S01E06： Midas, Myths and the Magic of Lamine Yamal

Hello everybody and welcome to another, another episode of Fast Football and Philosophy with me Dr Adam Foxen and me Professor Jack Cunningham. Jack have you, have you seen, before we do a bit of a recap of what we did last week, have you, have you seen Katherine Connolly, the new President of Ireland and her doing Keep Your Peace? It's amazing, 68 years old and she is outstanding. I mean if ever, we were talking last week about the women's game, shaking off bad faith, there is a woman who has shaken off the bad faith that women can't do these things, especially women in their late 60s. Fair play to her, that is decent. She, somebody in the comments said that she was a generational athlete which, which I thought was quite. Oh yeah, yeah, apparently back in the day she, she said she regularly did over 100 Keep Your Peace which I mean, I think my record is about three. On a good day. On a good day, yeah. Talking about one generation, one generational athlete to another then, Troy Parrott Jack. Oh come on. Troy Parrott scored five goals in the last two games. Yeah. They beat Portugal, so there's a bit of narrative here as well actually right, because so Ronaldo in the, in the, in the, in the pre-match press conference, because there's a bit of needle between Ireland and Portugal, because Portugal kind of, well, Ronaldo really had this, had a bit of a ding dong with the Irish side in, in one, in the reverse fixture right, and now they have this game and in this, and in this pre-match thing, Ronaldo saying I'm going to be a good boy and I hope, I hope the fans don't boo me and all this kind of stuff, and then he gets sent off. Ireland beat Portugal 2-0. Yeah, yeah. And then you go away to Hungary, play second, like, I mean, I mean, that's, that, that they are second in their league table. Hungary, who are doing really well, they've got Dominic Bozalai in the middle of the pitch bossing it, and then you go and beat them 3-2. Troy Parrott-Hattrick. You couldn't write this stuff. This is absolutely, this is going to be, go down in, in legendary football lore in Ireland. It's absolutely, and the supporters at the minute are getting a real sniff, we might be going to another World Cup, and to be honest with you, if I was FIFA, I would pay for Ireland to go to the World Cup just because they bring their supporters with them, and it's a, it's a better World Cup if you have, you have the Republic of Ireland team in it, so let's just, let's just hope these playoffs go the right way. Come on, come on guys, that's, that's all it is. Yeah, yeah, and maybe me and you, whether we like it or not, we'll have to go out there, Adam, and. Whatever's best for the pod, Jack, we'll do it. Make that sacrifice. I will go to Florida, and I will watch some football for the pod. So actually, I mean, Troy Parrott himself, I mean, he was, he was, he's a bit of a wonderkid himself, and he was, he was kind of this amazing product of the Spurs academy, and he goes on and on and on, but then it never really works out for him for whatever reason it is, and then he has to go away to, to, to Holland, and he, I can't remember where he goes, somewhere like Excelsior, and then now he's at, now, now he's at RZ Alkmaar, and he's doing amazing things there, and then he comes back to Ireland, and he does his thing, obviously on the World Cup stage, well, not quite the World Cup stage, but, but almost there, and it's, it's amazing really to see, um, but today's episode is going to be entirely focused on, on wonderkids themselves, and probably the creme de la creme of wonderkids, especially at the moment, and the, the sheer shenanigans that are going on around that boy, um, so what can you tell us about, I mean, what can philosophy, what can, well, what, what can the, kind of, our intellectual history tell us about the, the potential tragedy that could be in your mouth, and it's in plain Well, let us go to, um, not to, um, pure philosophy per se, but to a Greek classical myth, um, that lots of philosophers right up into the modern era have commented on, and that is the myth of King Midas, okay, now this myth starts to give you a kind of amalgamation of the versions today, so, um, there is a satyr who is a, um, who is a teacher, a tutor to a god called Bacchus, or Dionysus, um, is, um, he is the god of wine, okay, but that's not, and he's often portrayed as being drunk, but he, that's not just what wine is, the Greeks really appreciated wine, and thought it was a good thing from the earth, and so this, um, this satyr, uh, Selenus is, is, you know, he's, he's top drawer, he's an intellectual, but satyrs like to go off into the woods, let me just tell you that satyr, incidentally, in Greek myth is, uh, is a guy with horse's