The Lines That Stuck

Some lines don’t just stay in the programme or film they came from, they somehow escape into real life.

My wife and I do this all the time. A line from a sitcom, a film, or some daft bit of telly will work its way into our everyday language, and after a while it stops feeling like a quote. It just becomes something we say.

So this page is a little collection of those lines. The ones that stuck.
One thing I have noticed as I've started to compile this is that we misquote virtually every single one of them, but we don't care, still still think they are funny, perhaps funnier *not*

"Green it were!"
These words were uttered by the late, and very great, Brian Glover. It comes from an episode of Porridge, where Brian brilliantly played the dim-witted Cyril Heslop. The full, and correct, line is "I read a book once, green it was!", but we’ve changed it a little. So quite often at home, when we mention the colour of something, we’ll end with "Green it were!"

"Mickey Pearce lives on the Nyerere Estate"
This one comes from Only Fools and Horses, in the episode Yuppy Love, which is also the one where Del falls through the bar. Cassandra has dropped her friend off on a posh street, and Mickey mentions that it’s going to be a bit of a culture shock when she drops Rodney off at Nelson Mandela House. So when Cassandra gets back in the car, she says she’ll now drop Rodney off at the Nyerere Estate.

Rodney quickly corrects her: "I don’t live in the Nyerere Estate! Mickey lives on the Nyerere Estate. I live near it. I’ll show you."

We tend to use this one whenever someone has slightly misunderstood where something is, or what someone has said. It’s one of those lines that doesn’t really need much explaining in our house any more.

"Hag!"
This one is from Hot Fuzz. Sometimes, as a daft put-down, my wife or I will call the other one "Fascist!", and the reply is always "Hag!"

In the film, Sergeant Nicholas Angel is trying to check into his hotel while the receptionist is doing a crossword. She suddenly says "Fascist!", then explains that she’s looking for a seven-letter word meaning a system of government categorised by extreme dictatorship. Angel correcting her with the word "Fascism", then he looks at her and utters the word "Hag!", explaining that it means an evil old woman, considered frightful or ugly, one of the answers for her crossword.  It’s childish, obviously. But that’s probably why it works.

"Oh Really!"
This is one that I thought came from a Fawlty Towers episode where the inept builder Mr. O'Reilly was brought in by Basil Fawlty, much to the dismay of poor Sybil. I thing she changed "O'Reilly" to "Oh Really", so now whenever we hear the name O'Reilly, we always respond with "Oh Really!".

"What did I say, Roy?"
Another one we use a fair bit comes from The Fast Show, from the sketches with Roy, played by John Thomson, and Renee, played by Caroline Aherne.

The basic set-up is usually Renee talking to some poor stranger about a random subject, before suddenly turning to her brow-beaten husband and asking, "What did I say, Roy?" Most of the time Roy just repeats what his overbearing wife has just said, but every now and then he says something she really doesn’t like.

The line we always quote is Roy saying, "You said you could shit through the eye of a needle." In our house, the reply has somehow become, "I didn’t, you lying bastard!" Which may not be accurate, but it makes us laugh more.

"Unaccustomed as I am"
This one is from Blackadder S3 E4, "Sense and Senility", the one where the actors try to teach the Prince Regent how to deliver a speech.

As part of the lesson, he has to stand with his legs wide apart, in an apparently heroic stance, before delivering his first line with a great big ROARRRR. His speech starts, "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking…"

We use "Unaccustomed as I am" as a daft little intro before we start saying something. It doesn’t really need to fit. That’s probably why it works.

"My love, my love"
That last one reminded me of this one. If I want to say "my love" to my wife, I’ll usually say it as "my love, my love", in a slightly Spanish accent.

It comes from Blackadder S1 E4, where Edmund is talking to the Infanta, with the hilarious Jim Broadbent as the interpreter, Don Speekingleesh.

The Infanta says, "Estas el verdadero amor de mi vida, amor mio, amor mio!" to Edmund, which Don then translates as, "You are the true love of my life, my love, my love!" in his pidgin English.

