Category Archives: Sport

What’s My Motivation for This?

Posted on by
11

It’s the little things in life that really get up my nose.

People who step onto a train (or into a lift) before you are able to get off. Wouldn’t it be easier for me to get out first, thus creating room on the train? Never mind common courtesy! Then there are those others who, when you’re waiting for a lift having pressed the button and made it light up, come along in front of you and press that button very same button again- as if you hadn’t thought of doing that. “IT’S ALREADY LIT YOU CABBAGE !! I ALREADY PRESSED IT!!”

They are right up there with people who, while you’re stood holding a door open for them, say nothing and just saunter through. Not a thank you, kiss-your-arse, NOTHING. Or worse, they walk through the open door not even bothering to take their hands out of their pockets to take the door from you. Bastards.

Short people using umbrellas in public places. They are a danger to my eyesight. I’ll go blind soon enough, thank you very much, and don’t need any help from you attacking my retinas with your steely spikey spokey pokey brolly. Then again, I really despise those who take something from you, whether a cup of tea, a pencil or whatever and who not only don’t say thank you, they don’t even look at you by way of acknowledgment. Grrrrr…

While none of these annoyances, taken individually, would force you to unleash the forces of hell, imagine how you would feel if all of the above happened to you in the space of one morning?

Well , welcome to my world.

My bad morning had started early, (as early as last night, in fact) as I’d lost my glasses. This was the first time it’d happened to me in the six weeks since I’d been viewing the world in glorious HD. I was worried, and it irked me. I’d either left them at work, or in the pub, or on the train, or somewhere. Bugger. Still, I was so knackered last night, couldn’t be arsed to worry about them, so I decided to sleep on it.

I woke up this morning and immediately started to worry about them. Bugger. And Charlton had lost again.

With my spare pair of specs (£9.99 Foster Grants from Sainsburys) in my top pocket, I set off for work by my usual train. I don’t like my spare pair. Ok, so they’re approximately £337.21 cheaper than my lost pair, but they do look every bit of that. Ill-fitting, cheap-looking plastic frames and, in all honesty, I can’t see out of them. Dunno why I bothered really.

Having squinted my way through the morning’s reading matter, the train started to pull in to my stop. I made myself ready by the door, the train came to a halt and I pushed the button to open the door. I hadn’t even time to put my worst foot forward across the threshold when a 50-something, short, fat woman pushed her way through the doorway ARSE FIRST, while she closed and shook her umbrella dry. As she try to push her way in, I gave her the gentlest of knees in the sphincter. She stood bolt upright. “Oops, sorry!” I lied, as I squeezed through the rather small gap between her and the doorframe. I didn’t bother looking around to see the look on her face, I have a decent enough imagination on me. I stomped off to work.

In reception, the queue for the coffee bar was too long to worry about so I headed straight for the lift. One of the three lifts had been out of action for weeks so the wait for one of the other two can be irritatingly long. I pressed the button. Nothing happened for a while. Then it did. A youngish bloke holding a grande latte walked in front of me and pushed the button again. I assume he must have been able to hear me snorting behind him. Then he pressed it again, and then taptap…taptaptap, like he was sending morse code. Amazingly, after only seventeen presses of the button, the lift arrived. I said nothing, I just ticked.

Up to the second floor and as the doors opened a girl from the features desk made a feint to get in before I got out. I can only assume the black look on my face, resplendently framed in cheap plastic glasses, put her off. Only a nutcase would wear them, surely. She made a tactical retreat. “Thank you” I barked, forcing a smile.

Down the corridor I huffed, to the door at the end. I could hear footsteps behind me and as I reached for the door and I turned to see a young, suited bloke about ten yards away coming towards me. I pushed the door open, went though and then waited, holding the door for him to take. He walked straight through the gap, saying nothing, leeaving me holding the door as he walked past, like I was his sodding doorman.
“My pleasure” I called after him. He looked over his shoulder and smirked.
“Pig” I added.

I can’t tell you.

