Tag: Andy Murray

7 Reasons Everyone And Everything Should Have Auto-Tune

You don’t have to be interested in the X-Factor to know about autotunegate or whatever it is called. I am the living proof of that. To be honest, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Auto-tune is good. It makes things bearable. Just think how good life would be if everything and everyone had auto-tune.

1. Annoying Voices. No more high-pitched Joe Pasquale shrieking. No more Andy Murray monotones. No more confusing regional accents. No more chavs. Just a straightforward English accent that everyone can understand.

2. The Monarchy. They are bit like marmite. You either love them or you hate them. Or you are indifferent to them – as I suspect at least 90% of the world’s population is to marmite. I have long thought that the hate for the Monarchy is borne out of their accents. They are well-spoken. Which immediately alienates anyone who pronounces ‘Good Morning’ as ‘Alright fella’. If a member of the Monarchy had auto-tune they would be able to walk into The Tattooed Arms, order a bevy and become darts team captain before the end of the night. ‘Bonnie’ Prince Charlie then really could become the people’s King.

3. Movie Accents. My top three awful movie accents in ascending order. Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Horrendous. The lot of them. And no, Dick Van Dyke’s cockney does not fall into the category of, ‘so bad it’s quite charming’. It’s not charming. It’s mute-button inducing. And it will always haunt me. Everytime I look at a chimney.

4. Polystyrene. Arrrrrggggggggghhhhhhh! Which git invented a material that not only feels like…erm…polystyrene, but also sounds like Alan Carr on helium when rubbed?*

5. Nails On A Chalkboard. Arrrrrggggggggghhhhhhh! (Again). Auto-tune would turn this into the Intermezzo from ‘Cavalleria Rusticana. Or the theme tune to Postman Pat. Anything really. Just not nails on a chalkboard. Or polystyrene. Or Joe Pasquale. Or Dick Van Dyke. Or Aqua’s Barbie Girl.

6. The French. It’s not the fact that I don’t like them, it’s the fact that whatever is said in a French accent sounds sexy. At no point should, ‘I take the cat and I put it in the bin,’ sound at all sexy. Yet, said with Frenchness, it does. Have a go. (Insert you speaking in a French accent here). See? What you’ve just done is wrong. The French accent should therefore be auto-tuned to English. ‘I take the cat and I put it in the bin,’ will never sound sexy in a Coventry burr.

7. Nuclear Warning Siren. I hope I never get to hear it for real. At least not in the next year. (There’s the Ashes and two world cups for England to win). But just supposing for a minute that I did hear it. There is a fair chance it might be the last thing I ever hear. I therefore want to go out in as relaxed a mood as possible. Not listening to something that sounds like a dolphin being drilled through the eye. The Nuclear Warning Siren should therefore be auto-tuned. Then we can all fall asleep listening to Geri Halliwell being penetrated by a unicorn.

*I can see what you might be thinking here. You have the wrong end of the stick.**

**I can see what you might be thinking here. You’re a pervert.

August 25, 2010
7 Reasons To Like Andy Murray

I know what you’re thinking, ‘Blimey! He’s gone for the impossible post!’ To think like that though, is to underrate my brilliance. Or is it naivety? Either way I am going to do what Andy Murray’s PR Agency has consistently failed to do. Make the miserable, moaning, anti-English, I-don’t-wanna-play-for-the-Davis-Cup-team, tennis supremo, look amiable. Wish me luck.

1. He Always Comes Back. At least when Murray loses, he fronts up, comes back and takes the flack. And you can’t say that about all Scots. Anyone seen that Scottish Prime Minister we once had?

2. Money Is Nothing To Him. Andy has confirmed that he would happily play tennis for free. Which is tremendous of him. I would like to announce here and now that I wish to take him up on his offer. All prize money should now be sent to me. Thanks.

3. Judy Murray. If you don’t like Andy, start now. You are disliking the wrong Murray. Judy is the annoying one. She is the one who thinks Wimbledon is too traditional. And she’s smug. It’s not a good combination. I just look at her and feel annoyed. Try it. It makes you respect Andy. I mean, he has to put up with her all the time.

