Paul Scholes and his non-arsedness about music explains his tone-deaf grumpiness | OneFootball

“I don’t like music; I’m not arsed about it.”

You have to admit it’s a very Paul Scholes thing to say and a very Paul Scholes way to say it.

But it’s also thrown us for a loop. We will passionately defend anyone’s right to any taste in music. There is absolutely no wrong answer here because it is so powerfully personal and subjective.

But we do struggle to defend no interest whatsoever in the entire concept. At all. To have found no music that touches you in any way. To have not even had the curiosity to find out if it’s actually true. It’s wild behaviour.

It’s even odder than the whole thing of not liking film, isn’t it? Again, not just “I don’t like that film” or “I don’t like many films” but having absolutely no interest or curiosity or opinion on the entire concept.

Paul Scholes is a man who if he is going to have sound in his ears wants it to be only talkSPORT. At all times. Think of that.

We don’t think that’s healthy for anyone, and the evidence of the people who actually have to talk and listen to talkSPORT all day for their jobs appears to back that up.

Paul Scholes is a man who apparently, if faced with the final four minutes of his life, would choose to listen to Jason Cundy ask if anyone has seen Tottenham rather than any piece of music ever written on any instrument in any language in any period of history.

A man who considers a radio phone-in where Dave from Bermondsey explain in words of exclusively one syllable why Arsenal’s Premier League title win is fraudulent is of greater worth than the entire collected works of Mozart, The Beatles and Mr Blobby.

It’s easy and fun to take the piss and we shouldn’t. Scholes’ choices are his own to make and his own to reveal proudly to the world on a podcast with Mr Paddy McGuinness. Who are we to judge? Exactly, nobody.

But while we do find ourselves idly wondering if the reason England’s Golden Generation never won anything is because they are all just boring bastards, there is perhaps a valid thought here about Scholes’ post-playing career.

It’s never really sat right with us that Scholes has become such a grumpy and outspoken pundit on the game when he managed to go through pretty much the entirety of his professional playing career without saying a single word to anyone about anything at any time.

Good punditry requires light and shade, and Scholes offers none of it. He’s just performatively grumpy and critical and possessed of an entirely closed mind on issues like, for instance, Michael Carrick’s suitability to be the Manchester United manager.

And Scholes’ views on music, while essentially harmless, do give away why he’s such a dull and uninteresting voice on the game. He has neither the capacity nor inclination to challenge or consider his own views on anything. No interest in wider or deeper thought. Perhaps not even the intelligence for it.

That’s what you’re saying when you say you don’t like music. Because you do. Or at least could. If you had an ounce of imagination in your black soul. If you have even the slightest inkling to explore the idea, you would find some music and, yes, perhaps even a film or two that you would enjoy. We promise you it’s true.

There’s an old Stewart Lee bit about people who are so lacking in imagination and curiosity that placed in a locked room with nothing but a tea cosy they wouldn’t even bother to find out whether it could function as a passable hat.

That’s Paul Scholes. That’s a man who we have to listen to talk about football with the exact same unshakeable, unmoved and immovable thoughts on the game that were drummed into him by Sir Alex Ferguson over 30 years ago.

It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect a smidge more imagination than that from people paid handsomely to talk about our game. We’re going to go ahead and assume the music-shunning film-sceptical Scholes hasn’t read much Kipling, but we have to wonder what do they know of talking sport who only talkSPORT know.