Cod Almighty | Diary

Get your sandals on, Jesus, we need you down here

11 March 2022

I was in Superdrug the other day, sort of semi-aware of the ghastly pop music coming over the tannoy but trying to drown it out with my own thoughts, such as they are. Suddenly the music stopped and an excited female voice said "This is Superdrug radio, for that Superdrug feeling!" I wondered what the "Superdrug feeling" might be. The main feeling I get in Superdrug is that something has gone so horribly wrong with my life that I've ended up in this shitty plastic drug warehouse looking for cheap painkillers for my knackered knee. Was that the vibe they were looking for?

I worked in a shop briefly a few years ago. As the only person in the shop I was able to choose my own music, which, since my taste in music is faultless and fabulous, led to many Cleethorpes residents enjoying a solid musical education. However, the boss found out and made me go back to Radio 2. "Some people," he said, "might not like your music." Some people might not like Radio 2 either, I pointed out, for example anyone whose soul hasn't died. For some reason, though, the banal always wins. The banal is the bog-standard. The banal doesn't challenge and doesn't inspire, and that's what we want.

Look at football grounds. How many football grounds are soulless, joyless and built to destroy inspiration?  Have you ever been to Northampton? It's like Immingham shopping centre, but instead of one of the doors leading you into B&M, it leads you to a pitch. Remember, there is no reason why anything, I mean anything in the man-constructed world – factories, football grounds, housing estates, power stations – can't be beautiful. The reason you end up with ugliness and banality in the world is that someone somewhere is, in their minds, playing it safe. 

I grew up in the era of wonderful footballers like Glenn Hoddle and Matt le Tissier. There was always a dispute about whether or not they should play for England, because they were great players and people might enjoy watching them. How much better, ran the orthodoxy, to choose average players who would run about a bit and not achieve anything. The bias towards the banal was evident again, and we were rewarded with poor performances and no trophies.

England cricket teams would always value the batsman who scored 30 in two days over the player who scored 45 in ten minutes and then was out trying to knock the ball into the sea. It wasn't until Sri Lanka appeared on the scene that the English cricket establishment realised that 150 wasn't a decent score in a 50-over match. Play it safe. Don't inspire. Don't frighten the horses. There are horses at the cricket? What are they doing there? Will someone get the horses out? Cheers.

Plucky little Grimsby Town manager Paul Hurst is, by all accounts, a lovely man. Since we seem to be on course for achieving very little this season, perhaps now is the time for him to ditch the safety first, the uninspired and uninspiring and truly swash his buckle. Overcome the Yorkshire in your soul, Paul! Chuck on the attackers! Don't worry about the opposition's left-back being tall or their right-midfielder having a good throw! Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! Throw off your mental chains, whoo whoo whoo!

Tomorrow we play Yeovil. For some reason, whenever anyone says the word Yeovil, I always get a mental picture of a womble in my head. Inexplicable.