During the lockdown, a new fad has appeared on footy panel shows. The panel wear headphones. Do they want a replay of the Dam Busters? While watching cricket replays I came across another fad. At a critical point in the game, for batsman (‘batter’ is better left to baseball) or bowler, we get solemnly told that ‘execution’ is essential. ‘Execution’ there means bowling the ball or playing a shot. That is what the whole bloody game is about. The word ‘execution’ adds nothing. As do those ‘War Room’ analyses where people solemnly intone about tactics and strategy after the event and in a manner that suggests that footballers have boned up on Clausewitz On War. They occasionally make plausible comments on strategy in Rugby Union, but when they do that for the NRL, we know that we are in Fantasyland.
Bloopers
The MP in question is George Christensen, the Queensland National. It’s no great insight to observe George blows hard. George talks a big game, and here he is, talking a big game on the reddest, hottest, political issue of the moment – Australia’s fraying relationship with our largest trading partner. George has given the matter some reflection, and he thinks ‘we can keep giving in to China’s threats, and selling off our country, or we can make a stand for our sovereignty’ – and he’d very much like you to write him and take his survey.
The Guardian, 23 May, 2020
There you have a politician who is unlovely as it gets. He has a passion for bull whips, God, and whatever he can get in the Philippines. And ‘sovereignty’ is the first retreat of the inane.
With Compliments 
Hello Geoff,
I agree with your analysis regarding sports commentating.
Would you describe why “sovereignty” is the first retreat of the inane.
There must be many inane people out there.
Peter
Peter
I never know what people mean when they use this word. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, it means ‘final authority, that is itself subject to no further authority…[is] such an authority is necessary in an orderly political state, or whether a system of ‘checks and balances’ can provide stable government with no one body claiming absolute authority.’.
The Commonwealth government is subject to the Constitution – as declared by the High Court – and international treaties. Where is the ‘sovereignty’? The issue arose in the case about ‘aliens’ and In did not understand it there either.
I could imagine why Henry VIII thought the pope impaired his sovereignty.
Geoff