Tag: 7 reasons

7 Reasons to Watch Rachael Hodges on BBC News

Radio legend and BBC Radio 5Live newsreader, Rachael Hodges, has recently begun presenting the sport on BBC News, the BBC’s 24 hour rolling news television channel. She’s not sure when she’s on, but it will definitely be today, and tomorrow…probably. Here are 7 reasons to watch.

1. USP. Rachael Hodges has this rather wonderful quality that means she can take even the most mundane of things and turn them into something rather beautiful. Take Richard Bacon for example. Richard Bacon would not be where he is now if it wasn’t for Rachael Hodges. Just ask anyone who listened to Bacon’s late-night BBC Radio 5Live show last year. We are hoping she has a similar effect on Kevin Pietersen.

2. Anglo-Welsh. You wouldn’t know this from listening to her, but Rachael Hodges is in fact Welsh. There are two reasons she sounds English. One is because her country of birth lost the rugby at the weekend and secondly the majority of her audience is English. As she needs to stay in the job she is more than willing to cater for the masses.

3. Audible. Not every newsreader/sports-presenter can actually read-out-loud properly. They are either stammering or spitting or fainting at the sight of the Russian name coming up in the next paragraph. Rachael Hodges, though, is a pro. She has everything written out phonetically. You won’t even notice.

4. Appearance. Rachael Hodges is pretty. Very pretty. While it might be a shallow reason to watch her, it is a reason none-the-less. And no one is going to convince us it is not the reason you are going to tune in every 15 minutes. Not that the 7 Reasons team will be watching. They value their lives too much.

5. Nickname. Rachael Hodges has a nickname. The Hodges. Fiona Bruce isn’t called The Bruce is she? Jon Snow isn’t called The Snow. Rachael Hodges has a loyal group of followers called The Hodgehuggers. Ever heard of The Brucecuddlers? Or The Snowstrokers? Exactly.

6. Competition. Rachael Hodges actually competes in sport. She competes in triathlons and is running the London Marathon this year*. Most sports presenters wouldn’t know one end of a hockey racquet from the other and would curl up and die in a wheezing heap if called upon to run for a bus. Assuming they needed a bus to take them to the next pub, of course.

7. Australia. British sports presenters are, on the whole, a dour bunch whose bulletins feature despair, crisis, pessimism and more despair. When our boys go into sporting events they do so with the flames of public fervour already extinguished by the mewling wet-blankets that preview our national sporting events for us. Australian sport presenters, on the other hand, stir up public expectation. “Our blokes are gonna slaughter the Poms” is considered a perfectly acceptable match preview in Australia, where they tend not to get too hung up on detail, analysis or pre-match excuses. Rachael is going out with an Australian. Perhaps it will rub off.

*You can sponsor Rachael’s London Marathon attempt here. http://www.justgiving.com/rachael-hodges

Picture of Rachael Hodges on the bicycle leg of a triathlon taken at Dorney Lake by SussexSportPhotography.com (Thanks Ant!).

February 11, 2010
7 Reasons I’m Afraid of Flamenco Dancers

1. Stamping. The cacophonous, aggressive, rhythmical stamping that makes up part of the flamenco dance is terrifying. Stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp, it’s the sound of a lone Nazi stormtrooper goose-stepping on an upturned tea-chest. And that’s before they begin the more frenzied stamping and shuffling – which is beyond bone-chilling.

Terrifying!

2. Castanets. Clickety clickety clickety click. How do they work? Nobody knows. Bastard things.

3. Clapping. They clap too. They start doing this when their castanets run out of batteries or they realise they’re impossible to use or they just become heartily sick of the clicking or something. Perhaps they clap during the dance so that I don’t have to at the end.

4. Shrieking. They also shriek unexpectedly and make other startling noises. Random shrieking is enough to put anyone ill-at-ease. A woman started shrieking when we were in bed once. It was most off-putting.

5. Fans. They’re not content with all the stamping, clicking, clapping and shrieking, oh no. They wave fans about too. Well, it’s not so much waving as a sort of semi-hypnotic swooping; all swooshing and whooshing like the flight of an errant kite. The fan moves a lot, but always covers the face. This is good, because at some point the fan will be lowered to uncover…

6. The Man-Face. Aaaarrrrrggghhhh!!!! You’ve spent a while checking the dancer out – she has firm, shapely legs and a good figure – when she abruptly reveals the man-face. And it’s not even the face of an attractive man. All flamenco dancers have a man-face, every last one of them. I don’t know why, but they do. I know that there are Spanish ladies with nice faces, they just don’t let them dance the flamenco. For some unfathomable reason, the flamenco is danced exclusively by otherwise elegant enchantresses with the powerful, chisel-jawed countenance of the Marlboro Man and the leaden-footed bearing of a startled horse in clogs.

