Tag: Snow

7 Reasons To Watch The Winter Olympics

1. Primetime. This time around, the Winter Olympics are in Vancouver. That means it will be shown on the TV in the evenings. Assuming you are reading this in the UK that is. Watching sport on a weeknight evening is brilliant. It is what makes life so enjoyable.

2. We Might Win A Medal. And if we do, it will almost certainly be won by someone we haven’t heard of. In a sport we know nothing about. But come Sports Personality of the Year in December we will all be voting for her. Or him. Or them. Those of us who aren’t voting for Rory Delap that is.

3. Last Chance To See. The British Ski and Snowsport Federation has gone into administration. This could be the last time you get to see Great Britain represented at the Winter Olympics. History in the making.

4. Anthems. It gives us a chance to hear National anthems that we don’t normally in the Summer Olympics. The Austrian and the Swiss for example. I can’t tell you whether they are any good or not because it has been four years since I last heard them. But we’ll find out next week.

5. Curling. Despite being one of the earliest nations to have adopted widespread use of the vacuum cleaner, Britain is actually quite good at a sport that involves sweeping. Even more astonishingly, the captain of our women’s curling team is a teenager. Predictably, she isn’t involved in the sweeping, preferring to leave a big mess containing worn clothes, dirty plates, miscellaneous make up and cds without cases in the path of the stone.*

6. Commentary. The Winter Olympics provides commentators with the opportunity to commentate (naturally) on sports that they are none-too-familiar with. It gives you the chance to shout at the TV whenever they make a mistake. But there are also commentators who see it as an opportunity to make a name for themselves. They’ll try and make the sport far more exciting that is actually is. Don’t take my word for it. Watch this. And make sure you stay with it until 2:20.

7. Baring (sic) Up Under The Strain. I know everyone has seen this, but I can’t think of another reason. And I chose this particular version of the video because it is called, ‘bob sled chick rips pants and shows her ass in a thong…sexy’. Thanks jimni999
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*This is not true, Eve Muirhead is bloody brilliant – and probably very tidy too.

February 12, 2010
7 Reasons to Hate the Thaw

1. Brown. The thaw is brown. Everything is muddy, slushy and brown. The grit that was scattered onto the snowy roads and pavements and is now visible, is brown. The river is brown. The bare trees are brown, the uncovered grass is brown, Gordon is Brown. Nothing good is brown (except beverages and beverage based desserts, obviously).

2. Slush. When the snow is on the ground it’s a pure, blank canvas which will be affected in an obvious way by whatever is on top of it. When it melts, however, it’s just a brown, wet slushy mass. We all know what’s in yellow snow, but we’re not sure what’s in all those brown slushy puddles. What is it? It could be anything. It’s slush, but it’s not blue and doesn’t taste of cherry, which is a big disappointment.

3. Snowmen. The streets are full of dying snowmen. Is there anything sadder than that? They are like urban, wintery versions of Ozymandias, whose power and grandeur and gilded age has passed into ruination and decay. Soon they will be a distant memory as they assume the form of an old, discarded hat and some twigs scattered on the ground. My neighbour’s snow-penis is also looking distinctly unimpressive at the moment. Perhaps I should forward to him some of the many emails I receive offering me Viagra.

4. Nice. The snow is a special time. With the passing of the snow the nicety will go. When you encounter a neighbour walking down your snow-covered street in a blizzard you generally smile at each other, glance skyward and tut. When you encounter police with their riot shields out in the snow they’re using them for sledging.

With the thaw, when you bump into your neighbours, they will scowl at you as usual, or worse, they will converse with you. When you encounter police with their riot shields out they will beat you to death as usual, or worse, they will usher you into the Ricoh Arena.

5. Balls. When the snow goes, the local ne’er-do-wells will be unable to pelt cars, buses and cyclists with snowballs containing rocks. They will, instead, pelt cars, buses and cyclists with rocks. Not only will this cause more damage, but it will rob passers-by of the strange spectacle of a bunch of youths with their tracksuit-bottoms tucked into their white socks, apparently floating eight inches above the ground while assaulting the traffic.

6. Sledging. When the snow is gone sledging is difficult, if not impossible.

7. Disruption. Disruption to services is forgivable in the snow as, well, it’s the snow! Everything is good in the snow. Now that the snow is thawing, however, disruption to services is annoying and unforgiveable. Especially these bins that have been blocking this path for a week. Expect to see this picture again in 7 Reasons my Neighbours Should be put to Death. Idiots.

January 15, 2010
7 Reasons to Love The Snow

1. Crime. Snow aids crime detection. Foolish criminals often commit a winter burglary and, when fleeing the scene, leave a handy trail of footprints and tyre-tracks that lead straight to their own homes. The police even catch some of them.

