Sport for all, but spare us the cost

I HAVE a lot of trouble with men who don't like football; or perhaps more accurately, men who can't talk about football.

I should confess that I am not a "real fan". Real fans tell me I'm not a real fan because I can get most, if not all, of the football spectator enjoyment I need from watching games on television. Indeed, most Saturdays I'm quite happy watching the results come in on the internet.

Apparently this rules me out as being a real fan. Real fans can discriminate not just externally but also within their ranks. Someone who "only" goes to home games can be outed as "not a real fan", and even those who did not personally attend a 1-1 draw in Ljubljana as part of an unsuccessful Intertoto Cup campaign can suddenly find themselves publicly mocked as "mere amateurs". Sometimes another word is used instead of "mere."

This need to attend a game in person is largely a result of a faulty imagination on the part of the "real fan". When a goal appears on the screen after I've pinged the "refresh" button, the pleasure can be both real and immense.

Furthermore, I am then in a great position to send insulting e-mails to those who find themselves one down.

The fact is, I do like football and talking about it, and I don't understand men who can't. At a social gathering, it's one of the few guaranteed conversational fall-backs one has after "What do you think of them animal-embryo thingies" and "I'll tell you how we can beat al-Qaida".

As important as football is, I don't think anyone should pay for others – including me – to enjoy it, even on the internet. It's just a hobby.

This is why I don't quite see the fuss about the recent BBC deal to buy Formula 1 rights for £200 billion, or whatever the huge figure was; or rather, I do see the problem, but it's not the same one some people seem to be seeing. As detractors of the deal have noted, often with foam gushing from their mouths, Formula 1 can indeed be described as an élitist, cash-rich sport with no grass-roots heritage, that consumes huge resources and is of limited appeal to all but a hardcore of middle-class fans.

Those terms would certainly serve to denigrate the sport, in comparison to say, football. On the other hand, Formula 1 could simply be summed up and described as "entertainment" – much like football in fact.

When I sit down to watch Scotland play through my neighbour's lounge window, I don't think "Gosh – I'm really excited about this unique cultural and sporting spectacle that brings together so many different aspects of our heritage in one multi-class fusion"; I'm thinking "I hope we don't get beat" and somewhere else, "I hope this is entertaining". Formula 1 fans probably think "Great – they're going to go round and round and round!" and "I hope this is entertaining".

Either way, it's the bottom line of entertainment which underlines why it should be the business of nobody other than those who are consuming the entertainment, who pays for it (and my neighbour).

Check the viewing figures for when the BBC did screen international football – there are millions of Scots who clearly have no interest in watching. Licence-payers should not be paying millions for Formula 1 rights. Nor, though, should they be paying for football rights. Indeed, no-one should be paying for any entertainment other than that they choose to enjoy themselves.

That is the real problem with the modern BBC and the charges levied on every licence holder.

Weighty issues
That a couple in Dundee have been threatened with having their spacehopper-like children taken into care – one 12-year-old girl weighs 11 stones – is surely a matter of gross cultural insensitivity.

How do the interfering social workers not know that this is not Scotland's first attempt at Sumo wrestling credibility on the world stage? The mother – a svelte 23 stone herself – could be bringing her kids up with a view to hibernating through those long Dundonian winters when the Tay Bridge is closed and no Lidl trucks can get through.

With no indication of height we are left to presume they are overweight. How do we know they aren't all 8 feet tall?

It's not up my street
Forgive me for not jumping with joy at the prospect of citizens being given the right to name new streets in Edinburgh. It's not that I've got anything against Kylie Close or Take That Avenue or Whatever Scottish Muppet Last Won Pop Idol Crescent.

It's the knowledge that the "elections" will undoubtedly find a way of favouring local politicians, councillors and other "worthies". So let's just draw the names out of a hat into which any Edinburgh resident can dump suggestions. This way we might see some genuinely amusing names to complement such classics as Boyd's Entry and The Vennel.