Monday, August 27, 2007

Who's World Cup is it anyway?

The lunatics are attempting another coup on the asylum as a sporting body once again gets too far up itself and tries to tell newspapers what they can and can't print.

A few years ago it was FIFA who made a half-arsed attempt to put time constraints on when pictures could be published on websites and limits on the number that could be used.

Then the football leagues insisted they'd only let newspapers into games if they signed up to licensing rules, which included a two-hour delay on pictures being published and a cut of the lolly from fantasy competitions.

Now the rubgy world cup organisers have joined them in cuckoo land with their own accreditation rules. They've produced 18 pages of Ts and Cs insisting, among a host of other things, that "only five images can be used per half", none can be transmitted via mobile phones. And that Rugby World Cup Ltd can use for free any images taken by any accredited photographers.

The Newspaper Publlishers Association are making all the right noises and could hit back by blocking out sponsors names on hoardings and shirts. But it's tit for tat.

The only real response would be to bin all the forms, ignore all official routes, cover games from the stands, cranes or low-flying baloons as necessary and impose the entirely refreshing and justifiable anarchy of the most vitriolic fanzine.

Then we'd have a game.

They need to be told, in the words of the people on the terraces who pay for every Porsche in the car park and every designer shirt on their backs: you're havin' an effin' larf mate.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Racist? Not in the US


Pete Symes has left an interesting comment on my Big Brother race row post below - Emily's out, but it's not black and white. Would I have still been concilliatory had she made am antisemitic comment?

Depends what she said I suppose but he's right to hint at possible double-standards. In the US version, cocktail waitress Amber Siyavus Tomcavage did more than let slip a single word. She let rip with what can only be described as a rant against everything and anything Jewish.

It hacked off the Anti Defamation League when it was shown live in the USBB website and prompted an assurance from CBS that they don't condone such behaviour.

But the tirade was not picked for the edited version of the show that night - and, unlike dippy Emily, motormouth Amber stayed in the show.