A few things that caught my eye this week:
By far the best World Cup package surrounding the games must have been the package that aired after the Italy v Paraguay game. It was all about the footballers of Robben Island.
While they were locked up by the apartheid regime, football was one of the few outlets that prisoners had, although they were heavily punished before they were allowed to play. It’s really worth a few minutes of your time to watch before expiring from the iPlayer on Monday evening.
Later this evening, there’s a South African made docudrama based around the same story.
The President of France and his lovely wife were in London today visiting Broadcasting House to celebrate the 70th anniversary of General de Gaulle speaking to France from the BBC after the country had been occupied. Those speeches effectively brought about the French resistance. Newsnight produced a marvellous piece detailing the full story.
There are plenty of good football podcasts out there: Danny Baker’s going great guns in South Africa, while Alan Davies is back in the UK essentially shifting the emphasis of his Arsenal podcast onto the national team. For more serious fare there’s the Guardian’s World Cup Daily which is nice and pithy, while I also like ITV’s football podcast mostly presented by Ned Boulting. And finally the iTunes chart topping Baddiel and Skinner are out in South Africa with daily podcasts for my employer which are well worth a listen.
The major football podcast I’ve not listened to is the BBC’s World Cup Daily which is made up of highlights of the previous 24 hours. Interestingly, the BBC has turned Five Live Sports Extra into a rolling repeat of this service when it’s not broadcasting other sporting coverage (we’ve had Ascot this week, there are some rugby tests, and Wimbledon starts on Monday). Ordinarily, during “dead air” it just runs a generic loop highlighting upcoming coverage. It’s now a bit more like those loops you find under the red button on TV.