7. The Dream. I once dreamt that a flamenco dancer snuck into my bedroom and ate my cat. I woke with a start exclaiming, “fffffnuduhuh!” Scared the pants off me. And I’m quite sure I went to bed wearing pants.

February 10, 2010
7 Reasons To Wear A Cape

1. You’re A Fashionista. This is the fashion. I personally think the above looks a bit silly. And, if you are Louis Vuitton, you probably would too. But as he has been dead for 118 years, I very much doubt he cares that his once burgeoning luggage company has turned into this.

2. Fancy Dress Parties. You are probably wondering why I didn’t write this first? I mean, it is the most obvious reason. I didn’t write it first because it made much more sense to have the reason that worked with the image first. Common sense in my book. Anyway, if you are going to a fancy dress party as a superhero, you must wear a cape. If you don’t you’ll probably be mistaken for that girl from Flashdance.

3. Use As A Hood. It is a well known fact that 87% of all coats don’t have a hood. It’s a bizarre trend, but a fact none-the-less. It’s also a well known fact that 87% of the 100% of people who wear a hood-less coat, forget to carry an umbrella on their person. If 87% of those 87% wore a cape, only 22% of the entire population would ever get a wet head. And that has to be a good thing. Doesn’t it?*

4. Spare Material. A cape has a very practical use. It could be torn up to make an infinite number of tourniquets, Rambo style headbands, bracelets, Christmas tree decorations. You just never know what is around the next corner.

5. You’re A Man. Capes are particularly useful if you like hugging girls. As a general rule, girls don’t like to be cold. With a cape you can invite them into your chest and wrap your cape around them. Smooth. Oh, you can also use it to wipe your nose.

6. You’re A Woman. Now, as you can probably tell, I am not your average man. I pride myself on the fact that I can do at least two things at once. Unless it’s write a 7 Reasons post and spell everything correctly. Women though – so I have heard – can do up to 32 things at once. A cape can help them make that at least 35. They could carry things. Or drag things. Or polish things. The possibilities are endless.

7. You Have Short Hair. Short hair is good as it doesn’t take two and a half hours to dry. Long hair is good if you like whooshing it about from side to side á la L’Oreal adverts. I personally have short hair, but the idea of being able to toss my head from side to side seems somewhat appealing. If I wore a cape it could perform the function of long hair. And it would only take ten minutes in the tumble dryer.

*Calculations are not available for public consumption.

February 9, 2010
7 Reasons to Replace Chickens With Flamingos

1. Flavour. We’re all familiar with the expression, you are what you eat. This is true; diet informs flavour. The diet of chickens is dull. Chickens are fed corn and grains and the sort of dreary stuff that we use to bulk-up stews and casseroles. Flamingos eat shrimp, which are wonderfully flavoursome, and a substantial portion of their flavour comes from these. Chickens taste dull; flamingos taste of fish, which is much, much better. Also, as you are what you eat, which would you rather be, a chicken or a flamingo?

2. Health. Most flamingos are wild and are, therefore, game. They are free to roam and free to eat natural food. Most chickens are not. Eating flamingos would, consequently, be healthier than eating chickens. It would also provide American hunters with exercise as they stalked their dinner by the lake rather than driving their pick-up trucks to the supermarket. They would also have to camouflage themselves in pink, which would give the rest of us a laugh.

“Billy-Bob, you’s a sissy.”

3. Leg. Everyone wants the chicken leg because it’s firm: this is because the leg is one of the few limbs that the sedentary farmed chicken exercises regularly – as a result of this, it is toned. Flamingos spend most of their lives standing on one leg – they alternate regularly between them. This means that flamingo legs are firmer and nicer than chicken legs. They’re also bigger. This will mean that sharing the leg becomes a possibility, saving mealtime arguments. Or it will mean that you get a bigger leg, it depends how mean-spirited you are.

