TMFD

A Trigger Almanac: 2007

Here’s a selection of some of the most entertaining/interesting posts on the site this year - thoroughly incomplete, as it doesn’t include much of the frothing ephemera that makes FT so good (in my partisan view). As usual when I look at the FT archives I’m enormously amused, amazed that there’s so much of it, and frustrated that loads of good ideas don’t get followed up, but such is the way of the blog.  Huge thanks to all contributors and a Happy New Year to all readers. … read on …

amisquake: or u can’t spell “ESTABLISH THE CALIPHATE” w/o a “q”

i. BUQSHA, BURQA, FAQIR, INQILAB, MBAQANGA, MUQADDAM, QABALAH, QADI, QAIMAQAM, QALAMDAN, QASIDA, QAT, QAID, QANAT, QI, QIBLA, QIGONG, QINDAR, QINDARKA, QINGHAOSU, QINTAR, QIS, QIVIUT, QOPH, QWERTIES, QWERTY, QWERTYS, SHEQEL, SHEQALIM, SUQ, TALAQ, TRANQ, TSADDIQIM, TSADDIQ, TZADDIQIM, TZADDIQ, UMIAQ, WAQF, YAQONA … read on …

More Songs About Volleyball and Food

Following on from last night’s volleyballpop discussion on Lollards, I thought I’d do a quick post as a follow up with some links to the other songs I mentioned! Doing the theme tune to volleyball championships seems to be quite lucrative. I mentioned that the first NewS single was used as the theme to the 2003 World Volleyball Championships (although for convoluted reasons this wasn’t considered the band’s official ‘debut’!): ladies and gentlemen I present NewS NIPPON! Really, nothing, ever, could beat the awesomeness of this song which I loved for years before I even sought out the video which features dancing in space, Yamapi in shorts. They also appear to have borrowed some of Kylie’s spare C&A spacesuits - remember when Kylie went into space? Yeah! I could go on (seriously <3 <3) BUT there’s MORE to this volleyball lark!

Because - as it turns out, in 2005, ANOTHER NewS single was used as a volleyball theme, this time to the ladies volleyball championship! … read on …

Jump, They Say

Sorry, I don’t mean to turn this into the wacky world of inventions but these things keep nagging me from the edge of my consciousness. I’ll give you more on “The Scandal Of Skinny Water” later, but first let us look at the following statement. Bear in mind that when foreigners say “Jump Rope”, they mean Skipping Rope:

“JumpSnap founder, Brad LaTour, is a regular guy just like you, who struggled with his own weight for many years. He knew jumping rope was the best form of exercise to burn calories and lose inches, but tripping over the rope was incredibly frustrating. That’s why he invented JumpSnap. What started as the ropeless jumprope has grown to become so much more. “

… read on …

The Swish Of The Traditional Curtain Raiser

A question just occurred to me: does the phrase “traditional curtain raiser” get used AT ALL outside of a sporting context?

Actually I wondered if it even got used outside of the Community Shield context, but apparently it does - the Australian Grand Prix is a TCR, so is an MCC match at Lords.

It took until hit 35 on Google before a non-sporting traditional curtain was raised: hats off to the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, which is the traditional curtain raiser for the outdoor gardening show calendar, according to the Times.

What other non-sporting things have traditional curtain raisers? What should?

Intertotal Football

My adopted* Veikkausliiga (Finnish Premiership) team, FC Honka, seem to be suffering a touch of ’second season syndrome’, but I don’t mind, as one of my most enjoyable discoveries this summer has been the Football In Finland blog, written in English and always intelligent, entertaining and informative. This post is especially good, even if you’ve got no interest in the Finnish title race (such as it is) - it’s a reproduction of the programme notes from Tampere United’s recent Champions League qualifier game, and is a great look at playing in Europe from the minnow’s point of view:

And when we play in the Balkans or further east, where do you go for (e.g.) Armenian visas? Can you tell me where the nearest Armenian embassy is to Tampere? Apparently it’s a cash-only back-street alley in Tallinn. I know because I went there with 25 passports in my pocket back in 2002. 

*via the thoroughly modern method of picking them a couple of years ago in a Championship Manager game, because I liked the name.

They Don’t Like Cricket…

Did the members of 10CC* actually like cricket or not (answer THEY LOVED IT!) Cricket has, for want of a better word, a fuddy-duddy image. It has panama hats, dress codes and ties for supporters. And whilst charming young gentlemen like this members of England’s Barmy Army try to move it into the progressive, cross-dressing 1930’s, this image is still difficult to shift.

But Test Match Special, the flagship radio show, is fighting this image. Whenever they see a member of a hip young rock and roll band in the stands, why they rustle them into the box for a chat. And to the credit of the young rock band members, they often aquit themselves well chatting to Aggers et al. But then the obtuse and somewhat jokey atmosphere on Test Match Special is not a million miles away from being interviewed on Popworld by a Christmas Pudding. … read on …

The Dave Clark Five

Hooray for the England Blind Football Team. They beat Greece 5-1 in what appears to be a bit of a walkover. And are happily anticipating the blind European champions where the prodigious talents of their striker may net them victory. The name of this footballing Wunderkind?

Dave Clark.

WHERE ARE THE DAVE CLARK’S FIVE JOKES ON THE WEB? He got five goals for crying out loud. Not bad for any striker let alone a blind one. The blind football team captain. Who works in a sewage plant in Deptford*.

The campaign for sports personality of the year starts here. Especially when you consider he is also a golfer and runner.
(More on blind football here).

*This bit and only this bit might be a lie.

BRANDWATCH: London 2012 (aka MINE EYES!)

So they have unveiled a new logo for the 2012 Olympic games. Some quatrters are calling this the most significant step since we won the right to host the Limpies two years ago. I would suggest that the plans, the compulsory purchase orders and the endless Evening Standard stories about Council Tax and going over budget are more significant. But this is certainly not a logo that you can ignore.

It takes a bit of getting used to, especially after the previous very clear logo. This one is clearly designed for a multi-media age with its fluro-colours which one assumes probably flash like a graphic from a BBC B computer (Remember the BBC had 16 colours, 8 of which were flashing such as magenta and yellow. Note, flashing does not make it a new colour). If there is one design aesthetic involved here, it can only be that of Myspace. … read on …

Just go and read it in Smiths or something…

You can’t really blame them for not having an on-line version of the magazine, so I urge you all to track down a copy of this month’s When Saturday Comes with Jose on the front, and read the Match of the Month column by Ian Plenderleith. You might think that Darlington vs Lincoln isn’t the most thrilling of matches to cover but the article is a perfect encapsulation of the indignities and general rubbishness foisted on lower league away supporters. Also the author is really quite rude about lying, tax-dodging, safe-breaking idiot George Reynolds, which is always a bonus.

In other news, camp sites to get supporters trusts!