Don’t you hate it when you’re avoiding finding out the score in a sporting event because you’re going to watch it later and then something manages to spoil it? Whenever I’m avoiding finding out the score to something I make a point of telling people around me that I don’t want to know, and also tend to avoid sports news or TV channels that might leak the news. I do what I can.
What really gets my goat is when that news is found in a “neutral” place. For example when I’m watching a normal TV show that has nothing to do with sport and they decide to bring it up. Some, thankfully, have the decency to say things like “If you don’t want to know what happened in the <insert name of sport here>, look away now” or something.
Today I was trying to avoid finding out what happened in the cricket between England and New Zealand. To be on the safe side I avoided TV altogether this morning, just in case I heard the result. Yet obviously I had to do some research for today’s blog. I write about news stories, if I don’t know what happened, I can’t write about it.
So I popped over to NewsNow, as I do, but made a point not to even look at the sports section. I figured even if I did catch something out of the corner of my eye, if I wasn’t focussing on it I wouldn’t take in too much. Yet, when I go to the “current affairs” section I saw at least three stories about the bloody cricket, which have totally spoilt it for me.
Excuse me, but sports isn’t “current affairs”! Well, I suppose in the broadest sense, they are, since it’s “current” news but the point is that that term is used by those in the news media, and understood by those of us who consume it, as meaning politically or socially significant news stories. Despite how fans of a particular sport may feel, it isn’t “socially significant” to the majority, and certainly not in the greater scheme of things.
I curse you NewsNow, and your children, and your children’s children.
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