The next twelve minutes went relatively well. My mood was much improved by the discovery of my glasses, in their case on the desk where I had indeed left them the night before. Hurrah! All was again well in the world, so I went to buy a round of coffees. Returning to the office, I passed them around to the chaps, and all but one thanked me and offered me the cash. The last bloke, never took his eyes off his pc, just held out his hand for me to give him his cup. Having grabbed it from me, he slurped it and set it down on the desk, eyes still focussing on the screen.
“Oh, don’t mention it, Phil” I squarked.

He didn’t.

I walked over to my desk and booted the waste bin 8ft across the room. Another colleague sniggered, sensing my well-disguised exasperation.
“Well, Mike, if you didn’t wanna work with clowns, you shouldn’t have joined the circus”

And it was still only 10.30.

KimAd.

Travel News

Posted on by
6

So what are we to make of Andy Powell? The Welsh rugby international was arrested last weekend, drunk in charge of a golf buggy, celebrating his team’s extraordinary victory over the Jocks in Cardiff. No one is suggesting he was actually trying to drive the golf cart onto the M4 Motorway, he was just heading in that general direction. Certainly it seems Powell was unlikely to know where he actually was, after such a long and heartfelt celebration which had tired him a little. Tired as Lord he was .

“Boys”, as they say, “will be prats”. Is this a hanging offence? Probably not. Will he be dropped from the team? Maybe, maybe not. Is there precident for this sort of behaviour? Oh yes indeedy!

Playing for Italy against England that very weekend was a chap called Craig Gower, who used to play in and for Australia, him being an..er..Australian. Here’s a taste of his Wikipedia entry:

Controversy
Gower has been involved in a number of alcohol-related off-field incidents.
In 1999, Gower exposed himself to a female Irish tourist in a Coogee bar, blaming his behaviour on alcohol intoxication. He was dumped from the Kangaroos Squad and fined $2,500 by the NRL and a further $500 in court after pleading guilty to indecent exposure.
Gower was fired as Panthers captain in December 2005, after incidents at a charity golf event where he argued with several guests, groped the teenage daughter of former league player Wayne Pearce, chased Pearce’s son with a bottle before vomiting on him, streaked around the resort, wrecked a golf cart, held a butter knife to the throat of a Sydney radio personality and threw the knife at resort guests before being kicked out of the function by security.

Gower was handed a “final warning” by the National Rugby League and fined $100,000, with $90,000 to be paid to an NRL programme encouraging the responsible use of alcohol by league players and $10,000 to replace the destroyed golf cart.[9] Gower was “deeply unhappy” that the Penrith Panthers club did not defend his reputation, and at one stage threatened to “walk” from the club.[10]
Allegedly inebriated with alcohol in a bar at Kings Cross on 11 February 2007, Gower allegedly tried to kiss one man before biting him on the neck and sparking a brawl, and is accused of assaulting another man.[11][12] The Panthers club controversially reappointed Gower as captain in 2007, claiming the Peppermint Lounge incident was just a media “beat-up”.[13]

So, who knows, there may well be a happy outcome for Andy Powell ? His little spin in a buggy seems rather tame up against proper piss-heads such as Mr Gower. On that evidence he should be made Prince of Wales. No-one was hurt and all he did (allegedly) was to remove his trousers before driving off into the night. Who amongst us hasn’t done that? Leave the boy alone, I say.

I mean to say, it’s not even as if he went out one evening this week, got ridiculously pissed and fell down the stairs of the Paris Metro, cracking his head open and busting a couple of ribs. He’d have to be a proper sad old Welsh wino to do that.

Say it with Socks

Posted on by
Reply

Whilst trying not to get carried away with the whole marketing con-fest of Valentines Day, the Incumbent and I did exchange gifts on the day, as token of our affection for each other. I bought her a pair of socks and she, in an obvious bid for another term in office, bought me a bottle of Lagavulin. Seemed like a fair swap to me. It’s my favourite brand of whisky, and she gets cold feet. And never underestimate the aphrodisiac properties of a good pair of thermal socks. Or is that overestimate?.

