Category: Chips on Shoulders

Degrees of usefulness

I’ve noticed that the underside of cherished colleagues’ collars heats up at the mention of certain ‘degree’ courses, with particular reference to more practical subjects formerly confined to apprenticeships and polytechnic curricula.

Personally I don’t get offended by conferring on them the title of ‘degree’, any more than I mind a crowd of cardinals calling themselves a ‘college’. Nobody is fooled into believing they have suddenly acquired much-sought-after academic status – which is after all reserved for many subjects which are practically useless, like my own field of classical languages, literature and history. Continue reading “Degrees of usefulness”

Pass it, doh!

Stratford,London, UK, 10/08/12 Picture by Graham Chadwick. London 2012 Olympic Games Men's 4x100m relay heat 1/2. Team GB

I’d like to offer OZ this incident for his much-anticipated Olympic rant: the failure (yet again) of a British relay squad to pass the baton. Now I know that as mere runners they are not used to communicating with others or controlling themselves in confined spaces – or even holding things in their hands – but p-lease! All the other teams practise and manage to do it without mishap – why not you? Btw, the girls are just as bad, in case you wonder.

Another little local difficulty

After the Solomonic Solution which rewarded a Japanese gymnast who fell so very nicely, we have the ticklish question of ‘making a bone fide effort’ while participating, which led to the disqualification of some badminton players earlier in the Games. Continue reading “Another little local difficulty”

It’s how you do it that counts, allegedly

From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor (thanks to Jerry Della Femina for the quote), it is now clear that the true spirit of the games has been revived at last. Their pommel-horse gymnast fell off. But after due consideration the judges decided he did it really nicely – so he could still help his team to the silver medal.

This is all because new events involving really nice falling are soon to be added to the Olympic corpus. They’ll do it from bikes, horses and pole-vault poles, into ditches, ponds and pits respectively.

Jolly good show, chaps! Continue reading “It’s how you do it that counts, allegedly”

Tour de force anglaise

While cherished cynics pooh-pooh the eighty-seven hour ride around the magnificent French campagne, there are those of us who will be pleased that three English riders have proved better than the rest. And although outspoken Daley Thompson believes that athletics are the superior discipline (his own claim to fame relies on his failure to be good enough at any one of his ten to be a world-beater like Steve Redgrave), I defy anyone to doubt the skill and dedication displayed by the Sky team in sealing first and second places overall for Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome and two three* explosive stage wins for Mark Cavendish.

As a footnote, the spectacle was a welcome counterpoint to English fortunes at the Oval and Royal Lytham, where Soutie’s mates won all the laurels.

* mea maxima culpa, thanks, Soutie!

The Viking name game

I’ve heard that Spanish folk can have a nomenclature as long as Don Quixote’s spear but there’s a practice here that intrigues me.

Take the newly crowned tennis king of Denmark, Frederik Løchte Nielsen., known to his friends as….what? Well, his English doubles partner calls him Freddie, as one might; but the commentators on Danish telly can’t seem to find out. He’s Freddie Løchte, just Løchte or all three names, but never Freddie Nielsen, and I can’t fathom why. Nielsen for some arcane reason is nomen non gratum.

Just like the NATO chief, ex PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He’s always Anders Fogh, just Fogh but never Anders Rasmussen.

Is it snobbery because Nielsen and Rasmussen are common names? It can’t be to avoid confusion – after all how many Fred Nielsens are at Wimbledon, how many Anders Rasmussens in NATO?

Btw Danes I have asked can’t explain. We just do, they say. Fine.

Further to Christina’s post and my comments therein ….

The Congress of the South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the Western Cape called on city managers yesterday to dismantle Cape Town’s Greenpoint stadium and turn it into low-cost housing, saying that engineers and architects believed it was possible.

The stadium, built for the Soccer World Cup, has been struggling to sustain itself and to host events, largely due to high hiring costs. It has cost the city R44,6m in maintenance each year. The total operating budget was R56,7m in the past financial year, with only R12m expected to be generated by hiring it out.

Concerns have also been growing that a number of other World Cup stadiums around the country such as Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit and Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium could become white elephants, especially given that they are all funded by ratepayers.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=175439

You’ve got to laugh.