quick and easy read. We learn that Weller is a perfectionist with an ultra-work-ethic, is moody and taciturn, is non-compromising yet changeable and contrary yet convicted. Some may think he's a cunt, but to me, and to his fans, he's a lovable cunt. The biography touches on most aspects of Weller's life, up until the present day. His humble beginnings as the eccentric lone-Mod of Woking. The Jam's emergence within the Punk scene and subsequent snub from Punk. His philosophy and Mod lifestyle and dedicated mimicking fans. His identification with the working-class and voting for Labour yet sending of children to private schools hypocrisy. His ludditist dislike of technology and his fascination for violence.

Yet it isn't the definitive biography of Weller, and at the same time it isn't purely a testament of Hewitt's relationship with Weller with only a few anecdotes from their relationship being told. It's really more just a collection of anecdotes from Weller's life to which Hewitt was privy to. I can see why some have criticised this as being a hack job from a vengeful friend. But it is a good read.

David Line's book on the other hand is most definitely not a good read. There are thousands of dedicated fans who grew up with Paul Weller as an idol and who would have some good experiences to share—it may just be that Mr David Lines happens to be the worst of the lot. Admittedly I only read 1/3 of the book and skimmed the rest (to see if it got better—it didn't!) As an autobiography of David Lines is dreadfully tedious, and as a fan's account of their infatuation it's even worse. There's far too much of the author in this book (yes it is their story) and it is far too boring and uninteresting. I was drawn into reading this book because I fancied reading a good account of that time-period and of that sub-culture—I still would—and I came out of it hating David Lines. There's nothing that sets this man's childhood apart from the rest—and it doesn't even work in that 'typical-tale' way which can be interesting. It's just flat-out boring. And a lot of the character dialogue seems fake and corny. If David Lines happens to read this review (I'm sure he's the type who Googles his name every now and then—the self-absorbed cunt) I'd like to thank you for wasting 3 hours or so of my life.

RD.

The Y-word's history: semantics & anti-semitics

A month ago Jewish comedian (and Chelsea fan) David Baddiel launched a campaign with the aim to remove the word 'Yid' from the football fan's lexicon.

The campaign's centrepiece is a 90 second film which features Tottenham Hotspur legend Ledley King and Chelsea player Frank Lampard, amongst others, denounce racism in football, specifically the use of the word 'yid'.

Basically the view of Baddiel's is that the word 'yid' is inherently racist (at lest in a British setting) and that it is Tottenham Hotspur supporters' use of the word which encourages opposing fans taunt racist chants at them, e.g. Chelsea fans singing about Hitler gassing Jews.

"Some people are slightly flabbergasted when you tell them that yid is a racist word and it makes me feel uncomfortable as a Jew", Baddiel explained.

Baddiel takes a rather zero-tolerance and inflexible position on the use of the word yid, as it seems that in his view any use of the word yid, whether it be in a positive or negative way, is still racist and wrong.

For example hypothetically if Chelsea and co. fans stopped their racist chants would Tottenham Hotspur fans still be allowed to chant their positive use of the word? No it seems in Baddiel's world as the word 'yid' is a derogatory term.

Being a Tottenham Hotspur fan I disagree with Baddiel, and if I wasn't a Tottenham fan I still think I wouldn't agree, just like there are a large amount of the public out there who do disagree and don't support Spurs.

Anyways, it's important to place a historical context on the usage of the word to understand and to take a position on it.

The word yid in yiddish just means Jew and is not a pejorative word in Jewish culture. In his essay 'When is a Yid not a jew', John Efron explains that the term is actually used with affection amongst fellow Jews with the greeting 'Vos macht a yid?' much warmer than a simple name-greeting.

Yet the term does have racist meanings in British culture with the "Down with Yids" chant and march by Mosley and his fascists in 1936 a prime example. And a similar word to yid is Zhid which has extremely racist connotations in Eastern Europe.

