Stuff and Nonsense

I have just watched some of the England vs Mexico “World Cup Warm Up”. Don’t worry though, I haven’t bought a white van stuck a cheesy cross on it and started reading The Sun. No, it’s simply the case that Sky Plus is recording the football and some other garbage for my Wife so for the few minutes of slobbing on the couch that I could bear, I did watch it.

Why am I recording this loathsome dross? Because, my 7 year-old Son is desperate to play football, to understand football, to partake of the playground football chatter etc. I did the same when I was his age. I distinctly remember a substantial collection of dog-eared cards featuring the likes of Ray Clemence and Kevin Keegan. No doubt I succumbed to the same peer pressure as my Son feels now. He just wants to belong and though he’s a keen and useful Rugby player, Rugby just doesn’t have the same “Opiate of The Masses” appeal.

Despite the cards though, I went only once to a football match. England vs Switzerland under 21s at Wembley. It cost the princely sum of £5 for the coach trip from Runcorn with Palacefields County Primary. I remember we had a great day. Wembley was the biggest place I’d ever seen but wandering round it (9 years old and we were told “Don’t wander off, straight to the toilet and back”! It fair gives my parental heart palpitations just recalling it). Well, of course we did not do as we were told which is why me and a friend whose name and face have long been supplanted in my memory banks by years of pointless trivia almost missed the coach. Can you imagine that? These days those Teachers would (unfairly) be publicly named and shamed. I presume the Teachers were frantic and very stressed out wondering where we were but I don’t recall any sign of that. Worryingly, I’m not even sure they knew were were missing until we weren’t.

Now, you may notice here that I don’t have much to say about the football which may seem a bit odd given it was at Wembley after all. Well, I did watch some but frankly from where we were sat the players may well have been Subbuteo (I had to look that word up, never had cause to write it before) figures and the ball but the merest speck of white. It was noisy. People were shouting endlessely about nothing. And so many of them. There were more people that I considered might exist on the whole planet at that time. I couldn’t share a joke with your mate because I couldn’t hear anything other than The Noise and I couldn’t join in with The Noise because it did seem to be just Noise; not words.  Being a self concious and nervous 9 year old the prospect of gently lurching in random directions and screaming very loudly “eeerer  aaahh sh olellee eeyyer” was frankly more terrifying than risking someone noticing that I wasn’t joining in.

It’s not as if you could even mime like in assembly when you knew the words but didn’t want to sing. Hellish. Truly hellish. And to think, some people grow up, work hard and spend some of their hard-earned to go and be in that crowd. You have my sympathies. I can’t imagine how awful the rest of your days must be that a saturday at a football stadium can be seen as a good thing.

Anyway, I digress. The thing is, despite my opinion on football I recognise that I am quite possibly the weird one and so accept that my Son may well find some joy in”The Beautiful Game” that I cannot. So, for that reason, I shall at least ensure he has the opportunity to witness professional football so he can join in with the rest of the mob. With any luck when we watch it back we can at least turn the sound down.

Strange after all these years that the TV coverage features the identical sound track to every game as the one they were playing at Wembley all those years ago. The Noise. Perhaps this is simply what you get when you put enough people who can’t form sentences in one place and the average IQ becomes the dominant force.

If you think this post is just whining from a miserable old bastard who doesn’t see much point having quite so many people on the planet doing pointless things you are, quite probably, right. A discourse on the recursive nature of musing on pointlessness which is, in itself, pointless is reserved for a later (pointless) post.

So, did you vote in the General Election?

If you were eligible, physically and mentally able to vote and you didn’t then please shut up now. Do not complain that your welfare is too low. Do not complain that your public sector salary is too low or your taxes too high. Don’t phone in to radio shows, appear on tv shows or write that “Dear BBC…” letter. Don’t Don’t Don’t.

When you threw away the opportunity to cast your vote, you threw away the right to moan, groan and complain. Just continue with whatever selfish past-time floats your boat and leave democracy to the rest of us. You just abstained from society.

Let’s hope a future government lowers tax allowances for abstainers. Anyone abstaining will pay the price for the duration of the government they didn’t TRY to choose and I’m sure this will spur them into action for the next election.