Monday Night Culture

[kniteracy]

I suppose I should really call this, "weekend culture," because I got most of it on Sunday, watching television with filceolaire.

You see, the World Cup is going on, and this is Big Stuff here in London. In fact, the CSH has a football sweepstakes going, and I was persuaded by our librarian, MT, to put in my two quid. The seeded team I drew was, you guessed it, England. Now, I don't know the first thing about football, so MT has been trying to give me an education, and filceolaire contrived to help me out over the weekend. So I have not only watched football highlights on the BBC, I have also, with the help and encouragement of filceolaire, watched a football anthems programme, including the best and worst football anthems ever. There's always a song, apparently for World Cup time, and sometimes the songs made in a particular year aren't as good as the ones before. Now, I'm not sure when any of the songs were made, except that one with all the football players singing about how there's nothing they can't do-- except apparently improve their haircuts-- must have been made sometime in the 70s.

Now, of course some of these were more enjoyable than others. I think the catchiest one is Vindaloo, but maybe that's because I love to watch people--and there are many people to watch in the Vindaloo video, trust me.

England are now in the quarterfinals and will play Portugal on Sunday. They made it into the quarterfinals due to a kick by team captain David Beckham, who is most famous in the US for having actually married one of the Spice Girls. It was a nice kick-- I have seen it several dozen times in replay now, and I haven't even been trying. There are also numerous gratuitous shots of Posh jumping up and down and yelling for her soon-to-be hurling hubby (he was apparently physically ill after scoring the goal). Of course, her bosoms aren't as impressive as those of the woman I'm going to discuss below, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, there are three things going on in England right now. First, there is the national obsession with football. Secondly, there is Wimbledon, which started today. And third, there is Big Brother, a reality TV show which apparently has whole segments of the population utterly transfixed. Sunday night, we watched a little bit of some of the programming surrounding Big Brother on television. It's astounding how much programming the television stations have managed to eke out of Big Brother.

Last night, there was a trivia quiz with one of the contestants. She was asked three questions. Lea's personal news page is here, but they haven't put this interview up there....

Q: Who was the first English monarch to divorce?
A: What's a monarch?
(whispers in background)
A: Oh! Um, Charles?

Q: Which bird swims the fastest?
A: Birds don't swim, they fly.
(whispers in background)
A: A swan?

Q: Who was the youngest Beatle?
A: Bono?

I am not making this up. At least now I have identified why English people want to watch Big Brother. They have a deep desire to be smarter than someone. Luckily, Lea provides just about everybody on earth with the ability to string together an understandable, if not properly parsed, sentence, an opportunity to feel superior. Well, at least I understand that now. Luckily, when I want to feel superior, I have other places to look.

Oh, yeah. Wimbledon was mostly rained out. Nobody here cared much: Big Brother was live all day on Channel Four, and more than a hundred England fans have already been banned from Germany! Go team!

Comments

[left-fielder.livejournal.com]

A) Henry VIII, maybe. Not really, but before that it was considerably more informal; they killed them, or sent them to a nunnery, or waited for them to die in childbirth or something.

B) Probably one of the penguin species, or maybe something like a cormorant. My contention is that the real answer is that no one knows for sure. There are complications: are the birds allowed to gain velocity by high speed flying dives, and subsequent fleety underwater swimming for a short period of time? Again: no one knows for absolute sure, I betcha. The ones that say they do are just plumping for more grant money and/or tenure.

C) Finally, an unambiguous question. George Harrison.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Good grief. Everyone knows The Edge is 3 months younger than Bono.

[luis-mw.livejournal.com]

They found somebody dumber than Jade? I didn't think that was possible while remaining within Homo Sap.

[shannachie.livejournal.com]

They've got Big Brother in Germany too. I am sure the intellectual level is the same, though I never watched more than a minute at a time and then it was zap or vomit.

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

"zap or vomit" I like it. I don't watch TV but if I did I think I'd pick up that phrase to describe a genre: "Z or V" shows. ;-)

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd heard that Beckham got sold to a Spanish team?
Or did he get traded back?

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Beckham is now playing professionally for a foreign team, not sure if it's Spanish or Italian. But in the World Cup, he plays for England. The English team is made up of players from many different teams. Think of the World Cup as sort of a nationalistic all-star tournament.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Actually it's "only just over a hundred England fans have been banned from Germany". Given the number who are over there that's a small fraction, and most of those who were banned were probably there to cause trouble (i.e. fans of trouble-causing rather than fans of football). The reports I've heard (even I can't totally avoid them) have been saying that this is good...

If England get to meet Germany in the final I may watch it, last time that happened and I watched England won (in 1966)...

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to know that our friend and neighbor across the water can be as fraught with idiots as this country. What a relief to remember that it isn't JUST American popular culture that is astonishingly stewwwwwwwwwwwwwwpid.

:-)