I don't want to be part of the process which feeds these abominable programmes so will not make more than this one comment on the X-Factor 'scandal'. The emerging 'news' that digital chicanery is apparently involved to tweak the sounds emitted from the tortured souls who take part in it is the least surprising of this week's headlines.
I don't watch the show, so was sitting in the next room during its broadcast while everybody else in the house watched it last weekend. I could hear the caterwailing screeches of some of the contestants who are clearly put on stage for people who get some kind of enjoyment out of large scale personal humiliation, one in particular sounded like a desperate fox being stabbed while attempting to copulate with a confused and unwilling cat.
But the idea that what viewers are hearing on telly is not even representative of the actual efforts of the poor bastards, that the producers do not even allow an unadulterated version of events to be broadcast, surely renders utterly meaningless any pretence of a point that the show had as a talent competition? Or am I being naive to think that this was in any way the point of this type of endeavour these days? The idea of a TV talent show is, of course, a very old one, going back through New Faces, Hughie Green and possibly even before him for all I know, but at least then the heart of the show was worn on its sleeve.
It was then an opportunity to showcase undiscovered talent. The people who made it to the screen had, I assume, gone through some kind of filter already whereby those who sounded like they had no place on stage did not get that place, thereby preventing the kind of infamy which some people bizarrely seem to actively seek these days. They might as well, with many of the modern incarnations of this type of thing, openly admit that they're only there for the money that can be made from phone calls, record sales, media tie-ins and God knows what else.
I much prefer that sort of bare-faced (dis)honesty to the charade they're currently undertaking, where they seem unwilling to admit that they have the ability to fix the show completely in favour of those they think will sell best, look best, make the best puppet. What a tawdry affair it all is - entirely in keeping with the whole platform, if you ask me.
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Monday, 23 August 2010
And I thought I was negative...
So a tight and, by all accounts, unfortunate defeat away at Sheffield Wednesday, one of the teams most fancied to challenge for this season's title. Not good enough for some of our fans who clearly seem to think it's vital to be top of the table in the first month of the season. There's a thread on Northstandchat in which the author claims we should 'write off the season' and that our squad lacks depth and 'we won't challenge with a bench like that'. Well do me a favour. When I was a kid, you never even saw a league table until six games in, and even then you got a quick look at the top six, nobody took them too seriously. But now in the new era of instant gratification and shortening attention spans, success and failure must be weighed and measured immediately.
Well, not for me. It's utterly, utterly ludicrous to make any comment whatsoever about the entire season in August, for God's sake. AUGUST! There are nine months ahead of us. A transfer window, yet to open because the current one hasn't even closed yet, dozens of managerial changes, injuries, suspensions, who knows what drama to be played out yet, but some soothsayer within the Brighton support is sufficiently prescient to make a declaration on the season already? I'd venture a guess that this 'sage' is in his early 20s at the absolute oldest, and his jaundiced view is just another symptom of the culture of immediacy that surrounds us now (it's all the fault of mobile phones, I tell you...)
I might run a book on when the first call for Poyet's head is made, in the likely event that we're not 20 points clear at the top by Christmas, with over 100 goals scored already and Barcelona knocking on our doors with desperate bids to prize our footballing super-Gods from the ostentatious luxury of Withdean to the prosaic functionality of the Nou Camp in the January transfer window. Some people would do well to remember that it's not a bloody computer game.
Well, not for me. It's utterly, utterly ludicrous to make any comment whatsoever about the entire season in August, for God's sake. AUGUST! There are nine months ahead of us. A transfer window, yet to open because the current one hasn't even closed yet, dozens of managerial changes, injuries, suspensions, who knows what drama to be played out yet, but some soothsayer within the Brighton support is sufficiently prescient to make a declaration on the season already? I'd venture a guess that this 'sage' is in his early 20s at the absolute oldest, and his jaundiced view is just another symptom of the culture of immediacy that surrounds us now (it's all the fault of mobile phones, I tell you...)
I might run a book on when the first call for Poyet's head is made, in the likely event that we're not 20 points clear at the top by Christmas, with over 100 goals scored already and Barcelona knocking on our doors with desperate bids to prize our footballing super-Gods from the ostentatious luxury of Withdean to the prosaic functionality of the Nou Camp in the January transfer window. Some people would do well to remember that it's not a bloody computer game.
