Without a shadow of a doubt, the 2012 shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year is the strongest ever seen. Bradley Wiggins, Andy Murray, Mo Farah, Jess Ennis, Ben Ainslie would all be shoe-ins as winner for most years of the past two decades; add to those five Hoy, Grainger, Rutherford (not even nominated this year despite a coveted track and field gold), McIlroy, Storey, Adams and Weir, and you've got an absolutely outstanding list.
Consider this: in 1997 Greg Rusedski won SPOTY for reaching the US Open final; Andy Murray may yet come fourth even though he won the US Open (against a far stronger field than the class of '97), and won Olympic Gold and Silver, and reached the Wimbledon final. In 2010, Tony McCoy won and Phil "The Power" Taylor came second; in 2009 Ryan Giggs won presumably for the reason that he was quite old and received it as some sort of Lifetime Achievement award. Neither would be in with a chance this year.
This got me thinking. What would be a top 10 from the years 2000-2012 be? First of all we need some rules. Since SPOTY is awarded on the basis of a sportsperson's efforts over a single calendar year (Ryan Giggs notwithstanding), each candidate could only put forward their annus mirabilis, so for instance from Mark Cavendish's years of dominance in road cycling from 2008-2012, he could only put forwards one year, in his case 2011. This works for and against Olympians, depending on their sport. Due to the relative infrequency of the Olympics a gold medal is a huge achievement: Kelly Holmes, Chris Hoy and Mo Farah, who were able to compete for and win multiple golds in 2004, 2008 and 2012 respectively, are at an advantage against someone like Ben Ainslie, who has won four Olympic golds, but only one in any single year. You could make a case for the deciding factor being percentage of world-title chances converted, but that would throw up numerous sportsmen and women competing in sports outside the Big 5 (football, rugby, athletics, cycling, cricket) who won everything they could. It would be impossible to differentiate between these performances and would result in ten competitors tied for the number 1 spot. Are these unfair? Perhaps, but prioritising the sports with the most participation seems fair enough, and restricting it to one calendar year is in keeping with SPOTY's 12-month ethos.
There is also an inherent bias against team players. Such is the nature of team sports that outstanding individuals are harder to discern. It also throws up the question of whether a team sportsman (and it is only men I'm afraid who could come close on this list) should be favoured if his team wins, or whether his performance can be isolated and evaluated properly. This is really difficult to do. Take for instance Steven Gerrard, who came third in 2005 after Liverpool won the Champions League on that "barmy night in Istanbul". Some people think Gerrard was the hero; others think Didi Hamann was the actual orchestrator. How do we rank Gerrard? No idea. As such, only two team players have made the top ten.
Speaking of which, on with the countdown
10. Jess Ennis (2012)
The last spot on this list was contested tightly between Freddie Flintoff and Jess Ennis. Flintoff won it in 2005 for the remarkable Ashes win, a series in which he was England captain. It was a fantastic achievement: the first win for ages against a particularly strong Australia, which could count Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist and Michael Clarke amongst its numbers. But Jess Ennis has been favoured for three reasons: 1) Heptathlon gold means Ennis can be considered the best all-round sportswoman in the world, 2) Her 100m hurdles performance was so good she would have won gold in 2008 in that event, 3) She did it at our home games, 4) The pressure on her was incredible as not only our biggest, brightest track and field medal hope, but also as a severe hottie that meant her face was on billboards across the country.
9. Chris Hoy (2008)
Enough to win it in 2008, Hoy only makes ninth here. Hoy's achievements are clear cut: he won almost everything in 2008, taking two golds and a silver at the World Championships and three golds at the Beijing Olympics. While circumstances elevated Ennis above Flintoff, it is circumstances that prevent Hoy from getting a higher position. British track cycling was utterly dominant in 2008, with huge amounts of money and expertise available to the British squad, putting Hoy at a large advantage. We take track cycling so much more seriously than other nations, too. That said, Hoy's achievements are still colossal.
8. Andy Murray (2012)
The US Open title, Olympic Gold, Olympic Silver and Wimbledon finalist: with that haul Murray is indisputably our best ever tennis player. Murray's story is made that much more special by his seemingly eternal position as a nearly-man. If he got past Federer, there was Nadal, if he got past Nadal, there was Djokovic, one all-time great after another. Then he managed it, providing us with hours of excruciating drama across the year. Almost as much as the titles he won, it's his never-say-die attitude that is most enduring in the memory.
7. Mark Cavendish (2011)
2011 was Mark Cavendish's best year, the best road sprint-cyclist in history. Cav dominated, winning the green jersey at the Tour de France, taking five stages including the Champs-Elysee finale, and the World Road Race. The Green Jersey at the Tour is rarely won by riders that solely target stage wins - the intermediate sprints points available more than compensate for a rider that finishes 2nd, 3rd or 4th in a stage-ending sprint. Cavendish is rubbish at the intermediate sprints, particularly in the mountains, so he had to rely on stage wins to fill out his points total. He did this in style, rarely giving his opposition a chance. His World Road Race win was a culmination of four years of hard work by British cycling, who furnished Cavendish with one of the most formidable teams ever seen at the event. That said, it was far, far from a simple task, because every other team would be aware of Cavendish's invincibility in a bunch sprint. The team was able to neutralise opponents' attacks, setting Cav up to do what Cav does best.
5. Kelly Holmes (2004), Mo Farah (2012)
I've tied Holmes and Farah at fifth because their achievements are almost indistinguishable. Both double Olympic gold medalists both firsts for Britons, both on the track, both in (at least from this sprinter's point of view) distance running. Holmes won in the face of extreme personal problems - injury, depression - while Farah won in the face of extreme competition in The Africans, who as a continental force have since 1980 won Olympic gold in the 5000m and 10000m on every occasion bar two.
3. Wilkinson/Johnson (2003)
The inspirational captain or the talisman? No use differentiating between the two either: they can share a spot. Even ignoring the Six Nations Grand Slam and the #1 ranking, England's 2003 Rugby World Cup win was perhaps the country's greatest achievement since 1966, and provided us with the enduring image of Wilkinson's trademark penalty-kicking pose. Of course, the win was very much a team effort, and without the immense talents of Dallaglio, Greenwood, Robinson, Dawson, Cohen, Moody, Vickery and the lot, it would not have been possible. However, we can't pick all of them, so we'll follow SPOTY's lead, which nominated Wilkinson and Johnson, who took the top two spots in 2003. They may have made the number 2 spot (number 1 is set in stone), but there's that anti-team bias that I mentioned before. Wilkinson's kicking was unerring, but would not have been possible without the powerful forwards winning penalties and getting him into drop-goal positions. Likewise Johnson was one of our best players and an inspiration throughout, but hasn't quite done enough on an individual basis to go higher.
2. Bradley Wiggins (2012)
The Tour de France is the world's biggest race. It's the longest, the toughest and the most storied, with it's 99 editions containing epic feats of endurance, tragedy, death, scandal, and glory. It attracts the most spectators of any sporting event, with the 2000-odd kilometers of the route lined start to finish with spectators, who number in their millions. It had also, until this year, never been won by a Brit. It was the final sporting frontier. Wiggins won it, and won it well. This alone is not enough to rank him a lofty 2nd, however. Most Western-European countries can boast a winner (and, not incidentally, mountains); even Luxembourg has a winner of the Tour de France. Three in fact. What puts Wiggins ahead is his dominance of every race he entered, from the early season tours (Normandie, Paris-Nice, Criterium du Dauphine), to the Olympic time-trial win, via the Tour. Put into the tumultuous context of the sport, namely the Lance Armstrong drugs scandal, Wiggins has emerged as something of a saviour of cycling: a legitimately clean Tour de France winner. Wiggins in 2012 has heralded a new era of cycling, and swept the cheating, bullying, egotistical Lance Armstrong, and everything he represents, aside.
1. Paul Radcliffe (2003)
Paula Radcliffe didn't even win SPOTY in 2003. She was beaten by those rugby players above. She did win it in 2002, but that wasn't her best year. In 2003, she finished the London marathon in a time of 2:15:25. This is one of the single greatest feats by any sportsperson in history, male or female. It was a world record by a huge margin. The next best time by someone other than Paula Radcliffe is 2:18:47 by Catherina Ndereba, which was itself a fantastic run, taking a minute off the previous record. Radcliffe's world record is simply a staggering time; perhaps the nearest equivalent would be steroid-enhanced Florence Joyner-Griffith's 100m WR of 10.48s, which will likely never be beaten by a clean athlete. There isn't much more to add to this final entry: it was simply a run of brutal speed and endurance.
Sunday 16 December 2012
Sunday 9 December 2012
MERRY LISTMAS PART II - A.K.A BIG BUTS
First things first: BIG SHOUT OUT TO JOHN WRIGHT WHO READS THESE WOO.
While writing out the two lists below, I had a realisation. It's actually been at best a pretty sucky year for music, and only a mildly good one for film. However, all things being equal, there is a great balancer that puts 2012 on par with every other year. Sport.
My God, has this been the best year ever for sport, particularly for an English football/athletics/cycling/tennis-lover like me? The only blemish was on the football side of things, where Spurs were cruelly screwed out of European qualification by those jammy West Londoners Chelsea, and England did their usual from the penalty spot against Andrea Pirlo and his team of classy Italians. But everything else? Brits made the other countries looks silly. Anyway, here's a countdown of the best sporting moments of the year.
15. Chris Hoy Makes It Six
Edged out of selection for the individual sprint by Jason Kenny and moving rapidly through his 37th year on this fair earth, I had my doubts that Hoy could match his Beijing performance and win gold in every event he participated it. But the indomitable Scotsman did it. I just rewatched his Kierin win and it was incredible. It looked like he was going to be overhauled by Max Levy of Germany but he forced him wide then kicked again round the last bend to take it by a length. The team sprint was less tightly contested. A sliver medal from Sydney 2000 aside, Hoy was able to retire from Olympic competition undefeated.
14. The Unbeatable David Weir
What makes David Weir special is his ability to dominate over seemingly any distance he puts his mind to. In the London 2012 Paralympics, Weir won the 800m, the 1500m, the 5000m and the marathon. I would put money on him winning the sprints too, but with a tight schedule as it was he didn't have the time.
The 5000m came first, followed by a defence of his 1500m title from Beijing. He defeated Marcel Hug, the world record holder to win the 800m, and in the last day of competition he won gold number four in the marathon. This was domination taken to an extreme, and ensured that Britain's most famous paralympian remained that way, despite the fierce competition from Britain's other paralympic stars.
13. Spain Turn Up The Style
Looking back, it seems stupid that I ever thought that Spain were not the favourites to win Euro 2012. World and European champions as they may be, I thought that the young buckaneering German team would take it. Wrong. Spain passed their way into the final and were thoroughly boring for most of the competition, seemingly happy to do the bear minimum to progress. They faced Italy in the final, who had held them to a draw in the group stages. And they shone. The Italians were blitzed, utterly outclassed, and Spain were runaway 4-0 victors. Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and now Euro 2012 - the Iberian steamroller can now claim to be the greatest international team of all time.
12. David Rudisha breaks the 800m record
Rudisha was always going to win the 800m. He was perhaps the most overwhelming favourite in any event at London 2012, more so than Bolt, Ennis and the rest. It was just a matter of how fast he could go. And go he did. His splits were staggering. His elegant stride carried him to a ridiculous 49.28 at 400m. He kicked at 500m, and the others could not follow. 18-year-old Amos tried, and limited his losses in the last 200m, but Rudisha was too far ahead. He maintained his immaculate technique and maintained his lead and crossed the line in the first sub 1:41 800m in history.
11. Richard Whiteheads's 200m Triumph
The 2012 Olympics were arguably the best ever; there is no doubt whatsoever that the 2012 Paralympics were the best ever. My personal highlight, ahead of Ellie Simmons and David Weir, was Richard Whitehead's unbelievable 200m win. One of the quirks of the paralympics is that certain disabilities lead to weaknesses in one area and strengths in another. Richard Whitehead, with his double blades, could only struggle round the bend, and was in 8th with 100m to go. But - get used to that word - the track straightened out, and Whitehead let rip. He stormed through the field like no one I've ever seen: with a 7m deficit at the start of the straight he finished like a freight train and took the win by 20m.
10. Big Ben Beats the Great Dane
He's the Chris Hoy of sailing. Unbeaten since he took silver in his first Olympics in Atlanta, Ainslie headed to Weymouth with a nation expecting a gold medal. And then it looked for all the world like his great rival, the Dane Jonas Hogh-Cristensen would beat him. Ainslie seemed powerless as Hogh-Cristensen finished ahead in all of the first six races. The gap was huge: a fifteen point margin separated them. Then in the seventh race, Ainslie won and HC finished eighth. The tide had turned but Ainslie was still some way behind. A series of narrow wins set up the final race: Ainslie needed to beat HC by two places to take Gold. And with a little help from the New Zealander Dan Slater, he did, and became the greatest Olympic sailor of all time.
9. England Bosh the All Blacks.
Second in the Six Nations (again) and beaten by Australia and South Africa in the autumn series, England, up against the All Blacks, looked to be heading for an ignominious end to the year. In the pre-match debate, some touted this All Blacks team as the greatest in history. Rarely had a team contained such brute strength, skill and intelligence as this team, led by Richie McCaw and the superhuman Dan Carter.
Were they complacent? Did they expect England to roll over? Well, they didn't. A dominating performance from the All Whites' forwards set up Owen Farrell to kick over 15 unanswered points at the half time break. Then the second half started, and the antipodeans realised they had a match on their hands and the All Black class became apparent: two quick tried reduced the deficit to one point. It looked like England would crumble. Then Brad Barritt went over. And Tuilagi. And Ashton. New Zealand hit back again but it was too late: England defeated a New Zealand side unbeaten in 20 tests by a record margin. It was the biggest win by a northern hemisphere team over the Kiwis in history.
8. Chelsea's Champion's League Triumph
It is with gritted teeth that I put Chelsea's against-the-odds Champions League win at number 8. But it's only fair: this was an underdog story for the ages. Looking down and out at the start of the second last 16 leg, Roberto di Matteo came in and brought the old guard back in from the cold for one last hurrah. Didier Drogba, my word. He played like a man possessed. They overturned a 3-1 defecit to win 5-4 on aggregate over an impressive Napoli, beat Benfica in the quarters comfortably, and then came up against Barcelona. The Barcelona team that can lay claim to be the best of all time, the team that contains the holy triumvirate of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta, to which you could add Puyol, Pique, Fabregas and Alves if only a triumvirate could be more than three.
Chelsea took a hammering but emerged from the home leg with a 1-0 lead thanks to a 45+2' Drogba goal. It wasn't the last injury time goal they would score, either. The second leg saw Barcelona race to a 2-0 lead, John Terry got sent off for kneeing Pedro in the arse, and that, my friends, was that. No team around could protect a lead like Barcelona - they just never give away posession. Except they did, once. Frank Lampard picked the ball up in first half injury time under pressure from Mascherano and with barely a glance up played a beautiful ball through the Barcelona defence into the path of Ramires who lifted it over the on-rushing Valdez. Chelsea were again ahead on aggregate.
At the start of the second half, Didier Drogba who had defended heroically to this point, tripped Fabregas in the box to allow Messi to score from the spot. But he didn't. The ball rebounded off the cross-bar and Chelsea lived to fight on. Barcelona were relentless. Cech got just enough on a goal-bound Messi shot to glance it on the post. Then in the dying seconds: the ball was hoofed upfield. Torres, a man vilified for his poor performances in a Chelsea shirt, picked up the ball. Valdez went to ground. Neville squealed. The ball nestled in the back of the net. 2-2. And that was just the semi.
After that, it seemed fated that Chelsea were going to win the final. Bayern Munich awaited in their home ground. Muller put the hosts ahead in the 82nd minute. Then Drogba - who else? - equalised from a corner. A goalless period of extra time sent the match to penalties. Mata missed, 0-0; Lahm scored, 1-0; Luiz scored, Gomez scored, Lampard scored, Neuer scored, Cole scored 3-3. Then Olic missed and Drogba - who else? - scored, 4-3. Schweinstiger, Bayern Munich with every fiber of his being, missed. Chelsea won. Spurs were demoted from that precious fourth Champions League spot.
7. Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt's Twitter bio proclaims Bolt to be the most naturally talented athlete to ever live. To quote Mark Cavendish, 'it's not arrogant if it's true'. With his feats in Beijing, Bolt achieved a level of superstardom new to athletics. He was all but unbeatable - the most perfect physical specimen, who rewrote what we thought possible. He claimed every sprint world record, and improved on them in 2009.
There's a but. There's always a but. Bolt ran his first ever 10-point 100m in the run-up to the Olympics. Meanwhile, his training partner Yohan Blake was winning with ease. For many people, Bolt was still the king. I thought he could be beaten. I was wrong. He cantered to a 9.8 semi-final win, and I knew then that he would win the final. He had it at 30m.
In the 200m he held off Blake again, winning narrowly at the head of a Jamaican 1-2-3.
With a team with 100m bests of 9.58, 9.69, 9.78 and 9.88 the Jamican quartet was on paper the fastest of all time. They delivered, winning gold and recording a World Record in the process, the first team under 37 seconds. The USA team ran the second fastest time in history but Ryan Bailey could do nothing as the fastest man in history powered away to take the win.
6. The Ryder Cup
Golf can actually be good apparently, who knew? Anyway, seven golfers from the UK were selected for Europe's 12 strong team, and in the first two days of competition, crumbled. Ian Poulter alone took the fight to the Americans, who went into the final day 10-6 ahead (that's a lot).
Luke Donald dispatched Bubba Watson; Paul Lawrie remarkably toppled Brandt Sneedeker. 10-8. McIlroy beat Keegan Bradley; Poulter continued to take the fight to the Americans by beating Webb Simpson; Dustin Johnson overcame Nicholas Colsaerts to take it to 11-10. European momentum slowed at this point: Justin Rose pipped Phil Mickelson but Graeme McDowell lost to Zach Johnson, 12-11. Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia beat Matt Kuchar and Jim Furyk respectively; Jason Duffner responded to beat Swede Peter Hanson to take it to 13-13. Then the German Martin Kaymer and the Italian Francesco Molinari took on Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker, but the Europeans prevailed, winning by 14 1/2 to 13 1/2, and a comeback for the ages was complete.
5. Aguero Seals the Premier League
It's rare for the 38-game English Premier League to be decided on the final day, but how often is it decided in the final seconds? 38 played, five draws, five losses, 89 points - these were the end-of-season stats for both clubs. Manchester City had won on goal difference, with +64 to United's +56. It was as close as it had ever been.
The final day: Tied on points, United went 1-0 at Sunderland; soon after City followed suit against QPR. In the 48th minute Djibril Cissé, with the first of several 'buts', equalised for City: frustrating for City, sure, but there was still plenty of time to retake the lead. But then, with echoes of Chelsea's win over Barcelona, another controversial Englishman - this time QPR's Joey Barton - got sent off for elbowing Carlos Tevez, and it seemed, as it had in the Camp Nou, that the favourite would roll home. Of course, it was not to be. Jamie Mackie scored for QPR to make it 2-1, and suddenly City palms were sweaty. Mancini prowled. City pressed, but time ticked inexorably towards defeat. United always won - they won against everybody, but they always won against City. It was in their genes. United on top was the rightful order. But maybe Edin Dzeko, a Serbian import, and Sergio Aguero, an Argentinian, couldn't speak English well enough or didn't know the narrative. Dzeko equalised in the 92nd minute, giving the Blue Mancs a sliver of hope. And then, deep, deep, deep into Fergie time, Sergio Aguero picked up a pass from Baloteli and smacked it past the QPR keeper to make it 3-2. The game had barely restarted when the referee called the match - and the league, and the title race - to a close. The noisy neighbours had crashed the party, and for the first time since 1995, a team other than United, Arsenal or Chelsea had won the league.
4. Wiggo In Yellow.
98 editions of the Tour de France had elapsed and no British man had ever worn the coveted yellow jersey in Paris. It was the final frontier: the last great sporting competition that a Brit was yet to win. Robert Millar came close in 1984, coming 4th whilst winning the King of the Mountains jersey. 25 years later Bradley Wiggins made the definitive switch to road racing and fought to an unexpected and valiant fourth behind Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck and the villain of this year, Lance Armstrong. The following year, now a member of the nascent but wealthy Team Sky, Wiggins mounted his second challenge...and finished 24th. He returned once more in 2011, fitter than ever, but crashed out with a broken collarbone early on. It looked like it was never meant to be. But Wiggins recovered to come third in that year's Vuelta a Espana, with teammate Chris Froome taking a surprising second.
The 2012 season started, and Wiggins started winning. First he took Paris-Nice, then the Tour de Normandie, and the Criterium du Dauphine. With Alberto Contador suspended for a drugs violation and Andy Schleck out with a back injury, Wiggins seemingly had to just overcome the defending champion, the Australian Cadel Evans. In the end, the biggest threat came from within Wiggins' own team. Chris Froome out-climbed everyone, and it was only through strictly-enforced team orders that he didn't take any time out of Wiggins in the mountains. Evans slipped back, out of form and out of sorts, and only Vincenzo Nibali of Italy could offer a token resistance to the Wiggins/Froome duopoly.
Had Froome been allowed to attack, it would still be likely that Wiggins would have won. He brought his Olympic pedigree to bear in the two long timetrials, winning both - the first to take yellow; the second to consolidate it - by significant margins.
There is no 'but' in this entry: he even led out his eclipsed-but-still-formidable teammate Mark Cavendish to seal his third consecutive win on the Champs Elysees, and then went on to take Olympic time trial gold. The ease of Wiggins' victory should not detract from the momentousness of his achievement however. If anything, the remarkably low-key nature of his historic win is entirely in keeping with Wiggins' personality: modest but steely.
3. Murray's Revenge
So often the nearly man, Andy Murray had fallen short on the biggest occasions four times in a row: first at the US Open in 2008, then at the Australian in 2010 and 2011, and at Wimbledon - the one every Brit wanted him most to win - in 2012. Even before the events of the months following his defeat at Wimbledon this year unfolded, Murray was Britain's best ever tennis player. Sure, Fred Perry may have won Grand Slams, but he never did it while competing against three of the best players to ever grace the game. And yet the public resisted him. Many were slow to realise that his early-career petulance and grumpiness were things of the past, and that his 'anyone but England' quip was just a joke. There there's the horrible cliché that gets thrown around 'He's British when he wins, Scottish when he loses'. Was that ever true? I doubt it.
Anyway, Murray, as expected, got thrashed by Federer at Wimbledon. But then he did something no one expected. He cried. What on earth? There's more to him than brashness and arrogance, after all! thought the English middle-classes in unison. And then he did something else no one expected. Three weeks after he defeat to Federer, he beat him on the very same court to take Olympic gold. And a little flag kept appearing by his name on the scoreboard. It wasn't the Scottish flag. It was the British flag. The following day he took silver in the doubles with Laura Robson. It felt the transformation was complete. But still: he hadn't won a Grand Slam.
The Great British summer of sport was coming to an end. The Olympics finished, followed soon after by the paralympics. The football, tediously, started again and things were back to normal. No one told Murray. At the US Open he progressed quietly but solidly, beating Lopez, Raonic, Cilic and Berdych to reach his fifth Grand Slam final. Djokovic, his conqueror at the 2011 Australian open, awaited. His stamina is legendary, his mettle unmatched. They fought late into the night. The first set lasted 87 minutes and was settled in Murray's favour with a tie-break - the longest in US Open history. Murray then raced to a 4-0 lead in the second set before, the Djokovic resilience began to tell and was being pegged back agonisingly to 5-5. Murray broke again to take the set 7-5.
The matched dragged past midnight, and Murray weakened. Victory seemed so close but Djokovic had the fitness and the ability, and won the third easily, 6-2. The fourth went his way too, with Murray visibly wilting, and it seemed inevitable that the match would go to Djokovic. Into the early hours now, and my nerves were frayed. Every point seemed momentous. Murray clung on, then, miraculously, broke. And again. His serve was suddenly emphatic, and Djokovic, always capable of producing something, had no answer. Murray took it to 5-2, and was serving for the set. Serve: returned, back and forth, back and forth, Djokovic lob, Murray backhand smash, 15-0. Serve: out, challenge, ace! 30-0. Serve: net. Serve: return, Djokovic long! 40-0. Championship point. Serve: net. Serve: return, Djokovic winner, 40-15. Championship point #2. Serve: long. Serve: Djokovic returns...long! Game, set, match, championship Murray! To quote the man himself, C'MAWWWNNNN!
2. Super Saturday
The Olympics is ultimately about track and field. The cycling is ridiculously exciting, but track and field has the prestige. In Beijing, we won one gold and one silver: Ohurugou in the 400m and Germaine Mason in the high-jump. In London, we won three gold medals in as many hours. Rutherford, Ennis, Farah.
Greg Rutherford, the largely under-the-radar long-jumper, was the first to take gold. He leapt to 8.21m in the second round, and then extended it to 8.31. Rutherford - the the 80'000-strong crowd - could only wait with baited breath as Mitchell Watt, an Australian with a best of 8.54, took his jumps. He could only extend his previous best effort of 8.13 by 3cm; gold went to Rutherford.
Jessica Ennis had been beaten into second place in the 2011 World Championships by Chernova, and at the 2012 European indoors by Dobrynska, who set a new world record. Ennis was the London 2012 golden girl: her (unfairly pretty) face was everywhere, the nation expected, but suddenly she looked vulnerable. The pressure, one can only imagine, must have been crushing.
We needn't have worried. Ennis flew over the hurdles in the opening event, posting the fastest ever heptathlon time and equaling the 2008 gold medal winning time. Chernova and Dobrynska were nowhere. Her jumps was solid; she won the 200m; she limited her losses on her typically weak javelin throw; did well enough in the shot put; and in the last event, the 800m, with victory all but assured, she won in style.
I know a few people that were there that night.
Then came Mo Farah. Like Ennis, he too was beaten into second place in the 2011 Worlds; like Ennis, tonight he was not to be denied. Tonight belonged to Britain. He entered the race with lesson learnt from 2011: don't kick too early. That time he was run down, eyes popping and legs screaming, by the Ethiopian Jeilan.
In control throughout, Farah allowed himself to sit in the middle of the pack, content with the slow time the front runners were posting. As a time-trialist, Farah is beatable. As a racer, he almost isn't. He moved to the front three with five laps to go, alongside his American training partner Galen Rupp. The noise, I'm told, was immense. At three-and-a-half laps to go, the Ethiopians moved to the front: Gebreselassie (but not the Gebreselassie) and the Bekeles. The pack was still 12-strong at 600m. The Kenyans moved to the front, and still Farah waited. At 300m to go he moved to the front; Bekele chased. Then at 100m he kicked again and Bekele had no reponse. His challenge faded; Farah streaked ahead to take gold, and in second place was the skinny American Galen Rupp.
We might never see anything like this again. Three World Champions crowned on the same night, in London. A white man, a mixed-race woman, and a black man, all celebrated with the same borderline-demented exultation - modern, multicultural Britain like never before.
1. The Opening Ceremony
Here are a few things you might have forgotten, washed away by the summer's euphoria. The huge ever-increasing expenditure required to host Games in the face of the recession; the £400k god-awful logo; the over-bearing corporate presence; the tickets pricing debale; the Orbit; transport and infrastructure fears; the G4S fiasco; the rooftop missile platforms; the task of following Beijing; worrying early opening ceremony reports. These were the big stories before the Olympics. Optimism was scarce. LOCOG and Lord Coe insisted that the Games would be a success; others were doubtful. It could be an embarrassment. Look what we had to match: The Beijing Olympics was magnificent. They pumped $44bn into the 2008 Olympics. The Bird's Nest and the Water Cube were the best ever; the opening ceremony unmatched by history. The competition itself was fantastic, and ushered in an all-time superstar in the tall, lithe, charismatic figure of Usain Bolt. We were going to wilt. However, that word again, for the last time:
But we didn't. Danny Boyle rewrote the rulebook for opening ceremonies. The fear was we could never match the splendour and might of Beijing. And that was probably true, so Boyle, the ultimate artistic chameleon, didn't even try.
What he put on was unlike anything seen before. It was eccentric, esoteric, barmy and brilliant. And English countryside theme - okay. Then the industrial revolution bit and the forging of the five rings - pretty coo-is that Sgt. Peppers? What are they doing here? Then things went up a notch. A tribute to the NHS - underfire from the American Right, remember - as the most important social institution of our time. The our literary heritage came to the fore, Voldemort stalking childrens' beds. Tim Berners-Lee was next, a modest man who happens to be the most influential man who ever lived, and commentators around the world frantically shuffled through their notes to work out who he is. Mr. Bean reminded everyone just how funny we can be, and then James Bond and the Queen, the Brookside lesbian kiss was broadcast on Saudi television...
...and on it went. Surprise after surprise, delight after delight. The UK's collective patriotic hard-on would have reached the moon. We're actually quite good, after all, aren't we? We might have lost our Empire, our weather might be bad and our economic clout is on the wane but we still have the most creative, diverse, clever, inventive 60 million people to be found on this earth. Then our team of the 541 fittest and strongest of us set upon the best the world could muster, and we came third! Rio 2016: deeply, Good Luck.
While writing out the two lists below, I had a realisation. It's actually been at best a pretty sucky year for music, and only a mildly good one for film. However, all things being equal, there is a great balancer that puts 2012 on par with every other year. Sport.
My God, has this been the best year ever for sport, particularly for an English football/athletics/cycling/tennis-lover like me? The only blemish was on the football side of things, where Spurs were cruelly screwed out of European qualification by those jammy West Londoners Chelsea, and England did their usual from the penalty spot against Andrea Pirlo and his team of classy Italians. But everything else? Brits made the other countries looks silly. Anyway, here's a countdown of the best sporting moments of the year.