4. Milk. You can’t milk a chicken. You can, however, milk a flamingo. We all know that the aisles of Waitrose are choc-full of people shopping for organic, Bermuda grass-fed, hand-reared, free-range Angora goat’s milk. Imagine how much they’ll want the new fad – flamingo milk. Waitrose shoppers will be buying so much flamingo milk that they’ll probably have to fold the seats down in their Audi estates to transport it home. They may even have to buy a second Smeg fridge to put it all in.

5. Farming. Eventually, of course, the new niche popularity of the flamingo will lead to a mass-market demand for it. This will cause flamingos to become the exotic farmers livestock of choice. These people are usually found experimenting with farming ostriches, which will be replaced by the new glamorous avian farming fashion – the flamingo. This is great, as I’m – justifiably – terrified of ostriches, with their cruel, murdererous eyes, their sharp, oversized talons and their menacing, powerful beaks. I have no fear of flamingos. They are pink.

6. Colour. There are few sites in the British countryside more breath-taking than vast swathes of bright yellow rapeseed in full bloom. With the new flamingo farms, it will be possible to stumble across fields full of pink clusters of gangly birds – all year round. This will brighten up the landscape no end, especially at sunset. Countryside campsites will become countryside camp sites where you’ll be able to enjoy the countryside camp sight of intense pink colours in tents (pink coloured).

7. Feathers. The best feathers for stuffing pillows are goose and duck feathers. Chicken feathers aren’t very good so they’re usually ground down and used in textiles and plastics. Flamingos – like geese and ducks – are water-birds so, presumably, their feathers also make good stuffing for pillows. Their colourful down would enliven pillow-fights no end. The abundance of pink feathers would make feather boas cheaper and more commonplace which may lead to a boom in the burlesque industry. Sadly, it would also lead to an increase in gaudy hen nights. You don’t have too much to fear from the greater incidence of gaggles of lascivious, portly, bingo-wing-sporting harridans drunkenly cruising your local high street draped in pink feather boas though, because with your new healthier diet of flamingo, you’ll be fitter and able to run away that much faster.

February 8, 2010
Russian Roulette Sunday: 7 Reasons We Were Wrong

The good thing about 7 Reasons – or should that be one of the good things? – is that it never gets bogged down in fact. Ninety-nine percent of the time, ninety-nine percent of all our reasons are nothing more than opinion. Which is great, because it means you get the chance to disagree with us. Or at least it would if our opinions weren’t so well thought out and presented. However, just occassionally we do get proved wrong. And when I say we, I mean me. I’m Jon. Here are 7 Reasons I got wrong. And 7 Reasons they were wrong. Which common sense would suggest means you have 14 Reasons to read. You don’t. You have seven. Twice.

1. 7 Reasons To Become An Artist
Reason Put Forward: It’s A Con. You can do anything and call it art. Take Tracey Emin for instance. No, actually don’t bother. No one is quite sure where she has been. Instead take a look above. That’s Emin’s artwork. My Bed it’s called. The Saatchi Gallery describe it thus, ‘Tracey Emin shows us her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown. By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she’s as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world’. This is how Jonathan Lee describes it, ‘Bollocks‘.
Reason I Was Wrong: People are making a mint out of forging Tracey Emin’s work.

2. 7 Reasons To Write A Song About Rain
Reason Put Forward: Grace Kelly – Singing In The Rain. Standing in the rain and having a sing-song is quite frankly a stupid thing to do. You’ll get wet and cold and the sound of the rain hitting the ground will drown out your harmonies. But if you are a songwriter then you have free license to try and brainwash people.
Reason I Was Wrong: The reason is perfectly acceptable. Suggesting Grace Kelly sang it, is not. It’s Gene Kelly. Always was. Always will be.

3. 7 Reasons The Tiger Woods Story Is Annoying Me
Reason Put Forward: It’s Not Happening. If the allegations are true, a few people will be outraged. But that’s it. No one is going to make an example out of him. Tiger is too big a star to be dropped by those who sponsor him. Not even Nike. Nike need Tiger more than he needs them. This is the world we live in. I don’t care whether you like it or not. It’s a fact. Nothing is going to change so get over it. Stop wasting your time by drawing up pointless petitions asking Nike to drop him. It. Will. Not. Happen.
Reason I Was Wrong: Pretty much everyone was outraged. Pretty much everyone dropped him. As getting things wrong go, this is one of my finer efforts.

