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Baby born with HIV reported to be clear of virus after urgent treatment

March 5, 2014, 12:12 pm
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Girl born in Los Angeles last April started receiving drugs for infection within hours of birthA baby born with HIV may have been cleared of the virus after doctors gave her treatment for the infection within hours of her birth.

Doctors gave the baby's mother anti-HIV drugs during labour to cut the risk of passing her HIV on, and began treating the baby four hours after she was born in suburban Los Angeles last April.

Sensitive blood tests suggested that the baby has been completely cleared of the virus, but the infection can hide in tissues and return. "We don't know if the baby is in remission ... but it looks like that," said Yvonne Bryson, an infectious disease specialist at Mattel children's hospital at UCLA who consulted on the girl's care.

Doctors revealed the case at an Aids conference in Boston on Wednesday.

The baby girl could be the second to be freed of HIV after early treatment with anti-HIV drugs. The first case was reported last year, when doctors gave drugs to a baby born in Mississippi. She was treated until she was 18 months old, but doctors then lost contact with her.

When the girl came back to the clinic 10 months later, doctors could find no sign of the infection. Now aged three-and-a-half, she is still clear of HIV. Reported by guardian.co.uk 19 hours ago.
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Girl rescued from bathroom by firefighters in Plymouth

March 5, 2014, 2:05 pm
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Girl rescued from bathroom by firefighters in Plymouth A YOUNG girl had to be rescued from her bathroom by firefighters after she became locked in. A crew from Camels Head station were called to the house in Keyham Road at around 7.30pm this evening. A spokesman for the service said: "One fire appliance from Camels Head attended a incident involving one young girl locked in a bathroom. "Crews used small tools to effect entry to the bathroom, and reunite the girl with her parents." Reported by Plymouth Herald 17 hours ago.
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Art mystery girl revealed

March 6, 2014, 12:59 am
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Art mystery girl revealed THE mystery sitter from a Newlyn painting from the 1930s has been identified thanks to a Cornishman reader.Last week we featured a photo of the Harold C Harvey painting The Yellow Blouse asking if anyone could identify the young sitter.Malcolm Andrews, an art collector, was hoping to gain more information on the painting he bought in 2012.Thanks to 93-year-old reader Clarence Wallis, the girl was identified as Betty Pollard who lived in Keel Alley.Mr Wallis, who grew up in Newlyn, recognised... Reported by The Cornishman 6 hours ago.
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Helicopter saves girl after fall from cliff

March 6, 2014, 12:05 am
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A 15-YEAR-old girl was airlifted to hospital last week after falling off a cliff at Pendeen.Paramedics, the cliff rescue team from Land's End and first aid responders from Geevor were called to the scene near Geevor Tin Mine and the girl was eventually winched up by a rescue helicopter from RNAS Culdrose in an operation that took more than two hours.The teenager, who is from Pendeen, suffered serious pelvic injuries and was flown to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth late on Wednesday ... Reported by The Cornishman 7 hours ago.
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The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe – review

March 6, 2014, 2:17 am
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David Kertzer's nuanced book investigates an unholy alliance between fascism and the Catholic church

In 1938, Pope Pius XI addressed a group of visitors to the Vatican. There were some people, he said, who argued that the state should be all-powerful – "totalitarian". Such an idea, he went on, was absurd, not because individual liberty was too precious to be surrendered, but because "if there is a totalitarian regime – in fact and by right – it is the regime of the church, because man belongs totally to the church".

As David Kertzer demonstrates repeatedly in this nuanced book, to be critical of fascism in Italy in the 30s was not necessarily to be liberal or a lover of democracy. And to be antisemitic was not to be unchristian. The Pope told Mussolini that the church had long seen the need to "rein in the children of Israel" and to take "protective measures against their evil-doing". The Vatican and the fascist regime had many differences, but this they had in common.

