Catch up, wind down

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A late morning after too many beers drowning my sorrows over an absolutely horrendous United performance yesterday. I haven’t been drinking for a few weeks now, and now when I do, it seems to affect me more quickly and more strongly. I didn’t feel great this morning.

But I have made up for lost time. Some long overdue DIY, replacing a window frame, and getting away with using a somewhat rickety, homemade table saw. ‘Armless fun. Almost. Then a bit of painting, some housework and a decent stint in the gym, sweating out the last of the Castle Milk Stout from my system.

With the return of Stage 4 loadshedding, and my personal energy also waning a little, I’ll be winding down with some football, some Geoguessr and a braai (and maybe a beer – because I have learnt nothing).

On Gary Lineker

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Right.
Before we begin: the T&Cs. Because I know that this post is going to annoy some people, and if it does, I really do want to it to be for all the right reasons. So…

This post is NOT about:
The rights or wrongs of the UK Government’s new policy on immigration.
The rights or wrongs of the opinions of Gary Lineker on said policy.

There is enough stuff out there about those things, and I’m not even providing a link to anything about this story, because this is a political thing and so the views out there on this are completely polarised and will either strike you as “spot on” or “bullshit hate speech” depending on your political stance. It’s not difficult to google “Gary Lineker”, click the “News” tab, choose your site, read the article and then either applaud or rage. Have fun.

My point is rather more about Gary Lineker’s contract with the BBC. Contracts are important things. Gary Lineker wouldn’t get paid for his Match of the Day work if he didn’t have a contract. But it’s a two way street, because equally, he wouldn’t have to turn up for his Match of the Day work if he didn’t have a contract. But he does turn up and he does get paid, so everyone’s happy*.

The thing is, because he’s working for the BBC, Gary Lineker earns more than £1,350,000 of taxpayers’ money each year. Is that reasonable? IT DOESN’T MATTER – that’s not what we’re discussing here.
But when he signed the contract to allow him to be paid that amount of money, he also agreed to abide by the BBC’s guidelines on social media use. Is that fair? IT DOESN’T MATTER – that’s not what we’re discussing here.

The fact is that the two-way contract street says that yes, he gets paid, but no, he can’t share his political opinions on social media. And by signing that contract, he tacitly said that he was ok with not expressing his political opinions on social media, as long as the BBC paid him £1,350,000 to present MOTD.

And because it’s a two way street, and no-one has got you at gunpoint signing anything, you always have a choice:
Don’t like the terms of the contract?
Don’t sign it.
Don’t present MOTD.
Express your political opinions freely on social media.

But also, don’t get paid £1,350,000 a year.

You can’t have your cake and eat it.

And so, whether you agree with the Government policy or not, and whether you agree with Gary Lineker’s opinions or not, is completely immaterial here. He clearly broke one of the terms of his contract, and, just like you or I or anyone else who is lucky enough to have a job might expect if we broke one of the terms of our contract, his employers have taken issue with that. But are they right t… IT. DOESN’T. MATTER.
Stop bringing your emotions and politics into a simple black and white issue.

The upshot of this is several-fold:

  • There will be no MOTD presenters or commentators this evening, and the BBC viewers will instead have the international PLP feed – including Jim Beglin. Eish.
  • The BBC will be pronounced by both political sides as biased. (An aside: the fact that one can look at such polarised political opposites both complaining that the national broadcaster is prejudiced against their particular viewpoint actually indicates to me that the BBC is doing quite a good job of being impartial.)
  • Gary Lineker will either back down (nope) or he will have to leave the BBC and be seen (by some people at least) as some sort of martyr for free speech. But…
  • The more likely outcome will be that the BBC (and/or any other employer watching this and not wanting all this shit coming their way) will surely make their contracts clearer and more restrictive when it comes to this issue, thus “stifling” “free speech” even further.

Personally (and again, this is without prejudice towards this case – this goes for each and every one of them), I would love it if the opinions of celebrities and TV personalities weren’t given more credence and gravity simply because of their public status. It’s ridiculous that because Matt le Tissier had a somewhat successful career as a footballer in the 80s and 90s, we should somehow pay particular attention to his views on vaccines. It’s pathetic that because Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar for her acting ability, we should consider her as some sort of expert on nutrition.
Happen to be a minor celebrity because you were the keyboard player for a 90s band and you have several qualifications in particle and quantum physics? Then that’s fine: you tell us all about the universe. But tell us about it because of your academic qualifications, and not because you came up with the riff on the band’s big hit.