One thing I’ve leaned over the years: whatever I buy her for Christmas, Birthday or other occasions, she will always best me in the forking-out department. They do that to you, women. Clever bastards.

As chuffed as I was with a bottle of Scotland’s finest malt, I felt a bit deflated. What I really wanted was one of those chairs. You know the ones I mean. The Mogul Chairs. You must have seen them this weekend when watching the yawnathon that is the Vancouver Winter Olympics ? Competitors in the Freestyle Skiing event, get to the bottom of the hill and if they are in a medal position they get to sit in one of three huge comfy chairs and watch the rest of the field come in. If someone then comes in and posts a faster time, he or she then gets to rest his bum in the apposite seat, while the previous holder of that position either moves one seat down or buggers off into non-comfy-chair anonymity.

This is proving to be much more entertaining than the ‘sport’ itself. Just watch the devastated faces of those who were holding onto the bronze medal, only for someone to come in with a better time. “ I don’t wanna get up! I’ve just got settled”

I’m not sure if all the events at the Olympics have comfy chairs at the end of course. The luge organisers have surely got to come up with an alternative to their original idea of scaffolding poles, broken glass and razor wire at the bottom of the run. Someone could hurt themselves on that! But it’ll obviously be their own fault if they do.

Hold on for a moment… … … sorry… … … ahem … … excuse me … … it’s very hard to remain composed when I watch Jacques Rogge (a right Belgium Count) get his onion out of his handbag and mock-blub at that news conference the other day. Sweet baby Jesus, what is the world coming to. Alastair Campbell , Gordon Brown, now Jacques Rogge CRYING !!! Who’s next? Sepp Blatter? That really would be a full set of crying crooked Counts.

Fatty Owls

Posted on by
3

The Null Stern- bring your own pyjamas

News reaches me of the world’s first zero star hotel. The Null Stern Hotel (slogan: ‘The Only Star is You’) in Switzerland is a converted nuclear bunker where, for for six quid (about 1 Euro at present) you get a military-style bunkbed for the night, hot water bottles rather than central heating, and earplugs to blockout the din of the ventilation system. Who gets a hot shower in the morning and who’s shower is cold is determined by drawing lots.

All very shocking, I’m sure, but does it really deserve no stars? And if it does, I’d like to nominate a few more which deserve that honour. One that immediately springs to mind is the lovely en-suite double I once stayed at in Morecambe. En-suite, it technically was, but the bathroom was of Fawlty Towers proportions. I literally had to open the door to lean forward to wipe my bum. Lovely. Especially for my partner.

Then there was the establishment in Blackpool where a turd was discovered in the cleaner’s bucket (though that may have been left there by one of the guests), not forgetting the B&B above The Swan in Bath with 1 room, five beds and a sink, which one night trebled-up as a wash basin, urinal and bidet.

Closer to home there’s Blackheath’s very own Clarendon Hotel, which stands above the village as a beacon of overpriced misery, a monument to peeling paint, a seven-star shabby shit-pit, spewing out streams of swindled Spaniards, irate Italians and dejected Gerries onto the surrounding streets and environs as they spend a gruesome night there as part of their coach trip round Britain. They’re easy to spot wandering around the bars and eateries of the village, all with that same bemused look on their faces as they struggle to come to terms with where their tour company has billeted them for the night.

At one newspaper I worked at, district men and foreign correspondents were put up in the Clarendon for the night if they were called to the London office. They threatened to strike until the company eventually found a proper hotel.

I stayed there once, during my divorce malarky. I stayed in a single room of such drabness, smallness and all-round lessness that, even in my misery of a break-up, I pitied the poor French or Japanese sods who have to put up with ‘traditional quaint British hospitality’, and fork-out a fortune for the privilege. I can’t remember exactly what they charged my for that room, but it in the neighbourhood of a hundred quid. What must the visitors think of us?

