Re the fuss about Roy Hodgson's 'monkey' tale - another example of purely manufactured outrage.



Hodgson's story can only be understood on one level. The joke is disparaging to the astronaut, who is surplus to requirements as the monkey is so good. If you were the monkey, listening to the joke, you might justifiably feel a smug self-satisfaction. So there was nothing wrong with being in the role of that particular monkey - quite the reverse. In the particular circumstances, if it had been anything, it could only be construed by the pedant as an anti-human joke- or at least, insulting to that particular human astronaut.



But no. Those who have a vested interest in the racism industry instead felt the need to whinge and complain, presumably on the basis that Hodgson had called Townsend "a monkey".



I would suggest that anyone who genuinely twists and completely misprepresents the anecdote to that effect is so thick, they should be debarred from public comment. Nobody with a reasonable grasp on reality and reasonable comprehension skills could possibly come to such an absurd and entirely against-context conclusion.



Worryingly, there must be someone within the England camp that fits that bill. Needless to say, he has quickly found the usual coterie of numbskulls, troublemakers and professional moaners to whip up a storm. This despite Townsend himself having said that he, at least did not take any offence and more to the point (and he was there) went further and confirmed that what was said [idid not intend any offence[/i



Yet despite the absurdity of the situation, we now have Ouseley's organisation Kick It Out, saying it "recognises and shares the concerns of the parties who felt mindful to bring the comments into the public domain".



What pompous nonsense!



"The matter has been raised by the Chair, Lord Herman Ouseley, directly with The Football Association (FA), who acknowledges the apology made by Roy Hodgson, and now seeks an investigation to ascertain the full facts and ensure a similar situation does not arise again."



The FA should in this case simply tell them to fook right off, and get on with the job they are supposed to be doing. NOTHING adverse happened so there IS no situation that should be prevented from "arising again" - but even if there might be, doesn't the self-righteous remark rather pre-judge the outcome of the "investigation" that it thinks is needed?



All we need is to take the person who made public the anecdote to one side and try to get through their thick skull why no knee-jerk reaction to the mere use of the word "monkey" was needed.

First: Hodgson is not popular in some quarters and some will use any stick to beat him with.



Second, there is 'over-sensitivity' in some areas of society and yes, an 'industry' that relies on perpetual victimisation. It also then suits some in the media to run with stories about that - because it perpetuates a perception that all within whatever group are like that.



I'd give feminism as an example. In spite of what you may read, there is no feminist consensus; there is no feminist theology whereby some point or other is universally accepted as correct. And so forth. But media - but left and right - helps to perpetuate such ideas.



And such stories always provide the willing wi excuses not to tackle real issues (the political-economic ones) and concentrate on peripheral ones (at best) or ones that are utterly ridiculous and invented at worst.



That's just my opinion, of course: I have no personal experience in the realm on which to base such statements.

Perhaps a third option:



The FA (quite rightly) has been very vociferous in it's stance against racism, particularly when the England team plays overseas. We have seen the FA release statements after games in Spain and after numerous games in Eastern Europe, very publically express its views after the U21s fixture in Serbia and support the Premier League in handing out heavy bans to Luis Suarez and John Terry for racially aggrevated incidents.



When you come across as the 'paragon of virtue' on a particular subject, people are going to be more than happy to knock you off your respective perch.



Here, we have an FA making a very public stance against racism, only to see it's most public representative make a comment that could be interpreted as offensive.

Well then you'll have to explain to me how it could reasonably be interpreted as offensive. Good luck with that.

In total agreement with this.



To bramleyrhino: the problem, once we go down the route of 'offence', is that someone, somewhere, will take offence at anything. So where does it stop?



Just to clarify: racist chanting at matches (for instance) is an entirely different matter.

and it's something the FA can't seem to wrangle in, so perhaps you could say getting deeply offended(or at least, looking like it) by Hodgson mentioning the word monkey is simply the FA trying to look like they're doing something about racism.

I agree with both FA and Mintballs comments on this furore , but what puzzles and perturbs me is the fact that Mr Hodgson has felt the need to apologise for any offence caused by his comments . WTF ?



When a thoroughly decent man feels he has to apologise through fear of being labelled a racist , society needs to look long and hard at itself .

corrected for accuracy.

He gets us to the world cup finals, and he's still got a monkey on his back.

Life eh?

Personally, I don't think it is offensive and I agree with FA that this has been blown massively out of proportion. I also don't like this culture that we seem to have in some areas where people are seemingly trying to out-do each other on how "offended" they are on other people's behalf.



I suppose the question is why it has been blown out of proportion and I suppose that when you have a Football Association that has been very vociferous against 'monkey' chants, an FA employee (and a very public and unpopular one at that) using the term (in any context) is pretty much asking for trouble.



Like I say, my own view is "move along, nothing to see here" - and I suspect that's the view of most newspaper editors regardless of what was printed in their rags on Wednesday / Thursday.

According to a report I read Hodgson didn't initially tell the full joke, just said "Its the old NASA joke, just feed the monkey". Then when realising that the players weren't aware of the NASA joke had to explain it.



If true, I can kind off understand that some players might have been shocked by the initial comment and might have interpreted it as racist. Might even have been too perplexed to analyse the full joke to realise that it isn't racist. The "feed the monkey" comment might have been all that registered.



The shame is that any players that were offended couldn't just say to Hodgson at the end of the game "What was that all about Roy?" and let him explain it rather than leaking it.

The fact is that you have to be careful what words you choose to convey your meaning, or the meaning can be misconstrued.

Hodgson ought to at least know that much.