A shoe story

In the glass of the falling-off kitchen door

or, what I do with my days
for those who ask

I did it. I finally went for my first run in my (fake) Vibram fivefingers running shoes (thank you, China), and I loved it.

This is for those of you who have asked me to let you know what I thought. I won't just let you know what I thought; I'll also tell you what my friend, the one who told me about Christopher MacDougall's book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen and Vibram fivefingers barefoot running shoes, had to say after running his first marathon in his:

The Edinburgh Marathon went well until 16 miles (on target for 4:30) when I tripped over, tore my shoe and cut my right big toe. Thought about giving up, sat around for about 20 minutes - then thought I might as well finish. By this point my legs had stiffened up so I ended up walking trying to get my legs going for at least Five miles - only to fall over again. Cut my left foot. Decided to keep on keeping on with it. Overtaking [an old school friend and inspiration to the world] in the final few yards. Two hours later than intended!

So what did I learn?

Five fingers don't make you run faster.
The last year has made my legs strong enough to do a marathon without any pain the following day.
A small piece of grit inside your shoe will drill holes in the soles of your feet.
I weigh 106kg and ran a marathon with no joint pain whatsoever!

They might not make you run faster, but I will tell you that they let me run faster, and I put them to the true test.

The True Test:

1. Do not run for at least 3 weeks. At all. Sit around as much as possible and let yourself start feeling really mentally and physically sloggy, convinced you could never walk your usual course again -- ever --, much less run it, in any form of shoe.
2. Take a nice hour and a half long stroll through the Marais in your brand new Paule Ka sandals with 5" wedge heels. Notice there is a large screen TV showing a world cup first round game, cross the rue Vieille du Temple and watch Donovan Landon score the goal against Algeria for the 1-0 win that qualified the USA for the second round, taking first place in their group over England, mind you, with a small crowd attracted by the celebratory noise coming from this chic gay bar filled with young professionals sipping cocktails on a lovely June evening.
   
3. Go out to a cerebral discussion with a terrific British performance artist (and very good friend of the friend above), who uses dramaturgy and video to explore social forms in a philosophical inquiry and a third-rate French philosopher (need I say more?) in Paris at The Centre Pompidou, and follow that up with a half bottle of a Touraine blanc (a bottle for two, keeping pace), followed by a falafel from over at the falafel café while walking over to the Montorgeuil quarter to enjoy an Aligote and more conversation until the cafés closed.

1. Walk back to the motorcycle and ride 50 minutes back up the highway, home to the countryside.
   
2. Arrive at 3 am. [Find text message from son telling you the doors are locked and you will need your key to enter by the one furthest to the left facing the house, which is the only one you can open if the house is locked, but it was a dear thought to let me know I'd need to search my bag for my keys to get inside.]
3. Putter around the house, read a chapter of Emma in bed.
4. Get up at 9:30 am, make coffee, scrambled eggs with coriander and soy milk with calcium and eat them with apricots. [I recommend that whether you are about to test yourself or not.]
5. Read email, reply to a few, and do a little discount online shopping. Swear to cut back on expenses next month, and go get your Vibram fivefingers.
6. Slather on plenty of sunblock (Anti UVB), set your pink running cap on your head, slide your Oakleys in place and head out.
7. Feel the difference.

Oh my!

My legs moved more freely than they had with my running shoes, be they Asics, New Balance, or Mizunos. I felt more power in each stride, as though my muscles didn't have to work as hard, and the hill --

Was there a hill?

I am sure it has to do with the increased surface contact of the splayed forefoot and toes, using all of those muscles to push off, rather than having them just grouped helplessly together in the toebox of your running shoe. Someone who knows yoga well mentioned that it is similar to how one uses the splayed forefoot to increase contact with the ground in a standing posture, adding strength and stability.

The only drawback was the development of a blister on the pad of the ball of my left foot, just below the big toe, but I had already started to feel something there, walking around Paris in my city shoes the previous evening. I stopped to walk a little, thinking of the high-heeled strappy Stuart Weitzman gold mules I'd be wearing to a wedding Saturday, but it didn't make any difference. Blisters hurt no matter what speed you move, unless it is 0 kph. So, I picked up the pace again, ran down the hill from the ridge to the road into the village, and just entering Moosesucks, there, right at the edge of the pavement, was another bird.