15. Chris Hoy Makes It Six
Edged out of selection for the individual sprint by Jason Kenny and moving rapidly through his 37th year on this fair earth, I had my doubts that Hoy could match his Beijing performance and win gold in every event he participated it. But the indomitable Scotsman did it. I just rewatched his Kierin win and it was incredible. It looked like he was going to be overhauled by Max Levy of Germany but he forced him wide then kicked again round the last bend to take it by a length. The team sprint was less tightly contested. A sliver medal from Sydney 2000 aside, Hoy was able to retire from Olympic competition undefeated.
14. The Unbeatable David Weir
What makes David Weir special is his ability to dominate over seemingly any distance he puts his mind to. In the London 2012 Paralympics, Weir won the 800m, the 1500m, the 5000m and the marathon. I would put money on him winning the sprints too, but with a tight schedule as it was he didn't have the time.
The 5000m came first, followed by a defence of his 1500m title from Beijing. He defeated Marcel Hug, the world record holder to win the 800m, and in the last day of competition he won gold number four in the marathon. This was domination taken to an extreme, and ensured that Britain's most famous paralympian remained that way, despite the fierce competition from Britain's other paralympic stars.
13. Spain Turn Up The Style
Looking back, it seems stupid that I ever thought that Spain were not the favourites to win Euro 2012. World and European champions as they may be, I thought that the young buckaneering German team would take it. Wrong. Spain passed their way into the final and were thoroughly boring for most of the competition, seemingly happy to do the bear minimum to progress. They faced Italy in the final, who had held them to a draw in the group stages. And they shone. The Italians were blitzed, utterly outclassed, and Spain were runaway 4-0 victors. Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and now Euro 2012 - the Iberian steamroller can now claim to be the greatest international team of all time.
12. David Rudisha breaks the 800m record
Rudisha was always going to win the 800m. He was perhaps the most overwhelming favourite in any event at London 2012, more so than Bolt, Ennis and the rest. It was just a matter of how fast he could go. And go he did. His splits were staggering. His elegant stride carried him to a ridiculous 49.28 at 400m. He kicked at 500m, and the others could not follow. 18-year-old Amos tried, and limited his losses in the last 200m, but Rudisha was too far ahead. He maintained his immaculate technique and maintained his lead and crossed the line in the first sub 1:41 800m in history.
11. Richard Whiteheads's 200m Triumph
The 2012 Olympics were arguably the best ever; there is no doubt whatsoever that the 2012 Paralympics were the best ever. My personal highlight, ahead of Ellie Simmons and David Weir, was Richard Whitehead's unbelievable 200m win. One of the quirks of the paralympics is that certain disabilities lead to weaknesses in one area and strengths in another. Richard Whitehead, with his double blades, could only struggle round the bend, and was in 8th with 100m to go. But - get used to that word - the track straightened out, and Whitehead let rip. He stormed through the field like no one I've ever seen: with a 7m deficit at the start of the straight he finished like a freight train and took the win by 20m.
10. Big Ben Beats the Great Dane
He's the Chris Hoy of sailing. Unbeaten since he took silver in his first Olympics in Atlanta, Ainslie headed to Weymouth with a nation expecting a gold medal. And then it looked for all the world like his great rival, the Dane Jonas Hogh-Cristensen would beat him. Ainslie seemed powerless as Hogh-Cristensen finished ahead in all of the first six races. The gap was huge: a fifteen point margin separated them. Then in the seventh race, Ainslie won and HC finished eighth. The tide had turned but Ainslie was still some way behind. A series of narrow wins set up the final race: Ainslie needed to beat HC by two places to take Gold. And with a little help from the New Zealander Dan Slater, he did, and became the greatest Olympic sailor of all time.
9. England Bosh the All Blacks.
Second in the Six Nations (again) and beaten by Australia and South Africa in the autumn series, England, up against the All Blacks, looked to be heading for an ignominious end to the year. In the pre-match debate, some touted this All Blacks team as the greatest in history. Rarely had a team contained such brute strength, skill and intelligence as this team, led by Richie McCaw and the superhuman Dan Carter.
Were they complacent? Did they expect England to roll over? Well, they didn't. A dominating performance from the All Whites' forwards set up Owen Farrell to kick over 15 unanswered points at the half time break. Then the second half started, and the antipodeans realised they had a match on their hands and the All Black class became apparent: two quick tried reduced the deficit to one point. It looked like England would crumble. Then Brad Barritt went over. And Tuilagi. And Ashton. New Zealand hit back again but it was too late: England defeated a New Zealand side unbeaten in 20 tests by a record margin. It was the biggest win by a northern hemisphere team over the Kiwis in history.
8. Chelsea's Champion's League Triumph
It is with gritted teeth that I put Chelsea's against-the-odds Champions League win at number 8. But it's only fair: this was an underdog story for the ages. Looking down and out at the start of the second last 16 leg, Roberto di Matteo came in and brought the old guard back in from the cold for one last hurrah. Didier Drogba, my word. He played like a man possessed. They overturned a 3-1 defecit to win 5-4 on aggregate over an impressive Napoli, beat Benfica in the quarters comfortably, and then came up against Barcelona. The Barcelona team that can lay claim to be the best of all time, the team that contains the holy triumvirate of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta, to which you could add Puyol, Pique, Fabregas and Alves if only a triumvirate could be more than three.
Chelsea took a hammering but emerged from the home leg with a 1-0 lead thanks to a 45+2' Drogba goal. It wasn't the last injury time goal they would score, either. The second leg saw Barcelona race to a 2-0 lead, John Terry got sent off for kneeing Pedro in the arse, and that, my friends, was that. No team around could protect a lead like Barcelona - they just never give away posession. Except they did, once. Frank Lampard picked the ball up in first half injury time under pressure from Mascherano and with barely a glance up played a beautiful ball through the Barcelona defence into the path of Ramires who lifted it over the on-rushing Valdez. Chelsea were again ahead on aggregate.
At the start of the second half, Didier Drogba who had defended heroically to this point, tripped Fabregas in the box to allow Messi to score from the spot. But he didn't. The ball rebounded off the cross-bar and Chelsea lived to fight on. Barcelona were relentless. Cech got just enough on a goal-bound Messi shot to glance it on the post. Then in the dying seconds: the ball was hoofed upfield. Torres, a man vilified for his poor performances in a Chelsea shirt, picked up the ball. Valdez went to ground. Neville squealed. The ball nestled in the back of the net. 2-2. And that was just the semi.
After that, it seemed fated that Chelsea were going to win the final. Bayern Munich awaited in their home ground. Muller put the hosts ahead in the 82nd minute. Then Drogba - who else? - equalised from a corner. A goalless period of extra time sent the match to penalties. Mata missed, 0-0; Lahm scored, 1-0; Luiz scored, Gomez scored, Lampard scored, Neuer scored, Cole scored 3-3. Then Olic missed and Drogba - who else? - scored, 4-3. Schweinstiger, Bayern Munich with every fiber of his being, missed. Chelsea won. Spurs were demoted from that precious fourth Champions League spot.
7. Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt's Twitter bio proclaims Bolt to be the most naturally talented athlete to ever live. To quote Mark Cavendish, 'it's not arrogant if it's true'. With his feats in Beijing, Bolt achieved a level of superstardom new to athletics. He was all but unbeatable - the most perfect physical specimen, who rewrote what we thought possible. He claimed every sprint world record, and improved on them in 2009.
There's a but. There's always a but. Bolt ran his first ever 10-point 100m in the run-up to the Olympics. Meanwhile, his training partner Yohan Blake was winning with ease. For many people, Bolt was still the king. I thought he could be beaten. I was wrong. He cantered to a 9.8 semi-final win, and I knew then that he would win the final. He had it at 30m.
In the 200m he held off Blake again, winning narrowly at the head of a Jamaican 1-2-3.
With a team with 100m bests of 9.58, 9.69, 9.78 and 9.88 the Jamican quartet was on paper the fastest of all time. They delivered, winning gold and recording a World Record in the process, the first team under 37 seconds. The USA team ran the second fastest time in history but Ryan Bailey could do nothing as the fastest man in history powered away to take the win.
6. The Ryder Cup
Golf can actually be good apparently, who knew? Anyway, seven golfers from the UK were selected for Europe's 12 strong team, and in the first two days of competition, crumbled. Ian Poulter alone took the fight to the Americans, who went into the final day 10-6 ahead (that's a lot).
Luke Donald dispatched Bubba Watson; Paul Lawrie remarkably toppled Brandt Sneedeker. 10-8. McIlroy beat Keegan Bradley; Poulter continued to take the fight to the Americans by beating Webb Simpson; Dustin Johnson overcame Nicholas Colsaerts to take it to 11-10. European momentum slowed at this point: Justin Rose pipped Phil Mickelson but Graeme McDowell lost to Zach Johnson, 12-11. Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia beat Matt Kuchar and Jim Furyk respectively; Jason Duffner responded to beat Swede Peter Hanson to take it to 13-13. Then the German Martin Kaymer and the Italian Francesco Molinari took on Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker, but the Europeans prevailed, winning by 14 1/2 to 13 1/2, and a comeback for the ages was complete.
5. Aguero Seals the Premier League
It's rare for the 38-game English Premier League to be decided on the final day, but how often is it decided in the final seconds? 38 played, five draws, five losses, 89 points - these were the end-of-season stats for both clubs. Manchester City had won on goal difference, with +64 to United's +56. It was as close as it had ever been.
The final day: Tied on points, United went 1-0 at Sunderland; soon after City followed suit against QPR. In the 48th minute Djibril Cissé, with the first of several 'buts', equalised for City: frustrating for City, sure, but there was still plenty of time to retake the lead. But then, with echoes of Chelsea's win over Barcelona, another controversial Englishman - this time QPR's Joey Barton - got sent off for elbowing Carlos Tevez, and it seemed, as it had in the Camp Nou, that the favourite would roll home. Of course, it was not to be. Jamie Mackie scored for QPR to make it 2-1, and suddenly City palms were sweaty. Mancini prowled. City pressed, but time ticked inexorably towards defeat. United always won - they won against everybody, but they always won against City. It was in their genes. United on top was the rightful order. But maybe Edin Dzeko, a Serbian import, and Sergio Aguero, an Argentinian, couldn't speak English well enough or didn't know the narrative. Dzeko equalised in the 92nd minute, giving the Blue Mancs a sliver of hope. And then, deep, deep, deep into Fergie time, Sergio Aguero picked up a pass from Baloteli and smacked it past the QPR keeper to make it 3-2. The game had barely restarted when the referee called the match - and the league, and the title race - to a close. The noisy neighbours had crashed the party, and for the first time since 1995, a team other than United, Arsenal or Chelsea had won the league.
4. Wiggo In Yellow.
98 editions of the Tour de France had elapsed and no British man had ever worn the coveted yellow jersey in Paris. It was the final frontier: the last great sporting competition that a Brit was yet to win. Robert Millar came close in 1984, coming 4th whilst winning the King of the Mountains jersey. 25 years later Bradley Wiggins made the definitive switch to road racing and fought to an unexpected and valiant fourth behind Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck and the villain of this year, Lance Armstrong. The following year, now a member of the nascent but wealthy Team Sky, Wiggins mounted his second challenge...and finished 24th. He returned once more in 2011, fitter than ever, but crashed out with a broken collarbone early on. It looked like it was never meant to be. But Wiggins recovered to come third in that year's Vuelta a Espana, with teammate Chris Froome taking a surprising second.
The 2012 season started, and Wiggins started winning. First he took Paris-Nice, then the Tour de Normandie, and the Criterium du Dauphine. With Alberto Contador suspended for a drugs violation and Andy Schleck out with a back injury, Wiggins seemingly had to just overcome the defending champion, the Australian Cadel Evans. In the end, the biggest threat came from within Wiggins' own team. Chris Froome out-climbed everyone, and it was only through strictly-enforced team orders that he didn't take any time out of Wiggins in the mountains. Evans slipped back, out of form and out of sorts, and only Vincenzo Nibali of Italy could offer a token resistance to the Wiggins/Froome duopoly.
Had Froome been allowed to attack, it would still be likely that Wiggins would have won. He brought his Olympic pedigree to bear in the two long timetrials, winning both - the first to take yellow; the second to consolidate it - by significant margins.
There is no 'but' in this entry: he even led out his eclipsed-but-still-formidable teammate Mark Cavendish to seal his third consecutive win on the Champs Elysees, and then went on to take Olympic time trial gold. The ease of Wiggins' victory should not detract from the momentousness of his achievement however. If anything, the remarkably low-key nature of his historic win is entirely in keeping with Wiggins' personality: modest but steely.
3. Murray's Revenge
So often the nearly man, Andy Murray had fallen short on the biggest occasions four times in a row: first at the US Open in 2008, then at the Australian in 2010 and 2011, and at Wimbledon - the one every Brit wanted him most to win - in 2012. Even before the events of the months following his defeat at Wimbledon this year unfolded, Murray was Britain's best ever tennis player. Sure, Fred Perry may have won Grand Slams, but he never did it while competing against three of the best players to ever grace the game. And yet the public resisted him. Many were slow to realise that his early-career petulance and grumpiness were things of the past, and that his 'anyone but England' quip was just a joke. There there's the horrible cliché that gets thrown around 'He's British when he wins, Scottish when he loses'. Was that ever true? I doubt it.
Anyway, Murray, as expected, got thrashed by Federer at Wimbledon. But then he did something no one expected. He cried. What on earth? There's more to him than brashness and arrogance, after all! thought the English middle-classes in unison. And then he did something else no one expected. Three weeks after he defeat to Federer, he beat him on the very same court to take Olympic gold. And a little flag kept appearing by his name on the scoreboard. It wasn't the Scottish flag. It was the British flag. The following day he took silver in the doubles with Laura Robson. It felt the transformation was complete. But still: he hadn't won a Grand Slam.
The Great British summer of sport was coming to an end. The Olympics finished, followed soon after by the paralympics. The football, tediously, started again and things were back to normal. No one told Murray. At the US Open he progressed quietly but solidly, beating Lopez, Raonic, Cilic and Berdych to reach his fifth Grand Slam final. Djokovic, his conqueror at the 2011 Australian open, awaited. His stamina is legendary, his mettle unmatched. They fought late into the night. The first set lasted 87 minutes and was settled in Murray's favour with a tie-break - the longest in US Open history. Murray then raced to a 4-0 lead in the second set before, the Djokovic resilience began to tell and was being pegged back agonisingly to 5-5. Murray broke again to take the set 7-5.
