Saturday was one of those almost never-ending mid-winter, post holiday weekend afternoons that reminded me that I should keep playing cricket until they pop me in the coffin ideally carried straight from the field after one final flowing off-drive and hopefully into a willow box treated with a touch of linseed oil to send me smelling sweetly, properly knocked in for the worms and other creepy crawlies waiting to devour me. No cremations here scared witless as I am of fire and, regardless of whether I would feel a thing, I’ve burnt enough food in my life to know that this just is not a good look – even at the bitter end style should overcome substance. So without the excuse that “it’s Christmas…time for the pub again” I toughed it out with an apron-clad session pretending I was Jamie Oliver with my pasta machine in the kitchen and The Boss on full blast. Not quite seeing the need to shed the PJs I reasoned that the washing pile would benefit and I quite liked looking like an ageing, maddening tramp albeit safely locked in my kitchen covered in Tipo flour. By the time I did get changed I was quite proud that I had gone 39 hours in the same gear.
Having made enough pasta – getting better at it too – to feed the ex-Italian PM Berlusconi and his entire harem for a Saturday night things got that bad that, after six years in the house, the kitchen got cleaned from top to bottom and not just the bits visible to the naked eye. On a boredom scale for a bloke of nought to ten…well that’s actually off the scale. Eventually I gave in and flicked on the box to check up on the current perils of Bradford City FC via BBC One and their football results programme hosted by the token totty Gabby Logan with regular pundit and ever expanding contender for Bore of the Century, Garth Crooks. The BBC version of the hyper-excitable Sky Gillette Soccer Saturday is admittedly a toned down affair generally featuring only two ex-football morons and not requiring them to sit like human beagles fitted with headsets no doubt prodded with electric tongs by the producer every now and then in an attempt to create atmosphere by shrieking “goal!” I prefer it…marginally…as a means of finding out how bad a day City have had.
The Bloated Mind of the Bloated Pundit
Crooks, I will admit, is a source of great irritation to me for whilst he appears a touch more intelligent than his satellite counter-parts – who wouldn’t compared to the likes of Merson, Parlour, Thompson et al – he is so pompous and full of his own bloated importance that you would think he was commenting on world affairs rather than which over-paid nancy-boy in pursuit of a bag of wind had just conned another hopeless referee with a dive worthy of Tom Daley. Just to achieve balance the BBC had the ubiquitous Robbie Savage, mercifully free of his sequins post Strictly, in the other chair but whether he had anything worthwhile to say was hard to determine given the fact that not only did the bog-eyed, finger wagging Crooks hog the show he looked like he was going to need air-lifting out of his seat at the end.Logan, as ever, just provided the trimmings. The BBC likes to have totty on their sports programmes and I cannot wait for Sonia’s mind-blowing touchline interviews in the forthcoming Six Nations rugby as she incisively enquires of some eight foot forward with a bent nose “did that hurt?”.
And yet its not just Crooks who suffers delusions of grandeur at the BBC which is stuffed to the rafters with irritating, self-promoting presenters be it on television or radio. In fact take Radio Five Live which used to be a sort of intelligent if pared down version of Radio Four. Frankly, it might as well be renamed Football Live so dominated is it by the dirty game which it clearly believes we simply cannot live without daily wall to wall coverage…even in the deep summer months. Waking up hoping for an intelligent, lively news and sport offering to start the day is now impossible largely because of the incredibly self-obsessed Nicky Campbell who, as with most presenters devoid of any original thought and with an ego wider than the Clyde, now starts an hour later than the rest presumably because he thinks he merits this and so he can preside over the day’s first phone-in. This particular form of “entertainment” now dominates Five Live as much as football with the two often inter-locking and yet each programme still seems to need several so-called presenters plus the mandatory weather, traffic, sport and general bollocks correspondents. The BBC must be the most over-staffed organisation on the planet.
Text or Call On…
The modern day obsession with the phone-in is obvious as not only is it cheap to produce but also requires said “star” presenter presumably to do little else other than stick the feet up on the desk and listen to an endless succession of half-wits from the general public twatter mindlessly on about the issues of the day. As if anybody really cares what they think anyway as it should be obvious that the majority of people who do phone in at the extreme ends of the day have obviously got nobody else to talk to except Nicky Campbell…how bad must that be? As far as the music offering goes, as someone sadly approaching fifty all too rapidly I should be nestled in the comforting bosom of Radio Two for life but the idiots that run what was once a haven of easy listening for those of us cool enough to admit that we are no longer cool enough to listen to Radio One anymore have turned this into a retirement home for ex-Radio One DJs. Why? They were crap on Radio One that’s why they got rid of them.
The reincarnation at the licence payer’s expense of the high-pitched motor-mouth Chris Evans is also baffling as here is another one way past his sell by date. True he was unique at his peak but that was a long time ago and now he is almost contrite in his gratitude for another chance to climb onto the BBC gravy train…one last chance at redemption…and so the BBC suits have him everywhere. And so it is that Steve Wright continues to tell everybody on probably the worst show on radio that they are “great”, Jeremy Vine keeps his M25 buddies in regular work with guest slots for Dr Sarah, Rabbi Julia et al and nobody seems to have noticed that Ken Bruce has been there since the Second World War. They shunted the only guy that played any decent music – Johnny Walker – off to the weekend schedule dominated by an endless stream of moronic, overly-camp so called comedians including Norton, Winton, Carr and Lily Bloody Savage. Is Radio Two being run by Danny La Rue from his grave? Still, with the digital age at least there is Smooth Radio and the comfort that Simon Bates still has a locker full of tragic, wrist-slitting stories for Our Tune to keep rolling on seamlessly to the grave.
Robert The Bore
Even the serious stuff is blighted by failed actors still unhappy at being passed over for the school play many moons ago. Take the Business Editor, Robert Peston, clearly a bright lad and very well connected ensuring regular “scoops” but come on, nobody but nobody really talks like that unless they have a speech defect. Are they so short of news that they have to wheel him on to take up five minutes each time to drawl on and on when all that needs to be said is “’Ey up things are going tits up again in Greece!”. Personally I think the man yearns for the stage but I would shunt him onto the judging panel for Strictly and do a direct swap with Alesha as the new Business Editor. Would anybody notice? As for Question Time, supposedly representative of the nation but so often moored within the M25, will Dimbleby ever get a politician to answer a question to justify his bloated salary? Get Paxman in their to kick a few slimy politicians where it hurts…in fact why not Dimbleby for Strictly as well once Brucie drops off the perch?
But back to Crooks who is probably still wedged in the chair even as the studio lights have longed been dimmed and still offering a dissection of yet another “classic” game in a league where the best the majority of teams can ever aspire too is to retain their seat on the gravy train for yet another year and ignore the fact that they owe a few hundred million here and there. The BBC is a publicly funded gravy train long since past its sell by date and simply not worth the money in the competitive age of Pay TV and online streaming. When they start to carp again about the capping of the Licence Fee maybe they should start to be more transparent about where all the money does go. It was comforting though to see a chink of light as I viewed the TV listings for later in the evening and noted with glee that Take Me Out with Paddy McGuinness was back again. Audience participation at its best and I bet Paddy is a quid or two cheaper than Crooks. Let the nucky see the noo!
Russell Jowett says
Boring old fart!!! Did City win on the day in question???