4. 7 Reasons To Fly With British Airways This Christmas
Reason Put Forward: Sir Richard Branson. He never flies with BA.
Reason I Was Wrong: He has. A few times. According to Chris Evans’ autobiography, Sir Richard Branson was so keen to get Evans to sign for Virgin Radio that he joined Evans on a flight to New York – on Concorde – just to try and get his signature. And in 2008 Branson flew to China as part of a British Government delegation on BA744.

5. 7 Reasons Buying A Christmas Card Is Infuriating
Reason Put Forward: Brothers. Why is it you can no longer buy a ‘Merry Christmas Brother’ card? It’s always ‘Bro’ or ‘Bruv’ or ‘Brother and Wife’ or ‘Brother and Girlfriend’ and new for this year ‘Brother and Boyfriend’. My brother is not gay. He has not got a wife. I am not sending him a text in which I may shorten to Bro. And he is not in some downtown hood where everyone goes around punching fists and calling each other ‘Bruv’. He is just my brother. I want a card that says that. Is that too much to ask?
Reason I Was Wrong: I found one. It said, ‘Merry Christmas Brother’. All I had to do was look a bit harder.

6. 7 Reasons To Love A Cardigan
Reason Put Forward: The Dog. No one is going to tell me that the Cardigan Welsh Corgi was not made for riding.
Reason I Was Wrong: In the words of the guy in Clevedon at Christmas, “Get off my f***ing dog! It’s not a horse!”

7. 7 Reasons 2010 Will Be Great
Reason Put Forward: The Winter Olympics. We’re only a few months away from Vancouver 2010 and what an Olympics it is going to be. Great Britain have their most successful games ever after clinching Gold medals in both the male and female snowball fighting events. Unfortunately they lose out to Canada in the final of the gritting competition, but the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown still hails the achievement as “remarkable” and “a terrific reflection of what global warming can do for our country”.
Reason I Was Wrong: Not only are gritting and snowball fighting not included in this years Olympics, but the British Ski and Snowsport Federation is going into administration.

February 7, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons to Watch the Six Nations

If you get your news from 7 Reasons, you’ll be delighted to learn that the Six Nations starts today. We have decided to celebrate this with a guest post.

Our guest post comes from Rachel Simmonite, a 21 year old BA Hons Media and Communication (Journalism) student at Birmingham City University. When she’s not busy gracing Twitter with her wit, wisdom, and frankly astonishing knowledge of club rugby, she can be found writing here.

1. Birthday. This year, the Six Nations celebrates its tenth birthday. Of course, the tournament has been going on forever – in various guises of the Home International Championship and the Five Nations – but this year is the tenth year since the Italians joined the party; with their light blue kit, dodgy hair and sideburns, and their habit of beating Scotland every other year or so, Italy – despite being the whipping boys of the tournament – have always provided good competition. And they have the best national anthem.

2. Rivalries. Talking to an Irish or Welsh friend during this tournament means you get a lot more abuse than normal. National pride and traditional rivalries are all the rage during the Six Nations. Being English, and therefore supporting the red roses through thick and thin while thinking back to the good old days of 2003, you get it in the neck more than anyone else, as every side wants to beat you more than anything. The Celtic teams (Ireland, Wales and Scotland) need to beat you for bragging rights – I haven’t been able to face my Welsh friends for the past two years – and to try and get the Triple Crown or, in the case of Scotland, the Calcutta Cup, while the French and the Italians just like to join in with the English bashing.

3. Something for everyone. Whether you’re after someone nice to look at, or a good game, the Six Nations provides both. The annual desire to beat your local rivals for northern hemisphere dominance brings out the best of the teams, both in the forwards, and the backs. With the return of the rolling maul to the game – following last year’s ELVs* – the forwards can add that extra string to their bow again, enabling loads of fans (either in the pub or at the ground) to go “HEAVE” whenever it happens. As for the backs; as long as they’re running with the ball, it doesn’t affect the precise alignment of their gelled hair, and they’re stealing the headlines, they’ll be having fun.

Rugby isn’t just about the game now, it’s about the totty. Following calendars such as Le Dieux de Stade, the word “moisturiser” has become commonly used in rugby changing rooms, as has the phrase “fake tan” – particularly if you’re Welsh. If I was feeling shallow then my 7 reasons to watch the Six Nations would be very short: Jonny Wilkinson, Tom Croft, Leigh Halfpenny, Hugo Southwell, Brian O’Driscoll, Yannick Jauzion and Sergio Parisse. Of course there are more than seven good looking players in this year’s tournament, that selection are just my favourites.