The matched dragged past midnight, and Murray weakened. Victory seemed so close but Djokovic had the fitness and the ability, and won the third easily, 6-2. The fourth went his way too, with Murray visibly wilting, and it seemed inevitable that the match would go to Djokovic. Into the early hours now, and my nerves were frayed. Every point seemed momentous. Murray clung on, then, miraculously, broke. And again. His serve was suddenly emphatic, and Djokovic, always capable of producing something, had no answer. Murray took it to 5-2, and was serving for the set. Serve: returned, back and forth, back and forth, Djokovic lob, Murray backhand smash, 15-0. Serve: out, challenge, ace! 30-0. Serve: net. Serve: return, Djokovic long! 40-0. Championship point. Serve: net. Serve: return, Djokovic winner, 40-15. Championship point #2. Serve: long. Serve: Djokovic returns...long! Game, set, match, championship Murray! To quote the man himself, C'MAWWWNNNN!
2. Super Saturday
The Olympics is ultimately about track and field. The cycling is ridiculously exciting, but track and field has the prestige. In Beijing, we won one gold and one silver: Ohurugou in the 400m and Germaine Mason in the high-jump. In London, we won three gold medals in as many hours. Rutherford, Ennis, Farah.
Greg Rutherford, the largely under-the-radar long-jumper, was the first to take gold. He leapt to 8.21m in the second round, and then extended it to 8.31. Rutherford - the the 80'000-strong crowd - could only wait with baited breath as Mitchell Watt, an Australian with a best of 8.54, took his jumps. He could only extend his previous best effort of 8.13 by 3cm; gold went to Rutherford.
Jessica Ennis had been beaten into second place in the 2011 World Championships by Chernova, and at the 2012 European indoors by Dobrynska, who set a new world record. Ennis was the London 2012 golden girl: her (unfairly pretty) face was everywhere, the nation expected, but suddenly she looked vulnerable. The pressure, one can only imagine, must have been crushing.
We needn't have worried. Ennis flew over the hurdles in the opening event, posting the fastest ever heptathlon time and equaling the 2008 gold medal winning time. Chernova and Dobrynska were nowhere. Her jumps was solid; she won the 200m; she limited her losses on her typically weak javelin throw; did well enough in the shot put; and in the last event, the 800m, with victory all but assured, she won in style.
I know a few people that were there that night.
Then came Mo Farah. Like Ennis, he too was beaten into second place in the 2011 Worlds; like Ennis, tonight he was not to be denied. Tonight belonged to Britain. He entered the race with lesson learnt from 2011: don't kick too early. That time he was run down, eyes popping and legs screaming, by the Ethiopian Jeilan.
In control throughout, Farah allowed himself to sit in the middle of the pack, content with the slow time the front runners were posting. As a time-trialist, Farah is beatable. As a racer, he almost isn't. He moved to the front three with five laps to go, alongside his American training partner Galen Rupp. The noise, I'm told, was immense. At three-and-a-half laps to go, the Ethiopians moved to the front: Gebreselassie (but not the Gebreselassie) and the Bekeles. The pack was still 12-strong at 600m. The Kenyans moved to the front, and still Farah waited. At 300m to go he moved to the front; Bekele chased. Then at 100m he kicked again and Bekele had no reponse. His challenge faded; Farah streaked ahead to take gold, and in second place was the skinny American Galen Rupp.
We might never see anything like this again. Three World Champions crowned on the same night, in London. A white man, a mixed-race woman, and a black man, all celebrated with the same borderline-demented exultation - modern, multicultural Britain like never before.
1. The Opening Ceremony
Here are a few things you might have forgotten, washed away by the summer's euphoria. The huge ever-increasing expenditure required to host Games in the face of the recession; the £400k god-awful logo; the over-bearing corporate presence; the tickets pricing debale; the Orbit; transport and infrastructure fears; the G4S fiasco; the rooftop missile platforms; the task of following Beijing; worrying early opening ceremony reports. These were the big stories before the Olympics. Optimism was scarce. LOCOG and Lord Coe insisted that the Games would be a success; others were doubtful. It could be an embarrassment. Look what we had to match: The Beijing Olympics was magnificent. They pumped $44bn into the 2008 Olympics. The Bird's Nest and the Water Cube were the best ever; the opening ceremony unmatched by history. The competition itself was fantastic, and ushered in an all-time superstar in the tall, lithe, charismatic figure of Usain Bolt. We were going to wilt. However, that word again, for the last time:
But we didn't. Danny Boyle rewrote the rulebook for opening ceremonies. The fear was we could never match the splendour and might of Beijing. And that was probably true, so Boyle, the ultimate artistic chameleon, didn't even try.
What he put on was unlike anything seen before. It was eccentric, esoteric, barmy and brilliant. And English countryside theme - okay. Then the industrial revolution bit and the forging of the five rings - pretty coo-is that Sgt. Peppers? What are they doing here? Then things went up a notch. A tribute to the NHS - underfire from the American Right, remember - as the most important social institution of our time. The our literary heritage came to the fore, Voldemort stalking childrens' beds. Tim Berners-Lee was next, a modest man who happens to be the most influential man who ever lived, and commentators around the world frantically shuffled through their notes to work out who he is. Mr. Bean reminded everyone just how funny we can be, and then James Bond and the Queen, the Brookside lesbian kiss was broadcast on Saudi television...
...and on it went. Surprise after surprise, delight after delight. The UK's collective patriotic hard-on would have reached the moon. We're actually quite good, after all, aren't we? We might have lost our Empire, our weather might be bad and our economic clout is on the wane but we still have the most creative, diverse, clever, inventive 60 million people to be found on this earth. Then our team of the 541 fittest and strongest of us set upon the best the world could muster, and we came third! Rio 2016: deeply, Good Luck.
HAPPY LISTMAS EVERYONE
It's the final stretch, the last month of the year. Nights are at their shortest, jumpers at their thickest, journalists at their laziest. You know what that means. It's LIST MONTH LISTMAS. I fuckin' love list month. Ranking things, getting unnecessarily angry when the Guardian inexplicably misses your album of the year off their top-50 list (NO M83 GRAUN, REALLY?). They at least got Alt-J on their countdown this year. I also like how the music people repeat, as they do every year, that this year has been truly, genuinely, undoubtedly a fantastic year. For real. When the case is usually that it's an average year. The film people are less hyperbolic about stuff like this.
So, I guess what I'm getting at is: I'm gonna make me some lists!
MY FAVOURITE THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2012
Note: I haven't been arsed writing something about every single one because it's SUPER BORING to do.
10. America - Dan Deacon
9. Bloom - Beach House
8. Budget Cuts - #Tags
It was about June this year buy it that I realised I no longer listened to #Tags because my mate writes and sings the songs, but because I just really, really like the music they make. Budget Cuts is an EP rather than a full album, and it isn't professional produced, but the songs buy it are all brilliant. They're fun and lighthearted but not lightweight, and their cheerful, colourful aesthetic is supported by serious musicianship. Sick of Heels and buy it My Father's House are excellent, but best of all is album closer Helena, which is a Paranoid Android-style mash of genres that almost falls apart but doesn't, and it's epic, and glorious, and catchy, and buy it.
7. Sweet Heart Sweet Light - Spritualized
It's possible you haven't heard of Spiritualized, but they're actually responsible for one of the best albums of the past 20 years, 1997s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (trivia: it was released on the same day as OK Computer, making 15 June 1997 the best day in music history). Since then, main guy J Spaceman (lol) may not have matched that effort but has come close several times, most notably with Songs in A&E, conceived while on the brink of death from double-pneumonia. I'm not going to be gentle: the lyrics in this album are cringe-worthy. He blabs generically while pretending to be a religious American about freedom, Jesus, pain and he drops bad metaphors all over the place. He is, at least, sincere in his sentiments though.
Musically, however, this is boss. It balances energy and the slower moments superbly, and is joyful and hopeful, and mournful and melancholy in equal measure.
6. Hot Cakes - The Darkness
After a few years of fannying around, in early 2011 Justin Hawkins decided it was time to get the band back together. I saw them in London that year and they smashed it. An album was announced. Hopes were high. Then they released Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now. It was a bit PG. Okay, fine, but that's just one track, I thought. Then Every Inch of You was put out, and...it was also a bit tame. Not abysmal, just too slow-paced and lacking an edge. I bought the album all the same, but it struggled make any kind of statement.
What's it doing at number six, then? There are two great tracks here, Concrete and a brilliant cover of Radiohead's Street Spirit. Concrete is what the Darkness should be: energetic. Hawkins wails fervently about 'searching for a sweet lady woman/ to share a little body heat'. He sounds impassioned, and consequently it's the best Darkness song since their 2003 heyday.
5. Lonerism - Tame Impala
It's like the Magical Mystery Tour.
4. Django Django - Django Django
I look forwards to the award ceremony where the announcer has to say, 'And the winner for best album goes to DjangoDjangoDjangoDjango! And then Jango Fett turns up or something.
Django supported Hot Chip when I saw them at the Guildhall, and they were ace. I knew of them bit, but not intimately. So I bought the album, AND IT WAS GOOD. Lead single Default remains my favourite track: the skittering, glitchy, fragmented vocal over off-beat guitars never fails to get the head-bob going.
3. Matthew Dear - Beams
2. Hot Chip - In Our Heads
Hit Chip's 2010 knockout One Life Stand was intimate often mellow. In Our Heads goes off in the other direction by cranking up the bombast and scope (by Hot Chip standards). Motion Sickness, Day and Night, Flutes and Let Me Be Him have a certain exultance about them and feel intended for the huge crowds of Glastonbury (though they worked fantasically when I saw them at Southampton Guildhall). In Our Heads also contains my favourite song of 2012, which is possibly the lowest-key track on it, Look At Where We Are. It's sad and mournful and I love it.
1. Alt-J - An Awesome Wave.
Those five words above are actually my least favourite things about this band and album. The shortcut for the delta symbol on a Mac? Fuck off. That's some hipster bull right there. And I resent the word 'Awesome'. Yank fucks.
BUT. This is a marvellous album. My rage at Laura Snapes of Pitchfork giving it a 4.8/10 was such that I sent her a mildly annoyed tweet. (Snapes is English btw; I was hoping she could represent the UK a bit more Stateside.) The Mercury-watching corner had this down as a typically Mercuryish indie record. It's not. Alt-J have a staggering degree of control over their compositions, directed by a rare musical intelligence. It's sometimes somber, sometimes giddy; sometimes sparse and cold, sometimes fuzzy and crunchy. The vocals yammer and lilt and sweep and whisper, textures meld and fragment, but it always feels cohesive. It's the best album of the year.
MY FAVOURITE THE BEST FILMS OF 2012
10. Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
I've already done a massive review of this so go find that instead.
9. Seven Psychopaths - Martin McDonagh
I don't often mention this film but Martin McDonagh's debut feature In Bruges just so happens to bemy favourite THE BEST FILM OF ALL TIME so I guess you could say I had high hopes going in. The trailer looked sucky, but then again the trailer for In Bruges is the biggest pile of shite ever, so I wasn't taking it that seriously.
McDonagh loves the complicated script, but this gets silly. It terms of its structure it reminds me of this. Billy (Sam Rockwell), who plays Colin Farrell's best mate, starts trying to write the film that Farrell is trying to write, which is called Seven Psychopaths, and it becomes unclear whether the characters are living out the script, or if the script follows the characters, or whether we are watching the film that Farrell writes. It's ultimately self-defeating and is more trouble than it's worth, and makes excuses for having weak women characters, heaps of dead bodies and a climactic "shootout".
There are some great moments, especially the backstories of a few of the Psychopaths such as the Amish Psychopath and the Vietnamese (again with the Vietnamese, McDonagh!) Psychopath. Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken are great. Billy's enactment of his planned shootout is hilarious. But ultimately this is a film with great moments, but no real core; it's sugary but lacks nourishment.
8. The Dark Knight Rises - Christopher Nolan
This is one of those movies where I loved watching it but afterwards some of the sheen fell away a bit. Judging it on how gripped and enthralled I was in the cinema, this would be top five: I really thought Batman was going to nuke himself at the end. It was riveting. The famous spine breakage was similarly nerve shredding.
But looking back, it was a bit wobbly. Bane had a death ill-fitting of such a central character, and the Talia bit felt tacked on, like a fourth act in a three act film. The middle bit with the resistance movement was bloated, the plan didn't make that much sense, and it I'm not a fan of it's right-wing politics.
7. Skyfall - Sam Mendes
You know what Skyfall felt like? James Bond: Modern Warfare. The climactic shootout at the Scottish manor house is pure videogame, with waves of enemies, strategically placed traps and a sodding helicopter. For me, the whole film felt like a sequence of 'levels'. This episodic structure was supported by M's storyline, which was the real core, but it wasn't a match for Casino Royale, which remains the series high-point.
Javier Bardem's Silva is an entrancing bad guy, and the long take that was his introduction was mesmerising. Craig is still good as Bond, even if he's getting just a leeeedle bit old now. Skyfall is also a beautiful film, and the silhouette fight in Shanghai was supremely cool.
6. Ted - Seth MacFarlane
Comedies always get overlooked when it comes to end of year lists and award season. Maybe it's because humour is so subjective, or maybe it's because they're seen as diversions rather than films. But I don't buy that. Ted made me laugh. A lot. The plot is pretty by the numbers, but there are a lot of great jokes, and a few touching moments. There is also the best stroke gag ever. Plus it's got Mila Kunis in it, which is enough for me.
5. Looper - Rian Johnson
I've already done a massive review for this so go find that instead.
4. Cabin in the Woods - Drew Goddard
Cabin in the Woods is a horror film about horror films with a smaller horror film within it that eventually merges with the overall horror film. It's complicated, and breaks apart horror conventions while demonstrating that even though you may know the mechanics of it, you'll still be scared. Well, it would do if it was scarier, if that makes sense.
Depending on who you talk to Cabin in the Woods is either incredibly clever or not as clever as it thinks it is, but no matter how you look at it it's a thoroughly unique horror film, and is not to be missed.
3. The Raid - Gareth Evans
It suspect it's hypocritical of me to criticise Skyfall of being videogamey while complementing The Raid for the same thing, but I think it works with The Raid because it's completely unapologetic about the whole thing. The Raid is one protracted fight scene, and some of the fights are of an intensity rarely seen before. There were times when a fight would finish and I would only then realise that I had stopped breathing some time ago. The fights are inventive, tense and brutal, and the only real misstep is in the final "boss battle" where everyone takes a level of punishment that isn't in keeping with the more realistic levels of human physical resilience found in the rest of the film.
2. 21 Jump Street - Phil Lord & Chris Miller
Another comedy! I just really loved this film. It's adorable. The two leads, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, are charming: Tatum willingly sends up his lunk-head persona and Hill does his usual thing, but does it well. The set-up is good: the pair's discovery that the old highschool order of jocks at the top and nerds at the bottom has been flipped is a neat way of throwing the two out of their comfort zones. The drug sequences are brilliant, and the chase sequence has just the right level of self-awareness.
1. Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson
Anderson's certainly got his haters, but I ain't one of 'em. His 1960s aesthetic, his comic-book framing, the stilted but charming dialogue and all the other Anderson-isms all just work for me. There's substance to support the style though, and Sam's courtship of Suzy is heartfelt, genuine, and becomes a small-scale epic of love against the odds. The support cast is uniformly excellent, particularly Bruce Willis who plays a lonely policeman. It's the best film of the year.
