More Skewed Priorities.

The England football team won a match last night to take them to the next stage of the competition known as Euro 2020. Today the BBC’s UK and international news service has given the event top billing, not just with one report and reaction, but several. They speak of ‘scenes of pandemonium’ and ‘ecstasy’, and quote some half-wit intoning ‘What a day to be alive!’ So let’s put this in its proper place.

If England had won the World Cup, the weight of coverage would perhaps have been close to understandable. But they didn’t. They won one game to take them from the second stage of a European competition to the third. They haven’t actually won anything yet. And I can’t resist pointing out that it is only a football match after all. The world is full of weighty matters at the moment, some demonstrating the better side of human nature, and some the worse; some offering hope for a better future, while others point in the opposite direction. But the BBC leads, and extravagantly so, with a football match.

It seems to me that one of two things – or possibly both – are at work here. Either confidence in the England football team is so low that the winning of one match against quality opposition is of major significance, or the BBC is guilty of laughable overkill again, just as it was with the reporting of Prince Philip’s death (which received a record number of complaints, incidentally.) Should I go to Bedlam or just die because I can longer relate to a culture represented by the BBC?

You might care to note that my next post will have more of the character of fresh fruit juice, and less of a cocktail made with sulphuric acid and old engine oil. I feel better today (so far.)