Kertzer announces that the Catholic church is generally portrayed as the courageous opponent of fascism, but this is an exaggeration. There is a counter-tradition, John Cornwell's fine book, Hitler's Pope, on Pius XII (who succeeded Pius XI in 1939) exposed the Vatican's culpable passivity in the face of the wartime persecution of Italian Jews. But Kertzer describes something more fundamental than a church leader's strategic decision to protect his own flock rather than to speak up in defence of others. His argument, presented not as polemic but as gripping storytelling, is that much of fascist ideology was inspired by Catholic tradition – the authoritarianism, the intolerance of opposition and the profound suspicion of the Jews.

Pius XI – formerly Achille Ratti, librarian, mountain-climber and admirer of Mark Twain – was elected Pope in February 1922, eight months before Mussolini bullied his way to the Italian premiership. For 17 years the two men held sway over their separate spheres in Rome. In all that time they met only once, but they communicated ceaselessly by means of ambassadors and nuncios, through the press (each had his tame organ) and via less publicly accountable go-betweens. From the copious records of their exchanges Kertzer has uncovered a fascinating tale of two irascible – and often irrational – potentates, and gives us an account of some murky intellectual finagling, and an often startling investigation of the exercise of power.

The accession of Mussolini, known in his youth as mangiaprete – priest-eater – didn't bode well for the papacy. The fascist squads had been beating up clerics and terrorising Catholic youth clubs. But Mussolini saw that he could use the church to legitimise his power, so he set about wooing the clergy. He had his wife and children baptised. He gave money for the restoration of churches. After two generations of secularism, there were once again to be crucifixes in Italy's courts and classrooms. Warily, slowly, the Pope became persuaded that with Mussolini's help Italy might become, once more, a "confessional state".

Only gradually did it become clear how much the church might lose in the process. Pius fretted over inadequately dressed women – backless ballgowns and the skimpy outfits of female gymnasts were particularly worrisome. Mussolini played along, solemnly declaring that, in future, girls' gym lessons would be designed only to make them fit mothers of fascist sons. He was accommodating in aiding the Pope's war on heresy – banning Protestant books and journals on demand. But Mussolini was creating a heresy of his own. Schoolchildren were required to pray to him: "I humbly offer my life to you, o Duce." In January 1938, he summoned more than 2,000 priests, including 60 bishops, to participate in a celebration of his agricultural policy. Neither the Pope nor his secretary of state were happy, but they feared offending the dictator. And so the priests marched in procession through Rome. They laid wreaths, not at a Christian shrine, but on a monument to fascist heroes. They saluted Mussolini as he stood on his balcony and attended a ceremony where they were required to cheer his entrance, to pray for blessings upon him and roar out "O Duce! Duce! Duce!" That the fascists (beginning with their precursor, Gabriele d'Annunzio) had appropriated ecclesiastical rituals and liturgies could perhaps be taken as a compliment to the church, but to recruit its priests for the worship of a secular ruler was to humiliate God's vicar on earth. Mussolini was cock-a-hoop. It was easy to manipulate the church, he told his new allies in Nazi Germany. With a few tax concessions, and free railway tickets for the clergy, he boasted, he had got the Vatican so snugly in his pocket it had even declared his genocidal invasion of Abyssinia "a holy war".

When it comes to the "Jewish question", Kertzer demonstrates that the Pope's failure to protest effectively against the fascist racial laws arose not simply from weakness, but because antisemitism pervaded his church. Mussolini scored a painful hit when he assured Pius that he would do nothing to Italy's Jews that had not already been done under papal rule. Roberto Farinacci, most brutal of the fascist leaders, came close to the truth when he announced: "It is impossible for the Catholic fascist to renounce that antisemitic conscience which the church had formed through the millennia." And Catholic antisemitism was thriving. Among Pius's most valued advisers were several who – as Kertzer amply demonstrates – saw themselves as battling against a diabolical alliance of communists, Protestants, freemasons and Jews.

