Archive for the ‘sport’ Category
Extreme Dog Walking
This is the new, ultra hip, super cool sport for happenin’ dudes, dudesses and their doggies.
Started on the Dorset coast in the autumn of 2010, it has finally brought together the noble traditions of dog walking, singing in the rain and mad, British malarkey. Contrasted with the idea that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, this is the sport where only bonkers Brits and adventurous dogs go out in a torrential storm.
You’ve never been really wet until you’ve been Extreme Dog Walking. When the rain has been blown past horizontal, round to vertical but going upwards, then you begin to get a flavour of this exciting and challenging sport. When you have to walk with your face turned away from the stinging shotgun pellets that are rain drops while the dogs whimper and scuttle about your feet, only then will you begin to understand the determination, courage and true grit necessary to survive and succeed in this competition to end all competitions. Far below the sea can just be seen as a seething mass of whitewater. As the squalls come in the whole environment darkens and the gale force winds thrash and tangle at hat and clothing. Even with the air temperature at 17 C, the rain makes your hands freeze and your face smart. All you can do is call the dogs on, put your head down, gird your loins, steel your determination and go forth into the turbulence. There is no option to stop. It is as far to go on as it is to retreat. Forwards is the only option. Onwards to the end, to glory and glorious triumph!
As in all such endurance events the best bit is when it stops. A first layer of saturated “waterproofs” is peeled off and then the dogs are towelled down. Then off come the boots, often with gushes of water as each one is removed. Finally, right down to the underwear, each soaking layer is removed and the steam begins to rise. Then we begin to yarn, to talk of how every gust seemed bigger than the last. To boast of how we just made it through when all seemed lost, how we nearly got caught by that “gnarly” one, how we feel so “stoked” and “trashed” by our experience. Then we sit around in our “baggies”, drinking beer and smokin’ weed, knowing that we know what others never can, knowing that up there in them thar hills is where we feel really alive, where our sport of Extreme Dog Walking makes life worthwhile!
Jessica Ennis – Our Golden Girl
Heading For Glory
What a wonderful performance in Barcelona. Jessica is a delight in every way, a formidable lady of determination, strength and courage. She is so tiny yet so huge in spirit and presence. She will be the star of London 2012.
And a spectacular performance by the whole British athletics team. Perhaps, for once, we have got our timing right. It looks like we’re heading for the most fantastic celebration in London 2012.
ITV Cock-Up The World Cup. Immediately!
Unbelievable! I would never, ever, not in a million years choose to watch any sporting event (or anything else I can think of) on ITV.
Now I know why and I know I’m right!
ITV Hopeless Dorks
Less than five minutes into the game, at a completely inappropriate moment, at the merest pause in play, it cuts to an ad. I can’t even remember who it was only four minutes later, so it was a waste of time and money anyway. Then the screen goes black for perhaps 20 seconds. Then we get the pictures back – England have scored!
What absolute, unforgiveable INCOMPETENCE!
Only the BBC should be allowed to screen such important events. ITV is useless .
Sack somebody now!
Advertisers! Pull the plug on the jokers before we boycott you!
The World Cup Beckons
The Big Match
I despise football. I really do. It’s everything it stands for – the appalling, vulgar display of tasteless, oafish, dare I say “chav” behaviour. It’s a thin, insubstantial sport populated by overpaid primadonnas who behave appallingly and set a terrible example to youth.
What a pompous old git I am!
It’s a completely different thing isn’t it when it gets infused with the spirit of international competition?
It’ll never be rugby though, so those that want to see the original, totally uplifting South African story go to the 1995 Rugby World Cup finals. That was a similar occasion but with a proper sport. In fact, go to Invictus, the absolutely fantastic movie which tells the whole story.
I have been taken up by it though. Africa has a wonderful exuberance and I was caught by the romance of the first match, delighted that South Africa managed a draw. Then, who could resist a chance to see the French go down? And go down they did! Well, they scraped a draw against a 10 man Uruguay side when they were the favourites. Lovely to watch!
So it looks like I’m hooked in. There’s nothing else on anyway. It’s been a welcome relief from the tribes of harridan, conspiracy-obsessed bloggers in the US. As a Brit, a Welshman living in England, I am grateful to live in a country which has a sense of perspective. We are not of Europe. We are certainly not of either the Middle or Far East. Thank God we’ve got more history than the Americans. This is still the land of the free. Nowhere else comes close.
And tomorrow Barack Obama is going to find out whose arse is “gonna get kicked”. Then maybe he’ll mind his manners and remember who his friends are.
En-ger-land!
Wenlock Mandeville Disaster
Child's Play
The most obvious explanation is that someone at the Olympics Committee has been horizontal jogging with someone at the design company.
What else?
There has to be a rational explanation for one of most ridiculous, badly-judged communications campaigns I have ever seen. The Wenlock and Mandeville mascot idea is third-rate, junior (bad) art school nonsense.
I first worked on ideas like this more than 30 years ago. I stake all my experience on this, I stand by every ounce of this assertion – it is NONSENSE, shocking NONSENSE and I am dismayed to see it. If it gains any traction then it will only be because of the money spent on it. Almost anything else would be better!
Lord Coe and other talented individuals on the Olympics Committee have made a mistake here. This is a serious error of judgement.
Amy Williams
She was spectacular winning her gold medal at the Winter Olympics. She was equally mesmerising last night on “Question Of Sport”.
I realise that “our Amy” has one elusive, temporary quality which we can only enjoy for a little longer. She doesn’t yet know just how gorgeous she really is!
