Playing it straight, despite our crooked heritage

Would they or wouldn't they? Like Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the eve of signing Camp David on the White House lawn, the question preoccupied the soccer world last Saturday: Would Wayne Bridge shake the hand of his former Chelsea and England teammate John Terry, betrayed take on betrayer head-on?

It was an exciting moment, but the image that remained with me long after the shake/no shake moment at Stamford Bridge was much more traditionally soccer - of defenders lining up in a wall (in this case, Man City men before a Didier Drogba free-kick), instinctively clutching the crotch in a precarious bid to ward off a sensitive accident should the ball not clear half way up the wall.

I'd been reading some wonderful Isaiah Berlin essays and the hands-in-right-places image brought to mind a captivating story - apocryphal or not, I cannot vouch - told about the great philosopher.

Still early on his way to stardom in the world of ideas, he was bicycling with fellow to celebrate the onset of summer. Soon it became so hot they opted for a swim in a nearby stream. Duly cooled, they were sitting drying off when some young women appeared suddenly round the corner on the bike path.

Like the City defenders, the youthful Berlin's two colleagues immediately plunged their hands downward. Isaiah's hands, however, flew upward. As soon as the giggling girls had passed on, he was asked for an explanation: "In Oxford I'm generally known by my face," was the smiling reply.

This particular collection is entitled "The Crooked Timber of Humanity" from a quote by Immanuel Kant which the volume's editor, Henry Hardy, calls one of Sir Isaiah's favorites - "Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made."

The fact that the referee at Stamford Bridge, Mike Dean, chose not to play it entirely straight worked a charm. Usually, before the start of a game it's the home side's captain who leads his team down the visitors' line to welcome them with a hand shake. Ref Dean spared Terry and Bridge the embarrassment of a pre-match stand-off by reversing that handshake protocol, ensuring that the Chelsea captain would not be left standing in front of Bridge demanding a handshake.

The City man was thus able to walk past Terry and reject the outstretched hand with the minimum of fuss. In fact, he elegantly side-handed the Chelsea skipper, instead shaking the hand of the mascot alongside him, much to the young boy's surprise and, I dare say, delight. Bridge was still able to make his point both to his tormentor and to an intrigued soccer world before going on to help City in a cathartic 4-2 victory.

We were treated to something that was very much not down the line when Sky News ran a snippet of a long story that'll be running in full this weekend about the goings on at McLaren in advance of next weekend's start in Bahrain of the new Formula 1 motor racing season.

Reigning champion Jenson Button was anything but straight when asked if he didn't win this year's championship. "I'm all wrapped up in my own performance. If it's not me, then I really don't care," was his blunt smirk.

On the other hand, the champ of two seasons back, Lewis Hamilton, was the model diplomat, the perfect teammate: "I never forget I'm actually driving for almost 1,000 people who've all worked so hard to put me in the car. If I don't win then, of course, I want our team to win," i.e., McLaren's other driver, Button. When told that wasn't exactly his teammate's attitude, a surprised Hamilton merely shrugged.

Do we have a major rivalry going already? Much is being made of their different driving (and interviewing) styles, which could yet play a key role in deciding the destiny of the championship. Hamilton followed up with another apt comment: "I have no doubt there will be things I can learn from him, and things he can learn from me." It certainly bears some, this one.

In one of the essays, "The Bent Twig", Sir Isaiah focuses on the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder to highlighting the cohesive power of the group (and, by extension, of the national group). He writes: "Human customs, activities, forms of life, art, ideas were (and must be) of value to men, not in terms of timeless criteria applicable to all men and societies irrespective of time and place, but because they were their own expression of their local, regional, national life."

Like say, Canadians and ice hockey, the way they rallied behind their Olympic squad when Sidney Crosby's memorable overtime victory goal finally put paid to any subversive thoughts of an alliance, or the need to blur borders, between themselves and their mighty southern neighbor. When eventually, they were repaid for the committed allegiance to the Maple Leaf by emerging at the very top of the gold medal table, Canadians seemed even to be a reflection of Sir Isaiah's phrase about nationalism being "an inflamed condition of national consciousness which can be, and has on occasion been, tolerant and peaceful."

The positive atmosphere that the home nation created around the Vancouver Games so impressed Britain's minister for the next Summer Games Tessa Jowell that she waxed lyrically about the example it sets for the London Olympics, which are now just over two years away: "Public enthusiasm was undimmed. Even the people at passport control greeted you with smiles on their faces and a heartfelt welcome to Vancouver. The first lesson - bottle this enthusiasm, give it a British twist and let it go at London 2012."

Lawrence Donegan, who covered the Games for the Guardian, was inclined, however, to see the polluting element of national sports pride. "It's important," he wrote, "that the Olympics be seen as an international celebration and not just a celebration of the host country and its athletes.

"China was guilty in Beijing two years ago of favoring the former over the latter - no surprise there - and so has Canada, which has shed once and for all an enviable reputation as a welcome refuge from sporting jingoism more normally associated with the nation on its southern border. London must be an international occasion and not just a national one. Then, Seb Coe (chairman of the 2012 Games organizing committee) will earn some credit for those in search of the real Olympic spirit."

Close encounters

Sir Isaiah was in Jerusalem to receive the 1979 Jerusalem Prize and was being heralded at a private cocktail party. Eternally modest, he soon slid into the shadows. I was a budding reporter on the sidelines, but my wife and I were privileged when he began to engage us in conversation.

As soon as he'd elegantly avoided going into detail about what he clearly regarded as the start of woefully misguided national policies of the Israeli government, I asked, with considerable temerity, if he'd indulge and respond to the parlor game history question - "If given the choice, when and where in mankind's past would you have chosen to live." No hesitation whatever - "Late Victorian England, provided," Sir Isaiah added wryly, "I am allowed to import modern sanitation and medicine."

Wow, I exulted, just what I wanted to hear - fitting, as it did, into my own predilection for the period when England was teaching the world about the imperative of indulging in organized team sports.

As Sean Connery puts it in the advert for some bank or other which seems to slip in every time there's a break in the action, "Back to common sense," the time has come to put England back in the center of world achievement as a sporting nation.

Maybe, Wayne Bridge will even think of going back on his own promise, take Fabio Capello up on his statement that it isn't too late to reverse his decision not to play in the same team as John Terry. It's what's best for England that has to count, so that Capello can field the best England can offer against the USA for their opening World Cup game in Rustenburg in just 97 days time.

Sir Isaiah would probably be delighted.