Again Efron explains that in English the word yid can be judged to be used in pejorative manner by the pronunciation. Pronounced yeed is inoffensive, while pronounced yid is.

Now Tottenham Hotspur has a large Jewish following which predates the Second World War. So do Chelsea and Arsenal and other London clubs. What made Tottenham different was that it attracted a lot of Orthodox Jewish support (the club is located near Stamford Hill) and it is this very visible aspect of Jewishness which attracted racist taunts along the years.

Racism was rife in Britain in the 1970s and at the time the strong National Front movement was seeping onto the terraces.

The book from which
I  sourced most of
my information

In a case of chicken and the egg it was Tottenham's rival fans who first used the word Yid with taunts such as 'Yiddo, Yiddo, does your rabbi know your here?' very common in the 1970s.

At first Spurs fans ignored the racist taunts and it wasn't until the late 70s that they re-appropriated the term Yid and by the early 80s it was a badge of honour, with Tottenham fans affectionately calling each other, and their favourite players, yiddos.

One anecdote recalls a moment when playing against Manchester City in the early 80s that in response to racist taunts (regarding their lack of foreskins) the Spurs fans gathered up their Jewish fans and got them to drop their pants and wave their genitals at the City fans.

The quote from Baddiel I mentioned early about people not realising Yid was a racist term is actually quite telling about this whole scenario, as it is a glimpse of the reality of the changeability of word's meanings.

Words develop knew meanings over the course of time, some negative words develop positive connotations and vice versa.

Yes in some contexts the word yid has a racist context—but it doesn't when Tottenham fans use it. To have blanket ban on a word because in some circumstances it is racist is ridiculous.

On the other hand arguing against the banning of the word because it can incite racism by opposing fans has more weight. But even this is quite ridiculous as you would be punishing a set of people for being proud of being associated with a culture.

In my mind it is very clear that there is a difference between "Spurs are going to Auschwitz, Hitler's gonna gas them again" and "yiddo, yiddo, yiddo!".

Tottenham fans should be applauded for having the guts to appropriate the term of abuse which was thrown against them. It has created an environment of greater acceptance for others at Tottenham. That Tottenham trait also was shown again when Spurs fans carried Argentinean flags in support of their Argentinean players after the Falklands War when anti-Argentinean fervour was high.

The club should recognise that the Yiddo culture has actually improved Tottenham Hotspur FC's image around the world. A lot of times I see people put the club on the same level (in political conscious terms at least) as St Pauli and Celtic because of what they see as an anti-racist element amongst our fans.

I really don't get David Baddiel's viewpoint but it has caught traction in the UK. Apparently users on the official Tottenham Hotspur website are being told to change their username if it contains the word 'yid'. Nothings changed at Chelsea though as fans on route to Stamford Bridge last Saturday to see their team versus Tottenham still sang proudly the 'Spurs are on their way to Aucshwitz' song.

I'm not normally inclined to agree with most things published on Spiked, but I agree largely with Frank Furedi's view on things, which is worth a read.

Who Are The Mods?

There's a scene in debut director Rowan Joffe's newly released Brighton Rock where antihero Pinkie Brown uses the opportune moment of a Rocker vs Mod battle near Brighton Pier to assassinate a rival. The Mods are shouting the "We are the mods, we are the mods, we are, we are, we are the mods" chant, made famous in the 1978 film Quadrophenia, and I cannot think of a good reason why the director choose to transplant the original 1930s setting of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock to the 1960s other than to include this 'Mod' element.

Personally I felt the 1960s setting would confuse people unfamiliar with the story as the moralistic themes and petty gangster behaviour was more fitting for an earlier era than the 60s. But I did enjoy the added Mod element to the film, especially the scooter entourage into Brighton. But...who exactly are the Mods?