Avoiding overt partisanship, Kertzer coolly lays out the evidence; he describes his large and various cast of characters, and follows their machinations. We meet the genial Cardinal Gasparri who, narrowly missing the papacy himself, became Pius's secretary of state, handling the negotiations that led in 1929 to the Lateran Accords between the Vatican and the regime. Gasparri, a peasant's son who had risen far, considered Mussolini absurdly ignorant and uncouth; Mussolini thought him "very shrewd". We meet the Jesuit father, Tacchi Venturi, Pius's unofficial emissary, a firm believer in conspiracy theories, who claimed to have been nearly killed by an antifascist hitman (the story doesn't stand up). We meet Monsignor Caccia, Pius's master of ceremonies, who was known to the police and to Mussolini's spies for luring boys to his rooms in the Vatican for sex, rewarding them with contraband cigarettes. And we meet the motley crew familiar from histories of fascism: the doltish Starace, Mussolini's "bulldog"; Ciano, plump and boyish and, in the opinion of the American ambassador, devoid of "standards morally or politically"; and Clara Petacci, the girl with whom Mussolini spent hours of every day on the beach. Some of this is familiar territory, but what is new, and riveting, is how fascists and churchmen alike were forced into intellectual contortions as they struggled to justify the new laws. "Racism" was good. "Exaggerated racism" was bad. "Antisemitism" was good, as long as it was Italian. "German antisemitism" was another thing entirely.

Eventually Pius XI drew back from this casuistry. Kertzer describes the old pope on his deathbed, praying for just a few more days so that he could deliver a speech with the message that "all the nations, all the races" (Jews included) could be united by faith. He dies. Cardinal Pacelli – suave, emollient and devious, where Pius XI was a table-thumper who had no qualms about blurting out uncomfortable truths – clears his desk, suppresses his notes and persuades the Vatican's printer, who has the speech's text ready for distribution, to destroy it so that "not a comma" remains. Eighteen days later Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII. It is a striking ending for a book whose narrative strength is as impressive as its moral subtlety.

• Lucy Hughes-Hallett's The Pike: Gabriele d'Annunzio has won the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction, the Costa biography award and the Duff Cooper prize. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.
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The precious afterlife of Sophie Lancaster

March 6, 2014, 6:09 am
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Sophie Lancaster, the girl 'murdered for being a goth', has inspired music festivals, plays, and possibly a change in the law. But will her mother ever find time to grieve?
 
 
 
  Reported by Telegraph.co.uk 1 hour ago.
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Man admits grooming 12-year-old girl and possession of more than...

March 6, 2014, 7:29 am
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A Longfield man who groomed a 12 year old girl on a social networking site has admitted possessing more than 200 indecent images and three counts of sexual activity with a child. James Newman, of Longfield Avenue, began talking with the young girl over social media network 'BearShare' between January and May last year. The girl told Newman she was 12, while he lied and claimed he was 18 years old. Newman then began contacting the girl through Facebook and the pair talked on Skype regularly. The... Reported by Sevenoaks Chronicle 1 day ago.
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Burger rage customer found guilty of McDonald's drive through...

March 6, 2014, 4:23 pm
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Burger rage customer found guilty of McDonald's drive through... An angry customer caused a flurry at a fast food drive through when he climbed through the serving hatch and spat at the cashier in a queue barging row. Neil Messent lost his temper when he thought other customers had pushed in front of him at the McDonald's in Pen Inn, Newton Abbot, and swore at the 17-year-old girl behind the counter before launching his attack. Oil worker Messent, aged 49, was told he had behaved like a 19-year-old thug as he was ordered to pay compensation to the girl,... Reported by Exeter Express and Echo 15 hours ago.
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Private school refuses to readmit anorexic pupil because her presence would be 'too disruptive to the rest of the year group,' mother claims

March 6, 2014, 5:05 pm
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A private school refused to allow a pupil treated for anorexia in a hospital for a year to return to class, the girl and her mother have reportedly claimed. Reported by Independent 14 hours ago.
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Ashbourne pensioner Reginald Allen sexually abused girl for five...