"But it’s Slater"
Every time someone gets mentioned who is called Slater, my wife and I will usually reply with, "But it’s Slater."

This comes from the Only Fools and Horses episode "Class of ’62", where Slater comes back to Peckham because he knows his estranged wife, Raquel, lives there.

At one point, when Raquel tells Del that Slater used to be her husband, Del reacts with utter disgust and says, "But he’s Slater!"

Yeah, I’ve noticed this is another one we’ve changed slightly to make it funnier for us. That seems to be a running theme.

"Oh, you did, did you?"
This is one of those lines from The Vicar of Dibley that we churn out fairly often. If one of us says we’ve done something, the other will invariably reply, "Oh, you did, did you?", or "You did, you did?", or something similar.

The line comes from the 1996 Christmas special, The Christmas Lunch Incident, better known to everyone as the one with the sprouts.

The actual exchange goes:

Geraldine: Ah! I’ve heard wonderful things about your cooking, Mrs Tinker.

Mrs Tinker: ’Ave you?

Geraldine: Yes, I have.

Mrs Tinker: ’Ave you?

Geraldine: …yes, I have.

Mrs Tinker: Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no parking is allowed in the top field!"
This is another of those lines from The Vicar of Dibley that has found its way into our regular vocabulary.

In the scene, Jim Trott is asked whether parking is allowed in the upper field. Clearly exasperated at having to announce it yet again, he takes to the PA system:

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no parking is allowed on the upper field. OK?"

It still makes us laugh, even though, as usual, we’ve tweaked it slightly over the years.

"They’re only doing it now!"
This is another of those lines from Only Fools and Horses, this time from the 1996 Christmas special, Time on Our Hands (you know the one). We tend to use it when someone does something, usually does something we don't expect.

In the episode, Uncle Albert mixes up the coffee and gravy granules. As the family begin pouring coffee over their Christmas dinner, Del turns to him in the kitchen and says:

"They’re only doing it now. They’re only out there pouring Maxwell bleeding House over their lamb noisettes and veg!"

"The dirty bastards!"
This one comes from The Catherine Tate Show and Janice and Ray, the Yorkshire couple who are permanently disgusted by modern life and almost everything they hear about.

In one sketch, they’re talking about a couple who use shiitake mushrooms in their cooking. Naturally, this is enough for Janice and Ray to declare them "dirty bastards".

Ever since, whenever we hear someone mention mushrooms, or any slightly unusual food or ingredient, one of us will inevitably say, "The dirty bastards!"

"I don't know, I'm not from around here"
This is another one from OFAH and we troll this out if someone mentions what the weather is doing. In the "Jolly Boys Outing" episode, Del mentions to Mrs Creswell (landlady) that its cold out, she replies "That’s the weather.", and Del quickly responds back with "Oh is it? I do… I don’t know, I’m a stranger round here."

The Jolly Boys Outing

I’m a child of the late 60s, so like a lot of people my age, I grew up on a fairly heavy diet of 70s and 80s sitcom telly. Blackadder, The Young Ones, Yes Minister, Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Horses... the sort of programmes you didn’t just watch once, you absorbed them.

Most of them have episodes I can still watch over and over again, even when I know every joke, every pause, and every look to camera before it arrives. But with Only Fools and Horses, there’s one episode that I could probably watch on repeat all day, every day, and still not get bored of it.

The Jolly Boys’ Outing.

It’s just so watchable. Partly because John Sullivan knew exactly how to tell a story, partly because the plot gives everyone something to do, and partly because the acting is so good that even the smallest lines land perfectly.

The set-up is simple enough. The regulars from The Nag’s Head go on their annual coach trip to Margate, only for the whole thing to go spectacularly wrong when Del’s dodgy Albanian car radios explode and blow up the bus. The boys end up stranded overnight, Del runs into Raquel again, and the whole thing becomes less of a sitcom episode and more like a little comedy film.

