[Devongone]

Our Loz has tweeted in favour of brother Hazza.

Interestingly (or not) I'm reading David Mitchell's latest novel Utopia Avenue, in it a member of a band is arrested in Italy, having been beaten up by police and having had cannabis planted on him. He is charged with assaulting the police. After much delay and contact with the British Consulate he is asked to sign a document, admitting he's done wrong and apologising and he'll be released. I won't spoil the plot any more than by saying he refuses to sign and that leaves the corrupt Italian police without a leg to stand on.

Harry doesn't strike me as the sharpest football brain in England, but his old alma mater St Mary's Chesterfield thought he was university material off the field of play - so he isn't a complete idiot either.

Our police spent years chasing the imaginings of a nut called Nick ruining lives and reputations in the process. So why are we so keen to trust the account of Greek police, who find themselves thrust into the position of having arrested the world's most expensive defender?

Shouldn't we avoid making assumptions about badly-behaved footballers or power-crazed police until the truth emerges? Certainly the phraseology attributed to Maguire in Greece doesn't sound as though it originated around Mosbrough.

[Dancingwilldoit]

Simple solution Dev, don't read the papers and switch off the news. Ignorance is bliss.

[Devongone]

Trouble with ignorance Dancing is it breeds stupidity, racism, bias, injustice ........

If you study history academically you get to evaluate the sources of the information or disinformation you are discovering, but today we are blasted with a tsunami of immediacy in which facts, opinion and judgements emerge swirling in a maelstrom of gloop. Harry might be the nicest and kindest bloke around. The Greek police might be men and women of the highest probity. Maguire is being called a disgrace for not apologising and has been dropped by England, for what, being there, for being found guilty at a trial for which he was in England, like all the witnesses who were likely to support him?

Not only do we have to not access any media to avoid this stuff, but footballers, celebrities of any kind, have to stay home in permanent lockdown to be fairly certain of not being caught up in anything like this. We are creating a very odd world. Now logically Southgate can't pick Maguire until the appeal has been heard, and if its outcome is not favourable (and there's no prison sentence again) however long that takes, he can't be considered for England again until the suspended sentence runs out, at which point I suppose Southgate gets to judge whether Harry has miraculously become a new man. Bloody strange.