He stood there, blinking, his little beak opening and closing as though he'd say something if he felt up to it. It was the same as the baby one that died after the animals found it, probably fallen from the linden tree, and the same as the dead one I found in the bike lane along the Transamazonienne one of my last runs on the balls of my feet in my old New Balance running shoes. I bent and lifted it up in my sweaty hand, cupping it gently. It gripped my finger with its claws, holding on tightly. I stood there and thought about it: did I place it in the grass along the side of the road, or did I carry it the last kilometer home and watch it? With my track record saving birds (excuse the pun), that didn't seem worthwhile, but I am no good at leaving weakened creatures to die, exposed.

Much better to let them die in my hand, or in a box in my house.

I started to walk towards the house, thinking what a shame it was that I wasn't getting to see how much faster I could do the same run in my fivefingers. I hesitated, and started to go back to put the bird down. My hands were wetting its feathers. It clutched my finger. I turned around again and started to jog gently, looking down to see just how much it was being bobbled and jostled around.

It looked alright. I kept on, bringing the bottom of my t-shirt up around it for a little extra support and watched the cars of neighbors I recognized pass me by.

They're probably thinking you are clutching your left arm and that you have hurt yourself, said myself.

"I know, and if anyone stops to ask me if I need a ride home, they are going to know I am crazy for certain." Myself nodded in agreement.

Let's just hope, said myself as one of the former adjunct mayors drove by in his British Jaguar. His mother was Irish. I'm sure that explains the right-side steering wheel.

Entering the more populous section of the street, the neighbor from across the street and her teenage son passed me. I saw him recognize me and tried to look natural with my right hand grasping my left forearm and t-shirt bottom. I picked my pace up a little and smiled brightly, making a little nod of my head.

Coming down the home stretch, I saw the owner of the Jaguar's neighbor, heading home from the café, what looked like a portfolio tucked under her arm, her straw hat removed from the cord of the venetian blinds she has hung over her street window and tied to the old boat on which she has set several pots of flowers, her own shaded sidewalk terrace, everything painted a sunny yellow. She speaks English with a charming BBC accent and stops by to visit with me regularly.

I haven't had the courage to explain to her that I don't do much "visiting".

I slowed, hoping not to hear my own bell ring at my gate. Reassured she had walked on by, I darted up along the wall of the house and into the gate, the bird still breathing, looking over the edge of my t-shirt hem.

We sat together outside for a very long time, and then moved in to read more email.

Are you going to stay home now, instead of go get the things you need for the wedding? asked myself.

"I don't know. I mean -- I guess so. I did bring it home; I can't just pop it into a bush and wish it luck."

No. Wisp or Shadow would have it in an instant, if Baccarat didn't get to it and try to bathe it with her tongue first.

"I guess we'll see," I said, checking once again to see if it were my own pulse I were feeling or if it were still alive. The eyes opened and the head swiveled to look at me. I sat there opening my hand to avoid boiling it in my overheated palm and soaking its feathers, and to let it know it was free. Time passed, and then, in a rush of movement, it had flown, crashing around the living room, up on top of the ceiling beam, up the stairs, back across the room, and there was another rush of movement as two cats and two Labrador Retrievers nearly knocked the dining table chairs and everything on the table down, trying to get to the bird on the loose. I swore at myself for having come into the house, and then, there was silence.

Only there was a problem; Wisp was far too interested in the radiator. The window above stood wide open, but not only Wisp, but all the animals were staring at the radiator. I got up to look, and there was a mass of gray feathers topped by a little head and beak.

It's dead? asked a panicked self.

"I don't know. I'll have to try to touch it and see," I said, turning to get something I could stick through the radiator. I saw the bread knife, but that was definitely too threatening. You don't poke stunned, and possibly injured birds, with the end of a bread knife. I got out a regular kitchen knife and stick it gingerly through the coils. It moved. It looked at me. It took us another five minutes to get it out from behind the radiator, me slapping Wisp and Baccarat back. It flew in loops up to the ceiling and came to rest in the handle of a basket up on the cabinets. I got a chair and reached to pick it up, but it flew away toward the open window, and banged directly into a pane of glass, coming to rest on top of the radiator. I had visions of it sliding down between the coils again, but it flapped and flew out to come to rest on the ivy growing on the garden wall, all four animals racing out the door nearest them, Wisp taking the most direct route out through the same window as the bird.