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
The rich get richer
A couple of things irritated me today (something of a common theme in these posts, you may be noticing) and one of them was, again, sparked by the radio. West Ham, a club I have a lot of time for, are clearly having problems shifting tickets for this Saturday's game with Bolton. They were, on TalkSport, advertising 'Kids for a Quid' tickets when you buy an adult's ticket. Not a bad idea of course, and to be applauded. However, the adults' tickets were being sold for 'just' £36. Thirty six quid! For West Ham versus Bolton?! How the hell is that 'just' £36 (plus, of course, the £2 booking fee they mentioned right at the end)? So we're now being sold the idea that, for such a run-of-the-mill fixture, £36 represents good value in the Premier League. And that is doubtless not even close to the best, and therefore most expensive, seat. That's how far from the true value of the sport, and the lives of the average fan, the game has moved.
Worse followed. One of my main bugbears with Manchester Utd (yes, I know I've got loads) is that they seem to genuinely believe that they can act in a way which is acceptable if they do it and unacceptable if anybody else does. Alex Ferguson has apparently today criticised the spending of some clubs, calling it 'kamikaze' and saying you can't just get success by buying it. This is the same Alex Ferguson who has, while bringing through young players at the same time, I completely accept, spent*: almost £31 million on Dimitar Berbatov, £20 million on Wayne Rooney, almost £19 million on Michael Carrick, £30 million on Rio Ferdinand, £17 million on Owen Hargreaves, £12.25 million on diving cheating winking fucker, £19 million on Ruud van Nistelrooy, I could go on. They simply identify the best player at any club which dares to stick its head above the parapet and challenge the established order, wave a huge cheque at player and club, and lift him out. Just as Man City, the unnamed but obvious target of his ire, are currently doing.
So it's all right for Ferguson to spend large sums of money on players, but if any of the pretenders dare to have a go, it's 'kamikaze', somehow unacceptable. When I meet Utd fans and express my dislike for their club, the accusation most frequently levelled at me is 'jealousy'. Well, firstly I'm not nine years old and my feelings toward them are slightly better thought out than that, and secondly, if it were that simplistic, I'd have the same feelings for Chelsea, Man City, anybody else with success, money and trophies. So I'm going to indulge in some reciprocal juvenile name-calling for once. Ferguson is jealous of the spending power of the nouveau riche Premier League clubs, knowing that he's hamstrung by the huge debt foisted on his club by the Glazers, regardless of his protestations to the contrary, and nervous that the Utd hegemony is coming to an end in the new order. So there.
*Figures are from Soccerbase.
Worse followed. One of my main bugbears with Manchester Utd (yes, I know I've got loads) is that they seem to genuinely believe that they can act in a way which is acceptable if they do it and unacceptable if anybody else does. Alex Ferguson has apparently today criticised the spending of some clubs, calling it 'kamikaze' and saying you can't just get success by buying it. This is the same Alex Ferguson who has, while bringing through young players at the same time, I completely accept, spent*: almost £31 million on Dimitar Berbatov, £20 million on Wayne Rooney, almost £19 million on Michael Carrick, £30 million on Rio Ferdinand, £17 million on Owen Hargreaves, £12.25 million on diving cheating winking fucker, £19 million on Ruud van Nistelrooy, I could go on. They simply identify the best player at any club which dares to stick its head above the parapet and challenge the established order, wave a huge cheque at player and club, and lift him out. Just as Man City, the unnamed but obvious target of his ire, are currently doing.
So it's all right for Ferguson to spend large sums of money on players, but if any of the pretenders dare to have a go, it's 'kamikaze', somehow unacceptable. When I meet Utd fans and express my dislike for their club, the accusation most frequently levelled at me is 'jealousy'. Well, firstly I'm not nine years old and my feelings toward them are slightly better thought out than that, and secondly, if it were that simplistic, I'd have the same feelings for Chelsea, Man City, anybody else with success, money and trophies. So I'm going to indulge in some reciprocal juvenile name-calling for once. Ferguson is jealous of the spending power of the nouveau riche Premier League clubs, knowing that he's hamstrung by the huge debt foisted on his club by the Glazers, regardless of his protestations to the contrary, and nervous that the Utd hegemony is coming to an end in the new order. So there.
*Figures are from Soccerbase.
Thursday, 12 August 2010
The old ones are the old ones
Having complained more than once about the paper-thin insubstantiality of the cult of celebrity and modern tabloid journalism before, I've just seen an extremely disappointing interview with one of the grand old men of football journalism, Brian Glanville, on BBC News. He's a man I've always respected as a writer, his book on the history of past World Cups is a definitive work for me. But he sounded like nothing more than a bitter old man, criticsing Capello's language skills, blaming him for handing out 'cheap' caps to Beckham, complaining about Beckham being present at the World Cup and comparing Beckham unfavourably to Bobby Charlton and Bobby Moore.