On the other hand, sometimes the guests are actually worse than the hotel: On a rugby club tour one year, and after a particularly long and boysterous first night in our hotel, an ashen-faced hotelier staggered into the breakfast room the following morning to address us.

“I’ve been in the hotel trade for 35 years and that was the the worst behaviour I’ve ever seen” he whimpered.

“Stick around!” came a voice from the back.

It makes an abandoned nuclear bunker in Switzerland seem quite appealing.

.

A Marathon Innings

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s another in an occasional series of pleas to you kinder nature. I got this from my old mate Andy Bull, and in the spirit of first-come-first-serve he gets the begging-bowl slot for this year’s London Marathon.

Some of you may remember Andy as a brilliant wicketkeeper/batsmen for Dartfordians, if so I suggest you are either pissed or have Alzheimers. Every cricket team needs a great keeper, and we were no different. But you can’t have everything, can you? Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge (or byes between the legs) and we’ll say no more about it.

Just give him some money .

Hi all,

Yes it’s true!!

This April I will be donning my pumps once again and hauling my sorry backside 26.2 miles around the streets of our fair capital hoping to raise a large bin liner full of cash for the Down’s Syndrome Association.

As you will all know my 5 year old son, Joshua, was born with Down’s Syndrome and the DSA have been a constant support to us helping us over many of the hurdles that have presented themselves so it is time for me to give something back.

This is where you lovely lot come in. Break open those Piggy Banks, cash in those Christmas Matalan vouchers and dig deeply into the dark recesses of your pockets and kindly click on the ‘Sponsor Me’ button below.

The link to follow is: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AndyBull

And remember for the right price the head will get shaved, the body will get painted green or I will run the whole distance singing Boney M’s complete back catalogue!!

Please feel free to forward this email on to anyone with huge pots of cash and an enthusiasm to give it all to me.

Thanks again for your support and a big kiss from Josh x

Andy

The Eyes Have It

Posted on by
12

I went for an eye test this morning.
I sat nervously in the opticians waiting room (well, in a conspicuous space in an open plan shop in Canary Wharf), clutching a piece of paper tightly. I had booked my appointment online, and by registering with them, the company offered me a 50% discount on eye tests and 10% off glasses. WooHoo!! Trouble is at no stage did they actually announce how much an eye test was. What was I going to pay half of? £10? £50? A HUNDRED ??? I didn’t know but it didn’t matter that much anyway. My eyes had not been what they were for some time, and I wanted that put right.

“Ah hello Mr Bealing, do come in” said a cheery man in the examination room. “My name is Kalpesh, how do you do ? Is this the first time you’ve had an examination with us?”
“er…yes” I replied, sweating in the way I do when under the pressure of a perfectly innocent question asked by a very polite man.
“Ok, and when was that last time you had your eyes tested?”
“Oh about 1989 I would think.”

My mind wandered off:
I remembered booking myself in for an appointment at the old Greenwich Hospital for a test, for reasons now lost in the mists of time. Two young-ish blokes put silly glasses on me, asked me to look at numbers, letters and things and finally shone several bright lights into each of my eyes before pronouncing me to have perfect vision. I thanked them, stood up and attempted to find my way out of the room. However, the previously administered lightshow was still blurring my vision and I missed the doorway by a good three feet. Smack!. I fumbled about and found the opening, the sound of optometrist’s laughter following me out into the corridor.

Anyway, back to this morning. The test began with me looking into a machine, which at shotgun speed blew bullets of compressed air into my eyes.
“This is to test the pressure in your eyes” Kalpesh informed me.
“It bloody hurts” I informed I him back.
“You want a tissue?” he asked, noticing my eyes streaming
“No, no, I’m fine thanks”, said I, not wanting to betray my wussiness.
Several more machines were sat at, including (as an ‘optional extra’) one which took a photo of the inside of my eyes, and Kalpesh announced he was done. He jotted down a few notes, stood up and said, “Right! Now the examination can begin”
“Well what was that, then ?” I asked
“That was just a few measurements I needed to take before starting”
So, in truth, he’d made me cry even before the test had started. Wonderful. To soften the blow, Kalpesh let me know that with the discount, the cost of the exam AND the optional extra retina photo would be 19 quid. Even I could afford that. “Lead on MacDuff.”

