25.01.10 mostly
listening to: John Mayer,
Battle Studies
My interview with Arsenal left-back Gaël Clichy from Men's Health.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
11.01.10 mostly
listening to: Owl City, Ocean Eyes
Back
in the heady days of 2007 - when the world was yet to embrace Swine
flu, Usain Bolt's arrogant excellence and a non-ironic
appreciation of Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'' - I became launch
editor of sports entertainment website The Spoiler. The site became a
huge success in the cultish world of online football blogs, and was
recognised by the BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph for its sideways
glance at the beautiful game. This week, I discovered that TS was deemed worthy of inclusion
in Sports Illustrated'sBlogs of the Decade list. A surprising and very
pleasing accolade from the behemoth American sports and bikini-clad
supermodel purveyors.
2010 looks to be equally exciting as the noughties proved to be. In
addition to my work at Men's Health
- officially the UK's best-selling men's magazine - I've been signed up
us a presenter on The Travel Channel. I'll be fronting a show called
'Travel 360', which will see me take in the sights and sounds of the
Czech Republic, Spain, Holland and Norway in series one. I'll post more
info when I have it.
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12.10.09 mostly
listening to: Led Zeppelin, BBC Sessions
The
Lonely Cartel now has a demo. Head over to Myspace
to see what all the fuss is about.
A
review of the stupendously-good looking Audi R8-R ABT from the latest
edition of ICON
Magazine.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
05.06.09 mostly
listening to: Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey & The Groo
Grux King
It's 'Boys
week' on Kickette, which means some of the
interweb's finest male football writers have been in control of a
domain usually reserved for ladyfolk. Representing my
football news website The Spoiler, I've made a few contributions over the past
five days.
My debut on
Sky News,
discussing disgraced footballer Joey Barton.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
05.10.08 mostly
listening to: Ben Folds,
Way To Normal
I
have just returned from Bilbao, a city that loves asymmetric
architecture as much as it loves selling week-old tapas to unsuspecting
foreigners in bars. The cultural highlight of the trip was undoubtedly
the Frank Gehry's Guggenheim - probably the one museum in the world
that's more interesting on the outside:
The
Spanish trip was by no means a sightseeing holiday, as I was presenting
a
travel show about Bilbao, which focused on the parallels between the
city and it's football team. Athletic Club have managed to survive in
Spain's top division for eighty years, despite the fact that they
operate a strict 'cantera' policy: while other teams may select their
players from all over the world, Athletic Bilbao may only pool
resources from the Basque region (population 3m).
This
policy
may effect their performance (indeed they lost to an outrageous last
minute lob at the game I witnessed at the San Mames stadium), but most
supporters would rather see their team relegated than resort to signing
non-Basque players. Admirable? Perhaps. Overtly xenophobic? Almost
certainly.
The insular mentality of the football
team is
reflected in the city and its inhabitants, who aren't that keen on the
rest of Spain. In fact, during our trip we didn't see a soul sporting
the national side's strip, but several proudly wearing the colours of
England and Scotland. Bizarre.
The travel show is
currently being knocked into shape in the editing room, and should be
on Sky early next year.