As said previously, the Brighton Rock film obviously drew a lot of inspiration from the film Quadrophenia, a film which almost serves as Mod's best testament, albeit fictional and a decade late. It is a film which would kick-start many a young actors careers and spark a immediate Mod-revival in many places across the world. It is highly recommended that you watch this film which is based on The Who album of the same name which was dedicated to a Mod with schizophrenia who kills himself, if you are interested in Mods.

At first glance you may be forgiven for thinking that 'Mod' was just some sort of clothes fashion or youth trend, something vain and just about looking nice. And perhaps you will have heard of the Mod vs Rocker brawls and generalise through this. But Mod had much more depth.

Yes clothes were a major part of the lifestyle. Post-Victorian dandy, post-1950s Teddy, the Mod was an aesthete, their home Carnaby St. Influenced by the American Ivy League preppy look, they also took to French and Italian tailored suits. Levis were the ideal jeans, but they also considered Wranglers and Lees. Button-down Ben Sherman shirts were nice and special and popular. Fred Perry cardigans became popular as the knitted sports shirt with the laurel wreath was made for Tennis and thus made for dancing in. Same goes with the versatile Fred Perry polo. Distinctively unlike previous generations the Mod haircut didn't have any oil or grease in it, but was set dry.

As memorable and associated as the suave Italian suits were the suave mobile Italian scooters which the Mods rode. Vespa or Lambretta, the scooter gave the Mods freedom to move about their city in a time with poor after-hours public transport. Mobility, something symbolically deeply associated with Mod. To keep their nice suits clean while on the scooters the Mods took to wearing the old military green parkas, the parka itself becoming a symbol of the Mod.

European transport, European suits, and European lifestyle. The Mods would gather late into the night at Italian cafes, drugged up by caffeine. Smoking cigarettes they would devour existentialism and spend countless hours in foreign-language cinemas watching non-subtitles from France and other places.

Musically wise they of course first were attracted to modern jazz (which is where some suggest this is where the name 'Mod' comes from—though it's debated), and after that Rhythm and Blues, Soul, Ska, Beat, and the movement would spout the British Rock bands of the early 60s like the Who and the Small Faces. 'My Generation' was their anthem.

The Mods used amphetamines to keep themselves up, it let them dance into the night and always alert. They'd pack London's West End, in Soho clubs in Wardour St. Perhaps it was the pills which gave them an edge, which made them argumentative, but the Mods were no fops in suits. As I quote from somewhere I can't remember "they made wearing a tie and suit seem aggressive and threatening".



There were a lot of inter-mod rivalries, different Mod gangs, but there was a greater enemy in the 'Rockers'. These country bumpkins were the antithesis of the Mod. Greasy long hair, black leather jackets, greasy motorbikes and boots. They were from the city's outskirts and seemingly also stuck in the 1950s. Unlike the Mods who were more inclusive, the rockers were largely racist and directed hate against the new West Indian citizens. Beach-side battles between Mods and Rockers on Bank Holiday at Brighton was much made out of in the 1960s and is often what is only remembered now of the Mods, which is a shame.

"I mean you gotta be somebody, ain't you? or you may as well jump into the sea" - Jimmy the Mod (Quadrophenia)

That's the famous line from the movie where Jimmy differentiates being a Mod from being a Rocker and anyone else. That was the Mod attitude and ideology. It was about bettering your self, achieving the ultimate individualism, nothing was out of reach. While this attitude wouldn't be out of place at neo-liberal/conservative convention the Mods actually have the post WW2 Labour government in Britain to thank. Clement Atlee gave the working-class new wealth and 1950s low-unemployment. The Mods never had to work in the factories like their parents did and never would they settle for the lives their parents had. Exclusively from the working-class, Mods disproved any idea there was that there was a 'class' between the upper and lower classes, they would out-class the gentry and were better dressed than their employers.

Mod ended when it became a trend followed by shallow hoards. Some Mods grew their hair long and followed the Sgt Pepper and Jimi Hendrix direction, or some might have joined the new skinhead trend. A lot settled-down for the quiet middle-class life.

