Cod Almighty | Diary

Just abandon your sad history and meet me in the fire

8 August 2024

It's all kicking off here in the Fens. Our own race riot every morning. Gulls versus crows. From 5am the wheeling, cawing and screaming commences. But today they were briefly trumped by a skein of honking geese to which your Guest diarist looked up and saluted. It broke me off from a very deep think about the fast-approaching season. Which will be better - good old Blunderside or evilSKY?

As my only regular reader (that's you namechecked!) will know I don't travel anymore. The rot set in when I could not face being in the same postcode as John Fenty, or give him access to any of my money. I'd stopped flying ten years earlier, but then I stopped driving anywhere that would take longer than a day's walk. So now my world is a very small one. Unlike my metro-liberal elitist buddies I never minded Sky - to the point where they send us freebies because we have subscribed for over 30 years. Money was gonna take over sport anyway and Sky were and are better than some of the alternatives. I took the morning off today because, via Sky, I can watch the whole heptathlon session uninterrupted by either adverts or constant studio-based filler (that's you BBC). And tomorrow I can watch Chesterfield kick off the new season in a fixture so important that the Olympics had to bring forward their final kick off time by three hours to avoid the clash.

But, come Saturday, do I watch the Mariners on Sky (channel 412, hit the red button) or on Mariners TV? It is a difficult one. I actually like the single camera, one quick replay technology of Mariners TV. You do really feel like you are sitting in the Upper watching the game with a chatty pair commentating next to you. I am assuming Sky will have more than one camera but no-one has said if the TV feed is shared or competing. If JT was still guiding me through the game it would be a no-brainer but he won't be and so, for me, the local edge has dissipated. The new bloke seems a nice chap but there's no real insight and too much talking - last season I ended up turning him down and put some music on.

So, on Saturday, in the interests of science I will have both feeds on simultaneously to see which I prefer. It will be a right mess because they won't synchronise. But then I am used to often seeing a Twitter reaction before I actually see summat happen on the telly. This means if we mess up passing out from the back I will have to endure it multiple times. But remember - defensive mistakes are built in to the new algorithm; we suffer them for the greater good. See yer.