Best Of

I enjoy the Boat Race but should such a celebration of privilege and elitism be a major live broadcast on the BBC? Not sure. Think I'd rather it was on Eurosport.

As opposed to sports where the players are millionaires, the owners are criminal billionaires and tickets can reach 5 figures?

However football is the purest meritocracy. Perhaps the purest of all. Not that I'm the world's biggest fan of meritocracy (as previously discussed).

Ha ha

I guess you’ll have to wait until the shenanigans around players careers gets outed.

Meaning? ...

Without getting Mike into trouble - the whole system of player recruitment is corrupt. Given the money kicking (!) around, it’s inevitable.

Ah ok. Agents. Kickbacks. All that. Yes it's corrupt. Money does that. But what I meant is with big ticket football you can be pretty certain that the players who make it to the top ARE the best players both actual and potential. Or rather that this is more true than in almost any other field. Why? Because it's open to all and so many have a go as kids. It's a massively wide funnel and you progress on talent plus application.

"Hey Jurgen, can you give Hugo a game against Man U? I know his dad. He's a solid chap."

Don't think so.

Think - two kids. Equal ability. Who gets the next step up? Yes, indeed.

My guess it that it will explode in the next few years.

Cambridge are magic, Oxford are tragic.

Once again, Cambridge are magic, Oxford are tragic.

The boat race used to be really big. When I was at school in an area where no-one went to university, the boat race was big. Today, I only realised it was on when checking the news.

It's still quite big, I'd say. Along with the Grand National and the Masters it marks the start of Spring for the sports fan.

I'm not into it but I usually at least know it is happening from seemingly loads of promotion on the BBC site in the days leading up to it. This year I've somehow escaped any notice of it.

I think Rishi Sunak is a decent enough PM, competent and is clearly a massive step up from Truss and Johnson.

But he's still defending 13 years of failure, in which people see their lives getting worse and not better and they see things like energy bills going up and everything getting more expensive. His wealth is an issue as people see him as out of touch.

As a man to steady the ship he's good - but I just cannot see why anyone would come out to vote for his party in big numbers at this stage.

The remarkable thing is that the Tories are just now discovering the merits of quiet, reasonably competent government having spent a fair few years insistent on subjecting us to precisely the opposite. Which leaves us non-Tories wondering why they ever thought it a good idea to inflict Johnson and Truss on us in the first place?

Sunak was appointed by the MPs, the other two were appointed by the membership - a diminishing number of people unrepresentative of Conservative voters as a whole.

I enjoy the Boat Race but should such a celebration of privilege and elitism be a major live broadcast on the BBC? Not sure. Think I'd rather it was on Eurosport.

As opposed to sports where the players are millionaires, the owners are criminal billionaires and tickets can reach 5 figures?

However football is the purest meritocracy. Perhaps the purest of all. Not that I'm the world's biggest fan of meritocracy (as previously discussed).

Ha ha

I guess you’ll have to wait until the shenanigans around players careers gets outed.

Meaning? ...

Without getting Mike into trouble - the whole system of player recruitment is corrupt. Given the money kicking (!) around, it’s inevitable.