Tuesday 24 June 2014

The Big Screen - A Steve Rant




‘You enjoying the football?’ Johnny asked Steve as he sat down with two fresh pints.
‘Oh I can take it or leave it,’ Steve said, not looking particularly enthused by the topic of conversation.
‘Really? It's been pretty good so far, best World Cup for years.’ Johnny continued, unperturbed by Steve's dismissive reply. ‘Netherlands Spain was a classic.’
‘Yeah I saw a bit of that, fair play it was a good game.’ Steve said but then he paused, his mind was whirring, Johnny could sense a rant, he was not wrong. ‘But you know what pisses me off about football?’
Here we go, thought Johnny, here we go, no doubt Steve’s ire would be directed at the players arguing with refs or the play acting, about it not being as gentlemanly as rugby.’
‘It's the bloody big screen,’ said Steve much to Johnny surprise.
‘But you never get to see the big screen?’ Johnny said searching his memory bank.
‘No but the cameras are always trying to pick people out and then you see their reaction.
Ah this is going to be one of his feminist rants, thought Johnny, they only pick out pretty women, it’s sexist and demeaning. He sat back and waited for it.
‘So there’re two reasons I don’t like the big screens,’ said Steve, ‘the obvious one is the way the fans see themselves and then wave at the screen. The bloody camera picking them out is right next to them but they don’t turn to look at that, oh no, they wave at the screen, so no one sees their faces, idiots.
Johnny nodded it was idiotic, ‘but that’s not confined to football Steve, is it?’ he countered. ‘and they want to see themselves.’
‘Idiots’ said Steve dismissing Johnny’s argument.
‘Okay you said two reasons’ Johnny said knowing when there was no winning. But he was regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth.
‘Yeah’ Johnny could see Steve was lining up his winning penalty.  ‘During the Spain game the camera panned on a Spanish fan looking forlorn, heartbroken crestfallen, like his world was about to end. Then this poor, distraught soul saw himself on the big screen and started leaping around like Spain had won the World Cup. Well that just shows how shallow these football fans are. And also’ Steve was in fu;l flow now, ‘during anthems of one of the other games some fan had her hand on her heart, passionately belting out the anthem with gusto until she saw herself on the big screen and forgot all about her national pride and started jumping up and down like an X Factor winner. What is wrong with these people? Appearing on the big screen at football does not make you model, does not make you famous and does not make you any more important than the rest of us.’
‘You sound jealous,’ Johnny said teasing his friend.
‘Jealous? Jealous? Why would I be jealous?’
‘I dunno maybe you want your 15 seconds of fame.’
Steve smiled ‘well if the camera picked me out I'd sure as hell look straight in to it and not wave at the screen.’
Johnny desperately wanted to change the subjects but his bladder was empty and his pint glass  was full.
‘What do you think of the new vanishing spray?’ he said.

‘Oh that’s great isn’t it’ Steve replied and Johnny felt a whole lot better.  

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