 

Prior to the coach exploding,  Mike and Trigger are helping Harry (driver) up the steps, he's a little worse for wear" after their stop off, at the halfway house.

Trigger turns to Mike and asks "What d’you think’s wrong with him?", Mike in his usual dry wit replies "What do I think? Well, snow -blindness would be my bet, Trig.", Trigger immediately responds with "Yeah? I thought he was pissed."

Then later, after their coach has exploded, all the Jolly Boys are outside Margate Railways Station that is closed because of a train strike and they have realised that they have missed the last bus home and everyone is shouting and blaming each other, Uncle Albert tries to calm things down in the only way Uncle Albert knows how:

Mickey turns annoyed to Dels Uncle Albert "We’ve had enough of your stupid stories for one day. Albert!", "Oi, oi, oi! Watch it! He’s a war hero, he’s got a right to speak!" butts in Del. Albert continues, "I fought for free speech!" ... "Shuddup!" Del shoots at Albert.

The timing, the irritation, the way Del knows exactly where Albert is going before Albert has even got there.

Then there’s Mrs Cresswell, the stern landlady running the guest house where the lads end up staying. She lays down the law with an 11:00 pm curfew and makes it very clear that there’ll be no ungodly behaviour under her roof. 

Earlier when Del, Rodney and Albert enter the Villa Bella  guest house, Del mentions how cold it is, Mrs Creswell responds "That’s the weather.", "Oh is it?" Dels responds, "I don’t know, I’m a stranger round here."

Anyway, the boys end up at the Mardi Gras Nightclub, in the background the club singer is doing her turn, Boycie, Mike and Trigger arrive at the club, when Dels says "It’s good here, innit eh?", "Stunning." replies Boycie,, Del quickly responds with "Yeah, they got a magician, a singer and a comedian. The singer’ll be on in a minute!", I mean the line is funny as it stands, but the singer misses a beat as she glares at Del for insult. Absolute class.

Later when Del and Rodney arrive home from the nightclub at 2am in the morning, Del is about to ring the front doorbell when Rodney, in full panic mode, stops him:

“You can’t ring the bell! You’ll get Mrs Cresswell out of her coffin!”

It’s such a perfect Rodney line. Scared, sarcastic, and completely believable.

Written down, it barely looks like a joke. On screen, it’s perfect. It’s a tiny line, but it’s beautifully delivered.

 

This is probably why the episode works so well. It isn’t just one famous scene or one big set piece. It’s packed with little moments, little looks, throwaway lines, and characters bouncing off each other in a way that feels completely natural.

Some comedy dates badly, and some comedy only survives because people remember watching it when they were young. But The Jolly Boys’ Outing still works because it’s properly well made. The story moves, the jokes land, the characters feel real, and it has that strange comfort-watch quality where you know exactly what’s coming and still enjoy every second of it.

For me, it might just be the perfect Only Fools and Horses episode.

 

Writing this I started to remember the bits that shows that my wife and myself say t each other on probably a daily basis, so as I remember them I'll add them to my "The Lines That Stuck" page.

Noisy Eaters

Noisy eating brings out, what I think, is a very reasonable response. When someone is sat there chewing with their mouth open, talking through food, and making every mouthful sound like a plumbing emergency, I can feel my patience leaving my body.

I’m talking about people who eat with their mouth open, talk with food in their mouth, take bites that are clearly far too big to chew properly, noises that seem to fill the whole room. Once I’ve noticed it, that’s it. I can’t unhear it, I can’t ignore it, and I certainly can’t enjoy sitting at the same table pretending everything is fine.

To me, it’s not just a harmless habit. It’s rude. Really rude. Eating with other people should come with a few very basic rules, and "keep your mouth closed while chewing" feels like it should be somewhere near the top of the list. It’s not advanced etiquette. It’s not silver service. It’s just the bare minimum of not making everyone else experience your food at the same time as you.