We moved to another, darker room. Vaguely familiar silly glasses were donned, different bits of plastic were slid into place, I looked left, right, up and down. Then came the lights again. Dirty great laser beams, more befitting of Dr. No than Vision Express honed into view and were concentrated on first my right, then my left peeper. As each beam pulsed into the back of my eyes, buckets of tears flowed out of the front.
“Would you like a tissue? “ Kalpesh again asked.
“No, no. I’m fine thanks” I said, manfully. My eyes may have been on the way out but there was nothing wrong with my stiff upper lip.

I read with my right eye, peered through the blurred mist of my left, I read letters, looked at shapes and scanned text. It soon became obvious that my eyes couldn’t do what I needed them to do all on their own, and that I would indeed need specs. Oh bugger! Or rather, Old Bugger !

Out into the daylight once more, I was handed over to Kalpesh’s colleague, Amrit. Here was another cheery fellow (what is it about opticians??? I might apply). Amrit took me through the cost of the exam and told me how, if it was my wish, we could proceed with ordering my glasses.
“Oh fuck it!” I proclaimed “We may as well get it over with. Lets do it.”.

We walked to the wall of glasses where we paused. “Now”, said Amrit “how do I put this politely?…. you have a rather wide … er “
“I’ve got a big fat head” I interjected, helping the poor bloke out
“Ah yes!” he gasped in embarrassment “thank goodness, you knew”
“Not a problem , Amrit, I was born with it.”

We spent the next stage of our time together choosing frames together. Romantic it wasn’t. Illuminating it was. I had imagined, whenever I’d given it the tiniest of thought, that if I wore Buddy Holly glasses I’d look like, well, like Buddy Holly, or Elvis Costello at the very least. No such luck. I looked like an old, fat Nobby Stiles. A mutant Harry Palmer. A poor man’s John Mcririck.

Some frames made me look like my dad, some like my mum. This was not how it was supposed to be. This was yet another rusty old nail on my worm-riddled old coffin. I couldn’t possibly be that old. It’s a short limp from here to being tapped on the shoulder by the Grim Reaper, getting a Wish You Were Here card from the other side, my Logan’s Run crystal turning to black, or the Great Umpire going upstairs for a referral.

But, hey, I know I’m old. That is, after all, all I go on about, week-in week-out. So I plumped. I plumped for a pair of not-too-retro, not-too-trendy (according to Amrit) frames which not only was I comfortable wearing, but also didn’t go ping when I tried to slide them over my ears. If I’m gonna have to wear them I want them to be comfy. So me and my newest and bestest of pals went to the checkout desk.

“So when can I pick them up?” I wondered
“They should be ready in a couple of hours” Amrit said matter-of-factly.
“Well I can’t do that, I’ll pop in on my way home tonight”
“Not a problem Mr Bealing, we’re open til seven”
“Perfect, I shall be here at half six”.
“Ok, Mr Bealing, so with the test, the lenses and the frames that comes to £347.20”

pause

“Could I trouble you for a tissue please, Amrit ?”.

.

It Is Written

Posted on by
2

Predictions.

When crap journalists can think of nothing else to write about, and editors have nothing sexy with which to fill their pages, we are left with long and exhausting lists of predictions for the coming year. Here at The Sharp Single things are no different. So read this and you need not read another til, ooh, next week I should imagine.

2010 and all that.

In January David Tennant becomes Dir Gen of the BBC, narrowly edging out the twin-bid from Mathew Horne and James Corden. It’s believed that the board said they didn’t want too much hilarity during important meetings, and yet they still plump for Tennant. Peter Andre marries himself. Katie Price explodes. Her life has gone tits-up.

