being awarded a multi-million pound contract before Christmas. A perfect match? Well, possibly. There's just one thing. The conservatism that makes the61-year-old so appealing to some has for others, on occasion, gone just a little bit too far. Capello you see has a habit of spouting forth with opinions on public life. And those figures he admires most play their politics wide on the right. Described variously as "uncompromising", "disciplinarian" and "impatient", Capello has recently expressed his support for those such as Pope Benedict XVI and Silvio Berlusconi. He has praised the organisational "skills" of General Franco. In a sport derided for its navel-gazing insularity and fondness for talking in cliches, the would-be successor to Steve McClaren deliberately seeks his friends outside football, has an impressive modern art collection, travels to obscure locations and prefers to spend his evenings listening to classical music.
Like Kantorek, Himmelstoss does not figure heavily in the novel's plot, but his thematic importance makes him significant to the book as a whole. One of the themes of All Quiet on the Western Front is that war brings out a savagery and hunger for power that lie latent in many people, even if they are normally respectable, nonviolent citizens. Himmelstoss is just such a figure: an unthreatening postman before the war, he evolves into the "terror of Klosterberg," the most feared disciplinarian in the training camps. Himmelstoss is extremely cruel to his recruits, forcing them to obey ridiculous and dangerous orders simply because he enjoys bullying them. Himmelstoss forces his men to stand outside with no gloves on during a hard frost, risking frostbite that could lead to the amputation of a finger or the loss of a hand. His idea of a cure for Tjaden's bed-wetting--making him share a bunk with Kindervater, another bed wetter--is
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