Talking with food in your mouth is just as bad. I don’t need to see what you’re eating while you’re explaining something to me, or see your food sprayed all over the table. Finish the mouthful, then speak. The conversation will survive the three-second delay. In fact, it might even improve if part of your lunch isn’t trying to join in.

I know this probably makes me sound grumpy, but I genuinely find it difficult to share a table with people who eat like that. It completely ignores basic table manners, and more than that, it ignores the other people sat around you. I think that’s the bit that bothers me most. It’s not just noise, it’s a lack of awareness.

And yes, I know people have different habits, different upbringings, and different levels of tolerance for this sort of thing. I’m sure there are things I do that annoy other people too. But eating with your mouth open, smacking your lips, slurping and talking through a half-chewed sandwich shouldn’t be defended as personal expression. It’s not quirky. It’s not relaxed. It’s just rude.

I don’t want formal dining rules. I don’t care which fork someone uses, and I’m not expecting anyone to dab politely at the corner of their mouth with a linen napkin (but seeing people wipe their mouth or the back of there hand isn’t nice to see, and don't get me started on people that lick their knife). I just want people to chew quietly, keep their mouth closed, and not make the rest of us feel like unwilling witnesses to the entire digestive process.

Surely that’s not too much to ask.

Linkbaiting That Actually Worked

Linkbaiting is basically the art (or sometimes dark art) of creating something that makes people want to click, share, link, or react. At its worst, it’s cheap headlines engineered purely to drag people in, usually with loaded words like “secret”, “urgent”, “shocking”, or a suspiciously neat number in the title.

At its best, though, linkbaiting is just a good hook. Something useful, interesting, funny, controversial, or timely enough to make someone stop what they’re doing and pay attention.

Years ago, I admit it, I turned very slightly to the dark side and did a little bit of baiting myself. In my defence, it was only an experiment. Also in my defence... it worked.

This was back when I worked for a small independent software vendor, and we wanted to get more database administrators onto the website. We had something relevant for them, a short free guide, and the business sold ODBC and JDBC drivers, so it wasn’t a random audience we were chasing. These were exactly the sort of people who might one day need what we offered.

I could have gone into forums and started pushing links around, but that would have felt clumsy. I had no relationship with those people, and if some stranger had dropped into a discussion with a salesy link, most of them would probably have ignored it. Fair enough too.

Instead, I used LinkedIn.

The 1st step was the bait. I slightly amended my LinkedIn profile so it clearly mentioned that I worked with a business developing ODBC and JDBC drivers. Nothing too heavy, just enough that if the right person landed on my profile, they would understand what we did. In truth, that’s still a useful tip today: your LinkedIn profile shouldn’t just say what your job title is, it should give the right people a reason to be curious.

We also made sure the free guide for database administrators was easy to find on the company website. That bit mattered. There’s no point drawing people in if they land on a page that gives them nothing useful.

Then came the simple bit. I searched LinkedIn for database administrators and visited their profiles, one by one.

LinkedIn, being LinkedIn, would then show some of those people that I had viewed their profile. Some would ignore it, of course, but others would naturally click back to see who I was. When they did, they saw the short mention of ODBC and JDBC drivers, and from there a small number clicked through to the company page or website.

That was the whole tactic.

It wasn’t clever in a “look at me, I’ve cracked the internet” sort of way. It was just curiosity, relevance, and timing. The people I viewed were people with a genuine professional connection to the thing we offered, and the thing we offered them was at least potentially useful.

Would I describe it as pure linkbait? Probably. Would I describe it as spam? Not really, because the targeting was relevant and there was something useful at the other end. That distinction is important.

Good linkbait shouldn’t trick people. It should catch their attention, then reward that attention with something worthwhile. A free guide, a useful article, a proper answer to a common problem, or even just a genuinely interesting point of view.

The lesson from that little experiment is still true. You don’t always need a huge campaign to get attention online. Sometimes you just need to understand where your audience already spends time, give them a small reason to notice you, and make sure there’s something useful waiting when they do.

