What, Tyler?!

I don’t know why I chose this silly pun to talk about the scandal brewing around the football commentator Martin Tyler.

After all, other than his surname, he has nothing in common with Wat Tyler who led a 14^th century peasant rebellion. I knew that, but the words came to me and I just put them down without giving it another thought. So there.

But boy, am I glad I’m not held to as much scrutiny as Martin Tyler and everyone else in the public eye. One gets the impression that the only way for those chaps not to get in trouble is to keep shtum.

Perhaps our TV channels should start hiring Trappist monks as commentators. They may not add any insights, but then neither would they offend our sensitive public the way Martin Tyler did – more than once.

His latest transgression came yesterday, when a Korean player named Son wrestled his opponent to the ground and got a yellow card for his trouble. Mr Tyler’s comment on the incident included the words ‘martial arts’, dropped as casually as my title above.

Within minutes the whole Internet hell broke loose. “Are we not taking that as a racist comment?” asked one irate viewer.

Another fan said: “Martin Tyler saying ‘martial arts’… is not a good look.”

Such opprobrium was way too mild for another sanctimonious viewer: “Martin Tyler’s ‘martial arts’ comment about Son’s yellow card was disgusting, xenophobic and racist…”

Sky Sports, Mr Tyler’s employer, issued a grovelling apology and a veiled threat to the commentator: “Martin Tyler has been reminded of need for care with his wording. No offence was intended.”

Yes, but it was taken, though it’s hard to understand why. The part of Asia Mr Son is from is widely associated with martial arts. In fact, every one, other than boxing, I’ve ever heard of originated in China, Japan or Korea. That, I’d suggest, in no way demeans the dignity of Oriental people – quite the contrary.

In fact, Shaolin monks developed kung fu thousands of years ago because they weren’t allowed to carry weapons. Personally, I have nothing but admiration for people capable of defending themselves without running their assailant through with a sword.

Some people may feel differently, but still – where’s the racist offence? Mr Tyler’s remark was perfectly innocuous, as any sensible person would know. I’m sure that Son himself wouldn’t be in the least offended – as he isn’t when his besotted fans sing: “He will run and he will score, he will eat your Labrador”.

Not every racial stereotype is offensive – most are good-natured. Moreover, I’m absolutely positive that none of Mr Tyler’s detractors was genuinely offended. No one, not even football viewers, is as cretinous as that (I am one myself, by the way… and no remarks from you).

The issue, I’m afraid, is much more sinister than common or garden stupidity. Our masses have fallen victim to a Pavlovian experiment, designed to produce a reflexive response that has nothing to do with the professed irritant.

The subject is systematically indoctrinated in the values of new, virtual morality that may co-exist with the old, real kind, but ideally should supersede it. This new code is like a private club charging a membership fee or a religion demanding a tithe.

It’s paid not in money but in attacks on anything that goes against the tenets of virtual morality. One such tenet is that a generalised reference to any group identity is ipso facto offensive.

Yes, we know that, for example, men and women are different in some respects, black athletes are better at running and jumping than their white colleagues, the Irish hold their liquor better than the Japanese, Italians are more emotive than Swedes, and the Dutch have a compulsion to produce and consume mountains of mediocre cheese.

But the guardians of virtual morality will censure anyone who reveals, by word or even gesture, that he knows not everyone – and not every group – is the same. Modernity worships at the altar of fake uniformity, and its priests will punish any perceived heresy.

This is brainwashing indoctrination at its most sinister. Our masses are being converted to a bogus secular religion with its code of virtual morality. The converts discipline themselves. They know that even the most innocuous reference to any group stereotype is sacrilegious – and react on cue.

If you ask them whether they really are offended by, say, a suggestion that Asians have something to do with martial arts, they won’t know what you are on about. Their consternation will be caused by the word ‘really’.

What do you mean, really offended? You miss the whole point. Reality has nothing to do with it. It’s that club membership, isn’t it? Or tithes to be paid to the virtual religion.

A neophyte doesn’t want to be drummed out or excommunicated. Registering the indignation he doesn’t really feel is like paying a membership fee or dropping a fiver into the collection plate.

As to poor Martin Tyler, he’d better watch his step because he has previous. Last month, he commented on a slightly injured Ukrainian player who, he said, should “soldier on”.

That too was deemed insensitive, disgusting and offensive. Doesn’t he know there is a war on, and many Ukrainians, including soldiers, are dying?

Admittedly, the link between Tyler’s use of that old idiom and his racism, homophobia, misogyny and perhaps global warming denial is less immediate than in the case of his ‘martial arts’ affront. But given enough painstaking scrutiny, it can be found.

And by the way, if Tyler wants to keep his job, he should refrain from talking about yellow cards. You can be sure some people out there will be offended by the racial allusion.

I started with one silly joke, so let me leave you with another. A woman is buying a chicken and holding up the queue by examining the bird for five minutes. She sniffs under the chicken’s wings, then between its legs, and finally pronounces her verdict: “This chicken smells.” The angry butcher answers: “Lady, are you sure you could pass the same test?”