Le Great Deceit

In the world of football there is a famous story about a man named Tony Cascarino. Despite his flamboyant name, Cascarino was not a flamboyant personality. Nor was he a skillful footballer. Instead he was a bit of a lump. With a face like a hessian bag full of rusty spanners. Poor fella. Still, he was relatively successful, and when he retired in 2000 he had played more international matches for Ireland than any other player.

It was at this point – some would suggest he might have mentioned it earlier – that Big Tone decided to tell everyone that he was, in fact, not Irish. Nope. He had lied about it. In reality there wasn’t a hooray-for-potatoes gene in his fraudulent body. Tony was from Kent, and as English as teen pregnancy or carpark-based binge drinking.

To some people, this makes Tony a bit of a cheater. Personally I admire his cojones, with the added bonus that they’re nicer to look at than his face.

The reason that this obscure, swindling footballer of yesteryear comes to mind is because of Plastic Bertrand.

Plastic Bertrand – real name Roger Jouret – was a Belgian one-hit-wonder in the late 70s. If you need reacquainting with his 1977 smash ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’ – a gibberish classic – here it is in all its nonsensical grandeur:

Quite good, isn’t it? In a sort of kitschy, “did-he-really-just-sing ‘wham bam my splash cat’?”, kind of way. Plus, I find it’s healthy to watch a music video and find yourself constantly wondering things like, “are those zips just for show, or do they lead to pockets?” and “is that the ‘Thriller’ Michael Jackson in negative?”.

However, not once in all the years I’ve heard this song did I ever question Plastic Bertrand’s integrity. His zip choices? Yes. His ethnicity? Yes. But his integrity? Never.

Shockingly, Bertrand last week turned out to be a Cascarino all of his own. Following a long and arduous battle in the Belgian high courts (I’m not sure how this sentence could be any more underwhelming, if you’ve got any ideas just drop me an email) Bertrand was proved – by virtue of a expert analysis from a linguistics specialist no less – to not be the singer of ‘Ca Plain Pour Moi’. That honour belonged to producer Lou Deprijck.

After reading that I had to sit down. It’s just shocking, isn’t it? How do you get that surname? If a Cooper is a barrel-maker and a Fletcher is an arrow-maker, what’s a Deprijck? I dunno. Maybe his ancestor was a gigolo.

Anyway, I’m sure Irish international fibber Tony Cascarino would be proud. In fact he’s probably claiming he sung ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’ himself. Still, should make for an excellent future episode of ‘Le Judge Judy’ on Belgian cable.