Should I watch a BBC4 documentary on the British Enlightenment or Grand Prix snooker on Beeb 2?
Or perhaps I should indulge in a spot of burglary in Twickenham. It’s a tough call – but they can’t be any worse than watching England in the Rugby Union World Cup final. Okay, so the burglary bit was a joke but the dilemma is genuine. I can’t get that excited about the rugby. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against rugby itself. Given the sorry state of Saturday night TV, I might even end up watching the damn thing – though I’d rather be at home than in a gastropub surrounded by braying toffs in England rugby shirts. Everyone’s entitled to their fun, even posh boys. But what’s really wound me up is the way that, rather than just enjoying the rucking and mauling and leaving the rest of us in peace, the bastards insist on using rugby as a stick with which to beat football. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the amazing zero-to-hero renaissance of the England rugby team is the rekindling of the ‘rugby versus football’ debate that briefly raged in 2003. The Times (London), f
