Influencers: add cost and stymie facts

Best 2026 World Cup Advert 

Watching the World Cup forced me to watch some games on ITV, which means that I have been bombarded by adverts fronted by a baleful bonanza of influencers. What are they for? What do they add other than cost? Davis Beckham has appeared in 11 adverts for products, some of which he has probably never consumed or used. Companies believe that celebrities sell products, and perhaps they do if they are authentic. Those promoting charities are probably doing it because they have a genuine commitment to the cause. Footballers promoting a make of boot are probably sponsored by Nike or Adidas; Nigel Farage promoting Crypto Investments is genuine. I am less sure about Alan Shearer advertising Betfair, Coral or McDonald's, or Micah Richards promoting We Buy Any Car.

In the days of newspaper adverts, we got pictures and some facts about the product or service, and we could easily skip over them. TV adverts gave us colour and sometimes humour. World Cup adverts give us fantasy, and they cost a bomb for filming, payments to influencers, and FIFA's broadcasting charges passed on by the TV and streaming advertising costs. Who pays? The supporters for tickets and TV networks. And we all have to suffer the intrusion of adverts not only at half-time, which can last 25 minutes, but also before and after the games and during hydration breaks. FIFA created as many opportunities as possible to fire adverts at us. 

The result: I only managed to watch 5 games from end to end. The others I gave up at half-time or, on some occasions, at the first hydration break. The prospect of watching David Beckham and similar money-obsessed influencers raking in even more dosh was a complete turn-off.

I was delighted to see that the best-ranked advert in the World Cup was a home-based product that had no influencer other than Susan Boyle, and she was an AI insert as she swayed about on the girders of the Forth Railway Bridge. Pure Dead Brilliant.

Irn Bru World Cup Advert

Andy's Prehistoric Adventures

I switched on the BBC News to catch up on the new Prime Minister's cabinet appointments, and up came Andy's Prehistoric Adventures. I presumed that Lorna Kuensberg had been re-employed to cast her cynicism on the events before I realised that I had dialled into CBeebies. 

Alas, the News was an interview with Robert Jenrick, the supposed saviour of the Tories once and now relegated as Nigel Farage's apologist. He was telling porkies about immigration, despite having been the immigration minister when net migration reached its peak of 745,000 in 2022; it fell to 171,000 in 2025. I had watched the transfer of power from Sir Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham earlier in the day. I welcomed the new PM's promise to work in collaboration across political parties and his instinctive commitment to devolving power to localities. The importance of place and less tribalism are vital ingredients for gaining pace and releasing the energy of the public and private sectors working in step with each other at the local level, as they did before Westminster and Holyrood centralised business taxation and controlled and froze local expenditure. 

The responses to the new Prime Minister from world leaders and the devolved governments within the UK were positive and welcoming. They expressed a desire to work collaboratively, unlike the immediate messages from Reform and the Conservatives, which respectively called for an election and criticised policies that had not been announced. The UK media had a cynical tone; they were peeved that they had not been able to obtain leaks about new cabinet members and policies.

Most of the management of the transition has been well handled, apart from the hasty and populist announcement by Lucy Powell, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, that digital identity will be abandoned. This will make it more difficult to manage immigration, voting reform and sharing information between health, police, education and social work. This could vastly improve our response to child abuse, community care and special education. Most of the other broad hints of new policies are addressing issues that have hindered progress and been the reason that Keir Starmer lost the support of the press, voters and Labour MPs. They seem to have landed well, and the optimistic mood in the Downing Street sunshine was enhanced by a crowd of scousers, unusually respectful to Andy Burnham. They could have sung You'll Never Walk Alone!

It is 3pm and still no announcements; we desperately need some disruption in the tax system and the pace of change. That will be largely driven by the new PM and the ministers responsible for driving change. 

Digital Boycotting

It was when the US President phoned Giovanni Infantino, President of FIFA, and asked him to rescind the red card given to the US player, Folarin Balogun, and allow him to play the next game against Belgium that I thought things had gone too far. The rules of football were being trashed by an unholy alliance between two narcissistic men behaving like autocrats. Objections rained in from Belgium, Germany, UEFA, and the football press. All to no avail, but Belgium had the final say, beating the USA 4-1. Justice was done. The United States had treated the Iranian team with similar disrespect by refusing to let them stay overnight in the United States, a violation of international sports protocols.

If the World Cup teams had threatened a boycott, would Infantino have caved in to the pressure from the US President? Who knows, boycotts are seldom observed by all and can take years to yield results. I recall a sleep-in at the Senate House at Liverpool University in 1970, organised by Jon Snow, to persuade the University to relinquish its investments in South Africa. Jon was red-carded, and it was 24 years before Nelson Mandela became President and 41 years before the University apologised andawarded Jon Snow an honorary degree. 

National and International boycotts have had sporadic successes since Rosa Parks sparked the Alabama bus protest after she was told to sit at the back of the bus. Long-standing boycotts of South African products as part of anti-apartheid protests and the boycott of Russian oil and gas have had success over longer periods. Twitter (X) lost half its advertising revenue after companies boycotted it for inaccurate and toxic content.

