BLANKET coverage of the women’s Euros has arrived with all the flair of your last tax return and a level of woke hypocrisy so extreme it could make Joey Barton’s brain explode into half a dozen tiny pieces.
For the secret rules of sports broadcasting clearly now state the following.
Shutterstock EditorialBBC & ITV coverage of Women’s Euros isn’t just woke, it’s Stalinist – but their pundits aren’t as invested as they seem[/caption]
In the name of diversity, equality and all that is progressive, you must have as many women as possible on any panel of experts discussing men’s football.
However . . .
In the name of diversity, equality and all that is progressive, you must also have as few men as possible on any panel of experts discussing women’s football. And preferably no white ones.
Given these outrageous double standards, I wasn’t exactly surprised when ITV and the BBC released their studio line-ups, before the tournament began, and revealed (one Nathan Blake cameo aside) the only bloke who’d be allowed to show his face on screen was the Beeb’s Nedum Onuoha.
What did genuinely shock me, however, was that ITV had found room for the bland Eni Aluko, following her shameful attack on Ian Wright, who she accused of “blocking” opportunities for women, but had ditched Wrighty, one of the media’s most passionate advocates for women’s football. I’d be angry on his behalf, but early signs suggest he’s the one who dodged a bullet in Switzerland.
Because, Spain and France aside, the football has been wretched and the coverage so grindingly dull you shouldn’t attempt to watch it unless you have a coping strategy or the same strength of character as ITV host Laura Woods, who fixed her rictus grin in place, day one, and said: “We’re very excited by this one. Finland versus Iceland.”
Likewise, it’s not a spontaneous expression of love for the beautiful game that has the poor fans averaging 4.37 Mexican waves per match, it’s the lack of any alternative entertainment.
Grindingly dull
I’ve also an element of sympathy for the normally ebullient BBC commentator Jonathan Pearce who’s had to lose himself in the stunning Alpine scenery and pub- emptying trivia for long periods of play.
“Caroline Graham Hansen is famous in Norway, but not as famous as her dog,” said Jonathan during one particularly bleak phase of the Finland game.
“She has a cockapoo with 34 million TikTok likes,” he added, before deciding silence was the better option. I say “sympathy” here because, just like war, the first casualty of women’s football is the truth.
Unlike the men’s game, where it’s compulsory, commentators and pundits must not utter a single word that could be interpreted as scorn or even light mockery, which means you start having to provide your own translation service.
“That touch was a bit heavy.” (She just trod on the ball, mate.)
“A little bit of an error from Anna, in goal.” (Anna nearly booted herself in the head taking an air swipe at a back pass.)
“That was quite the attempt on goal.” (F*** me, it nearly landed in the next canton.) If they think they’re fooling anyone here, they’re not.
TV host Laura Woods fixed her rictus grin in place and said: ‘We’re very excited by this one. Finland versus Iceland’
GettyI was genuinely shocked that ITV brought back bland Eni Aluko after her shameful attack on Ian Wright[/caption]
All this Stalinist approach actually does is betray the broadcasters’ patronising lack of faith in the product.
Even if there was a sudden outburst of honesty in Switzerland, however, there would still be a basic lack of journalism from both channels, as was demonstrated on Sunday when I waited to hear the BBC and ITV panels discuss the breaking news injured German superstar Giulia Gwinn would play no further part in the tournament.
And waited . . . and waited.
But it never came. An omission that told me, with Germany potentially playing England in the quarter-finals, the production teams aren’t half as enchanted by women’s football as the presenters would like you to believe.
Still, as we saw from Lucy Ward and Katie Shanahan’s pre-match banter before England lost to France, there is one area of the women’s Euros that can match the men’s game: The noble art of getting ahead of yourself.
“The French just wilt under a little bit of pressure.”
“Will England win tonight then?”
“Yes, yes . . . draw. (winks to camera) Win win win.”
But, hey, at least it wasn’t two men talking absolute bollocks.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
TIPPING Point, Ben Shephard: “Which typically round stoned fruit is an anagram of the word cheap?”
Norma: “Pear.”
Tipping Point: Lucky Stars, Ben Shephard: “In a famous nursery rhyme, the character who met a pieman on his way to the Fair was Simple who?”
Penny Lancaster: “Tom.”
The Chase: Celebrity Special, Bradley Walsh: “Somebody with an attitude of moral superiority is said to be ‘holier than . . . ?’.”
