Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Jockstrap

I found a bit of light relief this morning in GMTV's new sports dumbell 'Dan' Lobb. Why GMTV have suddenly decided to have a dedicated sports person beats me, but I suppose with the World Cup coming up and the Olympics just around the corner it kind of makes sense. At least we'll be spared Andrew Castle, whose Wimbledon reports make him out to be some sort of tennis superstar of yesteryear, when we know he was merely rubbish, and we'll not have to suffer through Ben Shephard's trying that little bit too hard love of West Ham. The boy's a dancer, for God's sake.

Anyway, if you've not seen Dan, you can imagine him. Hired from Sky Sports (there's your first clue), he's the kind of generic lunk that does TV sport. I shouldn't imagine there's much going on behind the eyes, though I could be wrong. He's from that open-neckedschool of broadcasting; relaxed, bland, youngish and really not very good. To be fair, it's only day two, but I don't hold out much hope. He's melting into the beige mix already, and he's clearly nervous as hell. I couldn't do it, but I'd like to think I'm not bland enough to make it in TV.

It's actually rather unusual to see man doing sport these days. Most sports reporters seem to be women. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course, but the beefcake jock seems to have taken a back seat of late. There's eternal kid's TV dunderhead Jake Humphrey, who takes himself far to seriously lest he should be banished back to CBBC, and that dim bulb who's on Chris Evans' drivetime show and will no doubt continue to be bullied for his thickness on the new breakfast show. And that's about it. Whatever happened to David Bobin?

As you know, I have little time for sport. I was no good at it, have no interest in it and find it's taken way too seriously. To me it's not news, and I know there are millions who disagree with that, but I think since sport has been hijacked by the middle classes it's been done to death. It's fine in a bulletin within the news, but it should never be a major news story unless someone British wins Wimbledon or the World Cup. So much fuss! I'm still wondering why Ellen McArthur and Kelly Holmes were made dames - it's not like anyone was holding a gun at their heads. They were just sailing and running. Is that so hard if you're a pro?

Each to their own of course. Don't be cross, sports fans. It's us all being different that makes life interesting.

Tomorrow I'll be ripping apart finance foghorn Martin Lewis.

11 comments:

Cocktails said...

You'll love Australia F-C. Even respectable news and current affairs programmes feel as though they need to have some twit 'newsreader' reporting on vital sports 'news'.

And what happened to the much-anticipated Walthamstow bus station story?!

Jon Peake said...

Oh it's coming, Cocktails.

Cocktails said...

Excellent. But mind how you go. That's my local bus station and I'm very sensitive about it.

Mondo said...

I'm no sports fan, but these off-the-peg presenters put me right off. Having said that I was never a fan of the comb-over and sheepksin coat brigade either..

Clair said...

Is the Walthamstow bus station story one involving a handbag?

Jon Peake said...

That's the one, Clair.

Bright Ambassador said...

Obviously they've seen how - in my book unfathomably - popular Chris Hollins has become on BBC Breakfast and fancy a piece of the sports' action.

I like football, well, I like Nottingham Forest, but find it gets taken too seriously and over-analyzed. So don't worry about upsetting us, FC, some of us agree with you.

Do you think Evans will still feature Pause for Thought? And have you noticed that Johnnie Walker appears to have found himself with a sports' monkey this week? Obviously getting the, ugh, TOGS ready for regular morning sport bulletins.

Jon Peake said...

I'm interested to know how Chris Evans will get on next week. If he's got the same team it could be okay, but as much as he's mellowed he's still a bit grating. TOGS are going to hate him.

Kolley Kibber said...

"I'd like to think I'm not bland enough to make it in TV." Marvellous, I'm having that.

Unknown said...

How Humphreys ended up as a flagship BBC sports presenter is beyond me. He used to present Bamzooki!

Louis Barfe said...

Martin Lewis. Martin fucking Lewis. Don't get me started. "Save money by getting a cheaper broadband package...with Tiscali". Some things are false economies - a cheap broadband package is worth fuck all if it doesn't work. The eejits on the Money Saving Expert forums are something to behold, too. Buying cheaper versions of things you don't really need is not the way out of debt.

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