Mesut Ozil, the Arsenal and former Germany midfielder, is no longer going to play for his country of birth. That’ll be Germany then. He won’t play for England, nor Turkey, nor France. They wouldn’t have him in France; its enough they put up with Pogba. But Ozil, Germany, its over.

The only real difference this will make to that international football team is that they can re-use his shirt number. His absence will be almost the same whether he plays or not. He’s always been good at ‘hiding’ in big matches.

I kind of admire why he quit from the national team. When he plays well, as in the previous world cup, the one Germany won, he’s a ‘national’ hero. When he plays… less well, as in this one, he becomes ‘that stinking Turk’. Or some such sentiment. Which is a form of racism, something the Germans have generally excelled at over the centuries. Odd really, as ‘Germany’ itself is less than 150 years old. And even though he was born in Germany, due to his Turkish parents, he can always be put down as ‘Turkish’, which suddenly becomes a grave insult.

Uli Hoeness, himself a world cup winner, back in the day, and present president of Bayern Munich, slagged Ozil off something rotten. Saying he’s useless, lazy, won’t tackle, all the things we already know. So Uli wasn’t really advancing the argument. Instead he pretty much joined the Germanists in slagging off the ‘foreigner’, who was born in (then) West Germany. So, as much as I have very little time for Mesut Ozil, generally speaking, his stance is a worthy one. Even if he does choose to share the proverbial platform with President Erdogan, not his finest moment of judgment.

Went to a wedding on Tuesday. That’ll be the bride then, the one wearing the bride’s dress. But enough about her. The younger daughter came all the way over from Berlin (nothing to do with Ozil, wasn’t a ‘protest’, more a bridesmaid thing) and Lila and her mum were there too, the former being a ‘flower girl’. Who neither held nor presented flowers but did try to pull a few out on the way to the ceremony.

Yet because Mel is an identical twin, with the mother of the bride, these cousins have an uncommon genetic make-up. The ‘identical’ in the twin thing is because such twins emerged from one single egg and thus are 100% genetically identical. So their daughters, rather than sharing 25% common genes as do most first cousins, actually share 50% of their genes. Like normal siblings do.

I married into a freak show.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx