The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living - Part 8: Sporting Annoyances and How to Survive Them

Football! Football!! Foootballlll!!! Inguhlannnd! Inguhlannnd!

Translation: 'Oh my, the football is on the television once again. I do hope England manages to succeed in its endeavours this time around.'

Then again, if you're me, you couldn't give two flying monkeys, and if you ever did attempt to utter the aforementioned two sentences, you would of course be speaking ironically.

Nevertheless, summer has arrived; and what does summer mean? The chance to finally settle once and for all the argument as to which nation is undoubtedly the best at arranging a group of eleven men, seeing if they can run around a field kicking a ball, and paying them far too much money for doing relatively nothing.

Ah well, we can't really complain, can we? If any of us don't like the so-called 'Beautiful Game' we can always lie low and wait for it to blow over, can't we? Wait. What? The Olympics are coming immediately afterwards? Hmmm... Excuse me for a moment.

Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu-

Better.

Yes, that's exactly what this time of year means to us. Sport, sport and more bloody sport. On that note, therefore, I feel it would be appropriate to abandon my previous idea for the current instalment of The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living (holidays) into something a large number of us do, amazing, wish to avoid; and so, it is with slight pleasure and great annoyance that I bring you...

The Pessimist's Guide to Surviving Sport.

Firstly, it is important to be able to recognise when the media is oversaturating our lives with sport coverage. Summer is a time for relaxation, seeing those you have not seen for a while, holidays, barbecues and, if you're a student, looking at your steadily accumulating reading lists and thinking dark, depressing thoughts. Fortunately, you can always escape with a bit of television.

Or can you?

No. No, you can't.

Sorry.

If annoying adverts get on your tits, then unless you're a die-hard fan of the sporting world you're going to feel very left out indeed. You know the situation is indeed dire when you start to realise slowly that all your favourite shows are being cancelled and replaced with the EFFING UEFA (WHICH, INCIDENTALLY, IS NOT EVEN A WORD) CUP THINGY or, if not altogether replaced, put back further and further due to what I believe is referred to as 'extra time'. All I can assume is that the network executives assume everyone would rather watch football. Well, in fact, some of us don't. If I want to see a group of men running around on some grass chasing something for my entertainment, I would put a pretzel on the back of a remote-controlled car, sit back, point the pretzel out to Simon Birkmyre, Shaun Beale and Alex White individually, and then start driving the car around and watch them chase it. Yes, it could become an all-out death match, but it would be far more entertaining and take far less time than football coverage - and far more amusing, I need not add.

Instead of this new social activity I have just invented in my mind (and which has already provided me with much amusement, I have to say), I am forced to watch the shows of yesteryear. I have currently taken to watching something I actually missed from the nineties - Joss Whedon's cult classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I first encountered when we were forced to watch it for the American Gothic module at university, and I will always remember watching my first Buffy episode, 'Hush', with Kat Darlington, Alex White, Adam Carter and Sarah Butcher, and the way we laughed over how the episode's villains, the Gentlemen, somewhat strangely resemble Simon Birkmyre and Shaun Beale:

See the resemblance? You will. And what has been seen cannot be unseen...

Trust me, Alex: it's a GOOD thing you are erroneous to my purposes in this photo

Now, this show I have just got into is, I must point out, is far, far more entertaining than sport. Each episode is different, its not nearly as camp as my prejudices told me it would be, is well-written and features something different each episode. Unfortunately, football, tennis, whatever it may be, is just not the same as good old-fashioned epic TV fiction. Each game is the same, no matter what ball sport it seems to be: each 'episode', as I shall call them, features a ball moving back and forth, back and forth, like a strange, twisted, overpaid Newton's Cradle. But, whatever you enjoy watching, rest assured it will be removed for sport, which is just downright irritating - there's a reason Sky Sports was invented, after all. I for one can't understand where the assumption that we all love sport comes from, and I shall endeavour to highlight this point with three clear points. For example, would you rather see this:

One's a witch;
One's... the best friend of a witch;
One's a slayer;
One's a watcher;
One's a bitch you can't help but like.

 Or this?:

They're all the same. They can kick a ball. Actually the middle guy can regrow his lost hair. Magic.

The big yellow flash behind them doesn't remove the fact they look like schoolboys who have just seen an ice cream van.

Now one for the hormonal, pre-pubescent boys: would you rather see this:

Wahhhheyyyyyyy!!!

Or this?:

Wahhh - hang on. Is that a kiss or not? It's like a half-kiss.
We need more commitment from these guys.

And, finally, would you rather see something where the boss man looks like this:

Me in the future? Quite possibly.