I have finally, at last, possibly been of help to a poor bird.

And as for my Paule Kas? Besides a threatening blister? I did get two "ooh et aah" compliments in Autour du Monde Maison from a clerk and a terribly well put together French woman, who stopped to watch me put them back on after trying on a pair of Bensimons, which I did not buy.

See? I have some self-control. Besides, my sandals were much cooler than another pair of Bensimons.

Even the Liberty of London print ones.
....

Work begins again, or learning to live with imperfection

More sheet rock

There are other pictures of last evening's work that show the room to be what it is, much brighter, but I like shadows and contrast, as for the work itself, for the moment I say, as the French do, "no comment." I am withholding judgment, which would very much surprise my husband to read that, since he believes he heard plenty of it yesterday. Loudly, and with conviction.

"Mais tu es un vrai bricoleur!" I believed I shouted, not necessarily at him, although I am sure he is convinced otherwise.

In fact, at one point, he approached me in the kitchen, where I had sought refuge in another pressing task that needed me at not far from 10 pm -- the preparation of a late supper --, my son having another four-hour exam session the next afternoon, with the last two following Tuesday and Wednesday, and made reference to my steadiest criticism of the French Education Nationale, our reviled system of education, "Et tu parles d'encouragement."

He was complaining about my lack of such encouragement for him. The thing of it is that he is making a poor comparison. He has not, you see, once come to me to learn a thing, knowing it all better than do I already. What encouragement ought I, then, to offer?

Hm?

I let it go without comment, just as I had tried to let go without comment his renewed and vigorous cursing of the lightweight framing system for the insulation earlier in the evening.

"C'est vraiment de la merde ce système -- Mais! Ce n'est pas possible! -- Regarde-moi ça! Mais regarde ça! -- Mais on ne peut même pas faire rentrer la vise! Ca sort à chaque fois, mais que c'est de la merde ce système -- Je m'en fou de ce qu'ils dissent -- Mais! C'est pas possible!"

I reminded him that it is conceived and fabricated by two of the top materials systems companies (Isover and Stihl), used not only in France but in the UK and the US, and probably elsewhere, in fact, certainly elsewhere, and somehow, somehow everyone else manages to screw it to the framing.

In fact, he had managed to screw it to the framing, with greater and lesser success, when we first started hanging sheet rock (was it only a month ago?). The screws, at any rate, didn't come flying back out of their holes, and he hadn't had to push into them with all the weight and strength of his upper body, sending the ladder sliding away from the wall. I suggested that he stop, recover his senses and his calm and let me go and ask at the supplies store the next day what we might do, see if the neighbor didn't have a proper cordless driver as I believed he had offered, but there is no stopping him when he is in a fury, and I went off to announce Brazil's goals (that second with not one but two hand balls was too much!) and red and yellow cards (Shame on Kader Keita! FIFA should throw that one out, suspend Keita and let Kaka play against Portugal) to him from the living room, and to read the articles covering the dramatic catharsis les Bleus were staging on the World Cup's theater this weekend after too much pressure, too much loss, and too many years of Raymond Domenech and Jean-Pierre Escalettes at the top of the FFF.

Spoiled and overpaid they might be, but since so is every other player on an elite national team in Europe and South America that is perfectly inadequate to explain the team's only solidarity: absolute opposition to their leadership from the Fédération Française de Football. No, it is the FFF itself that is to blame.

"Carton rouge pour le Brésil!" I called to the sounds of the electric drill in the deepening evening. "C'est Kaka! Et, mais c'est pas possible!" I exclaimed, my husband appearing to stand behind the armchairs and watch the replay, "il n'a strictement rien fait de tout!"

I mean, c'mon, Keita didn't even grab the right "injured" part!

