Things That Are Fabulous

Unlike the Brat, I've not quite been ignoring the Olympics. Its schedule being from ohmygod o'clock in the morning until dinnertime rather meant that I didn't see much of them during the week, but it wasn't for lack of interest.

The weekends were different, and the Weasel and I spent hours watching people in full-body condoms zoom around tracks on ice skates, slide down hills with sticks tied to their feet, do aerobatics while attached to large tongue-depressers etc.

Which leads me to Yet Another List: Things That Are Fabulous.

Thing One: The Norwegian Curling Team's Trousers

Behold the magnificence

The sartorial equivalent of the loud drunk guy at your cousin's wedding, these bad boys (the pants, not the Norwegians) are available for sale for a paltry $US 89.95 per pair. If you can't quite stretch to that, you could always buy a "Respect the Pants" t-shirt for a much more accessible $US 15 or join the Facebook fan group, where you can learn to tell people how awesome their pants are in Norwegian.

And remember -- a man walks down the street in pants like those, you know he's not afraid of anything.

Thing Two: Johnny Weir

He's sparkly, he's outspoken almost to a fault, and he's ridiculously talented. Seriously. To the point where we can forgive him for being Lady GaGa's bestie.

No, really. Check it out:

As if anything else need be said. But sadly, it does. A couple of commentating velocipedes in Canadia made some crass remarks about Johnny's apparent

sexuality, including a suggestion that he should have to take a gender test.

WTF, CANADIA?? We thought you were immune to that kind of nineteenth-century homophobic bullshit.

Butanyway. Johnny, being the outspoken guy he is, had something to say about it. This is what he said:

And that, ladies and germs, is what a class act looks like. And why you, Johnny Weir, are fabulous. Long may you sparkle.

Yer wot?

I recently saw someone on the 'tubes describe Danica Patrick as "The Anna Kournikova of [motor] racing." (To be fair to him, I don't think he really believes that, but rather threw that statement out as a point of discussion. Well, it worked.)

To which I say BOLLOCKS. And this is for the following reasons:

(Yes, it's another list. Deal.)

1. Danica Patrick has actually won something.

2. The rules of Ms Patrick's sport were changed to make it harder for her to win things.

Neither of these applies to Anna Kournikova -- the first because she's not actually that good, and the second because there's no need.

Now, notice what's just happened here.

I've had to defend a sportswoman for actually being _good at her sport_ rather than mere eye candy. And, rather alarmingly, in order to do so I've had to denounce another sportswoman as mere eye candy, which made me more than a little queasy.

Now, as much as we on the Cheap Seats are partial to a bit of eye candy, I doubt very much that most professional sportsmen have to put up with the same kind of comparisons, at least, not on a regular basis.

As far as we've come towards equality of the sexes, sportswomen are still judged more for their looks than their ability, and the amount of training and effort they put in is seen as largely irrelevant as long as they look good doing whatever it is they do.

And even beyond that, it doesn't matter if Danica Patrick was the greatest Indy car driver the world has ever seen -- she wouldn't get a look in at an F1 race because... she doesn't have a penis.

F1, much as I love it (and I do, oh how I do) is probably the most macho professional sport on the planet. There are no female F1 drivers. No woman has even been given a trial (at least a serious one -- Red Bull gave Danica Patrick a trial as a PR stunt). And such is the machismo surrounding the sport, it's unlikely that any woman will drive in an F1 race for quite some time.

And you know what, that's just daft. Like any other discrimination it's judging people on criteria other than how well they do the job. And that's just stupid. For all we know there's a female Lewis Hamilton out there, but she'll never get a chance to show the world what she can do.

For fuck's sake, people. What century is this, again? When sportswomen are paid less than men for the same work, judged on their looks rather than their ability and outright excluded from the most prestigious and lucrative sports out there, one could be forgiven for wondering.

Wait... What?

So, summer has finally cranked it's creaky self into gear. It's warm. It's downright sticky. We're 2/3rds of the way through the domestic cricket season and 1/2 way through the home internationals.

And tomorrow the Super 14 starts.

It snuck up on ya, dinnit? Don't lie. Especially if, like me, the only chance you get to really read a newspaper is in subway. (Or, like Madame, you are stuck reading the Oddity.)

But yes. The Super 14. Interminable rounds which underscore summer's demise and suck the life out of players and rugby fans.

Maybe I'm a cynic.

Maybe I haven't followed rugby fanatically enough since Christian Cullen retired.

Maybe - Oh God, don't shoot me - I just don't care.

In which I am an Influence

I'm the only member of Mustelid Manor remotely interested in sport. The DH just doesn't give a rip and the Weasel herself, while she plays lots of sports (we've had to limit her to two per term so she doesn't get burnout, and they've included variations on rugby, netball, water polo, hockey and softball) really doesn't care much about professional sports or the perfectly-formed individuals who play them.

