It would be unkind to criticise the Telegraph - that's a bit like criticising someone's senile auntie - but misinformation (a fashionable commodity in these pre-Referendum days in Britain) is always a bit hard to stomach, and I thought I'd speak up on behalf of those poor people in London, who may be being misled again.
I was looking around for details about the construction of the Channel Tunnel, including numerical data - cubic yards of rock shifted, how long it took - all that. I found some interesting stuff, including a couple of good articles on the Telegraph's website. In the middle of one of the articles, up popped the advert at the top of this post. I realise that newspapers have to suck people into things like fake opinion polls, to score some advertising revenue from some completely irrelevant supplier.
However, I thought the questions were kind of interesting - mostly because they made me wonder whether there are any grown-ups working in the marketing area at the Telegraph. I can see that the construction of the Tunnel was quite an achievement, though I'll duck any further discussion about who the Telegraph thinks might be coming through it at the moment; don't get me started on the London Bloody Olympics, which was yet another bulk transfer of funds from the Provinces to the capital, with the odd personal fortune for Lord Snooty and His Pals thrown in; the one which caught my eye was question 3.
Just a minute - Britain won the Rugby World Cup? I didn't think Britain had ever entered the Rugby World Cup, though I do recall England winning it. Don't tell me the Braying Jeremies at Twickers read the Telegraph?
I gather this advert predates the most recent Rugby World Cup. Anyway, no matter.
IIRC the English suggested a 'British' national team a few years ago, but the Welsh vomited on their cheese on toast before anyone else could react.
ReplyDeleteJournalism: the last refuge of scoundrels.
I'm not sure what happened to the British Lions - I think they only played Tests, as opposed to Other Things (such as World Cups), but there is a faint whiff of the old Gentlemen vs Players thing in there - I'm surprised they didn't play Rubbers. The removal of amateurism from Rugby Union has been a complicated process - there is still a section of followers of the sport who preferred it when the game was organised so that only people with sufficient money and leisure time could afford to play it. Then there was a phase when pretence took over - people who had ever earned their living from any sport were banned from RU for ever (a relative of my first wife was a superb winger for the old Edinburgh Trojans, but because he had been on the books of a professional soccer team as a kid he was never capped for Scotland), and yet there was a firm of agricultural suppliers in the Scottish Borders who had a number of "sales reps" who were simply paid by their "employer" for being international rugby players - kind of indirect sponsorship, I guess.
DeleteBraying Jeremies..............now that made me chuckle!
ReplyDeleteThe good old BJs - they are the guys who make all the noise, and don't understand the rules. By the way, I did not intend to be rude, so any Jeremies who found my comment offensive have my sincere apologies.
DeleteTypical of airhead media to assume winning a sport competition is the height of achievement for an entire nation.
ReplyDeleteBest thing Britain/Britons did since 1991? Peace in Northern Ireland? Invention of the World Wide Web?
Worst thing ? Invading Iraq - no contest, surely...