That’s the bit too many people miss. The bait gets the click, but the value is what makes the visit matter.

Know Your Rights and Use Them

I’ve written up a consumer dispute over on my Contract Clangers site involving a mobility scooter purchase, unfair contract terms, and a trader who really didn’t seem keen on recognising basic cancellation rights under UK consumer law.

The business was Rental Scooters Strathclyde Ltd, and they appear to have also traded as Mobility Scooters Direct and Scooters Scotland on eBay.

The short version is that we challenged them, specifically Lloyd Jamieson, the owner, over what we believed was a failure to recognise the 14-day cancellation period under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, often loosely referred to as distance selling rules. After approaching Mr Jamieson and having our legal rights rejected, we took the matter through the Scottish Courts and won.

We were also able to check the strength of our case before going ahead, and we were reassured that our documentation was in good order and that the process we followed was sound. That mattered, because when you’re dealing with a business that simply refuses to accept your position, you need more than frustration. You need records, dates, evidence, and the patience to see it through properly.

The bigger point with this piece is really this: don’t assume a company is right just because they sound confident. If something feels off, check your rights, keep proper records, use Citizens Advice if you need to, and be prepared to follow it through calmly.

My own experience of dealing with Mr Jamieson left me with no trust at all in any business he was involved with. That’s only my opinion, based on what happened to us, but it’s an opinion I’m very comfortable standing by.

Sometimes the win isn’t just getting your money back. Sometimes it’s refusing to be brushed off.

And as you can see from my little site, Contract Clangers, if I know I’m right, then I’ll fight to protect my rights. I will not allow small-minded businesses to undermine my legal rights, and nor should you.

Blogging For Business Owners

If you run a small business, there’s a fair chance you’ve thought about blogging at some point. Maybe someone told you it would help with Google. Maybe you’ve seen competitors doing it. Or maybe you just know there are things you could explain better than anyone else in your industry.

And that’s really where blogging starts to make sense.

A good business blog isn’t just about throwing words onto a website and hoping search engines reward you. It’s a way to talk directly to your market, your prospects, and even your existing customers. It gives you space to explain what you do, answer common questions, share useful advice, show a bit of personality, and quietly remind people that you know your stuff.

Search engines do like fresh, useful content, of course. A regularly updated blog can help bring more pages into your website, create more opportunities to be found, and give people more reasons to spend time with you before they ever pick up the phone or send an enquiry.

But blogging for business owners has one big trap: it’s very easy to start without a plan.

You write one post, then another, then life gets busy. The blog sits there for six months, looking a bit abandoned, and suddenly something that was meant to help your business starts to make it look like nobody’s home.

That’s why it helps to keep things simple from the start. Before you begin, think about the type of content you actually want to write. What questions do customers ask you all the time? What do people misunderstand about your product or service? What advice could you give that would genuinely help someone make a better decision?

You don’t need to publish every day. For most small businesses, even 2 to 4 useful posts a month is a strong starting point. The important thing is consistency, not volume. It’s far better to write something useful once a fortnight than to blast out six thin posts in a week and then disappear.

It’s also worth thinking about how you’ll use the blog once it’s published. Will you share posts on social media? Link to them from email newsletters? Send them to customers when they ask a common question? A good blog post can do more than sit quietly on your website; it can become a helpful sales tool, a customer service shortcut, and a small proof point that you understand your market.

If writing doesn’t come naturally, that doesn’t mean blogging isn’t for you. Some business owners are full of good ideas but struggle to get them into shape. That’s where getting support from people who understand writing can help, whether that’s someone in-house, a freelancer, or a specialist service such as Yorkshire Writers.

The main thing is to stay focused. Know why you’re blogging, know who you’re writing for, and don’t turn it into a chore you secretly resent. Done properly, a business blog can build trust, improve visibility, and give your website a bit more life.

Start small, keep it useful, and give people a reason to come back.

