7 Reasons

Tag: rugby union

  • 7 Reasons That Golf Is The Wrong Sport For Businessmen

    7 Reasons That Golf Is The Wrong Sport For Businessmen

     

     

    Businessmen play a lot of golf, and business golf is a accepted part of business culture – there are even books about it.  Here are 7 reasons that golf is the wrong sport for businessmen.

    A business man in a suit with a golf club and a golf club preparing to tee off in a game of business golf

    1.  Location.  Business takes place in the city – an urban environment – but golf takes place in the suburbs or in rural environs.  Therefore, golf is in the wrong place.  As a businessman, this means you have to travel to the golf course.  What you need is a sport that you can play in cities, thus saving travel-time and expense.  Snooker or pool would be ideal.  After all, things always go better with a drink and you’ll have a big table that you can put your paperwork on.

     

    2.  Stuff.  Golf requires an astonishing amount of equipment.  There’s all manner of paraphernalia to lug around – so much of it, in fact, that you need to carry an enormous golf-bag, or hire a man to carry it for you.  Some people even use electric buggies (a whole special car to convey golf equipment!).  This is clearly ridiculous.  Carrying your golf equipment around is incompatible with being businesslike.  What you need is sports equipment that fits into a briefcase.  A Frisbee is perfect.

     

    3.  Assessment If you compete against potential business partners over a few holes of golf, what are you really learning about them?  That they don’t like to get their pink trousers muddy?  That they can chat about very little while waiting to tee off?  A more challenging sport will teach you far more about them.  Rugby union, for example.  You’ll learn far more about your potential business partner’s drive, desire, sense of ethics and commitment when he’s growling, biting your ear and trying to remove your testicles with his hand or when he’s spear-tackling your head of marketing.  Rugby union is a team game.  There’s no “I” in rugby union.  Well, there is, but someone will poke it out sooner or later.

     

    4.  Clothes.  Golf requires you to physically exert yourself.  Golf also requires a different set of clothes than business.  This means that you have to shower and change once your round of golf has finished.  This is inefficient use of time.  This is time you could spend working and earning money.  Unless, that is, you earn your money in the men’s changing rooms, in which case…er…er…do carry on.

     

    5.  Women.  You don’t see women heading out to the golf course to “network” or play “business golf”; they usually prefer to conduct their business at their business premises, and it’s quite hard to fault that sort of logic.  If you’re playing business golf, you’re doing business very inefficiently – as you’re only meeting men.  You need to be in an environment that’s agreeable to both sexes.  I don’t know what that place is, but there must be at least one, even if it is always at the wrong temperature.

     

    6.  Length.  Golf takes too long.  It takes you out of the office for hours.  If you must use the company’s time to participate in sport, you could find one that takes less time.  100 metre sprinting is a quick sport.  Here’s how to combine it successfully with business:  Walk to a point that’s 100 metres away from your desk, then run back to your desk as fast as you can; because that’s where you should be – at your desk – getting work done.

     

    7.  Displacement.  Is your work really so dull and frustrating that you need to go to a field and repeatedly smack a ball with a stick?  Aren’t you just avoiding work when you’re playing golf?  If you didn’t hang around on the golf course “working”, then your actual working day would be so much shorter and you could spend your free time doing what you really want to do.  Spending more time with your family or…er…playing golf.

  • 7 Reasons to go and Watch Invictus

    7 Reasons to go and Watch Invictus

     

     

    1.  Morgan Freeman.  Usually the veteran actor gets typecast as God, but in Invictus he gets promoted and puts in a superb performance as Nelson Mandela.  His accent is a bit dodgy, but the same could be said of all South Africans.  Either that or they genuinely believe it’s called “Sowt Efrica”.

    2.  Rugby.  There aren’t many decent films about rugby and the depiction of the game is pretty good in Invictus.  It’s not up to the standard of This Sporting Life, but that’s almost 50 years old and is about the wrong rugby – the one they play in the North-West that makes you shout “For fucks sake, run around him” when you accidentally see television coverage of it.  Perhaps I’m missing some subtle nuance of that game, but why do they always run straight into an opposing player?

    3.  Crying.  Everyone loves a good cry – something I often tell myself when I’ve put my foot in it again, and if you’re prone to crying at sport or movies, you’ll definitely cry at the conclusion of Invictus.  Eastwood manages to wring just about every ounce of emotion out of the film’s climax.  If you’re at all sensitive, you’ll cry like a girl – even if you aren’t one.

    4.  Crying.  I didn’t cry like a girl while everyone else in the cinema was blubbing though.  Oh no.  I cried when Jonah Lomu ran amok with the ball and rampaged through the defenceless England backs.  It brought it all back to me; the big bully, those poor little mites, the carnage.  Oh, the horror.

    5.  Sound.  Want to hear rugby with improbable sounds dubbed on?  Of course you do.  Go and see Invictus.  Every tackle sounds like a gunshot within a biscuit-tin within a kettle-drum within an empty water-tank within an Airbus A340 flying through a thunderstorm.  The woman sitting next to me gasped during every tackle.  She may have been mental though, there’s usually one in every cinema.

    6.  England. As the film is based on real sporting events I’m not giving anything away when I tell you that Rory Underwood scores a try for England during the film.  This is great, though the rest of the audience will not thank you for celebrating it.  Trust me.

    7.  Matt Damon.  MAAAATTTT DAAAAAMMMON!!!!!  He is brilliant in Invictus.  His South African accent is convincing and he plays Francois Pienaar with a lovely, understated dignity.  He has also transformed his entire body to play the role.  The shot in which they show his upper torso is entirely gratuitous, but his musculature is astonishing – it is physical evidence of the dedication that he brought to his preparation for the film.  Being much shorter than the real Francois Pienaar, he had to stand on a box for several of his scenes.  I explained this to my friend before we went in to see the film. “Matt Damon’s pretty short”, I said, demonstrating his height with my hand at about chest level.  I then raised my hand above me, stood on tiptoes, and extended my right arm fully, “but Francois Pienaar’s enormous, he’s 6ft 3!!!  That’s…er…an inch taller than we are”.  I have already been made to feel quite silly for that, thank you for asking.

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  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons to Watch the Six Nations

    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