Fantasy Bob needs to apologise now - he is in Victor Meldrew mode. Worse that that, he is going to introduce 2 subjects that will be offensive to many of his loyal readers. The Olympics and football.
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He has just read that £460,000 has been awarded to a project which involves building a football pitch in the middle of a dense forest in the Scottish Borders. Two matches will be played by amateur footballers on this pitch after which it will be replanted as woodland. In 2011, and corrupted by the synchronised money wasting of the Olympics, this is classed as art.
FB is the last to deny the subjectivity of concepts of art and accepts absolutely that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but how making a football pitch can be described as art escapes him. Can it be that he is turning into a philistine in his maturity? Tree chopping, ground levelling and grass planting are not classes found at most art colleges - although FB is confident that many of the greats of the past, Leonardo amongst them, were pretty nifty at all 3 skills. But while Leonardo has left us a number of exquisite paintings, where are his football pitches?
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FB won't even lament that this project continues the Scottish obsession with football to the point of absurdity. It is a relief that the season is finally over. Regrettably it will return at all too soon a date. This season the game has shown to Scotland and the world its small minded, tribal, violent and spiteful core. To call it the beautiful game requires a high sense of irony.
FB's lament will not even touch on the fact that the construction of a cricket field and wicket would have had higher aesthetic merit. The creation of a good cricket wicket may even be justifiably described as an art - as Carlton's doughty groundsman with no name may attest. But so what?
FB's simple point is - if the purpose of having the Olympics is to inspire people to take up sport, how many sports clubs could this money have funded to provide opportunities for kids to learn some basic skills and enjoyment which will last them for life?
FB is now going to lie down in a darkened room.
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Scottish football represents tribalism of the worst sort. Why on earth we should be proud of it is beyond me.
ReplyDelete..and FB.
ReplyDelete