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.