sport
Sporting Heroes: After the Final Whistle, BBC OneThursday, 10 May 2012It’s a funny old game. Sport rewards the talented when they are young and their bodies responsive. A profession which requires the reflexes to work in instant harmony with the brain means that beyond a certain age, the gifted become instantly... Read more... |
Town of RunnersThursday, 19 April 2012![]() Footage of wiry East African men and women breaking the tape in marathons and distance track-events is now more or less synonymous with the highest achievements in top-level sport, and it won’t come as a surprise to those who’ve lived through more... Read more... |
Reverse Missionaries, BBC TwoSaturday, 17 March 2012Despite an unfortunate title which seemed to have fallen from the pages of the latest Cosmo sex survey (“add some spice to the bedroom: try reverse missionary”), the first instalment of this three-part series about faith, community and religious... Read more... |
DVD: MoneyballTuesday, 13 March 2012![]() It's probably no coincidence that non-American reviewers have been less exalted in their praise for this film than US ones, as it's sort of in a foreign language for them – that of baseball, a sport in love with nerdy statistics and clichés, even... Read more... |
Sport and classical music: they should hang out moreWednesday, 22 February 2012![]() Classical music and sport: should they spend more time together? The idea was posited more than 20 years ago that football and opera made for ideal bedfellows, so long as the football was being played in Italy and the operatic aria was Nessun Dorma... Read more... |
theASHtray: Janáček, Carnage, and Seth MacFarlane v George ClooneySaturday, 11 February 2012![]() Mea culpa. I take it all back. Christoph Waltz can act, and like a dream. You know, that dream you have where Tarantino's favourite pantomime Nazi demonstrates his apparently incurable fixation on apple-based desserts, and then Kate Winslet yakks... Read more... |
Freddie Flintoff: Hidden Side of Sport, BBC OneThursday, 12 January 2012![]() The recent suicide of Wales's football manager Gary Speed prompted angstful outpourings about the hidden menace of depression in top-level sport, even though there was no evidence that Speed was a sufferer. But depression clearly is an occupational... Read more... |
GoonFriday, 06 January 2012![]() A capsule summary of Goon doesn't sound very appetising - slow-witted hockey player with awesome fighting skills helps lift the Halifax Highlanders out of their low-achieving doldrums. Yet within the film's oafish wrapping lies a touching little... Read more... |
2011: Farce, Fire and Fast CarsMonday, 26 December 2011![]() Every now and again there's a TV series that lives up to the hype, and in 2011 it was Channel 4's Top Boy. Although this crushing saga of gang violence, drug dealing and conflicted loyalties in Hackney was written by Irishman Ronan Bennett, it... Read more... |
MoneyballWednesday, 23 November 2011![]() It's a problem many a cash-strapped Premier League football manager is familiar with. The über-teams like Chelsea and Manchester United have loads more money than you, and can simply spend you out of contention. Over in California, this was what was... Read more... |
Go clubbing and running to support planting urban treesSunday, 11 September 2011![]() As artificial spaces, clubs struggle to embrace the organic environment. The music and arts collective Noise of Art are bridging the gap by working with the charity Trees for Cities, with DJs donating their time to raise funds for planting trees in... Read more... |
Peace dance! A call for more fancy footwork at the Rugby World CupFriday, 09 September 2011![]() We’ve long grown used to culturally themed opening ceremonies for big sporting events, but when New Zealand and Tonga come together this morning for the first match in the Rugby World Cup 2011, there won’t just be singing and dancing in the pre-... Read more... |
