It\u2019s definitely coming home<\/a>, and The Sun have scooped the world to tell us why.<\/p>\nALFRED THE GREAT OMEN: Lost remains of king who beat the Vikings tracked to car park in timely omen Three Lions will beat Norway at World Cup<\/p>\n
Yes, that is timely. One might almost be tempted so suggest very conveniently timely, if one were so inclined.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not, to be absolutely clear, saying this is a right load of old bumwater. Definitely not saying that.<\/p>\n
But if we were a real historian who had painstakingly tracked the remains of Alfred the Great to somewhere in a car park in Hampshire, we would probably look to publish our findings in some kind of respectable peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n
And if we were a crank, we would confirm our discovery with very little actual detail, in the week England happened to be playing Norway in the World Cup, via a Sun EXCLUSIVE.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all we\u2019re saying. That\u2019s what we\u2019d do. We\u2019re not casting any aspersions on Graham Phillips, 72, from Birmingham. Although we must note that is all the information The Sun give us about Graham.<\/p>\n
The man\u2019s own website \u2013 which is well worth a look \u2013 states:<\/p>\n
Author Graham Phillips has been described as an historical detective, a modern-day adventurer, and a real-life Indiana Jones. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, Graham\u2019s findings are always original and thought provoking, and his books make an exciting read.<\/p>\n
Mediawatch is a cynical old cove, but we suspect there may be some self-dubbing at play here. But it doesn\u2019t sound like the biography of a definitely legit academic or painstaking researcher. One of his other claims is to have found the Holy Grail, for instance. Again, from his own website:<\/p>\n
Graham Phillips has never been afraid of controversy. In 1995 he made headlines around the world, and created a storm in the Vatican that even involved the Pope himself, when he discovered a lost artifact that may have been the original Holy Grail. His first solo book,\u00a0The Search for the Grail, told the fascinating story of this modern-day Grail quest.<\/p>\n
But back to the definite presence of Alfred the Great\u2019s remains in that car park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a good omen ahead of England\u2019s match against Norway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe may have finally found Alfred\u2019s remains so is this a sign we can win the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hang on, though. What have they snuck in there? May? We may have finally found Alfred\u2019s remains? That was very much not the tone at the start of this piece.<\/p>\n
Graham, 72, from Birmingham, told The Sun: \u201cI am 100 per cent confident the car park site is where the bones were, and I\u2019m confident they are there now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Look at the subtle shifting of the goalposts here. From \u2018100 per cent confident\u2019 to merely \u2018confident\u2019 and then a couple of quotes later to \u2018may\u2019.<\/p>\n
Forgive Mediawatch for being unconvinced, but let us leave this tale of adventure and real-life Indiana Jonesery with this magnificent deployment of the \u2018just days\u2019 trope.<\/p>\n
Now Graham is confident he has cracked the case \u2013 just days before the nation prays for another victory over the Vikings, this time led by goal machine\u00a0Erling Haaland.<\/p>\n
All good fun, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Great Expectations: Part II<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want to expend too much time and energy on Troy Deeney\u2019s latest misery-soaked \u2018column\u2019 in The Sun because, well, it\u2019s Troy Deeney\u2019s misery-soaked \u2018column\u2019 in The Sun.<\/p>\n
But we cannot ignore this sentence\u2026<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like I have this unrealistic expectation.<\/p>\n
\u2026in a piece that spends the rest of its many hundred words p*ssing, moaning and whining that England will probably only make it as far as the semi-finals before probably losing to defending champions Argentina.<\/p>\n
Something that would, given the conditions in North America, make this England\u2019s second best men\u2019s World Cup ever.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
A fine Mess<\/p>\n
The Daily Express bravely bring us the big Lionel Messi story from last night.<\/p>\n
Lionel Messi\u2019s response to affair rumours with World Cup host as wife steps in<\/p>\n
Yep. That\u2019s definitely it. Definitely not this<\/a>.<\/p>\nThis is also one of those genuinely infuriating bits of tabloid tittle-tattle where they have their cake and stuff their greedy faces with it with titillating nudge-nudge hints at the idea of Messi having an affair and then copy that keeps saying things like\u2026<\/p>\n
However, this hasn\u2019t prevented unfounded online speculation circulating about Messi\u2019s private life, involving Telefe journalist Sofi Martinez.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere the phrase \u2018falsely accused of having an affair\u2019 also pops up. The affair rumours are complete b*llocks, we get it. Which begs the question: why is this a story at all?<\/p>\n
Except it doesn\u2019t even do that, really, does it? We all know why this complete bag of b*llocks is a story.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Broken news<\/p>\n
From the Daily Star:<\/p>\n
WORLD CUP ROUND-UP: Jordan Henderson breaks silence, rigged claims and penalty agony<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not how you spell \u2018arm\u2019.<\/p>\n
Weirdly, the Star go on to insist \u2018Jordan Henderson has spoken out on his freak injury\u2019 when every other outlet has led on the fact his silence-breaking social media update made no mention of his injury at all.<\/p>\n
The Sun, never one to engage in wild hyperbole, went so far as to note \u2018Henderson sensationally failed to even mention his horror injury\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World Cup attention turns now to the quarter-finals with England desperately trying to find a way to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112,9418],"class_list":["post-539267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}