The recession ends in February. Then it starts again a week later for those of us under £150,000-a-year when the government raises income tax to pay for a Champagne and Crayfish bar at the 2012 Olympic Equestrian stadium.
Following another attempted rectum-launched terrorist attack on an airliner, all passengers are now asked to remove their underpants through customs. John Prescott and Amy Winehouse are exempt. In the third week of February, due to an administrative error there is no sale on at DFS. Early march sees Hazel Blears join the Tory Party, and Peter Mandelson join the Brownies. Boris will say nothing sensible or vaguely relevant all year.
I lose 20 lbs by the end of March, in preparation to put on 25 by late June. In an astonishing turn of events, Jude Law continues to receive offers of work. In April, a virulent strain of Gnu Flu sweeps through Fleet Street and Sky News studios. Some people are almost likely to very probably have a tickly throat. The epidemic is expected to last until a proper news story breaks.

A Briton wins the first seven races in the F1 Championship. Meanwhile, in sport, Chelsea win the Premiere League by one point from Arsenal when, in the Blues last game three late deflected off-side penalties are allowed by the ref, a Mr S.Wonder, apparently. (By the end of the year, each match will be officiated by 7 refs, 2 linesmen, a sheepdog and The Met Police.) Alex Ferguson is finally pickled and displayed in the Man Utd museum for all eternity. United appoint Victoria Beckham as their new coach.

Gordon Brown loses the election and takes his seat in the upper chamber as Lord Thankgoditsallover. Fox hunting is re-legalised by the new Tory Government, as is hanging, public masturbation and child chimney-sweeps. Charlton Athletic make the play-offs only to lose to Millwall, 3 fan deaths to 1 (Duckworth/Lewis method).
In late May, the newly-appointed Minister for War, Mr Liam Fox, announces the Government’s new big push in Afghanistan. Plans are made to enlist every first-born child from labour-voting households (that’ll teach ’em). June 16th, fifty-three women in Florida, California and St Andrews simultaneously give birth to babies of mixed-race and a smashing set of choppers. The women, all blonde, rather soiled-looking, hotel cloakroom attendants immediately sign contracts with The Mail on Sunday. Gillette sales plummet. Or soar. July 21st, a string bag full of lemons is seen being delivered to The Crown public house, Blackheath. But no ice.
By the beginning of August, after a summer of riots and general discontent, Police officers are allowed to carry machetes while on crowd-control duties. All fingerprints and DNA of police officers are removed from the system, to be replaced by those of mortgage-defaulters and lollipop ladies.
Brazil win the World Cup. By now, England have already been roasted by the West Germans, Capello is poached by Portugal and grilled by the press. Then he goes and gets smashed.
Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff is seen urinating up against the Grace Gates at Lords after a particularly convivial lunch during the One Day International vrs Australia. The press dub it ‘Gategate’.
In late September after a ‘leaked’ press release it is widely reported that this year’s must-have toy for Christmas will be Mattel’s Stoat Family Fortunes (David Tennant Edition). A week later all stocks are sold out. Individual members of the Stoat family change hands on eBay for up to £300, except the very popular ‘Piper Stoat’ which you can’t get for love nor money.

In October I turn 40 years old for the seventh time running. Later that month armed police from the crack ‘Arrest Innocent People Squad’ raid a flat believed to be the HQ of a sleeper cell of Al Qaeda, responsible for the alleged underpants plot earlier in the year. Yet again, their information is found to be shoddy: Having forced their way into the premises, all they find is a derelict, uninhabited shit-hole, of no use or interest to man nor beast. And that’s not this years’ only connection with Wales: After a particularly wet autumn at Celtic Manor Golf Club, play is suspended during the foursomes on the opening day of The Ryder Cup when US player Stewart Cink’s caddy is tragically drowned while replacing a divot. Organisers pledge never to attempt to hold the event in Wales again, at any time of the year.
November 2nd and the Google Street View van finally visits my street, when it catches me stealing my next door neighbour’s wheelie bin, to replace mine which was stolen the week before
Thursday Nov 25th, Brisbane: Australia finish the first day of the first Ashes test on 431-1 (Ponting 230no, Katich 125no. Swann 1-250). Ian Botham arrested pending inquiries into an alleged incident in the bar afterwards which leaves 6 members of the Aussie press corps needing treatment. Four (empty) cases of Shiraz and a cricket stump are bagged and sent to forenics.

