Woe is Me

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Oh Dear, there does seem to be a lot of moaning about, doesn’t there ?

For starters, our footballers are getting upset because the country fell in love with our Olympic medallists but doesn’t show the same love and affection to our highly paid players of our national game. Apparently, we don’t show the soccer boys the same respect on or off the field as that which we offer the you people who enjoyed their ‘famous for 2 minutes, thirty-three seconds’ moment at Olympic Park.

The public, so the argument goes, showed empathy, sympathy and tenderness to these otherwise unknowns, most of whom had given up everything in their quest to earn a little bit of heavy metal, not to say a little piece of sporting history. We adored those who seem overcome with joy when they receive an award for coming third, yet we don’t display the same affection to our football-playing heroes. No, I can’t understand it either.

Unless…

…Unless it’s because we’re sick of the over-paid, sexist, racist, cheating, cuckolding, mercenary, diving ,falling, screaming, crying, stealing, drunk-driving, violent, bitter, niggly,(did I mention cheating ?) unsporting, pampered,self-centred, selfish, spoilt, spit-roasting, ungracious, disingenuous, stab-you-in-the-back-when-my-contract-finishes aresholes that they are.

Ahhh. That’s better.

Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes‘ has the right ‘ump. Or at least the geezer who played him does. The actor Benedict Cumberbatch (now there’s an East-End name if I ever heard one) has said in interview that he is considering leaving the country because people keep accusing him of being posh. He only ever, apparently, lands posh roles. People seem to think he’s from the Upper Classes. Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch feels he has been mistreated and mis-pigeonholed as a toff. Heaven forfend.

In a world where people are losing jobs hand-over fist; in a country where the Government, the Banks, the Police force, the National Press and who know who else are being exposed daily as corrupt and fraudulent; in a world where 25 million kids are officially starving; does the fact that someone labels you as a ‘Posh Bloke’ really matter one jot ? Methinks he protest too much.

I’m sorry Benny (as I know he likes to be called – well it’s preferable to ‘Dict’) is a tad miffed at the suggestion that he was born with a silver salver in his mouth. His roles in the aforementioned Sherlock, the truly woeful War Horse and in Tinker Tailor… do tend to give the audience the impression that he is rather well-bred. Maybe he just affects speaking well, acts beautifully and is really the eldest son of Bob Hoskins and Katie Price ? I don’t really mind, and I suspect no-one gives a toss about where he comes from. He’s actually rather good at what he does, and most of us are fully aware that there are people among us who speak well and proper. We don’t care, do we ? (Fortunately for me I have never possessed an accent, posh or otherwise, at which anyone could pour scorn on).

So I looked him up on that wiki thing (no, not that one, the legal one). How impressed was I ?? Not only is his mum Wanda Ventham who, apart from being a 60s and 70s pin-up was in Carry On Cleo, Carry On Up the Khyber and was Cassandra’s Mum in Only Fools and Horses, but his dad played Colin Pillock in Reggie Perrin. What a pedigree !

L-R Benedict’s mum and dad: Colin Pillock and Wanda

Benedict: Do me a favour. Shut the fuck up and keep on acting and living over here. No-one loves a moaner, do they boys & girls ?

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Turd Polishing**

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Ah yes: Exam Results. I remember them. For some reason whenever I see on the news that today’s the day when the exam results come through, I get a chill running through my bones. I feel nauseous. The very water inside me somehow wants to get out.

Perhaps this is because it brings back memories of when I received an envelope containing my results all those years ago ? Perhaps not. It wasn’t all bad (honest) I scraped in here, and got by there. Could have been a lot worse (the teachers at school certainly predicted so). No it’s not those memories which irk me. It’s something rather more recent. Something that’s still taking place. It’s the “jumping for joy photos”.

Stick your head out of the window, listen hard and there’s a good chance you’ll be able to hear the unmistakable sound of a photographer near you organising a staggeringly unimaginative photo.

“Ok if you could spread yourself out in a line towards me… no, no, can we have the two blonde young ladies in the middle… yes, much better… now, on the count of three, could you all jump up, punch  the air and cheer ? … especially you girls… thanks very much….right here we go…one…two…three….SNAP…CLICK…SNAP…”

It happens every year (twice in the UK), and it’s happening today with the announcement of today’s A-Level results.

And it’s not necessarily the fault of the photographer. Would you believe that, in this day in age, there are national newspaper and agency picture editors who actually commission such dross ? They do, I promise you. And why ? Because above them are Chief Subs, Features Editors and other assorted numpties who deal in crap and clichés. But don’t take my word for it. Buy a paper tomorrow (any one should do) and look for yourselves. If you can’t wait, switch on TV Regional News this evening (“Local Man bit by Local Dog, Locally“). They’ll be down at their local High School or Academy filming young men and women, crying with/jumping for joy (delete where applicable).

Such imagination.

