Flog - Magic, Hartson and ITV's Vomit

Wow, can you feel the magic? It’s like magic, everywhere. It’s so magic. The FA Cup. Magic. Just magic. The magic of the FA Cup. Magic. M-A-G-I-C. Magic.
Sorry, am I saying magic too much? Only it’s my understanding that ‘magic’ has now replaced every other descriptive word in the universe. ‘Shock’ is no longer in the dictionary, nor is ‘glamour’. ‘Captivating’ had it’s day long ago, so that’s out too. And as for ‘exciting’ and ‘wonderful’, well, they just don’t hold a candle to ‘magic’.
Yes, ITV, Flog is ranting at you once more. You may think you are continuously picked on by me, but maybe that’s because you are so relentlessly rubbish. I’ve spent a weekend watching your coverage of the FA Cup and am now fairly sure four out of my five senses are gone, never to return.
Obviously, my hearing (and with it my sanity) has gone with the intense overuse of the ‘M’ word, along with being beaten over the head by The Enemy’s ‘Be Somebody’ every time the programme starts, ends and cuts to a break. Considering the FA Cup on ITV has had around 12 hours of airtime (not including the repeats of the highlights package Sunday morning) this weekend, and they have an advert break every 3 minutes, the audience has been subjected to that ‘solid gooooooooooold’ ident a total of 4,911,024,586 times. Add all this to Robbie Earle’s suicide-inducing murmurs between highlights and I just can‘t take it any…more...sorry…I’m writing this during the Scunthorpe vs. Man City game and they’ve come back from a break… ‘SOLID GOOOO-OOOOH-OOOOOOLD!!!!!!!’
Next: my eyes. Their opening titles take on a mock comic book template, presumably trying to inject a Roy of the Rovers feel. Instead it’s like a war between every shade of hew ever known to man over which one gets to blind you first. It reminds me of that episode of Byker Grove, when PJ gets blinded by a paintball bullet, only that was partly his fault for taking his goggles off in the middle of the battle. What exactly did we do to deserve this vomit of colour from our screens, ITV? Just what? Because whatever I did, I’m so sorry. Now stop it.
I didn’t so much lose my ‘taste’, rather get the feeling that ‘taste’ in the ‘tactful’ sense has been disregarded altogether. I refer to John Hartson in the pundit’s chair for the Stoke vs. Arsenal game Sunday lunchtime. Hartson’s return to something like full health after a serious fight against testicular, lung and brain cancer is obviously excellent to see, and his television work looks to be merited by spirited insight and genuine experience rather than a turn of sympathy. So it’s nice to know ITV can be sensitive towards the issue when asking him if the match was a case of ‘brains over battering rams’. Brilliant. I suppose I should be celebrating the fact that they didn’t substitute ‘battering rams’ with ‘balls of steel’. Maybe I’m being a little pedantic, but I certainly felt for Hartson, who must feel a little under the spotlight for his past ill health rather than his fine punditry, and while we’re on the subject I’d like to point out how I enjoyed Paul Robinson’s input into the Spurs vs. Leeds game too. Quite why Robbie Earle is still turned to for his views, God only knows.
All that and I’m sure I lost my sense of smell somewhere along the line.

Just a quick note on one of my least favourite players on this Earth, Jermaine Jenas. After the Leeds game, I went through everything a footballer should have in my mind and tallied up what ‘JJ’ offers a side. Ready? Ok: Pass? No. Tackle? No. Shoot? No. Head? No. Corners? No. Dribble? No. Cross? No. Penalties? No. Free kicks? No. Defend? No. Skill? No. Mark? No.
Anything, and I mean anything, you think of and add onto that list, I assure you he cannot do. This is a player supposedly on the fringe of England’s World Cup squad; I can only imagine for moral support or to iron the kit. As a (realistic) Spurs fan, I was devastated to learn they had rejected a £10million approach from Aston Villa for him in the summer. I’d have sold him for Nectar Points. No doubt he will stay at Spurs forever, even after he has finished playing, as a God-awful manager or club patriot or something, just to emphasise the mediocrity us Tottenham fans will most likely be eternally subjected to.

Magic.