So imagine my surprise when I got a text from the Weasel this morning on my way to work saying that Shane Bond had got an IPL contract.

The WTF here is twofold.

Fold the first: Shane Bond. IPL. So far so good. Maximum bid. WTF? He's good, but is he really _that_ good? (Kolkata Knight Riders is not WTF. It's where we pretty much expected he'd go. Where he gets to be teammates with Ishant Sharma and Brendon McCullum. Which means I may actually have to watch some IPL this year.)

Fold the second: The Weasel knew I was keeping an ear out for how the auction had gone, due to my hoots of laughter regarding Chris Cairns sticking his hand up for it. What I didn't expect was for her to go that bit further and actually tell me what had gone on.

Clearly I am being an influence here. But is it a good one or a bad one? Comment and let me know.

Summer Fail

Some of you will have observed that I am at home updating the sports blog rather than attending the hit-and-giggle game between Otago and Wellington at the University Oval.

That is because Dunedin has failed to have a summer and it is currently 6C and raining. And the weather's not too bad today, compared with, oh, the thunderstorms and hail we had on Thursday and Friday.

Maybe at this rate the sun will come out by March, but all the cricketers will be off at the IPL by then.

Some Questions

1st. Chris Cairns. Why did you put yourself on the IPL list, other than gratuitous money grubbing? You are old. Really old. And it serves you right that your arse has been yanked from the list. How about coming back and playing a bit for your province before chasing the dollars? Chris Harris is doing it, after all.

2nd. Why can't I get an SH size bat (for those not in the know, it's sized between a harrow and a full size, for people of about 5'9". Like me.) for less than a hundy? Don't make me resort to trade me.

3rd. Why are CCC making our uniforms even more ugly? And why do I still want to buy one? And why, for the love of Ghu, will I be forced to buy a kid's size to get one that fits? Surely there's money to be made in bringing out a women's cut. It's worked for Adidas after all.

Dear French soccer team

I see you are once again showing the kind of sportsmanship that led to the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

For goodness sake. It wasn't right when Maradona did it; it's not right now.

Get your hands off it, in all senses of the term.

No love,

The Cheap Seats.

Pass and Giggle

So now there's a new, faster form of netball called Fastnet.

Hold the phone a second.

I was under the impression that netball was a pretty fast game already -- certainly all the games I've watched, and even the games the Weasel has played, looked pretty damn fast to me.

Also, it's long past time the word "Powerplay" was banned from sport. Because, really.

Someone in world netball is being a velocipede. Or wants to be a velocipede. Or thinks netball should be played by velocipedes.

Either way, I'm agin it. And you goddamn kids get off my lawn.

Hold the Phone, They WHAT?

Some idiot with an air rifle has been shooting at riders in the Tour de France.

WTF, over?

If this had happened in a novel, we'd have said it was implausible

I have a story to tell you. Settle in. You might want to get a cup of tea or something else nice and soothing. Gin is a good choice.

After the second test in Wellington, the one the Brat attended, some of the French rugby team went out on the town, as you do.

The next day, Mathieu Bastareaud appeared with stitches in his face and said he'd been attacked by five big brown guys. The police, aghast, started an investigation. Bastareaud went home to France. New Zealanders were horrified that something like this would happen here -- we love our rugby and we are as flag-wavy as the next guys about it (and consider that the next guys are Australia), but it's a bit beyond it to go attacking opposition players.

Now, I thought about posting something when this happened, but had this niggly feeling that there was a bit more to it, so decided to sit on it all for a while.

Fast-forward a few days. Bastareaud goes on holiday to the Caribbean. NZ police keep the investigation going. Then the manager of Bastareaud's club, Stade Francais, went to the media and told them that Bastareaud had told him that he'd lied about being attacked. Yep, that's right -- he lied, so he wouldn't be chucked off the French team for getting really, really pissed, doing a PFO[1] and whacking his head on the bedside table, resulting in the stitches in his face.

So, a person could be forgiven for thinking that's enough WTF for one week, right?

This has turned into a clusterfuck of massive proportions. Rumours are going round France that it wasn't a bedside table Bastareaud hit his head on, but rather a fist belonging to another member of the French rugby team. The whole matter has been referred to the French rugby disciplinary board, and it's going to be interesting to see what comes out of the investigation.

No matter which way it comes out, the person this has been hardest on is Bastareaud himself -- not only did he get injured (even if it's still not clear how), he lied to police in New Zealand about what happened, may be part of a coverup of appalling behaviour on other players' parts, and is currently in a psychiatric ward after apparently cracking up under the strain and attempting suicide.

The poor bastard. I genuinely wish him well and hope he feels better soon -- this is not a good state for anybody to be in.