March 7, 2014, 12:57 am
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Ashbourne pensioner Reginald Allen sexually abused girl for five... A PENSIONER has been jailed for long-term sexual abuse of a girl – five years after a police probe ended when he denied the allegations..Reginald Allen was yesterday jailed for four years after he admitted abusing the girl regularly between the ages of nine and 14.Derby Crown Court heard that when Allen, 71, was first questioned by police in 2009 about the abuse he denied any sexual contact with the girl and no charges were brought against him.But in 2011, he told his wife what he had done... Reported by Derby Telegraph 7 hours ago.
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The Joy of Six: football quotes | Jacob Steinberg

March 7, 2014, 1:15 am
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Sir Alex Ferguson is famous for his invective, Phil Brown for a malapropism, Brendan Rodgers for his gibberish, Glenn Hoddle for foot in mouth – and Antonio Cassano for his love of pastries

*1) Sir Alex Ferguson: take your pick*

Some managers have that quality, that magnetic appeal, the ability to command the attention of a room, from José Mourinho self-administering the Special One nickname to Brian Clough revealing that his conflict management style was to "talk for 20 minutes, then decide I was right", from Bill Shankly's thoughts on football's place in the grand scheme of things to Kevin Keegan noting that Argentina wouldn't be at Euro 2000 "because they're from South America".

Then there are the ones who are experts at saying precisely nothing, at putting a mask on in press conferences and letting their media training suffocate you, which is either because they hate journalists – tap the ball into the empty net if you must – and want to make our lives as awkward as possible or because they are human, vulnerable and do not enjoy speaking in public. The former is the more plausible and understandable explanation, as distressing as that is to contemplate.

It is not necessarily the case that a manager has to be able to shout his mouth off in order to be successful. It is hard to remember anything that Carlo Ancelotti has ever said but he manages to get by with a mixture of decency, manners and vast knowledge of food and wine. And Manuel Pellegrini could send Buzz Killington to sleep but his Manchester City play scintillating, edge-of-your-seat football and have just won their first trophy of the season. This is not an exact science.

For instance, Sir Alex Ferguson professed to hate the press. When they weren't banned for some minor indiscretion such as noting that the sky was blue – evidence of pro-Manchester City bias – he would regularly let those on the beat know what he thought of them. "I'm not fucking talking to you," Ferguson said when he was asked about Juan Verón in 2003. "He's a fucking great player. Youse are all fucking idiots." In 2006, he was asked whether he was interested in signing Darren Bent from Charlton Athletic. "Jesus Christ," came the reply. "How do you lot come up with this stuff? It's Korky the Cat, Dennis the Menace stuff. Do you read Lord Snooty? Which comic is it you guys work for these days? Absolutely priceless."

But for all the disagreements, a man who was and still is obsessed with control, even in retirement, also saw how he could use it to his advantage and inspire Manchester United's players and fans. The media were a necessary evil. Ferguson could shape the narrative of a title race and gain an edge on his rivals by placing a seed of doubt in their minds.

Ferguson was not afraid of voicing an opinion or settling a score. He said that Arsène Wenger was "a novice and should keep his opinions to Japanese football". City were dismissed as the "noisy neighbours". Liverpool were knocked off their "fucking perch" and we were allowed to print that. He called Paul Ince "a big-time Charlie". Dennis Wise "could start a row in an empty house". He didn't want Sven-Goran Eriksson to replace him at United in 2001 because he was "the acceptable face". He raged about "typical Germans" and said he checked under the sauce if an Italian said it was pasta on the plate. Sometimes he crossed the line – but he always made an impact.

And Ferguson also had a rare knack of coming up with lines full of vivid imagery and imagination. Sometimes he could be blunt, calling his 1994 Double-winning team "real tough bastards".