So, I guess what I'm getting at is: I'm gonna make me some lists!
Note: I haven't been arsed writing something about every single one because it's SUPER BORING to do.
10. America - Dan Deacon
9. Bloom - Beach House
8. Budget Cuts - #Tags
It was about June this year buy it that I realised I no longer listened to #Tags because my mate writes and sings the songs, but because I just really, really like the music they make. Budget Cuts is an EP rather than a full album, and it isn't professional produced, but the songs buy it are all brilliant. They're fun and lighthearted but not lightweight, and their cheerful, colourful aesthetic is supported by serious musicianship. Sick of Heels and buy it My Father's House are excellent, but best of all is album closer Helena, which is a Paranoid Android-style mash of genres that almost falls apart but doesn't, and it's epic, and glorious, and catchy, and buy it.
7. Sweet Heart Sweet Light - Spritualized
It's possible you haven't heard of Spiritualized, but they're actually responsible for one of the best albums of the past 20 years, 1997s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (trivia: it was released on the same day as OK Computer, making 15 June 1997 the best day in music history). Since then, main guy J Spaceman (lol) may not have matched that effort but has come close several times, most notably with Songs in A&E, conceived while on the brink of death from double-pneumonia. I'm not going to be gentle: the lyrics in this album are cringe-worthy. He blabs generically while pretending to be a religious American about freedom, Jesus, pain and he drops bad metaphors all over the place. He is, at least, sincere in his sentiments though.
Musically, however, this is boss. It balances energy and the slower moments superbly, and is joyful and hopeful, and mournful and melancholy in equal measure.
6. Hot Cakes - The Darkness
After a few years of fannying around, in early 2011 Justin Hawkins decided it was time to get the band back together. I saw them in London that year and they smashed it. An album was announced. Hopes were high. Then they released Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now. It was a bit PG. Okay, fine, but that's just one track, I thought. Then Every Inch of You was put out, and...it was also a bit tame. Not abysmal, just too slow-paced and lacking an edge. I bought the album all the same, but it struggled make any kind of statement.
What's it doing at number six, then? There are two great tracks here, Concrete and a brilliant cover of Radiohead's Street Spirit. Concrete is what the Darkness should be: energetic. Hawkins wails fervently about 'searching for a sweet lady woman/ to share a little body heat'. He sounds impassioned, and consequently it's the best Darkness song since their 2003 heyday.
5. Lonerism - Tame Impala
It's like the Magical Mystery Tour.
4. Django Django - Django Django
I look forwards to the award ceremony where the announcer has to say, 'And the winner for best album goes to DjangoDjangoDjangoDjango! And then Jango Fett turns up or something.
Django supported Hot Chip when I saw them at the Guildhall, and they were ace. I knew of them bit, but not intimately. So I bought the album, AND IT WAS GOOD. Lead single Default remains my favourite track: the skittering, glitchy, fragmented vocal over off-beat guitars never fails to get the head-bob going.
3. Matthew Dear - Beams
2. Hot Chip - In Our Heads
Hit Chip's 2010 knockout One Life Stand was intimate often mellow. In Our Heads goes off in the other direction by cranking up the bombast and scope (by Hot Chip standards). Motion Sickness, Day and Night, Flutes and Let Me Be Him have a certain exultance about them and feel intended for the huge crowds of Glastonbury (though they worked fantasically when I saw them at Southampton Guildhall). In Our Heads also contains my favourite song of 2012, which is possibly the lowest-key track on it, Look At Where We Are. It's sad and mournful and I love it.
1. Alt-J - An Awesome Wave.
Those five words above are actually my least favourite things about this band and album. The shortcut for the delta symbol on a Mac? Fuck off. That's some hipster bull right there. And I resent the word 'Awesome'. Yank fucks.
BUT. This is a marvellous album. My rage at Laura Snapes of Pitchfork giving it a 4.8/10 was such that I sent her a mildly annoyed tweet. (Snapes is English btw; I was hoping she could represent the UK a bit more Stateside.) The Mercury-watching corner had this down as a typically Mercuryish indie record. It's not. Alt-J have a staggering degree of control over their compositions, directed by a rare musical intelligence. It's sometimes somber, sometimes giddy; sometimes sparse and cold, sometimes fuzzy and crunchy. The vocals yammer and lilt and sweep and whisper, textures meld and fragment, but it always feels cohesive. It's the best album of the year.
10. Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
I've already done a massive review of this so go find that instead.
9. Seven Psychopaths - Martin McDonagh
I don't often mention this film but Martin McDonagh's debut feature In Bruges just so happens to be
McDonagh loves the complicated script, but this gets silly. It terms of its structure it reminds me of this. Billy (Sam Rockwell), who plays Colin Farrell's best mate, starts trying to write the film that Farrell is trying to write, which is called Seven Psychopaths, and it becomes unclear whether the characters are living out the script, or if the script follows the characters, or whether we are watching the film that Farrell writes. It's ultimately self-defeating and is more trouble than it's worth, and makes excuses for having weak women characters, heaps of dead bodies and a climactic "shootout".
There are some great moments, especially the backstories of a few of the Psychopaths such as the Amish Psychopath and the Vietnamese (again with the Vietnamese, McDonagh!) Psychopath. Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken are great. Billy's enactment of his planned shootout is hilarious. But ultimately this is a film with great moments, but no real core; it's sugary but lacks nourishment.
8. The Dark Knight Rises - Christopher Nolan
This is one of those movies where I loved watching it but afterwards some of the sheen fell away a bit. Judging it on how gripped and enthralled I was in the cinema, this would be top five: I really thought Batman was going to nuke himself at the end. It was riveting. The famous spine breakage was similarly nerve shredding.
But looking back, it was a bit wobbly. Bane had a death ill-fitting of such a central character, and the Talia bit felt tacked on, like a fourth act in a three act film. The middle bit with the resistance movement was bloated, the plan didn't make that much sense, and it I'm not a fan of it's right-wing politics.
7. Skyfall - Sam Mendes
You know what Skyfall felt like? James Bond: Modern Warfare. The climactic shootout at the Scottish manor house is pure videogame, with waves of enemies, strategically placed traps and a sodding helicopter. For me, the whole film felt like a sequence of 'levels'. This episodic structure was supported by M's storyline, which was the real core, but it wasn't a match for Casino Royale, which remains the series high-point.
Javier Bardem's Silva is an entrancing bad guy, and the long take that was his introduction was mesmerising. Craig is still good as Bond, even if he's getting just a leeeedle bit old now. Skyfall is also a beautiful film, and the silhouette fight in Shanghai was supremely cool.
6. Ted - Seth MacFarlane
Comedies always get overlooked when it comes to end of year lists and award season. Maybe it's because humour is so subjective, or maybe it's because they're seen as diversions rather than films. But I don't buy that. Ted made me laugh. A lot. The plot is pretty by the numbers, but there are a lot of great jokes, and a few touching moments. There is also the best stroke gag ever. Plus it's got Mila Kunis in it, which is enough for me.
5. Looper - Rian Johnson
I've already done a massive review for this so go find that instead.
4. Cabin in the Woods - Drew Goddard
Cabin in the Woods is a horror film about horror films with a smaller horror film within it that eventually merges with the overall horror film. It's complicated, and breaks apart horror conventions while demonstrating that even though you may know the mechanics of it, you'll still be scared. Well, it would do if it was scarier, if that makes sense.
Depending on who you talk to Cabin in the Woods is either incredibly clever or not as clever as it thinks it is, but no matter how you look at it it's a thoroughly unique horror film, and is not to be missed.
3. The Raid - Gareth Evans
It suspect it's hypocritical of me to criticise Skyfall of being videogamey while complementing The Raid for the same thing, but I think it works with The Raid because it's completely unapologetic about the whole thing. The Raid is one protracted fight scene, and some of the fights are of an intensity rarely seen before. There were times when a fight would finish and I would only then realise that I had stopped breathing some time ago. The fights are inventive, tense and brutal, and the only real misstep is in the final "boss battle" where everyone takes a level of punishment that isn't in keeping with the more realistic levels of human physical resilience found in the rest of the film.
2. 21 Jump Street - Phil Lord & Chris Miller
Another comedy! I just really loved this film. It's adorable. The two leads, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, are charming: Tatum willingly sends up his lunk-head persona and Hill does his usual thing, but does it well. The set-up is good: the pair's discovery that the old highschool order of jocks at the top and nerds at the bottom has been flipped is a neat way of throwing the two out of their comfort zones. The drug sequences are brilliant, and the chase sequence has just the right level of self-awareness.
1. Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson
Anderson's certainly got his haters, but I ain't one of 'em. His 1960s aesthetic, his comic-book framing, the stilted but charming dialogue and all the other Anderson-isms all just work for me. There's substance to support the style though, and Sam's courtship of Suzy is heartfelt, genuine, and becomes a small-scale epic of love against the odds. The support cast is uniformly excellent, particularly Bruce Willis who plays a lonely policeman. It's the best film of the year.
Tuesday 30 October 2012
Skydive: a splurge
Creative writing class nonsense ahoy!
***
So we strapped ourselves in and our group leader made a bad joke about not dying and this didn't ease my nerves at all which by the way were all over the place because there was a chance I could die even though I knew the death rate was only 0.02% that still sounded bloody high to me but anyway up we went and the higher and higher we got the lower and lower my stomach sank and then Josh was sick which actually made me feel better because I felt bad but I didn't feel that bad but then in no time at all we were at proper altitude and our group leader opened the door which made all the air rush out and caused a right racket and then I was strapped to my jump-buddy Rachel who was a total pro and made me feel instantly at ease - not - and before I knew it it was my turn so we shuffled to the door and Rachel gave my hand a squeeze which was trembling like an old person's but before we could jump our group leader stuck his boot into my back and would you believe it kicked us out and I think he got fired for that and Rachel gave him hell when we landed but anyway I shrieked and my belly flipped and I think I could hear Rachel swearing as we tumbled and tried to steady us because we were in a right spin but I couldn't be sure because the air was shouting in my ears and I was shrieking pretty loud too and then all of a sudden we were stable and had stopped accelerating or something and it was actually an amazing feeling and I couldn't stop laughing by the way and Rachel must've thought I was a right nut and then she opened the parachute and it yanked us up or that's how it felt at least and I knew then there was no chance I was going to die which I'd forgotten about anyway...
Sunday 28 October 2012
RANT: Football, Referees and Learning to Talk About Something Else
RANT TIME
After having a debate with my mate over whether Fernando Torres dived in the Chelsea-Utd match earlier today using slow-mo replay to try and discern whether he had any justification to go down, I reached a fucking amazing conclusion (this ain't aimed at you Ollie; it's been brewing for a while):
If after mulling over slo-mo replays for ten minutes and still not reaching a definitive answer then IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER IF THE REF GOT IT RIGHT OR WRONG BECAUSE HE'S ONLY SODDING HUMAN. People - fans, pundits, managers, journalists - don't understand this.
(For what it's worth, he dived)
There is literally no point discussing it, and there is literally no point in chastising the referee and accusing him of being in Alex Ferguson's pocket, because sometimes refereeing is an impossible job. In fact, I can think of few jobs that are more difficult. The marginal calls come thick and fast, decisions have to be made near-instantaneously without the benefit of replays, the pressure of the fans, the players' ploys to con him, the going over he can expect in the press and on Twitter and on Match of the Day if he makes a mistake - all these add up to one of the most ridiculously difficult professions ever. Seriously.
So, if a player goes down and it's not clear whether he had any justification to even under close examination, ignore it and move on; nothing can be done. The referee certainly isn't at fault. If a player is a foot offside when a ball is played through and he scores, ignore it and move on. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make such perfect judgement every time? I heard about one example where some officials showed a room full of journalists a clip of an offside call from the linesman's perspective. They only got to see it once, and had to vote on whether it was offside or not. Nearly every single one got it wrong; the linesman who made the decision on the day got it right. So if these highly trained hawk-eyed ladies and gentlemen can't always tell, then no one can tell. So don't worry about it. These things happen. Such is football.
Another downside to analysing every aspect of the officials' performances is that Match of the Day and such like become tedious debates about marginal calls. This is the most boring possible thing to debate. "Oooh, if you watch carefully you can see there was contact" opines Mr. Hansen. "But it was minimal at best" retorts Mr. Dixon. "But there was contact". Enough. Talk about the actual football please. It's quite an interesting sport and there's a lot to analyse and discuss.
/rant
N.B This is somewhat moot after what I've written above, but whatevs. 'Contact' is not enough to call a foul. Football is, strangely enough, a full-contact sport. That means you are expected to take knocks and nudges and just get on with it. If the challenge makes contact with the attacker but is not heavy enough to fell him, but he goes down anyway, that is still a dive. We laugh/throw rotten vegetables at players who take a gentle touch to the face but go down like they've been punched; the same applies to feet and knees coming into contact with opposition legs.
After having a debate with my mate over whether Fernando Torres dived in the Chelsea-Utd match earlier today using slow-mo replay to try and discern whether he had any justification to go down, I reached a fucking amazing conclusion (this ain't aimed at you Ollie; it's been brewing for a while):
If after mulling over slo-mo replays for ten minutes and still not reaching a definitive answer then IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER IF THE REF GOT IT RIGHT OR WRONG BECAUSE HE'S ONLY SODDING HUMAN. People - fans, pundits, managers, journalists - don't understand this.
(For what it's worth, he dived)
There is literally no point discussing it, and there is literally no point in chastising the referee and accusing him of being in Alex Ferguson's pocket, because sometimes refereeing is an impossible job. In fact, I can think of few jobs that are more difficult. The marginal calls come thick and fast, decisions have to be made near-instantaneously without the benefit of replays, the pressure of the fans, the players' ploys to con him, the going over he can expect in the press and on Twitter and on Match of the Day if he makes a mistake - all these add up to one of the most ridiculously difficult professions ever. Seriously.
So, if a player goes down and it's not clear whether he had any justification to even under close examination, ignore it and move on; nothing can be done. The referee certainly isn't at fault. If a player is a foot offside when a ball is played through and he scores, ignore it and move on. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make such perfect judgement every time? I heard about one example where some officials showed a room full of journalists a clip of an offside call from the linesman's perspective. They only got to see it once, and had to vote on whether it was offside or not. Nearly every single one got it wrong; the linesman who made the decision on the day got it right. So if these highly trained hawk-eyed ladies and gentlemen can't always tell, then no one can tell. So don't worry about it. These things happen. Such is football.
Another downside to analysing every aspect of the officials' performances is that Match of the Day and such like become tedious debates about marginal calls. This is the most boring possible thing to debate. "Oooh, if you watch carefully you can see there was contact" opines Mr. Hansen. "But it was minimal at best" retorts Mr. Dixon. "But there was contact". Enough. Talk about the actual football please. It's quite an interesting sport and there's a lot to analyse and discuss.
