Posted 9:23 AM by Paul
Tony Blair. Another Doctor Speaks

Yesterday I went to the annual Bullfight Club of London dinner with my friends Chris (not the one dieing of renal cancer in Atlanta) and Mark. As I may have mentioned before , Mark and I are old muckers from school and first went to Pamplona in 1976. We don't get together as much as we used to but it's always great fun when we do.
He is a scream and a major addition to any dinner table.

The meal was a hoot and we all drank far too much. I sang badly in Spanish ( En Lo Alto del Pirineo ) to the bemused applause of a woman from Alava ( due south of Bilbao). A Welsh woman who was a senior officer in the Metropilitan Police Force sang the Welsh National anthem beautifully. Great fun was had by all. The best story came from a man we all know simply as Kiwi. He was in the New Zealand Navy in the early 1960s and was on the first NZ ship into Hawaii since Pearl Harbour. Just as they tied up and got ready to go ashore the band on the official welcoming party struck up what they thought was the visitors' National Anthem. The band launched into"Waltzing Matilda".

This is a bit like playing "I Wish I was in Dixies" to welcome the Candadian Ice Hockey team. This mistake did not bode well for the whole trip and subsequently there was a lot of drinking and a lot of fighting. What the Kiwis lack in population they make up for in size, particularly the indigenous Maori population.

Mark was on great form, scandalous and erudite by turns. He is a clever bloke and through a long and heroic process of night studies and research Mark, who works for the Probation [ Ed note. Furlow in American] Service he got a PhD in Criminology. He had an interesting take on our Prime Minister's behaviour. Blair constantly repeats the mantra that he has no "reverse gear" and often says "we are where we are" in a clear attempt to make us believe that it is "My Way or the Highway". Mark pointed out that this is exactly the kind of behaviour that they try to wean criminals from as offedners will often fatalistically say "that's the way it is" or " This is me. Take it or leave it." Mark and his team try and suggest to the offender that there is an alternative to thier failed behaviour and simply repeating it is unlikely to meet with any success.

It's the first time that I have heard a PM compared obliquely with an inadequate petty criminal, but it is a thought.

We then retired to the pub across the road where the guest of honour the veteran
( he is 25 but looks younger) bullfighter El Juli was drinking Guiness and watching the Chelsea v Manchester United game. He is like the David Beckham of bullfighting back home but in England no one knows him. He has been fighting bulls since he was 14. I even had the honour of standing next to him at the urinal. I couldn't think of anything to say as we washed our hands. So I kept silent. And no I didn't check out the size of his manhhod.