4. Anyone can win it. The beauty of the Six Nations is that you never know who is going to win the tournament; there’s no runaway winner or clear favourite. I mean, nobody would have thought that Wales would win the Grand Slam in 2005. Likewise, we didn’t expect Italy to come fourth in 2007 – the year when France beat Ireland with a +4 points difference – but that was all that separated them. Of course, with Ireland having won the Grand Slam last year (only their second since 1948), they will be labelled as favourites for this year’s tournament. But on their day, anyone can beat anyone – the Welsh very nearly spoiled the Irish party last year and who knows what the French will come up with, having beaten the World Champions, South Africa, in November? We do know that the Scots and the Italians will probably be fighting it out for the wooden spoons, but who knows? And as for England…

5. The WAGs. Becoming a rugby WAG is increasingly popular – even a member of the royal family, Zara Phillips, is a rugby WAG. The recent crop started with Gabby Logan and Kirsty Gallacher; the likes of Kelly Brook and Una (from pop group the Saturdays) followed for England, with Duffy and Charlotte Church flying the flag for the Welsh WAGs. It is inevitable that if a well known rugby WAG is in attendance at a match the television director will give them plenty of screen time. If not, you’ll be able to see photos of them cheering on their men in the Daily Mail.

6. The singing. You can’t have a rugby match without the singing. The Welsh, in particular, are very good at the singing – it’s like their second sport after rugby. With the likes of Katherine Jenkins, Charlotte Church and that blond one off of the X-Factor to sing the national anthem, Delilah, and Bread of Heaven, they do their singing brilliantly. England have adopted a song that comes with actions, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. I think you have to go on a rugby tour to learn the actions though. Ireland spoil the crowd with two anthems before a match while the French and Italian anthems are just great – I love them – like I love the bagpipes in Flower of Scotland. In fact, I love the anthems more than the bagpipes.

7. The romance. How could you treat your better half on Valentine’s weekend this year? Card? Flowers? Cheesy Marvin Gaye CD? How about a weekend in Cardiff, Paris or Rome? Arrive on the Friday night, take them out for a meal, let them do damage to the credit card on the Saturday morning and then – come the Saturday afternoon at about midday (or Sunday in the case of Rome) – announce that you’ve got tickets for the rugby and enquire whether they fancy a romantic afternoon watching thirty men run around a pitch for eighty minutes?

Of course, if your other half really doesn’t like rugby then you may find yourself in a spot of bother – but it is something that you love…

*Experimental Law Variations

February 6, 2010
7 Reasons To Climb A Mountain

1. Measure It. Nothing excites me more than when the end of year mountain height measurements are released. Is Everest still 8848 metres tall? Is Ben Nevis still the biggest in Britain? So many questions answered in one PDF. Obviously these figures aren’t just made up. Someone has to use a tape measure and a long stick.

2. Picnics. Nothing beats a picnic with a spectacular view. Of clouds. I know you can get this type of view atop a grassy hillock, but it is far more exciting trying to eat while simultaneously struggling to breathe.

3. Photo Opportunity. Let’s be honest, a facebook profile picture of you standing atop a mountain looks so much more impressive than a self portrait you have done of yourself at home. You know the one I mean. The one that took 30 attempts to get right and then ten minutes of cropping so your outstretched arm isn’t showing.

4. Getting Home To Babe. Because there ain’t no mountain. No mountain high enough. No valley low enough. To stop you from getting to baby. So you may as well go and climb one. Babe will be so much more impressed when you tell them that you took a shortcut across the top of Scaffold Pike* to get to the restaurant.

5. Eye Of The Tiger. Eye Of The Tiger, Rock. Climbing a mountain is one thing. Running up it is even better. Especially if you are making a movie about a boxer. Or indeed if you are just plain daft.

6. You’re Hot. No, not in the Sandra Bullock way. If you are hot in the Sandra Bullock way you can ignore all mountains and just come straight round to mine. You won’t even have to wipe your feet. I mean hot as in temperature hot. In other words you need to cool down. Common sense tells you that it’s much colder up a mountain.