/rant
N.B This is somewhat moot after what I've written above, but whatevs. 'Contact' is not enough to call a foul. Football is, strangely enough, a full-contact sport. That means you are expected to take knocks and nudges and just get on with it. If the challenge makes contact with the attacker but is not heavy enough to fell him, but he goes down anyway, that is still a dive. We laugh/throw rotten vegetables at players who take a gentle touch to the face but go down like they've been punched; the same applies to feet and knees coming into contact with opposition legs.
Tuesday 9 October 2012
Training
This is another of the spontaneous writing things. I've used 'we' because in my creative writing lecture she made us write in the second person plural. I don't really get why; it seems too limiting, having to keep the voice as a group the whole time.
***
We have this ‘do and die’ attitude, this endless well of
machismo, which drives us to batter our bodies into heaving, crumpled heaps,
legs and lungs burning and hearts pounding. After it’s over we curl up on the
track as if praying, and it feels like we’re trying not to die. Sometimes we
vomit as our bodies go into recovery mode, central nervous system fried, but we
are not in the least bit embarrassed. We’ve seen it all before.
Running – sprinting, specifically – scratches some sort of
itch that we all feel deep within us. It must be an addiction of sorts: even
though Tuesday nights always seem to be cold and wet, we nevertheless turn up
and batter ourselves for an hour and a half, then depart, feeling exhausted but
satisfied. Purged even. This ritual is repeated three further times each week
(excluding gym sessions). Strangely, the more you commit the stronger the hold
it has over you; it feels inescapable. Everything comes second to training –
university work, our social lives, holidays, everything – but unlike recreational
drugs the mental pleasure we get from sprinting never diminishes.
I often wonder if any of my peers have any notion of what I
put myself through; any notion of what it’s like to have exhausted yourself so
thoroughly that you are able only to stagger like a drunkard back to the start for
the next rep; to be overcome by nausea and puke on the grass; to wake up the
next day with muscles that cause you agony with every movement. And to enjoy
doing this, to suffer alongside friends, to savour the morning after’s dose of muscular
pain because you know it is the pain of improvement. My housemate greets me, ‘Oh
hi, Malcolm, how was training?’ ‘Yeah, alright, got soaked again’. She has no
idea.
Friday 28 September 2012
Looper and The Perks of Being a Wallflower
It's been a film-heavy week. On Tuesday I saw The Hunger Games (good) and The Cabin In The Woods (incredible); in the past 24 hours I have seen two new releases, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky) and Looper (Rian Johnson). Fantastically, I didn't pay a penny to see any of them, despite going to the cinema for each. Anyway, I haven't done any reviews in a while so though it was high time I did some.
***
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 2012)
It's a fairly common occurrence that a writer will adapt their novel into a screenplay themselves; rarer, though, is for the writer to direct thing, although this is exactly what Stephen Chbosky has done for this complex, touching and highly-strung comedy drama. Charlie (Logan Lurman) is an outsider with a troubled past in his Freshman year at high-school, where he befriends a group of oddballs in their senior year, including Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller). As the year progresses Charlie grows closer to the group, and we gradually discover that our protagonists have much more going on under the surface than is immediately apparent.
The balance between comedy and drama is an interesting one. The suggestion that the film might take some dark turns is established from the off, with Charlie penning heartfelt confessionary letters (the source material was an epistolary novel) to an anonymous recipient, before switching to a more typical take on a boy starting high-school. The usual archtypes are all present - there's the friendly and understanding English teacher, the now-estranged friend from middle-school, the jocks, the bitches, and the weirdos with passions for old English rock music, who Charlie falls in with. Then the emotional bombs start falling, splintering this comfortable facade. The casual, off-hand way in which Charlie reveals a key cause to his alluded to difficulties is a real jaw-dropping moment, and credit to Emma Watson for ably conveying the wave of shock that knocked the audience out of their seats.
It is a moment, and there is at least one other, that could easily feel contrived - the emotional equivalent to jump-scares in horror films - but the occasional oblique references to trouble pasts means they felt earned and justified, rather than being a simple Nicholas Sparks-style and-then-he-gets-cancer deus ex machina.
Of the three main characters it is Patrick who is by far the most entertaining - witty, protective, humourous and camp - and while Sam may be a bit bland at times, all three character arcs are individually satisfying but are also woven together perfectly, with each characters' own changing circumstance and emotions having a knock-on effect with the other two. I did feel that perhaps some of the ways that Sam and Patrick were marked out as outsiders were a bit forced, for instance the appropriation of British rock music in service to outsider-cool was gimmicky. No points for guessing which band takes pride of place - who else but The Smiths - and what with their appearance in (500) Days of Summer it's getting a bit wearying. As for Charlie, while his struggles with his past and his psyche form a solid core for the film, Perks falls into the traps of telling us his character traits without actually showing them: he is presented as a quiet socially-inept misfit, but by the end of the first day he has made friends, and his love of literature is used in a similar way to the music in that the film assumes that because he reads he must be interesting. The reality is that apart from the (admittedly essential) personal trauma that underpins the film and provides much of the drama, Charlie is not a particularly interesting character. However, the surround cast cover over this deficiency ably.
Despite these few quibbles The Perks of Being a Wallflower is hugely involving, gripping and heartstring-tugging that packs an emotional punch that few films of this genre can match. With so much psychological damage scattered liberally across the characters it could easily have become overly-harrowing, but the line is well-tread and the balance superb. It's not the easiest watch, but it is one of the most rewarding.
***
Rian Johnson might not be a name to match the likes of Nolan, Cameron and Whedon quite yet, with only low budget noir indie-hit Brick (2005) and Brothers Bloom (2008) to his credit until now, but that hasn't stopped him pulling off this ambitious noir-sci-fi thriller with a panache equivalent of those aforementioned blockbuster behemoths.
As with any story involving time-travel, the logic unravels if you look at it too closely, so here is some friendly advice from Austin Powers to remember when you go and see it. Essentially, it is 2044 and Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Joe, a 'looper' - an occupation in which the looper stands in a field with a gun waiting for an unfortunate target to be transported back in time, where upon arrival said target receives a chest-cavityful of high-velocity shotgun shells, administered with disinterested efficiency by the looper. It's easy work but it comes at a price: a an unheralded point in every looper's life their target will be their future self, 30 years older, transported back with enough gold to provide the looper with a comfortable lifestyle for 30 years, whereupon he is then sent back and killed; in Looper terminology this is known as 'closing the loop'. Like I said, don't think about it too much.
Of course, when Joe is faced with his future self (Bruce Willis), he hesitates, misses his shot and gets knocked out, allowing Bruce Willis to make his getaway. Failing to close one's loop is a heinous offence, so Joe has to not only track down and kill his future self, but also avoid the vengeful organisation he works for. Take that and add to it a young farm owner (Emily Blunt) with a mysteriously ominous child and you've got yourself a right tangled plotline.
Usually, sci-fi stories are allowed one or two leaps of faith upon which the sci-fi world is based: in Star Wars you've got the Force and intergalactic travel; in Children of Men you've got an infertile population; in 1984 you've totalitarianism taken to its greatest extreme. In Looper, you've got time travel and telekinesis. From these two Johnson creates a believable timeline - time travel is made illegal almost upon invention, and telekinesis - initially heralded as the next step of evolution - is actually quite rubbish, used mainly by desperate men trying to pick up women in bars by floating nickels around. Charles Xavier they are not. Essentially, despite containing two fantastical concepts, Looper tries hard to be plausible, and it succeeds, creating and maintaining a satisfyingly realistic sci-fi world.
JGL is great as always and in the last few years has become one of the most captivating and versatile leading men in Hollywood. Some subtle prosthetics on his lips and nose shape his face to look like a convincing younger version of Bruce Willis, and his voice and posture are spot on too. However young Joe is not a clone, rather the passage of time has given the two versions different sets of moral values and one of the greatest pleasures to be found in Looper is seeing how certain character traits are evident - or not evident - unchanged or altered by the 30 years that separate the two versions of Joe. Bruce Willis is standard Bruce Willis really - tough, grizzled, but with a deep love of those closest to him and complete disregard for anyone that gets in his way. The surprisingly few meetings between the two are great entertainment; what old Joe lacks in youthful vitality he makes up for in canniness. One of the best lines in the film is when young Joe quips "your face is on backwards".
The supporting cast is excellent, too, with particular mention to Emily Blunt who plays a protective farmer with an unruly child, caught up in the film's tightening circles. Even better, though, is Noah Segan who plays a hapless enforcer called Kid Blue. His role is small and the character uncomplicated, but it's rare treat to have a someone so completely and hilariously incompetent as this guy. He seems to exist purely so Johnson can punish him, like a macabre puppeteer.
I'm failing as a reviewer here. I don't do scores but if I did I wouldn't give Looper a 5, but I'm struggling to put my finger on why. Perhaps its that the time-travel stuff doesn't make sense (even though I'm doing my best to ignore that). Perhaps is that one of the characters is reveals to be unexpectedly powerful that didn't feel in keeping with the Looper world. Perhaps I wanted a slightly happier ending. However, I think it comes back to Joe. I just didn't connect with him as much as I would have liked. They've done a fantastic job with his appearance and mannerism, but he's just lacking a spark and the charm to lift the mood of this frequently thematically heavy film. He also turns into Rambo at one point, which felt a bit off.
But other than that, even though it's a month or two late, Looper is the film that this summer needed. Some have said it's like 2012's The Matrix; it's more like Inception in that it's sort of complicated (depending on how much time you spend trying to figure out the time travel stuff), has some great set-pieces, solid acting, and is a wholly original sci-fi film.
Wednesday 12 September 2012
Reminiscence Of My Garden
I wanted to write something earlier, anything, I didn't care what. The first thing that came to my head just so happened to be the best song in the world was my garden back home in Maidenhead, so I went and wrote 1300 words about my memories of it. This is pretty personal I guess, so it's not getting the usual airing on Facebook or Twitter, b'yeah, it's still tentatively being posted here. I might do a few more of these in the future.
As I slipped gently between childhood, adolescence and
finally early adulthood, the time spent in my garden diminished slowly but
inexorably. Other interest drew me away from the small green expanse at the
back of the house, with the patio, swings and vegetable patch. It was screens
mostly, first the television when we got Freeview for the first time in early
2003 then consoles – TimeSplitters 2, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 and Guitar Hero
were the main offenders – and the internet. Not only that, but as I grew I was permitted
more freedoms, and long afternoons playing football at the park were infinitely
preferable to kicking a ball against the side of house.
Jumping through the sprinkler in Speedos. Chasing small
puddles round the rubberised fabric that formed the den on the climbing frame.
Coming away from climbing the tree at the end of the garden, hands sticky with
resin. I can remember the curtain-call for each of these. At 9 years old
playing around with the sprinkler was fun; the following summer I considered
that extremely weird. Eventually we didn’t fit in the climbing frame den so it
was dismantled one afternoon, but we still had the swings so that was alright. One
afternoon I was in the den bit with my friend from nursery, and his Irish mum
came round to pick him up. Neither of us really wanted to get down, so slightly
irate she said ‘Get daaynnn niieee, Jornathaan’ (get down now, Jonathan), and
it became something of a catchphrase in our house. And the day when the tree
surgeons came, bringing tools of destruction upon our little tree, was a day of
mourning. Mum said it was killing the surrounding plants, but my grasp of floral
imperialism was limited at that point so I didn’t really believe her. All I
knew was that the tree was now a stump, and that opportunities for playing with
a stump were limited.
Badminton was popular in our house for a while. Dad was the
pro, forever catching me out with frustrating drop-shots. Paul was the worst.
He was completely shit. He is also three years younger than I and four and a
half than Rob, but still. The tantrums were hilarious. To his credit he
improved steadily until he was at least reasonably competent. I remember the
day badminton was ended forever particularly well because I caused it. Keen for
some football practice, I went into the garden and tried to use the net as a ‘wall’.
I got it over a few times, then one shot hit it full on, snapping a guy rope,
and it collapsed. I never owned up, in fact I actually lied to Dad for some
reason, and that was that. Table tennis was a relatively short-lived
replacement, but the nightmare of trying to find the stupid little ball in the
itchy bush (our garden is littered with itchy bushes) was too much of a
barrier to ever invest serious time into it.
Clearly, sport was the main focus in the garden, and the
main sport was football. Penalties were fun for a while, although Mum hated it.
She was too useless anyway. Then my cousin Matthew began lodging with us, and
he could do 96 keepie-uppies. My best effort at that time (around year 4 at
school) was 8, so I was suitably impressed (my all-time best up to this point
is 92, so I got damn close!). However, ours wasn’t a garden suited to playing
football. It was too thin with too many things in the way and too many plants
round the edge. Every years the daffodils appeared behind the swings in
springs; every year they got flattened by errant footballs and, uhh, feet. I
didn’t really give a shit about those daffodils. The aforementioned itchy
bushes were the bane of my footballing childhood. I never understood them. They
looked like ugly. They were big, they were dense, they were in the way, and
they were itchy! Most of the time a
broom was required to dig the ball out but frequently I just used to whack the
bush in frustration.
Only once did they provide me with any amusement. In one of
his many short-lived phases, Paul wanted to improve his football skills so I
got him to do a few drills I knew. Obviously the ball kept going in the bush,
so I told him that getting the ball out the bush was an important skill. He
bought it, the idiot. So I kicked the ball in the bush a few times and he would
diligently go and dig it out, getting covered in that itchy powder each time.
Simple pleasures.
Our garden was also home to our guinea-pigs. There
were two: a dusty-ginger one called Spike and a black and white one called
Ollie. I think we got Spike when I was in year 2, and Ollie a year later. They
had a decent innings I think; I can’t remember precisely when they died, but when
Spike died the three of us sat and cried in the living room all morning. As
Spike got older I remember being terrified that I would be the one to find him
dead; we changed their cage on a week-by-week rota so there was a one-in-three
chance. Paul ended up being the unlucky one; Dad buried them both by the
rhubarb. I don’t remember much of Ollie if I’m honest, he was the quiet, meek
one. When he died all I could think was how shit it much have been for Spike to
have to share a hutch for a few hours with his only companion in the world
lying dead nearby. In retrospect, I neglected them, but thankfully they had Mum
to give them attention and broccoli stalks. Consequently they squeaked when she
walked past, hopeful for food, but didn’t for me. Once Ollie was dead, Spike
got lonely. I walked past his run once and he took a flying leap at the chicken
wire in a desperate attempt to escape. I was shocked, and it was awful.
I got in a scrap with Rob over the guinea-pigs once. It was Monday,
and the responsibility of cleaning their hutch had fallen to me, but Rob, caught
up in the daily routine, forgot it had changed until he was halfway though. He
accused me (correctly) of knowing it was my turn all along, and we had our
first and last genuine fight. Matthew slunk off to get Mum, who threw us in separate
parts of the house to cool off. It took a few days.
I won the fight, by the way (Rob will disagree).
Once the guinea-pigs were gone I could go the whole autumn
and winter without venturing out into the garden even once. Then, once the sun
came out I would spend half an hour or more each afternoon after school practicing
keepie-uppies and ball control. I never really got it; I blame my gangly legs.