Here’s another. It’s gonna be hot this weekend. Some at the Met Office are predicting up to 30 degrees over the south of England. Queue the hot weather picture:

L-R: The Times, Indie,Guardian;               Tabloids+Telegraph;                            All of them

You can bet your left testicle (or whatever you have to hand) that you’ll find a version of the above tomorrow in your favourite rag. If I had a penny for every time someone submitted a photo of boys diving into the sea/pond/canal/fountain once the temperatures reach 28 degrees, I’d have £17.43.

Visionaries.

But the photographers don’t get off Scot free. After all, they take the snap, they ping it in to the picture desk and some berk uses it. Ca-Ching! Why on earth do you think that we’ve seen this pose endlessly over the last few weeks ?

No. Serena’s not biting that medal because she’s hungry (again), but because there’s an unwritten law amongst sports snappers which tells them that’s what Gold Medallists do.  And you know what ? – the pictures go in the paper. They get in the linen, as we used to say. (oh, and by the way, don’t think that this dreadful state of affairs will finish with the death of newspapers. Online Photo Eds and Snappers – oh, ok Monkeys – are just as (un)imaginative as are the paper ones.)

But don’t let it worry you. If you have been lucky in life and never had to listen and watch a back bench fuck-up your picture selection, you will remain unscathed by all this. I’m sure you probably think my head is about to pop off again, driven by dark memories of no-nothing subs and myopic designers ? You may or may not be correct.

I shan’t go on. Just to say, the next time you see Obama do this…

…don’t think that he’s seen someone in the crowd he recognise, it’s just that someone (probably a press officer) once told him that photos of Pointing Politicians get in the linen too. He’s not alone. They all do it. Just watch them all getting off a plane pointing; Take the applause of the crowd, pointing; Arrive in Brussels POINTING. Watch out for Barack when he wins the election. He’ll be jumping for joy.

**”You Can’t Polish a Turd, Mike”…Telegraph Photographer Roy Letkey on being asked by me how his photos were from a terribly thought-out photo shoot.

Farewell to TungstenTossers

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You didn’t have to be a darts fan to appreciate TV commentator Sid Waddell. You merely had to be a lover of the English language, the forced metaphor and the crow-barred simile, and most importantly, possess a love of the ridiculous.

Waddell who died today aged 72 was a star of the BBC’s  and then Sky’s Darts Coverage for 35 years, and almost single-handedly brought the game into the homes of millions, and out of the drab public bars of the British boozer.

Everyone who knows anything about the man has their own favourite Waddell quote, from “There’s only one word for that: Magic Darts” to his legendary summation of Eric Bristow‘s world championship win: ” When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer…Bristow’s only 27″

Waddell could be described as a combination of the baseball legend and ultimate quote machine Peter ‘Yogi” Berra and Homer Simpson. But his simplistic and bizarre analogies belied the the fact that Sid was a Cambridge History graduate. Waddell was nobody’s fool, even if he pretended to be.

So sit back and relive some of Sid’s greatest hysterical and historical thinkings and his great wit. The world of Darts and TV commentary has lost another magician.

That was like throwing three pickled onions into a thimble!

He’s playing out of his pie crust.

They won’t just have to play outta their skin to beat Phil Taylor. They’ll
have to play outta their essence!

Darts players are probably a lot fitter than most footballers in overall
body strength.

There’s no one quicker than these two tungsten tossers…

He’s about as predictable as a Wasp on speed

The atmosphere is so tense, if Elvis walked in, with a portion of chips…
you could hear the vinegar sizzle on them

There hasn’t been this much excitement since the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions.

Keith Deller‘s not just an underdog, he’s an underpuppy!

Even Hypotenuse would have trouble working out these angles

Steve Beaton – The adonis of darts, what poise, what elegance – a true
roman gladiator with plenty of hair wax.

If you’re round your auntie’s tonight, tell her to stop making the
cookie’s and come thru to the living room and watch these two amazing
athletes beat the proverbial house out of each other

Big Cliff Lazarenko‘s idea of exercise is sitting in a room with the
windows open taking the lid off something cool and fizzy.

Well as giraffes say, you don’t get no leaves unless you stick your neck out

His eyes are bulging like the belly of a hungry chaffinch

That’s the greatest comeback since Lazarus.

It’s the nearest thing to public execution this side of Saudi Arabia.

His physiognomy is that of a weeping Madonna.

There’s only one word for that – magic darts!

When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were
no more worlds to conquer….. Bristow’s only 27.

Eat your heart out Harold Pinter, we’ve got drama with a capital D in
Essex.

If we’d had Phil Taylor at Hastings against the Normans, they’d have gone
home.

He’s like D’Artagnan at the scissor factory.

Trying to read Reyes’s mind is like trying to read the mind of Jabba the
Hutt

These guys look calm but inside they are as nervous as a vampire who knows
there’s a sale at the wooden stake shop in the morning.

He’s going like the Loch Ness Monster with a following wind!

Keith Deller is like Long John Silver – he’s badly in need of another leg.

On Bobby George – “He’s like a Sherman tank on roller skates coming down a mountain!”

He may practice 12 hours a day, but he’s not shy of the burger van!

He’s like Jack The Ripper on a Friday night.

