By Myles Palmer
The English middle class returning from holiday will get the usual shock when they come back to our dumbed-down British culture with its soap stars, its Pop Idol and Big Brother chit-chat,its daft headlines saying Sven should drop Beckham because he might get a yellow card.
In France and Italy the press have a more reasoned approach to politics, sport and the arts.More analysis.
Since Thatcher and Murdoch changed the UK forever, we have had a dumb culture run by populist con-men like Tony Blair.
Ratings rule. Lots of stories about boobs, bonking, Kylie, Jade,Harry Potter.
Celebrities are worshipped and then ritually slaughtered.
What bugs me is that the tabloids set the agenda for the broadsheets and TV.
I was disappointed today when I read a piece by Paul Hayward,a marvellous guy and one of our very best sportswriters, a credit to the profession.
In one piece today Paul sagely notes a distinct “change of tone” in Sven’s press conferences.
Paul is great on things like that. One of my favourite sports journalists. Rob Hughes, David Lacey and Steve Tongue are the others.
But in another piece Paul is complaining about lack of access to Rooney.
Personally, I don’t wanna hear from Rooney.Silence makes him more interesting.
Clearly, the FA are not scared of what Rooney might say.
They are worried about what the tabloids might do with what Rooney says.
Anyway, there will be time for Wayne to talk in 2004 and 2005.
Give him a chance. He is still younger than my Caroline, who was 18 in June.
Footballers are valuable for what they do the pitch. I enjoy what they do far more than what they say.
I’m really sick of our quote culture. Most quotes are boring and many are made up by hacks.
I JUST WANNA SEE ROONEY PLAY AND IMPROVE.
Rooney was below average in Macedonia because Owen and Lampard were rubbish.
Owen could not get a shot in, could not get a pass in, had his worst game since Scotland, when Don Hutchinson scored at Wembley.
Michael Owen destroys his partners, as Ian Wright did.
Owen is a one-dimensional human bullet. Like all bullets, he has tunnel-vision, so his partners will always suffer.
In Skopje, Owen and Lampard did not help Rooney.
That was why Rooney hardly got a pass. When he did get a pass,he equalised.
My personal fantasy, that Rooney would hold the ball and play Lampard into the box, proved to be wildly over-optimistic.
ENGLAND will beat Liechtenstein tonight.We know that.
Rooney will be OK because he will have his mate Stevie Gerrard with him before the game and during it.
It won’t be electrifying entertainment.
If Owen, Beattie and Rooney is a disaster tonight, Sven will pick his real team at half time. As he did in Skopje.
Graham Taylor used to do that a lot.
THERE IS one great game tonight: Czech Republic v Holland in Prague.
Holland are unbeaten in 14 games. The Czechs are unbeaten in 16 games.
The winner qualifies for Euro 2004. So it will be intense.
Yesterday Caroline and her friend Alice went to Prague for three nights. If I’d known this classic was on I’d have gone with them.
They took my Time Out Guide to Prague, which was signed by Eusebio on a fun trip I describe in the fb22 archives : Portugal’s emotional bid for 2004.
Alice is a cellist who lives in Wales.
On Sunday night I was here in my office and I could hear her playing Scarborough Fair on Caroline’s guitar, singing like an angel.
On Monday night Caroline was on the phone downstairs and I said, “Alice, come here, I wanna show you something”
And I clicked onto the whatreallyhappened.com website and told her I read this political stuff all the time.
Alice showed me a photo of herself with Jarvis Cocker, taken on Feb 15, when two million of us went on the peace march to Hyde Park.
It’s a vivid photograph. Jarvis looks so young.
“I saw you,” she said. “ I shouted and waved, but you didn’t see us.”
SO WEDNESDAY is England v Liechtenstein, but Friday’s the day the girls come back from Prague. I guess that’s middle age. When you are waiting for your kids to come home and make you laugh.
Tonight I will tune into British Eurosport at 10.30 for the Prague football highlights.
Raphael van der Vaart will be tangling with Ajax clubmate Galasek.
Bags of talent on show : Overmars, Nedved, Rosicki. And my favourite, the thunderous Mark van Bommel.
DID YOU SEE Postega’s handball last night?
The Spurs striker cheated David Platt’s Under-21s out of a point when he flipped the ball in with his hand at Goodison, giving Portugal a 2-1 victory.
The Under-21s are just like the England senior team.
Totally lacking in the arts and crafts of possession, always running away from the ball rather than towards it.
Winger Ricardo Quaresma looked good, though. I’d like to see what he’s doing in 2005.
Quaresma is like Rooney because he has power, confidence, two feet, great awareness.
At certain moments, Quaresma looks like 50% Figo and 50% Cantona.
It’s asking a lot for a 19-year old to match those guys.And it’s asking too much for a 19-year old to do the business at Barcelona.
Here Quaresma scored the first goal with a free-kick which beat Derby keeper Lee Grant at the near post, something I could see coming, even from such a narrow angle.
He smacked Joey Barton severely on the ear with his arm while challenging for a high ball in midfield.
And he almost won the game with a flicked chip that floated nine inches over the bar.
Then they took Quaresma off. I think it was because he was in danger of being sent off, rather than because he had taken a couple of heavy knocks.
But Portugal won the game anyway, luckily, with a handball the linesman did not see.
September 10 2003.