Or like an owl?:

Anyway, whichever way you swing in your sports mentality, I think my argument works pretty well.

Secondly, we should always be able to mock those who are 'foorball or insert other appropriate sport here fans'. Yes, I mean these guys:

This is slightly sexist. I know girls like him too.

Or, appropriately, this guy:

Don't look at the dog. He, like Alex White, is erroneous to my purposes here.

Still, you can't help but think where you've seen these images before...

Homer Simpson. Look in the mirror, you. Yes, you.
It's you.
Ha Ha!

The fact is, if you make a big thing about watching every match on TV, you're one of two kinds of people: either, you can't afford to actually GO to a match, so you have to sit in your own home so close to the TV that you are able to pretend you're out; or, you have no friends.

Sorry, I know that's not true. But this is primarily an 'insult everybody' site.

To me, sport fanatics are like Jehovah's Witnesses. Your life choice is fine. Just don't talk to me or come within a mile of my home.

Thirdly and, indeed, I feel, most importantly, you must be able to mock those who partake in the act of being paid by the shiteload for playing a game. And so, I feel obliged to ask if you've SEEN WAYNE ROONEY'S HAIR SINCE THE TRANSPLANT?!

IT LOOKS LIKE HIS FACE IS BEING STRETCHED UPWARDS!

Annnnnd rest.

But, of course, it would be unfair of me to make this whole article entirely about football. I loathe the olympics even more.

Of course, there has been a law passed against improper use of the olympic logo. I'm not sure what 'improper' means, but I assume it has something to do with saying it looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob to the numbers 2 and 1. Which it does.

Poor Lisa. Bad parenting will take you to some dark places.

But, whether its logo is dodgy and slightly paedophilic, it cannot be avoided that sport in all forms is here to stay. But, just so you know there are alternative's if you're at a loss for what to do, here is a list of things that are better than sport:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Angel
3. Doctor Who
4. Would I Lie to You?
5. Have I Got News for You
6. QI
7. Mock the Week
8. Stephen Fry's voice
9. All William Shakespeare's work (except the drivel that is Antony and Cleopatra - the scholars may think Titus Andronicus is crap, but there's nothing good in this 'great' play at all)
10. P. G. Wodehouse
11. Geoffrey Chaucer's beard
12. Family Guy
13. Urinating
14. Being urinated on
15. Staples
16. Staples (as in the shop)
17. Paperclips
18. Greggs
19. Tuna
20. Simon Birkmyre's ever-evolving hairstyle
21. Simon Cowell's trousers
22. Kat Darlington's hair
23. Harriet Baker's voice
24. Shaun Beale's poetry
25. Alex White's ears
26. Celebrating a little internal win after accurately translating Middle English
27. Winchester
28. Solihull
29. Andover (or so I hear)
30. Sailing
31. Swimming
32. Drowning
33. The Simpsons
34. Yoshi
35. George Orwell
36. Brave New World
37. Christopher Marlowe's fingernails
38. Japanese tourists
39. The casual racism of the elderly
40. Receiving an enema from a guy you met in an alley called Barry who claims to require money to feed his starving family but who later reveals he just likes sticking tubes in people's orifices
41. Prawn cocktail flavoured crisps
42. Kids who point out the word 'cock' in 'prawn cocktail', clearly believing you hadn't noticed it
43. People who pretend not to notice the word 'cock' in 'prawn cocktail'
44. Jesus Christ
45. Judas Iscariot
46. David Cameron's parenting skills
47. The Daily Mail
48. Piers Morgan's nose
49. Chris Evans' hyperactivity
50. Garden peas

So, whether you hate sport as much as me or whether you like it, its important to remember that it will never go away, and that we will never finally settle which nation is the best at it... so we might as well not bother. If we could go outside and do anything that doesn't involve a ball, let's do it, regardless of how cloudy it is! It has to be better than staying in all summer long with the TV and the morons shouting their irritating chants down the microphones of poor, unsuspecting reporters.

And a word to the wise: don't tickle her bum with a lumb of celery. It doesn't work. If 'she don't come', you're doing it wrong, lad. And where do you have to go to get a 'lump of celery', anyway? I mean, really, you normally get celery in sticks (which... and I don't mean to be inappropriate... would do the job far better than a lump of the stuff...)

ANNNNYWAYYY...

Peace out. I'm going to go and do a spot of t'ai chi.

William D. Green

William D. Green would like to apologise to any sport lover he has offended during the course of this article. He isn't sincere in his apology, but he'd like to say sorry anyway.