The TV pundit’s clumsy discussion of a ‘man’s game’ obscured an interesting observation about the theatre of aggressionIt is one of the most reliable features of modern life that any piece of news, no matter how banal, must inspire an instant and violently polarised public response.In its simplest form this boils down to the standard opposition of snowflakes and gammons. These are familiar, comforting categories by now. The snowflake is cloyingly pure, but also fragile, wet, melty and cold. The gammon is empurpled, stubborn, salty and thick with gristle. Both come with their own discrete areas of concern, left versus right, old versus young, furiously angry versus angrily furious. Continue reading...
The pundit may not have meant any harm but he strayed into hurtful territory when speculating on Moise Kean’s characterMany years ago I was a told a joke that, looking back, could well have been my first experience of racial stereotyping. I can’t remember who said it, or exactly how old I was, but it has lived with me ever since.“What do you call a black man in a suit? Guilty.” Continue reading...
A club great as a player is a pariah because of his dealings with the Sun when manager, yet he seems deeply remorseful. Does he care enough to try to heal the wound?Perhaps you may have seen that clip recently of Graeme Souness getting so worked up in the television studios about the jargon of modern football, so aggrieved by what he perceives to be the loss of old-fashioned values, that he has a fit of pique and ends up flinging his pen across the desk in front of him.It is classic Souness: dyspeptic, unflinching, never one for concealing his feelings. It is a big part of what makes him so watchable as a pundit. Everything will be fine, then...