Election overload

Whilst the media constantly asks the question of how we can engage an apathetic electorate in the run up to an election, it would be nice if they could occasionally take a look at themselves as being where the blame may lie.

On Tuesday, the day that Gordon Brown announced the date of the election that we had already known for a year, the BBC saw fit to fill the entire one o'clock news bulletin with an election preview, despite there being absolutely nothing of interest happening.

This is on day one of an exhaustive month that lies ahead. There is such as thing as election overload, and even as someone who has an avid political interest, I found it tiresome after 10 minutes.

Messi-watch
This is the week that England may finally have fully awoken to Lionel Messi's true brilliance. Although this blog can not be accused of having been guilty of such ignorance, I find it frustrating and shameful that it has taken many of our pundits this long to appreciate his ability, as did Sid Lowe. In this age where it is so easy to access foreign football coverage with such ease, it seems strange that we have waited this long to crown him as the world's best.

After all, he ran rings around Chelsea in the same competition back in 2006. It's yet another example of Britain's short-sightedness when it comes to acknowledging foreign football. This was further in evidence last night following Manchester United's exit from the Champions League. Both Mike Ingham and Alan Green trotted out the usual lines about United having fallen to an inferior team.

However you judge their relative strengths, the facts are that Bayern won and United are out. Whether Bayern are inferior has nothing to do with it. It was another case of English pundits bristling with irritation that the Premier League had failed to produce a European Cup semi-finalist.