Tuesday 19 June 2012

another dull and monotonous barrage of games in front of advertising hoardings

Big spoiler for everyone who thought they knew me: I don't like sport.


That said, I accept that it happens as presumably someone likes it and therefore do not wish for it to be abolished.  Actually, let us not get too hasty with this idea - maybe we could ban it.  I mean it would be brilliant; all that wasted money that usually gets spent by the BBC buying TV rights for the Um-Bongo Pro Amateur East Northern Super Division ™ could be spent on something awesome like science documentaries or journalism.  Actually, they'd probably spend it on some terrible talent competition or yawntastic period drama.  Okay, I will allow sport to continue on the understanding we don't get more Colin Firth in a girdle lisping away the national anthem while swimming in an eel infested lake.


However, I offer two options as compromise so I do not go on a murderous rampage.


First, I ask that it get shoved on a channel I'd never intentionally switch to.  Channels like EuroTiddlywinks HD or, maybe The God Channel.  You see, one thing I hate more than sport is the fact my regular viewing habits are interrupted without apology by it; Pointless (BBC One, 1715 Mon-Fri) is sometimes the nicotine patch that keeps me conscious through the early evening schedule.  This has been missing on regular occasions of late and thus I have become irritatingly aware of how much of the national and regional news is devoted to further in-depth coverage of the latest developments in the Calgon National Indoor All Weather Championship™ mid-late-April transfer window.  If all the sport was transferred to dedicated sports channels, I'd allow some of the precious state-funded broadcasting time to be given over to re-tweets of the latest press releases from SportsDroids for those people who have a passing interest.


Alternatively, all the sport should be held and broadcast simultaneously.  Tennis, golf, cricket, football, darts, snooker and athletics all must happen in one period, so it can all be over quickly.  Not nicely spaced out so that as soon as one (seemingly misnamed) final ends, another dull and monotonous barrage of games in front of advertising hoardings starts.  Let's choose December.  I can happily sleep through December and awake on 1st January refreshed and a whole eleven months to enjoy a sport-free existence.  To save money, football can take place at the same time as a marathon in a big stadium somewhere.  Cricket only uses a small bit of turf in the middle, so perhaps tennis courts could be set up each side. I suppose javelin is difficult to be held simultaneously with other sports, so perhaps you might consider combining sports - so maybe javelin mixed with the 100 metre sprint, there's some extra incentive to be the fastest.  I don't know, I'm not an expert on sport, so I'll leave you sports fans to work out the finer details.


Deal?