To continue with European competitions at a time like this feels like an exercise in futility and jaw-dropping complacency
There is a debate to be had over who is the real villain in the movie Jaws – the shark that patrols the waters off the resort of Amity devouring the appetising and unwitting, or Larry Vaughn, the wilfully myopic mayor who refuses to close the popular local beaches despite having been alerted to the predator’s presence. Following one such discussion on an episode of an American podcast, a listener felt compelled to contact the Jaws screenwriter, Carl Gottlieb, and the 82-year-old ventured the opinion that neither the maneater nor its human enabler were entirely blameless.
“Well, clearly the shark is the primary villain since he’s the one that actually bites people,” he opined. “But the mayor is a contributing villain because by his failure to take action and his denial, he puts more people in jeopardy and more people get killed.” Gottlieb went on to explain that Mayor Vaughn wasn’t entirely deserving of opprobrium because he was at least trying to serve the greater good in the face of totally “unpredictable uproar”.
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Understandable as it may be, never before has football seemed so depressingly and slavishly beholden to the bottom line
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