December: Keith Harris and Orville win Strictly Come Dancing, beating Clare Balding in the final, watched by 48 million catatonic viewers. On a visit by my children, mid-month, I resume the mantle of ‘Best Dad in the World’ – the first time I’ve held the title in 12 months. Their Christmas lists are then handed to me.
On Dec 23rd, a new supply of Piper Stoats arrive on the docks in Liverpool. Massive queues form and14 people are crushed in the ensuing riot when it’s announced sales are limited to one buyer each. Dec 29th: Mattel recall all sets of Stoat Family Fortunes due to a massive, dangerous design fault. Hundreds have been maimed by Piper’s sharp protruding teeth. Richard Branson makes an aggressive takeover bid for the company. Awaiting details of the photocall.

Happy 2011 to both of you

.

Who’s Been Naughty, and Who’s Been Nice?

Posted on by
Reply

So, in the immortal words of my old Night News Editor, as we progress “out of one shitty year, into another shitty year”, what have we learned ?

Well, we know that a 3-iron is as good at getting you at out of the rough as it is at getting your old man out of his Mercedes. Being 106 years old doesn’t preclude you from competing in international sport- as Tom Watson, Ryan Giggs and Kevin Poole have taught us (look him up!). Google Street View hasn’t become the burglars favourite tool, and they STILL haven’t been down my road.

All MP’s are wankers. Most are theives and crooks. I will never make a 50 in a competitive game of cricket. Or an uncompetitive one for that matter. Newcastle Utd and Man City are still big clubs. Apparently. I don’t want to go to work any more. There is far too much conversation in men’s toilets. It’s nearly time for me to win the Lottery (I’ll see you alright, don’t worry). Fat unattractive women can sing rather well. Rage Against the Machine can’t.

Michael Jackson didn’t die a natural death. Remember to hold that front page. We still haven’t a clue where Bin Laden is, but they’ve found the rest of his family. In general, I don’t like people. Policemen don’t like being photographed when they’re hitting people, but they do like kettles.Obama has been a bit of a disappointment, to be honest, but my poster I bought of him on ebay is not coming down. Life is better with Malcolm Tucker and without Hazel Blears

. Jade Goody will soon be beatified. Clare Balding should be. I’m not as fit as I should be, but about as fit as I thought I was. Ricky Ponting can’t win the Ashes in England., but he’ll manage it in Australia. F1 is still an interesting sport all the way up to the start of the race. Renault drivers are naughty boys. Blackheath still doesn’t have a decent boozer, but I’d like to think I contributed to the recent glut of lemons. Gordon Brown is still the PM of Great Britain (I can always Tipex that out if something happens before I go to press).

I’ve had a cold for 8 weeks in the last 52, and no matter how many channels you have to watch, there’s never anything decent on between car insurance adverts. IPL will ruin cricket as we know it. Football is already a shambles. It’s not the Chinese or the Indians, the carbon footprints or the motor cars: It’s the bankers who have fucked up the world. We want our money back.

It doesn’t matter how loathesome the BNP are, how ridiculous Nick Griffen was made to look on TV, there will STILL be stupid and nasty people who will vote for him at the polls next year. Andy Murray is a miserable bastard, but one day he’s gonna win something big. Apparently. When entering a Nepalese restaurant, plump for the mismas.

And the war won’t be over by Christmas. Or even next Christmas. Turns out they lied to us. But we knew that already, didn’t we?

May all your Christmas’s be white, and all your doughnuts turn out like fannies.

.

