posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 4:22 AM
by
Endie
Zizou - dignified and self-controlled, apparently
If you were a writer for the Times, you might not be delighted that your glowing profile of Zinedine Zidane, written before the world cup final, had appeared the day afterwards (yesterday), saying things like:
There can be no more dignified and proud exit from football than to make the World Cup your point of retirement.
Oh dear. Dignified as in the sense of "red-carded for doing an impression of a rutting stag"? Given the ease of editing in these post-industrial days, you would think that the journo, Penny Wark, might have popped in at the weekend to submit a couple of changes to alter the rather hagiographical tone of her piece:
He has also been lauded for his integrity...the motif of his mature playing years has been his control and self-discipline
It reminds me, just a little, of the change in tone of the coverage of Princess Diana after she decided seatbelts were for wimps. The Private Eye said it best:
In recent weeks (not to mention the last 10 years) we at the Daily Gnome, in common with all other newspapers, may have inadvertently conveyed the impression that the late Princess of Wales was in some way a neurotic, irresponsible and manipulative troublemaker. . . We now realise as of Sunday morning that the Princess of Hearts was in fact the most saintly woman who has ever lived . . . (Private Eye, September 5th 1997)