Friday 18 December 2009

The Sun, Harry Redknapp, and an article about all the wrong issues

Mediawatch has already covered some of this story, but the sheer patronising lack of respect for its readers bares mentioning here.

It has all the hallmarks of the very worst, cretinous journalism that this awful publication specialises in:

1. Claimed as a " WORLD EXCLUSIVE" despite it being published as a story 8 days ago in another paper
2. Each sentence is formatted as a paragraph, making the whole article like a visual assault. In fact I feel like I have mild snow-blindness, as the palsied universe lies before us a leper.
3. Zero quotes attributed to any players, and at least two attributed to unnamed sources.
4. Unnamed sources blatantly being made up to represent the views of what the author of the piece thinks they would say so as to back up his article

I quite liked these two statements:

It was an audacious plot planned with military precision

Skipper Robbie Keane - the mastermind behind the plan - had been on reconnaissance many times to Ireland's capital city

Has Robbie Keane ever masterminded anything? I doubt he could mastermind walking the dog frankly. Also, I can't help thinking that audacious isn't really the right word in this case. I know it's easy to revert to Irish stereotypes here but who could seriously consider that they would get away with this? I would perhaps replace "audacious" with "really fucking stupid".
In a slight on the modern armed forces, military precision seems to consist of collecting money, booking flights and a staying in a hotel. Never since the days of Monty and the desert rats has such an operation been put into place.
Robbie Keane was fucking BORN in Dublin. I wonder when he got the reconnaissance in? Perhaps throughout his whole fucking life because that's where he lived?

I really think that this whole debacle is worthy of a serious article about how the players have seriously undermined the authority of their manager by doing this 3 days before a Premier League game and then losing that match at home to Wolves. Of course that would require some kind of thought and intellect on the part of (let me just check back to see who wrote this bollocks) Shawn Custis.

More interestingly they may have to criticise Sun columnist, and all round highley affable and quotable Deputy Dawg himself. A massive no no for the manager who gets away with more crap than any other. This is thanks, I can only surmise, to the fact he is nice to the journos and give them good copy more often than not.

Thursday 3 December 2009

The Crazy world of US Sports

They do things a little different in the US and often their athletes are a whole lot crazier than ours.

Take Ron Artest who plays for the current NBA champions the LA Lakers:

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/article/2009-12-02/sn-conversation-ron-artest-i-was-head-case

The money quote:

"I used to drink Hennessy … at halftime," Artest says in the interview, which hits newsstands this week. "I (kept it) in my locker. I'd just walk to the liquor store (near the stadium) and get it."

The best thing is that Artest is so crazy that no one is even suprised by this interview! We are talking about a man once suspended for 73 (yes seventy-three) games for brawling into the stands with fans when he played for Indiana. Legend.

Oh yes, let's not forget the time that he emailed one of the Laker fans to tell him he should "Suck a cock."

Why do we have to listen to Michael Owen-esque post-match interviews over and over again but they get a guy like this?

Unfair

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