Or he was lyrical. Pippo Inzaghi was born offside. The run-in was redefined as "squeaky-bum time". When United beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League final in 1999, he was at his best. "It would have been Sir Matt Busby's 90th birthday today, but I think he was up there doing a lot of the kicking," he said in his post-match press conference. Even Liverpool fans would have to acknowledge the simple beauty of that line. Ferguson, bloody hell.

The one that catches the eye the most, though, is a quote from when United sacked Ron Atkinson and appointed Ferguson in 1986, before all the success, when Liverpool were still sitting pretty on that perch. United were a mess, a team of dispirited, disorganised underachievers who needed a hairdryer up the backside, and a friend made the mistake of asking Ferguson about the youth policy he had inherited from Atkinson. "What youth policy?" he replied. "He's left me a shower of shit." Twenty-seven years later, they made a film about the Class of 92.

Mind you, it could be said that Ferguson left David Moyes a shower of Ashley Young, Antonio Valencia and Bébé. But that's an argument for another day.

*2) Philosophers*

Who's your favourite comedian? Stewart Lee? Bill Hicks? Jim Davidson? The Joy of Six? Take your time – it can be difficult to rank genius.

Sometimes, though, you can't go wrong with fetching your laptop, closing the door, sitting down and typing "The best of Phil Brown" into the search engine of your choice.

A relentlessly endearing maverick who thinks so far outside the box he can't even see it any more, there was the time he talked a woman off a Humber bridge or the epochal moment he wondered on radio whether Andrea Pirlo is "homophobic" because he never hankered after a move away from Italy – while it is obvious how the Brownian logic worked with the second one, it is no less amusing.

Marvel at the fearless confidence he displayed when he was learning his trade at Blackpool. "Even at 35, in my first press conference at Blackpool, I was asked where I hoped this would take me and I said 'managing England one day',"Brown said in 2010. "There were a few titters in the audience, as there to tends to be, because people get frightened of ambition."

There were a few titters in the audience, as there tends to be. Look at the nonchalance, the knowing nod. Phil was used to it, even then.

Although it is clearly not holding him back at Liverpool, Brendan Rodgers is also fluent in gibberish. He has described Luis Suárez as "a real warrior of spirit", mused: "You train dogs, I like to educate players," promised: "I will leave no stone unturned in my quest – and that quest will be relentless," and revealed: "My biggest mentor is myself because I've had to study, so that's been my biggest influence."

Complete nonsense – but still no match for Brown, whose finest moment came in the aftermath of Hull's FA Cup defeat at Arsenal in 2009. Having accused Cesc Fábregas of spitting at Hull's assistant manager, Brian Horton, he then took exception to the Arsenal midfielder's fashion sense. Listing his complaints against Fábregas, who was disgracefully wearing jeans and a jacket, Brown said: "Being dressed in the manner in which he was dressed." Admirably specific from a man who would go on to wear a salmon pink jumper on live television.

*3) Andy Cole versus Glenn Hoddle*

Time is a healer and eight years out of the game have soothed Glenn Hoddle's reputation. He has not managed since being sacked by Wolves in 2006 but some people have been lulled into thinking that he is English football's saviour-in-waiting because he has been known to speak some sense as a television pundit, ignoring that while he was outrageously gifted with the ball at his feet, he later developed an unfortunate habit of inserting his loafers into his mouth on numerous occasions as a manager.

The impression he often left people with was that he would have been a better manager if he wasn't, well, Glenn Hoddle. He showed that he could be an original, innovative thinker at times. His England team were tactically astute and stylish – when he got his team selection right – and there has arguably not been a better England performance since the defeat on penalties against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup. The problem for Hoddle – other than the ill-advised views about karmic retribution that got him sacked – was that he was to man-management what Livia Soprano was to motherhood. The hand of Hod was more likely to slap you in the face than guide you.

Michael Owen was on the receiving end when Hoddle said he wasn't a "natural goalscorer" but more amusing was Andy Cole's reaction to Hoddle's undermining assertion that "he needs too many chances to score a goal" in 1998. Hoddle later said: "It wasn't a criticism, it was an observation," after Cole scored Blackburn's winner against his Tottenham.