7. No Pain, No Gain. There are a couple of ways to get blister repellent feet. One is to chop them off. The other is to build up calluses. You can do this by walking. Barefoot. Up mountains. Yes, it’ll hurt the first few hundred times you do it, but eventually your feet will have Zola Budd written all over them.

*Yes, I know it’s Scafell Pike. Scaffold Pike is a clever play on words. What with scaffolding being something you climb. Clever, yes.

February 5, 2010
7 Reasons Bull Durham Is The Greatest Baseball Movie Ever

1. Women. Unusually for baseball films, the central character is a woman. This shouldn’t be unusual – some of the most passionate and knowledgeable sport fans I know are women – but it is. The use of a female narrator and the fact that the baseball isn’t the only story in the movie – the journey that Susan Sarandon’s character goes on isn’t really about baseball at all – gives it a totally different perspective to other baseball films, making it far more rounded and realistic. It’s about baseball, but it’s also a romantic comedy. Would my wife sit through The Pride of the Yankees or Eight Men Out with me? No. Would I watch Sleepless In Seattle or You’ve Got Mail with her? No. Would we watch Bull Durham together? Well… no – but only because she’s out shopping at the moment.

2. Realism. Despite not being entirely about baseball, Bull Durham has some of the most realistic and interesting scenes of match-play in films. This shouldn’t be a surprise, since the director spent five years playing in the Minor Leagues. The tight, close-up shots of Davies batting and Laloosh pitching – with their thoughts providing the voiceover – are far more intimate than anything usually seen during matches in baseball movies. The rest of the off-field baseball activity is also imbued with a down-to-earth realism. We learn that you should never punch a man with your pitching hand, and that you’ll never make it to the Major Leagues with fungus on your shower shoes – which is obviously where I went wrong.

3. Tim Robbins. Tim Robbins is in Bull Durham. Tim Robbins is funny looking. Tim Robbins is weird. Tim Robbins is distracting. Tim Robbins ruins most of the films he is in for those reasons. To withstand the casting of Tim Robbins, a film has to be very, very good. High Fidelity, for example, managed to overcome a hugely distracting appearance by him. In Bull Durham he is still quite distracting (and weird), but he’s good. It’s a measured performance in which the growth of his character is completely convincing and very well performed. If your film is good enough to withstand the presence of Tim Robbins, it’s a very good film. If your film can withstand – and be enhanced – by his presence, it must be a great film. He’s still weird though. And funny looking.

4. Sex. You don’t often find sex in baseball films. This is a shame. I like sex; I like baseball (and we don’t have much of either in England). Baseball movies are full of men being men, involved in manly pursuits like sport or drinking beer or more sport. In Bull Durham though, with strong female characters and a female narrator, there is room for more than just baseball. This is great, as the film’s other preoccupation is sex. Not gratuitous, graphic sex, mark you – it’s quite understated. It’s just that the film has sex, romance and mortality as central themes in addition to the baseball, making it far more rounded and interesting that the usual baseball movie fare. I could have done without seeing Tim Robbins in a suspender belt though. That’s something that should be hidden away on the internet.

5. Comedy. Bull Durham is well written, performed and works brilliantly as a whimsical drama based around small-town Minor League baseball. It would stand alone as a good, solid drama. But it doesn’t stop there. This charming film is also full of some wonderfully observed and pithy lines. When worldly Crash Davis discovers the inexperienced Nuke LaLoosh wearing the aforementioned suspender belt in the locker room he calmly walks up to him, adjusts it and tells him, “The rose goes on the front, big guy”.

6. Making poetry interesting. I hate Walt Whitman. Some of my hatred for Mr Whitman stems from three years of being forced to endure his wearisome prose at University. I found him dull in the first place, and my opinion was not helped by having him read to me in lectures or having to read him myself at home. Bull Durham shows us how to study Walt Whitman: tied up in Susan Sarandon’s bed*. I’d have happily spent three years doing that.

7. Kevin Costner. I’ve never really understood the enormous appeal Kevin Costner had in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I always found him a bit dull. In Bull Durham he plays Crash Davis, an experienced and underrated Minor League catcher coming to the end of his career. He seems to be playing Don Johnson playing Sonny Crockett playing Crash Davis, but it works very well. When he’s not playing ‘ball he’s all moody introspection and Bourbon-swilling charm. Sadly, he does not live on a boat with an alligator.