ears, and a horse's tail, when the Romans take him over, they change him around, and now he's got a goat's legs, and a little goatee beard, and little horns, and the type of person you see in, um, most university libraries, wait, isn't it, that's the guy from the line of which wardrobe, yeah, yeah, yeah, Mr. Thomas, he caught, he's called a fawn there, isn't he, but it's extensively, it's the same thing, yeah, yeah, so they're, they're, they're they often like to go into the woods and get inebriated, because, you know, they're smart guys, and they, you know, that's, that's what we're all doing now, with most weekends, most weekends, so he goes off into the woods, and he gets, um, he gets drunk, right, now, um, in one version of the myth by, uh, a Greek historian called Theopompus, um, he, his, the river has been spiked by, they have some shepherds, they poured wine into the river, so he's quite innocent, he's drinking this, and he gets drunk, and he falls asleep, now, the only reason I mentioned that version is because Theopompus is my favourite name ever in the history of the world, in fact, I have a fantasy son called Theopompus, he plays, he plays the Celtic, the Republic of Ireland, and, and, and his name is Theopompus, so, are you listening, Brazil, that means, that is a name, definitely, definitely, okay, so, um, that's that, but anyway, the, all versions have him being captured by some shepherds, and taken to King Midas, now, you'd expect, he's a prisoner, you'd expect him to get bad treatment, but King Midas respects this sage, he's a bright boy, Selenus is a bright man, so, he throws a 10-day party, and Selenus is entertaining all the people at the party with his stories, and with his philosophy, and, um, it's all going great, unless, of course, you read Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, Selenus says that, that, he said, the King Midas asks Selenus, you know, what's the secret of life, and he says, Selenus says, well, for humans, not to be born at all, and the second best thing is, you die as soon as you possibly can, but that's Nietzsche for you, isn't it, Nietzsche doesn't like a good party, does he, he's always, he's the guy in the kitchen at the party, moaning about, four o'clock, four o'clock, yeah, anyway, he gets invited, he wouldn't get invited, would he, not with that moustache, so, anyway, um, back, um, Midas takes Selenus back to, um, Bacchus, and, and Bacchus is amazed by this, the King has treated him, this prisoner, my tutor, um, with, you know, real respect, a real party, um, of celebrations, and, so, he says to, he says to Midas, you can have whatever you want, Midas says, right, okay, whatever I touch will turn to gold, this is cheeky, cheeky, cheeky, so he tests it out, he walks out, and he touches a branch of a tree, turns to gold, he touches an apple, turns to gold, this is just fantastic, and he goes back to his house, and he orders, um, a feast, and the first thing he does is drink a goblet of wine, turns to liquid gold in his throat, and that's got to be unpleasant, I don't know if you've ever drank liquid gold, but there is, there is a vodka that has, uh, it might be vodka, it's got, like, gold bits in it, uh, I mean, it's not the same all, but I don't know, well, if maybe he'd managed to mix it with a little bit of vodka, it would have been more palatable, but anyway, this is all nasty stuff, and he nearly breaks his teeth on an apple, first of all, his daughter comes to him one day, and she says, the roses in the garden don't smell sweet anymore, they're all hard, and, and, and he said, oh, that's really terrible, because he's turned them to gold, hasn't he, when he's sweet, but then he touches his daughter as well, and she turns to gold, so this is a disaster. Aristotle has something to say about this, he says, this is a myth about money, and I'll give you a little quote from The Politics, which is a, a work by Aristotle, and he, and Aristotle says, because it is of no use for any of the necessary needs of life, a man well supplied with money may be destitute of bare necessities. In Aristotle's version of the story, Midas dies of starvation, a horrible death, of course, okay, later on, though, we get a different version of the story, I think it might have been actually as late as the 19th century, when Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great American writer, gives us a version of the story, and in this version, Midas goes back to Bacchus, and says, and says to him, ah, listen, I made a big, big, big mistake, and Bacchus was like, yeah, you did, yeah, you did, that gold's ours, though, exactly, and that's a, that's a point we might raise in a minute as well, go and wash yourself in the river, um, Poptulus, and when you wash yourself, the power will leave