Relic of auld indecency

Our intrepid correspondent gets to grips with the legendary Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

ALL together now: it’s dirty work, but someone’s got to do it.

As if it isn’t bad enough that your long-suffering correspondent is obliged to travel the globe attending World Cups and Champions League finals, the Irish Examiner Sports Desk, in its infinite sadism, has now saddled me with a new and even more demanding assignment.

To his credit, the sports desk’s Commander in Chief broke the news to me as gently as he could.

“We want you to write about the ‘Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2007’ edition,” he said, “but, I must warn you, to get the best out of this year’s contents, you’ll have to wear 3D glasses.”

Not for the first time, I thought of my poor dear mother and how she had longed for a priest or an accountant or a doctor or a software designer in the family. “Where did it all go wrong?” I thought, as I mournfully ripped the magazine from the sweaty palms of the Commander in Chief, ignoring his pitiful cry of “And I want it back when you’re finished.”

Before we get down to business, so to speak, a briefs — sorry, I mean, brief — history lesson. Launched in 1954, ‘Sports Illustrated’ is America’s best known sports magazine, an iconic glossy publication which is read by 23 million people every month. In 1964, the magazine inaugurated its now famous annual ‘Swimsuit Issue’, which does exactly what it says on the cover by cramming its pages with pictures of fashion models wearing swimwear.

What that means is that for, one issue every year, ‘Sports Illustrated’ plays host to plenty of illustrations but precious little sport.

Occasionally, however, sporting greats do get a look-in. Though none has actually made the cover, down the years the ‘Swimsuit Issue’ has featured pictures of tennis stars Steffi Graf, Serena Williams and Anna Kournikova, as well as legendary 1970s East German shot-putt champion Helga ‘Beefy’ Stroganoff. (Spot the deliberate mistake).

Music is the theme of the 2007 issue, with Beyonce gracing the cover and a variety of leggy models posing in their expensive bikinis in front of the ZZ Top car, at Sun Studios and alongside wrinkly rockers Aerosmith, as well as in the more customary sand and sea idylls.

There is also a series of pictures of bootiful gals fondling the guitar of the great Jimmy Buffet, a man of whose country-inflected songs your correspondent is fond. I think, in particular, of the tender love ballad which begins: “I rilly do appreciate the fact you’re sittin’ here/Your voice sounds so wonderful but your face don’t look too clear/ So barman bring a pitcher, another round of brew/ Why don’t we get drunk and screw.”

Eat your heart out, Chris De Burgh.

The big gimmick in the ‘Swimwear Special’ this year is that one of the photo shoots can only be appreciated with the 3D glasses which come free with every issue. Look at the Hawaiian holiday pics without them and it’s like your vision is badly blurred. Stick ‘em on and you’ll believe you’re about to get poked in the eye.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m talking one poke not two, the 3D effect being carefully confined to surf boards and palm trees. As our own tasteful shots accompanying this article confirm, donning the 3D glasses pretty much shouts “Hey, look at me, I’m a perv” even if you’re scrutinising nothing stronger than the Church of Ireland Gazette. But the truth is that there is nothing in Sports Illustrated’s ‘Swimsuit Issue’ to frighten the horses. (Unless you count the terrifying pull-out ad featuring a naked and hairy Burt Reynolds).

Sure, the mag is all glossy and lavish and sun-tanned and dripping in bling but, with a coy back turned to camera as close to nudity as it gets, it’ll never be in danger of being mistaken for ‘Hustler’. (Or so I’m told. Cough).

In truth, it all seems strangely dated, a throwback to the era of its birth over 40 years ago, a more innocent time when Ed Sullivan ruled the roost on American TV, Miss World was considered cutting edge and The Beatles still wore suits.

In 2007 in a country where, on the one hand, PC rules and, on the other, cable TV stops just short of screening ‘Debbie Does Donkeys’, it seems odd that this American relic of auld indecency is still on the go.

The last word — literally — goes to the best-known writer on the staff of ‘Sports Illustrated’. The unenviable task of penning the only column in the ‘Swimwear Issue’ falls to Rick Reilly, whose thoughts appear on the back page. And conceding that this is one issue where purchasers are only interested in one thing — and that ain’t the written word — Reilly has hit on the wizard idea of having his article printed across the bare back of the lovely Brooklyn Decker. (Oh, by the way, I just thought of something: if you could literally blacken this woman’s first name, why, then she’d be Blacken Decker. Pardon? Ok, I’ll get my coat).

Anyway, Reilly puts his achievement like this: “Sportswriters have written their columns on BlackBerries, napkins and men’s room stall doors, but never before across a woman’s nude body.”

Which has given us an idea. Coming soon from the Irish Examiner Sports Desk: The Historic Swimsuit Issue, featuring photos of Ireland’s Croke Park rugby heroes as you’ve never seen them, with a special column from yours truly printed across the more than ample backside of John ‘The Bull’ Hayes. (3D glasses only available on prescription. Fortunately).

Anyway, I’m out of here before the Commander in Chief is onto me with another great idea, like how I should hook up with Angelina Jolie to discuss the crisis at Shels and the prospects for the new eircom League season. Sigh.