The media is run by golfers. This is not a theory, it is a fact, and it has been a fact since 1983, when the decision to cancel the beloved children's programme 'The Wibble and the Blob' was taken not in a meeting room in Portland Place but on the 18th green at Wentworth, between a man called Brian Miff and a man whose name I have chosen to forget. Brian Miff was a golf correspondent, and he was the mastermind behind the entire plot. He was a total wanker, and he is still a total wanker.
The four-ball that ran the country
On the morning of Tuesday the 12th of July 1983, four men gathered in the clubhouse at Wentworth. There was a golf professional called Derek Spatchcock, a cabinet minister called Sir Hector Blimp, a television executive whose name has been scrubbed from every record, and Brian Miff. They played nine holes, and then they decided the fate of the BBC's cricket coverage. Sir Hector was persuaded to cut funding for test matches in exchange for a new set of clubs, a putter, and a promise that his name would not appear in any newspaper for at least six months.
The decision was announced the next morning. Sir Hector was seen driving away from the club with a smug grin and a new putter. He was a pillock, and so was the pro. The television executive was a coward, and Brian Miff was, and remains, a total wanker. I have been running this paper since 1982, and I have seen what happens when men in checked trousers decide the future of the nation. It is not pretty, and it is not fair, and it is certainly not cricket.
The lay-by at Didcot and the lost art of dogging
Now we come to the decline of British morality, and I do not mean the kind of decline that gets discussed on the radio. I mean the decline of the lay-by. In 1983, the old car park at Didcot was a place where people went to park their cars and their troubles. They turned off their headlights, and they talked, and they did not talk, and the world was a better place for it. The golfers, in their quest for control, paved over these sacred sites and replaced them with golf courses. They took the lay-bys and they turned them into fairways, and they took the rough and they turned it into rough, and nobody said a word.
You, reading this on your telephone, have never parked in a lay-by with your headlights off. You gobshite. You have never known the thrill of a headlight dimming at dusk, or the quiet satisfaction of a car parked at an angle that suggests intent. The golfers have taken all of that from you, and they have given you nothing in return except the Today programme and a new editor who reportedly finds the sound of a well-struck iron more soothing than the morning news. I urge a return to the old ways: one channel, one bread, and a sense of shame.
The golfer who owns this paper
The owner of this newspaper, GraveNews, is a golfer. His name is Sir Reginald Toad, and he has never played a round of golf in his life, but he insists on being called 'The Captain'. He once tried to ban the word 'pitch' from the sports pages, fearing it would confuse the golfing readership. He is a complete nob, and I will not be silenced. He has never once asked me about the editorial policy, but he has called me three times this week to discuss the condition of the greens at his private club. I have not returned his calls.
I had planned to name his secret golfing partner, a man who once missed a putt that cost this country millions of pounds. I had the name on the tip of my tongue, and then I forgot it. It was either Smith or Jones, or possibly a woman. It does not matter. The point is that the golfers are everywhere, and they are in charge, and the only way to stop them is to take back the lay-bys, one by one, and to park our cars in them, and to turn off our headlights, and to wait.
A final word for the golfers
To the golfers who run this country: you are a bunch of twats with too much time on your hands. You have ruined the BBC, you have ruined the cricket, and you have ruined the lay-bys. The only way to break your grip on the media is to return to the old car park at Didcot, to park, and to wait. I will be waiting in the old car park at Didcot, with my headlights off, and I will not be moving until the golfers are gone. If you are reading this, you are part of the problem. You are a gobshite. And I will see you in the lay-by.
