A month or two ago, Rod Liddle had the audacity to write in The Spectator that the besetting problem of modern civilization is the middle class, while implying that something ought to done about it. Reading the article, I was reminded of an entry made by Harold Nicolson in his diary early in 1939 where he observes, à propos the homogenization of the modern world, “Even revolution is becoming bourgeois.
Another pigskin season kicks off, and despite the multitudinous sins committed against the game and its culture by ESPN, university presidents, major conference commissioners, take-the-money-and-run athletes and other votaries of Mammon, I’m once again giving it the old college try. Which is why I picked up my copy of Lindy’s College Football Preview the other day. (Lindy’s ranks my local team, the University of Buffalo Bulls, 85th in nation –we’re movin’ on up!) It’s a frustrating time to be a college football fan. Tradition is sacked by the almighty buck, as it typically is in the land of the dollar bill, and healthy sentiments and institutional affections are warped, processed and sold back to us in tawdry and expensive packages.
