The BBC is a monolith of the British establishment. It is the ‘vox imperium’ of all that passes for news and righteous journalism in our society. It defines and espouses the ‘ubermensch’ mentality of the men in bowler hats of Middle England and never balks to glorify 1966 at the first site of the English football team wearing red shirts and white shorts.
It’s symbols of imperial superiority over ‘Johnny Foreigner’ are the Queen, Prince Harry, whichever sports person who has just won something against all odds, the Commonwealth or anything which relies on vague memories of 18th Century British imperialism before they made such an arse of WW2 and relied on the Russians to win the war for them and bankrupt the Empire in perpetuity.
God bless the Yanks for the Marshall Plan.
Match of the Day epitomises the BBC in all its unbridled narcissism. The money spent on this show is astronomic. The host is paid an eye watering £2 million a year. Add Shearer, Wright and other presenters from Sunday night’s offspring (Imaginatively titled MotD 2) and weep Scottish tears at the vast sums spent on this fairly mediocre show.
Contrast this with BBC Scotland. Exactly the same, only with Arran sweaters.
Match of the Day versus Sportscene.
Gary Lineker, Allan Shearer and Ian Wright.
Jonathan Sutherland, Michael Stewart and Steven Thompson.
As much as I dislike the bellicose Shearer, I watched him play for Newcastle against Chelsea one rainy night in London.
He was, quite literally, an outstanding football player, as were Lineker and Wright.
Jonathan Sutherland of Shetland Weekly fame isn’t quite Lineker.
Thompson, likeable as he is, is not quite Ian Wright. Right? Right!
And Michael Stewart is just an ordinary guy with ideas above and beyond the capabilities of his IQ who happened to have played 180 professional games of football. He is, at the time of writing, 37.
Kieran Tierney, at the the tender age of 21 has played 167 games of top flight professional football including 12 full international caps. Scott Brown has played 659 games.
I have never met Mr. Stewart and cannot pass judgement on the man as a person. I can only judge him by his his TV persona.
It is the persona of one who never quite looks you in the eye in conversation. One who never quite engages with you but tolerates your ‘turn’ before he speaks again.
A persona who loves ‘oneupmanship’ by quoting a Wikipedia statistic to denigrate the ideas of his co-hosts but never gives an insight into the fundamental statistics and analyses at the heart of a game of football.
He comes across as a ‘latcher’. He latches on to the latest trend and appears to give some incisive comment as though it was something he had always advocated.
Sectarian singing? Really Michael?? Never heard the famine song before?
I hear he wants to make a career in politics. I wonder why?
That's Enough of That! 