On a personal level, I have boycotted many things, notably anything owned by Rupert Murdoch, American fast food and coffee chains, Virgin Trains, many companies owned by American hedge funds, Heathrow airport, Israeli produce since the genocide in Gaza and companies that have provided poor service or refused to refund payments like Booking.com. Does personal boycotting have any effect? Not a lot, but like voting, it is more effective than just abstaining, and it gives you a sense of doing the right thing.

I noticed that Lisa Nandy, the Secretary for Arts, Culture and Sport, has boycotted the use of X by her department. I cannot understand why the government and other organisations haven't done the same. Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart constantly air their gripes about X, where they are routinely abused for their moderate views. Still, they seem too worried about losing their followers to do the virtuous thing and deactivate their accounts. UK users have fallen from 8 million to 5.6 million since Musk took over. Notable company withdrawals from X include the majority of Higher Education organisations, many Councils, The Guardian, Sport England, London Marathon and British Red Cross. X responds by claiming to be the custodian of free speech, but its algorithms are surprisingly incapable of identifying abusive tweets and toxic rants. 

Most MPs seem to be frightened of losing their followers if they switch to Blue Sky or Threads. Perhaps we need a European microblogging site that banishes the use of algorithms that promote toxic views. In the meantime, I will stick to my own digital boycotting. I have never been tempted by X or, in its time, Twitter.  I seldom visit Facebook and LinkedIn; there are far too many unwanted adverts and mindless shared posts. Unlike our precious time, which is finite, tweets are for those more concerned about losing followers; they know neither the cost nor the value of time.

Lakes, Central Fells

Derwentwater from Brown Knotts

Thursday, 2 July 2026

Ascent:      690 metres
Distance:   12 kilometres
Time:         3 hours 42 minutes

High Tove Summit

Armboth Fell, a bogtrotter's heaven

Heigh Seat Summit

Blencathra from High Seat

Looking South to Scafell from High Seat

Gatbells and Grizedale Pike from Bleaberry Fell

Derwentwater from above Ashness Bridge

Ashness Bridge

I had been contemplating a longer hill walk all week and took the plunge, nothing ventured...

It was 12:40pm when Gregor dropped me off at Watendlath. It would reduce the height to be climbed, and I optimistically said I would be back at Ashness Bridge in 4 hours, the time predicted for this walk. I could always (gladly) opt out of Armboth Fell if things were too hard. There was a stiff breeze from the north-west that helped during the steep ascent to High Tove from Watendlath. There is a good stone path to begin with, then a paddle across some boggy ground to reach the uninspiring summit. Wainwright was spot on: "It is hard to imagine that anybody feels any affection at all for High Tove...water cannot drain away from it...everywhere is shockingly wet". 

Well, not quite as wet as the route to Armboth Fell, I went south and then turned east to avoid the more direct route over boggy ground, but ended up tramping along sheep tracks that were essentially streams. There are two rocky tops, and I topped them both before stopping for a drink at the more impressive, but not necessarily the higher, of the two. Four walkers from Lincolnshire were far less kind about High Tove than Wainwright, but they had taken the direct, waterlogged route from High Tove to Armboth Fell. Nevertheless, I decided to return to High Tove by this route. They were not wrong. I was not going to stop at High Tove, a barren stack of stones on a hump of a hill, despite it being well past 2pm 

The initial path to High Seat had been improved by large blocks of stone, presumably dropped off by helicopter. Only the final 60 metres of climbing were on grass, and the ground was sufficiently steep to minimise the bogs that had been the recurring feature of the walk so far. A large trig point and excellent views made it a worthwhile summit. The Helvellyn range to the east, Skiddaw to the north, and the Scafell range to the south competed for attention. But best of all was the profile of Blencathra to the northeast.

It was decision time: did I make the direct descent to Ashness Bridge to collect my lift or visit Bleaberry Fell, a good mile away on a boggy twisting path, which would leave me with another 4 kilometres to get back to Ashness Bridge via Falcon Crag?  I was taught by my friend Keith Adams in 1990, when in doubt, always try to do what you planned, otherwise you will have to return to complete the missing hills. After reaching Bleaberry Fell and admiring the views of Skiddaw, I charged down the initial steep rocky path and then upped my pace to Falcon Crag, where I doubled back on the path to Ashness Bridge. A kilometre short of the bridge, Gregor arrived running at pace up the steepish path; he was loosening up for an evening run up the Langdale Pikes. 

He turned back whilst I lingered, mesmerised by the views over Derwentwater and pleased that I had managed the walk in 4 hours, including the two stops for drinks and food.  I took a photo of Ashness Bridge that I had first visited during a primary school holiday when a man called Vivian Fisher with a Jay sitting on his shoulder would open the gate for passing travellers. We used to visit with our young family to admire the views of Derwentwater. (see below). Today would replenish my memory bank and inspire future memories and perhaps convince me that there is still life in the legs and lungs.

View from Ashness Bridge 1986