What Football Should Steal From the NFL

I love football, or soccer if anyone from the USA ever reads this, and I love the NFL too. They’re very different sports, obviously. One is fluid, messy, emotional and often allergic to common sense. The other stops every 11 seconds so a committee of enormous men can discuss angles, coverage and whether someone’s knee brushed the turf.

But there are still a few things football could borrow from the NFL, and I don’t just mean cheerleaders, fireworks and calling every half-decent tackle a “defensive statement”. Some of the NFL’s systems are genuinely better than ours, especially around player safety, referee communication and competitive balance.

The big question is which ideas football should actually test, and which ones are lovely in theory but would have the Premier League’s lawyers quietly hiding under the table.

1. Independent concussion authority

This is the obvious one. Football has improved slightly with permanent concussion substitutes, but the on-pitch assessment still feels flawed. The player wants to stay on. The manager wants their best players available. The crowd wants the game moving. Even the team doctor, however professional they are, is still operating inside that club environment.

The NFL has independent neurotrauma consultants and spotters who can intervene. That’s the important bit. Someone outside the team has the authority to say, “No, this player needs assessing properly.” Football should copy that principle as closely as possible.

For me, this should be tested first. It’s not about entertainment, tradition, money or competitive advantage. It’s about basic duty of care. If a player has taken a heavy blow to the head, they shouldn’t be the one effectively deciding whether they’re fine to carry on. That decision should be removed from the player, the manager and the match situation completely.

2. Proper live referee explanations

This is another easy win. In the NFL, when a decision is reviewed or a penalty is called, the referee switches on a microphone and explains the ruling to the stadium and TV audience. It isn’t perfect, but at least everyone knows what has happened.

Football, by comparison, still has far too much awkward silence. Fans stand there staring at a big screen while VAR checks something for three minutes, with no clear idea what specific contact, handball, offside line, shirt pull or toenail is being examined.

The Premier League has started moving towards more communication, but it still needs to go further. We don’t need a full courtroom judgement from the referee, just a simple explanation: what was checked, what the decision is, and why. That alone would make VAR feel less like a mysterious bunker making football worse from a secret location.

3. A stronger set-piece foul rule

This is where I think football could borrow from the NFL’s “eyes on the ball” idea, although not in a direct copy-and-paste way because it simply wouldn't work.

In the NFL, defenders can get into trouble if they’re not playing the ball and are simply interfering with the receiver. Football has a similar problem at corners and free kicks. Too many defenders are not even pretending to look at the ball. They’re often facing the opposing player, grabbing shirts, pinning arms, blocking runs and wrestling them like they’re trying to win a pub car park fight.

Football doesn’t need to become completely non-contact (my missus will always tell you "it's a contact sport!"), because that would be dreadful. But it could enforce one simple idea more clearly: if a defender makes no genuine attempt to play the ball, they are looking directly into the opponents face and is clearly holding, dragging or blocking an opponent, it’s a foul.

The key word is consistency. Enforce it properly for the first six weeks of a season and players would adapt. They always do once they realise the referee is actually going to give it.

4. The “uncatchable ball” idea

This one is trickier, but I still think there’s something in it.

In the NFL, pass interference can’t be called if the ball is clearly uncatchable. Football could use a similar principle for some penalty decisions. Right now, you can get situations where an attacker is slightly tripped in the box, but the ball is flying miles over their head or heading harmlessly away from goal, or heading over the line with no chance of getting to it; technically it might be a foul, but it hasn’t really affected the play.

I’m not saying dangerous tackles should be ignored just because the ball has gone. That would be ridiculous. But for those soft penalties where there’s minimal contact and the player had no realistic chance of reaching the ball anyway, football needs a bit more common sense.

The problem is wording it. “Uncatchable” works in American football because the pass has a specific intended receiver and a clear flight path. In football, the ball is looser, messier and a little more chaotic. You’d need something like a “material impact” test, where the foul has to meaningfully affect the player’s ability to challenge for the ball.

