How the world makes amends has yet to be decided, while quite how anyone may announce the “results” of a trial that’s yet to be concluded remains unclear, but several Guardian readers with kind faces and reassuring spectacles have confirmed that the monumental attention paid to what is essentially an overblown playground spat makes us all voyeurs at best, and slack-jawed yokels at worst.
After a day of reading tweets direct from the courtroom describing how Terry and Anton Ferdinand took it in turns to cuss each other’s mums, one Guardian reader claimed that the most significant outcome of today’s proceedings is the confirmation that we are, as an entire species, doomed.
He said: “Look, I find John Terry as distasteful as the next man, but if he’s a card-carrying KKK member then I’m the tooth fairy – because, let’s face it, he wouldn’t have captained cosmopolitan Chelsea for so long if he was.
“What he is, however, is an idiot, and for me this best explains his decision to label Anton Ferdinand a ‘slack runt’ on the field of play, perhaps in response to Anton’s jibes about him doing the whatnot with whatsherface behind thingiemajiggy’s back.
“Here we see two idiots being idiots at each other. So what do we all do but idiot along with them, heaping significance upon the whole debacle until every kid in the country knows what racism is and how they can use it to wind up an opponent.
“The Suarez-Evra case was significant as it highlighted cultural divides. This is, like I said, just two idiots being idiots.
“I implore everyone to cease joining them in doing the stupid dance lest Mother Earth finally decides enough’s enough and shakes us all off into a black hole like a dog trying to rid itself of fleas.”
Sepp Blatter said: “Why can’t they just shake hands and forget about it?”