Death of the Flawed Genius

The Death of the Flawed Genius

Snooker again? You bet. It only gets two weeks a year.

Snooker’s winner was one of a disappearing trend of sportsman. Ronnie O’Sullivan. The archetypal flawed genius. Won it three times, should have done so every single year since he competed. His is a swaggering array of marvelous skills, and when Ronnie hits a rhythm he brings out the full meaning of being ‘in the zone.’ But Ronnie’s on the edge, plagued by twists of his mind Clearly he hates and loves the game. Thrives from the pressure, and simultaneously strangled by it. And of all games its snooker he plays, as fidgety and maddening a sport as they come. Champions like Ronnie are irresistible. They are outrageously far ahead of anyone else in their sport (and so beautiful to watch when they’ve hit the zone), but with inner contortions that may provoke implosion at any time. It’s a banker in sporting entertainment.

The point is that the flawed genius is going out of sport. The money-boosted business of sport today, and its highly sensitive coverage by the media, are manufacturing players with shields around their brains. They know what to say, what message to convey. They know every trick to stave off the mental demons and the questions. Look at Woods, Federer, Hamilton, and the entire cast of football stars. No shortage of pure sporting entertainment, that’s actually getting better. But much less of the inner struggles (at least overtly) that can make sport so compelling.

Ronnie didn’t falter here. If you caught him in spells, it was sparkling. And he surprised everyone with safety play that was just as much a display of his mastery control of the balls as his silky breaks. But there is surely more to come from the Rocket, a few more catapulting failures in between some genius.


FOOTY:

Very odd what happened when Lampard scored the penalty which knocked my Liverpool out of the Champions League last week. As the empty nothingness began seeping in, I was in fact completely taken away from the disaster. Lampard was surrounded by Chelsea players and he suddenly lost all his capacity to celebrate and needed his teammates to keep him on his feet. Dare I say it, to hold him. His mother’s death was now upon him most weightily. And it was fascinating to see it all transfused through football and the apparent triviality of a penalty. It was extraordinary that this should have seized me momentarily from the gloom of critical defeat. That came later, in spades.

Furthers

Hugo wanted my views on Spurs. About 4-0 I’d say on Sunday. Torres hatrick and a Carragher goal scuffled over the line. Allright?

Alex Bank promised some mean critique of my blog with some fancy words. Where is it?

West Ham were rolled over, like I said. Now for Wigan to prove me wrong. Please, please Wigan.

Faith in the Old Game

Faith in the Old Game

I’ve already seen a lot of hard thinking, long delay, circumspection. A lot of brain-splitting concentration, meticulous plotting, and procrastination. And the snooker’s only just ebbing through the second round. I’m rubbing my hands together. Events in this sport unfold with thrilling agony, after a long sequence of phases which lay the skills of the contenders bare for its lucky audience to see. It’s no quick exchange and ‘lets see who gets the better of it.’ Not snooker. Its more like; ‘we’ll run each other through the mill so that every last drop of our ability is wringed out across glorious patterns of play. Then we’ll see who is standing.’ Let it all hang out. Thank goodness they’ve kept faith in the old game.

Snooker shares with Test cricket this unforgiving exploration of a participant’s skill, granted by the precious possibility of time. And it is an ingredient that makes them one of sport’s most fascinating offerings. But cricket is awash with Twenty20 and the Indian Premier League. It has bowed it’s head to the need for speed, and this threatens to distance cricket from its green-baized cousin. If Twenty20 were to happen to snooker, we’d be seeing women seductively creeping around the table, baying crowds, thrashing music to greet each pot, and players in twinkling gold outfits rushing through five minute shoot-outs. Steve Davis would surely have to retire.

This is happening to cricket. Of course the sport has made room for a successful, well-developed shorter form of the game. And Twenty20 has merit, not least as a fun variation, and a provider of subtle skills valuable in all forms of the game. But, with an avalanche of money, it’s now threatening to overhaul cricket’s original and most delicious recipe – five day matches, outstanding for all the reasons named above. The calendar has already been restricted to the absurdity of the two-Test match series, as is the case with England and India later this year. What can be resolved in two tests? What can be done in twenty overs? Of what value is a potting shoot-out? Nothing of consequence!

Cricket must not forget the critical aspect of it’s infectious appeal, and lets say it loudly: longevity. (For now at least) snooker stands up as a proud example of keeping the faith. Cue the 38-frame epic.