But Cole wasn't going to stand for it. "His comments are diabolical and disrespectful," the Manchester United striker hissed, warming up, waiting to land the killer blow. And when it came, it was delivered with a sickening thud. "Is he a man or a mouse?"

What a putdown, so overblown it could have been delivered in a deep timbre by a furious Frasier Crane. We're not entirely sure what point Cole was making, we'll grant you that, but that isn't going to stop us enjoying it.

*4) Sex, food and booze*

Not that Antonio Cassano was keeping count, but he once said that he had slept with "between 600 and 700 women" by the time he was 25. Given that the Joy of Six doesn't even know six or seven women, we are unable to properly speculate on whether such a feat would be possible, but the claim is so outlandish that we are inclined to believe it is true. Let's just say that the organisers behind the Lad Culture Summit would not have approved of Cassano's approach to life at Real Madrid. "I had a friend who was a hotel waiter," he wrote in his autobiography. "His job was to bring me three or four pastries after I had sex. He would bring the pastries up the stairs, I would escort the woman to him and we would make an exchange: he would take the girl and I would take the pastries. Sex and then food, a perfect night."

That does indeed sound like a great night, one to tell the grandkids about, and Cassano might have got away with it in an era when there was nothing strange about a slap-up meal of steak and chips before a match. But times have changed since the days when the former Scotland great Jim Baxter said: "All the great players I've ever known have enjoyed a good drink." The best footballers now are athletes, and a gluttonous lifestyle is hardly conducive to maintaining a body that can cope with the demands of elite sport. Cassano's natural talent allowed him to enjoy a perfectly acceptable career in which he has won the league in Spain and Italy but it is impossible not to assume that he could have achieved so much more if he had been more professional.

But some footballers cannot help themselves. They do not care that you might gain a mile in your legs if you lose an inch round your waist. "Drink loads of beer and smoke loads of fags," Gerry Taggart said when he was asked for his advice to aspiring players in 2001.

Arsène Wenger, inventor of broccoli and grilled chicken, is credited with changing English football's dietary habits. "The diet in Britain is really dreadful," the Arsenal manager sermonised in 1997. "If you had a fantasy world of what you shouldn't eat in sport, it's what you eat here." Ian Wright was stunned. "He has put me on grilled fish, grilled broccoli, grilled everything," the Arsenal striker wept. "Yuk!" Another Frenchman, Gérard Houllier, did not hide his distaste for the culture of drinking in England. "Drinking alcohol is as silly as putting diesel in a racing car," the then Liverpool manager said in 2000.

There is fierce debate about the issue of having sex the night before a game, though. Steve McManaman told Loaded magazine in 1995 that the theory that it had a negative effect was "a load of shite really". Ronaldo thought it made him play much better and who are we to argue? But Freddie Ljungberg said that it "made me lose all feeling in my feet" and left him unable to, er, control the ball. "Instead I watch erotic movies the night before," he said. "That doesn't affect my power." Ahem.

Managers had the same view. "We don't want them to be monks," Sir Bobby Robson said. "We want them to be football players because monks don't play football at this level." Bill Shankly thought a player could get away with it once in a while. "But if he did it for six months, he'd be a decrepit old man. It takes the strength from the body."

However it was difficult for players to accept when managers did impose a no-sex rule, not least when Brazil decided that no women would be allowed into their training camp at the 1974 World Cup. "This is supposed to make us world champions," Luis Pereira raged, weirdly frustrated and irritable for some reason. "Of what? Masturbation?" Perhaps that explains Brazil's on-pitch filthiness during that tournament: they were just letting off steam. In the match against Holland, one of the dirtiest in World Cup history, Pereira got rid of his pent-up rage with a vicious, medieval reducer on Johan Neeskens and was sent off. Who knows what he got up to once he was left to his own devices in the dressing room?