My husband watched and shook his head as Kaka walked off field, suspended for the next match against Portugal. Like that didn't feel bought and paid for, somehow, if it weren't payback for Brazil's two uncalled handballs in Fabiano's second goal, a goal the BBC reports "had a dubious hint of handball." Hardly dubious; even the referee told Fabiano with a knowing smile after the goal was counted that there was hand, showing him precisely on his own arm where he had used his to control the ball. But no, there absolutely should NOT be video refereeing so the referee would have the advantage of actually seeing what happens on the field. That would RUIN soccer!

[Note: It has come to my attention that I need to make a sarcasm alert for the above comment. So, sarcasm alert!]





Next, Italy will be offering Keita citizenship. Thank you, anyway, for giving us reason to forget les Bleus for a moment.

My husband hesitated a moment before returning to the drill he had left in the "petit salon".

"Ah, je me suis rendu compte," he said, "que c'était de ma faute que les vis ne rentraient pas." I looked away from the replays in succession and at his face, in the penumbra. There was, he was saying, nothing wrong with the screws or the system. He had my attention, and I knew where he was going with his confession. "J'ai eu la perceuse en marche arrière comme pour enlever les vis." Mais voilà, bien sur. En marche arrière.

He had, in other words, the drill in reverse, as you would to remove screws.

Ah.

The problem is rarely outside oneself. Such is the use of calm. Now, if he can do that in the OR, why on earth -- ?

Today, I am in a miserable state not because the traitor in the locker room still hasn't been forced to walk the mutineers' plank in the world press and French public conscience -- the one who told everybody that soccer players use really bad words, allowing us to all suspect at last that superstar soccer players aren't necessarily gentlemen, despite their suits for travel and when forced to sit out for injury --, but because I really should have waterproofed the exterior walls before installing the lightweight metal framing, insulation and sheet rock.

Meanwhile, it's the Fête de la Musique and the first day of summer (cloudy and chilly), and my husband asked if I was to go to the fête somewhere (it's everywhere), or maybe hang some more sheet rock.

Is that rain I hear?

Sheet rock, if he'll borrow the neighbor's cordless sheet rock screw driver.
....

"Lachez la grappe à Henry"

Ireland v. Georgia, February 11, 2009
World Cup Qualifying Match
Croke Park, Ireland

Referee -- Jouni Hyytia

Perhaps the wearers of the green do protest a mite too much.

Pay particular attention to the replay at 1:21. You can see that the ball, rebounding off the chest of an Irish team player, appears to touch the Georgian player Ucha Lobjanidze's shoulder as he is actually possibly pulling back to avoid it. The offsides flag has already, in any case, been raised.

From Le Monde, November 21, 2009:

Le 11 février 2009, l'Irlande s'impose dans un match décisif lors des qualifications. Menée 1-0 à 20 minutes de la fin par les Georgiens, les Irlandais bénéficient alors d'un penalty pour le moins surprenant. Une erreur d'arbitrage, comme tant d'autres, et qui n'avait alors soulevé aucune vague d'indignation. Même Roy Keane, ancien capitaine de l'Eire, a rappelé que ce fait de jeu avait été "une des pires décisions qui ait jamais changé le cours d'un match. Je ne me souviens pas avoir entendu la Fédération irlandaise demander que le match soit rejoué."

Translation: February 11, 2009, Ireland won their qualifying match. Behind Georgia 1-0 with only 20 minutes left to ply, Ireland gets a hand from a penalty, at the very least quite surprising. It was a referee error like so many others that drew no wave of indignation. Even Roy Keane, the former Irish team captain, recalled this instance as having been "one of the worst decisions ever to have changed the course of a match. I don't recall having heard the Irish Federation demand that the match be replayed."

And here is what Ireland's present captain, Robbie Keane, had to say about the questionable penalty called against Georgia in ESPN's Soccernet post-game report:

Keane insisted he did not see the penalty decision, where Ucha Lobjanidze was penalised for handball when the ball appeared to hit his shoulder with the flag up for offside anyway.

''I didn't see that incident,'' he continued. ''I was facing the other way. If it wasn't then sometimes you need a bit of luck. We kept pushing on and I think we deserved it in the end.''

Hmmm.

