Murray’s Mint

I don’t know what people want from some people. From the moment Andy Murray appeared onto the tennis scene he has been onto a hiding to nothing. He acts proud of being Scottish and everyone thinks he is being a prick. If he wrapped himself in the Union Flag everyone would claim he was a whore pandering to the English. To be fair to him, he has never been in danger of the latter as he seemingly doesn’t really give a fuck what the media thinks about him. This, of course, is presented by the media as him not giving a shit what the people think. I think the reaction he showed after getting beat in today’s final showed the public support means a lot to him – but he’s a tennis player. Not a rent-a-celeb, he tries to please people by winning tennis games (I am not suggesting this is the sole reason).

Murray’s burden is being Scottish. Tim Henman’s was being posh. Neither are associated heavily with being over-emotional. This gets them criticised. (Let’s ignore the tears for now.)  You might notice something about the British stars who get loved, the ones who wear their hearts on their sleeves: they’re fucking mental and are normally drinking/drugging themselves to death by the time they bow out of sport, and half of them aren’t really as good as we think they are. Gazza is the obvious example. Lots of people my age (+/- 8 years) will have him as their favourite player, certainly as a World class player of his era. He won an FA Cup (contributed nothing to the final other than fucking the next 18 months of his career) and some trophies in Scotland with a now defunct team. SCOTLAND – I have a Scottish League Cup Winner’s medal. Yeah he was brilliant in Italia 90, that’s a fact – but it was merely a glimpse of what he was to throw away. (And, yeah, everyone goes on about Euro 96 and THAT goal. Overrated, it was COLIN HENDRY. It was SCOTLAND.)

My point is that everybody loved the mental bastard but he achieved little, certainly not helped by his mental weakness*. Andy Flintoff: fucking awesome – for a bit. Body falls apart after being on a constant piss-up. Beckham is a bit of an anomaly here – managed to have a top-flight career, be massively popular and not be seen as cold and unemotional. I’m sure it’s a coincidence that he’s really, really attractive.

Regarding Henman and particularly Murray: You know how fucking good they both were/are? Not winning Wimbledon does not make you a loser (as someone at work described Henman the other day). Henman was 4 in the World at one point and was around the top for 4/5 years. There were less than 10 players IN THE WORLDS better than him for half a decade. He didn’t win a Grand Slam in the eras of Pete Sampras and the start of Federer. Loser.

Murray is no better, this is only his fourth Grand Slam final. He has been number 2 in the world. He is currently number 4. While he has been competing, and FAILING to win a major, Roger Federer has redefined ‘being the best one at tennis’ – he is fucking amazing, there was one point in the final where he shaped his body to do a drop shot but the actual shot that came off his racket was a lobbed overhead smash passing shot (I have exagerrated here for comic effect). And then when he took his foot off the gas a bit Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were just ridiculously good. And Murray has beat all of these, no not in a Grand Slam final but he has. What another loser. What a pair of losers him and Henman are – remember the  thirty years before them when British men won grand slam after grand slam? No, me neither.

And they must really love tennis because what they have to put up with for three weeks every summer is fucking mental – and I am not talking about listening to Mark Lawrenson’s punditry on international football coverage. It’s so fucking annoying. People don’t care about tennis, some of them don’t even care about being part of something. Well, they do but THEY want it clear that THEY are part of something; acknowledge the crowd but FOCUS ON ME. Suddenly get on my feet and cheer when a shot of us sat watching the tennis is put on a big screen – not for a good bit of tennis or anything. If they understood remotely they would understand that type of support all the players want and appreciate IS NOT someone shouting something out between points when it is very tense.

To the crying, the crying had two effects on me – quite polarised. One was enormous sympathy for the man: he’s 25 and has had a lot of pressure on his shoulders by a repugnant media/nation. He gets a hell of a lot of shit for being Scottish and being a bit reserved/dry (that’s who he is) – neither of which he can really help without pretending to be something he is not. 25 is also no age (saying someone is no age is normally reserved for the dead isn’t it? Screw you convention) to be coping with expectations/press harassment/public opinion. And it was all he has ever wanted: to win a major, so it was a touch heartbreaking to see him wobble.

But..the fact that it made loads of people say daft stuff like “it shows he is human after all” or “I don’t fucking hate him now..for fourteen minutes…bless the cunt”. Fuck you all; you shoudln’t have to see someone cry to cut them some slack. He just wants to be really good at tennis and hope that everyone likes that and supports him. If you have no positivity for him then just keep it buttoned. One wise-ass remark about wanting England to lose at football a few years ago and it seems to be justification for anything. He has done ONE thing wrong: go from Fred Perry gear to Adidas (and not Adidas Classics, which would have been acceptable).

Just let a brother play tennis eh?

*I am NOT having a go at mental health issues. Gazza might well have very had mental health problems but some of it was just because he was a fucking bell-end.

Panorama

An annoying thing (for me) about the iPhone 4S was the lack of a panoramic feature on the phone’s camera. I was especially annoyed by it when I read that even the basic camera software on the phone had this functionality – people who had jailbroken the phone, i.e. removed the stuff that stops you using only Apple approved stuff on the phone, had the panoramic function when they used the camera (without adding anything). I have tried a few apps for producing them but they have all been wank. However Photosync, which I downloaded tonight, seems quite good.

It has allowed for this, the first truly widescreen shot of the view I have from my seat in the flat. Some things to note; [1] The R2D2 is mine but the Hulk isn’t so don’t go labelling me with that shit; [2] She’s always got her head in her Blackberry Playbook, that’s a given, but I never noticed she combined it with balancing a football until I took this photo; [3] You can’t tell but we were watching pioneering BBC mockumentary Ghostwatch, how beautiful was Sarah Greene? Crazy; [4] Domino’s Any Size Any Pizza for £6.99 offer? Yes please; [5] This is where it starts getting weird this (shit) Pretty Green hat was on the back of the settee – so behind my peripheral vision and by the time we get to [6] this noticeboard is well behind me, freaky man – plus it is now sadly depleted of gig tickets.