Month: February 2015

The author here depicts mr Birlings arrogance and disrespect of the lower classes which he himself is from. Many people who would of watched this play would of been from a lower class than mr Birling is from. The author would have done this intentionally to provoke the audience to make the people dislike him as he is almost enforcing the fact that those in the lower classes are destined to stay there which is in fact hypocritical of his past. I think this helps people side with the inspector as he clearly has an increased sense of loathing for mr and mrs Birling. We know mr Birling thinks because of a comment he made early on in the first act ” You’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we’re all mixed up together like bees in a hive.” This quote is actually very stupid from a man which has a great sense of arrogance. He states that people are saying that we should act like bees and help each other out. By this he is meaning that we should move towards a more communist outlook on how wealth is distributed. Although in a bee hive you have a heir achy system where the worker bees slave away their whole life to benefit the queen bee. which is in fact very similar to the way his own business is run. Thus highlighting his heightened stupidity. This has been used to make the audience dislike mr Birling and has done so very well as i find myself viewing him as an obnoxious stupid and hypocritical imbecil.

The author here has deliberately used their knowledge of historical events to portray Birling as arrogant, ignorant and conceited. We know this because the book was written in 1940-1943 which would mean the author would have knowledge of all events which were mentioned. “you’ll hear some people say war is inevitable. And to that i say Fiddlesticks!” this is an opportunity where his arrogance and ignorance is displayed as a strong opinion which comes to be extremely wrong. The author has used Dramatic irony here as this play was first viewed in October 1946 which would have been right after the second world war and the subject of war with the Germans would not only be a controversial topic but a well known one.

England, the co-founding fathers of the beautiful game known as football. With age comes wisdom and knowledge, not with this team. With age comes strength and experience, not with this team. With age comes triumph and glory, not with this team. Should a team with no depth, effect on the game or developed style of play be ranked 10th in the world? No. How can I stress the fact that England’s national squad isn’t strong enough, it is merely a fox among hounds.

Complacency is a problem that manifests and thrives in the England squad. Many players become too conceited due to their club achievements, yet they fail to perform on an international stage. This is a problem as players get used to being chosen for the starting eleven and feel they wont be dropped. One player in particular is Joe Hart; I believe that he should be benched for a few games. I’m certain Hart believes he is invincible. Harts over inflated ego makes him feel he has no competition, this is not helped by football pundits exaggerating Hart’s importance in the squad. I will agree that he is an outstanding goalkeeper, but for his reputation he just isn’t up to scratch. Therefore a couple of games on the bench wouldn’t hurt as we have seen from Manchester City this season. I think England needs more competition in their squad as that is what drives players to stay at the top of their game.

Something that I find exasperating is the constant struggle against, what people consider, “lesser” teams.  By using the term lesser I mean in contexts of the FIFA world rankings which I would consider extremely biased. Of course to a certain degree we are a team that consists of quality players, yet when pitted against these apparently inferior teams we seem to struggle. When we do win it is generally against the run of play and it is seen as lucky. For example look at the recent match versus Chile, surprise surprise we lost. How is such a well renowned team like England losing to Chile? Chile do have some real talent in their squad such as Sanchez, Vidal and Vargas but really a side of that eminence shouldn’t be challenging England. We rarely see this problem of England struggling, against big teams. this is because they are almost always on the back-foot after ten minutes. This aggravates my usually passive nature and I find my self shouting vile names at the telly. Chile outplayed England even in their football, they played beautifully and charasmatically while England played it “safe” with their beloved route one tactic. This makes me wonder would a fan of a similar temperament as me, get as angry when supporting the likes of Spain, Brazil or Germany?

When you think of great passages of play who do you think of? England? Didn’t think so, let me guess who you thought of: Spain, Brazil, Argentina or Germany. This left me wondering, what are England actually good at? Long balls. That’s it. I do not understand how England can even score when all they do is monotonously hoof the ball forward, like the fat kid that always gets picked last and is destined to play in defence. People may try and defend England by saying that they get limited training time; but so do all the other top flight nations. Do you hear any other teams moaning about limited training time? No the training is sufficient. The reason we moan is because we find it hard to accept the inevitable that England will never get past the round of sixteen.

England has an abundance of potential in their youth squad, we have the likes of; Zaha, Ince, Danny Rose, Luke Shaw and many more. The young talent from our country is of a high standard. The youth in  our squad are like black belts, they are good as they are, but given the right training and time they will flourish into masters. They also need to allow the youngsters to make mistakes and learn from it. Although this is not possible as whenever a new potential star is named he is immediately rushed into the starting line up. I do understand the need for this; England needs depth in their squad but why rush a process that takes time? We look all over the world and we see young talent growing, yet in England they continue to ruin what looks to be another group of promising stars on the rise.

To conclude I feel England can grow to become a great footballing nation again, but only if the correct time is allotted to the youth. Also if they do not start to increase their winning form, fans will become even more disheartened and and move to despair. If they do not start picking up their winning form, the columns of England’s patriotism will come crushing down on the Lions below.