Found this on my hard drive while doing some work...
Posted for you to enjoy/ mercilessly rip to shreds. Obvious first criticism is that it is a "Miles interviews..." format, which they hate so much at Newsjack, and ended up using almost exclusively.
Cheers
Jack
"Excuses excuses"
Miles Jupp:
"We will miss the World Cup - and not in a good way, like George Michael missing pedestrians, but in a bad way like Michael Gove missing a proof read. Now the Tournament is all over, all that remains is for the Football Association to announce the official excuse for England's poor performance. I have with me Charles Blazer from the FA. Mr Blazer, has the FA settled on an official excuse as yet?
Charles Blazer:
Hello. No, we haven't yet settled on the final official excuse which will be released to the country. You must appreciate that we have a long, long, long, long tradition of making excuses, and this process should not be rushed.
MJ:
Do you have a short list?
CB:
Erm, we do. The current front runners are:
"That linesman must be blind"
"The high altitude had an effect on us... uniquely"
"The low altitude had an effect on us... uniquely" and
"The ball was a bit funny, when we kicked it"
Although that last one might be used by Amy Whitehouse.
MJ:
And I understand that the shortlist has been met with mixed reaction from pundits, many of whom have bemoaned a decline in standards of English excuse making.
CB:
Yes - English football gave excuse making to the world, but we must accept that not every excuse will be able to live up to past glories of, for example, 1994.
MJ:
1994? The USA tournament, for which England failed to even qualify?
CB:
Yes, the official excuse then was "But for the War of Independence we would have qualified as hosts".
MJ:
There have been suggestions that English excuse makers are falling behind their foreign counterparts. For example the French have already released their official excuse "Le coach etait merde." - which, you have to admit, shows more technical ability, well in French certainly, than anything on our shortlist. What do you have to say to that?
CB:
It's not my fault. The dog ate my homework.
