Today, there is no football.
Not a sausage.
Bugger all.
But, this is terrible. This cannot be allowed to stand. I mean, what the hell am I going to do all day?
Oh well ... back to the cricket, I suppose.
In the mean time we can have a look at a few pictures of typical 'soc-her' players enjoying themselves out at the World Cup:
And there's people who'll try to tell you there's no class in football these days ...
One final thought for this day of no football; a necessary difference between the BBC and ITV coverage of the World Cup was highlighted last night. After the BBC had shown the - in patches very good - Spain vs Portugal match they broadcast one of a series of little vignettes that their panel of ex-footballers have been making out in South Africa. It was a Mark Lawrenson think-piece on the horrifying battle of Spion Kop (1900) and how it provided the inspiration for why Liverpool's famous terracing at Anfield was thus called. It was historically fascinating and, as far as my own limited knowledge of the second Boer War goes, factually accurate. More importantly, it was beautiful - the latest in a series of gorgeously shot, well thought-out, humane and impressive bits of TV reportage which had previously included Garth Crooks on the 1976 Soweto massacre, a series of short pieces on a variety of different subjects by the very impressive Clarence Seedorf and a rather moving moment when the normally glacial Alan Shearer reported from a poverty-stricken township on the development of South African youth football.
When the BBC do this sort of thing, they usually do it right. It has some gravitas, some depth. Some dignity. Some heart. Compare and contrast this with ITV's often pathetic attempts to do human interest stories between their - largely dreadful - coverage of matches so far in the tournament. 'We need something quick to fill the five minutes between Chiles cracking a few blokey one-liners and the next showing of that Telly Vegetables-murders-Elvis advert for the Sun. Let's send Kelly Dalglish to a township where they've only just got electricity so she can be patronising to some Africans.' It really is astonishing that a major broadcaster can get it wrong so often and on so many levels as ITV have conspired to do over the last half-a-dozen major football championships, culminating in this one. Every attempt they make to produce something a bit more serious or thoughtful has been undermined by their own reporters' unflappable ability to trivialise and tabloidise the subjects which they're covering and the often crass links they use to get into and out of these items. Wretched. Absolutely horrible. I know we traditionally expect the BBC's coverage of the actual football itself - in terms of commentary, analysis and presentation - to be better than their commercial rivals. Always has been, probably always will be. 
They were - marginally - better when it was a choice of David Coleman versus Brian Moore back in the 1970s and it's been getting wider and wider ever since. But this World Cup has highlighted, for me anyway, just why the BBC is a respected broadcaster worldwide whose only lack of appreciation seems, ironically, to be in its own back yard. Whereas, ITV is the producer of banal, characterless programmes of mass consumption like The X-Factor and that everything they do is trivialised, patronised and followed by some crass comment by that bellowing non-entity, Andy Townsend. One sells advertising space, the other sells ideas to the world. And nation shall speak peace unto nation. A significant and necessary difference.
Not a sausage.
Bugger all.
But, this is terrible. This cannot be allowed to stand. I mean, what the hell am I going to do all day?
Oh well ... back to the cricket, I suppose.
In the mean time we can have a look at a few pictures of typical 'soc-her' players enjoying themselves out at the World Cup:
And there's people who'll try to tell you there's no class in football these days ...One final thought for this day of no football; a necessary difference between the BBC and ITV coverage of the World Cup was highlighted last night. After the BBC had shown the - in patches very good - Spain vs Portugal match they broadcast one of a series of little vignettes that their panel of ex-footballers have been making out in South Africa. It was a Mark Lawrenson think-piece on the horrifying battle of Spion Kop (1900) and how it provided the inspiration for why Liverpool's famous terracing at Anfield was thus called. It was historically fascinating and, as far as my own limited knowledge of the second Boer War goes, factually accurate. More importantly, it was beautiful - the latest in a series of gorgeously shot, well thought-out, humane and impressive bits of TV reportage which had previously included Garth Crooks on the 1976 Soweto massacre, a series of short pieces on a variety of different subjects by the very impressive Clarence Seedorf and a rather moving moment when the normally glacial Alan Shearer reported from a poverty-stricken township on the development of South African youth football.
When the BBC do this sort of thing, they usually do it right. It has some gravitas, some depth. Some dignity. Some heart. Compare and contrast this with ITV's often pathetic attempts to do human interest stories between their - largely dreadful - coverage of matches so far in the tournament. 'We need something quick to fill the five minutes between Chiles cracking a few blokey one-liners and the next showing of that Telly Vegetables-murders-Elvis advert for the Sun. Let's send Kelly Dalglish to a township where they've only just got electricity so she can be patronising to some Africans.' It really is astonishing that a major broadcaster can get it wrong so often and on so many levels as ITV have conspired to do over the last half-a-dozen major football championships, culminating in this one. Every attempt they make to produce something a bit more serious or thoughtful has been undermined by their own reporters' unflappable ability to trivialise and tabloidise the subjects which they're covering and the often crass links they use to get into and out of these items. Wretched. Absolutely horrible. I know we traditionally expect the BBC's coverage of the actual football itself - in terms of commentary, analysis and presentation - to be better than their commercial rivals. Always has been, probably always will be. 
They were - marginally - better when it was a choice of David Coleman versus Brian Moore back in the 1970s and it's been getting wider and wider ever since. But this World Cup has highlighted, for me anyway, just why the BBC is a respected broadcaster worldwide whose only lack of appreciation seems, ironically, to be in its own back yard. Whereas, ITV is the producer of banal, characterless programmes of mass consumption like The X-Factor and that everything they do is trivialised, patronised and followed by some crass comment by that bellowing non-entity, Andy Townsend. One sells advertising space, the other sells ideas to the world. And nation shall speak peace unto nation. A significant and necessary difference. 
