Sweet Nothings

Football fans who tend to get their news nourishment from limp-wristed, knitted-sweater, bleeding heart leftie liberal outlets (or pretty much anything to the left of the Daily Stormer) will probably have noticed a consensus. Certain topics now appear in articles with increasing regularity, like a checklist of targets to hit: FFP or lack thereof, the super league fiasco, ticket/subscription/merchandise prices, all sorts of shady oligarchs, arms dealers and human rights abusers (some of them actual state actors) waltzing through the laughable fit-and-proper-person test, and so on. Many of these will seep into the pieces that are ostensibly about on-pitch happenings, and all of it nudges you towards one inescapable conclusion: Football is shit.  Perhaps the most hot-button topic of all, and one that adds a very modern moral quandary to the game, is sportswashing. The Saudi takeover of Newcastle has been a major catalyst, since it came hot on the heels of other naked sporting power pl...

** NOTE TO READERS : This post is entirely self-indulgent and likely contains little of relevance to anybody outside my immediate family. But I love Disney World so much I’m not quite ready to let it go again yet, so here we are. ** For the sake of time/space/energy I’ll try to stick to aspects of our trip that were new or different. And there certainly has been plenty of change at WDW – since the Covid-enforced closures, many features that were previously free have either returned at a cost or have disappeared completely. Only a cynic would suggest that the global pandemic provided perfect cover for new CEO Bob Chapek to implement all the cost-cutting measures Disney hadn’t dared to previously – and I am one, so that’s good. Coupled with some major PR mis-steps , it’s fair to say that Bob’s start has been rocky. Before you even get on site, Disney’s free Magical Express airport transfer service is now gone, replaced by the fee-charging Mears Connect coaches – ie the same vehicles ...