Job done
World Cup 2006: an experiment
Having tried watching a match round somebody's house, today I tried watching one with the sound down. It's rubbish. But the England match coincided with me being on air, so I was forced to watch it on the studio telly between 4 and 5 o'clock with no sound. It's amazing how detached you feel. It's like watching a fish tank, with lots of little white fish and lots of little yellow fish.
England 1 Ecuador 0
A good day for Ashley Cole (his 50th cap, plus he received damages and an apology from a tabloid newspaper about that pixillated photo of him and the gay orgy story), and a satisfactory result for England, in that they go through, but as ever, a frustrating watch. Sven played Rooney on his own, upfront. Now, any formation that omits Peter Crouch is a good one by me, but even though Rooney played his heart out, seemingly as fit as a fiddle below-sock, he found himself on more than one occasion, well, up front, on his own. He had nobody to play with. John Terry almost helped Tenorio to score for Ecuador (we do like an early scare, England), later fouling him out of frustration, and we went off at half time the better side but only just. We do make it look like hard work, this "job" people keep prosaically talking about. It was down to Beckham in the 60th minute, apparently feeling a bit dicky, to fall back on his own thrilling stereotype and bang one in from a 30-yard free kick, over the wall and just inside the post. He deserves his new badge: first English player to score in three consecutive World Cups. (And one of only five players ever to have scored two World Cup goals from a free kick.) Pity the heat caused him to spew up on the pitch. (They think it's all over the grass. It is now.) Selfishly, I'm glad the goal came in the second half, ie. with the sound up. Today I appreciate the sensory multiplicity of watching football. You don't just watch. You listen. You give yourself over. Oh, and poor old Frank Lampard, my boyfriend, who continued to whack balls in the general direction of the goal, causing commentators everywhere to mutter, "He must score at some point." Or not. Aaron Lennon, pronounced by John Motson as "Aron" (as opposed to the correct "Arron" or "Airon"), showed good form, and Carrick seemed dependable in the middle, but it was Rooney's show. I do love the knock-out games, although if this had gone to extra time, I would have been cross, as the restaurant was booked for 8.30.
Here we are, Mark and I, watching the first half on the studio telly while a record, possibly Summertime by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince or High by the Cure is playing. It's just not the same, we're both thinking.
I took a register in the last hour of the show, to see who was still listening. This was good fun, as a large handful of listeners, including a couple in America, took the trouble to email in and "put their hand up." Lesser broadcasters than myself would have sneakily pre-recorded the last hour of the show. And it would have sounded rubbish.
Portugal 1 Netherlands 0
Another low-scoring match and one that we missed entirely, opting instead to explore the world outside and eat a Thai meal in Wimbledon. We passed two bars where the game was showing on big screens to packed houses (presumably those who had pitched camp for the afternoon game and were too sozzled to move), once on the way to the restaurant, 30 minutes into the match, by which time it was already 1-0, and once on the way back, when it was all over, and it was still 1-0. Actually, the game seemed to be going on for almost seven extra minutes! What value for the fans!
The crap woman who presents the ITV news said it all when she said, "Job done," about England. Imagine that being said about Argentina or Brazil. Had another sprited conversation about the World Cup with strangers, the two guys who work on a Sunday in EAT on Portland Place. Heartwarming. On a less jolly note, as I write this draft, my website is down, and has been for most of Sunday. It can't be any more if you're reading this, whenever you are reading it. I can tell you, it's a horrible, frustrating, disconcerting feeling. And I've no idea what happened. Apologies to any of you who tried to get in and couldn't.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 11:03 PM
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16 Comments:
I, for one, appreciate the sacrifice you made to do the last hour of the show. What was the name of the band who covered 'Bela Lugosi's dead' by the way? It's not on the tracklisting.
The band are called Nouvelle Vague. The album, Bande A Part, is in the shops today I do believe. It's brilliant, if you like French covers of British and American post-punk classics!
Good to see that the site is back up, nothing worse than the the empty void of a blog free day.
I'm so pleased that Deco is out of the next game, I think we have a great chance of making the semi final now.
