In my youth you had news year cards from mouth and foot painters. I thought of that when I read about a child who lost a hand and an eye in fireworks. His brainless father helped him with that. There is currently no question of a fireworks ban. That takes votes. And limbs.
It says something about the country, where almost everyone is angry because FIFA mobster Infantino took a selfie with the corpse of the great Pele. But why would you be angry about that? What if that man likes it? And Pelé doesn’t care anymore. Maybe that Infantino gets a warm tickle from the fact that his phone has a picture of himself with dead Pelé. Maybe he collects corpse photos and has a shelf full of happy albums at home in which he stands next to all kinds of dead people. And perhaps this admirable football bobo has a special photo book with himself among the more than 6,500 deceased slaves from Qatar. The Asian martyrs who gave their lives for the divine football. Men who gave meaning to the lives of Messi and his countless followers. And that his picture with the deceased Brazilian hero is the icing on the cake. Beautiful last page of his album about “the best World Cup so far!” This last Infantino proclaimed aloud. Without looks or blushing. I always wonder if such a man believes himself when he says this. I’m afraid the answer is yes. That’s how you become a champion.
Will corpse snatcher Infantino be bummed that he had to choose between Pele and the old Pope Benedict this week? Or did he take it with him? Shortly in line on St. Peter’s Square, an emergency selfie next to the dead old woman and then on to the airport to hurry to Brazil. Good thing he didn’t call Ronaldo to ask where exactly that damned Santos is, because then he would still be wandering through a suburb of Reykjavik. Poor Cristiano. Didn’t have geography in his package. Do count.
With a dead in the picture. The crows of the funeral company, which were allowed to bury the more than famous Argentinian footballer Maradona under the ground, even secretly opened the coffin of the star at night to be immortalized with his remains. These photos appeared on the Internet. One of the men gave a little nervous thumbs up. That made it all endearing. Even moving.
On Thursday I saw the farewell of former Pope Benedict, who, according to millions, has been the replacement of God on earth for a while. The man has not had a flawless career. When he was bishop he transferred all sorts of German altar boy wriggles within his diocese instead of kicking these perverts out of the church. He will now have to explain this to God himself. At least if his predecessor Peter lets him in. What the coward is going to say to god? That that wriggling was normal then? That they then all sat with their filthy fingers on innocent children? Simply because some idiot invented celibacy? I hope for his sake that god believes him. Because it’s pretty hot in hell.
Talk about hell. For many people, the year has started unbearably tough. Uighurs? Ukrainians? Also, but I’m mostly talking about the poor skiers. They don’t have it easy. They had to muddle in Austria in brown Brinta sprayed together by snow cannons. In France and Switzerland you only had green slopes. If global warming starts to affect even the rich, it’s going to get annoying.
But there was also good news. American football player Damar Hamlin has survived a cardiac arrest because all the fans have been praying and praying for him. When he emerged from his days-long coma, his first question was, “Did we win?”
The doctors’ reply was, “You’ve won, Hamlin! Congratulations”.
And what did Infantino say? “Too bad, I would have loved to take a picture with Mr.!”
A version of this article also appeared in the January 7, 2023 newspaper