THE LAST STRAW: I think we all agree that violence is no way to solve arguments. Even so, sometimes you'd have to regret the decline of the old male code of honour - the one that saw disputes between gentlemen settled at dawn in the park, writes Frank McNally.
I know the demise of that system is generally attributed to progress. But in a week that saw David big-girl's-blouse Beckham respond to an assault from his manager by going out shopping while wearing a woman's hair-band in order to ensure the cameras got a good view of the gash in his forehead, you can't help feeling that progress has come at a high price. Never mind the fact that I've suffered more serious injuries than Beckham's while shaving. The question is: would the world be a worse place if he and Alex Ferguson had sorted out their differences in the once-traditional manner? I think not.
A reminder of how things used to work is provided by Schott's Original Miscellany - the excellent anthology of useless information currently topping the best-seller lists. This features an abridged version of the Irish duelling code, adopted at the Clonmel Assizes of 1777; and so fine a document is it that I was forced to seek out the original in full.
Anyone who thinks duelling was a crude affair, and not a sophisticated mechanism for processing complaints, might consider article 1 of the code, which states: "The first offence requires the first apology, though the retort may have been more offensive than the insult. Example: A tells B that he is impertinent, etc. B retorts that he lies; yet A must make the first apology and then, after one fire, B may explain away the retort by subsequent apology." (The assumption here is that B is still alive). Or article 11: "Offences accruing from the support of ladies' reputations are to be considered less unjustifiable than others of the same class, and of admitting slighter apologies". Or article 22: "Any wound sufficient to agitate the nerves and necessarily make the hand shake must end the business for that day".
Crucially, in the context of the Beckham incident, article 5 notes that because "a blow is strictly prohibited under any circumstances amongst gentlemen", a verbal apology is unacceptable in such cases. So it offers several alternatives, all of them violent, but of a kind that - in the case of Ferguson v Beckham - many people would pay to watch. The code also rules that, while the challenger in a duel "chooses his distance", the challenged "chooses his ground". And all I can say is that if Ferguson did choose his ground - Old Trafford - there'd be no problem filling it.
Of course, a duel over the flying-boot affair would be a dangerous precedent. I've been in plenty of football dressing rooms over the years, and objects are always been kicked and thrown in them. It's a standard motivational technique by managers to fling things against the wall - a cup of tea, an old loser's medal, one of the smaller players - for dramatic effect.
This is probably all Ferguson was trying to do when he kicked the boot. If it had been Beckham, with his educated right foot, you'd expect him to hit the target. But it's well-known that Ferguson's feet both dropped out of the education system early, and I don't doubt his claim that it was a "freak" accident he couldn't repeat.
Nevertheless, in an era when the weapons of choice in celebrity disputes are PR consultants, ghost-written biographies, and even - God help us - the strategic use of hair-bands, the old code of honour has its attractions. It already permeates the language of soccer, where you have "midfield duels" and even "handbags at five paces". In fact, with his knee-for-a-knee attitude to the pursuit of justice, Roy Keane would not have been out of place at the Clonmel Assizes.
The Saipan dispute is a classic example of something that ought to have been settled at dawn. You can just hear Roy complaining to his "seconds" about Mick McCarthy's choice of ground ("a car-park!"). But the wisdom of the 1777 code is highlighted by article 15 which - uncanny resonances here with McCarthy's "clear-the-air" meeting - states: "Challenges are never to be delivered at night, unless the party to be challenged intends leaving the place of offence before morning; for it is desirable to leave all hot-headed proceedings." What I particularly like about the code, though, is the provision in article 25 for disputes between "seconds", namely: "Where seconds disagree and resolve to exchange shots themselves, it must be at the same time, and at right angles with the principles". In this scenario, we could have had Keane and McCarthy on the one hand, and Eamon Dunphy and Cathal Dervan on the other, all blasting away at each other. The GAA would have made Croke Park available for that, no problem.