The very worst, most unoriginal thing you can do with a blog is link to an interesting story on the BBC News website, so in the spirit of that, here is an article all about the talent English sportspeople and teams have for coming second in major international events. I'm proud to be part of that tradition. Who knows, if we work really hard at publicising the world memory championship, I might end up mentioned in the same breath as Lewis Hamilton and Jimmy White.
Which reminds me that the BBC Sports Review Of The Year is coming up soonish (or at least they're already running ads to encourage people to vote for the Personality Of The Year), and I've always thought it would be nice to get a passing mention for mind sports somewhere in the course of that long, dreary, annual celebration of the year's sporting events (or at least those of the year's sporting events that the BBC has the rights to video footage of). I'm not saying I should win the Sports Personality Of The Year award (although I should), just that it would be cool if they'd do a bit about the likes of chess and bridge and things, by way of contrast to the usual stuff on there. There's plenty of interesting stuff to talk about in the world of British mind sports.
And anyway, I'd be a better winner than Zara bleeding Phillips.
Blowing my own trumpet, I made a similar assertion towards the end of my preview of the 2006 Sports Review of the Year.
ReplyDeleteA solution would be to have a British Mind Sports Personality Of The Year contest, not that there tend to be all that many people interested in mind sports plural and crossover acheivement beyond the usual MSO suspects. (Frankly, if I were confident enough in my knowledge of who's doing what, I'd probably cast a vote myself - but, because I'm not, I don't.)