Comment at end
12th July 2010
SPAIN BEATS HOLLAND 1-0
Paul the English Octopus chose Spain to win the World Cup, which has just finished in South Africa. Paul was right on all the earlier games too.
Well done, Spain. Well done Paul the Weymouth-born Octopus.
Now, since it won’t be worth much if Paul tells us ALL next week’s lottery numbers can we move on?
Tony Blair meets his namesakes in Kosovo
Tony Blair with some of the Kosovan boys named after him.
WHAT? Pardon? You didn’t think I was done yet, did you?
Doing the British press’s job of honest reporting takes more than just a few posts here, y’know.
So, in case you have had enough of football, and a certain Mr Moat (deceased), or just in case you missed the press’s e-x-t-e-n-s-i-v-e coverage of the Hero of Kosovo, here’s a report from a man who was there.
Tony Blair press conference with Kosovo’s President
And the report is here, as pasted below:
Tony Blair meets his namesakes in Kosovo
Friday, Jul 09, 2010 in Office of Tony Blair
‘Tony Blair has met nine children named after him during a two-day visit to Kosovo. The boys were all born after Nato’s 1999 military campaign, which the then UK Prime Minister advocated and which removed Serbian forces from the region.
He is credited by local people with playing a decisive role in ending former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic regime’s ethnic cleansing Albanians.
“As you can see your name is quite common in our country,” a teenage presenter told Tony Blair on a stage in Pristina, where several thousand people gathered, many carrying posters describing him as a “leader, friend and hero”.
Parents named their newborns after Blair to thank him for his role in leading the international community to intervene to stop the lethal crackdown on the ethnic-Albanian majority in Kosovo by Milosevic.
Speaking to Kosovo TV, the father of one of the children named after him remembered when Mr Blair visited a camp in neighbouring Albania where refugees had fled from the violence in their homeland.
“They ask me what the name is,” Jahir Sahiti said on his son Tonibler. ”I tell them that the name is Tonibler and I hope that he carries it in good health.”
His mother Shukrija said she was very “proud” he was named after Mr Blair, adding: “I hope to God that he grows up to be like Tony Blair or just a fraction like him.”
Tony Blair told the ecstatic crowd: “I did what was right. I did what was just. I did not regret it then. I do not regret it now.”
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 and the UK was among the first to recognise it.
Earlier in the day, Tony Blair addressed the National Assembly of Kosovo. You can read the full text of his speech here‘
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Tony Blair is also into sport, and has a Sports Foundation as it happens. Wonder if there’s presently an opening for an octopus? But who’d take want to trust an octopus … with a name like Paul!?
RECENT POSTS HERE ON THE HERO OF KOSOVO (No, it’s not Paul)
- British press plays catch-up on the GOOD news on Blair (in Kosovo)
- Pictures: Tony Blair, the Hero, in Kosovo (thanks to DayLife for photos)
- Sky News: Pictures of Tony Blair and Tonibler x 9 in Kosovo (DayLife)
- 10 ‘Tony Blairs’. The Legacy? Freedom. Democracy. Generational. Priceless.
- Golden Medal of Freedom for Tony Blair in British flagged Kosovo
Sign the Ban Blair-Baiting petition here
A recent comment from an Albanian, Mr Leonard Dedej from Tirana – “It takes big leaders to make the hardest turns in peoples life…mr Blair is a big leader and a great man for millions of people in Balkans!!!for stopping a savage war!about Iraq I believe that the press wherever it is has not the right to judge on this issue because it simply is to small to judge!!history will judge mr Blair!as long as it is an ongoing war no one can blame mr Blair,after all he started something for a big reason..the press its often wrong because it fights for audience!!!”
Tags: Albania, Albanian Muslims, British press, English octopus, ethnic cleansing, Freedom medal, hero, Kosovo, lottery, Milosevic, National Assembly, nine boys, Paul the Octopus, photos, pictures, politics, Serbia, Spain wins world cup, speech, Tonibler, Tony Blair, Tony Blair Office, victory for England, Weymouth born
July 13, 2010 at 1:48 pm |
We also had an English referee!!
July 13, 2010 at 3:35 pm |
Oh, yes, Joe. And the linesmen too, of course. So England won, really.