you, and he does, and the power goes into the water, and apparently, I don't know where the river Poptulus is, but if you go there now, it's got gold and sand all on the bottom of the river, because, very nice, because of Midas, and Midas can go back, I'm not sure what, if he goes back to the, to the temple now, to his throne now, or his castle now, and he can throw her in the water, throw her in the water, see what, see what that will do, but the point is, the myth, the myth is a useful way of saying, um, you know, um, for philosophers, and for poets, and the Latins, like Ovid, take it up later on, and Horace, and they say, you know, just watch out with wealth, you know, it's, um, it's, there are other things more important and better than wealth, and Horace says, a country without gold is a happier country. Hmm, yeah, so bad, I mean, our economy would tank, wouldn't it? I mean, it did tank in 2008, when the gold and browns sold off, but, um, what would, okay, fine, but I'm pretty sure, from my knowledge, my limited knowledge, anyway, Bacchus, we have, we have this whole thing about Bacchanalian parties, yeah, and I've got a funny feeling that Lemini Man is having plenty of Bacchanalian parties, right? Like, everyone's getting pissed, everyone's shagging, everyone's, you know, that's why, I mean, I imagine it's like an American Pie film, but in reality. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally, yeah, uh, it will be, um, it will be classical in that respect, you might find, you're thinking you found yourself back in ancient Rome, you know, where the days of Nero, or something, when everybody's getting out of their skulls, behaving very, very badly, but, yeah, but, um, one of the things that you, which is important to add to the story, is this, um, there's a thing in the, in Greek myth, that one of the worst things you can commit is hubris, and hubris means that you think that you're, you're like one of the gods, and entitled to what the gods have, and gold is associated with the gods, and hubris is always followed by nemesis, okay, so hubris comes first, and then big punishment, big, there's a big fall from that, and that's a constant theme in Greek, um, in Greek mythology, so you know every time this happens, it's going to be a come on, yeah, and I guess the most obvious example of that is Icarus, right, and Icarus flies too close to the sun, and his wings get burned, and you know, yeah, right, okay, that makes sense, so what we're saying, that is, is that if, if people make all these, kind of, almost just like, I mean, so Midas has lived his entire life really well, you know, he's done a good job, and he, you know, he treats, he treats prisoners well, all that kind of stuff, he's, you know, he's an ethical guy, he's a good guy, and he makes one bad choice, he lets that, kind of, hubris take over, just once, yeah, yeah, yeah, and from there, he gets all these really bad, kind of, consequences of that, so if we were to apply that to football, what would, are we saying that, that, that Wunderkid say, that someone who's got a really promising career, and he's doing all the right things, and they're working really hard, that they're just one bad decision away? I think that is right, you know, that, that, that, that, that is good, yeah, the, one of the, the best ways to, to, to, um, you don't really understand this story, if you don't look at an additional story, a parallel story about Bacchus, actually, and Bacchus has four daughters, and Apollo gives them a gift, and whatever they touch, these four daughters will turn to corn, olive oil, or wine, all these natural, useful things, Midas's great calamity, the great, the, the, the sin, if you like, is that he has chart, uh, he has chosen unnatural over natural, useless over useful, and that is a big theme, the natural is better than the unnatural, and money, gold, precious stuff is, is, is, is always considered by the, the philosophers as something that, make, make the other choice, don't make that choice, so in football, especially if you're a young, very, very wealthy, um, um, boy in football, I think you're kind of faced with these choices, aren't you, you, you, it's like a material reality, where you chase after all the Gucci and the women, yeah, or, yeah, yeah, yeah, you stick to the, to the, to that kind of, that determination, that grit, you keep working hard, yeah, yeah, interesting, yeah, because there is, you're right, in, in, in this kind of classical era, and, and when we kind of get to, get to even Christianity, for instance, there's this myth, there's, there's this big relationship between the mind and the body, yeah, and how we need to kind of stay away from all the stuff, from, you know, from lust and concupiscence, and having concubines and