Though if Peter Crouch could do it…
The last strong memory I have of the garden is a surprise
birthday party when I was 17 that my then-girlfriend threw for me, in allegiance with Rob. It
was lovely, it really was – just a simple gathering of friends enjoying being
together. Also it was genuinely truly a surprise; I got back from shopping in
Windsor with Mum and Rob made an incredibly shit reason for me to go in the
living room – something about Kenyans running on the telly (possibly the Great
North Run) – and I went in and heard giggling then they popped out from behind
settees and chairs and stuff. Good times.
Sunday 9 September 2012
Writers and their Characters' Names
Hello again. Missed me? It's been a while.
I have a theory. The quality of a writer's books correlates very closely with how well-named their characters are. This is basically going to be a list, I've just realised. The reigning champion of character naming is by no coincidence the writer of the greatest trilogy of books, Phillip Pullman. Roald Dahl does well too; as do JK Rowling and Paul Stewart (writer of the Edge Chronicles, a hugely underrated series). It's not just applicable to children's fantasy writers; all-time greats of literary fiction also survive this test.
A quick Google search of the greatest characters in history also reveals a list of the best named characters in history, from many of the best books in history. There's Holden Caulfield, Humbert Humbert, Atticus (and Scout and Jem) Finch, Jay Gatsby, Kurtz and Marlowe, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Gandalf, to name but a few...and of course, Shakespeare does alright too. Also the Bible is worth a mention, and not just because the main 'characters'' names have all ended up as Western-mainstays, but because of Methuselah, Solomon, and uh, Paul.
I've mentioned many of these characters a few posts back, but Pullmans array of creations are worth repeating. So, here is the greatest list of character names from one man (from the same book, no less): Lyra Belacqua, Pantaliamon, Lord Asriel, Marissa Coulter, Iorek Byrnison, Serafina Pekkala, Lee Scoreseby, Iofur Raknison, Stanislau Grummann, Balthamos, Baruch, Mary Malone, Chevalier Tialys, Lady Salmakia, and Metatron. Maybe Will Parry's slightly dull name is a reason why I never took to him like I did Lyra (if I ever have a daughter, she's gettin' called Lyra) and the rest. Sally Lockheart from Pullman's other fantastic series also gets an honourable mention.
Having just watched the BFG on telly I've rediscovered all Roald Dahl's fabulous creations. To wit, Charlie Bucket,Willy Wonka (and all the kids in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory); Bruce Bogtrotter, Ms. Trunchbull (Matilda); Aunts Spiker and Sponge (James and the Giant Peach); Boggis, Bunce and Bean (Fantastic Mr. Fox); the Twits (The Twits...obv); Fleshlumpeater, Gizzardgulper, Bonecruncher (and the other giants from The BFG, Manhugger (LOLGAY) notwithstanding). Quentin Blake is also the most fantastically named illustrator ever.
It goes the other way, too. Bad writers that turn out dull, flat prose also lumber their characters with dull, flat names. One of the main reasons I gave 50 Shades of Grey a wide berth is that the main character is the crinegeworthy Anastasia Steele. You can tell she's trying: Anastasia evokes the famous Russian princess with hints of Old World fantasy and seduction; Steele undercuts that with a cool modernism, replete with that extraneous 'e'. However, together to two mix like milk and orange juice, and make me want to vomit. In short, Anastasia Steele is a porn-star name (which, I admit, is apt. But that doesn't make it any better).
Thinking of these bad characters is difficult, because I tend to forget about them.
What makes for a great name? I...I have no idea, really. In the case of Dahl, his characters' names plainly reflect their defining characteristic, none more so than the tall, gaunt, cruel Aunt Spiker and her counterpart, the rotund and piggy Aunt Sponge. Pullman seems to drawn on national naming divisions; his characters with religious relevance drawn on Latin (Baruch and Balathamos for instance); Lee Scoreseby is indelibly Texan, Iorek and Iofur Icelandic (I think); while Lyra Belacqua is just fantastic, wild yet dignified, classical yet modern, and beautifully mellifluous (cheers thesaurus).
I have a theory. The quality of a writer's books correlates very closely with how well-named their characters are. This is basically going to be a list, I've just realised. The reigning champion of character naming is by no coincidence the writer of the greatest trilogy of books, Phillip Pullman. Roald Dahl does well too; as do JK Rowling and Paul Stewart (writer of the Edge Chronicles, a hugely underrated series). It's not just applicable to children's fantasy writers; all-time greats of literary fiction also survive this test.
A quick Google search of the greatest characters in history also reveals a list of the best named characters in history, from many of the best books in history. There's Holden Caulfield, Humbert Humbert, Atticus (and Scout and Jem) Finch, Jay Gatsby, Kurtz and Marlowe, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Gandalf, to name but a few...and of course, Shakespeare does alright too. Also the Bible is worth a mention, and not just because the main 'characters'' names have all ended up as Western-mainstays, but because of Methuselah, Solomon, and uh, Paul.
I've mentioned many of these characters a few posts back, but Pullmans array of creations are worth repeating. So, here is the greatest list of character names from one man (from the same book, no less): Lyra Belacqua, Pantaliamon, Lord Asriel, Marissa Coulter, Iorek Byrnison, Serafina Pekkala, Lee Scoreseby, Iofur Raknison, Stanislau Grummann, Balthamos, Baruch, Mary Malone, Chevalier Tialys, Lady Salmakia, and Metatron. Maybe Will Parry's slightly dull name is a reason why I never took to him like I did Lyra (if I ever have a daughter, she's gettin' called Lyra) and the rest. Sally Lockheart from Pullman's other fantastic series also gets an honourable mention.
Having just watched the BFG on telly I've rediscovered all Roald Dahl's fabulous creations. To wit, Charlie Bucket,Willy Wonka (and all the kids in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory); Bruce Bogtrotter, Ms. Trunchbull (Matilda); Aunts Spiker and Sponge (James and the Giant Peach); Boggis, Bunce and Bean (Fantastic Mr. Fox); the Twits (The Twits...obv); Fleshlumpeater, Gizzardgulper, Bonecruncher (and the other giants from The BFG, Manhugger (LOLGAY) notwithstanding). Quentin Blake is also the most fantastically named illustrator ever.
It goes the other way, too. Bad writers that turn out dull, flat prose also lumber their characters with dull, flat names. One of the main reasons I gave 50 Shades of Grey a wide berth is that the main character is the crinegeworthy Anastasia Steele. You can tell she's trying: Anastasia evokes the famous Russian princess with hints of Old World fantasy and seduction; Steele undercuts that with a cool modernism, replete with that extraneous 'e'. However, together to two mix like milk and orange juice, and make me want to vomit. In short, Anastasia Steele is a porn-star name (which, I admit, is apt. But that doesn't make it any better).
Thinking of these bad characters is difficult, because I tend to forget about them.
What makes for a great name? I...I have no idea, really. In the case of Dahl, his characters' names plainly reflect their defining characteristic, none more so than the tall, gaunt, cruel Aunt Spiker and her counterpart, the rotund and piggy Aunt Sponge. Pullman seems to drawn on national naming divisions; his characters with religious relevance drawn on Latin (Baruch and Balathamos for instance); Lee Scoreseby is indelibly Texan, Iorek and Iofur Icelandic (I think); while Lyra Belacqua is just fantastic, wild yet dignified, classical yet modern, and beautifully mellifluous (cheers thesaurus).
Wednesday 27 June 2012
Bootleg Fireworks: Anatomy of the Perfect YouTube Video
I found it, at last. It's taken about five years but now it has happened. I have found the most perfect video on the internet. Here it is:
Remove the commentary, the burning bush and the Jesus counter and you've still got an awesome video. The initial weak fizzy fireworks rapidly escalate into a full-blown mortar strike, right in some innocent street in 'Murica somewhere. It's intense, scarcely comprehensible chaos, and it actually puts things like the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan to shame in terms of its 'holy-crap!' factor. It even has that temporary deafness effect following the closest firework explosion. Epic.
The Commentary
We've just moved from 'great' to amazing. Whoever is behind the camera, I salute you. First of all, this guy knows how to shoot video. Even though shit is going crazy all around him, he keeps that camera steady. Not a lot of people could do that. If fireworks started blowing up at my feet I'd curl up and cry like a baby. But forget his camera skills, that's small-fry. This is one YouTube friendly guy. He is so awesome. His 'Jesus' freakout is great, then after the fireworks stop he shows great awareness of being part of something epic. His fear is gone, adrenaline is pumping: 'DAT WAZ AWESOME. DAT WAZ AWESOME RIGHT THERE. NAAW. DAWW.' Fuck, yeah it was. And then: he sees a burning bush. It seems, every YouTube commentator has taken their time to point out the incredible irony of a dude shouting 'JESUS' at a burning bush. That's not even irony, bitches. But who gives a crap about that. The burning bush incident is great because it brings out the immortal line, 'GET DA WATER NIGGA!'. What a line. What a moment, one made all the funnier by the lameness of the fire. It's barely smouldering. But to this guy it's a cataclysm. GET DA WATER NIGGA! He's not done yet though. There's one more trick up his sleeve. The catchphrase, the line that gives the video its title. 'MOTHERFUCKING BOOTLEG FIREWORKS!'. Catchphrases are essential. Think, 'I like turtles', or 'Charlie bit me'. Every great video needs one. And this is one of the best. The 'motherfucking' tells us this video is sufficiently gangtsa. The 'bootleg' denotes how badly (but for us, brilliantly) the situation became, and the 'fireworks' tells us what the video is about. That last bit might be lame, but fireworks are awesome enough to make the preceding two 'markers' even more awesome. If it was something like 'motherfucking bootleg DVDs' then it would be an order of degrees lamer. But it's not. It's fireworks. Dat shit cray'.
The Overlay
There is one last awesome element of this video, that guarantees it (if it weren't already) a place in the pantheon of YouTube great. It's the 'Jesus counter' and the subtitles. This is its YouTube-iness, the subtle laughing at the video's protagonists, but also with them, emphasising their quirks. I like the bit where the dude says 'REEKRIS' and it add's 1/2 to the Jesus count.
In all, this is the perfect YouTube video. It has something awesome and unusual - fireworks going off at ground level. It has something hilarious (featuring an ethnic minority - YouTube loves that). And it has some hilarious back-seat mickey-taking. And and, it comes in at one minute exactly. One minute of heaven.
Remove the commentary, the burning bush and the Jesus counter and you've still got an awesome video. The initial weak fizzy fireworks rapidly escalate into a full-blown mortar strike, right in some innocent street in 'Murica somewhere. It's intense, scarcely comprehensible chaos, and it actually puts things like the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan to shame in terms of its 'holy-crap!' factor. It even has that temporary deafness effect following the closest firework explosion. Epic.
The Commentary
We've just moved from 'great' to amazing. Whoever is behind the camera, I salute you. First of all, this guy knows how to shoot video. Even though shit is going crazy all around him, he keeps that camera steady. Not a lot of people could do that. If fireworks started blowing up at my feet I'd curl up and cry like a baby. But forget his camera skills, that's small-fry. This is one YouTube friendly guy. He is so awesome. His 'Jesus' freakout is great, then after the fireworks stop he shows great awareness of being part of something epic. His fear is gone, adrenaline is pumping: 'DAT WAZ AWESOME. DAT WAZ AWESOME RIGHT THERE. NAAW. DAWW.' Fuck, yeah it was. And then: he sees a burning bush. It seems, every YouTube commentator has taken their time to point out the incredible irony of a dude shouting 'JESUS' at a burning bush. That's not even irony, bitches. But who gives a crap about that. The burning bush incident is great because it brings out the immortal line, 'GET DA WATER NIGGA!'. What a line. What a moment, one made all the funnier by the lameness of the fire. It's barely smouldering. But to this guy it's a cataclysm. GET DA WATER NIGGA! He's not done yet though. There's one more trick up his sleeve. The catchphrase, the line that gives the video its title. 'MOTHERFUCKING BOOTLEG FIREWORKS!'. Catchphrases are essential. Think, 'I like turtles', or 'Charlie bit me'. Every great video needs one. And this is one of the best. The 'motherfucking' tells us this video is sufficiently gangtsa. The 'bootleg' denotes how badly (but for us, brilliantly) the situation became, and the 'fireworks' tells us what the video is about. That last bit might be lame, but fireworks are awesome enough to make the preceding two 'markers' even more awesome. If it was something like 'motherfucking bootleg DVDs' then it would be an order of degrees lamer. But it's not. It's fireworks. Dat shit cray'.
The Overlay
There is one last awesome element of this video, that guarantees it (if it weren't already) a place in the pantheon of YouTube great. It's the 'Jesus counter' and the subtitles. This is its YouTube-iness, the subtle laughing at the video's protagonists, but also with them, emphasising their quirks. I like the bit where the dude says 'REEKRIS' and it add's 1/2 to the Jesus count.
In all, this is the perfect YouTube video. It has something awesome and unusual - fireworks going off at ground level. It has something hilarious (featuring an ethnic minority - YouTube loves that). And it has some hilarious back-seat mickey-taking. And and, it comes in at one minute exactly. One minute of heaven.
Sunday 17 June 2012
Alter Egos Round II: Messi vs Ronaldo
Good versus Evil. God versus Satan. The Jedi versus the Sith.
Lionel Messi versus Cristiano Ronaldo.
The two have been summoned by history to enact the greatest and most evenly fought rivalry in the history of football. They are equal yet opposite: both score obscene, fearsome and record-breaking numbers of goals, but their ability is as balanced as their temperaments are different. It transcends mere rivalry, however. It is a clash of morality, of good versus evil.
Ronaldo is obviously the evil one and Messi is obviously the good one. They contrive to embody these qualities is absolutely every way possible. Messi plays in Barcelona, whose Catalan inhabitants fought in the Spanish Civil War against the Fascist rule of General Franco, who was based in... Madrid. Where Ronaldo plays. Messi represents unfettered, un-cynical, honest boyish enthusiasm. He seems immune to the ego-inflating trappings of fame, success and fortune. The vampiric media have thus far been unable to sully Messi's reputation one bit, and that is surely not through lack of trying. No hookers, no outbursts, no petulant behaviour. Ronaldo on the other hand...
Hookers. Outbursts. Diving. Modern football is frequently criticised as having been over-inflated by television money, widening the gulf between players and fans, driving egos and eroding ingrained perceptions of how football should be played, i.e like 'real men'. Ronaldo seems to play up to every one. Ronaldo's penchant for diving sums this up most clearly. This is a man apparently blessed with everything one could need to succeed as a footballer: skill, fitness, speed, stature and mental resilience, and despite this he resorts to play-acting and brazen cons to get his way. It rankles no end.
In contrast, Messi never dives.
Their personalities seem to be reflected in their playing styles. Messi is a lover: deft, precise and is as concerned for the team effort as his own success; Ronaldo is a pornstar: his play revolves around overt physicality, who bludgeons opposition to submission with strength and power. His assist count is pitiful in comparison. Rob Smyth in the Guardian said of Bulgarian legend Stoichkov that he is 'not a footballer that believes in foreplay', and that pretty much sums Ronaldo up.
