flipthelid.co.uk https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pyuebw en-GB (C) 2020 https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Warwick Blogs, University of Warwick, https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk 120 I'm a big fan of the BBC but... by https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pyuebw/entry/im_a_big/ <p>Now, I&rsquo;m a big fan of the <span class="caps">BBC</span>. It&rsquo;s one of roughly three things about which I feel a slight tinge of national pride. <br /> But I&rsquo;ve just found a feature of bbc.co.uk that is the most ridiculous waste of time and probably money.</p> <p>Live text commentary during football matches is superb, a great alternative when the game&rsquo;s not on the radio or TV. But I&rsquo;ve just discovered the <span class="caps">BBC</span> is now offering pathetic animated footballers enacting the latest text update. It doesn&rsquo;t tell you any more about the action than the text does and the pictures are worse than a game of World Soccer on a <span class="caps">SEGA</span> Master System. Please, somebody tell me they have found some use for it.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m slightly concerned that the <span class="caps">BBC</span>&rsquo;s next article on the government&rsquo;s latest anti-crime policy might be accompanied by a cartoon of Tony Blair making ever so reassuring hand gestures.</p> <div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align:center;"><img src="http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/pyuebw/2007/02/19/bbcanimation.jpg?maxWidth=500" alt="Animated Football" title="Animated Football" border="0" /></div> BBC Football Internet Media Mon, 19 Feb 2007 00:41:55 GMT https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pyuebw/entry/im_a_big/#comments 094d739910964c0b0110d772945d2ea5 2 A healthy football obsession by https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pyuebw/entry/a_healthy_football/ <p><img style="float:right;padding-left:5px;" src="http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/pyuebw/2007/01/22/thierry.jpg?maxWidth=500" alt="Thierry Henry heads winning goal!" title="Thierry Henry heads winning goal!" border="0" />Arsenal 2 &ndash; 1 Manchester United. <br /> What a day! <br /> 17:44 Despair as it seems United have wrapped up the title by beating my beloved Gunners.<br /> 17:53 Total elation. Thierry Henry heads us to victory! Adrenalin surges through my body and 60,000 others.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s not always like today though. Last year I followed my team to Paris to watch the Champions League final. I swapped a good three days revision and time spent with my girlfriend, for three nights sharing a bed with my snoring father. I know another guy that forked out over &pound;600 of his student loan after travelling there with no guarantee of a ticket. Reaching the front of the queue at half-time in the Gents, I found myself stood, flies open, in front a sink commandeered for the day by desperate fans. I did not wash my hands. What&rsquo;s more, we lost 2-1. The journey home was hellish. It turned out not to be a good few days and all because my team didn&rsquo;t manage to kick a ball in a net as many times as the opposition.</p> <p>I vividly remember crying myself to sleep as a boy, after a former Spurs player struck the most unbelievably shot to beat us in the final of the Cup Winners&rsquo; Cup. When the team loses it can put a dampener on my entire weekend. It&rsquo;s sad, but the first thing I do when I wake up is check Arseblog.com, newsnow.co.uk, the <span class="caps">BBC</span> and Skysports for any updates, just in case the others have missed something.</p> <p>But it&rsquo;s all worth it; even just for one day like today. It may not be logical, but who cares? It&rsquo;s pretty difficult to explain to somebody who&rsquo;s never supported a team; not least my girlfriend who doesn&rsquo;t get it, despite my attempted analogies to her watching her favourite ballet. Perhaps the closest someone who doesn&rsquo;t understand can get to such &lsquo;enlightenment&rsquo; is by watching or reading <em>Fever Pitch</em>, Nick Hornby&rsquo;s masterpiece about a life inextricably tied to football.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m aware that I&rsquo;m an incredibly lucky fan. The person that got me into football, my Dad, is an Arsenal fan and a season-ticket holder at that. I get days like today more often than most. A friend of mine travels up from Oxford to see Burnley, the team that his Dad happens to support. Heaven knows the last time they beat Manchester United with a goal in the last minute. That said, he, like me and millions of others across the world, has a highly-illogical, but healthy obsession with watching that ball go in the net.</p> Arsenal Football Life Sport Mon, 22 Jan 2007 00:32:42 GMT https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pyuebw/entry/a_healthy_football/#comments 094d73991030b68f0110473816710f80 2