But wait, there's more!

For an extra dose of WTF, the French government has apologised for Bastareaud's behaviour. Which is cool. Unutterably cool. Seriously, seriously cool. And marks a sea-change in the way the French government treats appalling acts of awfulness committed by its citizens in other countries.

See, I am old enough to remember the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, for which the French government has not yet apologised.

I'm sure there's more to come out of this whole sorry mess. Let's hope it includes Bastareaud's full recovery. Even if his international rugby career is effectively over, he does deserve that.

[1] Pissed, Fall Over

Game of two halves and fail continues to win

*cue music* I've got a theory...

As to why the All Blacks have been playing so dismally. (Aside from the fact the Hurricanes broke half the best players, whoops, our bad) And that theory is something that is missing from the pre-match routine, administered by the captain, Richie McCaw.

Pre-match spankings.

No, no hear me out. If you were being told, by Richie McCaw, that he'll spank you if you drop the ball all the damn time, you wouldn't drop the ball. Unless you like that sort of thing. Then all he would have to do is threaten to put a stop to the spankings. Voila, the AB's suck less.

(Im not saying which spanking group I fall into. Its embarrassing.)

I have seen the future, and it is now!

I have seen the greatest spectator sport EVAR.

That sport is contortionist archery.

No shit. These women pull the bows with their toes, shooting arrows at targets.

Like this...
So - Hot women, leotards, strange positions, deadly weaponry.

What else could match that? This sport has everything.

Le sigh

Well, it was a game of two halves and Fail was the winner on the day.

I didn't cry, impressively enough. Mostly because I had the entire game to get used to the fact we were going to lose.

Cos, y'know, We sucked.

Okay, so did the referee. Hard. And in the second half, so did France, a bit.

But we couldn't hold onto the ball, and in the first half, the French got every turnover that was going and several that weren't. They played the referee better than we did, and also actually seemed to know what the rules were.

So, basically, the French deserved to win.

They are also FUCKING HUGE O M G!!! I don't know quite what they eat in France, but those boys have certainly been eating a lot of it. This means that when they tackle something, it stays tackled. Which was something we didn't manage, which meant they scored, a lot.

Really, I don't know if we will be able to pull it back in just a week. Our second half was certainly better than our first, thanks to Graham Henry gave the boys a kick up the jacksie so hard they'll be tasting dubbin for days, but our inability to gel will probably take a bit longer to fix.

And you know whats even worse? I think they're better looking than we are... In a Eurotrash kind of way, of course.


Edit because a performance as bad as this one does not deserve it's own post,

Dear Slack Caps,

RE: Your Batting.

WHAT THE FUCK?

Why did you bat first at all? Why keep sweeping? How the fuck did you manage to get all out?

99... bloody hell.

No love for at least three days,
Brat.

P.S Highlight of the match - Brendon McCullum taking out Marty Guptill. Honestly if the All Blacks had tackled like that they might have won.

And yes, Coney has proved me right. He's just come out with this gem "Connell is from the same area of New Zealand as Ewan Chatfield - steady, dutiful horse that he was."

Seriously. Why is this man constantly comparing other cricketers to things you ride?

And I've been told I'm not allowed to say awful things about Jesse Ryder's groin infection. So share your best joke with me!

What a Parbola!

I thought Sky, quite rightly, stopped giving Jeremy Coney a platform from which to say stupid things?

Wonder if he'll be calling Brendon McCullum a velocipede again. Cos how does Coney know that Baz is the team bike?

Why does my predictive text have 'fielding' but not 'field'?

So, we've got some cricket back, and the real rugby is just about to start - And I'm mostly wondering why they all have one season, but there you go.

The All Blacks are failing already this season - Richard Kahui is broken and with Dan Carter and Richie McCaw out we are not sure who will be bringing the sexy back for the AB's this year. Lets hope we find someone, or the Springboks will take out the tri-nations pretty award.

And I would like it put on record that we have to stuff the French in no uncertain terms or I will cry.

Annnnnnnd, onto the cricket - and for your daily installment of WHAT THE FUCK? England lost the opening match. Against the Dutch. Yes, I did a double take too. There are only four professional cricketers in that team, and the English have squizillions at their disposal. I dont know what happened, so would someone like to fill me in?

NZ play Scotland tonight, and if we don't win, I suggest all test-playing nations should pack in this twenty20 bullshit and go play tests, lest we all be deeply embarrassed.

And from the "Are we sure they werent playing cricket?" files, The New Zealand juniors rugby side beat Uruguay 75-0. Hat-trick hero was one (cleanly shaven) Zac Gilford. Yay.

