Sunday afternoon and it's certainly summer in Manchester. There's not a cloud in the sky, people are wandering round Didsbury in shorts and shades, determined to make the most of it, judging by the numbers enjoying a cold beer in the bars and cafes.
All of which would come as no surprise if you read a certain UK tabloid newspaper. Let's call it the Maily Sexpress, a paper of good standing which reported that hot weather was indeed on the way. "Forget the rain" was the headline, and it seems their Cassandra-like powers have worked for today at least.
But what's this? A front page from the same paper, from only two weeks ago? "It will rain till September"? Well, who'd thunk it? I often think weather reporting in the mass media is often a case of the journalist sticking his head of the window, seeing it's a bit drizzly and writes that the next few weeks will bring rainfall so hard that the biblical floods produced a puddle in comparison.
Mind you, the bod on weather is a journalism king compared to whatever clown they have covering football. Mediawatch noted that a story on Southampton signing a player from Crystal Palace managed to:
a) Get the player's name wrong.
b) The name of Southampton's manager wrong.
c) Stated that this will be Southampton's "maiden" season in the Premiership, ignoring the fact they spent all of the 1990s in the top flight and were only relegated in 2005.
Superb! Can anyone beat the record for most basic facts wrong in such a short story? Perhaps all the senior hacks have taken off on holiday, leaving the work experience kid to cover. Or maybe not. After all, football writing has often seemingly been a case of making any old shit up and printing it as "a source says". I know if my team had signed all the players that were said to be doing so in the newspapers, we'd probably have won about ten Champions Leagues by now.
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