But let's leave the last word to Andy Gray. "If it was a straight choice between having sex and scoring a goal, I'd go for the goal every time," he said in 1995. "I've got all my life to have sex." Wise words.

*5) Owners*

The best owners are those who are not consumed by the urge to meddle in affairs which have nothing to do with them. Sadly they often feel like a rare breed; some millionaires, their egos as big as their fat wallets, are incapable of accepting the simple reality that teams do not require their unique expertise to win trophies, the ungrateful swines.

Shortly after Derby County parted company with Brian Clough in 1973, the club's chairman, Sam Longson, said: "Even I could manage this lot."

Clough, who somehow managed to carve out a successful career without Longson's inspiration, knew the score. "Football attracts a certain percentage of nobodies who want to be somebodies at a football club," he said in 1989, and not much has changed since then. Keep that heatseeker in mind the next time Vincent Tan or Mike Ashley is overcome by a special brainwave.

*6) The entertainment industry*

Paddy Crerand saw football's Serious Age coming long before it arrived brandishing heat maps and chessboards in our faces. "If the tacticians ever reached perfection, the result would be a 0-0 draw, and there would be no one there to see it," he said in 1970. Thankfully his prediction never quite came to pass but 37 years later, Jorge Valdano was similarly unimpressed by the stultifyingly dull mini-series between José Mourinho's Chelsea and Rafa Benítez's Liverpool to the extent that he dismissed it as "shit hanging from a stick".

"Football is made up of subjective feeling, of suggestion – and, in that, Anfield is unbeatable," Valdano wrote in Marca. "Put a shit hanging from a stick in the middle of this passionate, crazy stadium and there are people who will tell you it's a work of art. It's not: it's a shit hanging from a stick. If football is going the way Chelsea and Liverpool are taking it, we had better be ready to wave goodbye to any expression of the cleverness and talent we have enjoyed for a century."

It does need stressing – over and over again, until we are all blue in the face and unable to speak any more – that football is supposed to be fun. "It's an entertainment history, for heaven's sake, not life or death," Matt Le Tissier once said. He also decried the way he was overlooked by England: "The one thing I'd like to rid myself of is the word 'but'. You know: 'He's a great player, but …' or: 'So much skill, but …'" Like Alan Pardew, the but haunted him.

"Football is an excuse to feel good about something," Valdano said. Arrigo Sacchi called it "the most important of the unimportant things in life".

Maybe Danny Blanchflower put it best. "The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning," he said. "It's nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It is about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."

An escape from reality, yes, but what an escape.

• With thanks to Phil Shaw's Book of Football Quotations and Daniel Taylor's Squeaky Bum Time: The Wit and Wisdom of Sir Alex Ferguson

Jacob Steinbergtheguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
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Mother, 26, gave friend's 12-year-old daughter a bottle of VODKA to drink at sleepover

March 7, 2014, 3:36 am
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Mother, 26, gave friend's 12-year-old daughter a bottle of VODKA to drink at sleepover Hazel Aitchison, 26, bought the spirit and gave it to the unnamed girl during a sleepover at her house in July 2013. She told police the girl's mum had given permission for her to drink. Reported by MailOnline 4 hours ago.
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Injured woman left on roadside after 'hit and run'

March 7, 2014, 12:03 pm
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Injured woman left on roadside after 'hit and run' WITNESSES said a woman lay "screaming in agony" by the side of a road after a reported hit and run. Shop keepers who rushed to the her aid said she was struck by a black BMW which then sped off in the direction of the city leaving her by the side of Ilkeston Road at around 4.30pm on Friday March 7. Police stopped rush-hour traffic heading away from town from Canning Circus to the junction with Norton Street, where the girl was attended by ambulance crews. The woman, who is believed to be in her... Reported by Nottingham Post 20 hours ago.
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Burger rage customer found guilty of McDonald's drive through...