Paul Weller (mod-revival) and Pete Townshend (mod original)

There also too was a short-lived Mod phase in Melbourne, Australia during the early mid-1960s. Although this scene was without the social depth of the original Mods in London and was largely made up of kids from the middle-class catching on to the new styles from abroad. It did become a sort of a youth trend though and it had its own rivals in the Sharps which were almost an Australian version of the Rockers except they wore their hair short and preferred denim to black leather. Fights broke out in Melbourne between the 'mods' and 'sharps' and like their British cousins the tabloids in Australia made a riot of it. A lot of animosity between the two cults stemmed from the Mods advantage of being allowed into the best clubs due to their superior dress.

The Origin of the Old Firm

A relatively drama and violence free Old Firm derby was played out yesterday between old foes Rangers and Celtic at Ibrox which ended in a nil all stalemate. Letter-bombs sent to Celtic coach Neil Lennon and much violence and many arrests at the previous Old Firm derby, and even more at the one before that, combined with a statistic released which says rates of violence increases twofold when the Old Firm play all combined all contributed to a tense lead up to this match.

Celtic manager Neil Lennon
 antagonizing Rangers fans

Unusually Glasgow has been lucky enough to witness no less than six Old Firm derbies this year and seven overall this season. The casual Scottish football fan will normally get four matches in an average year and maybe five if you're lucky. Luck drew the two Glasgow clubs together in the Scottish FA and League Cup this season though, ensuring overflowing Scottish coffers.

And of course maximisation of profit and the monopolisation of every aspect of football is why the football derby between Glasgow's Celtic FC and Rangers FC is named the Old Firm. Dubbed in the very early years of 20th century when even back then in association football's juvenile years the two clubs were making a fortune based on the fierce inter-town rivalry which is based on bigotry, sectarianism, and hate. The derby offering a stable regular predictable income, as the fixture always neared sell-out regardless of each club's league situation.

John Knox

To fully comprehend this rivalry you'd have to go back to the reformation days back in the 16th century when John Knox and his men turned Scotland into the most protestant of countries. More so than anywhere else in the world Scotland was eradicated of Catholicism and as historian Bill Murray says "Every sign, sound, and sight of popery was removed from the reformed creed, worship, and buildings of reformed faith". Catholicism only survived in backwater pockets and unlike in England no wealthy Catholic families survived to keep a relatively good reputation for their faith.

After the great Irish potato famine of the mid 19th century, the Irish mass-imigrated to Scotland and it was Irish-Catholic immigrants to Scotland who founded Glasgow's great Celtic FC. Established in 1888 by a Marist Brother, the club was intended to serve the poor Irish community in Glasgow's east end by raising money for dinners, clothing, etc, it is said that an ulterior motive for the club's creation was also to keep Glasgow's Catholics from mingling with protestants in their spare time. Celtic actually wasn't Scotland's first Catholic club though with Edinburgh's Hibernian FC founded in 1875 and Dundee's Dundee United founded in 1880, though both dropped their Catholic identification very early and today are very disjoint from their Catholic roots.

Dalglish grow up in a tower block
 opposite Ibrox, a diehard Rangers fan,
 they never signed him
 so he signed for Celtic

The early decades of the rivalry was largely un-sectarian and it isn't easy to pinpoint the exact spark of the conflict, with Rangers still hiring Catholics in these early years. Some put it down to the arrival of Belfast ship-building company Harland and Wolff and its protestant Unionist-fervent employees to Glasgow in 1912.

Tensions between the two definitely heightened during the inter-war period of the Great Depression and a clear trend in Rangers FC not hiring Catholics seems to have started in this period. This was a time when throughout Scotland, due to a scarcity of jobs, the foreman's power was never greater (who was normally protestant) and when employers (who were largely protestant) favoured the 'local' native skilled Scots over the unskilled Irish.

