Gary Lineker has described the scenes at Roma tonight as “mental”, as the goals keep flying in. Then, straight away, someone on twitter, the fount of all poison, has a pop at Lineker for belittling mental health issues. I am sure my loyal reader is thinking: what do I think about this? My answer? Bugger all.
I suppose we should be careful about what we say given the stigma that still surrounds mental illness. But isn’t it fair to say that there is humour in pretty well everything? I have been known to describe someone as “as mad as a box of frogs” or “a few sandwiches short of a picnic”. This is not me ridiculing the mentally ill: this is me probably taking the piss. If I say that Diane Abbott is “not the full shilling”, I mean that she comes across as a complete idiot with barely a few brain cells to rub together, not that she is suffering from an illness. If we engage in a conversation in my local and we refer to someone as the maddest man in the village, we usually mean a villager who is seriously eccentric but also holding down a more than decent job.
The European Champions League has been absolutely bonkers this season. It really has. It has been a runaway train of almost uncontrollable footballing joy. None of it has made any sense. No one has been forced into a straitjacket, no one has been sectioned, no person with poor mental health has been lampooned. It’s just been mental.
