Piled high against the Archway Co-op’s window are boxes which bring back the worst of eighties sport to me. It would appear that George Foreman no longer has a monopoly in the sports star turned cookery device inventor. For now you can get the Carl Lewis Grill. And if you don’t throw away the box as soon as humanly possible, you get that picture of him gurning with the three medals around his neck that makes me gag whenever I think of the 1984 Olympics.
Carl Lewis was always a funny looking chap. I guess being funny looking helps you to run fast. Its either a streamlining thing or a natural defence so you can run away from the natural predator of the funny looking chap (the school bully). But for all his prowess in running short distances quickly, I never saw him taking his hand to inventing an oilless grill. Which of course he hasn’t, a company has nicked George Foreman’s one and think by slapping on the most decorated US sprinter of all time will make it sell. As if George Foreman’s boxing prowess sold HIS grill.
Foreman was always a lovable loser (even when he won). Always secondary to the main attraction, his main selling point was that he was not as arrogant, mouthy or unpleasant as those around him. His benevolent smile on his grill not only suggests that he really did have a hand in inventing it, but hey – you can trust me – I have never attached my name to a shonky product. As a second stringer of boxing he never got offered the shonky products, he never got to fight Superman in a comic for example. Carl Lewis on the other hand was happy to be paraded endlessly in 1984 as the epitomy of America’s world beating (Russian bloc excluded) power. With his cheesy grin and excess of medals, I do not want him anywhere near my steaks thank you very much. Pile those boxes high, they will not be running out the shops at 100m in under 9.89 seconds.