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Cheese eating warmongers (Le Marseillaise translated)

A French friend remarked after the France/Portugal match that she had never heard the Marseillaise sung as many times before as during the match.  As an Australian who belted her little lungs out singing Advance Australia Fair (followed by the dolourous God Save The Queen) every morning during school assembly, I found this quite bizarre.

From high school french, I recalled (possibly conjured!) a reference in the fourth verse to the crushing of Teuton heads but thought that verse was no longer sung.  She explained that no, even the first verse spoke of ’sowing fields with blood’.  Noice.  Le Marseillaise had also, apparently, in recent times, been hijacked by the more rightwing and xenophobic elements of French society.

My curiousity piqued, I did a bit a digging.   No reference to Teuton head crushing but lots of references to tyranny, slavery and erm… war.  In comparison, Advance Australia Fair with its talk of ‘golden soil/and wealth for toil/our home girt by sea’ is positively coma-inducing.  But it’s all context isn’t it?  Le Marseillaise was originally a marching song and its rousing (and catchy!) tune befits a battle song for a nation forged by blood.  As opposed to an anthem which… er… was not!

For the Wikipedia entry containing the lyrics en francais et anglais, click here.

Freeview Box (& Aussie) Victory!!

Hah! Should have relied on this idiot-proof solution two days ago: turning the bedeviled piece of electronic equipment off and then on has yielded picture success! Anyway, despite being sorted out telly-wise, couldn’t resist also peeking at the GU minute-by-minute reports… err… particularly the Brazil/Japan one.

Well thank goodness Australia is through – after a messy game which will see the ref’s head roll no doubt. Still, if the Aussie-Croat connection wasn’t confusing enough, the Aussie/Italy match is going to present a whole lotta soul searching for another section of Australian society. Mind you, this could, arguably, happen at all of Australia’s upcoming matches.

Was not graced by the comments of his holy smugness Shane Warne, drafted in by the Beeb as the ‘link’ to erm… Aussie football during the Brazil/Oz match. Granted, he is a sportsman and has more than a passing acquaintance with a round ball (smaller, redder) but methinks the link is still somewhat tenuous.

The Beeb has been a tad more successful with the Brazilian link by engaging Leonardo as a pundit. Can I say, blushing quite girlishly, that Leonardo is quite the most handsome (ex) footballer ever. Although being surrounded by Alan Hansen and a bespectacled high-pitched squeaky scotsman can’t hurt. Even Gary Lineker, ageing quite nicely, fails to impact with the gleaming Brazilian around.