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Power schmower...

"How should I know why there are Nazis? I can't even work the can opener".

This priceless comment from Woody Allen's Hannah and her Sisters captures my attitude to featuring in the JC's Power 100 - their list of powerful Jews.

It's very kind of them and all that, but if I am truly one of the most powerful Jews in the country it simply deepens the mystery of why I can't get my boys into the bath without shouting at them.

Should I take satisfaction in the fact that Sir Alan Sugar isn't included and I am? Well, put it this way - I'd rather have his jet and his Roller and, I strongly suspect, so would he.

UPDATE: A friend emails "congratulations on making the Al Qaeda top 100 targets list".

The trouble with Yiddos

It's time, long past time actually, for the football authorities to act.

That's the theme of my column in the Jewish Chronicle this week. You may want to take a minute or two to read the whole thing. But in case you are in a hurry, I will summarise.

It was prompted by my visit to Wembley to watch my team lose to Spurs in the Carling Cup.

Here's how the column starts:

If you’ve still got a foreskin, clap your hands. If you’ve still got a foreskin, clap your hands. If you’ve still got a foreskin, still got a foreskin, still got a foreskin, clap your hands.”

I am travelling very slowly up an escalator, surrounded by large (OK, actually pretty fat), loud, partially drunk men with tattoos and shaven heads. None of them troubled the Oxford and Cambridge exam board while at school. They are singing antisemitic songs. The foreskin song ends and a chant of “Yiddo! Yiddo!” fills the lobby.

Let me explain:

Spurs, the team playing Chelsea in last weekend’s Carling Cup Final, have a large number of Jewish fans. As a result, they have  become known by other fans (not just Chelsea fans, not by any means) as the Yid Army.

This is not a title Tottenham supporters run away from. Indeed, as I left Wembley Park station, the first people chanting “Yid Army” were Spurs fans. I don’t know whether they were Jews or not. They were clapping their hands, but I am not sure if this meant they had a foreskin. It seemed rude to ask.

Perhaps they don’t realise what it is like to be up the other end, sitting with the opposing fans, where the Yiddo chants are not affectionate. And where they are, unquestionably, very much to do with Jews.

And this simply isn't acceptable. As I point out:

Booing black players used to be standard. People threw bananas on to the pitch. Now they don’t. One reason is that your club would be fined or docked points for a bad racial incident. Another is the huge effort made to stamp out the problem — the signs, the announcements, the interventions by players.

It’s time to do the same with antisemitism. It is wrong to turn a blind eye to do this. It is wrong to allow it to become normal to shout about Yiddos.

Everyone in football knows this goes on. It can't be ignored any longer.

It's the first night tonight...

Top 10 useful Yiddish words

My family doesn't use Yiddish much, I have to confess. But there are a few words which prove useful from time to time, expressive words for which there is no exact English equivalent. So, prompted by a new book Let's Schmooze by my friend Julian Sinclair, here are my top 10 useful Yiddish words:

1. Schmooze: I'll start with that. Julian says it means "to chat". But we can just say "chat" when we want to, can't we? Schmooze is a useful word to describe a sort of flirtatious, flattering chat. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton schmooze. Gordon Brown and Hillary Clinton chat.

2. Schlepp. This means to carry, but in general use means carrying something burdensome. There is no better word to describe the experience of carrying a heavy cardboard box. It is also a useful term for annoying journeys. Travelling from Birmingham to London is a trip. Travelling from London to Birmingham is a schlepp.

3. Broyges: This word is ideal to describe arguments between friends and relatives that turn into long standing rifts and feuds. Often the parties don't talk. Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy reached that state. Breugas is one of Gordon Brown's favourite conditions.

4, 5 and 6. Schlemiel, Schlimazl, and Nebbish. Best way to distinguish the terms? The schlemiel (clumsy person) spills soup on the schlimazl (unlucky person) and the nebbish (loser) has to clean it up. Fill in your own political names.

7. Chutspah. Pronounced as if it was Tottenham Chutspah, not mango chutspah, it means boldface cheek. Gordon Brown's claiming to be against spin is chutspah.  My favorite chutspah joke is the man going to a bookshop counter and saying "I'll have a book on chutspah and you're paying."

8. Naches. Means a mixture of pride and gratification. Grandparents experience this as their grandchild performs particularly well at his Bar Mitzvah. Not to be confused with the dish served with cheese in Mexican restaurants. The ch is pronounced as with chutspah.

9. Lobbus. Means a useless, pointless, lazy, generally fat person. If John Prescott was lazy he'd be a lobbus.

10. Meshugge. Means an eccentric craziness. A messhugas is the object about which the meshugge is crazy. The nature of modern journalism is Alastair Campbell's mushuggas.