FOOTY:

People have been telling me they don’t mind Gary Neville anymore (admittedly a player easier to stand when he’s not playing, though the thought of a comeback is chilling), that Roy Keane deserves only praise for what he has done for Sunderland, and that all one can do with United this season is admire them. But for those who are daring to hope that this ghastly yet gracious team can be denied the title, you’ll have worked out that it boils down to a whole series of results which must go in Chelsea’s favour.

Expect nothing but a drubbing for the listless Hammers on Saturday. But elsewhere the plot thickens. United’s last game, the only potential point-dropper, is Wigan away. However, Wigan must have the long hand of relegation is clutching at them if they are to be armed with the only tool that can beat United: desire.

A win at Villa Park this weekend means they are safe. Villa may well beat Wigan, but three other results must go Chelsea’s way (as it were): Bolton must win or draw at home to Sunderland, Birmingham must win at Fulham, Reading likewise when they play Spurs at the Madjeski , and Bolton must win or draw at home to Sunderland. Meanwhile Chelsea will have to silence Keegan-crazy St James Park.
All possibilities. As a sequence of results, very unlikely. But if light does shine upon such a delightful alignment, if Wigan do eventually hold those bastards, and if Chelsea beat Bolton on the last day of the season; then let it not be forgotton what a marvelous occurrence of shifting patterns would have made it so. But most of you have gone soft on Fergurson, and sadly you probably don’t care a jot.

A Return to Paradise (for Exberliner Magazine)

Ever since Adam and Eve bit into the apple, looked down and gasped at their naked bits, man has shied away from nudity and sought forever to cover himself in garments. Without clothes he feels somewhat embarrassed, as if exposing something that would give himself away to others. Long has this characteristic woven itself into Western society, so often crossing paths with sexuality. But somewhere along the way, man, or Finnish man at least, dug up the notion of the sauna. And while today there are many social channels promoting a fearless sort of nudity (Germany certainly isn’t short of them), none seems to do it with quite such whole-hearted abandon as the sauna. Its almost like we’ve found a return to paradise, albeit temporary.

This allusion to an idyllic place is hardly one that strikes the anxious sauna first-timer. The prospect of complete nudity, everything told, in front of strangers who may well be the opposite sex can be alarming. Most of all, the mind cannot separate the sauna from sex. A foggy blur of sweaty bums, breasts and penises spring up and stand like blockades to objective judgment. I twitched every time my girlfriend set the idea upon me. ‘But what if…’

And then I was there and all the fog cleared (the steam sauna apart). This was like a fancy dress party. Turn up in normal clothes and you feel completely ridiculous compared to the person smoking a cigarette in the hippo outfit. Here of course, it was absurd to wear any clothes. Nudity was the norm, unremarkable. Bums there were, but these were as common as a pair of jeans on the street. Sexuality was a non-issue. Besides, does the appeal of sex not find its most potent form in the promise of what is hidden rather than the full exposé itself?

Something didn’t seem right. Something that I took for granted everyday, that I did as naturally as I blink and breathe. Ah yes, judgment! Categorising people that you see everyday and fitting them into the banal social pools that before long, becomes reflex. I couldn’t place the guy with long hair and a small tattoo over there on the far bench. Hair, and sometimes a tattoo, are all one has to go on. Long Hair might be a Harley-Davison character. But there was no moustache. Is he a grunge figure then?

This was the sauna guessing game. More pertinent however was the unearthly and refreshing neutrality of it all. It is said that early Finnish traditions saw the sauna as a welcome break to the great gender divide. In work and leisure, man and women had separate roles, but in the sauna everyone rolled up together. Similarly, it seems that some of our social divisions evaporate in the heat of the sauna.

Sure enough, I met Long Hair shortly before we left the place. Here in the changing rooms we underwent a metamorphosis back into society’s labels, namely clothes. And I felt mildly ashamed. Now, getting dressed and covering up all those bits I had never wanted to expose in the first place, there was shame! I was giving myself away to others. I put on a hoodie, so I was a skater-dude presumably. All around me people were doing the same. For the last three hours these people had passed me here and there in the sauna, and I knew them only in their naked guise. Now that they suddenly wore clothes it was strange. Their bums were concealed but they were altogether exposed.

Some of my fellow saunerers turned out in the clothes I had imagined for them. But Long Hair, brandishing a clean-cut suit with a pink shirt underneath, and no sign of a leather outfit, came out of the blue. And then we slid back into the ‘real’ world, where nudity was a virtual sin, where the apple had been bitten.