OFFICE SPORTING CHAT TO BE BANNED ?

It's reported that some woman from something called the Chartered Management Institute wants discussion about sporting subjects to be "curtailed" in the workplace. Apparently she feels that such conversations, particularly about football and cricket, exclude women and lead to what's termed "more laddish behaviour". 

This woman, Ann Francke, is quoted as saying on the BBC's 'Today' programme "A lot of women, in particular, feel left out. They don't follow those sports and they don't like either being forced to talk about them or not being included".

My God. There are days when I truly believe that I am living in some sort of parallel universe to the one in which I grew up. Would Ms Francke have similar thoughts about men being "forced" to listen to interminable chat about babies, pregnancy, periods, domestic abuse and the like ? If she is correct in her statements, why is it that every sport covered by television outlets now seems obliged to include women presenters, commentators and pitch side interviewers ? Indeed, why does she not complain about these poor women being "forced" to endure these male activities ? 

Of course, it was the good old BBC that gave a platform to this lunatic woman, just as it gives platforms to every crazed leftie, liberal, feminist, Tory-hating, nutter. Presumably Ms Francke would like to see company bosses instituting rules about what can and cannot be discussed by their employees - out goes sport and in comes the detail of changing nappies at 3 in the morning; chat about the mechanics of motor vehicles banned in favour of more genteel discussion about the merits of different types of sanitary protection. 

And, anyway, exactly what is "laddish behaviour" ? In my experience, the behaviour of groups of women is often every bit as "girlish", and revolting, as is the behaviour of groups of men; in fact, the women can be far more disgusting. 

The worst part of this episode is that my licence fee has been used to provide an outlet for this insanity and the BBC has happily considered that it's a worthy subject for one of its supposedly 'flagship' programmes. Frankly, the sooner 'Today' goes the same way as the appalling tripe that is the Victoria Derbyshire programme and, indeed, the whole BBC goes down the same drain with them, the better.