He’s got one foot in the frying pan and one on thin ice.

Rod now looking like Kevin Costner when told the final cost of
Waterworld.

Tarantino re-writing Gunfight at the OK Corral couldn’t have done any
better than this.

It’s just like taking a sausage from a boy in a wheelchair.

.

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Stiffening Up (and other Double Entendres)

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It all started when I started fiddling with the girlfriend’s tea-towel holder.

We’d bought a new one, you see, over in France at one of their premiere Old Tut shops. I was attempting to fix it to a kitchen cabinet drawer, bent over a bit too sudden-like and my ribs cramped up (a common occurrence, thanks to an old rugby injury), I then shot bolt upright to try to un-cramp myself when my left calf went into spasm (a common occurrence, thanks to being an old git) and I found myself cramped all the way down my left side. I would take myself off to see the Doc, but he will say my ailments are probably due to the Warfarin (the rat poison the give to recovering stroke patients).

Here’s a few quotes that may interest you:

My GP on my blood-spot-splattered feet:
“That’ll be the Warfarin”

My GP on my irregular and worrying dizzy spells:
“That’ll be the Warfarin”

On the numbness in my face:
“That’ll be the Warfarin”

On the shooting pains down my:
“That’ll be the Warfarin”

My GP on the Eurozone crisis and the war in Afghanistan:
“I’m no expert, but that’ll probably be the Warfarin”.

Well why am I still on it, then ????

So thanks to the producers of Warfarin and the failure of The Incumbent’s Tea towel holder to grip anything effectively (not even my little finger) I’ve been forced to  repair to the sofa, look, listen and learn from the wise sages of T’BBC.

It’s almost certainly an age-thing (or maybe it’s the Warfarin) that I now prefer the sports radio coverage more than I do the television. This may be because Claire Balding isn’t on BBC Radio, but more probably because the broadcasters have to think on their feet to keep the audience entertained, rather than just point a camera at a volleyball player’s arse.

Two exchanges on the wireless demonstrated this perfectly yesterday. One was an interview with Manteo Mitchell who represented the USA in the heats of the 4x400m relay. Half of it he ran with a broken leg, it having snapped down the back straight.

“I felt it break. I heard it. I even put out a little war cry, but the crowd was so loud you couldn’t hear it.” said Mitchell.
I can assure the reader that if my leg broke should I ever again find myself running anywhere, you will be able to hear my ‘little war cry’ in Tanzania. Mitchell completed the remaining 200 meters, unable to create a lead for the second runner in the team. What a lightweight !

I listened, opened mouth to this account, full of shock and awe for this man, knowing full well that I, in the same circumstances, would have used the old Navaho Indian trick of collapsing on the floor and begging for mercy. The piece was marred slightly when the interviewer started raving about the American’s third leg. Which was a bit forward for daytime radio, I thought. There’s a time and a place.

I was wrong.

Not an hour later, another intrepid reporter waxed lyrical to his anchor man (Mark Chapman) about meeting former gold medal-winning diver (the pool) Greg Luganis in the gents urinals. I thought I’d tuned into a police wave band.
“As I stood next to him, I asked him about what was likely to happen later”. Back in the studio, his colleague was incredulous. One could sense a producer’s hand hovering over the ‘off air’ switch.


“You just went up to Greg Luganis in a toilet and struck up a conversation ?” he asked
“no, no, of course not. We’d met before”
(We were not informed where and under what circumstances.)
“I said to him: ‘From what you’ve seen…'”
“You said what ?…” Chapman had clearly fallen off his stool. “You can’t say that to someone while standing at a urinal !”
“Honestly, Chappers” retorted the reporter “it’s impossible to have a conversation with you without you inserting double entendres. I was talking about what he’d seen so far in the pool…”
The chat continued with Chapman desperately trying not to interject with too many men-in-urinals gags. One can only hope the conversation in the loo didn’t contain too many questions regarding diving technique. “Greg, how does one get a ripped entry with minimal splash”. Luganis may have fainted.

Switching back to the TV it was time to witness Mo Farrah run to glory to take the 5k/10k double, and what a fantastic race it was. Mo was determined that he wouldn’t be beaten, aided and manfully abetted by a huge crowd, 95% who madly cheered for a man named Mohammed, a refugee from Africa who runs proudly and passionately represents the country which took him in all those years ago. UKIP and the EDF must be apoplectic.

Those of us watching at home, some laid up on the sofa, tragically stuck down with cramp, were privileged to listen to Steve Cram’s commentary, a real appreciation of distance running, which will be one of the most replayed moments of the entire games. Beside Cram in the commentary box was Brendan Foster, who looked like he’d heard they were opening his pub early. ‘Bottle of Newky Brown, please, pet.’

I am now told by T’BBC of an auction where one can buy London 2012 momentos. Bradley Wiggins’ and Jess Ennis’ stuff is the most popular, so they’re bound to be out of my price-range. I’m off to bid for some of Kriss Akabusi’s broadcasting talent. Apparently there’s not much of it.

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