The science of sport

With the track and field events of the Olympic Games well underway, I went down to Loughborough University’s School of Sports and Sciences (Team GB’s preparation base) to learn more about the biomechanics behind Olympic success.

No medals for misery

IF only moaning was an Olympic sport, Team GB would be odds-on favourites to top the medal table this summer.

Think about it. We would destroy the competition in the synchronised whingeing and no one would come close to us in the high grump. There’d even be a dedicated stadium for it all. It’d probably be built in Sunderland.

Because, while many of us are eagerly anticipating the thrill of the Olympic Games and can’t wait to see Tom Daley break out his Speedos, Usain Bolt break the sound barrier and Paula Radcliffe, inevitably, breakdown in tears, there is a miserable minority out there who seem determined not to join the party.

Living the sweet life

Sugar, spice and everything nice.

With so called ‘mutually beneficial’ dating sites growing in popularity in the UK, it seems that many of our young women really do have a price. Former sugar daddy David Montrose tells me about the young women in his life with whom, to him, love was strictly business.

How would you feel if your young daughter told you she was involved with a wealthy and much older man, who lavishes her with gifts and takes her on exotic nights out – and was paying her to do so?

Welcome to the world of David Montrose and sugar daddy dating – a world that is becoming increasingly popular here in the UK.

For the former New York stockbroker – now in his forties – paying young women for the privilege of wining, dining and enjoying other benefits with them was never something he deliberately set out to do.

Why I will never cheer for Fernando Alonso

Top driver, just don't ask me to follow him.

So, Fernando Alonso has joined Twitter. First of all, trust me when I say that I’m genuinely happy and excited for all the Ferrari and Alonso fans I know. This is something that’s been way overdue and after seeing Kobayashi-san join Twitter earlier this year, I can appreciate how exciting it is to see your hero become a part of the amazing worldwide community that Twitter has become. However, with that said, I have to be honest with you all. I’m not exactly thrilled about the prospect of Alonsomania running wild on my timeline over the coming season. In fact, I’m really not looking forward to it at all.

I may not love God, but I love many of those who do…

‘Schadenfreude’ is a horrible word, when you think about it. Not only do you feel like a pretentious knob when you try to use it in a sentence and offend roughly 90 million people across the channel when you inevitably botch how it’s supposed to be pronounced, when you think about what it means – ‘pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune’ – it’s really not something you should enjoy half as much as you undoubtedly do when you feel it.

Remember kids, all REAL man are feminists too.

It’s without the slightest, faintest trace of guilt, however, that I admit the word ‘schadenfreude’ perfectly described my reaction to learning of the catastrophic meltdown (warning, there’s some pretty offensive stuff on there) of popular YouTube user and early front-runner for Twat of the Year, ‘TheAmazingAtheist’, earlier this week. While telling a rape victim that the man who took so much from her when he committed the sickening act deserves a medal for doing so is pretty bloody offensive to say the least, I also couldn’t say that it was the first time this obnoxious, arrogant piss-bag had offended me.

Tragedy and Triumph of a Stem Cell Crusader

As the ‘Baldy Blogger’, Adrian Sudbury campaigned to raise awareness of stem cell donation with both the public and Westminster. Following his death from Leukaemia at just 25, his father Keith now continues his son’s work. I spoke to him in November to hear his story.

“This picture is difficult for my wife and me,” says 61 year-old Keith Sudbury as an image of his late son, just days from death, appears on the laptop beside him.

It shows Adrian – or ‘Sudders’ to his friends – on the phone with then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, learning that his bid to win government support for his stem cell awareness campaign had been successful.

How Stephen Sharkey succeeds in translating Brecht

(This was something I wrote back in October for the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre, who helped me arrange the interview. It’s about theatre, so most some of you may not find it particularly interesting!)

For many writers whose words are brought to life on the stage, satire has always been a powerful tool through which to challenge the establishment and question the many faces of human nature.
And with the world still reeling from the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui will take on, perhaps, even greater significance as an example of truly outstanding theatre.

For acclaimed British writer Stephen Sharkey – who has skilfully adapted Brecht’s original German script for this production – this gripping tale of a crime lord’s rise to power in depression stricken Chicago has one of the most powerful narratives he has ever read.

And so, we are a snuff society

(The following was written as a column piece for my Masters studies portfolio last October in the week after Dan Wheldon’s fatal accident in Las Vegas)

On Sunday evening, I watched in horror as Dan Wheldon – a racer, a champion, a father – lost his life in a sickening accident during the final IndyCar race of the season in Las Vegas.

On Monday morning, I watched in disgust as his final moments on this Earth were reduced to a voyeuristic spectacle by the mainstream television media.

Without so much as a warning or a disclaimer, both the BBC and ITV shamelessly and willingly ran full unedited footage of the fatal crash during their breakfast news bulletins.

Not only was this grossly unethical, the BBC had blatantly violated its own policy of ‘not broadcasting the moment of death’ on television.

For those many viewers to whom Wheldon was not a familiar name, their single lasting memory of this man will not be of him embracing his parents after winning his IndyCar championship in 2005, or enjoying the winner’s traditional milk drink after both of his Indy 500 victories – it will be of him perishing in a violent explosion of fire and debris.

No, the images were not excessively graphic.

No, banning the footage would not have helped bring Dan back to his loved ones.

But if we are to consider ourselves part of a decent, civilised society, we must ask – why did we need to see him be killed?

The media have reduced a man’s death to nothing more than a disgustingly morbid spectacle.

Death should never be entertainment.