 

On the Button

Posted on by
Reply

More great words of wisdom from Giles Smith, The Times. December 15, 2009

Jenson Button undone as victory and viewers desert him

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards at the Sheffield Arena
Giles Smith: sport on television

Poor old Jenson Button. There he was, on his final lap, seemingly coasting towards the chequered flag that would signal the first BBC Sports Personality of the Year victory of his racing career, only for a startled-looking Ryan Giggs to appear in his wing mirror, pull out of the slipstream and somehow scream across the line ahead of him.

So close to glory, then, for the Formula One world champion — and yet so far. And we all know how it plays, personality-wise: nobody remembers who came second.

Here’s the good news, though: almost no one was watching. Only 4.7 million tuned in for the BBC’s sports review, down from 10 million in 2008, the audience laid waste by the final agonies of The X Factor, which peaked at a near Morecambe & Wise-esque 19.1 million viewers.

Surely the old philosophical conundrum about the tree falling in the forest applies here. If a racing driver finishes second in the Sports Personality of the Year contest, but almost nobody in the country witnessed it because they were watching ITV, can it truly be said to have happened?

It did happen, though, I swear. It only felt like it didn’t. Giggs, remember, made only 15 first-team starts for Manchester United last season and, accordingly, he must have gone to the Sheffield Arena on Sunday night fully expecting to be a sub. At the most he must have imagined he would get on for a brief cameo in the final quarter of an hour if things weren’t quite going to plan. Yet, incredibly, he found himself the first name down on the teamsheet.

Talk about a schoolboy dream. Never has a decent run in the Carling yielded quite so much.

The temptation is to put it down to Manchester United fans, weighting the voting. But for that to happen, surely, the show would have had to kick off at lunchtime, to catch the market in Asia. In the event, when the phone lines closed, it was merely 5.45am in Tokyo — too early, surely, for a Pacific Rim-effect to take hold.

Or maybe everyone thought it was meant to be a lifetime achievement award. But no, again, because that went to Seve Ballesteros, in a moving ceremony conducted via satellite. And how nice it was, in the closing days of 2009, to go to the home of a professional golfer and find a scene of comfortably upholstered bliss, with nobody menacing anybody else with a seven-iron.

Rueful times for the BBC’s sporting flagship, though — and with more to come, given that The X Factor clearly has no intention of shifting its tanks from the lawn any time soon. At present rates of attrition, it won’t be many years before everyone who wants to see the Sports Personality of the Year elected can go along to the Sheffield Arena and witness it in person. And not long after that, they’ll be holding the ceremony round at Sue Barker’s place, over a couple of bottles of white and a plate of mini chicken kievs.

The show has a choice: give up, or fight back. We say, fight back. Make some changes, and then go to war. Let’s get the old stunts going again, for starters. Who will ever forget the sight of Desmond Lynam clamping his finger in the faulty Aintree starting gate, or that terrible indoor penalty shoot-out they held one year? This year’s show was the lightest on extraneous gimmickry for ages — just a bit of gymnastics from Beth Tweddle on a mat, and nothing else. In all honesty, we prefer it that way, but there’s a light-entertainment battle being waged here, and if that means getting Phillips Idowu to jump over a Transit van pulled by Kauto Star, then so be it.

Another thing: let’s go to more people’s houses. The section chez Ballesteros was easily the best portion of this year’s show. More sitting rooms, please. Let’s see the year’s big sporting performers put in a few final hard yards where it counts — among the scatter cushions.

Better still, let’s go to people’s houses and make them play Twister.

Moreover, if the consequence of turning the contest over to the public, in the form of a phone vote, is anomalies like Giggs’s victory — or Zara Phillips’s in 2006 — then the BBC should abandon that way of doing things and simply go back to rigging it, the way it always used to (we tended to assume).

Above all, the show needs to take pride in its own, hard-won stature — to hold firm against the barbarian hoards from the other side, and remember what it is, and what it has come to mean. OK, so nobody remembers who came second. But, some years on The X Factor, nobody remembers who came first, either. A victory on the Sports Personality of the Year show, on the other hand, is for ever. While the show survives, that is. And survive it must.