Doing anything for a buck
However, fitting that a teenage Asian became the first to be penalised for loitering on the old lawns of discrimination.
However nauseating the great wail of sanctimony that followed Tiger’s latest controversial lie.
In this neck of the woods, at least, Augusta 2013 lodged just one long-term investment in our memory banks: That ad. That shirt.
Pádraig Harrington’s game might have given him a free weekend, but the viewing public were denied any time off from Pádraig Harrington.
On the off-chance you missed it – ads or Peter Alliss, commerce or condescension, big call – Masters viewers on Sky and Setanta were treated to heavy rotation of a remarkable advert for the ‘Golf Swing Shirt’.
In it, Pádraig faces a baying press conference, visibly perspiring beads of shame but bearing the fixed grin of a practised visualiser, a man who can summon at will a mental image of his next bank statement.
The acting is of a standard demanded of irregular customers in Christy’s shop in Carrigstown as the leading man intones the praises of “the best swing trainer ever invented.”
Then the reveal. To call this a shirt is, frankly, to lend it a dignity it hasn’t earned. It is a bright orange straitjacket. A garment designed for the truly desperate. In his defence, Pádraig can, at least, say his hands were tied.
Considerately, we are spared the money shot – Pádraig trying to take the blessed thing off. But the production still shoots into the annals of ignominies suffered by Irish sporting greats in pursuit of a buck.
Kevin Moran immediately sprang to mind, another man bound, this time to a tractor, capping one of the great injury-wracked careers by allowing himself be towed across a pitch to sustain the grass stains that would test the powers of Radion washing powder.
With the money soon washing around the game, you thought Jason McAteer might be the last of the footballers to have his head turned and rinsed by easy cash, but he was just an early victim of the career debilitating suds of Head and Shoulders, now turning every shot into a bar of soap for Joe Hart.
It is, of course, to thenation’s credit that, when all around them were doped to the gills, heroes like Stephen Roche and Sonia O’Sullivan were powered to glory on Galtee cheese and Heinz soup, however embarrassed they sounded to admit it.
We could, too, rely on the stars to show a reflective side, epitomised by ROG’s emotional realisation that the most important thing in life is Newbridge bling.
If Denis Hickie’s endorsement of Wavin can’t be linked to the collapse of construction here, it neatly marked the peak of lunacy in the sector. Hickie then offloaded to Drico, who would soon usher in changed circumstances by throwing his passbook around a credit union.
A lot has changed too in farming, since John Fenton’s long-range pull against Limerick was harnessed in the battle against bovine mastitis. Or was it liver fluke? There was a time when you had achieved nothing in hurling until you had joined the massed ranks fighting the good fight against parasites and udder misfortunes.
And the thing is, you believed in these guys, especially Joe Cooney, when he casually trussed a compliant calf in a headlock and dispensed the needful dose as easily as he’d tip over a 21-yard free.
But I’m afraid we can no longer believe as readily in Pádraig. Vouching for laser eye surgery that he didn’t have was one thing. Heck, we’d all do that, if the price was right. We might even start wearing glasses a couple of years later, just for badness.
And Pádraig’s laudable efforts to have us watch our cholesterol has only been slightly undermined by the recent admission he has put up 21 pounds in what he calls an ‘eat-for-yards’ initiative.
But, alas, on the weekend when Pádraig went big on the garish straitjacket, there was precious little evidence wearing one would bring him closer to a garish green jacket.
Like the swing shirt itself, it’s hard to escape that reality.
Maybe this is the way things should always be.
Calm, measured, non-hysterical adjudication of a controversial incident. Character references considered along with evidence. Before evidence even. A man who has earned respect afforded the presumption of good intentions.
But is such equanimity only available to our rugby players? Even as the howls of revulsion swelled last weekend, after it emerged that Tiger had gained, or conceded, two hard yards; even as overwrought voices talked of a taint on a glorious career; the contrast in unfolding reaction to a man being knocked unconscious by a kick in the head was fascinating.
Let’s get the phraseology right; we immediately heard everywhere that this was an ‘inadvertent’ kick in the head. The odd, grossly disrespectful, account suggested clumsiness.
Despite footage of the incident carrying a “warning – violent content’ message on some online sources, most early coverage focused on Paul O’Connell’s “anxious wait” for a disciplinary verdict. When no discipline materialised, outrage was in short supply, at least until an exasperated Joe Schmidt wondered if his man’s plight hadn’t been overlooked when he addressed the issue on Wednesday.
I’m not saying any of this is wrong. Nobody truly thinks O’Connell knocked out Dave Kearney deliberately. Let’s face it, he would need to be a dangerous lunatic to do so. But surely he had a duty to take more care. And isn’t it quite difficult to imagine this week’s even-handed reaction if a Gaelic footballer or soccer player had been involved in a similar incident?
Maybe restraint should be the order of every week, even if it wasn’t always on display in Thomond.
So Damien Hirst is Ronnie O’Sullivan’s best buddy. That’s Damien, not David. The artist who once killed thousands of Owl butterflies to finish an exhibition, not the artist who killed thousands of Owls’ dreams when injuries hampered his exhibition of finishing.
Hirst will be in the Crucible this morning to watch as snooker’s most fragile, most beautiful butterfly is released back into his natural habitat.
He once likened O’Sullivan to Francis Bacon because of his instinctive, impulsive ways.
Bacon was another man who sometimes struggled to muster the appetite to go about his trade, always seemingly thoroughly vexed at the futility of the human condition.
But he stuck at it all the same, reinventing himself and turning out the masterpieces, between the grousing and boozing.
Despite Ronnie’s protestations, you suspect he will always be drawn back to his green canvas, however much it maddens him.
“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery,” says one of Bacon’s famous lines. Sometimes, when Ronnie is flowing, after every frame won, every case solved, the wonderful mystery of how he did it lingers.
Still, Bacon – a man who liked a punt – would probably baulk at the 11/2 odds. Even artists like Ronnie need to keep the eye in.
His castration reverie with Keano offered a glimpse of what might yet become the odd-couple partnership that saves football punditry.
Marvellous idea to take all the spotlight off his players, even while they were still playing. The man truly bleeds red and white.
A goalkeeper writhing in agony having been struck on the arm by the ball. Simulators worldwide now regard the Kansas man as their natural leader. Watch it: bit.ly/nielsendive.
A linesman chipping in to help the referee get a decision right, like West did during Arsenal-Norwich. Simply unacceptable and rightly condemned by pundits everywhere. Whatever next?
