(no subject)
I've prattled on about the differences between the sexes on here plenty of times before but tonight I'm all about the ladies. The fairer sex they may be, Mother Earth godessesses and all that nonsense, but it's recently become clear to me that the best thing to put two X chromosones to use at is sport.
Now, before I crack on, I'd like to point out that this isn't just a piece of Olympic bandwagon-jumping as the British women have got off to a flyer while their male compatriots are lucky to have ammassed a total of no medals whatsoever. I've not suddenly decided to eulogise some women just because they've now got medals hanging around their necks- although their successes are relevant to what I'm saying here. Because on Sunday two things happened in British sports- the football season started up again and two British ladies by the names of Becky Adlington and Joanne Jackson came first and third respectively in one of the most joyously mental sporting events I've ever had the pleasure of staying up till 4am to watch. Oh, and I fell in love a bit as well. Those last two are related.
First, to the football. Manchester United and Portsmouth squared off in the traditional season-opening Community Shield on Sunday afternoon- though you'd be forgiving for thinking football was way down the agenda of things for the two clubs to get up to for a couple of hours on a nice, plush pitch in North London. If you read the papers about proceedings it's quite possible to come to the conclusion that both sides turned up, shouted at a man wearing black, argued with each other, possibly stamped on one another a little bit, then went and met some journalists to tell them that the man in black was a tossclown, that they had good reason to spend good energy arguing with the other team and that they actually had/n't stamped all over each other after all. Overall, twenty-two men took to the biggest stage in their sport to so something thousands would do for free but for which they receive millions of pounds a year and gave the impression that they hadn't enjoyed a single fucking second of the whole thing. Something similar will be repeated up and down the country over the next ten months of 'The Greatest League In The World' as bad losers, bad winners and bad no-score-drawers go about their business. They will only be united by three things- one) nothing will be their fault, two) they won't seem to have much fun at all and three) they'll all be men.
Contrast this with the early hours of Monday morning and a swimming pool in Beijing. In it, the women's 400 metre freestyle final was led for 399 metres by Katie Hoff, an American. Tragically for this young lady, the only metre she didn't lead was the last one- that was the entire period of the race in which a teenager from Mansfield was on even terms and then, in the dying inches, a fingernail in front. If you ever get the chance, and if you haven't already, watch the video of Adlington just as she's finished the race. She turns to the giant scoreboard and there's a second, maybe not even half a second, where her face changes- first confusion, then disbelief then sheer, naked happiness. Then she realises her best mate came third and the whole proces starts again. In a few tenths of a second she gets through more emotion than David Tennant is currently managing in three hours of playing Hamlet. If the Russians and Georgians could only get a chance to watch those few frames of footage they'd realise that the world really isn't worth fighting over and they'd all just hug and kiss and decide to get along. I dare say a few members of the opposing sides would gay up and toast this new era of Adlington-inspired peace in their own most private juices.
Anyway, it was one of the most amazing pieces of sport I'd ever witnessed and was easily the greatest swimming race I'd ever seen. And it maintained that lofty position for, ooooh, about 4 minutes. Then the men's 4x100m relay happened in which the USA, from what seemed like a mile behind in the closing stages, overhauled the French squad in a finish that made the gap between Adlington and Hoff seem like a yawning chasm. 0.03 seconds, to be exact. For an illustration, try blinking and the time it takes you to do it will be about 4 times longer than that time. But whereas Adlington and Jackson had celebrated their medals with smiles, hugs and the potential emotional outpouring to create bum-jousting Russian soldiers, the victorious American men stood on the side of the pool and yelled. Long and hard, fists clenched and eyes bulging (I think their eyes were bulging, some of them still had goggles on) they yelled, screamed and shouted at no-one in particular and everyone in attendance. They celebrated for themselves, they congratulated each other but they never, never once, smiled. If there is such a thing as angry joy, this was it in action because there seemed to be very little happiness in evidence. They looked like something horrible had happened and they'd survived- like a spot of ethnic cleansing or a plane crash. If I'd have been stuck in the trenches of World War One and heard about the Armistice, I'd have reacted like they did. If I'd have won a swimming race, I like to think I'd have been chuffed instead.
And if the men of the sporting world make dreadful winners, they're infinitely worse at the character-building (i.e. shit-eating) discipline of losing. Let's go back to that women's race and Katie Hoff who, and there's no need to whitewash this, shagged it up good and proper. She had the ultimate goal in her sporting existence within her grasp and someone else snatched it away. Forever. I could say it was a kick in the teeth, but at least if you do get kicked in the teeth you can get some dentures. Hoff will never be able to trick anyone into thinking she's anything other than the girl who lead for 99.75% of an Olympic final and didn't win. And she knew exactly whose fault it was- hers. She congratualted the Brits, took full responsibility for her failure and left with grace and humility, even though her post-medal-ceremony lap of honour was often spent alone as photogrpahers clammered for the photo of the two British medals.
Hours later, in the exact same pool, a man by the name of Blake Aldridge had, like Hoff, failed to achieve what he was capable of and, rather than accept what had happened, instead pinned the blame fully and squarely on the shoulders of his partner. Who happens to be a 14 year old boy. The event in question was the Men's 10 metre Synchronised Diving final- a discipline which espouses unity, teamwork and harmony. Until, it seems, you get it wrong at which point it's suddenly every man (it's never woman, is it?) for himself. In the event itself, Aldridge and his young partner Tom Daley had been doing well until the tension got to one or both of them on the final dive which went marginally, which at this level is the same as saying 'horribly', wrong and they plummeted down the rankings into last place. The subsequent interviews saw Aldrdige explain that he'd dived well himself, performed well, not been affected by the moment, not tensed up etc, etc, etc. In other words, he was saying it's a team game and his team had fucked up. It wasn't his fault. His partner had committed the sin of being over-awed by the world's biggest sporting event at an age when most members of the same gender were still sat in their bedrooms listening to apalling music and furiously masturbating like a chimp in a safari park. How dare he? Aldridge proved that men in sports can do anything as aprt of a team apart from the toughest thing of all- lose.
And that's exactly the sort of attitude that caused me on Sunday, for the first time ever, to actually realise that the football season had started and become thoroughly depressed. From now till next May the back pages will be dominated by man after man explaining how- despite what the scoreline or anyone with eyes might suggest- they'd been robbed, cheated and swindled by other men who had the sheer gumption to be better than them at something. How they're 'slaves' because they signed a contract to be paid £100,000 a week for kicking a ball about but have now decided they want to kick a ball about somewhere else instead. How they've slowed an incident down to micro-second frames from a million different angles and realised after painstaking analysis that the man who saw it at full speed on one occasion from one viewpoint got it hopelessly, horribly, irredeemably wrong and should be hung, drawn and quartered as a result. How they played well and "deserved to win" despite failing to score in an hour and a half and being stopped from doing so by a goalkeeper who had the temerity to do what he gets paid for.
They will, basically, be complete and utter twats and I can't help but think that it's purely a product of their gender. But please, whatever you do, don't tar me with the same brush as them. I'm not like Premiership footballers, manic American swimmers or bitter British divers. We may be members of the same sex but I couldn't help it. It couldn't possibly be my fault.
Because I'm a man.
Now, before I crack on, I'd like to point out that this isn't just a piece of Olympic bandwagon-jumping as the British women have got off to a flyer while their male compatriots are lucky to have ammassed a total of no medals whatsoever. I've not suddenly decided to eulogise some women just because they've now got medals hanging around their necks- although their successes are relevant to what I'm saying here. Because on Sunday two things happened in British sports- the football season started up again and two British ladies by the names of Becky Adlington and Joanne Jackson came first and third respectively in one of the most joyously mental sporting events I've ever had the pleasure of staying up till 4am to watch. Oh, and I fell in love a bit as well. Those last two are related.
First, to the football. Manchester United and Portsmouth squared off in the traditional season-opening Community Shield on Sunday afternoon- though you'd be forgiving for thinking football was way down the agenda of things for the two clubs to get up to for a couple of hours on a nice, plush pitch in North London. If you read the papers about proceedings it's quite possible to come to the conclusion that both sides turned up, shouted at a man wearing black, argued with each other, possibly stamped on one another a little bit, then went and met some journalists to tell them that the man in black was a tossclown, that they had good reason to spend good energy arguing with the other team and that they actually had/n't stamped all over each other after all. Overall, twenty-two men took to the biggest stage in their sport to so something thousands would do for free but for which they receive millions of pounds a year and gave the impression that they hadn't enjoyed a single fucking second of the whole thing. Something similar will be repeated up and down the country over the next ten months of 'The Greatest League In The World' as bad losers, bad winners and bad no-score-drawers go about their business. They will only be united by three things- one) nothing will be their fault, two) they won't seem to have much fun at all and three) they'll all be men.
Contrast this with the early hours of Monday morning and a swimming pool in Beijing. In it, the women's 400 metre freestyle final was led for 399 metres by Katie Hoff, an American. Tragically for this young lady, the only metre she didn't lead was the last one- that was the entire period of the race in which a teenager from Mansfield was on even terms and then, in the dying inches, a fingernail in front. If you ever get the chance, and if you haven't already, watch the video of Adlington just as she's finished the race. She turns to the giant scoreboard and there's a second, maybe not even half a second, where her face changes- first confusion, then disbelief then sheer, naked happiness. Then she realises her best mate came third and the whole proces starts again. In a few tenths of a second she gets through more emotion than David Tennant is currently managing in three hours of playing Hamlet. If the Russians and Georgians could only get a chance to watch those few frames of footage they'd realise that the world really isn't worth fighting over and they'd all just hug and kiss and decide to get along. I dare say a few members of the opposing sides would gay up and toast this new era of Adlington-inspired peace in their own most private juices.
Anyway, it was one of the most amazing pieces of sport I'd ever witnessed and was easily the greatest swimming race I'd ever seen. And it maintained that lofty position for, ooooh, about 4 minutes. Then the men's 4x100m relay happened in which the USA, from what seemed like a mile behind in the closing stages, overhauled the French squad in a finish that made the gap between Adlington and Hoff seem like a yawning chasm. 0.03 seconds, to be exact. For an illustration, try blinking and the time it takes you to do it will be about 4 times longer than that time. But whereas Adlington and Jackson had celebrated their medals with smiles, hugs and the potential emotional outpouring to create bum-jousting Russian soldiers, the victorious American men stood on the side of the pool and yelled. Long and hard, fists clenched and eyes bulging (I think their eyes were bulging, some of them still had goggles on) they yelled, screamed and shouted at no-one in particular and everyone in attendance. They celebrated for themselves, they congratulated each other but they never, never once, smiled. If there is such a thing as angry joy, this was it in action because there seemed to be very little happiness in evidence. They looked like something horrible had happened and they'd survived- like a spot of ethnic cleansing or a plane crash. If I'd have been stuck in the trenches of World War One and heard about the Armistice, I'd have reacted like they did. If I'd have won a swimming race, I like to think I'd have been chuffed instead.
And if the men of the sporting world make dreadful winners, they're infinitely worse at the character-building (i.e. shit-eating) discipline of losing. Let's go back to that women's race and Katie Hoff who, and there's no need to whitewash this, shagged it up good and proper. She had the ultimate goal in her sporting existence within her grasp and someone else snatched it away. Forever. I could say it was a kick in the teeth, but at least if you do get kicked in the teeth you can get some dentures. Hoff will never be able to trick anyone into thinking she's anything other than the girl who lead for 99.75% of an Olympic final and didn't win. And she knew exactly whose fault it was- hers. She congratualted the Brits, took full responsibility for her failure and left with grace and humility, even though her post-medal-ceremony lap of honour was often spent alone as photogrpahers clammered for the photo of the two British medals.
Hours later, in the exact same pool, a man by the name of Blake Aldridge had, like Hoff, failed to achieve what he was capable of and, rather than accept what had happened, instead pinned the blame fully and squarely on the shoulders of his partner. Who happens to be a 14 year old boy. The event in question was the Men's 10 metre Synchronised Diving final- a discipline which espouses unity, teamwork and harmony. Until, it seems, you get it wrong at which point it's suddenly every man (it's never woman, is it?) for himself. In the event itself, Aldridge and his young partner Tom Daley had been doing well until the tension got to one or both of them on the final dive which went marginally, which at this level is the same as saying 'horribly', wrong and they plummeted down the rankings into last place. The subsequent interviews saw Aldrdige explain that he'd dived well himself, performed well, not been affected by the moment, not tensed up etc, etc, etc. In other words, he was saying it's a team game and his team had fucked up. It wasn't his fault. His partner had committed the sin of being over-awed by the world's biggest sporting event at an age when most members of the same gender were still sat in their bedrooms listening to apalling music and furiously masturbating like a chimp in a safari park. How dare he? Aldridge proved that men in sports can do anything as aprt of a team apart from the toughest thing of all- lose.
And that's exactly the sort of attitude that caused me on Sunday, for the first time ever, to actually realise that the football season had started and become thoroughly depressed. From now till next May the back pages will be dominated by man after man explaining how- despite what the scoreline or anyone with eyes might suggest- they'd been robbed, cheated and swindled by other men who had the sheer gumption to be better than them at something. How they're 'slaves' because they signed a contract to be paid £100,000 a week for kicking a ball about but have now decided they want to kick a ball about somewhere else instead. How they've slowed an incident down to micro-second frames from a million different angles and realised after painstaking analysis that the man who saw it at full speed on one occasion from one viewpoint got it hopelessly, horribly, irredeemably wrong and should be hung, drawn and quartered as a result. How they played well and "deserved to win" despite failing to score in an hour and a half and being stopped from doing so by a goalkeeper who had the temerity to do what he gets paid for.
They will, basically, be complete and utter twats and I can't help but think that it's purely a product of their gender. But please, whatever you do, don't tar me with the same brush as them. I'm not like Premiership footballers, manic American swimmers or bitter British divers. We may be members of the same sex but I couldn't help it. It couldn't possibly be my fault.
Because I'm a man.