We just got our tickets for Summer Sundae - you going?
Portugal Holland was ugly. Low scoring on goals but not cards - 16 yellows and 4 reds. Sent off players sitting next to each other on a step like schoolboys. As Tom says no Deco next round, lucky for us. Ruud Gullit made a fair point about the players realising the ref's fondness for the colour yellow and consequently diving like lemmings at the slightest touch. Entirely predictable as how can you clamp down on diving if it's just an exaggeration of something real. A disgrace and reason for us to be relatively proud of our players for once.
I was in the reverse situation: having to watch the football with the sound down at somebody else's house, whilst actually wishing I was at home listening to the radio. I *really* don't like football, but it was a birthday party and I felt the need to be polite...
Heh, I was one of your listeners who switched over when the football started, sorry.
Did you still listen to the music you were playing, or did you turn it down and listen to the commentary? And how did you resist the temptation to keep talking about the match (or didn't you)?
Tom, I'm not going to Summer Sundae this year - I think Gideon's doing my Sunday show from down there. I'm on duty for the Truck festival in a few weeks' time. Looking forward to that.
Frankie, I can say with my hand on my heart that we kept the sound down on the match for the whole of the last hour of the show, and we listened to the music at full volume. It would have been more frustrating turning it on and off. Also, I didn't mention the football, or at least, what was happening. After all: anyone listening to me clearly didn't care about the football, so it seemed inappropriate to burden them with commentary. That's Five Live's job. Mine is to play The Cure and Sugababes in the same hour.
As a leading non-authority on Football I actually thought England played OK. At the end of the day (!), all England have to do is to carry on not losing. I think if they'd won every game 2 or 3-0, they'd be much more likely to slip up. Let's see.
Luckily I didn't have to choose between your show and the football as I always "Listen Again" at work the next day. Whoever invented audio-on-demand was a genius.
I've thought of a punishment for exaggerated reactions to fouls - after the final whistle the player has to roll from one side of the centre circle to the other. Poetic I think.
I stopped listening on Sunday after the first hour so er sorry about that. A recorded last hour wouldn't have been your style so respect for that. Fortunately you didn't miss much.
I was at the O2 festival at Harewood House, Leeds which didn't show the match except in the VIP room which appeared to be full of very non-VIP looking people.
Some enterprising concert-goers a few yards from us had a remarkably clear reception on one of those tiny TV's which we all crowded round. Eels and then the Zutons didn't get much attention for 2 hours and the biggest noise of the afternoon greeted the goal.
With perfect timing, Wayne Coyne then started climbing in his bubble across the crowd a few seconds after the full-time whistle draped in an England scarf!!. Euphoric stuff, indeed, followed by The Who who were astonishingly good - I hope I am lucky to have Roger Daltrey's body-shape (maybe not his hair) in 15 years or so time.
Thanks for not pre-recording the last hour; it would have been fairly obvious that you'd done it. As a listener it really does make a difference to know that what you're hearing is live (though I don't know why).
I've taken to shouting "Lampard!" in true over-excited commentator style whenever anyone in any match misses spectacularly. It's therapeutic.
Those criticising England for boringness should try watching the Ukraine v Switzerland game which, as I write, is just about to go into another 30 minutes of the most boring, depressing excuse for football I've ever seen.
God help us if the Swiss win this match - their football replicates their nationality - neutral!!
Sitting here putting some CDs onto my Music Player, a boring job at the best of times but it's White Water Rafting compared to this match.
Ian
I'm glad to know that the site was down. I thought it had been moved and no-one had told me.
What does 6Music say about presenters pre-recording programmes if they want to watch the football? Would they have to pretend that they were live? I don't think I'd mind a show being pre-recorded, but on Sunday, it was good to learn that I wasn't the only one not watching the football.
Some people were even at work in a call centre, you know. But that's okay, because I don't like football and I live in Wales, plus as a bonus, during the match we got almost no calls. Which goes to show that people's problems aren't half as important as they think they are, and they should just bugger off and leave us alone more often.
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