Also around this time was the formation of the Republic of Ireland and an increase in sectarianism in Ulster which had decided to stay a part of the United Kingdom. This would turn into the 'Troubles' which lasted from the 60s till the late 90s, and the imagery, chants/slogans, and ideas from both sides of the belligerents transferred to the terraces of the Old Firm. Chants about the UDA and the IRA, the flag of the Irish Republic and the Union Jack, and threats to the Queen and the Pope are all common at the Old Firm.

Some conspiracy theories also link Rangers FC with the Orange Order and the Freemasons. The vehemently anti-Catholic Orange Order is clearly referenced and visible in the Rangers FC crowd, while Freemasonry which hasn't had the best relations with the Catholic Church (any Catholic who joins is excommunicated) is very popular in Scotland (one stat suggests there are more Freemasons per capita in Scotland than any other country—but this is disputed), and because often the business class is naturally made up of Freemasons and since Rangers FC has often been linked with Scotland's business class it is easy to see how the links can occur. If looked into enough it is suggested that Freemasonry imagery can be found in Rangers' paraphernalia and official history books.

To summarise it all up perhaps it is best to quote the controversial conclusion by football historian Bill Murray: 'The real origin of sectarianism in Scottish football lay in the very formation of Celtic Football Club and their unprecedented success. The success of Celtic at the time coincided with a resurgence of catholic militancy both in local affairs and Irish national affairs".

Screw-in studs: A brief history of adidas and Puma sneakers

During the few years I studied German language in high school my class was made to watch the same movie at least 3 times and from memory I saw the same movie another time on TV.

The movie was 'The Miracle of Bern', which was about a German POW returning from Soviet captivity to 1950s West Germany and focussed on his troubled relations with his estranged family, specifically with his youngest son  who has a fascination for football.

The Miracle of Berne

For me personally a memorable part of the movie is when some inventive man offers his 'screw-in studs' (or 'Schraubstollen' as I had to memorize in my class) to the manager of the German National team which gives them an advantage in the World Cup as 'die Mannschaft' can change the suitability of the studs on their boots as the weather changes.  

The inventive man was Adi Dassler, founder of adidas (always a lowercase 'a'), and the promotion and publicity adidas would receive from the 1954 World Cup would propel them to dominate the sports shoe market for the next few decades, giving them the edge over arch rivals Puma—a company which happened to be founded by Adi Dassler's brother, Rudolf Dassler.

The brothers' story begins right after the First World War in their native Herzogenaurach (Bavaria) when they begin a small shoe production store in their mother's former laundering shed (the war had meant a shortage in laundering need).

Adi Dassler

The brothers played different roles in their company 'Gebruder Dassler' (Brothers Dassler), with Adi being the designer, the shoemaker, while Rudolf took control of the sales side of business.

Both brothers joined the Nazi party in 1933 and it made business sense to do so since Nazism was an ardent support of German sports, believing it encouraged discipline and comradeship and had propaganda possibilities.

Either out of political fervour or crude business sense, some of the earlier boots were called 'Kampf' and 'Blitz'. Yet Adi Dassler also worked hard on getting African-American Jesse Owens to wear his boots in the races at the 1936 Berlin Olympics—to which he prevailed and to which Owens prevailed in the Dassler boots.

Jesse Owens

But as Gebruder Dassler was picking up steam the brothers' relationship deteriorated. While Adi was naturally introverted his wife was not, and she often clashed with the extroverted Rudolf. To make matters worse both brothers' families lived in the same big house.

One anecdote recounts how during an allied air raid during World War Two Adi and his family were taking shelter in their bunker when Rudolf and his family walked in and at that same moment Adi remarked on the allied bombers "here are the bloody bastards again" to which Rudolf angrily and hysterically thought was a deliberate attack on him.