2. Unmask the stupid. It’s easy to discover who the idiots are when it snows. The words essential and necessary are words that are used every winter to describe the sort of car journey you should undertake in snowy conditions. It’s always educational to find out what people, presumably without dictionaries, think that these words mean. Some people think that going to the sales at an out-of-town designer outlet is necessary, some people think that a trip to the cinema is essential, some people think that it’s a good idea to drive out to the countryside to look at the snow. These people make poor decisions behind the wheel too. They can usually be found stuck sideways across the road in a snowdrift causing a large queue of midwives, coastguards, heating engineers and off-licence workers to be stranded. If you want to know if your journey is essential, check here: http://www.ismyjourneyabsolutelynecessary.co.uk/

3. Sledging. The snow proves that we’re better at sledging than the Australians. They’ve never even seen snow. Upon encountering snow most Australians ascertain that it’s wet, very cold and flavourless, and quickly conclude that it’s beer. Australians think that you need a bat and ball to go sledging. Australians are wrong.

4. Japery. You can have a lot of fun in the snow. You can throw snowballs and build a snowman, these activities are fun. Even more fun is building a snowman on the roof of your friend’s car; this is fun and causes annoyance, which is a double win. Even better than that is building a snow penis in your next-door-neighbour’s front garden; this is fun, causes annoyance and great hilarity – not to mention ruddy-faced shouting and gesticulation.

5. Silence. The snow baffles sound, and while there’s snow on the ground, a lot of urban background noise is deadened. There are also fewer cars and people around. When snow has fallen, the world is not just bathed in white powder, it is also bathed in silence – which is something to consider while you’re walking along listening to your iPod or chatting on your mobile.

6. Mystery. When I left the house this morning there was one set of footprints on the front path – mine. When I came back, there were four other sets of footprints on the front path. The only evidence of any visitor was the single letter that the postman had delivered. Who were those extra footprints from? Why was one of them wearing Converse trainers in the snow? What sort of animal has both hooves and claws? Did the man with unfeasibly large shoes with a sensibly-gripped-sole really limp slightly with his left leg? It’s a snow mystery.

7. Beauty. Snow is beautiful; it conceals all eyesores and blemishes leaving everything steeped in an egalitarian white-powdered uniformity. This is great as it makes my horrid front garden, with its weeds and peeling paint, look no worse than the rest of the gardens on my street and, while the snow is here, I can relax and stop worrying that I should do something about it. The only thing that makes my front garden look bad in the snow is the large cock in it. He’s come to complain about the snow-penis I built in his garden. He seems quite cross.

January 7, 2010
7 Reasons ‘Last Christmas’ Is The Greatest Music Video Ever.

1. The Set-up. The start of the video could very well be the start of a James Bond film that stars Jennifer Aniston. Two jeeps pull up in the snow. A door opens. A man gets out. He turns around. And that’s where is ends. You could never have a Bond villain with a hairstyle like that. Well, not unless Bond himself was played by Mika.

2. The Waving. Let’s be honest about this, it’s horrendous. It is not proper waving. It is five people auditioning for a job as a window cleaner, 0:24 – 0:30. Personally I would give the job to the woman in the middle. She was getting right into the corners.

3. The Tinsel Drop. Nice moves George. Or not. The idea is that he drops the tinsel onto last year’s lover, so that he can crouch down, apologise and stare into her eyes. Watch it though. At 1:27 there is a cut in the video. Only for a split second, but it can be seen. This is because George Michael is useless when it comes to dropping tinsel. They did 132 takes and everytime George missed his lover. In the end they decided just to chuck a bit of tinsel over her and merge the two segments. It didn’t work. But it’s lovely that George has his faults.

4. The Ice Cool Dude. Look at this guy at 1:40. It’s freezing outside yet he has been in the woods chopping up a tree without gloves or a hat. It took me a while to work out why this might be the case but it came to me eventually. He wasn’t wearing a hat because if he was he wouldn’t have been able to hear the director shout instructions at him. He wasn’t wearing gloves because he’s an idiot.

5. The Chat Up Lines. You just have to look at the two girl’s faces at 2:19 to know that they have just been asked by the smarmy git on the left if they fancy a threesome. Unfortunately they cut away from them to show George preparing to inhale wine through his nose, so no one quite knows whether the threesome happened or not. Nothing wrong with imagining though.

6. The Irony. There is quite a lot of it in Last Christmas, but the main one is George Michael supposedly giving his heart away 365 days previously. To a girl. You seriously expect us to believe that George? With that running style between 3:00 and 3:05? But that’s what’s so great about it. For four minutes and sixteen seconds we convince ourselves to believe it. Then we pretend we can’t stand this song.

7. The Skis. Oh, they had skis with them – 3:50. I am sure I am not the only person to notice that they didn’t actually do any skiing. All we saw them do is drink wine, run around in the snow, look at each other seductively and eat a birthday cake (2:11 – don’t ask me why, it was probably someone’s birthday. Jesus’ probably). But that’s fine, it means Wham! were in touch with reality. Sure, people mean to attack the slalom when on a winter holiday, but as soon as they start on the Quality Street they decide it’s just not going to happen. Real people. Real attitudes to getting fat.

December 18, 2009