Well, for one thing, I promise not to join in the raving just because England beat France by being the slightly less awful team on the night. This does not make them heroes, and although some of them are ugly enough to warrant the label of bulldogs, that comes with the territory. But what bugs me more is the idea that they are ‘underdogs’, just because they’ve spent most of the last four years being rubbish. Teams with the resources and support England have at their disposal are not underdogs. Argentina are underdogs. England are just under-achievers. (Better than being chokers, though, some might say.)
[Update after watching the South Africa/Argentina game: Goddam, the ITV commentary was hilarious tonight. One of them (Will Greenwood, apparently) just could not stop himself from breaking off in the middle of his commentary on the game being played to talk about the England game (’Good pass… and what about that move by Jason Robinson last night then? And JONNY JONNY JONNY!!!’) and gloating about the exits of the All Blacks and Aussies, while the other kept trying to lead him back to the matter in hand… except when he forgot and stopped for a quick crow of his own. Who needs unbiased commentary anyway? Priceless.]
Where was I? Oh yes, promises. Real posts in the not-too-distant future! I swear! Maybe even two of them! I’ve been sent a copy of Andrea McKenzie’s new book Tyburn’s Martyrs by the publishers. So I’ll write something about that fairly soon. Man, it’s nice when people send you free things.
I’ve been doing a bit of cleaning and tidying up over on EMR. So I promise to start getting more of those posts out of the black hole more commonly known as the ‘drafts folder’. (If you emailed me months ago to suggest a link and it still hasn’t appeared, that’s where it’s got to…) And I will try to post more events on Early Modern News. I’ve already taken the opportunity to post a CFP for a new series of seminars at the Globe Theatre in London, which may interest some of you.