The situation worsened when Rudolf was subscripted into the German army while Adi was spared as he was considered of too much importance to the shoe factory. Immediately after the war Rudolf was arrested by the Americans for his service in the Sicherheitsdienst (a Nazi security agency) which was prompted by anonymous denunciation—which Rudolf inevitably blamed on Adi.

adidas Gazelle

Unlike Rudolf who was an adamant Nazi supporter, Adi's ties are more ambiguous as he also before the war had been a member of liberal gymnastic clubs, conservative soccer clubs, and other sports clubs which had Trade Union heritage. And when it was unlawful to do so he continued business with Jews and sheltered a half-Jew and employed an anti-fascist.

In 1948 the Gebruder Dassler company officially split. Rudolf moved across the river which split their town to a smaller factory. Adi Dassler named his company adidas which was a combination of his knickname 'adi' and the first syllable of his surname, while originally Rudolf did something similar for his company calling it 'Ruda', though this name was criticized as being 'inelegant and plump' and he quickly renamed and registered the elegant 'Puma'.

The old Gebruder Dassler shoes already had made use of shoe-strengthenng stripes on the sides, and to differentiate the new adidas shoes from the old Gebruder Dassler, Adi increased the original two stripes to the trademark legendary adidas three stripes. Rudolf also changed his Puma shoes' stripe to one thick straight stripe going horizontal across the side, which later would turn into the iconic Puma Formstripe—the broad strip which snaked and thinned up the shoe.

The Puma Dallas and the formstripe

The two brothers would now engage in a sneaker war which continues to be waged today. From the start Adidas was more successful in getting their product on display with international teams such as at the 1954 World Cup, while Puma found product place possibilities with domestic German football teams.      

Horst Dassler, Adi's son, made a huge breakthrough in exporting the adidas brand when he gave away free shoes and spikes to athletes competing in the Melbourne 1956 Olympics, which meant adidas dominated the track and the podium. It also gave good connections for adidas as many of those who received the free adidas gift at those Games would go on to work in high positions of sport organisations.

Cruyff's two stripes

The stars of modern sport were wooed by each company as both Puma and adidas fought over the hearts and minds of the impressionable. During the 1962 Chilean World Cup adidas dominated yet it was Puma's Brazil which won it, led by Puma's marquee man, Pele. Holland's total football playing Oranje of the 1970s were decked out in the adidas 3 stripes, but during the 1974 West Germany World Cup, rebellious Puma-sponsored Johan Cruyff refused to wear the 3-striped kit and demanded a 2-striped kit—which he duly got. The only Dutch player with 2 stripes down his arms. Puma can also claim Argentinean star Diego Maradona who was sponsored by them for his playing career and the recent 2006 Italian side.

But adidas can claim World Cup 1990 winning West Germany's squad, and the French winning side of 1998, especially their key star Zinedine Zidane. And then they made the most possible out of milking David Beckham's global celebrity. More recently they can claim Argentinean superstar Lionel Messi. 

Arguably though, a large part of the popularity of these sneakers, more so adidas than Puma, can be contributed to the fervent adoption by some subcultures.

Sneakers had already entered into the cultural fabric of youth-and alternative culture in the 1950s, symbolised by James Dean and his sneakers in 'Rebel Without A Cause'. But in the late-70s sneakers became the centrepiece of football terrace culture in Britain and b-boy and hip-hop culture in America.

Football casuals originating in England's north-west acquired a taste for European-style after European tournament matches, and later continental trips would mean quests to locate rare sneakers, adidas Trimm-trabs, Munchens, Forest Hills, Sambas, and Puma Suedes, Romas, Dallas, and Argentinas were a staple. So were adidas Gazelles which were also a favourite of the early 80s UK hip-hop scene and continued into the mid-90s Britpop scene. 

Stars of adidas

In the mid-80s Run DMC released a single titled 'My adidas', cementing the sneakers in popular-culture. Other groups like the Beastie Boys also openly showed their love for the adidas brand.