Sonny Jay: “Water.”
BONO IN FLAP AT LIVE AID
BBCU2’s frontman Bono muttered darkly about ‘colonialism and slavery’ at the start of the BBC2 documentary[/caption]
THE first two episodes of BBC2’s hugely entertaining mini-series Live Aid At 40 were a stark reminder that lots of the musicians still miss the point about rock ’n’ roll’s most famous gig.
None of them did it quite so pretentiously as Bono, though, who claimed a spiritual kinship with Ethiopians, on account of the Irish potato famine, but was reluctant to watch the concert footage because, back in 1985, he was having “a bad hair day” and struggling with a mullet which flapped around like one of the mudguards on an Eddie Stobart wagon.
U2’s frontman was also seen muttering darkly about “colonialism and slavery” at the start of the documentary. A train of thought not even the Beeb was shameless enough to indulge for the simple reason Ethiopia has never been colonised.
Back in the 1980s, however, under the brutal left-wing dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam, it was infected by Soviet-backed Marxism which, as it always does, turned a drought into a global catastrophe and hundreds of thousands of its own citizens into dust.
Nowadays, of course, the BBC and other woke apologists would probably blame all of this evil on “the West” and Israel.
In those happy, less self-loathing times, though, Band Aid had the great good fortune to be led by Bob Geldof, who wasn’t just smarter than everyone else, he was more courageous as well, offering the most satisfying response imaginable when Mengistu tried to tap him for £1 million at their first meeting.
“I walked up to him, very sharply and just said, ‘I think you’re a c***’.”
Random TV irritations
ITV’S women’s Euros coverage narrowing the gap between advert breaks to an astonishing 32 seconds, on Monday.
Fred Sirieix’s ego trampling all over the new First Dates. Any Love Island scene accompanied by the subtitle “squelching”.
Martin Lewis clearly imagining he’s so wonderful he can just present GMB in a white T-shirt.
And ITV’s woeful Transaction leaving me with nothing more than the forlorn hope television executives might one day return to commissioning sitcoms by people who are actually funny, rather than people they would just like to be funny.
Lookalike of the week
This week’s winner is Phil Collins, on Live Aid At 40, and Jeff Dunham’s Walter the weatherman ventriloquist’s dummy
Sent in Peter Campbell, Leeds.
TV gold
BOB GELDOF always remaining the most impressive human being in the room on BBC2’s Live Aid At 40: When Rock ’n’ Roll Took On The World.
BBC4’s hugely uplifting Storyville: Inside The San Quentin Prison Marathon, a documentary with the undeniable air of The Shawshank Redemption.
Channel 4’s 24 Hours in Police Custody (Nightclub Predator) detailing the decline of humanity in its usual unforgiving fashion.
And Susanna Reid’s eyebrows shooting through the lighting gantry when Richard Madeley told Stephen Morgan, MP, the Under-Secretary of State for Early Education: “The fact of the matter is, just over a year in, this government is in a tungsten jockstrap, isn’t it?”
On that bombshell . . .
Great sporting insights
DAVID CROFT: “Verstappen in sixth, overtakes Stroll and moves into tenth.”
Jermain Defoe: “Elliot is a goal scorer, which means he scores goals.”
Sorba Thomas: “Even though we lost the game, I think we won it.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
lTV hero of the week? BBC Breakfast’s Charlie Stayt, who listened with mounting impatience to the insufferable Steve Coogan, hijack an item about the Cooperative Congress, with his own hectoring brand of left-wing student politics, until the host could take no more and decided to short-circuit the interview by asking the comedian if he thought anyone at the event would: “Get you to say ‘a-ha’?”
A question that went down as badly as you’d expect. But it didn’t half shut him up and I could’ve hugged Charlie.
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the week. Celebrity Gogglebox, Alison Hammond watching footage of Rod Stewart at Glastonbury: “Hey, I could be there on someone’s shoulders, swaying.”
Which reminds me, at Christmas, Channel 5 has just confirmed it will be broadcasting all heats and the final of World’s Strongest Man.
LOVE Island, Friday, Helena: “I think me and Harry have got something that’s quite rare, but I don’t know what it is . . .”
Scabies?
CHANNEL 5, Sunday, 9pm: Insomnia. Channel 5, Sunday, 9.07pm: Insomnia cured.
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