Now I'm Not One to Complain...

During today I have had the 'Tour de France' on in the background so I can keep an eye on these cyclists powering up steep gradients faster than I could drive a Ferrari down them.  Today they streamed into the hill country while gathering clouds soon began to surround them as they climbed into the 'mountains.'  All the while two of the ITV people kept up a running commentary of the action (Cycling surely? - ed?).  There is in the TV world (TV being a device to show pictures) a preoccupation with filling the screen with words in case the viewer was unable to distinguish a cyclist from an ancient Abbey or Castle seen rising majestically in the background.  Now background information is indeed useful but sometimes silence while watching the men slogging along is useful also, this gives our ears a rest.
However what annoys me came at the end.  The leader, he with the 'Yellow Jersey' was one Chris Broome, an Englishman, therefore it was clear that in the eyes of the commentators he alone was what mattered at the end of this tough uphill race.
He flopped!
There was of course passing reference to the young man who actually won the race but only one man mattered - the Englishman!  For a moment I began to wonder if anyone else took part!  It is a recurring theme in any sport that the English commentators only see one man/side their own.  Now all commentators have a support for their side in any game and sometimes when they win a major trophy it can be seen as excusable, rarely is this the case in England.
We note by the way that at least one woman has mentioned Andy Murray going out of Wimbledon by informing us the 'Scotsman has gone home' whereas when he was in the tournament he remained 'British!'  Tennis hopes then rested on a wee English girl who soon lost to a very experienced opponent and know doubt has become Irish or Welsh or whatever now.  
The cycling world has done this for years, Chris Broad who now commentates was another hero for a while and there have been others.  No matter who wins the 'Tour' this year only one man will be centre of the ITV world and you know his name...

The degradation of sin bares its fruit....... 

Friday

Thrice this day I left the dark, dank Black House in which I dwell to see light. Once to wander all the way up to Sainsburys, once to sit in the sun, which immediately and spitefully sat behind a cloud for ages while the north wind froze me so I went to Tesco for yet another ill fitting T-shirt instead, and once in the afternoon to sit in the sun which actually shone!  Actually after burning for a short time (burning, heat in the UK?) I wandered back to Tesco for another oversized T-shirt as they appear to be half price!  The reason I went to get another size XXXL T-shirt is that all the other T-shirts I buy shrink. This one will shrink to a proper size I hope and at £2 a time it is worth a try.  XL shirts are medium, XXL and not quite XL after a wash and hopefully I have found the right sizes now, after they have been in the machine!  You might be suggesting I buy better quality items, I agree, but they too are often lie about the size. Anyway cheap is good, I'm not female!

Day two of World Cup. Yesterdays game was not great, Brasil were lucky. Today we are playing in torrential rain, it is like being in Kilmarnock again! 

However behind the numpties in the studio a long sweep of beach leads away to the north while the tide comes in with a slight breeze to ease the sunshine. Watching this on TV so far has been without incident.  Last night the ITV channel stream I watched on the laptop froze because this company is shocking! Why they cover football I fail to understand.  Their commentators are poor, the streams fail regularly and on occasion goals are missed because someone screens an advert before the time!  I had to move to STV, the Scottish Television Channel which as you would expect worked properly!  Bah!

.

Sorry, No it doesn't work!

Sorry, no it doesn't work!  Women are not made to present football!  

Two games tonight on ITV4 in the Europa League and leading the chat from two failed numpties in the studio, rambling on about how good English clubs are we find a femal form.  Certainly they are pontificating tonight, in spite of both being filled with foreign Johnnies and Swansea actually being Welsh.  One pundit I suddenly realise is South American. 

The politically correct idea of having a woman present the discussion is not good. Who is she?  I know not as I canny find her name anywhere, or indeed her phone number.  This I say is totally wrong, not failing to find the number or name I mean her being there.  Usually such lassies are provided for one of two reasons, the first being entirely voyeuristic (Yes SKY SPORTS I mean you!), the second being PC TV people. The best example of that was ITV dumping the Yorath woman as she was not very good but the BBC immediately employed her.  She then went on to make programmes about sexism, enlisting Karen Brady (she of the 'Daily Sport,' a deceased paper filled with sex that made the 'Sun' look like 'news') to aid her opinion!  

Tonight we have a nice wee lass with a high pitched voice, ideal for those meaningless early morning 'news' programmes, but WRONG for football!  It may well be that ITV male presenters have the personality of a dead rabbit, and indeed less than half of the intellect, it may well be this girl understands some aspects of the game, but in the end it does not work!  The BBC once allowed a woman to commentate on a match during 'Match of the Day,' it flopped, the voice is wrong!  It doesn't work!  Dogs everywhere barked their opinion I remember.

Let the lass sit on my knee by all means, let her do my ironing, let her indeed become a nuclear physicist or a train driver if she so wishes but do not let her participate in football coverage which just requires someone to fill in between the adverts.  That is a job for men, not girlies!

Bah!   

.