Invictus
The Real Thing
This is the new film, directed by Clint Eastwood, about how the South African rugby team, the Springboks, won the Rugby World Cup in 1995 and helped to reunite the country on a wave of patriotism just five years after Mandela was released. Morgan Freeman is simply mesmerising as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon is superb as Francois Pienaar, captain of the team.
I’m a complete believer in the idea that international rugby is more important than most things in life so, granted, I was almost certain to enjoy this movie. I didn’t expect to be quite so emotionally overwhelmed though. This film is a wonderful, triumphant experience and a lesson in life. See here for an excerpt.
Invictus bears no resemblance to the anodyne pap that Hollywood has fed us this year. It is a work of art, a political manifesto and an inspiration to the human soul. The title comes from William Ernest Henry’s poem of the same name in which Mandela found comfort while in prison:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
If “Up In The Air” is up its own a*** and an insult to its audience; “Avatar” is an adolescent technogeek’s fantasy, terribly badly realised; “The Hurt Locker” is just another good but not great war movie then “Invictus” is a wonderful, uplifting story that deserves all the praise, all the admiration and all the awards.
The Movie
Bring Cricket Back To The BBC
It is a disgrace that we have not been able to watch the glorious Ashes victory on TV. I blame Murdoch. I blame the BBC. I blame the government.
Even if I was prepared to pay to watch something that it is my right as a British citizen to see on free-to-air television, why would I want to be paying Sky for football? I cannot buy just the cricket or the rugby. I have to take the ignorant, overpaid ponces, Ruski-paid whores as well! I don’t want one second more of this moronic game for badly behaved children on my TV than I already have.
If this apology for a government that has heaped so much disgrace and ignominy on our country wanted to do one decent thing in its death throes then legislate to bring test match cricket back to the people.
Peter Reynolds 
Now I Understand Why I Hate English Football
with 10 comments
Whinging, Whining Loser
I’ve hated football for 20 years or more now. With the World Cup I’ve finally come to understand why. English football is rubbish. It’s been corrupted and destroyed by an incurable cancer of money and venality. English football players are overpaid ponces, whores and playthings for foreign potentates. They cannot play the game anymore. They stand around worried that they’ll make a mistake, that they’ll bruise their poor little knees, fracture some obscure little bone in their foot or that their orange-painted slag will run off with their best mate while they’re training. They seem much more concerned about getting their name in the newspaper than on the scoresheet.
I do remember a rare glimpse of sanity in this crazy world when a year or so ago the great Bobby Charlton apologised for the £80 million pound transfer fee for Ronaldo and described it as “vulgar”. He had that absolutely right. Screaming and curling into the top corner from 40 yards in the last minute of extra time right.
Talent. Honour. Pride.
I’ve just watched the most riveting, scintillating, magical game of football between Spain and Germany. It reminds me how much I used to love the game and how much I and other British sports lovers are losing out. It was a joy. I saw beauty there in the poetic movement and interplay. There is nothing beautiful about the English game.
In 1970-71, when I was 13, I was lucky enough to attend every home game at Highbury stadium.
My Hero
Arsenal won the double that year and Bob Wilson was my hero. I played in goal too and even today I still treasure that special camaraderie between goalkeepers. Even as I’ve lost interest in the game I’ve still retained that love hate relationship with the most important position on the pitch. I’ve been angered and bemused once again at the inane remarks of commentators. Only occasionally do they compliment a goalie or even understand what it involves . Usually it’s either a “blunder” or an “easy save” or “straight at him”. Don’t they realise that it was “straight at him” because he was in the right place to begin with. There’s no such thing as an easy save. Bob Wilson used to have a reputation as an “unspectacular” goalie – because he was almost always there before the ball arrived! There are no excuses when you’re a goalkeeper.
There isn’t any passion in the English game anymore. I don’t think they know what it is. Passion for that bunch of losers is what you get in a lap dancing bar – innit bruv? There’s very little pride either. Even at its very best football can never compete with rugby as a real sport so when the BBC had the audacity to hijack Invictus and try to apply some of it’s wonderful, uplifting qualities to the English football team – well, I was just disgusted.
The Spain Germany game was wonderful and I expect the final will be too. The Spanish were inspired and fluent. The wonderful Xavi is a powerful symbol of how useless the English chavs are. The multiracial German team was a redemptive lesson for us all. They were proud, positive and every colour of the rainbow. Schweinsteiger, the archetypal aryan stormtrooper, strong, fearless and utterly reliable. These players are so talented they don’t need to feign fouls or injury. They just get on with the job – beautifully.
So the World Cup has been a very big but very pleasant surprise for me. I’d fallen victim to the propaganda that the Premier League is the best football in the world but that’s been proven to be a great big lie. It might be the richest league but that’s exactly what has ruined the game.
As a Welshman, for me nothing will ever come close to rugby. I’m glad I’ve found pleasure in football again but English football has finally proved itself to be the very worst football in the world.
Written by Peter Reynolds
July 8, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Posted in Biography, Consumerism, sport
Tagged with 1970-71, Arsenal, BBC, blunder, Bob Wilson, Bobby Charlton, camaraderie, cancer, commentator, corrupted, crazy, destroyed, easy save, English, English chavs, ferless, fluent, football, foreign, Germany, goalie, goalkeeper, Highbury stadium, hijack, inane, incurable, inspired, interplay, Invictus, joy, lap dancing bar, love hate relationship, magical, mistake, money, multiracial, newspaper, orange-painted, overpaid, passion, playthings, poetic, ponces, potentates, Premier League, pride, redemptive, riveting, Ronaldo, rubbish, rugby, sanity, Schweinsteiger, scintillating, scoresheet, slag, Spain, Spanish, sport, stormtrooper, strong, the beautiful game, the double, venality, vulgar, welshman, whores, World Cup, Xavi