European Championships 2024 - Qualifiers

Perfect outcome then !!

 

Iceland were promoting a "hot tick bun" yesterday instead of the usual hot cross bun.

Of course the usual suspects (Farage, Tice, 30p Lee etc) went into meltdown... bemoaning the "woke" attack on our British Christian traditions.

It was all just a publicity stunt in a nod to the whole Nike controversy and they are not really producing tick cross buns.

Just shows how easily people get offended though.

 

No, apparently it’s a “nod to 1966”.

Nope, me neither.

 

All these people are going to be absolutely livid when they realise that the St George's flag didn't even appear on the shirts worn by Our Brave Boys at Wembley in 1966, or in 1990, or in 1996 for that matter.

And wait till they see what the Great Britain Olympic team do to the Union Flag every four years! Stella McCartney made some of the red bits of the Union Flag BLUE at London 2012. BLUE, I tell you. It's a bloomin' outrage.

The Culture War really has entered its most moronic phase. Knees jerking all over the place. People saying things without the first idea of history or precedent. Just pure, unvarnished, idiotic outrage from all the usual suspects.

It's fabulously entertaining, especially when you can read someone's opinion about the flag on the England shirt and know immediately what they think about a dozen other issues. It's like a sort of moron filter.

 

It’s certainly got the flag shaggers in a state close to combustion!

Personally I don’t see the point in changing it, I also don’t really care

 

I mean, I don’t disagree with any of this, and I agree the right wing frothing is absurd, but on the other hand, WTF was the point in changing it in the first place? Why do it? What has it achieved?

I’m a liberal, Labour voter incidentally, so not sure how this fits with your political narrative. So is Keir Starmer, and he has objected.

It’s stupid, “look at me” advertising ********, most probably done for commercial gain. Not sure why anyone left of centre should be supporting that.

 

And is there as much foaming at the mouth at the absolutely disgusting rip-off price of £125?

 

Yep, agree.

 

Some, but not as much.

 

If it was down to people like you our great club would still be playing in blue shirts rather than the glorious piss stains we see today.

 

tbc, I’ve no problem with the shirt but I just don’t see the point of altering a flag.

 

Flags are for northerners and Americans.

 

Yes, the flag thing is stupid.

But if you are going to use a flag at all, why not just use it as it is? Otherwise, I agree, don’t bother.

It’s a pointless gimmick.

 

They’ve done it countless times before without comment, just not in an election year with Lee Anderson and GBeebies around.

 

Fair point.

 

Fortunately we have some educational advice in this subject area from our favourite Old Fullerian. Now just take a short Tik Tok time-out with uncle Grant, he loves this sort of pointless flag-waving. Sit up at the back there and NO flagging.
What do the flags behind me mean? #SecretaryofState #transpor... | TikTok
I do hope we can all feel fully patronised by Watford's foremost chancer. And a lot of you thought that was our Gino. No chance!

 

The thing is, so-called culture war issues are not left or right. They're not even right or wrong. They are about provoking and then prolonging an argument. The aim is to get people riled up. And that's it. That's all that matters. The use issues to stoke anger and division. Their thinking doesn't have to be logical or consistent as long as the argument continues.

And the way to avoid prolonging the argument is to just quietly agree with part of the point being made and move on.

With specific regard to the flag on the new England shirt. It's been done before. The St George cross appeared on an England shirt in a different colour 13 years ago and literally no one cared. No one. There was no furore. It wasn't even a talking point. It wasn't an issue to draw up a list of who's the most patriotic. It was just a bit of design. So there's a precedent. What's changed is Britain. Morons have been given their giant megaphones to say stupid things loudly and, for some unknown reason, the rest of us have to take notice. Whether it's Barton or Fox or Tice or Farage. These people are saying what they say for no other reason than to get attention and to keep the pot of outrage boiling. It's absolutely idiotic and these people are not serious. They are just rabble rousers, appealing mostly to people who can't hold two thoughts in their minds at the same time.

With regard to Starmer – I don't agree with what he said but it literally doesn't matter one way or another that he agreed with the broad point that the cross shouldn't be tinkered with. By saying quite calmly what he said, he drew the sting out of the situation and he's avoided becoming the centre of a ridiculous, moron-led, entirely confected storm of controversy. So he took the only smart course of action open to him – which was to broadly agree with the wider point and then move on. And it's worked. The issue has died down, to a degree. Or at least he's not being painted as unpatriotic. If he'd said the opposite he'd have given the culture warriors precisely what they wanted.

The first season of Jon Ronson's Things Fell Apart podcast has a really interesting couple of episodes on the dawn of the 'culture war' in 1970s America. Anti-abortionists were getting nowhere – their issue was of no interest to anyone but a tiny, tiny fringe of a particular branch of the religious right – until ordinary women started protesting against them. It's a fascinating case study and well worth a listen.

And your analysis is entirely right. Nike is a private American company driven by a profit motive. The FA wants to earn as much as possible from kit deals. The shirt itself is apparently selling very well. That is probably all that actually counts.

I wonder how many of the people who are so angry about the flag design on the shirt are also loudly in favour of freedom of speech, private enterprise and profit. I expect there's quite an overlap but, like I say, a lot of angry people can't hold two thoughts in their minds at the same time!

 

@EnjoytheGame - While I agree with the vast majority of your post above (#124), 'culture wars', such as they are, aren't arguments for arguments sake, generally. They play an especially important role for those currently in power because it allows a whole number of smokescreens to be blown over what should be being talked about politically, even more so now as the country rumbles on towards a general election.

Enough of that though, apparently there's another section on the forum where that can be discussed by those with a better understanding of the subject than a pleb like me.

 

Alles klaer?



https://twitter.com/bryansgunn/status/1771569787677659420

 

Sorry to get this thread off-topic, but re the European Championship qualifiers, there's been some football. I watched Wales beat Finland on S4C and it was an interesting foreign language lesson. I now know the Welsh for miskick, holy-moly, 1-2, goalie and nitpicking. I also enjoyed a good performance and was pleased that Wales won.

And for the first time I saw a goal disallowed cos VAR ruled that the ball hadn't completely crossed the goslline. Isn't the goalline technology supposed to be foolproof?

 

Culture war bs designed to fire up the flag shaggers, ignore it.

 

They push the culture wars so we dont look at them and start the class war. Divide and conquer through mass mind control and manipulation through media.

 

Ah, that would figure. Your Welsh is obviously more advanced that mine - until tonight!

 

Wedi gwylio'r uchafbwyntiau ar y BBC yn Saesneg !

 

Lazy git! I watched the entire match, and look how my linguistic skills have come on!

 

Why are England playing Cuffley FC?!

 

Too much tippy tappy from England as usual. Belgium just sit back and wait for our inevitable mistakes and punish us. As for the blessed Bellingham, he has been s h I t

 

Ffwynnd goch harry secombe an hour gone bach 0-0 scrappy.

Gwyddiôh Brennan Johnson brch la Ian Rush in the crowd one disallowed for just offside. Bwchllddwd!