Where are the calls to replay this game for a rotten call by the referee that disadvantaged Georgia and eventually sent the Republic of Ireland on to qualify in the World Cup competition? Where were the petitions and who heard any hollering? One could make a blog dedicated to referee errors, so I'm with the Le Monde reader, who put it this way:

lachez la grappe à Henry. Soyez utile, ecrivez à la FIFA pour qu'il change les méthodes d'arbitrage.

Translation: "leave Henry alone. Make yourself useful, write to FIFA to demand that they change the methods of refereeing."

If you care enough to demand that this last game be replayed, and if you know enough about soccer to understand why this can happen, write to FIFA and tell them its time to introduce video into the referees' decisions. I just did.

Here's the address:

Fédération Internationale de Football Association

FIFA-Strasse 20,
P.O. Box 8044 Zurich, Switzerland
Tel : +41-(0)43 222 7777
Fax : +41-(0)43 222 7878

email: http://www.fifa.com/contact/form.html

That's what's needed, and until it's done, well, that's soccer.
....

La main de Dieu, cette fois pour les Bleus

Cèpes on the dinner plate

and, yes, I have seen better food photography

It's a lot easier to photograph fresh, uncooked food than cooked food. I learned that when I got my husband to hold the table lamp (equipped with an energy saving light bulb, which I could have sworn was one word; it should be) so I could snap a picture of the cèpes, lovingly prepared with parsley, crème fraiche, garlic, and a Burgundy white in the veal juice, before they were eaten. You know, for the before and after effect. And, yes, I have been reading Muriel Barbery's Une Gourmandise, Gourmet Rhapsody, in English publication.

"Attends! Ne les mange pas encore!" I got back up and hunted for my camera, while the veal cooled (and congealed, ever so slightly).

"Mais tu ne vas pas prendre une photo?" I nodded vigorously -- why, yes! I was, as though this was the most perfectly natural thing to do in the circumstances (he doesn't read my blog) -- and circled the living room until I found it and the memory card, sitting in the reader attached to my laptop.

"Tu peux prendre la lampe, s'il te plait?" He grabbed the table lamp from the shelf over the radiator behind the table, the shelf I have been meaning to turn into a beautifully crafted radiator cover and join to the lower one next to it, directly behind my husband, and stuck it practically into his veal.

"Un peu plus loin? Je ne veux pas photographier la lampe. Seulement le veau." He rotated his eyes in their sockets just so that they met mine, his head remaining fixed toward his plate, into which he was rather pressed to tuck since it was le mi-temps and France was behind 0-1. It was an unacceptable situation, and he had hollered at the les Bleus from the first minute of the match, "Mais! Ils sont complètement désorganisés! C'est du n'importe quoi!"

We had visions of 2002, when France failed to pass the first round of the World Cup games and Roger Lemerre was immediately and summarily sacked in favor of Jacques Santini. Some blamed it on over-confidence (one of the sponsors, Adidas, had even made a jersey with the second star, indicating their second presumed World Cup victory before they even began to play), while others attributed the French disaster to fatigue from too many exhibition matches and poor communications about their schedule to the players). He drew the lamp back nearly imperceptibly.

"Comme ça?" I declined to press the issue.

"Ca va aller." That'll do. I clicked and set the camera down. "Allez, on y va." Then Sam piped up.

"C'est quoi ça sur la viande?" he asked, dubious.

"C'est des cèpes."

"Mushrooms?" he turned to look directly at me, speaking to the traitor in English.

"Mais Sam, c'est ce que tu as senti quand tu es rentré et tu disais que ça sentait bon dans la maison," protested my husband.

There is no sense reasoning with Sam about mushrooms, any type of mushrooms, whether they smell heavenly or not. They are on his list of nonconsumables, which is my literal translation from the French non comestibles, or inedible foodstuffs. He began to remove them from his veal scallop. I began to remove them to my plate, and dinner proceeded, but there was something missing; there was no exclaiming about the heavenliness of this meal as there had been the evening before, when I prepared the less cherished wild mushrooms in olive oil and fleur de sel de Guérande and served them with what turned out to be much better than usual steak. What was wrong?

"Ca ne va pas?" I ventured.

"Si, si. Ca va très bien."

"Mais, tu ne trouve le dîner pas aussi bien que hier soir?"