Saturday Evening

ITV football coverage just does not work! Tonight we faced Reading v Liverpool in the English Cup. There were other possible games to choose to televise, Notts Forest v Birmingham being the obvious, but Liverpool are one of ITV's favourites. The must produce a large rating for them, and ratings come before football. How then I ask, if ratings are so important, how is it we are offered such a poor coverage?We endure, far too often in my book, Clive Tyldsley commentating. His love of England and Manchester United is well known, he also loves to fill the screen with his voice and I can see no reason or benefit from this. The constant flow of meaningless words is needless as we are actually watching the game!  Less is more from the commentators is the order of the day, not banal ramblings about a players career since he was a 14 year old at Manchester United or Chelsea. Who cares? On the odd occasion a statistic is required, but not during the game, concentrate on what is happening and SHUT UP! After Church scored he went on blabbing about tomorrows headlines and Liverpool facing defeat with almost SEVENTY minutes still to play! Tabloid hacks who care nothing about the game in front of them and only look for a cheap headline ought not to be on TV. Football is too important for this.

Not that we can concentrate on the game of course. With Clive's mouthing we also have banality from the co-commentator, always an ex-player and rarely someone with personality on ITV. As individuals these ex-pro's are quite acceptable, as for giiving an understanding of the game in front of us my grannie could do better, and she died in 1945! A manager, employed or otherwise can give us a clear understanding of the game,and explain why certain players take up certain positions, Chrsitian Nade excepted of course, and David Pleat and Graham Taylor I find helpful here. Clearly Jim Beglin is cheaper! The other slight problem I have is all television directors love of nothing important! Are they all women? An incident occurs so they ignore what is happening on the field and give us a long lingering close up of the back of someone's head, why? Tonight we saw the back view of a linesman, then Gerrard, then Kuyt, for why? I watched a game  few weeks back, that's last year to you, and not once did I concentrate on the back of the fellah's head after the ball had gone. I wanted to watch the game, so why watch something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS? As it turned out the game was not too bad, although Liverpool were! What a shame Reading are not up to scratch these days as it would have produced some fun had they managed a winning goal! Still they did not deserve to lose so a draw and replay is OK.

Did anyone listen to the half time debate? I didn't. I wandered off into other channels until the game restarted as I could not endure the banal half wit comments that would arise. Not that there is any time for sensible comment as they have so many adverts, often for their own programmes, to shove before us. Please, please, take football in England, away from ITV and give it, by law, to the BBC. They have many faults shared with ITV but have an overwhelmingly better product. Watching football on the Beeb also stops them offering us yet another soap opera junk programme.

Free Rice.com

Something good for once! Help the really hungry by spending time developing your vocabulary on the Free Rice link to the right. This is a wonderful way to test your knowledge of words, (using an American dictionary I suspect,) and improve your already extensive vocabulary. Simply decide which of the choice of four words given is the meaning of the word offered and if correct rice is donated to those who require it. There are many level and I assure you mine is not that high! There are other choices also where you can test your knowledge of the world and other interesting topics. I have discovered that my huge knowledge of the world map is not quite what I had hoped! Well do you know your 'Benin' from your 'Togo?  The capital cities are not as easy as I thought either. There are other options and they are all well worth a go I say, so do it now! The link to the right will give you hours of fun (well minutes then!) and provide for those who do not require to buy books on dieting!

Loose Women

Just what is the point of this programme 'Loose Women?' Is it to show us the considered debates about life today from a group of 'liberated ladies?' Or could it be it wants the viewer to believe that women should never have been given the vote in the first place as clearly there is no intellectual ability of any depth to be found here among these ageing slappers? Just what is the point of this? Just because you are of a 'certain age' does not mean you have to appear as 'mutton dressed as lamb,' and there is a lot of 'mutton' on show here! Nor does it mean you have to bring the conversation around to yourself constantly, which appears to be the only subject on offer - themselves! Four women sitting in a row talking about their bodies, sex, themselves, lipstick, sex, themselves, drink, sex, and themselves! A thousand million are at starvation level, millions go to bed hungry, a credit crunch is closing work places worldwide, possible nuclear war bides its time in the middle east, and these bints talk only about their weight problems and sagging skin, both subjects which need no introduction to the viewer it must be said! Just what is the point?

Now put four men in a row and what will they talk about? Their weight, their sex lives, their skin condition? I doubt it although rude remarks may pass and be replied to. No men would discuss thongs outside of themselves, football, war, motorbikes, indeed anything that matters, yet they are never given a programme in which to do this. I wonder why? Women's absurd fascination with trivia, as heard while waiting in Tesco for another self indulgent bint filling her bag while discussing nothing at all with the checkout girl, and she could get onto this programme quite easily I can tell you, their fascination with talking about nothing never ends! Why? If you have nothing to say don't say it! This will enable you to move your trolley out of folks way in considerably less time than it does now! Then you can go home and watch video tapes of 'Loose Women,' it doesn't matter how old the tape is, the subject will be the same, as will the unbelievable outfits!