*Susan Sarandon has not replaced Jennifer Aniston in the affections of this website. We imagine them in complementary roles.

February 4, 2010
7 Reasons You Should Be Able To Quote Eleanor Roosevelt

1. “There are practical little things in housekeeping which no man really understands.” For use when your wife returns home from a bit of shopping, to see that you have tried to do the dusting as she asked, but you have just dusted around all the objects on the mantel piece. She doesn’t think this is a good enough effort.

2. “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavour.” For use when your friends ask you why you don’t just settle down and get a normal job instead of being the perennial dreamer. A man who longs to catch one hundred buses in one night would fall into this category.

3. “I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.” For use when you think that to make a sex joke funny you must include crude and vulgar language or demonstrations.

4. “Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyse may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.” For use when you are in Waterstones trying to work out what to buy your wife for her birthday. This should be enough to drag you away from anything that has Jordan’s face on it to something like Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About The Bike: My Journey Back To Life.

5. “Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.” For use whenever someone suggests you may be getting a little narcissistic. Or when you are fourteen and your Mum has just found a photo of Posh Spice under the mat in the bathroom.

6. “A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” For use when you are the producer of The World’s Strongest Woman.

7. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along’.” For use whenever you switch on the TV to find one of the following filling your screen: X-Factor/Britain’s Got Talent/The Persuasionists/America’s Next Top Model/Britain’s Next Top Model/Piers Morgan/Kerry Katona/Katie Price/Harriet Harman.

February 3, 2010
7 Reasons January’s Premier League Transfer Window Was a Major Disappointment

The January transfer window closed yesterday after a month of fevered speculation and very little in the way of big deals. Here are 7 Reasons that it was a major disappointment.

1. Where’s Waldo? Despite strong rumours in December, Chilean defender Waldo Ponce was not signed by Wigan in the January transfer window. I can’t begin to express how disappointing this was. I wasn’t even consoled by their signing of Moses. Waldo Ponce…Waldo Ponce! It would have been amazing.

2. Loan moves. It seems that most of the transfers in this January’s window have been loan moves. That’s not surprising given the current financial state of many of many Premier League clubs, but the redistribution of players who are not deemed good enough to make it into the the first teams at their own clubs to other clubs is hardly exciting. Also, Robinho left the Premier League on a loan deal, and he was really entertaining me. Well, off the pitch, anyway.

Ruud van Nistelrooy visits the set of a popular American television show.

3. Ruud van Nistelrooy. A genuine world-class striker, he was linked with just about every major Premier League club this January and hasn’t gone to any of them. He’s gone to Hamburg where, if he can steer clear of hoof injuries, he should do rather well. Or if you believe Wikipedia, he’s signed for Gateshead many years into the future.

4. Harry. The ever-prolific Harry Redknapp has been disappointing during this transfer window – he’s only brought a couple of players in and sent a couple out on loan. Not only has he been unusually inactive this January, he’s also been below par when dealing with the media. This is how he announced the signing of Eider Gudjohnsen: “It was his decision to come to us. He said ‘I want to come to Tottenham’.” Sadly, I could find no Youtube footage of this revealing press conference.

5. Campbell. With the arrival of Thomas Vermaelen in the summer Arsenal seemed to have completed their defensive line-up. And, to most people, it appeared that all they needed to revitalise their team in January was a big, prolific striker and an aggressive defensive midfielder. So they re-signed lumbering war-horse, Sol Campbell. Opinion is divided over whether Sol will be a good signing for them. The argument from most of those in favour of the move seems to be that he was a great player once, so he’ll be fine, despite lacking the pace that most people believe is necessary to play in the Premier League. I just hope that he can still do this.

6. Manchester United. Behind Chelsea in the title race, it was supposed that Fergie would want to improve his squad in January. The most exciting transfer news from Old Trafford last month was Danny Wellbeck going out on loan to Preston North End. Do you remember where you were when you heard that? No, me either.

7. Final Day. The activity on the final day of the transfer window is usually frenetic and exciting. The biggest announcement on the final day of this window was that Robbie Keane had gone to Celtic on loan. That’s right, a talented and exciting player is leaving the Premier League – for a bit. That pretty much summed up this January transfer window. A loan move that does nothing to enrich the quality of the Premier League and not a lot else. It’s lucky we had John Terry to distract us.

February 2, 2010