It’s been a bit of a lifesaver, telly wise. The alternatives, mostly bad news, have been Biden’s bipartisan and useless or harmful this and that, and a collapsed building in Florida…and rotten weather, never rule that out. Then there is Britney Spears, the latest rich victim of some sort of controlling elder. Speak to the Wilson brothers about that and any budding child gymnast. We certainly cannot forget Trump and his tax boondoggle. The liberals are incensed. It’s just another week in America.
Meanwhile, the ace football players all across Europe, from Baku to Wembley Stadium in London, are duking it out for their countries in the Euro contest. This is where it is at, primarily because it is a huge distraction from everything else that is awful. I am writing this before the semi-finals, so any predictions made will probably be proven false. Jimmy the Greek I am not.
First off, the Euros are creating a new kind of chaos. Scotland played England a few weeks back. Tons of their fans came down to London to upset the Sassenachs (Scottish for lowlanders). Now, Scotland is suffering spikes in COVID cases. See, that’s what faith in the empire gets you. And the Scots drew the English lads and didn’t even make it out of the group stage. Wee cowering, timorous beastie, courtesy of Robert Burns.
Italy is the big surprise. The big surprise…they’re not so dirty. Denmark is the feel good story because their main superstar had a heart attack in the opening game. So the large mass of soccer gawkers now have something to root for. Cardiac arrest does wonders. The Spanish still spend most of the game passing the ball to each other, and will probably lose passing the ball to each other. And the English, will they go away as usual? Not this team, they are less conservative than their forerunners. I remember when the English arrived in Brazil for the 2014 World Cup. The Private Eye Magazine cover ran a photo of them deplaning. The pilot had this caption “Should I keep the engines running?” This lot is better. If England manages to win, it will be a combination of Borisville meets Bolsonaroland (especially if Brazil takes the Copa). Sigh!
Here’s something on the commentators, courtesy of ESPN. I don’t mind the English geezers (Derek Rae, Efan Ekoku, Stewart Robeson, Ian Darke, etc.); they at least have knowledge of the game. I remember an old Yorkshire game caller from the 1978 World Cup. Iran had a player named Hassan Naibagha. He would announce in his full Geordie brogue, “Passes the ball to Nai Bugger.” The problem this time around is the Americans (surprise). I don’t mind Tyler Twellman or Tim Howard; they both have world football experience. The others are U.S. college football guys. These are the people that think the heart attack story is more important than the actual match. They belong on New Year’s Eve fireworks display coverage or reporting about the spring break.
Of course, there are all of the usual guilty culprits carrying on, especially FIFA. Their dollar eyeballs are obvious for all to see. But then there are the players…Patrik Schick, Robert Lewandowski, Emil Forsberg, Memphis Depay, Harry Kane, Yann Sommer, Frederico Chiesa, Luka Modric, Raheem Sterling, Paul Pobga, Thorgan Hazard, Karim Benzema, etc. That’s where the salvation is. These guys don’t work across the aisle.