Now as much as I wish that football writers would write about football rather than transfer gossip and kiss'n tell bollocks, nor can we live in some kind of sepia-tinted past where the England players were virtuous paragons, revered thoughout a wide-eyed world, walking examples of rectitude which even Beckham fails dismally to live up to. I don't, frankly, believe any such world ever existed. Beckham may, seemingly due to his wife's influence if what I've read elsewhere is to be believed, have been a bit of a media whore. His example of dedicated professionalism, high standards, commitment to the England shirt, charitable work, coaching and everything else he busies himself with would though, I suggest, stand up to against pretty much anybody's record.
Brian Glanville has really, really disappointed with a string of negativism. I know people, men in particular, look forward to sitting in a bath chair, affecting deafness and being rude to people in their dotage, but there's no need to elevate it to a profession.
Now as much as I wish that football writers would write about football rather than transfer gossip and kiss'n tell bollocks, nor can we live in some kind of sepia-tinted past where the England players were virtuous paragons, revered thoughout a wide-eyed world, walking examples of rectitude which even Beckham fails dismally to live up to. I don't, frankly, believe any such world ever existed. Beckham may, seemingly due to his wife's influence if what I've read elsewhere is to be believed, have been a bit of a media whore. His example of dedicated professionalism, high standards, commitment to the England shirt, charitable work, coaching and everything else he busies himself with would though, I suggest, stand up to against pretty much anybody's record.
Brian Glanville has really, really disappointed with a string of negativism. I know people, men in particular, look forward to sitting in a bath chair, affecting deafness and being rude to people in their dotage, but there's no need to elevate it to a profession.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Things I don't understand
I thought that I basically understood the football fan as an animal, thought the same way as pretty much all of them. We're fond of saying that the things in football which divide us are far outnumbered by the things which unite us. However, the support at the England game have left me baffled. It's currently half time. The crowd were (largely) supportive when the team came out, and got behind them with the exception of John Terry and Ashley Cole, who came in for some mild barracking. Then, having watched a greatly improved first half performance in a more fluid system, they lustily booed them off at half time.
Go figure.
Go figure.
To boo or not to boo? That is today's question
Listening to TalkSport this evening, they were questioning early arrivers to Wembley for tonight's England game as to their response to the players this evening. Are they going to boo? The response was mixed. Some saying definitely yes, some saying definitely no, some saying it depended on how pissed they got before kick-off. (Good luck with that - you can't buy a beer inside the stadium, apparently us footie fans are all such atavistic reprobates that we can't be sold alcohol, oh no...)
Anyway, this made me wonder whether I'd boo them. The fact is, I've always thought that it's about the shirt. In one respect, if you're booing an England player, you're booing the shirt, the England team entity, which is blameless in all this. And if you boo, you're booing the also blameless 13 players who were nowhere near South Africa and cannot be faulted for the dismal performances out there.
However. And it's a big one. Certain members of that team, I'm not going to name names but it's Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney, deserve to be told exactly what people think of them. Cole for his ill-mannered and graceless comments about the support after the tournament, Rooney for his during the tournament, on which I've already commented here.
I think, on balance, I'd probably refrain from booing, personally - it's probably not going to bother the mercenary sods anyway, and can only help the opposition. But I have no words of reproach for those who do boo them tonight. They've earned it, on balance.
Anyway, this made me wonder whether I'd boo them. The fact is, I've always thought that it's about the shirt. In one respect, if you're booing an England player, you're booing the shirt, the England team entity, which is blameless in all this. And if you boo, you're booing the also blameless 13 players who were nowhere near South Africa and cannot be faulted for the dismal performances out there.
However. And it's a big one. Certain members of that team, I'm not going to name names but it's Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney, deserve to be told exactly what people think of them. Cole for his ill-mannered and graceless comments about the support after the tournament, Rooney for his during the tournament, on which I've already commented here.
I think, on balance, I'd probably refrain from booing, personally - it's probably not going to bother the mercenary sods anyway, and can only help the opposition. But I have no words of reproach for those who do boo them tonight. They've earned it, on balance.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Comics
So, directly after my last post, some wildly differing news items from footy this morning.
This:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-10914863
is to be applauded and encouraged. Southampton clearly think they can run a Stalinist state down at St Mary's. Well, in truth, they can, but what they can't do is control people's responses to it, or the imaginative ways they'll come up with to produce content while at the same time telling Saints to fuck off. They seem to be going out of their way to make themselves as unpopular as possible this season - part of a cunning Pardew ploy to foster a siege mentality in the dressing room, or just another depressing symptom of the direction football is going? I sincerely hope this ludicrous and self-defeating exercise in Evil Empire building is quietly dropped as soon as they're able.
On the Villa front (See? I've learned nothing...) it seems that Sven is interested, as is Southgate. Now Villa have to be extremely careful here. Sven seems an affable enough bloke but, while he is, bafflingly, a world-class seducer of women, he doesn't seem to have the same deft touch when it comes to management. Not lately, anyway. (Maybe it's men he has a problem with? He should be considered when the England Women's job next comes up - he could take us to World Cup glory... but I digress.) His appointment would, I suspect, be extremely unpopular among Villa fans and hardly suggest ambition on the part of the board, unless their ambition is to appoint a hugely overpaid boss with a wicked twinkle in his eye. Don't think that's the case, so I can't see it happening.
Southgate I've got a lot of time for. But he hardly covered himself in glory at Middlesbrough and would, under a more trigger-happy chairman than Steve Gibson, and that's basically all of them, have been sacked a long time before he actually went. It would be a sentimental rather than ambitious appointment and for that reason I don't think that will happen either. There is very, very little sentiment in football, at least where managers' jobs are concerned, anyway.
Since football never ceases to surprise, it may well of course be that one of them gets the nod. But I do hope not - Villa are a club with a rich history and tradition, one of the few with the foundations to build a club capable of challenging the very biggest of the big boys. Their next managerial appointment needs to reflect that.
This:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-10914863
is to be applauded and encouraged. Southampton clearly think they can run a Stalinist state down at St Mary's. Well, in truth, they can, but what they can't do is control people's responses to it, or the imaginative ways they'll come up with to produce content while at the same time telling Saints to fuck off. They seem to be going out of their way to make themselves as unpopular as possible this season - part of a cunning Pardew ploy to foster a siege mentality in the dressing room, or just another depressing symptom of the direction football is going? I sincerely hope this ludicrous and self-defeating exercise in Evil Empire building is quietly dropped as soon as they're able.
On the Villa front (See? I've learned nothing...) it seems that Sven is interested, as is Southgate. Now Villa have to be extremely careful here. Sven seems an affable enough bloke but, while he is, bafflingly, a world-class seducer of women, he doesn't seem to have the same deft touch when it comes to management. Not lately, anyway. (Maybe it's men he has a problem with? He should be considered when the England Women's job next comes up - he could take us to World Cup glory... but I digress.) His appointment would, I suspect, be extremely unpopular among Villa fans and hardly suggest ambition on the part of the board, unless their ambition is to appoint a hugely overpaid boss with a wicked twinkle in his eye. Don't think that's the case, so I can't see it happening.
Southgate I've got a lot of time for. But he hardly covered himself in glory at Middlesbrough and would, under a more trigger-happy chairman than Steve Gibson, and that's basically all of them, have been sacked a long time before he actually went. It would be a sentimental rather than ambitious appointment and for that reason I don't think that will happen either. There is very, very little sentiment in football, at least where managers' jobs are concerned, anyway.
Since football never ceases to surprise, it may well of course be that one of them gets the nod. But I do hope not - Villa are a club with a rich history and tradition, one of the few with the foundations to build a club capable of challenging the very biggest of the big boys. Their next managerial appointment needs to reflect that.
Oh to see ourselves as others do
A fairly horrible realisation dawned on me this morning, thanks mainly to a perspicacious observation from a house-mate. (I don't like that word as it has connotations of Big Brother, but can't think of a better one). It further dawned, on reflection, that this is something which may well already have occurred some time ago to anybody who's bothered reading these posts from the start.
Somehow that fine institution of sporting news and speculation, Sky Sports News, came up in conversation. She described it as 'That mind-numbing thing with all the text running along the bottom'. I was of course defending it but rather undid myself with the case I used for its defence. I pointed out that yesterday I was able to let the Villa fans at work know that Martin O'Neill had resigned because SSN almost invariably gets there first and I had it on one of the screens. Kudos, whether real or imagined, follows for being the first with the story.
