11/10/2007

And he can't pronounce Kurt Warner...

As I settled down to enjoy a rare evening of American sport being broadcast at a reasonable hour, I found myself slightly shocked.

Firstly, Mark Webster, for a man anchoring the biggest event in British basketball this millennium, looked much akin to a man dragged through a bush. Backwards.

Now, as a proud sporter of poorly contrived facial fuzz on many occasions I sympathise. But honestly, when your beard is that grey, that patchy, that generally shambolic and national TV is involved, really, its time to break out Mr Razor...

Still reeling from the shocking state of anchorage, we turned to the pundits, perched, as they stylishly were, on kitchen stools behind a festival security barrier... "Ah-ha" I foolishly thought, "surely the colour commentary will offer us some balance!"

First up was the deliciously alliterative Andre Allyne, who is so important that THIS wonderfully crafted web-page is the only piece of useful information Google threw up on him. I believe he is probably the coach of the London Towers, but who knows.

Andre was not alone however and perched precariously next to him was none other than DJ Jazzy Jeff! He looks much the same as the last time we all saw him, albeit minus his one time "home-boy".

Now in fairness to both these men the analysis was decent enough, and the chit-chat fairly enjoyable, but what gets me is... why them!?

With Jeff, I wonder why, asides from a tendency to "boom shake shake shake the room" in the Summertime, and being a big 76ers fan, why on earth should we pay any attention to his opinion? He didn't even get thrown out of a mansion by James Avery. Not once.

And as for Andre, a man without even a Wikipedia page to his name, is he really the only British basketball personality who was free? There are not one, but two British-born active NBA players tearing up the court at the moment, and yet they were hardly even mentioned! And while they are probably busy with pre-season, surely John Amaechi could take some time out from being hated by Tim Hardaway to give a night of his broadcasting skills?

Truth be told, it was a decent game and a good showcase for the sport but in my opinion, five seriously lacked the balls to get behind the event.

No studio, no personalities, broadcasting on fiveUS when there was nothing but the usual garbage on the big channel is just lame. Hella-lame in fact. Combine the general lack of substance with the fact that the on-screen scoreboard kept appearing and disappearing at random and that points were added to teams totals apparently whenever the chap operating it came back from his fag break, it was a shambles.

The error was compounded by cringeworthy "chance" interviews with celebrities who wanted to watch the game not be harassed ("Oh look! Its Didier Drogba... and Lewis Hamilton.. and Nigel Reo-Coker... and Rio's rubbish little brother... and that cunt from Blue..."). Really, was this the best they could do? Or was it just that they really wanted to pull in the young black male audience by saying "oh look your heroes think this is cool... so should you"?

Either way, what a missed opportunity for Channel 5 to show that they aren't just the joke commercial station that's gone and stolen Neighbours, and what a relief that Sky have got the NFL and are doing a stellar job of promoting it. Now that's what I'm talking about.

02/10/2007

Intros, copies and bloody oval balls...

So, I'm kind of wishing that I had refrained from sitting down with the rugby on Saturday, thereby saving myself an awful lot of cursing, shouting, smoking and ultimately heartache... Such is the life of a Welsh rugby fan...

But on the bright side I plan to take my devastation and channel it into my piece in next week' s Alt:Cardiff relating to the role of sport on the development of culture and identity in Cardiff. I'll try and keep the wailing to a minimum.

Keeping it on a sports theme, Neath are undefeated in the league, the Ospreys actually won a game and the Bucs are 3-1 and top of the NFC South, talk about unexpected! On the downside, losing the Cadillac is a huge blow, our running game will suffer without him :(

Away from the sports, things have been a bit more involved this week, shorthand still scares the crap outta me, but small nuggets of stuff actually seem to be sticking in my brain by some miracle.

The Magazine stuff has been ok, kinda got a bit fed up with writing intros on Monday, but then, I was shit at it so I guess i needed the practice. Still, it was nice to do something different today, and especially good to have a production meeting for Alt:Cardiff, feels like we're actually doing something creative now.

Also, I got the email today saying that I had won that one in a million lottery to get hold of Led Zeppelin tickets and lo and behold... i have no money... anyone wanna lend me £125?