March 8, 2014, 2:35 am
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Burger rage customer found guilty of McDonald's drive through... An angry customer caused a flurry at a fast food drive through when he climbed through the serving hatch and spat at the cashier in a queue barging row. Neil Messent lost his temper when he thought other customers had pushed in front of him at the McDonald's in Pen Inn, Newton Abbot, and swore at the 17-year-old girl behind the counter before launching his attack. Oil worker Messent, aged 49, was told he had behaved like a 19-year-old thug as he was ordered to pay compensation to the girl,... Reported by Torquay Herald Express 5 hours ago.
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Woman reunited with statue after 55 years in Sherborne

March 7, 2014, 10:11 pm
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Woman reunited with statue after 55 years in Sherborne A WOMAN from Sherborne was reunited with a statue she posed for as a child more than 55 years ago. Sandra Hills, 61, came face to face with her likeness on Tuesday after more than half a century of wondering if it even still existed. She said: "I was shocked when I saw it after all this time. My husband said that he could tell it was me the moment he saw the sun glinting off the statue. The girl looks older than I was, more like a ten-year-old, but I wonder if the artist did that because she... Reported by Western Gazette 10 hours ago.
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Teen's 'bizarre behaviour' after threatening to kill girl he...

March 8, 2014, 12:59 am
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Teen's 'bizarre behaviour' after threatening to kill girl he... A TEENAGER has been locked up after he posted pictures of himself on Facebook dressed up to look like a girl he liked – who he also threatened to rape and kill.Mark Laughton began harassing the 14-year-old girl after he told her he was attracted to her and she distanced herself from him.Prosecutor Alex Wolfson told Derby Crown Court: "It's frankly bizarre behaviour."He said: "The girl's mother saw a picture he had posted on Facebook of him dressed up to look like her, and... Reported by Derby Telegraph 7 hours ago.
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Mad about the girl: The cult of Veronica Mars

March 8, 2014, 4:48 pm
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Perched between Oscar season and blockbuster season, March is traditionally a quiet time for Hollywood – but at least one film this month has the potential to change the course of cinema as we know it. Reported by Independent 15 hours ago.
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Schoolgirl, 16, who fled to France with jailed teacher Jeremy Forrest dumps him for ANOTHER teacher

March 8, 2014, 6:14 pm
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Schoolgirl, 16, who fled to France with jailed teacher Jeremy Forrest dumps him for ANOTHER teacher The girl, who was just 15 when she eloped with maths teacher Forrest, 31, is now said to be 'ridiculously happy' after falling for a 20-year-old PE teaching assistant. Reported by MailOnline 14 hours ago.
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Child rapist Vinit Lala dragged from car by passers-by as he...

March 9, 2014, 8:59 am
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Child rapist Vinit Lala dragged from car by passers-by as he... A child rapist was caught by members of the public after he attempted to abuse a 13-year-old girl in his car. Passers-by spotted Vinit Lala (48) as he sat partially undressed in his car in Martin Street, Belgrave, Leicester, with the girl, who wearing her school uniform. They then dragged the married father-of-two, who lived in nearby Harrison Road, out of the vehicle. As he jailed Lala for nine years at Leicester Crown Court on Friday, Judge Richard Brown praised the passers-by for preventing... Reported by Leicester Mercury 7 minutes ago.
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Derby child abuser trapped by victim's mum using NSPCC's...

March 10, 2014, 12:27 am
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Derby child abuser trapped by victim's mum using NSPCC's... A MOTHER has told how she used a new child protection code to trap a man abusing her young daughter. Last month Ron Wood, 60, of Buckingham Avenue, Chaddesden, was jailed for eight years after being found guilty of four counts of sexually assaulting the girl. Now the victim's mother, Rachel, speaking under an assumed name and whose identity is protected by law, has explained how she uncovered the abuse using the Underwear Rule - watch a campaign video here: She said: "I'd heard... Reported by Derby Telegraph 18 hours ago.
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