JAHN VANNISSELROY
I’m getting Sky reinstalled at home. The girlfriend wants it. “Yeah, alright,” I agreed, secretly sickened at the thought of her and her friends sitting around watching marathon sessions of The Hills or whatever perverted reality programme is the flavour of the day. However, my benevolence came at a price: the sports channel. Non-stop Rugby World Cup come September and October. Cornflakes and an oval ball each morning – the breakfast of champions.
Imagine my surprise, nay, distaste when I found out every game of the tournament is being broadcast free on ITV. I immediately phoned Sky and cancelled the sports subscription. You see, if I’m at home on a Saturday with Sky I’ll watch whatever English Premier League game is on and, like an anorexic who’s just had a decent meal, I’ll hate myself afterwards. It’s not that I don’t like football. I love playing it. I’ll tune into Match Of The Day, I’ll pop into the pub for clashes between the big four and I laaaaarv the final stages of Champions League. But there’s just too much EPL in this country.
If you look up the phrase ‘total overkill’ in the Book Of Modern Day Expressions – the one I’m currently writing (due out 2029) – you’ll find it offers this example: “The glut of EPL media coverage, on TV, in magazines and in every fucken newspaper in England.”
I’m long over the microanalysis of everything every football player in this country does on and off the field for 380 matches over 38 weeks. The summer months were a blessing for me; I could read a sports section without eight pages of what did happen, what should have happened, what some twit thinks will happen next week and whether or not some dick refused to shake some other dick’s hand because the second dick slipped and put his actual dick where the first dick usually puts his.
So this winter, I’ll chill on the couch watching The Only Way Is Essex or some similar brainrot instead, happy it’ll all be over in a hour and I won’t have to be subjected to countless replays of its overpaid morons for the next week. I find those shows can be quite entertaining – although the girlfriend usually ruins it by moaning about the sound being down.
