Weird stories and words not to use
Because of the nature of my work holidays throw me out of whack, but some things still remain the same no matter when they happen.
The Week
Always a weird one when it’s Easter or Christmas. Normal people do normal things, but for journalists, particularly in sport, it’s a busy time.
It’s hard to think that, a year ago, there was no sport going on was the world locked down and the pandemic began to take hold. Robbed of live sport, for weeks we wallowed in nostalgia instead, reliving old memories, many of them great, some not so much.
We’re almost back to normal now. Football is back on, albeit behind closed doors, and the Easter games led in to the Champions League ties and life almost seems normal. It’s not, of course, but that is the great distraction of sport. As vaccines are being rolled out, plans are being made to cover the European Championships and the Olympics.
A pandemic that changed all our lives will hopefully end with a whimper rather than a bang.
The Protest
The recent men’s international break brought about protests from various teams about the upcoming World Cup in Qatar, with the Norwegians first out the gate. Perhaps the most interesting protest took place without fanfare yesterday in Belgium, as the Norwegian women’s team each wrote a letter on their hands to spell out the words “human rights”.
Why was it interesting? Because holding a women’s World Cup in Qatar, where homosexuality is a crime, would be impossible.
I’ve had the privilege of working with the Norwegian women’s team, and there are several gay players in it. Women’s sport has always been a lot more accepting of gay athletes than men’s sport has, for a variety of reasons.
That’s not to say that there aren’t gay male footballers - there are. We just don’t know they’re gay.
There will be 736 players at the World Cup in Qatar - if we accept that somewhere between one and ten percent of the world’s population is gay (a fairly wide span, but that’s the point), that means somewhere between seven and 73 gay players.
Now imagine a men’s World Cup where that number of players would be criminals in the country the finals are due to take place in.
This is one of the reasons why Qatar is not a suitable place to hold a World Cup in, and it’s crass to say it, but the criminalising of millionaires who play for some of the world’s biggest clubs might just have more effect than the deaths of the poor brown people building the stadiums and the highways and the rest of the infrastructure.
Either way, it forces us to ask ourselves - where are our boundaries? Labour exploitation? Homophobia? Or will it take something more for us to come to our senses?
The Short Story
Last week’s wander into Weirdsville by publishing a short story called “Boulder” rather than a regular newsletter was an odd success.
Even in this data-driven age, I never pay much attention to page views or listens, but last week I noticed that the mail I got from Substack indicated an awful lot of readers for.
Instead of numbers I try to use real-life engagement as a measuring stick for what I do; in other words, if someone contacts me to share a thought or some feedback, then I consider whatever prompted it a success.
Let me know what you think in the comments or on social media - always happy to hear from you.
And if you do enjoy something, why not tell a friend?
The Thing Not To Say
This week was Yom HaShoah, or ‘Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day’, to give it its full title.
There are certain stories we can never stop telling - about slavery, about colonialism, about the Holocaust. We can try to find new ways to keep people interested, but we don’t tell these stories for entertainment - we tell them for educational purposes, because they are the kinds of things we all need to be reminded of regularly.
That’s why it’s so important not to allow them to be misappropriated and devalued.
For instance, there is a tendency among anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protestors to liken things to the Nazis and the Holocaust.
Don’t do that.
I don’t care how much you think your freedoms are being impinged.
Nothing you are going through is anything like what the Jewish people and others went through under the Nazis.
And before you say “what about…?”, just don’t. There is no context - none - in which such an argument is acceptable.
If you can’t find another way to express yourself without erroneously referencing the Holocaust, then maybe your argument isn’t as strong as you thought.
The Podcast
… was eaten by gremlins this week. It was a half-hour explanation of the ethics of naming people accused of crimes in the press, and why that is done in Ireland and the UK but not in places like Sweden, but the recording turned out to be inaudible because I presumably didn’t click one of the many, many boxes it takes to get these things to work properly.
My apologies, normal service will be resumed next week.
The Good News
I did an interview last week with a musician that was fantastic fun, but it won’t be published until Monday so I’m not at liberty to reveal any of the details just yet. Looking forward to telling you the back story of it when I can in next week’s newsletter.
Until then, mind yourself and have a great week.