House-mate then says "Isn't that just like reading Heat magazine and having the gossip first?" I coughed and spluttered of course, but this was a hammer blow. The only response was to meekly 'lay down my king'. She's right, of course. For all my bluster and raging about the vacuity and superficiality of the gossip mags, caring about Martin O'Neill leaving a club I don't even support and then gossiping about it with workmates is basically exactly the same thing. A lengthy period of self-examination will follow, at the end of which I'll no doubt emerge transformed, butterfly-like, into exactly the same animal I am now.
Plain fact is, even with this new self-knowledge, and probably accepting that I'd secretly known this all along, it's not going to stop me watching Sky Sports News. Oh no. Sky moving it to pay only channels in a few weeks, that's what's going to make me stop watching Sky Sports News.
Somehow that fine institution of sporting news and speculation, Sky Sports News, came up in conversation. She described it as 'That mind-numbing thing with all the text running along the bottom'. I was of course defending it but rather undid myself with the case I used for its defence. I pointed out that yesterday I was able to let the Villa fans at work know that Martin O'Neill had resigned because SSN almost invariably gets there first and I had it on one of the screens. Kudos, whether real or imagined, follows for being the first with the story.
House-mate then says "Isn't that just like reading Heat magazine and having the gossip first?" I coughed and spluttered of course, but this was a hammer blow. The only response was to meekly 'lay down my king'. She's right, of course. For all my bluster and raging about the vacuity and superficiality of the gossip mags, caring about Martin O'Neill leaving a club I don't even support and then gossiping about it with workmates is basically exactly the same thing. A lengthy period of self-examination will follow, at the end of which I'll no doubt emerge transformed, butterfly-like, into exactly the same animal I am now.
Plain fact is, even with this new self-knowledge, and probably accepting that I'd secretly known this all along, it's not going to stop me watching Sky Sports News. Oh no. Sky moving it to pay only channels in a few weeks, that's what's going to make me stop watching Sky Sports News.
Sunday, 8 August 2010
See?
What did I post during the World Cup, when a bunch of charlatans disguised as England internationals feebly attempted to pass themselves off as a national side? That Rooney would be back to his best the second he put a Utd shirt on, tearing around like a demented Duracell bunny and playing the football that prompted them to pay so much for him in the first place. Well, he's done exactly that in the Charity Shield, for fucks' sake, the very first possible competitive opportunity he had to do so. That is just taking the piss. He needs to think very, very hard before he criticises England fans again, when all he's doing is displaying the very attributes which made his 'performances' such an utter let-down in July.
A word on Hernandez, as well. How to endear yourself to a football public which is divided between people who 'support' Man Utd and people who loathe them. (Genuine season ticket holders at Old Trafford can consider themselves excluded from the quote marks around the word support.) Score the first goal by clearing the ball onto your own face, watching it trickle apologetically over the line before running off celebrating like you'd done it on purpose and then, the thing I hate most in footballers, kissing the badge of the club you've been with for a matter of weeks. I can tell I'm going to love him...
A word on Hernandez, as well. How to endear yourself to a football public which is divided between people who 'support' Man Utd and people who loathe them. (Genuine season ticket holders at Old Trafford can consider themselves excluded from the quote marks around the word support.) Score the first goal by clearing the ball onto your own face, watching it trickle apologetically over the line before running off celebrating like you'd done it on purpose and then, the thing I hate most in footballers, kissing the badge of the club you've been with for a matter of weeks. I can tell I'm going to love him...
Saturday, 7 August 2010
What a start
Well, you can forget all that negative stuff I may have posted this morning, or over the last few days, or ever, in fact. A magnificent away victory at Swindon to get our season under way, with new boy Matt Sparrow bagging a brace. One of the great joys of football support (and one of its curses, as I've readily acknowledged in previous posts) is its gift of making up for all the rubbish and disappointment you have to go through on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, season-to-season basis with tremendous results which leave you bouncing.
Well done, lads, well bloody done. This without new skipper Greer, and main frontman Murray, both suspended. Regrettably, work prevented me attending, but I've read that we did it playing football too, as pledged by Gus.
A great start to the season. I will of course look back on this post a few months from now and laugh at my naivete, my wide-eyed enthusiasm for a single result, but just at the moment, even in that full knowledge, I simply don't care.
Well done, lads, well bloody done. This without new skipper Greer, and main frontman Murray, both suspended. Regrettably, work prevented me attending, but I've read that we did it playing football too, as pledged by Gus.
A great start to the season. I will of course look back on this post a few months from now and laugh at my naivete, my wide-eyed enthusiasm for a single result, but just at the moment, even in that full knowledge, I simply don't care.
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