4. He Has Restraint. You have to hand it to Andy, how he hasn’t punched Gary Richardson yet is something of a miracle. Along with 90% of the nation, he always looks like he wants to. Whenever he tries to walk from the practice courts to the locker-room, Richardson is there, asking stupid bloody questions. ‘How did practice go today, Andy?’, ‘How are you going to play today, Andy?’, ‘Are they your balls Andy?’. And if that’s not enough, Richardson then does the immediate post-match interview, which, without fail, goes like this, ‘Well done. You’ve won. What’s your reaction?’ Come to think of it, if Murray thumped him then I’d probably like him even more.

5. COME ON! Remember the days of the Tim Henman fist clench and the whispered, ‘Come on!’? We all used to hate that. We all wanted him to show a bit more emotion. With Murray comes emotion. When Henman won a great point, he’d clench his fist, look to his mother and father and jog to his chair. Then he’d realise it was only 15-40 and he still had two break-points to save. With Murray, it’s completely different. When he has played a great point he’ll come back out of the crowd, scream about Bonnie Prince Charlie, show his muscles and generally get pumped up. In fact, we get to see Murray at his most excitable point. I pity his girlfriend.

6. He’s Due. I don’t mean a Grand Slam, I mean a smile. The fact is though, that Murray isn’t going to smile until he’s got what he wants. England’s footballers were smiling having been beaten by Germany. Idiots. I only want smiling when you’ve won something. Something major. This is surely what Murray is waiting for. I have faith that he has a great big smile. If we all like him and get behind him, he might just show it to us one day. Possibly on Sunday?

7. He’s Our Only Hope. The fact remains that without Murray, Briton’s have no one to support. You may as well support me for all the other British players coming through the ranks. And you really should be thankful to Murray that you don’t have to do that. Despite what people say, my drop-volley really isn’t worth your applause.

July 2, 2010
7 Reasons You Should Never Go To Wimbledon With Me

The following is based on a true story. Sadly.

It Looks Like Rain

1. Rain. That’s what you’ll see when you wake up. Loads of it. ‘Bloody typical,’ you will say, ‘every day at Wimbledon has been hot and sunny this year. Except today. When the roads are flooding’. You’ll then have to decide what clothes to wear. Which is never an easy thing to do. Skirt or trousers. Shoes or flip-flops. Bra or no bra. Okay, the last one was me. And I went bra-less. Once decided, we’ll then make our way to the station where we find the…

2. Car Park is packed. Not a space to be seen. We’ll leave the station car park and I will make you drive to all the places in the village that require permits to park. You don’t have a permit. I shall then helpfully ask if you’d ‘just like to go home’. You don’t. You have taken a days holiday for this. You suggest we go to another station where car parking exists. I agree. But on the way, we quickly check our car park of choice again. I step up to the plate and spy a space. You have to circumnavigate a bus and do manoeuvres that make a Rubik cube look simple, but you get in there. Sadly, by the time we have disembarked via the sunroof* we have…

3. Missed The Train. We have thirty minutes until the next one, but don’t think you are going to be getting bored because now you are going to use your female charms** and get the nice man at the ticket kiosk to find us the cheapest route to London. He needs to take into account that we have one Network Railcard that comes into use at 10am. It is now 9:15am. The train leaves at 9:36am. It’s a problem that makes him wish he had a Maths GCSE. He succeeds though and the rest of the journey to Wimbledon goes without hiccup. Well, actually, it turns out to be very pleasant indeed. I teach you how to do a suduko and you teach me that I shouldn’t make comments about pictures of women in bikinis. Sadly this is where it goes horribly wrong again. Once inside the All England Club, we will discover that we are too late to get on Court 12 where we would have been able to watch Laura Robson and then Monsour Bahrami and Henri Laconte. Disappointed, I will try and cheer you up by buying you a…

4. Hot Dog. Though it had another fancy name that I can no longer remember. But it was a hot dog. A sausage in a roll. That’s a hot dog. Unless it’s a sausage roll. But this wasn’t. It was a hot dog. And I’ve just bought you one. And I’ve bought myself one. We shall walk away towards the ketchup. Here, I shall ask you where my hot dog is. You say you don’t know. I’ve left it behind haven’t I? Yes, I have. I walk back to the hot dog vendor and as casual as it is possible to say, I say, ‘I seem to have forgotten my hot dog’. I feel a bit stupid. You feel a bit stupid about being at Wimbledon with someone so stupid. The sun has come out though, so we go off to…

