Fantastic news: crabs can hear!!! Yeah, really, those creepy, side-walking little tasty crustacea (and sometimes scarily big crustacea) can hear things. Scientists have shown. Like they needed to spend ‘our’ hard-earned dollars on that. Have they never seen Finding Nemo? Not only can crabs hear, they can speak, dance, drive cars and parachute out of a space satellite whilst singing a duet with a sabre-toothed mammoth! But no, some polytechnic in Nebraska or Arizona (or even possibly somewhere near the sea; I didn’t bother with too many details) sat around, probably stoned, and ‘brainstormed’ the idea of discovering if crabs had auditory senses. And they fucking do. They are sensitive to the noise of predator fishes. They hate the sounds made by their mothers-in-law about being a useless layabout wasting their life away being a bottom-feeder, and they really like Nirvana.

I wonder what crabs would make of Philip Neville? The ex-footballer for Manchester United, Everton and Ingerlund who’s been whisked into service by the BBC as a ‘commentator’. His qualifications for the job: he played a lot of football; he has a brother who is very clever and a great pundit on the game; errrrr… and he played a lot of football. Therefore must be able, competent and interesting enough to entertain the 75million people (approximately) who watched England lose to Italy on Saturday. Never commentated before, but heh: ‘how hard can it be????’

To hard for Phil, that’s for sure. He was soooooo dull, so boring, so tedious that there were 400 complaints. Even a police officer tweeted in that Neville was keeping the streets quiet by sending people to sleep. Montonous. Terrible. Northern.

Because being good at something is never an indicator that you can teach it, explain it or commentate on it in any meaningful or entertaining way. The BBC should have tested the man. A dry run. Here Phil, commentate on those people over there getting on a bus, let’s see what’cher made of. But no, in at the deep end and he drowned.

The whole pundit thing is odd. Punditry is being part of the media, not about being a sporting star. Yet they like stars over and above people who might be brilliant observers or even, heaven forbid, mildly entertaining.

Thierry Henry was a brilliant brilliant footballer (until that terrible and unforgivable handball goal) and he’s pretty. So he sits there, all cool and cardigans (sales of which have rocketed since the World Cup started) but says precisely nothing. He mumbles a bit but contributes nothing to the discussion. Though he does ‘sultry and bored’ better than anyone.

Whereas Alan Shearer is more exitable, but simply fails to express himself in any way that could be considered ‘communication’ with other humans. Maybe he’s there for the crabs.

Robbie Savage is there as a clown. A natural Welsh speaker, he too struggles to say anything that’s even worth trying to understand or translate.

I love Clarence Seedorf. Probably because he was a brilliant player right up to his retirement at 73 years old.

And although Gary Linneker appears as ‘the complete package’, being such a great footballer that he even played for Spurs, being handsome, intelligent and witty as well as knowledgable, he just comes across as rather smug half the time. Or at half time. Either way.

So here’s the rules for employing pundits:

No northerners, they are too boring and dim
No ex-Arsenal players, they’re too Arsenalish
No Liverpudlians (as opposed to other northerners) because they can’t be understood.
Same for Scots and Geordies
No Mancunians because after 7 seconds you want to slit your wrists.
The French are too pouty

So that leaves the Dutch and Brazillians. And Gary Linneker. And all the women in the world. Where are they when you need them?

Bring back Baddeil and Skinner.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx