Monthly Archive for July, 2006

Tuesday Allsorts #3

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dano
1 year, 9 months ago
in Allsorts, Cinema, Magazines and Music
. 0 Comments

Trying to get back to a regular posting schedule. Here goes:

Holy Hell, possibly the funniest thing in the world: Some deranged genius adds James Earl Jones dialogue from other movies to Star Wars. I shit you not!

The Be Good Tanyas live at The Barbican in London (reviewed in The Grauniad);

A.O. Scott in the NY Times (reg. req.) ponders why critics and public respond so differently, so often (I just watched POTC:DMC and can see both sides – “complete shite” v “a $9 diversion with a few laughs”;

Amazon are in big trub for selling cock-fighting magazines – but that’s not all they sell… (thanks Gawker);

Bob Geldof gets a hard time for cancelling in Italy when 45 people turn up to the 12,000 seat stadium (“Harden up, Sir Bob!”) but let us not forget that he helped organise a benefit concert in Auckland when the Neon Picnic was cancelled in 1988 so he’s alright by me – the $1,500 a plate shindig in Auckland the other week is much harder to excuse.

The Oil We Eat

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dano
1 year, 9 months ago
in Cats, Culture and Current Events
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Yesterday I read the most depressing article I have come across in a long while. First published in Harper’s in February 2004, I’m glad I only came across it yesterday. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

In “The Oil We Eat”, Richard Manning gave me a geography (and biology, and plant physiology) lesson I could have used back when I started, I don’t know, eating I suppose:

“Special as we humans are, we get no exemptions from the rules. All animals eat plants or eat animals that eat plants. This is the food chain, and pulling it is the unique ability of plants to turn sunlight into stored energy in the form of carbohydrates, the basic fuel of all animals. Solar-powered photosynthesis is the only way to make this fuel. There is no alternative to plant energy, just as there is no alternative to oxygen. The results of taking away our plant energy may not be as sudden as cutting off oxygen, but they are as sure.”

Unfortunately, Manning seems to recommend only eating what you can kill or grow close to home but I only have Phil and Don here and I was fattening them up for another project – I can’t imagine them going for more than few meals anyway.

So, at the end of the day I did what any red-blooded male would do when confronted with the imminent demise of the planet and everyone on it: I cracked open a beer and switched on “Top Gear” and tried not think about it.

First Touch

Published
by
dano
1 year, 10 months ago
in Football and Personal
. 1 Comment

The pass out of defence seemed to accelerate as it hit the wet grass and skidded towards me. Like most other enthusiastic, Sunday, footballers I couldn’t rely on skill, experience or talent to guarantee that the ball wouldn’t bounce away in some random direction (or worse, pass under or around me without contact of any kind). Instead, I found myself doing a large number of maths, geometry and physics exercises in a very short space of time.

While trying to stay aware of the players around me, I had to estimate the height and speed the ball would reach by the time it arrived so that I could then angle my foot in such a way that the ball (after contact) would drop limply beneath me – mine to then have my way with. I understand from childhood coaching manuals that this is called ‘trapping’ and I share it with you now only because on Sunday morning I pulled it off and it felt great! Actually it wasn’t perfect as it came off my calf rather than my boot but I got all the angles right and could look up trusting that the ball would still be there when I looked back down again.

I know what I’m good at on a football pitch. I have what they used to call ‘an educated right boot’ which means when I can look up I see an opportunity (a player in space ahead of me, or a space that they can run into) and I can generally put the ball where I want it, or close enough. But I can also write a book about what I don’t have: pace, stamina, determination, bravery, guile, left foot, etc, which means that in most games my ‘educated right boot’ might as well be on the sidelines, doing its nails. Because an ‘educated right boot’ needs time and space to be effective.

So, this year I decided to concentrate on only one aspect of my game: my first touch. Almost every Sunday morning, with the boys from Newtown Athletic, I trundle down to Rugby League Park (where the Hurricanes and Lions usually train) and we chase a ball around and try and stick it between two cones. As we don’t keep score, players change sides often and no one yells at you for being out of position, I have found the perfect environment for simply enjoying the game and working on the things I wished I did better. Like trapping.

Former West Ham United Manager Harry Redknapp once said of a triallist, “He traps it further than I can kick it” but that’s no longer true of me. A few minutes after the calf-trap described above I found myself chasing a high ball across to the right-hand corner of the pitch. Using my trigonometry skills I put myself where I thought the ball would be only to see it bounce higher than expected and have it bounce off my throat - and land softly at my feet. “Good control”, I heard someone yell and I thought ‘yeah, good control’, and looked up for an opportunity for that ‘educated right boot’.