"Ben," he hesitated a second to compose his reply. I waited. "Je dirais que, étrangement, les cèpes ne sont pas aussi bons que les champignons hier soir." I was crestfallen. How was it possible that these cèpes were not as good as the lesser mushrooms from the night before? I had to accept his verdict; there is no arguing with someone's taste, but, was he jaded from having wild mushrooms three nights in a row? Were his taste buds merely overwhelmed? Was it that the drastically better steak had actually overflowed to the experience of the mushrooms with which it was served? Or, had I merely made a terrible mistake preparing a heavenly meal on an evening when les bleus were playing like merde against a team nowhere near as good as they on paper?

Whatever it was, I was crestfallen. It being the 20th wedding anniversary of my sister and husband, a wedding for which I had left France and my future husband, unbeknownst to either of us at the time, only to return 13 years later to marry him and join my fate to that of les Bleus, I had hoped to make a celebratory dinner both to recognize their 20 year survival, our 20 year more miraculous survival, and the brilliant victory of les Bleus, which was not going to be the case. They had a victory alright, but no one was acclaiming it. It was, in fact, tarnished, as les Bleus qualified for South Africa in 2010 à l'italienne.

From the morning press:

La France a tout intérêt à jouer "profil bas", poursuit l'Equipe. "Deux heures de jeu qui amènent à simplement souhaiter que notre équipe nationale soit, au Mondial, digne des +géants+ du football qu'elle a éliminés, à savoir la Roumanie et l'Irlande. Deux heures de jeu qui incitent les Bleus à la plus belle des modesties: ils ne forment pas une grande équipe. Forment-ils une équipe d'ailleurs ? Peu importe la réponse aujourd'hui. Espérons simplement qu'ils la trouvent d'ici au mois de juin prochain", stime encore le journal.

Former French national team defender and Bayern Munich player Bixente Lizarazu, seated in the post-game analysts' chairs next to Arsenal coach Arsen Wenger, the man many feel should be in Raymond Domenech's shoes at the head of the Equipe de France, put none too kind a spin on it right after the game, taillant, as my husband put it, une veste aux Bleus -- which translates quite directly to "a dressing down" -- saving his former teammates by telling the truth, as he best could -- saying, "They played a terrible game for, well, for 120 minutes, from the very beginning to the end. It wasn't the French tonight who were great, it was the Irish." The Equipe de France had played an astoundingly bad game of soccer against a motivated and capable opponent, "They won," said former defender Lizarazu, "but there was no glory. They should head to the locker room with their heads down."

In short, it was an embarrassment for the French national team and their captain, Thierry Henry. The French pride themselves above all for winning matches because of greater technical ability and maintaining a noble sense of fair play that the Italians, say, or the Portuguese in their estimation do not, and here, there was no denying it, the goal by Henry that saved France from the unacceptable ignominy of failing to qualify was the result of a foul, a handball at the goal, and not only did Henry touch the ball with his hand, as he strove to prevent it from leaving the field before he could get his foot on it to center it to William Gallas, who would head it into the poorly defended (for once) Irish goal, he seemed to touch it again, which made it so hard to say that it was accidental, the result, as he said, of a rebounding ball with two defenders between him and victory for his team.

But Rama Yade, the brilliant young French political figure in her present incarnation as Secretary of State for Sports, came to his defense, saying that only Henry himself knows if his gesture was deliberate or accidental, and spoke to the French sense of fair-play in sports:

"Thierry Henry lui-même a reconnu avoir touché le ballon. Il n'y a que lui qui sait si c'était volontaire. Tant qu'on ne sait pas si c'est volontaire ou non on ne peut pas parler de triche", a-t-elle estimé. "On ne peut pas jurer avec certitude qu'il a voulu délibérément tricher".

"Ce n'est pas le genre à pratiquer de l'anti jeu et à faire des gestes anti-sportifs. Je ne crois pas qu'un joueur de son envergure, avec son expérience, avec son palmares, le nombre de sélections qu'il a eues en équipe de France, avec l'amour qu'il a du jeu, qu'il soit un homme à faire de la pratique anti-sportive", a poursuivi la secrétaire d'Etat.