The Gary Lineker issue is clearly very emotive and multi-factorial. But while there are many difficult conversations to be had around each of those matters, it seems to me that him clearly choosing not to obey one of the terms of his contract with the BBC is probably the most simple thing to grasp of them all.
Equally, how that breach of contract is dealt with shouldn’t be complex at all, but given the inevitable outrage from the all-knowing public, it almost certainly will be.

* I know, I know.

I don’t miss the traffic

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I’m lucky enough not to have to brave the traffic very often. I used to brave it all the time – although paradoxically, somewhat timidly – but that was a few years ago.
Today, I had to pull on my big boy pants and go into town.

Twice.

The first journey in and out wasn’t too bad, although the CBD itself was an absolute disaster. Avoiding the Friday morning rush hour by making the appointment for the visa interview at 11 was a stroke of genius. And getting out by 11:30 before the Cape Town Friday exodus began at midday was also good.
Duty done and actually, with very little issue. Boom.

But then the request for additional documents to be submitted in the afternoon shattered all our good work. UnBoom.

And when we returned to the CBD later in the day it was hell to get in, hell to be in and even more hell to get out. Ugh.

I like my car: it’s lovely to drive and it’s a nice place to be. But less so when surrounded by lots and lots of other cars. I can’t believe I used to sit amongst all that stuff for 2 or 3 hours each day. What a waste of time, energy, money and resources.

At least we’re done for a while now, though another visit to another visa centre will follow in a few weeks.
Needs must, so I’m already mentally preparing myself for that.

Disruption

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I’m back in my car park, but surely only briefly. There are, I would estimate, around 400 people at this particular sports complex this evening. Dodgeball, squash, rugby – at least two different team groups, baseball and dog agility training. (There are several dogs, as well.)

And we’re all going to have to go home when the power goes off at 8 o’clock. Training truncated. Sports shortened. Activities abbreviated. That’s a lot of people who are having their evening ruined.

It’s also going to make the traffic out of here quite horrible.

Back home 6000 miles… away, things are looking equally disrupted. But this time, it’s the weather.

The local road through to Manchester – always an early casualty in the snow – has been closed, but you’ve got to be a bit of a mindreader to know. (Or, you know, just notice that there’s white stuff on the floor and put two and two together.)

Derbyshire County Council has announced the A57 Snake Pass, a link between Sheffield and Manchester, is closed. They said in a statement the road was closed because of snow, adding: “Unfortunately the electronic signs we have on the pass are not working today.”

“Please do not attempt this road or any of the others we have closed.“

Ooh. Very cryptic. I got my crystal ball out and tried to work out which other roads those were, but all I came up with was the Three of Clubs. So, I’ll dutifully be avoiding that this evening.

Burning bridges with Bruno Fernandes

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Football social media worldwide is still alight with news of that result in that big game, and yes, I too was delighted to see Sheffield United win away at Reading last night. Get in there!

Before that big game though, everyone was talking about Sunday evening’s Liverpool vs Manchester United match at Anfield.

I realise that I am a little behind the curve on this one.

Look, we all know that the match finished 7-0, and while I have no particular love for either of the teams involved, clearly the right team won on the night. When you win a game 7-0, it’s not by chance.

One of the talking points of the evening, aside from the scoreline, was the behaviour/attitude/general shithousery of Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes. [see here] And The Athletic, to which I subscribe, wrote a huge long article on it, which is behind a paywall, but which also appears to have somehow magically tumbled into a PDF available here.

You lucky fishes.

It’s well worth a read. Suffice to say, Nick Miller does not hold back in his criticism, or his language. Lines like:

Fernandes reacted to yesterday’s events in the way that an especially immature six-year-old child might deal with huge disappointment.

or:

Cue the first of many arm-flaps, the Fernandes limbs flailed like the wings of a particularly petulant owl. We would see it again, many more times.

or:

Anyone who’s spent time with a toddler will tell you they don’t like it when they don’t get their way. 

and:

In truth, this was a fairly routine bit of play-acting, the sort of thing which is deeply tiresome but that you see a few times in every game. But in the context of everything else, on top of the arm flapping and the complaining and the diving, this was an especially fetid cherry atop a decomposing cake.

Quite literally delicious. Or… er… not.

I know that the TA, who unknowingly came up with the filename for the link above, will love every moment of Miller’s synopsis. And, despite the result and the depression and the embarrassment and the often unkind (but amusing) piss-taking and rivalry, I suspect that many Man U fans will agree with a lot of it too.

I’m not a sports journalist, and I recognise that The Athletic isn’t the biggest name when it comes to EPL coverage, but given how much the red half of Manchester must be smarting already, I wonder if they will now refuse to give interviews to Miller and The Athletic going forward. Have bridges been burned?

Surely not, though. You’d have to be really childish and petulant to do that.

Oh.