I went to a conference last month on football – not a policy conference with wonks and stuff, y’understand, but a proper academic conference.
There were some good papers given, so for the benefit of TMFD readers; a synopsis of where we&#8[…]

Y’now when capt oates that gallant english gentleman said “i am just going out i may be some time” well i have discovered by careful pseudo-straussian perusal of the evidence that it wz not FROSTBITE or SCURVY which impelled him int[…]

Etan Thomas: NBA Progressive
Check this out: a strong statement by NBA dude Etan Thomas, who is apparently a poet and anti-war activist. Thomas is a fifth-year center for the Washington Wizards, which I still think of as the Washington Bullets, which[…]

Mike Basset England Manager was not what you might called a sophisticated satire. The set-up being that pretty awful Norwich City manager Bassett becomes surprise pick for England manager when no-one else wanted to do the job. That much was true in 2[…]

(Caution: not for the softcore)
Alignment: AD&D employed a notorious form of psychometric profiling, the Alignment System, whereby every living thing’s personality could be summarised by a phrase like “Lawful Neutral” or &#822[…]

The Bestest Player in the Whole Wide World Ever!
FIFA’s annual popularity contest nears conclusion. The list is here, and FIFA’s news story on the list is worth a post of itself. The event will be imbued with a ‘Uuique tone’. […]

This mornings epic battle of Dave Boyle vs Victoria Derbyshire on Five Live was foiled mainly by London traffic (we assume). Nevertheless if argument success is based on the amount the host flirts with the guest, then Dave won hands down. To be fair […]

Forwards, ever forwards?
Loyalty of football fans not beyond breaking point, he said, expectantly wanting the backlash to start.
There’s one school of though that view that on one side there are ‘others’ and on the other there are &[…]

Good[…]

The gnarly issue of sportspersons refering to themselves in the third person has reared its head again I see. The Guardian devoted some time to why boxers do it. Psychologically it helps build a new persona, the boxer Chris Eubank is a seperate perso[…]