5. Court 5. Here I shall select the seats furthest away from the action. Thankfully, you have a bit more common sense than I do, so after we’ve seen the British Junior – Oliver Golding – win, we move to a better location. Here we watch another British Junior – Eleanor Dean – win. Then comes the match we came to this court to see. Greg Rusedski and Todd Martin against Jonas Bjorkman and Tood Woodbridge. Greg Rusedski injures his quad and at 5-0 in the first set, the match is over. I am beginning to think that there is going to be a 7 Reasons piece in this. You are beginning to think you should never have come to Wimbledon with me. Later, you advance towards jazz music and the champagne bar. I follow you with my…

6. Tea and Bourbon Biscuits. I don’t get hints. You realise I don’t get hints – either that or I am not prepared to pay £117 for Champagne when I have – just two hours previously – splashed out £3.30 on a pathetically small ice cream for you. We leave. Ninety-minutes later we are back in the…

7. Car Park. There are only four cars left, but, unsurprisingly, given that I am with you, your car is still boxed in. You climb over the bonnet and in through the sunroof and I direct you through a 27-point turn to get out of the space. You are now in touching distance of home. Nothing else can possibly go wrong.***

*Might be a slight exaggeration, but you definitely do not get out of your door.

**This won’t work if you’re a man.

***Until I start singing ‘I’m Coming Out’ by Diana Ross. All because you told me Spain and Portugal were coming out after half-time.

June 30, 2010
7 Reasons Sports Personality 2009 Was A Joke

1. Andy Murray. Where was he? If Andrew Strauss could be on a live link, then why couldn’t Murray? He may have had a legitimate reason, but as things stand he has just made it slightly harder for me to like him again. Goodness me, that boy’s an effort.

2. Coach of the Year. Yes, Fabio Capello has done a good job with England – I say good job, it’s actually a sad indictment of English football that it takes an Italian coach to make the players England possess play well together – but what did he actually coach us to? Top spot in the qualifying table. The last time I checked that meant sod all – apart from that it is part one of the proper job. Have the panel ever heard of Ross Brawn or Declan Kidney? How did they not even make the shortlist? Muppetry.

3. Team of the Year. Well, the pundits got this half right. The sport was right, sadly the team was not. England Women’s Cricket Team should have won this. What more did the pundits want them to do? They won the Ashes. They won the World Cup. They won the Twenty20 World Cup. That’s really quite a big clue. More muppetry.

4. Kelly Holmes. What the hell was she wearing? If I was a girl I am pretty sure that would have been the kind of outfit I would want to have worn when I was about twelve and going bowling with my friends Bianca and Stace.

5. James Corden. For a minute I thought he had just wandered into the wrong studio, but then he appeared on stage. And then he presented an award. If the BBC wanted him to present an award they should have had him on BBC2 getting ready to handover the Pukka Pies UK Snooker Championship trophy.

6. Andrew Strauss. Personally, I think he should have won – for reasons I have outlined before on this website – but not even coming in the top three is bizarre. He single-handedly dragged a team that was humiliated in the West Indies to winning the Ashes just five months later. It wasn’t like 2005 when England had beaten everyone in the past eighteen months. What more do our sportsmen/women have to do to please people?

7. Ryan Giggs. Yes, the big one. How the bloody hell is Ryan Giggs Sports Personality of the Year 2009? I am still trying to work it out. Yes, he had a fine year. Yes, he is a fine player. Yes, it is refreshing to have a footballer with humility in a sport where there is severe lack of it (not that that should be grounds for winning SPOTY). But seriously? He did not have a better sporting year than six World Champions. He did not have a better year than an Ashes winning captain. He did not have a better year than a tennis player who reached the ranking of number two in the world. He did not have a better year than a six-time Tour de France stage winner. Give him a lifetime achievement award someday, sure, but no one can tell me he deserved to beat the other nine contenders this year. But as you voted for him, please try. I really need to understand this.

December 14, 2009