So, Alex Spencer....
Ladies love him, Gents love him... Hell, even small, furry creatures think he
hung the moon. Alex, unlike me, is an actual journalist. If he ain’t writing,
he’s probably thinking about it. His blog, alex-spencer.co.uk, discusses mainly
videogames and films in a level of detail which leaves mere mortals wondering
what they did to deserve being so desperately poor at writing. This is the
second half of a blog crossover what we done. I’m going to file it in with ‘momentous
life events that nobody else cares about’. It’s a big file. What I’m trying to
say is, MY FRIEND ALEX IS GOOD AT WRITING SO I’M HAPPY THAT HE WANTED TO WRITE
ON MY BLOG.
Considering that I don’t
think much thought went in (certainly on my end), an amazing symmetry has
occurred. I relieved myself on everything that Alex loves (having favourite
things) and now he’s going to take a massive dump on a passion of mine (sport.
Pointless, lovely sport).
At some point last week, I remembered that it was a European
Championship year. It was a mildly exciting moment, especially given the
tedious Olympicmania that has been allegedly sweeping the country for the last
year. This was, though, an anomalous moment in a largely sportsless life.
I just don't really get sport. Cohabiting with sporting
enthusiasts – including the ocherous overlord of this very blog – I've often
marvelled at their enthusiasm. Rising offensively early and pulling
all-nighters to catch sports played on distant parts of the globe, entire
weekends given over to worship of 22 men kicking an inflatable sphere.
The phenomenon has long puzzled me, but as my dad sat in my
living room yesterday morning and translated an F1 race for me, I've come
finally to this simple conclusion: I just can't read.
In my brief dalliances in teaching English Literature, trying
to convince a room of teenagers to pick subtext and meaning out of the literary
devices in poems older than the town they lived in, I often found myself
butting up against the same argument. Yeah, sir, but what if he just wanted
to do it like that? It's a conversation I've found myself in endlessly in
my life as an arts student, journalist, and all round massive ponce. Aren't
you just overthinking it a bit? When it comes to sport, oh, how those
tables are turned.
Apparently, there's a whole language in the preparations,
decisions and movements of these sportspeople – I just can't read it.
With sufficient amounts of lager, I can enjoy the occasional
90-minute stint of foot-to-ball watching, but I don't really understand what's
going on between each goal. The way fans of a sports can move from the
microscopic to the universal, finding meaning in the tiniest of movements
before applying it to the tectonic shifts of entire leagues, just isn't
something I'm capable of.
Really, it's the same skillset, of finding meaning which may
or may not be there, that I am lucky enough to be able to apply to literature,
music, and videogames. You can't be good at everything.
And though the bilingual bastards who can interpret both
culture and sports – like our gracious, copper-haired host – are to be admired
and feared, it's a though I find comfort in. Occasionally, I've found others'
mania for sport frustrating, and wished it would just go away. But knowing that
it's just another discipline I'm not talented at, the same way I can't analyse
ballet or politics, or speak Mandarin, that all seems rather silly.
So from now on, I'll happily sit down with an enthusiastic
friend and watch their sport of choice, knowing they're engaging in the sacred
act of pattern-spotting, picking out a narrative in the complex mess of stuff
going on, that has has given birth to millennia of culture, discovery, and religion.
But, if it's all the same, I'll just watch for the beer and
the crashes.
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