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Big. Brass. Balls
Say what you like about The Sun and Trevor Kavanagh - they've got balls. Big, massive, cumbersome, huge, swinging, big brass balls.
Kavanagh writes an argument against press regulations in The Sun, claiming that 'the ordinary man and woman - including millions of Sun readers...will lose out if politicians seize control of the presses' and that the power of newspapers like The Sun to investigate stories in the public interest would be stymied by legislation announced in parliament on Thursday.
And, in The Sun - The Sun newspaper - Kavanagh provides some examples of stories that might not have been investigated if it were it not for the free press.
He writes in The Sun: 'Without a free Press, we will suffer ever more suffocating bureaucracy and more undiscovered corruption in our public life.
'Think of the Hillsborough cover-up...'
The Sun. Big. Brass. Balls.
Finger On The Pulse
The first thing Mediawatch does when we open Jeff Powell's weekly column for The Daily Mail website is do a quick 'Control+F Beckham'. The old boy always mentions his very favourite popinjay, and D-Beck does indeed make an appearance in this week's offering, but it's in the 26th paragraph and we'll get there in a minute.
Jeff's latest piece is about English teams in the Champions League, and how their poor performance this season is not a blip.
He begins: 'Blind believers in the innate superiority of all things British, English jingoists and worshippers of cheap celebrity would have us believe that it's only a blip.'
We'll pause for a moment for you to reflect on those words being carried in The Daily Mail.
The opening was strong, but he doesn't let up with the next few passages: 'If so, then the economic recession, the unnecessary deaths of thousands of NHS patients and the descent of the so-called Arab Spring towards the grim depths of nuclear winter are just glitches.
'No, football does not compare with the tragic woes of the world - even though Bill Shankly pronounced the game to be a more important matter than life and death - but the absence of English teams from the last eight of the Champions League is no mere hiccup.'
Again, we'll leave you to pick which part is your favourite chunk of insanity.
The rest of the piece argues that English football is basically heading down the toilet, and the lack of Premier League clubs from the latter stages of the Champions League 'is not a one-season coincidence'. We won't waste time putting any rebuttals to that forward, because those cases have already been made here and here.
What we will point out the problem inherent in the Daily Mail employing a man who apparently doesn't pay a great deal of attention to football to write a football column.
Powell states: 'Barcelona have grabbed the imagination but little or no attention has been paid to the Bundesliga becoming the power-house of Europe or Juventus leading an Italian revival. Nor would the French renaissance at PSG have caught the eye were it not for a certain Monsieur Beckham decorating their bench.'
This surely is proof that Powell no longer reads anything about the sport anymore, or at least confines his browsing to the back page of his own paper. It's like Powell himself has just noticed that there are football teams in other countries, but doesn't realise everyone else has been up to speed with that one for a little while.
And of course by saying PSG's 'renaissance' wouldn't have caught the eye were it not for Beckham, what he means is 'I'm so ludicrously out of touch that I only spotted it when the man I'm dangerously obsessed with signed for them, in order that I can fill myself with impotent rage over and over again'.
'One problem is that many of the leading figures, in their attitudes, die harder than Bruce Willis,' continues Powell. Mediawatch's Irony-O-Meter has just exploded.
Good
From Mark Lawrenson's predictions column for The BBC Website:
'Southampton v Liverpool - Liverpool look really good at the moment, they are playing some really good football and everything about them looks good.
'Tottenham looked a very good side for an hour or so at Anfield on Saturday...'
Sounds good.
Grievance
Intro by Neil Ashton in The Daily Mail: 'Roy Hodgson admitted Rio Ferdinand has every right to feel a 'grievance' towards him as he ended the Manchester United defender's international exile.'
Actual quotes by Roy Hodgson: "If Rio has a grievance and does hold it against me because I haven't previously selected him there's not much I can do about that."
Playing Time
Interesting logic from Roy Hodgson in picking his England squad. Joleon Lescott was left out on the ostensibly sensible basis that he "has been playing so little football".
Lescott has started 15 games this season. Not that many. Also in the squad are Ashley Young (15 starts), Chris Smalling (14) and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (15).
But perhaps Roy was referring to recent weeks, which would of course be more relevant to the selection of an international squad than the season as a whole.
In the last eight games, Lescott has made seven appearances, clocking up 353 minutes on the pitch. Young has played 188 minutes over three games, Smalling 189 minutes over three games and Oxlade-Chamberlain has been on the pitch for 96 minutes in three games.
To be fair, it would probably be bad form for Roy to say 'Yeah, he's just been gash, I'm afraid'.
Same Page
From the Big Weekend column on a website not a million miles from here:
'Should either/both Villa and QPR manage to tunnel their way out of the bottom three, two of the sides most likely to take their places meet at the Stadium of Light on Sunday...Sunderland are dropping like a rubber brick to the bottom of a municipal swimming pool.'
From the Cheeky Punt column on a website not a million miles from here:
'Bit of a nothing game this. Neither side look at though they are going to be dragged into a relegation dog-fight anytime soon...'
Jealousy
After the Champions League draw, part-time PSG sporting director, full-time dreamboat Leonardo was interviewed by his girlfriend, Anna Billo, for Sky Italia.
Leonardo went off topic a little and asked her to marry him.
Lucky bitch.
Shot Of The Day
Wondering how Djibril Cisse is getting on at AlGharafa? Well...mixed, is the best way to sum it up. He scored twice in their win over Sepahan, but he also did this.
Worst Headline Of The Day
'Adebayphwoar' - The Sun.
Non-Football Story Of The Day
'A news station affiliated to the Fox Network has apologised after broadcasting close-up file footage of women's breasts in a piece meant to be marking Women's History Month. Fox CT was reporting on a march in Hartford, the state capital of Connecticut, but camera shots lasting 15 seconds instead lingered on a number of women's chests as they walked around - and nothing else. Despite the female anchor struggling to conceal her unease at the segment, the same footage was later rebroadcast by the station.
'Fox CT apologises for today's file footage error,' Fox CT subsequently wrote on Twitter. 'We will continue to recognize great contributions of women in CT and around the world.' Gaia Barbara McDermott, who uploaded the footage to Facebook, had earlier demanded an apology from Fox CT. 'Woman are NOT objects,' she wrote. 'Women are not breasts.' Christopher Phelps responded: 'Do have to give the anchor a little bit of credit. You can definitely hear the "WTF?" in her voice' - Metro.
Thanks to today's Mediawatch spotters Laith Gibani and Rob White. If you see anything that belongs on this page, mail us at theeditor@football365.com, putting 'Mediawatch' in the subject field.