It was even more ironic because I had watched Gallas begin to surge from defense through the midfield, play after play in the extra time. "Il en a marre," I said to my husband. "Il va en mettre un but. Il en a tellement marre." I only didn't expect it to have to come from so inglorious a pass, from such a surprising source. Henry.

But, that is the nature of the game, until FIFA agrees that it's time to subject soccer, like every other sport played today, to video refereeing. Not one of the four referees saw the handball, and they will receive poor grades for this match. The Irish goalkeeper saw it, the players saw it, and Henry knew it, but if the referee doesn't blow his whistle, play goes on, and you don't argue with the referee. The goal was valid. Interviewed after the game, Thierry Henry said:

"Oui, y a main, mais je suis pas l'arbitre, a déclaré le capitaine des Bleus. +Toto+ (Squillaci) va à la lutte de la tête, je suis derrière deux Irlandais, la balle redondit et elle tape ma main".

"Bien sûr, je continue à jouer, a-t-il poursuivi. L'arbitre ne siffle pas main, mais je ne peux pas dire qu'il n'y a pas main".

And then game the question: "Should Henry have confessed to the referee? Should he have told him, 'I touched the ball with my hand'?" Stunned to silence for a brief moment by the question, a question that would be on the minds of many French, who hold the integrity of their players even higher than their technical and athletic ability on the field (yes), that had been raised as soon as it happened by the commentators, and which caused me to blurt out from the sink, where I was beginning the dishes, "Mais, l'arbitre n'a pas siflé. Le joue continue, autant que cela peut être terrible!", the question that begged to be asked so the answer could be given, Bixente Lizarazu drew breath and replied, "If the whistle is not blown, play goes on. Yes, there was a foul, but perhaps this time, the situation was in our favor rather than against us, as it often has been."

Like the end of the 2006 World Cup, like a long list of unwhistled fouls and penalties that left France the loser, but France will go to South Africa as Le Figaro says, "sans le mériter, les Tricolores iront en Afrique du Sud... pour espérer un parcours glorieux, les hommes de Domenech devront impérativement gagner en consistance, en sérenité et c'est loin d'être gagné, au regard de la pauvreté de leur prestation".

Do not let it be said that the French be dupe.

And, next time, I'll stick a store-bought pizza in the oven and save the cèpes for another evening. By the way, my husband knows I am head over heels for Bixente (Google images and swoon. Move over Orlando Bloom, here's a real man with real charm.). He approves.

It only confirms my good taste in choosing him.


....

Update: Thierry is said to have admitted to Ireland's number 5, Richard Dunne, while seated on the field after the game, that he cheated. The verdict is out in France, Thierry Henry, "le gentilhomme du foot", "handed" the qualification for the 2010 World Cup by cheating.

There is a panel discussion on national television, and to the credit of the French, the discussion is honest, open and leaves no alternative unexplored.

Bixente Lizarazu holds Thierry Henry to the standard of admitting the truth of his act because there is a sense of ethics and values that must be honored, or the sport becomes .

A political and soccer commentator argues, "we're painting Henry in too negative a light; we're making a bone into a mountain."

Another counts the number of handballs committed by the Irish, and not whistled by the referee.

On the one side, is what counts to qualify, or is it to hold yourself always to the highest standard? There are unwhistled faults in all games, but is it alright to say, "Tant pis, that's the nature of the game," or should the player at fault in such a situation say, "My honor is on the line. I have to acknowledge what I have done, even if so many others haven't before this"? For now, some take the strongest positions, others try to gather as close as possible to a next to impossible see and defend position between the two, arguing that the other side is wrong, while they are already there themselves.

"Mais, Henry ne peut pas aller voir l'arbitre pour lui avouer ce qu'il a fait, l'enjeu financier est trop important."

"Alors, tu es en train de dire que tout est bon dans le foot."

"Mais non."

"Mais si." You see?

The debate will go on, and Thierry will pass some sleepless nights, asking himself, "Ca vaut la participation à la Coupe du Monde?"

What will he finally answer? No one will ever forget, whether it wasn't as bad as Maradonna's hand or worse than Zizou's headbutt in Materazzi's chest. It will go the way of these sorry moments in sports and soccer.