Tuning in to an FA Cup match at the weekend on
ESPN, I was subjected to the normal Star-network range of cringingly unfunny
station promos and trailers. How I have come to curse those guys on the
American version of Sportcenter who have a bit of chemistry and the wherewithal
to deliver their lines in a way that is actually sometimes funny for persuading countries where it is considered the height of wit to scream inanities loudly and then laugh at them even more loudly to attempt to ape their repartee.
This time, 'though, I was rewarded by one of the
broader grins I've managed since the excellent John Dykes was lured back to
Blighty by promises of the kind of money he had only dreamed of when a sports
hack for the South China Morning Post.
(By the way, what is the point of Andrew Leci?)
This smile came totally unwittingly, as far as
the station was concerned, and had to do with a generic celebration of football
which it had cobbled together using footballers – well, in the main,
footballers, as we shall see – from different countries.
The general idea was that players from different
lands would laud the wonders of the world game in their own language, with Star
providing the translation below. All went well for a while, as athletes from
Africa, Europe and South America provided a number of variations on the basic
fut-bol theme ("I love it", "It's my life/passion, etc."), with a calcio thrown in for good measure from Italy.
Suddenly a chubby Asian type popped up and proceeded
to say something in Mandarin in a stentorian manner out of synch with what had come
before. The subtitles revealed all: the beautiful game had of course been
invented in the Motherland.
Enough of the lies-to-take already!, as the
badinage on Sportscenter would quickly remind us.
18 comments:
Hi, this is Andrew Leci. Thanks for the deep philosophical (maybe even psycho-spiritual) question. I have often wondered about it myself.
And then I read your musings, and would ask the same question about you.
Lots of writing - very erudite; love the allusion - but commented on by almost no one, so presumably read by only a very few (if any).
Who makes love to the written word (and indeed makes love at all) when there is no one else around to participate?
Oh...now I get it.
AL, that's a contender for Comment of the Year. The penultimate paragraph's a thing of beauty. I'm afraid I may use it one day.
One favour while I have your ear. I'd love a comment from Macca. Heck, even Shebby.
Shebby says he'd like to meet you; Macca merely grunted.
A grunt in Scouse is still worth its weight in gold even in an age when whiny Mancunians are stealing all the pundit plaudits.
Of course, the real question is 'What's the point of Andy Carroll?', but if I'd written that then no one would have blinked an eye.
What next, Ulie? An email from Vijay?
Do you really think a guy who's played in Wimbledon quarter-finals and driven a milk float in a Bond flick would do vanity searches?
I'm still in the dark. Who is Andrew Leci?
He's the Susan Li of ESPN, Foamie.
In the same way that people sometimes refer to Manchester as the Venice of the North but never refer to Venice as the Manchester of the South, I bet no one ever refers to Susan Li as the Andrew Leci of Bloomberg.
They could be related. As a crossword clue might put it, "Disheartened sports anchor becomes leggy theme of merchant banker's nocturnal musings".
Sorry, the comparison doesn't work. I'm not even a pretty face, but thanks for trying.
'Disheartened'? Certainly not. I am frequently heartened, and often gruntled.
AL, you've doubled my readership figures since stumbling across my site. I must reciprocate by tuning into the next edition of, um, the show with Macca and Shebby. "Football Focus?" I still remember the one with Bob Wilson.
In crossword parlance, a disheartened L[EC]I gives us a LI. Not much of a clue, but at least it parses.
If Al doubled them, then what did Susan Li do to them? She must have firmed them up somewhat.
She was resposible for a surge the length of Henry Tang's tunnel, Foamster.
Oh well, at least the clue contained the word 'musings' and not 'emissions'.
Our current self indulgence is called 'The Monday Night Verdict', and it doesn't go to HKG apparently, because...because...I have no idea why.
Too many smartasses waiting to rip it to shreads, perhaps. Not that we're sensitive about these things...
Confused lice, perhaps?
One moment you don't know who he is and the next you're insulting the man.
How about "Weiner clad after a fashion for Scouse Villain's sparring partner"?
Saul's in a quandary as saintly Scot suffers bizarre infestation.
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