What I Wrote This Week (6/26)

Are you and your loved ones also confused by our English-language American broadcasters continually using the phrase “unplayable” to describe a soccer player who is simply playing soccer at a really high level and not one who is unable to or not good enough to play? I, someone with unlimited power to change the way everything works, have received multiple complaints about this. I’ve become used to the phrase, having heard British people talk about soccer for 30 years, but when it’s used by an American during a World Cup, I’d say it fails Rule Number One of Broadcasting: don’t say a thing that most viewers will assume means the exact opposite of what you’re actually trying to say.

Here’s what I’ve written this week — and will keep writing for the next couple weeks:

-Who are the metaphorical winners and losers of the World Cup so far? It was written after the second round of matches, but almost all of it still applies today.

-I’m going to be grading every team’s World Cup performance after they get eliminated — from now until the end of the tournament.

And one thing I read:

-I’ve finished three books in the past week. If I’m not watching or writing about the World Cup, I have to do something that occupies my attention and prevents me from thinking about the World Cup. Just finished In the Freud Archives, by Janet Malcolm. Freud, and all of the people who obsessed over him? Yikes!