Annnnnd lastly, the Cheap Seats would like to bid a not-especially-fond farewell to Andrew Symonds, who after further behaving like a drunken monkey has been sent home with his contract in tatters. After what he (drunkenly) said about our Brendon McCullum on the radio, I can't say we're sad to see him go. Well, I could, but it would be a lie.
Jesse, this is what happens when you don't get a clue. We're kinda glad to see you getting a clue, really.

Oh my

Go and read this weeks's Field Theory blog entry over at Public Address.

No more need be said, really, does it?

Things that amuse me. (aside from the phrase "cheese on a stick")

1. The Blues. Man, they suck. They got beat something like a zillion to half a zillion by the Chiefs. The game was a bit pants, but good in a watching-on-prime-on-sunday-avo kind of way.

2. Team Kiwi. Not just cos theyre racing V8's. But cos theyre doing it in a hire car.

3. The Warriors. What's this winning all about then? And has Stacey Jones actually aged at all in the time he's been away from the game, or has he found the same fountain of youth that the Briscoes lady has been drinking from?

4. The Slack Caps. They suck worse than the Blues. And Iain O'Brien seems to have fallen off the curry wagon. (seriously, thats all he seems to eat. Maybe he's pandering to the eleventy billion Indian commenters that seem to have shown up on his blog.)

5. Bernie Ecclestone. No Bern, no one likes your "winner take all" competition format. Not even your mum.

5. The Red Bull f1 teams and their current game of "collect the Sebastien's" Of their four drivers, three are named Seb.

6. The Cheetahs. Whom I even let get out of Dunedin without stalking them. Arent we all proud?

A rose by any other name...

So, now is the time we can start wheeling out all the old names for the black caps. And what time is this, you ask? 51 for 5, thats what the time is.

So, whats it to be? The Slack Caps? The Black Cats? The Door Mats?

On the other hand, Yay, Chris Martin is back! We missed him, at least we know he cant bat.

And, because no one else seems to care... Well Done White Ferns! Theyre a shoe-in for the World Cup final, beating the Indian women in the semi's.

Like fruit salad, here's some of everything.

First of all, my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who was affected by the terror attacks in Lahore a few hours ago. It is reassuring to hear that the players are all out safely.

Okay, I'm back.

I have a room with no furniture, and it appears I also can has autumn. I miss summer already. The Cheap Seats have a hub, but no bar, thanks to the demise of the grand and glorious Bowler (Which Madame and I sent off in style...)

The twenty20's have been rife, with the Black caps making up for the utter fail of their run chase in Sydney by stuttering their way to two victories.
Brendon McCullum was amazing, despite not going for the gigantic fucking slog everyone seemed to think he had to carry out. Instead he, gasp, steered both our inning's in a fashion that was both entertaining and intelligent. If he keeps that up I might have to stop considering twenty20 the red-haired stepchild of real cricket.

Now, it should be noted that these games were played in February, which is still (though not in Dunedin) late summer. On the first day of Autumn there was another twenty20 game. Madame Backslash has already discussed the rain which ruined that one. The efforts of the ground staff were herculean, the Canterbury boys stealing Aaron Redmond's rugby ball was highlarious but watching Otago win by default... Uninspiring.

And just to top it off for the first ODI it is raining. In Napier. Napier is the place I gave myself first degree sunburns. It never rains in Napier. At least not in summer.

Although as I wrote this post I got to watch a replay of the game that I gave myself such horrible sunburn at, last time India played in Napier. I even wrote about it in my diary. The entry was emo, but that game was a good one.

And now for another episode of, The More You Know... *cue theme music*

They actually played CricketMAX internationals! (for those of you who don't know, if twenty20 is the red-haired stepchild of real cricket, then cricketMAX was the partial-birth abortion. It was like a forty over test match, one side batted ten overs, then the other, then the first side again, and the second. There was also the opportunity to get extra runs by hitting the ball into certain areas of the ground. It was terrible, and also entirely Martin Crowe's fault.) But apparently they played six international cricketMAX games, the last of which was NZ vs India in 2002. I got to watch the replay, and it was just as awful as I remember.
Note - 20 year old Brendon McCullum did in that game exactly what he did in the recent twenty20's. The boy has always been a class act.

As a nice slide from cricket to rugby, the Otago Highlanders came to play cricket against some students at Otago Uni today. They were good at batting, good at bowling but shit at catching. Which may go some way to explaining their current position on the Super 14 ladder. Jimmy Cowan especially seemed afraid of the ball. Which was yellow. And plastic.

Actually, given how bad the kiwi teams have been performing I don't think I'll talk about rugby, except to say that the Highlanders playing against the Crusaders as the warm up act for Shihad is O for Oarsome.
Oh, and big ups to the Hurricanes for beating the Crusaders. I'm going to be rubbing it in to Madame backslash for, oh, at least the next six months.

Wow... Long update is long.