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Game, set and match to Cork rebelsAS WE leave inclement November behind, straws in the worldwide wind remind us that nothing stays the same, and that even venerable and hidebound institutions must stay alert, or perish.

In China, hoarding of garlic has begun as swine-flu fears surge, and market manipulators have caused a price spike already being compared to the Dutch tulip mania of the early 17th century. Wholesale prices in Beijing have multiplied by a factor of 15 since March. (Can Brian Lenihan somehow be blamed?)

Climate change means English wine output will top three million bottles this year, a 50 per cent surge. Sea-bed research indicates a huge surge of Ice Age water created the English Channel, and Sussex wine-growers note that they sit on the same chalk as Champagne.

In Kentucky an 18-year-old straight rye whiskey called Sagerac wins Whisky Bible’s top rating. Although Ardbeg Supernova, distilled on Islay, gets second, another upstart spirit sneaks into bronze-medal position. It’s Amrut Fusion, from Bangalore. Last year, Yoichi from Japan got best malt whisky. Is nothing sacred?

In such a crazy, unpredictable world, is there anything one can cling to for sanity, some semblance of permanence, of traditions upheld in the face of such blur-speed change?

Yes. We are reassured and cheered by the stellar humanity of the GAA’s mid-winter firmament.

In Wicklow, there’s a slew of sendings off.

In Co Offaly, Tullamore win the senior county and reach the Leinster club hurling final with a 48-year-old goalkeeper.

In Galway, Corofin’s captain goes on a booked golfing holiday in Portugal and returns to be man of the match in the Connacht football final win.

And in Cork, as the city sinks deeper in its flood-plain delta, the nation waits with bated breath as the local county board casts its critical eye over the deal between the GAA and the Gaelic Players Association (GPA).

And yet! Even as we feel reassured that some things are immutable, the Cork clubs flex newly-ripped biceps, delegates do a volte face and even county secretary Frank Murphy himself – the cutest hoor of all his ilk, but heretofore as stubborn as the Leeside day is long – signals clear approval for the GPA accord.

And given Donal Óg Cusack’s seminal role in the GPA, and in swinging last week’s deal, that must’ve been some dose for Frank to swallow on Thursday night.

Robbie still capable of ruffling feathers

THEY USED to feed it to nursing mothers in the Coombe, so it must be good for us and a few pints of it certainly makes the world more congenial. My fondness for stout in general and Guinness in particular was reinforced in 1980 when his St James’s Gate bosses sacked one John Robbie for touring South Africa with the Lions.

When the scrumhalf returned to that country the following year with an Irish touring party, my disdain for the fella knew few bounds. The usual “excuses” did not apply: he’d been to High School and Trinity, and he was intelligent. I redoubled my pint-sized subscriptions, and resolved to watch his surely inevitable nemesis from the ice-capped moral ground of the high stool.

And then Robbie stayed on in a country where the ANC was still banned, political violence was commonplace and apartheid appeared to be bolted in, unassailable. He played for Transvaal, where apartheid was woven in the DNA, and came close to a South African cap. At that point, voodoo dolls of John Robbie doubled as pin-cushions in liberal Dublin circles.

After retiring, he drifted into sports reporting, then caught a break on late-night talk radio in 1990. It was just as apartheid began to fissure under the weight of its own absurdity – at a time when Europe, too, had just begun to slalom through its biggest political and social upheaval since the second World War.

In fairness to Robbie’s moral compass, by that stage he had hit Damascene tarmac somewhere on the high veldt, he was abashed over the tours and the succour they had given the regime.

He acknowledged publicly, belatedly but contritely that he and others had been far from wise in the early ’80s. He became a trenchant and apparently fearless cult figure on Radio 702, taking on racists, giving airtime to the then ANC hate-figures (returning exiles and ex-prisoners) and generally not endearing himself to the ancien regime. Nelson Mandela became an open fan.

Last week, an odd focus was turned on John Robbie, now host of a sports talk show on 702 and at this point one of the best-known and admired/loathed media figures in the country.

As President Mary McAleese did her red-carpet routine in Croker, Robbie said on Super Sport One: “Ireland is the only country in the world that would have a president that comes from another country.” Oliver Duffy, an Irish resident of South Africa, took exception and wrote in high dudgeon to the Department of Foreign Affairs and the IRFU (and, helpfully, copied to The Irish Times) his view that being born in a stable did not necessarily make one a horse – and that Robbie had delivered an outright insult to herself, and the people of Ireland.

