Here's a librarian in Australia complaining about a speech she had to listen to in which it was suggested that 'if you love reading and literature... then sport is something you will spurn as the interest of knuckleheads'. Bloody hell. In Australia! You mean to tell me that even in that great country there are people with such lowbrow opinions? Haven't they been outlawed? Can't they be sent away - on boats - to some place where they are obliged endlessly to read and re-read John Banville's The Sea and Graham Swift's Tomorrow, until they beg to be allowed a trip to the MCG or some other such arena of genuine culture, and be allowed to walk amongst replayed scenes of Lindwall and Lillee, Michael Holding and David Campese?
'If you love reading and literature... then sport is something you will spurn' is like 'if you enjoy listening to Bach, then you won't be eating spaghetti'. No, it's worse, since that is just the misjoining of a mutually irrelevant pair. But disparaging the appeal of what is closed off to you is a type of philistinism that can just as easily be used to dismiss Austen, Dickens and Virginia Woolf in favour of watching darts. I have nothing against watching darts, mind you, but I don't tell anyone to shun trips to the theatre on account of it.