Here’s a four-letter tirade that really takes the biscuit

REACTING to the penalty award that, ultimately, eliminated Northern Ireland from the World Cup, Lisa Evans, wife of defender Corry, unleashed a tirade of racist abuse on Twitter. The referee, Ovidiu Hategan, was a ‘Romanian gypsy c***’, an ‘ungrateful t***’ and had ‘smelly relatives’ who were probably housed in Northern Ireland. ‘Anyway,’ she concluded cheerily, ‘onwards and upwards’. Leaving aside that it was probably impossible to go downwards from there, you’ve got to love the absence of self-awareness, of the obvious offence caused, in that sign-off. The way Lisa was now blithely choosing to move on from a public display of abusive racism. It reminded me. Some years ago, I was eating in a restaurant called The Canteen, owned by Marco Pierre White, when there was a loud commotion. A diner was seeking out the patron, who had finished service and was sitting in a quiet corner table with a friend. ‘Oi Mark!’ she shouted, until a companion pointed out his name was, in fact, Marco. ‘Marco!’ she shrieked. ‘What kind of a poofy name is that?’ At this point waiters began ushering the remaining customers to the bar with the promise of a free digestif. We were having none of that. The Canteen wasn’t cheap, and it would appear an unadvertised floorshow had arrived. The guest in question had an issue with the maitre d’. She had never been spoken to so effing rudely in her effing life. The place was an effing disgrace. She didn’t effing know who he thought he effing was. She resisted attempts to resolve her issue somewhere less public. Marco Pierre White was trying, and failing, to keep a straight face through the barrage. The lady decided to finish on what she no doubt considered a strong point. ‘That man,’ she said, indicating the offending employee, ‘is a complete f******’ and then she did it. She, spectacularly, dropped the C-bomb. And not just any C-bomb, either. Never has one person got such value out of four simple letters. She hit the C hard, ploughed it straight into that guttural vowel, rolled the second consonant around in her mouth and used it as a springboard into the final T, which she assaulted with such emphasis it developed an extra syllable: a triumphant, resounding, ‘tuh!’ at the end. Bob Hoskins would have been proud. And then she turned to address the startled dining room. ‘That,’ she announced, before turning on her heels, ‘is not a word I use lightly.’ Indeed. Onwards and upwards, as Lisa Evans would no doubt counsel in the circumstances.