Fifteen years ago, the broadcaster’s name turned up on a serious right-wing assassination hit-list. Another death threat described his home, his wife’s car and his kids’ school in disturbingly precise detail. A policeman later told the Truth Commission that there had been a ministerially-approved plan to have the broadcaster shot.

All in all, I suspect Robbie will somehow find the wherewithal to muddle through this latest contretemps. And this long-distance supporter, for one, will certainly be lifting a glass of something tall, dark and clerically collared to his continued well-being. Floreat.

Dubai woes spread panic

SO. GLOBAL economic reality has spancelled the mad mirage of construction idiocy that is the statelet of Dubai, just as fatefully and permanently as Coleridge’s Person from Porlock interrupted the poet’s laudanum rhythm-reverie while composing Kubla Khan.

High-end horse folk everywhere have been treading on eggshells since the news broke of Dubai’s probable default on debts of many tens of billions of whatever currency you’re having. The emirate’s ruling elite are inextricably knitted into the extended Maktoum family, and it’s not overstating matters to say that the worldwide thoroughbred industry has been crucially bolstered by the sheikhs for a couple of decades now.

Their oil-based wealth remains very substantial, for sure, but any bail-out could not but have some impact on their investment in horseflesh, and those directly or otherwise dependent on Godolphin’s money-train must now be reading the finance pages with prayer-beads to hand.

As if that’s not enough, along comes a court case in Australia, where one-time bookie Bruce (yeah, I know) McHugh is trying to force the racing authorities to register for racing thoroughbreds foaled after artificial insemination (AI). His cogent argument is that banning such animals – as all the heavyweight racing countries do right now – is an unfair restraint of trade.

Sage Australians (yep, I know, don’t go there) say McHugh’s no eejit, having once taken Kerry Packer’s $13m against his £11m, and won the bet.

Local self-interest reckons that if the maverick bookie wins in court, it will scupper the stud industry because Aussie AI-breds will be banned from breeding or racing abroad.

The authorities may also lean on the view – not universally supported by experts – that AI could mean too many progeny from the most successful stallions, with an attendant risk of inbreeding.

In Europe, Dubai watchers are also waiting on the legal wisdom of Oz.

It may not end there. Even if McHugh loses, what price legal action under EU competition law?

Final Straw

THUS FAR today, we haven’t once blattered on about illegal digital manipulation, let alone francophobia. At the risk of descending into cheap and cheerful comparative national stereotyping, however, let me quote Stoke City manager Tony Pulis’s verdict on his record €5.5 million summer signing, Robert Huth.

“His attitude has been fantastic,” he told the London Independent. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but he’s been typically German – nothing has fazed him.”

Huth himself, recently back from a three-match suspension for punching Matthew Upson of West Ham, said of his offence that “it was out of character” but he had “reacted badly and was punished”. (No, doesn’t remind me of any particular cheese-eating surrender monkeys, either.)

The 6ft 3ins Huth has 17 caps for Germany and is known back home as the Berlin Wall. Soccer can be such a straightforward game when played by proper men.

Contrast Huth’s philosophy and life with the dilemma faced by his national politicians two decades ago. After the November 9th 1989 event now called Mauerfall, they pondered with a mild surmise if it should become their national day. Then they realised that 9/11 German-style was contaminated. On that date in 1918, Der Kaiser was forced to abdicate; and in 1938, it was the occasion of Kristallnacht.

***

IN THE midst of the fuss and blather of November’s professional sport, it’s been a simple pleasure to see the numbers of rugby players, in particular, joining in the innocent fun of growing facial hair to raise money for male cancer charities. The boys-will-be-boys banter in the dressing-room must be only mighty.

The transformative effect has been entertaining.

A couple of the autumn internationals – Matt Giteau and Jamie Heaslip, in particular looked like extras from a particularly surreal David Lynch film, with their wispy maidenhair ronnies.

But prop Cian Healy took the biscuit. With the white gumshield in, his attenuated Clark Gable ’tache and exclamation-mark meigeall of a goatee made him look like a low-rent porn star sourced from Central Casting.

Bless.