It would need a trial first, probably in a cup competition or youth tournament, because otherwise VAR would find a way to turn it into another bloody weekly argument.

5. A hard spending cap

This is the one that sounds brilliant until you remember football is not a closed American league.

The NFL has a hard salary cap, meaning every team has the same maximum amount to spend on players. In theory, that creates a more level playing field. The Premier League’s current direction, with squad cost rules linked to club revenue, still favours the richest clubs. A club making £700m can spend much more than a club making £150m. That isn’t really equality, it’s just a tidier version of the same imbalance.

A hard cap in English football would be fascinating. Suddenly scouting, coaching and tactical intelligence would matter more than who has the deepest pockets. It would also stop the biggest clubs hoovering up talent simply because they can.

But the problems are huge. Promotion and relegation make it complicated. European competition makes it even harder. Then you’ve got Saudi Arabia, Spain, Germany, Italy and the wider global market. Unless UEFA or FIFA introduced something broader, the Premier League doing it alone could end up weakening itself.

So while I like the idea, I don’t think it’s the 1st thing football should test. It’s morally attractive, but structurally brutal.

6. A shared merchandise pot

This is probably the idea I like most emotionally, even if I know it’s one of the least likely to happen.

The NFL’s national revenue model is one of the reasons a team like Green Bay can still compete with teams from much bigger markets. Green Bay, Wisconsin has a population of around 100,000, yet the Packers remain one of the NFL’s great teams. That sort of thing is part of the NFL’s charm.

In the Premier League, broadcast money is split relatively evenly, but commercial revenue is still very much a free-for-all. Shirt sales, sponsorships, global partnerships, official noodle partners, official tyre partners, official mattress partners... the big clubs can turn their global reach into an enormous financial advantage.

A shared merchandise pot would change that. It would force the biggest clubs to subsidise the rest of the league and help close the gap. The romantic part of me loves that. The league is only interesting because all 20 clubs exist, so all 20 clubs should share more of the upside.

But let’s be honest, the Big Six would absolutely hate it. They’d probably try to copy the Dallas Cowboys model and carve themselves out of the collective agreement. Or they’d find some wonderfully slippery workaround where Manchester United’s third kit pyjamas, Liverpool dog beds, Arsenal golf towels and Chelsea-branded air fryers somehow don’t count as club merchandise.

You can almost hear the statement now:

“We fully support collective growth, but our international lifestyle and heritage apparel partnerships sit outside the domestic football merchandise framework.”

Which is a very expensive way of saying, “No, you can’t have our money.”

A more realistic version might be a central commercial levy. Clubs could keep most of their own merchandise income, but a small percentage of certain commercial categories could go into a fund for academy football, women’s teams, lower-league support or away ticket subsidies. It wouldn’t be as dramatic as a fully shared pot, but it might actually stand a chance.

So which ideas should football actually test?

If I had to rank them, I’d go like this:

1. Independent concussion authority – this should happen as soon as possible.
2. Live referee explanations – simple, sensible and long overdue.
3. Stricter set-piece holding rules – stop the wrestling and make defenders actually defend.
4. A material-impact penalty rule – worth testing, but it needs careful wording.
5. A hard spending cap – great in theory, very difficult in reality.
6. A shared merchandise pot – lovely football socialism, but the Big Six would barricade the doors.

The health of players and the enjoyment of the game have to come first. That sounds obvious, but football has a long history of treating obvious things as if they need 14 committees, three pilot schemes and a leaked report before anyone can act.

Independent concussion checks and better referee communication don’t require football to rip up its entire financial structure. They just require the people running the game to admit that the NFL, for all its flaws, has got a few things right.

The money stuff is harder. I’d love a Premier League where smaller clubs had more of a fighting chance, and where the richest teams couldn’t simply outspend everyone forever. But the realistic starting point is not a full NFL-style revolution. It’s player safety, clearer decisions, and a version of the game that doesn’t leave match-going fans completely in the dark.