Reinforcing the dichotomy is La Liga itself, which has become effectively a tussle between Barcelona and Real Madrid: this year Madrid won with 100 points to Barcelona's 91; in third place was Valencia with 61. There are no third parties in this rivalry. It's not so much a gulf as a wholly separate competition. The Barcelona style of play revolves around technique, skill and speed of thought, whereas the Madrid team is built on physique and brutal counter-attacks. Both work equally effectively; Barcelona won the league (and basically everything else) in the first two years, but Madrid closed the gap and won emphatically in the year just gone.
It took Ronaldo's arrival in Madrid to kick-start the rivalry. Ronaldo had won World Player of the Year in 2008 with Manchester United; Messi came second. In that season, Ronaldo had scored 26 goals, and Messi had scored 38. Both impressive totals, but looking back they now seem pitiful in comparison: in the 2011-12 season, Messi scored seventy-three goals while Ronaldo bagged sixty. In the three years since Ronaldo joined Madrid, he has scored 112 league goals and Messi has scored 115; Ronaldo's scoring rate with Madrid is slightly above a goal a game. Holy hell, guys. Without evil there can be no good, and Ronaldo's transfer to Spain has vindicated both players, pushing them to ever-greater heights.
Sources:
http://sportnomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ronaldo_vs_messi_3.jpg
http://imgur.com/oY43g
http://messivsronaldo.net/
http://www.wikipedia.org
Lionel Messi versus Cristiano Ronaldo.
The two have been summoned by history to enact the greatest and most evenly fought rivalry in the history of football. They are equal yet opposite: both score obscene, fearsome and record-breaking numbers of goals, but their ability is as balanced as their temperaments are different. It transcends mere rivalry, however. It is a clash of morality, of good versus evil.
Ronaldo is obviously the evil one and Messi is obviously the good one. They contrive to embody these qualities is absolutely every way possible. Messi plays in Barcelona, whose Catalan inhabitants fought in the Spanish Civil War against the Fascist rule of General Franco, who was based in... Madrid. Where Ronaldo plays. Messi represents unfettered, un-cynical, honest boyish enthusiasm. He seems immune to the ego-inflating trappings of fame, success and fortune. The vampiric media have thus far been unable to sully Messi's reputation one bit, and that is surely not through lack of trying. No hookers, no outbursts, no petulant behaviour. Ronaldo on the other hand...
Hookers. Outbursts. Diving. Modern football is frequently criticised as having been over-inflated by television money, widening the gulf between players and fans, driving egos and eroding ingrained perceptions of how football should be played, i.e like 'real men'. Ronaldo seems to play up to every one. Ronaldo's penchant for diving sums this up most clearly. This is a man apparently blessed with everything one could need to succeed as a footballer: skill, fitness, speed, stature and mental resilience, and despite this he resorts to play-acting and brazen cons to get his way. It rankles no end.
In contrast, Messi never dives.
Their personalities seem to be reflected in their playing styles. Messi is a lover: deft, precise and is as concerned for the team effort as his own success; Ronaldo is a pornstar: his play revolves around overt physicality, who bludgeons opposition to submission with strength and power. His assist count is pitiful in comparison. Rob Smyth in the Guardian said of Bulgarian legend Stoichkov that he is 'not a footballer that believes in foreplay', and that pretty much sums Ronaldo up.
Reinforcing the dichotomy is La Liga itself, which has become effectively a tussle between Barcelona and Real Madrid: this year Madrid won with 100 points to Barcelona's 91; in third place was Valencia with 61. There are no third parties in this rivalry. It's not so much a gulf as a wholly separate competition. The Barcelona style of play revolves around technique, skill and speed of thought, whereas the Madrid team is built on physique and brutal counter-attacks. Both work equally effectively; Barcelona won the league (and basically everything else) in the first two years, but Madrid closed the gap and won emphatically in the year just gone.
It took Ronaldo's arrival in Madrid to kick-start the rivalry. Ronaldo had won World Player of the Year in 2008 with Manchester United; Messi came second. In that season, Ronaldo had scored 26 goals, and Messi had scored 38. Both impressive totals, but looking back they now seem pitiful in comparison: in the 2011-12 season, Messi scored seventy-three goals while Ronaldo bagged sixty. In the three years since Ronaldo joined Madrid, he has scored 112 league goals and Messi has scored 115; Ronaldo's scoring rate with Madrid is slightly above a goal a game. Holy hell, guys. Without evil there can be no good, and Ronaldo's transfer to Spain has vindicated both players, pushing them to ever-greater heights.
Sources:
http://sportnomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ronaldo_vs_messi_3.jpg
http://imgur.com/oY43g
http://messivsronaldo.net/
http://www.wikipedia.org
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Living the Dream
I was gonna do this as a blog post but ended up writing it for the uni paper. It's about that one time I ran at the Olympic Stadium and raced Harry Aikines-Aryeetey (though I actually didn't mention that last bit).
Clicky Clicky
Clicky Clicky
Friday 18 May 2012
The Amber Spyglass
Allow me to wax lyrical about The Amber Spyglass for a moment. Phillip Pullman's closing chapter to the His Dark Materials (what a great name for a trilogy!) is my favourite novel ever, and maybe even my favourite work of fiction regardless of medium. Yes, even my beloved In Bruges would struggle to overcome The Amber Spyglass in a battle for my affections.
My love for it has grown steadily since I first read it as a wee lad in 2003 or something. It took me seven years to re-read it, and it was even better the second time round. And those are the only two times I've read it. Twice would feel like a paltry number of read-throughs if it didn't sear itself into my memory to the extent that it has. So many beautiful images stuck with me and never faded: Mary Malone's realisation that the mulefa have evolved with the trees; the freed ghosts stepping out into the light, momentarily blinking with pleasure before their atoms are dispersed and scattered into nature; the image of God, crippled and weak, dying abandoned; and of course Lyra and Will's tearful separation (to name but a few).
It's the most cohesive fictional world I've ever encountered (second place goes to Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, but that's a blog for another time). Everything just makes sense. I'm struggling a bit to articulate how it makes me feel, but there is just irrepressible sense that Pullman hasn't created a world, rather discovered one. Harry Potter, for instance, is fantastic in imagining the big details, but too much of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense (What do the adults do? What's wrong with mobile phones? Time-turners?). There are no such holes in His Dark Materials. Take the daemons for instance. They change shape with ease in the pre-pubescent years, before slowly settling down on a particular form, one that reflects or compliments the personality of their human. What a freaking perfect metaphor for childhood. And when Pantalaimon settles, Lyra loses her ability to read the alethiometer. It just feels like the best way of evoking the inherent talents of kids for understanding personality, before they grow older and less adaptive.
Mary Malone happens upon a whole new world, unexplored by reader or characters in the previous two installments, the world inhabited by the mulefa. It is the most breathtakingly beautiful depiction of an undiscovered ecosystem, combining an engrossing account of Mary's slow understanding of the mulefa and their customs with a gentle refutation of creationism. Pullman was bold in casting aside all likeness to Earth, instead examining the basic mechanics of life and nudging them in a different direction. The mulefa are weird and move in strange ways, yet just feel possible.
Pullman's approach to religion is basically to tackle it head on. The Authority, his take on the Catholic Church, is an oppressive force. The Church's attacks on free thought is embodied by the angel Metatron, who tears from the sky wielding a great spear, destroying any perceived threat to his organisation. More powerful than a human alone, he is eventually toppled into an endless void by the combined efforts of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, who go down with him. One fantastic side of the religion debate is the two homosexual angels, Baltamos and Baruch. There's no sex, obviously, but it's clear that their love is more than just friendship. Cast from heaven, endlessly pursued, and in a weakened state, they are amongst the most courageous characters in the book. And in a month when North Carolina voted against gay marriage, Baruch and Balthamos feel particularly pertinent.
Pullman also has a knack for names. Lyra Belacqua. Iorek Byrnison.Serafina Pekkala. Lord Asriel. Marissa Coulter. Lee Scoreseby. Cittagaze. Anbaric. Daemons. Alethiometer. Mulefa. Pantalaimon. All of them are so evocative. Especially anbaric. It simply means electricity, but sounds so much rawer, untamed and dangerous. It's one of my favourite words.
Another favourite: Lord Asriel. He's my favourite character in all of literature. Immensely proud, extremely intelligent, volatile, powerful, dark, charismatic and ambitious. He blows a hole in the sky, takes on God and wins. Magnificent bastard.
One last confession: The Amber Spyglass is one of the few things I've ever encountered that has the ability to make me cry. I can be a bit stony-hearted, but when Lyra and Will fall in love then discover that their time together is limited, and every possible loophole is closed, and they arrange to sit on the same bench in their separate worlds, clinging to each other... oh man.
My love for it has grown steadily since I first read it as a wee lad in 2003 or something. It took me seven years to re-read it, and it was even better the second time round. And those are the only two times I've read it. Twice would feel like a paltry number of read-throughs if it didn't sear itself into my memory to the extent that it has. So many beautiful images stuck with me and never faded: Mary Malone's realisation that the mulefa have evolved with the trees; the freed ghosts stepping out into the light, momentarily blinking with pleasure before their atoms are dispersed and scattered into nature; the image of God, crippled and weak, dying abandoned; and of course Lyra and Will's tearful separation (to name but a few).
It's the most cohesive fictional world I've ever encountered (second place goes to Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, but that's a blog for another time). Everything just makes sense. I'm struggling a bit to articulate how it makes me feel, but there is just irrepressible sense that Pullman hasn't created a world, rather discovered one. Harry Potter, for instance, is fantastic in imagining the big details, but too much of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense (What do the adults do? What's wrong with mobile phones? Time-turners?). There are no such holes in His Dark Materials. Take the daemons for instance. They change shape with ease in the pre-pubescent years, before slowly settling down on a particular form, one that reflects or compliments the personality of their human. What a freaking perfect metaphor for childhood. And when Pantalaimon settles, Lyra loses her ability to read the alethiometer. It just feels like the best way of evoking the inherent talents of kids for understanding personality, before they grow older and less adaptive.
Mary Malone happens upon a whole new world, unexplored by reader or characters in the previous two installments, the world inhabited by the mulefa. It is the most breathtakingly beautiful depiction of an undiscovered ecosystem, combining an engrossing account of Mary's slow understanding of the mulefa and their customs with a gentle refutation of creationism. Pullman was bold in casting aside all likeness to Earth, instead examining the basic mechanics of life and nudging them in a different direction. The mulefa are weird and move in strange ways, yet just feel possible.
Pullman's approach to religion is basically to tackle it head on. The Authority, his take on the Catholic Church, is an oppressive force. The Church's attacks on free thought is embodied by the angel Metatron, who tears from the sky wielding a great spear, destroying any perceived threat to his organisation. More powerful than a human alone, he is eventually toppled into an endless void by the combined efforts of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, who go down with him. One fantastic side of the religion debate is the two homosexual angels, Baltamos and Baruch. There's no sex, obviously, but it's clear that their love is more than just friendship. Cast from heaven, endlessly pursued, and in a weakened state, they are amongst the most courageous characters in the book. And in a month when North Carolina voted against gay marriage, Baruch and Balthamos feel particularly pertinent.
Pullman also has a knack for names. Lyra Belacqua. Iorek Byrnison.Serafina Pekkala. Lord Asriel. Marissa Coulter. Lee Scoreseby. Cittagaze. Anbaric. Daemons. Alethiometer. Mulefa. Pantalaimon. All of them are so evocative. Especially anbaric. It simply means electricity, but sounds so much rawer, untamed and dangerous. It's one of my favourite words.
Another favourite: Lord Asriel. He's my favourite character in all of literature. Immensely proud, extremely intelligent, volatile, powerful, dark, charismatic and ambitious. He blows a hole in the sky, takes on God and wins. Magnificent bastard.
One last confession: The Amber Spyglass is one of the few things I've ever encountered that has the ability to make me cry. I can be a bit stony-hearted, but when Lyra and Will fall in love then discover that their time together is limited, and every possible loophole is closed, and they arrange to sit on the same bench in their separate worlds, clinging to each other... oh man.
Tuesday 15 May 2012
'Drive' (2011) is Grand Theft Auto on the silver screen.
'Drive' last year's mesmerising neo-noir thriller from Nicholas Windong Refn is million-selling game franchise Grand Theft Auto adapted for the big screen. SPOILERS
- The Driver - a stand-in for the player's character in GTA. In San Andreas and GTAIV, the RPG elements mean that you can spend a long time just growing your character: going on dates, going to the gym, getting a haircut, doing jobs - some legal, some not - and so on. Then, out of nowhere, you might decide to assault a civilian and stomp them until their blood seeps across the pavement. Just because. It might (and I really hope it is) be entirely at odds with your personality, but there is it: you just squashed prostitute. The Driver, the nameless protagonist in Drive, is a lot like this. He doesn't say much, he splits his time between working in a garage, as a stunt driver and as a getaway driver, and seems like a nice enough guy. Then he'll flip a switch, and excessively murder an assailant, or turn mean and threatening at a moments notice. It's like he's controlled by a person who, due to lack of consequences, decides to go on a rampage out of nowhere.
- It takes inspiration from 1980s set Vice City - the glorious pink typeface that adorns the promotional material is Vice City through and through; the scorpion jacket The Driver wears throughout and the Cadillac he drives is retro in feel; approach to technology is old-school; the neon hues and gaudiness also feel very 1980s; the retro soundtrack is also unashamedly 1980s
- The Driver's missions feel like videogame missions. The opening cat-and-mouse car chase between The Driver and the L.A.P.D feels like a stealth mission: the pang of worry The Driver (or at least the audience) feels when the spotlight singles out his car is not unlike the big exclamation mark that appears above enemies heads in the Metal Gear Solid series. There are on-foot missions: protect Irene from the hitman; defeat the shotgun-wielding thugs; extract information from Cook; the final showdown with Bernie. There are driving missions: the aforementioned night-chase and the escape from the anonymous pursuers after the botched robbery.
- The cosmopolitan array of characters - The white people (The Driver, Irene, Blanche), the Latinos (Standard Gabriel, Benicio), the Jews (Bernie and Nino). I can't remember any black or Asian characters, so maybe it's not that cosmopolitan, but it is still quite. GTA is full of characters of every race and creed imaginable.
- The police give up easily - after The Driver escapes in the opening sequence (possibly too easily: they did have a night-sun after all) the police seem to give up. You can almost see his wanted rating blinking out towards zero. There is no follow-up to the numerous bodies he leaves lying around, and at the end Bernie doesn't even mention any the trouble with the law The Driver might face should he stick around in town.
- Have I mentioned that it revolves around crime yet? That's an obvious one.
- A variety of cars
- Overhead shots of downtown L.A that look exactly like the early top-down GTA games.
P.S I know all the points are labelled point 1, blogger has a whack formatting system that meant I couldn't insert images between bulletpoints.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)