Tag Archives: National Anthem

Thoughts on Sport and National Anthems

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I’ve just been reading an internet article on the singing of National Anthems by teams before international sporting events. This, it seems, was the reason for the United States Women’s team leaving the FIFA World Cup early.

I have news for all Americans here. It doesn’t matter. If you ever watch an English team at the start of am international match you will note that many of them don’t sing the National Anthem. That’s because most of us don’t know the words. And, in the case of football players, because some of the words have more than two syllables. We don’t I admit, win many big international competitions but the failure is down to arrogance, lack of preparation, money, tactical shortcomings and a plethora of other things, which all came into play during the rest of the article discussing the American women. At least they won four World Cups before the press turned on them, our men have only won one and our women haven’t won one yet.

The National Anthem isn’t a big thing in the UK, it’s just a dirge of a tune, with a history going back to, possibly, the 16th Century. It has had many verses and, like most things in the country, it fails to reflect the modern world. We are only allowed to sing two verses now, as dismissive references to foreigners and Scots are, due to modern sensibilities, not allowed. And, most importantly, it isn’t official, it just became the National Anthem because people sang it at times when other countries sang national anthems.

The American National Anthem has an interesting history too and was officially adopted in 1931 after many attempts. The music is by an Englishman. Interestingly, the music to another contender (My Country ’tis of Thee) is said to have music which is “identical to the music of God Save the King”. They can’t quite bring themselves to say that it is identical because it is the same music.

There are translations of the American National Anthem into many languages, including a French version for Americans of French descent (one of whom is amongst my readers) whereas we don’t bother with that sort of stuff in the UK, as we expect the rest of the world to learn English.

And there you go, a post that was going to discuss the evils of football and football journalism, turned out to be a post about National Anthems.

 

 

 

Day 117

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I went for a blood test this morning and picked up a prescription from the pharmacy. Last year this would have taken me weeks, possibly months, as the prescription would have been lost, missing or wrong. At best, the blood test would have been 20 minutes late and the wait at the pharmacy would have been 30-40 minutes. Today it took me 20 minutes.

Not everybody was as lucky as me – one woman had to ask about her appointment (she had been waiting over 20 minutes) and the prescription of one elderly gent (no, not me) had been sent to the wrong pharmacy. It looks like fate has been kind to me.

I’m supposed to be sitting in a queue in the barbers at the moment but I forgot and came home. It looks like Julia has forgotten too, as she’s the one who is keen on me looking respectable. That means we have time to have lunch at KFC and I can still go for my booster at 1.30.

After that I am intending to look pale and interesting in front of the TV and eat cake. I’m on a diet, but you have to feed a cold and starve a fever, as they say, and there is a little known second verse – “and eat cake for everything else”. It’s like the National Anthem, there are a lot of lesser known verses to that. When you read them, you can see why they are lesser known. However, I think mine should be better known and will be using it several times a year to ensure it gets out into the world.

Botham’s Whitby