26th March 2007
Hi all,
Back in 1993 some rather daft letters to newspapers were going around between some friends of mine. Needless to say none of these letters were being signed by the person who sent them. It ended up getting to the point where one friend's father called a newspaper to say that a letter wasn't from his son, just so that it wouldn't be published.
This is where I came in, producing a publication which no-one's parents would be likely to read, or at the very least struggle to report an issue to. And so we sent a letter to Autosport, full of over-the-top praise of BBC Formula 1 analyst James Hunt. Just to wind up anyone reading we even agreed with Hunt's witch-hunting criticism of Riccardo Patrese. The letter was published, we had a good laugh, and it all came to end two weeks later when another reader replied and incorrectly named one of my friends as Richard.
Well, we thought that was the end of it. Six weeks later, James Hunt died of a heart attack.
Fast-forward fourteen years. St. Patrick's Day, Ireland beat Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup to knock the 1992 World Champions out of the competition. Myself and a friend who remember the tournament and Imran Khan's permanently smug demeanour start to exchange text messages:
Me: "Imran, Imran what's the score?"
Friend: "Imran Khan? Give him a Guinness. He needs the bottle top."
Me: "ROFL. I bet Jamaican publicans are gutted about the result."
Friend: "Ireland in the QFs. It defies belief. It really does. (Alan Parry, June 1990)."
Friend (again): "Pakistan: They might be out... And are!"
Less than twenty-four hours later it was reported that Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was dead. Later on in the week Jamaican police reported that he was murdered. Naturally my friend and I both felt appropriately guilty.
So with what I'm now referring to as "The James Hunt Phenomenon" in mind, let's just say that I'm not going to talk about England's 0-0 draw in Israel on Saturday. However if I was going to begin talking about it Steve McClaren and Frank Lampard would probably begin to feel a bit nervous.
(Can I take this opportunity to say that I don't agree with those people who say that the Cricket World Cup should be cancelled. This was a tragedy, but it shouldn't mar the whole competition. And nor do I think that South Africa winning the tournament would be a fitting tribute, as Eleanor Oldroyd suggested on Saturday's edition of Fighting Talk. Reading up on the tournament the general feeling seems to be that everyone hates South Africa. I can't say I'm particularly enthusiastic about the thought of them winning.)
I should actually point out that I only managed to see sporadic moments of the England-Israel game. As per usual, Lorraine had full control of the television and was committed to watching the Dancing On Ice: Champion of Champions Show. Of course it should have just been Dancing On Ice: Two Champions, Some Others and a Smug Ginger, but that's irrelevant. When are people going to realise that no-one likes Bonnie Langford?
If ever a show was screaming out the words "Christmas Special" it was this. Of course ITV being ITV, they decided to show it in March. It all seemed like overkill just a week after the main show's final. Goodness only knows what it was like if you saw the main ITV show, the follow-up ITV2 show, the ITV results show and the ITV2 follow-up results show. Three-quarters of that was bad enough.
Later on in the evening I was fortunate enough to regain control on the television. A quick scroll through the channels led me to the "Most Annoying Pop Songs Ever" on BBC Three. What I didn't know was that I was actually only watching part one (numbers 100 down to 51), and that while a lot of the songs being featured were frighteningly near to my own tastes (at times) plenty of the comments were very funny.
The best comment came just before the end of the show, and was said by a guy called Paul Johnstone who was simply labelled as a "Reynolds Girls Fan". This should have been enough warning that someone proud of this label was likely to be hysterical, but I listened stoically as answered criticism of "I'd Rather Jack" by saying, "These DJs they tend to like Paul Weller, Morrissey, that type of thing. At the end of the day they know that someone like Paul Weller could never write a song as good as 'I'd Rather Jack.'" At this point I became a crying, laughing mess, suddenly looking for the Sky+ remote control to make sure I hadn't imagined it. Rather worryingly, I'm pretty sure he was being serious.
You've probably already guessed what I'll be watching this Saturday night. If there's anything half as funny as that it'll be worthwhile watching.
Have a good week!
Tony
Main Archives
