10th July If you thought coverage of Prince Philip was excessive....


In breaking news Grace Under Pressure can confirm that in response to England having reached the final of the European Championships, all terrestrial TV channels have adjusted their plans to ensure that their coverage of the event makes the wall to wall reporting of Prince Philip's death seem momentary in conparison. Except it will feature Gary Lineker instead of Nicholas Witchell. 

Even programs that will not be about the actual match will be football themed. Songs of Praise wil feature Aled Jones singing a series of football chants including, 'The referee's a b%$£"&b' and 'You're gonna get our f*&^%$g head kicked in', whilst to Novak Djokovic's surprise, the Wimbledon Men's singles final, will see tie breakers replaced by penalty shoot outs.

Even as you read this, coverage has already begun with Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetti interviewing anyone who has ever been to Italy, eaten any Italian food or can point to Italy on a map on BBC Breakfast from 6am. In Saturday Morning Kitchen, whilst Thierry Henry, Jurgen Klinsman and Gianfranco Zola will share spoons and attempt to make a Spaghetti alla Carbonara with porcini mushrooms, Alan Shearer will extoll the virtues of a peas pudding sandwich as a half time pick me up

Over on BBC 4 Rio Ferdinand will explore how to deal with the grief of losing whilst Danny Murphy will recall the pressures players experience when they are not picked to play in a major international football competition and have to watch it at home. Plus a 6 hour hastily put together documentary will unsuccesfully attempt to explain how kicking a pigs bladder around on a piece of grass is just the same as gladiators battling to the death in the Collosseum or nations going to war.

Meanwhile over on ITV, Gary Neville will continue to pretend he is playing Tom Cruise's character in Minority Report as he attempts to tackle a virtual screen and predict the future, Patrick Viera will embarrass everyone by offering commentary in the 8 different languages he speaks whilst Roy Keane and Graeme Souness will continue to trade anecdotes over who they kicked the s%$t out of when they were playing.

If England win the final, then expect it to be a main news story for the rest of the year and be resurrected again 4 months before the start of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when the hype that England will win shall begin once again. If we lose, then by Tuesday morning hopefully it will all be forgotten.

At the time of going to press Grace Under Pressure is unable to confirm that as extra Bank Holiday will be granted sometime in August if England win and this Monday in Scotland if England lose.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6th May Olbia

Image
  A chance to stretch our legs today with our first port of call; Olbia, Sardinia. And it was a quick stretch too due to it being only a five hour stay. Up bright and early, so early in fact that the hot food at the buffet wasn't even ready to be served. Still it gave us a chance to watch the ship glide into port past a host of oyster/mussel beds, before performing a 180 degree turn to reverse into it's berth. A couple of short bus rides later and we were in downtown Olbia. But there an hour or so before anything appeared to open, the disadvantage of being early birds and something we don't seem to learn! Not that Olbia had a great deal to see or maybe if we had done the slightest bit of planning beforehand there might have benn but we didn't. It was pleasant enough but that's about it. It was pleasant enough but nothing special, indeed we were back on the ship after just a couple of hours ashore and then managed to sleep away most of th...
Read more

7th May Naples

Image
 I'm sure I've heard the phrase 'see Naples and die' suggesting that it is perhaps not the nicest location in the Mediterranean but if it's good enough for Diego Maradona fir a few years then it's good enough for me for 10 hours. Although the millions of tax free pounds he was paid might have eased his stay. By the time we got up, washed, dressed and up to The Kitchens, the rest of the ship were already there. Compared to the Marie Celeste of yesterday it was absolutely packed, presumably with people having breakfast before heading out on 8am excursions, our excursion was simply going to be the city of Naples itself as possible trips to Vesuvius, Pompei or the Amalfi coast would have been too much / tired.  So on a day when the weather initially seemed uncertain, we jumped aboard route A for the Hop on Hop off bus and headed out into the mayhem that is the Napoli traffic where it was every van, car and scooter for the selves. I think it's bes...
Read more