We need to talk about Paris. No-one’s talking about anything else today. Not just because Spurs aren’t playing, but because what happened last night over there was a horror of truly horrific proportions. And worry. You can’ help but worry. And think ‘where next?’ According to today’s extensive radio coverage, exclusively relating to precisely that, – Read More-
Sounds Shakespearian. The House of Lancaster hath fallen. Whereas in fact, its just another rugby manager losing his job. There’s only two options for national team managers at a World Cup. You either win the competition, like Clive Woodward did in 2003, and retire from the game, take a knighthood, become a legend and follow – Read More-
This is Yekatarina Tikonova, (and friend), an ‘accomplished rock’n’roll dancer’. How this is accomplished is presumably that she can boogie-woogie like there’s no tomorrow. She has in fact won prizes for her boogie and her woogie. And she’s worth 1.3 billion quid. Not rubles, but your English pounds. That’s a lot of dancing. The secret – Read More-
What a mess. What happened to international sport? Where did those lofty ideals of fairness, honesty and hard-working competitiveness go to? First it was FIFA, left worthless in a flurry of revelations about corruption. And now the Olympics and International athletics, brought down by cases of pharmacological enhancement. Oh, and by Russia. Though not exclusively. – Read More-
If you’d have offered me a draw against Arsenal yesterday morning, I’d have taken your hand off grabbing it so fast. Spurs playing the Arse is traditionally like England playing Germany. Whatever happens during the 90 minutes is largely irrelevant; the bad guys win in the end. Manchester United were annihilated in the first 20 – Read More-
My wife and I (love that phrase; so royal, so 1940, so classy) recently had a quote for a life insurance policy. In case we kill each other. Then the kids would at least be rich orphans. So our Independent Financial Advisor (spit now) or ‘IFA’ acquired a quote for us, by hiking round to – Read More-
The director who made the movie Senna, which was fab, and Amy, which was brilliant, has just released his third bio-pic. Ronaldo. Man and ego. It takes 5 minutes to sum up the man (he’s a footballer; how long can it take?) and 2 hours on the ego. Because its big. Bigger than big; its – Read More-
I came out of Charing Cross station yesterday and walked along the Strand. As I do. And for some reason, that entire area is ‘wino central’. Tramp District. Every doorway filled with waking, or still sleeping, homeless people. Its tragic, but after a (very long) time, you almost become immune to it. Which may sound – Read More-
There is no French word for ‘morality’. Ok, they use our word and just say it with that ridiculous, allo-allo type accent and say ‘morrrraliteee’, but they don’t mean it. No use for it, no clue as to the concept. Whereas there are 57 words for ‘scumbag’. Why would Karim Benzema try to blackmail his – Read More-
We live in a commercial world. Not always in a good way. Everything has its price. As you may note observing the FIFA fiasco in which World Cup hosting bids were accompanied by bribes and bungs and cases full of cash. A few years ago we had the ‘cash for honours’ scandal when donors to – Read More-