How Football Sounds To People That Don't Care

Firstly, imagine every time within a day that football is mentioned by someone else. Secondly, replace it with something that you don't want to hear about every day. Say... Archaeology. Then, think carefully about how an average day would pan out.

So, you awaken to the clock radio. It's 7AM. Just as you awaken, it's time for the news and archaeology already. Not news and other historical investigations, like library restorations or museum openings (unless there's another event happening), but just the news and archaelogy. Malaysian plane is still missing. Pistorius is still on trial. New dig announced in Giza. Ancient Mayan temple discovered. Exciting stuff.

Time for a bite to eat over the morning TV. More news. More archaeology. Yes, you are aware of what is up with the missing plane. Fine. Now the archaeology in video format. Video of people dusting off some skulls and bits of pottery. All well and good, but archaeology isn't your thing. It would be nice to hear about something else.

Even when it isn't archaeology season, the media follow noted archaeologists. They drive fast cars, date beautiful women, advertise fragrances, and sometimes they go to nightclubs and act in the worst possible way. Scandals erupt as the tabloids follow these new celebrities when they're not searching the past for answers. It is entirely possible you can recite the names of certain researchers, even if you don't pay attention to archaeology. You don't know what transfer season is, but you know that someone was transferred to a dig in Peru for a sum of money that could fund the London Underground for two whole days.

Out of the car at 8:55 and into work. What are the colleagues talking about, I wonder? Oh, Jones dropped a 3,890 year old pot and smashed it? What a useless winker! Someone should do something unpleasant to him. And don't even ask about the unfortunate incident in Athens two years ago - you'll be there all day! Breaking a pillar like that! We don't talk about that here, mate. What? You don't want to discuss the finer points of the prevalence of phallic imagery in Pompeii? Is there something wrong with you?

The drive home from work. Every thirty minutes, no matter the station, someone mentions the archaeology. Best sit in silence. Drive past a huge billboard with a black and white picture of a rakishly handsome archaeologist draped over an impossibly beautiful woman. He's winking at you. Trowel in his left hand, supermodel in the right. Jurassic, by Calvin Klein.

And now the pub. A nice pub with a beer garden. Posters in the windows. LIVE EXCAVATION AT THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS! All of it on a huge TV with the volume up too loud. Drunken people yelling at the screen. "SEND IT FOR CARBON DATING, YOU USELESS ***K!" "WHAT ARE YOU ON, MATE? DUST THE ANCIENT MEDALLION GENTLY! SMELTING METHODS OF THE TIME PRODUCED VERY SOFT AND IMPURE METALS EASILY PRONE TO DISFIGURATION!" All this from two men out of a crowd of twenty. One lousy drunken idiot and his chum ruin the image of other archaeology fans. Carbon dating report from the lab updates on TV, read by a man employed because they've been following the beautiful science since they were a boy. The drunk chimes in again. "WHAT PHARAOH'S REIGN DID YOU SAY? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THE UNDERPINNINGS OF OUR THEORY OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF 4TH BC EGYPT? GET IN, MATE!" A cheer cascades through the building and you can only wonder why.

Best go home and avoid anyone who might be drinking and singing. You once met a disagreeable chap who threatened to beat you up because you didn't watch the archaeology. "Not a late paleolithic era supporter are you? Think you're better than me? I'll have you, you scrawny tw*t!"

To bed. To repeat the cycle tomorrow. The inescapable, inevitability that wherever you go, someone, somewhere, is just dying to talk to you about the archaeology.

Funnily enough I just got sent this to me as my wife is an archaeologist    it is very true though

Nobody would talk to an archaeological friend of mine after he surprised people with a slide show of Kassite ceramic wall-pins after a dinner party. But he was from Oxford, so his conversation wasn't much of a loss anyway.

This is so true - there's still about a month to go before it even starts, and I'm already seeing stupid adverts that grate.  Looks like a long summer...

Quote from: cra1gwt on 14 May 2014, 05:41:56 AM
This is so true - there's still about a month to go before it even starts, and I'm already seeing stupid adverts that grate.  Looks like a long summer...

Turn off TV, pick up a book or paint brush     

I would quite happily listen and watch both

Even out here, one sees a lot of worthy Siamese in Manchester United tee-shirts.

Quote from: FierceKitty on 14 May 2014, 09:00:53 AM
Even out here, one sees a lot of worthy Siamese in Manchester United tee-shirts.

I never thought that breed had much intelligence. 

That's my wife you're talking about!

Why, does she have a black tail and ears?

Awww, sweeeeet....

Football doesn't bother me, it's golf talk at my work that pushes me to the brink of despair!

Golfers - people so stupid that they take 25 hours to plan a morning round at a local course.........

IanS

Outsiders have been known to say things about our hobby showing a less than perfect understanding of its many good points.

I'm invited to contribute some hard labour on a dig on the Antonine Wall this summer which will fill in the gap between bouts of despair following the fortunes of East Stirlingshire FC. Makes everyone happy, I suppose.