mistresses, and all these kinds of things, yeah, yeah, and focus on, focus on, on, on, not the here and now, focus on the future, if you like, and so, Lumi and Yamal, for instance, or anyone that could really just have to have one eye on the future all the time, yeah, yeah, keep working towards that future, I think so, one of the things that strikes me about, I don't know if you've seen Adam, his celebration, Yamal's celebration is a, draws a 304, that's because he comes from a quite a poor area in Catalonia, a neighbourhood in Catalonia, called, I believe, Roca Funda, and that's the end of their postcode, so he's showing real solidarity with the community, it's a, it's a multicultural community, it's poor, and he's saying, you know, solidarity with you guys, and that's a good thing, and they, they, they, they really appreciate that there, that's someone who came from them, and he's saying, you know, it looks, you know, it's kind of celebrating them, that's a really good thing, and it's natural, yeah, and it's natural, he, if he follows the hubris, if he believes what people are surrounding him are telling him, that he's a god, that's the, he's at, that takes him away from his, from his roots, yeah, yeah, yeah, it will, it will, and that, that, that, the roots thing, and the community thing will become impossible, if he follows the hubristic trail towards deification, see, and that's what you really, I find that fascinating, because sometimes, and this is the thing with philosophy, or at least trying, trying, trying to apply philosophy to people, it doesn't always work, because when you compare that with someone, say, like a, a Revell Morrison, so, so Revell was, he was, he was, it was probably seen as, as, as one of the greatest academy products of Manchester United, you know, all these ex-pros, they all say that he's probably the best player that they've ever seen play, like the things he's doing in training, he's making mugs of people, you know, he's, he's doing some unbelievable things that people can't even express, right, and yet it never seems to work out for him, because you could say, these, the reports, they, they, they say that he's too close to his roots, he's never managed to kind of shake off all his friends that are kind of dragging him down a little bit, he's got this kind of, this, this, this collection of hangers-on, you keep, seem to keep pulling him back, keep pulling him back, and again, and it's probably the same, we were talking earlier about, about, about the other one, about, about, about the Portuguese guy, Hayim, and, and how, again, like, he, I mean, he's, I mean, he's turned to porn now, Jack. He's a porn star. I don't think he's a porn star yet, but he's certainly in porn. Cameo roles. Oh, God, imagine having a cameo in porn. And, and like, but again, like, he, he came out and said, you know, he came out and said that he believed that he would have been better than, than Renato, he'd have got the ball on the door if he'd have had the same opportunities that Renato had, and whether or not that's true is a different matter entirely, but he was, by all accounts, he was, he was a very promising youngster, he managed to get a move to Chelsea under, under Philippe Scolari, and he, and I think that, I can't remember when that was, but it was, it was fairly early on in his career, so he's showing promise, and Scolari's going to know that from being the Brazil manager, he's going to have a close eye on the Portuguese game, and so it's, it's, you know, it's, it's interesting to see kind of how your relationship with your past can, can impact your present and obviously your future as well. And it looks like, from the casual observer's point of view, it looks like he did have the opportunities Renato had, he just didn't take them. They were all there. It's the decisions you make. It's the decisions you make, yeah, he chose not to take them, so yeah, yeah, don't be blaming the gods or fate or, or something, or bad luck. It's, it's what you do. And is that the, is that the moral of, of Manus' story? Yeah, yeah. Don't blame the gods. Yeah. It's the decisions that you make, that you have to be careful for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a cautionary tale, and it's, it's, I think in its original form, it's a severe cautionary tale, because a king starves to death and kills his daughter. Things don't get worse than that, do they? I don't think that mean he might as well go to a murder any time soon. Or featured in any porn either, by the way. That is true, but you were telling me about a party he had recently, his 80th birthday party. Come on, just imagine. So, so all the reports are saying that he was trying to get lots of porn stars across to his party, but there were certain stipulations, so they had to show that they had, like, you know, a certain breast size, for instance, and he's just, he's just a randy, horny teenager. That's what he is. He just so happens to be a multi-millionaire, and, and also there's, I think what's also happened as well is that people have tried to kind of get into, into his slipstream, so now we have also lots of other porn stars who are saying, oh yeah, no, he's messaged me as well, and you know, and it's just, it's a very easy way to kind of attach yourself to the rising, meteoric kind of rise, if you like, of, of this, of this, of this teenage superstar. Yeah. Whether or not it's true is a different matter entirely, but the fact these things are happening, and these things, and he catches injury, the inflamed pubic area, which doesn't help anyone, does it? It doesn't. And I'm from the same party as well. He's in trouble with the Spanish Ministry of Justice, I think it is, because it seems that he, he hired people with dwarfism. You know, you know, you can't do that. You can't do that. I don't know that people might be saying, listen, he's a boy, he's a You've got to have someone close to you who's honest and natural, and it says to you, mate, mate, mate, mate, you can't do that. You can't do that. And also, FYI, he is going to have an absolute PR team around him, who are probably all saying, maybe don't do that, and he's just gone, nah, it's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, okay, well, oh, well, well, actually, that's, I mean, that's, that's quite nice, actually. I think we've been, I think we've been quite nice Well, this is like a real, this has real life implications here. We have given Laminia Mallor a cautionary tale that he needs to stop making potentially poor decisions, focus on the future, focus on, I mean, he helped Spain knock us out of the Euros in the final. So there's that fair play to him. Yeah, wanker. But it doesn't matter. I'll forgive him as long as he keeps one eye on the future and stops inviting porn stars to his party. I think we've been very generous. We've been like Bacchus in the story, haven't we? We've been thinking and drunk at the same time. That's later. Actually, on that, Jack, before we leave, right, before I press stop on the record button, I've decided that I'm going to give you an opportunity to earn a pint from me. That's the prize, right? I have been spending a lot of time on a new jingle, right? I say jingle, jingle, jingle is an exaggeration as to what I've managed to create. Because my editorial skills are not that good, right? But here it is, folks. This is the first episode of, is it Camus or is it Cantona? When the seagulls follow the trolley, it's because they think sardines will be stormed into the sea. So, Jack, the first one is, the first quotation is. Wait, wait, wait. So you're going to read me a quotation and I've got to say whether it's Camus or Cantona. And if you get, let's say, I'm going to give you five, okay? If you get three correct, I'll buy you a pint, right? Not that way anyway. Okay. Let's go with, in the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer. That's Camus. I know that's Camus. Don't tell me that's not Camus. That is Camus right there. That is Camus. That's one. That's one. I need something better than that. I need something better than that. I don't know. I don't know what we're going to go with. I'll tell you what we'll do this. I am sure to be a bad actor in a bad movie, but maybe one day I could be a good actor in a good movie. As far as I know, Camus never took to the stage or to the screen. Cantona, on the other hand, had a nice little bit of a career, didn't he? Remember I'm fine? You are doing all right here, aren't you? You're doing all right. No, you're not. It's fine. I'll make it harder. I'll make it harder. Here we go. I prefer to be a man of passion than a man of reason. Ooh. Now that could be either of them, couldn't it? That's the idea. I'm just going to have to guess on this one, and I am going to say that Cantona. That's really annoying, because it's Cantona. Well, folks, that ended very, very quickly. And this is also, incidentally, why you should pay heed to what we're saying, because Jack is very clearly a very wise man who knows things that no one else should be able to know. I'm a satyr. You're a satyr. Right. Anyway, we're way past time, Jackie. We're way past time. Again. So, it is going to be... Oh, actually, what are we going to do next week? Are we doing Baudrillard and Hyperreality? We are. We're going to do Baudrillard and Hyperreality. And as we close this episode down, I am going to put up the video of Catherine Connolly doing her Many Keepie Uppies. So, before... Well, after that happens, it's a goodbye from me. And it's a goodbye from me. Goodbye. Bye now.