The story so far: her hull holed by an iceberg, the ferry begins to sink. Todd and Janet declare their true feelings. DeShawn commits a faux pas when talk turns to prosthetic limbs and the Battle of Midway. The second instalment of the three-part sporting Dictionary of Received Ideas is presented, and the engine room floods. We pick up from there …
Genius is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration: A pearl that would have been seized upon by Vince Lombardi and Yogi Bera had they managed to memorise the tricky maths involved. The phrase is attributed to Thomas Edison, although it seems unlikely that such an intelligent man would have put his name to such an obvious lie. Indeed, it seems far more likely that this mantra of the falsely modest sportsman was first coined by some aristocratic pundit to keep the proletariat from mutinying and trampling the sporting elite to death.
Observe its cunning wording, that in a trice renders inspiration universal and within reach of the lowest common denominator: the downtrodden also-ran is reassured to learn that all it takes is 10% inspiration; and since he is inspired by football and pornography and Eastenders, genius is a formality. Woman, bring me my tea while I become inspired by this Dean Koontz novel. As for perspiration, well, everybody sweats. Genius-by-numbers. All must have prizes …
I’m no hooligan: Anyone who ever sat in a school desk and was stabbed repeatedly in the wrist by a compass-wielding troglodyte or had their cheek stapled to their bookbag, will recall the shock and hurt on the face of their assailant when the teacher accuses him of thuggish behaviour. But Sir, the creature invariably cried, it wasn’t me! This as your blood slowly stained his cuffs and his thumbs gradually disappeared up your eye sockets. Cut to the Premier League footballer, telling Fleet Street that he’s no hooligan, as slow-motion replays from 19 angles reveal him gobbing in the ref’s eye. What he fails to understand (because he left school at 15 and has been treated like a moneyed four-year-old since then) is that in order to be a Premiership footballer you need to be a hooligan. Horse and carriage. Hand and glove. Sputum and ref’s iris.
It’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game: One would have thought the Battle of the Somme would have done away with this notion. However, for final proof of its idiocy, witness the phenomenon of highlights channels: it’s not whether you watched the game or not but whether you won or lost …
Literally: 1) entirely figurative, grossly exaggerated for dramatic effect. Literal events include Jacques Kallis driving a ball straight through Ashley Giles at cover or hitting it a million rows back, which propose novel cameos such as picking vertebrae out of the gore-slick orb and posting ball-boys approximately 1 500km beyond deep midwicket.
Literally: 2) Used neither as an adjective nor an adverb, usually to augment a verb that seems somehow dull left unembroidered. “He’s literally seen that at the last minute” is a commentary favourite, implying that some sportsmen, perhaps those with developed poetic sensibilities and a keen instinct for metaphysics, are able to see things figuratively. Indeed, a Shane Warne leg-break seems to incorporate most of Man’s self-destructive impulse, that urge to rush towards the brink and end it all, or else expire in nihilistic rage, either by blowing up an oil-refinery or trying to clear extra-cover.
Michael Schumacher and Ferrari are ruining formula one: Some children never get invited to birthday parties. They are friendly enough, but often seem afflicted by some imperfection that causes them misery, perhaps a lazy eye or a shriveled left ear. They invariably have uncontrollable flatulence, which would be awkward if they ever played sport, but fortunately they never do since no one wants to pick them for their team. They spend their afternoons looking out at the bigger children over the end of a clarinet, watching games of kiss-catch reflected in the gleaming rosewood of a Bechstein upright. They read a great deal and become terribly intelligent, which helps them to understand the realities of their persecution and the cruelty of the ambitious, stupid, limited world. And when they grow up, they become formula one fans and declare that Michael Schumacher and Ferrari are ruining the sport. Their nights are filled with dreams of killing.
Next week: the myth of the polite male orgasm
A new dictionary of received ideas (Part 1)