A bit of Tom Stack style realism

With apologies to Thomas Gray

The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day.

The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea.

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

                                                                          Thomas Gray 1716-71

Elegy in the Real World by Tom Stack

As the Evil Empire sinks its fangs ever deeper into the fabric of British Sporting Life, has the time come to repatriate our destiny, as the nation that prides itself on fair play and level playing fields.

  For if the invasion by our Antipodean allies, becomes all consuming, as appears to be the case. Especially if the launch of their new Formula One Motor Racing channel, is anything to go by, projecting it as if they now own the TV rights to F1 and every other sporting activity, in perpetuity. (It could bear distinct similarities to the way the Treaty of Nanking 1842, ceded the island of Hong Kong to the British Crown in Perpetuity). Though it could be there’s a lesson here, like? ‘Nothing is Forever’?

   Soon maybe we’ll wake up and discover they’ve hi-jacked the Horse & Country Channel and wish to charge us for watching the Ploughing Competitions. (At least that’s all in a straight line). Then when it’s all done and dusted we get to watch a Paint Drying event, just to soften us up. But seriously if we don’t act to stem this rising tide, we’ll all be drowning in a sea of subscriptions steadily and remorselessly creeping up to more than £500 per annum, on top of the licence fee.

  So with all the resources at their command, is it not time to set the BBC free to compete on a level playing field by using the massive income they enjoy for the benefit of the hard pressed taxpayers who contribute the Beeb’s income of £3,500+mn circa annually, in its entirety. Usually for no other reason than the most morbid of social engineering experimentation? Scrap the licence fee and turn it into a voluntary subscription channel. Let's have a bit of real competition. 

  No more streaming of cut price discarded snippets cast at our feet from on high, by the Evil Empire, in the way the best of British Football has been destroyed, by an Arena Mentality more suited to the Roman Empire with the following of a baying mob and a wages which make a Banker's bonus look like small change.

Watch this space, I’ll be back! 

 Tom.