Start there. Then we can come back for the Manchester United pyjamas and Chelsea air fryers.

David Beckham’s £19 Million World Cup Ad Takeover

I read a piece in iNews about David Beckham’s World Cup advertising takeover, and honestly, the whole thing feels absolutely absurd.

If you’re watching the World Cup in the UK, you get a fairly dignified broadcast. A bit of studio chat, some sensible punditry, the usual adverts, and then back to the football. But if you’re watching in North America, it sounds like you’re trapped inside a David Beckham simulator. Or fantasy. Or nightmare. I’m still not sure which.

Thanks to the American networks aggressively commercialising the tournament, especially around things like hydration breaks, Beckham is everywhere. Not just popping up now and again, either. Properly everywhere. According to the reports, he’s been involved in a string of World Cup campaigns (he fronted advertising campaigns for 11 brands!) worth around £19 million, fronting or appearing in ads for brands ranging from crisps and burgers to banks, beer, DIY stores and telecoms giants.

At some point, that stops being clever marketing and starts becoming genuinely absurd.

The crowning achievement has to be the Home Depot campaign, “Build It Like Beckham”, which appears to ask viewers to believe that a multi-millionaire global superstar, former England captain and co-owner of an MLS franchise spends his weekends wandering down a retail aisle looking for a five-gallon bucket of paint and a circular saw. Immediately after that, he can apparently reappear for Bank of America, giving off the calm, reliable energy of a man who definitely wants to talk to you about retail banking.

Nobody buys it, do they?

That’s the strange thing about this level of advertising. Beckham has become so recognisable, so safe, and so commercially polished that he almost doesn’t need to have any connection to the product at all. He doesn’t have to convince you he loves the burger, uses the phone network, banks with the bank, shops for power tools, or chooses his crisps based on deep personal conviction. He just has to appear, smile, nod at something, raise a glass, or look vaguely amused by whatever scripted nonsense is happening around him.

And to be fair, from a brand point of view, you can see the attraction. Active players carry risk. If Jude Bellingham, Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal or any other current star has a bad tournament, gets injured, misses a penalty, or watches their team crash out early, the shine comes off them almost instantly. Beckham is completely insulated from the actual football. He doesn’t have to win a match. He doesn’t have to stay fit. He doesn’t even have to do punditry.

He just exists, beautifully lit, endlessly bankable, and permanently available.

That’s probably why advertisers love him. He’s football-adjacent without being vulnerable to football. He gives brands the World Cup glow without the inconvenience of results, form, tactics, injuries, VAR decisions or England doing England things. He’s not there to represent the tournament as much as float above it, smiling down from the corporate hospitality suite.

Still, seven campaigns around one tournament is wild. Lay’s had him playing with the idea of fans jumping on World Cup bandwagons. Adidas put him in a glossy football dreamscape alongside Messi, Bellingham, Lamine Yamal and Timothée Chalamet. McDonald’s had him in another big, highly visible campaign. Stella Artois used him for the ritual of fans gathering in bars. Home Depot leaned into the American backyard World Cup idea. Verizon and Vodafone covered the telecoms angle, depending where you were watching. Bank of America rounded it all off, because apparently even football needs a sensible current account.

None of this is a criticism of Beckham personally, really. He’s been doing this for decades, and he’s clearly very, very good at being David Beckham. In some ways, this is the natural end point of his post-football career. He was never just a footballer, even when he was playing. He was a brand before most footballers realised they were allowed to be brands.

But there’s something very funny about the 2026 World Cup being sold back to viewers through one man’s face, over and over again, until the actual football almost feels like the bit between the Beckham adverts.

Maybe that’s the modern World Cup now. Less a football tournament, more a global marketing platform with a ball occasionally rolling through it.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, David Beckham is smiling, probably holding a crisp, standing near a barbecue, thinking about banking, while pretending he’s just popped into Home Depot for a bit of timber.