It's all just a question of sports (reporting)

As this is the time of year, when everybody feels justified in settling back to cast a lazy eye back over the last 12 months, I thought I’d do the same, and give readers a chance to walk in my Chelsea boots by offering them a selection from the questions I faced in the last year.

I’m sure you’ll be able to guess who was asking them — me, sometimes, though I was the target rather than the interrogator most of the time — and what the precise context was.

Who are you? Why are you here? What do you want to know that for? What wifi code? Where’s your pass? Who are you with? Where did you park? Why did you park there? Don’t you know where you’re supposed to park? Where’s your pass? Not that pass, this year’s pass? There? No, that’s the press box, who sits there anyway?

That’s not the point, is it? Are you going to stay for the whole game? Who hit that in? Who did he beat? Where is he playing, anyway? His Dad’s who? Can he talk? What does he do? How old is he? Where’s he been since then? How stupid? Hang on, who’s he, then? When did he come on? For who? Is he related to the other fella? I don’t know, what minute do you have? 49? Really? Is there that much... Can he talk? Have you a number for him? Who does? Ah yeah, but have you a number for his Dad?

What time’s it on? Who’s going to be there? Images only, what does that mean? Is it okay with management if he speaks? Who do I ring there? I didn’t say he was a power-mad goblin, you said that, right? Yes, I can spell g-o-b-l-i-n, can’t you? And what’s his number? Why doesn’t he like me? Should I be worried?

He said what? When? Why did he say that? Is power-mad goblin too polite? How long have they been in there? Stop, they couldn’t have been worse the last day, could they? Two hours? Sure the place will be locked up in an hour, won’t it? Why don’t you knock on the door, you’re one of their knuckle-dragging county colleagues? He doesn’t? I thought you said you lads were the one life over a pint, or did I take you up wrong? Hang on...what? False alarm? I’d say she’s the lady who washes the jerseys, do you think she’d give us a few words?

How’s the form? Of course I know what’s in it, didn’t I write it? Where? No, you said that alright, don’t you remember? Just after you gave out about your manager, remember it now? No? You said he was a b*****ks from a village where they burn deodorant as unchristian, remember now?

How is it my problem? I don’t mind if he does ring, but you do know what I’ll tell him, don’t you? How? Because I held onto the tape, do you want me to play it down the phone for him when he calls? Hello? Hello?

How many words? A thousand? Are you sure that’s enough? Yes, I’m joking, can’t you guess? How long did... I’ll just look at the timer on the dictaphone... 21 seconds in total? Minutes? No, just seconds? Statistics?

Nine hundred and eighty-seven words of stats? When do you need it?

Not to put too fine a point on it...

Sorry about the bad language elsewhere on the page. I generally try to keep it clean and mostly I think I do, but “you can’t write about rappers or about boxing without quoting a few obscenities”, according to Ms Mary Norris, one-time copy editor with the New Yorker.

Her book, Between You And Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, is one that I’d recommend without hesitation — without obscenities, come to that — but unfortunately you’d have to ask if such a recommendation is a waste of breath (or ink, or... internet beans) given the way people regard grammar these days.

For all that, it’s worth a look. Among other areas, Norris does some trojan work in the vexed might/may conundrum, not to mention clarifying one of the great misspelling issues of literature: not only does Moby-Dick come with a hyphen, she nails down the perpetrator.

The mortal sin of book reviewers

It being almost Christmas, no doubt you’ll be looking for some choice reading matter for the holiday season, and given where you are in the newspaper, a sports book would probably be somewhere on your list.

I’ve had half an ear and eye out for the annual sports book round-ups this year not — as a friend of mine suggested — with a view to stocking my little black book with the names of those who will have their entrails paraded before them when the revolution comes, but to see if the most glaring book-reviewing error is still with us.

No, it is not the obvious gaffe, wherein the person reviewing the book is kind enough to share how he or she would have done a better job with the same material (no matter how that is contradicted by previous empirical evidence). Nor is it the cold deliciousness of a dismissive review of an enemy’s effort.

The mortal sin of book-reviewing is one enumerated many years ago by Anthony Burgess — who else — when he pointed out that bias and prejudice inevitably show themselves when the reviewer does not review what the book says, or does, but criticises what the book might or should have been. Wailing over counterfactual possibilities, whether real or feigned, is not an examination of the merits of a book, but it’s still quite a surprise that so many people forget that.

Remember the famous line of newspaper proprietor Lord Copper in  Scoop: ‘I will not have a barrier erected between me and my staff. I am as accessible to the humblest’ . . . Lord Copper paused for an emphatic example . . . ‘the humblest book reviewer as I am to my immediate entourage.’

Remembering Old Blue Eyes

Last weekend was the 100th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s birth.

There’s a new biography out of the great man — Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan — but like many another fan I rely heavily on the Kitty Kelley book from years ago.

Kelley called her book His Way, which reminds me a very clever piece — Ixnay on the ‘My Way’ — by Sarah Vowell, written before Sinatra passed away, in which she strongly advocated not playing ‘My Way’ as a tribute to the singer, there being many more representative songs.

‘That’s Life’ was one of Vowell’s top choices: give it a blast today and remember Francis Albert.