Sympathy for the devil
I've always wanted to write a story about sandwich toasters and called it 'Sympathy for the Breville', but the opportunity has never arisen. Anyway, this isn't about devils, or sandwich toasters, but sprinter Dwain Chambers - who will not, it seems, be going to Beijing with the British Olympic team.
He's a cheat. He's a fraud. And he's paid the ultimate price. And yet I feel uncomfortable with some of the vitriol aimed at him. I wonder if there might not be some other agenda at work.
You may not be surprised to learn that this involves the Daily Express, who, as I mentioned earlier today, are now Racism Central in the British press.
Have a look at this and see what you think:
The Daily Express today takes a resounding stance against drug cheat Dwain Chambers, declaring him persona non grata in our Olympic coverage.
Should self-confessed steroid abuser Chambers be granted his wish in the High Court this morning and be allowed to gatecrash Britain’s team, we will refuse to allow him to overshadow the efforts of the dedicated, clean athletes proudly representing us in Beijing.
If Chambers goes he will cast a dark shadow over the Games, representing no one but himself with his presence a huge embarrassment to all British athletics fans.
So we aim to push him back into the shadows where he belongs.
We will record his results but little else – even if he wins gold. One drug cheat cannot be allowed to cast a dark stain over the efforts of so many others.
Have Your Say is unavailable for this story
Overshadow... dark shadow... shadows... dark stain.
Is there something else going on here?
And why on earth did the Express disable comments - can't they trust their readers to be sensible about this story and write about purely sporting matters?
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July 18th, 2008 - 14:31
This reminds me of the ‘Have Your say’ section around about Christmas last year, when the paper attempted to guage the popularity of Alesha Dixon with two Have Your Say questions about her.
A few days and a few tumbleweeds later, the paper got rid of one of the questions and left the other, eventually ending up with the princely sum of 5 comments, which may well be the lowest ever number of comments on a ‘Have Your Say’ section. One of them has now been removed for being offensive.
Maybe the editor learned something about what his readers want to hear about people with darker skin from that.