Tuesday, 21 May 2013

The Dating Game

Hello. The last time I did a blog it was about running. This time I'm going to write about a date I went on recently. This is because I now work in marketing and it's become abundantly clear that Tedious Clown is in dire need of a re-brand. All Market Research suggests making up a load of shit about alien list shows and being from the 90s is right out. Writing lifestyle blogs about being physically fit and kissing girls is very much in.

“The New Black” is how one prominent marketer (Piers Wad o' Cash) phrased it, over and over again until his boss had to tell him to stop because it was starting to sound racist.

So say goodbye to satirical whimsy and welcome to the relaunch of Tedious Clown as a cool fashionable lifestyle magazine about real things like dating and keeping fit and recipes.
 
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I arranged to go out with someone on a dating website for cool and sexy people because I'd finished the Deadwood box set and what else is there to do? 

It became apparent as I rocked up at the Bar & Grill where we'd agreed to meet however that she was dramatically out of my league. To continue the sports analogy it was like she was Spurs and I was a team of overweight asthmatic children with severe confidence issues and only a basic understanding of the rules of football.

 
This was a problem. In real football the FA simply would not sanction a match like that, even if it was just a pre season friendly.

The logistics of arranging such an event alone would be a nightmare. For example the team of fat, wheezing children would have to get permission slips signed by their parents to travel to North London. Alternatively the Tottenham Hotspur squad would have to be signed in one by one at reception by Mrs Jarman and I just can't see Emmanuel Adebayor being arsed with all that.

The Football Association would probably also question the validity of Burton Junior School's credentials as a team. Clubs will often be fined for fielding an illegible player so an entire first 11 and substitutes bench consisting of young children not old enough to pay full bus fare, let alone sign professional contracts would be problematic.

I think the validity of the contest would also be called into question. If Spurs decided to go easy on the team of children they would be susceptible to accusations of match fixing, so would have to really go for it, and even given the free flowing nature of Andre Villas Boas managerial style, the physical contest would be one sided at best.


Jermain Defoe not relishing the task at hand
Although quite popular and often on billboards advertising sportswear, I think public opinion may turn against Gareth Bale when footage came out of him brutally but fairly charging down young Ian Stevens from class 5b, who has confidence issues as it is, whose home life isn't ideal and who doesn't need a 23 year old Welshman shoulder barging him into the corner flag.

I dare say Sky Sports would have their say too, having already signed the contracts giving them exclusive rights to Tottenham Hotspur's pre season friendlies, they'd have no choice but to broadcast the farcical spectacle of high earning professionals battering the fuck out of schoolchildren in an event that would probably be described by one pundit as “less of a football match, more of a deleted scene from Saving Private Ryan.”


James Dale, holding midfielder. Inferior to highly paid professionals

There’s a chance that the Spurs players, overcome with guilt and a feeling of self consciousness, would decline to participate, therefore refusing to play a game and bringing the entire sport into disrepute, as if it wasn't already in danger of that due to the farcical exhibition match taking place.

The spectator facilities at Burton Junior School fall well short of Premier League standards and the 2,000 travelling away supporters would also have to be signed in one by one and that frankly just isn't fair on Mrs Jarman. The game couldn't be played at the Spurs ground as Burton Junior's goalie wouldn't even be able to reach the cross bar of a full sized goal.

Plus the refereeing standards of Ms Owen the games teacher are negligible and 5 year olds start crying when a fully grown professional referee books them for time wasting


Plus Timmy Francis is off games because of an infected verruca and without him the whole diamond formation in the midfield set up falls apart.

Plus Defoe is still nursing an ankle injury and probably doesn't want to exacerbate it by playing in a poorly organised, ill thought out match of inter generational soccer, on a school field that is well maintained by the standards of comprehensive schools but a sham by the standards of White Hart Lane and thinks the whole thing is an appalling joke and should never have been arranged as an analogy for the mismatch in appearance of two 20 somethings on a date organised on a single's website that doesn't even charge subscription.


Anyway the date went badly.

Recipes next week.



David Gilbert, 2007-2013.

Face kicked off by Aaron Lennon.*
















 
*Since this match took place in my imagination I feel I should point out this real child is probably alive and well and there is no evidence that the model professional Aaron Lennon would ever kick a child's face off, even if his team were losing 2-1.
 
 

Friday, 10 May 2013

Running Towards Your Problems


I recently took up running after googling how many chins the average adult male is supposed to have and realising that, even including neck amputees, I was well over my quota. So I decided to take up running as it is free. All you need is some floor and there’s loads of that. Just look at America. Can't move for floor.

I decided I wasn't a serious enough athlete to justify buying all the official running paraphernalia like latex shoes, breathable leg sheaths, jock strap, running scarf and those special trainers with flashing lights on the side so everyone knows you are a serious runner. I just decided to go with a pair of swimming shorts with the netting cut out, some running trainers I'd found in a ditch on a boy and an XXL football t shirt that was in a sale at 75% off because the team in question had just been relegated and they couldn't give them away. Well they could give them away they just couldn't sell them at full price. Hence why they were in a sale, but I don't need to explain retail to you do I dear reader.

So I've taken to running around the place all sweaty and heart palpatitiony and it mostly goes okay. People move out of the way and cars sometimes don't speed up when I cross at pedestrian crossings.

But, like every time I try and do something to improve my health and fitness, I end up seeming like a sex offender.

It isn't anyone's fault.

It definitely isn't my fault.

What keeps happening is, as I get about a third of the way around my sixty four mile route (or about three tracks into my running play list, you do the maths) a quite pretty girl emerges from another street a few feet ahead of me. My heart sinks like a pounding, cholesterol coated stone as I realise she is running at almost exactly the same pace. I am no longer Corporal Joggy McSexington of the Fitness Regiment. No I am now a disgusting Benny Hill throw back in a too big football top.

Just spending a lovely summer evening chasing women about the town.

Just having a little chase, what's wrong with that eh?

They can't do you for that mate!

The can't touch you for chasing 'em eh! Lads? Eh!

What?! Come off it love it's my street too! If I want to follow this bird about calling her a frigid lesbian if she doesn't slow down then I will and there's nothing you or Emmeline Pankhurst are going to do about it!


But it's not like that! I'm just a nice boy having a lovely jog!


And sometimes the pretty girl looks round and catches my eye and I just feel terrible that, even inadvertently, I may have made another human being uncomfortable. Whenever this happens I am presented with a choice:

OPTION 1)
Stick to my guns and carry on at my normal pace on my normal route and risk, at best social awkwardness and at worst a lengthy prison sentence.

OPTION 2)
Slow down, and remain overweight forever.

OPTION 3)
Speed up and overtake, which comes with it's own set of problems. Most notably when the pretty girl turns round and sees I have apparently found the reserves of energy necessary to launch into my wooing/attack.

OPTION 4)
Do what I usually do when I find myself in an awkward situation with a pretty girl. Turn and run in the opposite direction.


It's dilemmas like this that have caused an obesity epidemic in this country. SORT IT OUT BLAIR.