The hands that strangle England

At 1.15pm on Saturday, 5 Live and TalkSport were all over Everton, but on 5 Live Extra there was no service. Today, when it’s Chabal v Italy! Why is nobody broadcasting the bloody rugby? I go round to consult my neighbour Henry, who says there is literally no radio coverage on any station, “because it’s a meaningless game”. Meaningless in general or meaningless to people listening to the radio? “Just watch it on the telly,” he says. “But that would be cheating,” I say. “Well, turn the picture down and watch it on the telly. Or put a coat over the telly and listen to it like that. I dunno.”

Behind him, on the screen, there was talk of “great hands that want to strangle England”. Henry turned round to watch. “He’s trimmed his hair,” he said. “Or maybe his beard is just bigger.”

“See the pace and power of him,” panted the TV. “He’s purring there over the ten-metre line into the freshness of the Roman breeze . . .” What are these TV pundits on? I mean, what is it about that medium in particular that makes people altogether abandon their civility and dignity?

Obviously Sébastien Chabal is fit, he’s hot, he’s in shape, he’s got it all going on, he’s no slouch physiognomy-wise, he’s extremely attractive, he’s the sexual equivalent of a laser flashing until you coagulate and flatline, he has the kind of body that only comes along once every millennium, usually to signify the destruction of the world by flames, he has caught my eye, so to speak.

In short: his person has made an impression. It’s not like I’m going to hide it, it’s not like I’m going to pretend, it’s not like I’ve been googling him since 2007 to the extent that my habit is now completely out of control, causing me nights of total isolation, or like I’ve gone all weird on you and am incapable of passing a bath or a shop with baths in the window without imagining him sitting in all of them wearing a big straw hat, reading Viz in the original French. It’s not like I’m being a Nick Hornby-like obsessive about this!

But let’s just suppose I was a sports pundit on the television – as opposed to someone who just puts their coat over the TV and pretends it’s a radio. (TV was actually invented before the radio, according to Will Self. Apparently someone just put their telly in a cupboard while it was on and then magically shut the doors.) Now, do I strike you as someone who would actively want it known that I’d like to be dragged through a swamp screaming with wild-dog joy while my personal, internationally ballistic, Cro-Magnon man forces woolly mammoths up against the electric fence of the compound?

Am I so obviously someone who thinks civilisation has had it? I mean forget language, forget Tangerine Dream and the National Enquirer and Two Lochs Radio and all the rest of the good stuff, I don’t care about any of it, actually, and never really did – I’m through with that jive, and being reasonable about things
in general, done, over, closing the lid. Just never, ever, ever trim your hair again, baby, OK? Let it blot out the horizon for all time!

And when you croak, I promise I’m gonna get you stuffed and exhibited in the main lobby of the Natural History Museum.

Then, on Tuesday morning, Alan Garner was on Radio 4 talking about The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (24 March, 11.30am). Which was excellent.

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