It’s England vs a nude soccer team . . . just don’t ask about the tackles
We Brits are a funny lot when it comes to our health. People are convulsed by fear; yesterday i heard a youngish man scream: ‘Have some human decency!’ at a couple who were blocking the pavement.
in the old days, we just used to say: ‘excuse me.’ Covid-19 is a dreadful disease, but it isn’t likely to kill one in four of us — unlike heart disease and cancer, the two biggest causes of death in the UK.
to get us to sit down and watch a serious documentary about health, however, is practically impossible. We have to be caught off-guard, tricked into paying attention by celebrity Bake Off specials and high jinks with retired footballers.
Harry’s Heroes: Euro Having A Laugh (itV) claimed to be a sporting challenge, with a dozen ex-england stars getting into shape for a friendly match against their old German opponents.
For all the Churchillian speeches by manager Harry redknapp about laying the ghosts of World Cup defeats to rest, it wasn’t really about football. the practice matches never rose above the standard of a garden kickabout.
in reality, this was a documentary about the morbidities that gang up to kill middle-aged men — heavy drinking, obesity, smoking and lack of exercise.
they’re the things that will finish off most blokes, though you would never guess it to watch the news. And they are bad habits we pick up from the people we live and work with: a killer lifestyle can be just as contagious as a virus.
the opening episode centred on former tottenham and Liverpool defender Neil ‘razor’ ruddock, a 25st bear of a man whose idea of a good time is to down pints of lager while playing Mickey Mouse — putting his wife’s black bra on his head as the ears.
it took a blazing row between ruddock and ex-Arsenal ace Paul Merson, both 52, to bring the dangers of his boozing out into the open. Merse, a recovering alcoholic recently on the wagon, told razor he was killing himself and accused him of getting ‘paralytic’. razor took offence and threatened to shove his mate through a door.
there were tears, before the two men shook hands and pretended it was ‘just a barney’. But for a brief moment, they had faced reality and forced viewers to think about it, too. Other than that, the show was notable only for a six-a-side game against some Parisian nudists, who wore socks, boots and nothing else.
the Frenchmen hurled themselves into the game. ‘they’re quite hard in the tackle, these boys,’ mused Harry. Ooh la la!
Nothing stronger than tea was in evidence as University Challenge
brainboxes eric and Bobby set off for a second road tour of Britain, in Monkman & Seagull’s Genius Adventures (BBC2).
the closest the amiable duo got to a ‘barney’ was a discussion about whether it would be easier to fight 100 duck-sized horses than a single horse-sized duck (for the record, Monkman regarded a two-ton mallard as quite formidable).
the chaps were exploring the history of the industrial revolution, buzzing around seagull’s blue Mini. When i interviewed the two friends last month, Bobby seagull admitted that he’s a much better driver when eric is beside him, chatting away about Newtonian physics or how oxygen used to be known as ‘dephlogisticated air’.
Without the stream of science to calm him, seagull says: ‘i can’t actually drive. When i drive eric, i get new competence.’
it’s a charming, very un-macho friendship — a natural kinship of two exceptionally bright minds that makes for happy viewing.
STRANGE RIDE OF THE NIGHT:
Artist, singer, womaniser and multi-instrumentalist funk musician Ike White was also a violent man — and a murderer. The Changin’ Times Of Ike White (BBC4) told his bizarre story. Self-destructive in every way.