Journalism

I write for a local newspaper The Diss Express. Here are a few of my articles. Enjoy, or don't it's up to you!

Homophobia? Human rights? Who gives a shit....?

by William Porteous Nov 2022

You know who I feel for the most right now? It’s those poor ruddy footy fans in Qatar being told they won’t be allowed to drink beer inside the stadiums. Honestly it’s enough to make you buy a flagpole with a partnering flag that has the angry face emoji on it. Do you know who else I feel truly gutted for is? It’s Budweiser. Those poor ruddy bloody sweethearts have lost out on millions of dollars owing to the fact the Qatar authorities weren’t having any of their western ways honored. It’s funny that it even made the news really. Alright it is reasonably newsworthy but going without a beer for 90 minutes? I went ten days in the Maldives without a beer. Alright I didn’t I managed to co-opt a local lad into hiring a speedboat to the nearest boat that was allowed to sell booze to the likes of me. I was desperate, not desperate enough to pay £12 a pint though. I can see the complexity of the unfurling dichotomy between spending £300 on five rounds Vs just staying sober for one night. I say don’t drink and give £50 to a LGBTQ charity, but that’s me, a snowflake.

Have you started the World Cup in style? Have you enjoyed ITV’s Daily Mail style presenters that always seem out of their depth and just terribly dull? The studios ITV have always built seem to appeal to the kind of person that always start their sentence with “I’m a vegetarian, I only eat meat three times a week.” or “Greggs or Costa?” The hosts of any ITV panel seem like they've been inflated by stale 1970’s air delivered by the puke monster Nigel Farage himself. I’m not saying I want ITV banned from broadcasting the football, I want ITV banned from being able to broadcast at all. To me ITV is like the run off of every bad idea that we, as a country, have ever entertained or will ever entertain. What is usually left behind from most of ITV’s idea factorys can be summed up with that pudgy faced jack the lad Bradley Walsh; a total abyss. The only reason any of us ever tune in for the slush of watery mess that is ITV is either for the football or because our remotes only have the on button and the number 3 working.

I suppose the worst part of this World Cup is the thick layer of corruption that has got us here in the first place. How are you swallowing it all? I adore football so I'm having to really battle with the vile rivers of human depravity that have slowly been easing our way for months and months. I want to watch the games without the guilt of knowing that many many people have died in and around those stadiums and later in their homes in many desperately poor countries. People that traveled thousands of miles to make money for their families in countries like Nepal. Then there are the people of the LGBTQ community that have been targeted their entire lives living under oppression and fear. We know that though. It’s so well documented now that it’s almost got to a point where countries are using it as a sort of “We might be bad but at least we’re not Qatar!”

I’ll watch the World Cup with such horrendous guilt, it’s who I am, but I’ll watch it. They {FIFA} can’t take that away from me. Being put in these positions is part and parcel of living and breathing in the modern world. You just take it. The autumn budget that has changed the DNA of the future of this country has been greeted with numbing silence because we swallow what we’re given in this country. You voted for Brexit, you went to bed with that lie so it’s only natural you’ll gobble down this lump of coal especially if a Tory says it’s good for you. It’s the terrible emasculating grip on our own worlds I can’t stand. The feeling that we can’t do anything about it. If people have died building stadiums for our pleasure and the forces of ‘good’ did nothing to stop it then it’s only natural you feel dispossessed of any control or influence your voice might have in the world. One voice should count if that voice is true but sadly…

On the plus side It’s Christmas soon! We’ll be blind drunk, hoping the booze we consume will keep us drunk enough to carry us into the spring and the soft promise of some replenishing sun. There is also the added fact we {England} might win the World Cup and wouldn’t it be our luck that we win the only World Cup not worth winning. I’m not sure that makes sense but you don’t get to be a bloke like me and live in the realms of sense for very long, as those of you that read me fully know.