Why Field Music Should Win the 2012 Mercury Prize

After producing their spiralling, drawn-out double album Field Music (Measure) in 2010, David and Peter Brewis- who together form Field Music- felt instinctively compelled to create its structural antithesis. The result is the compressed, fragmented, initially disorientating yet ultimately enduring masterpiece that is Plumb. The album is not currently considered one of the favourites for the Mercury prize, which, given the recent history of the competition, surely makes it one of the favourites. This year’s shortlist is filled with potentially worthy winners like Richard Hawley, Michael Kiwanuka and Alt-J, but for its uncompromising creative integrity and imagination I truly hope Plumb takes the prize. Given their commitment to the local Sunderland music scene that has also spawned contemporaries The Futureheads, you get the feeling the Brewis brothers would have the freedom of Wearside were they to emerge victorious, and rightly so.

So, the album…

The opener 'Start The Day Right' starts the album right, interweaving seemingly discrete sections with a meandering riff that loosely ties the song together. This composition style continues throughout much of the album, as it becomes clear that many of the 15 tracks are separated quite arbitrarily, each possessing a handful of musical nuclei that could easily have been developed into full tracks in their own right. Indeed, such a project was realised in the 70-minute previous record Measure, but for Plumb, the Brewis brothers consciously set themselves the challenge of condensing their array of ideas into an album with fewer, shorter tracks.

 Peter Brewis’ main guitar riff strips the adopted style to its root notes- funk in this case- with the effect sounding like a serious Flight Of The Conchords song

Another magical Field Music bitesize portion, 'Sorry Again, Mate', travels from its plodding guitar intro into a breezy verse reminiscent of the Danish alt-rockers Mew, before reaching a beautifully delicate crescendo that sounds like Mike Patton’s 'Mr Bungle' on a comedown. Influences from Pink Floyd and latter day Beatles appear and reoccur throughout Plumb, but mainly in the form of their uncompromising prog-rock stream-of-consciousness sensibility rather than overt references or outright rip-offs (other than one section in 'Guillotine' using slide-guitar effects straight from the Dave Gilmour toolkit).

Brewis Brothers in action (Peter, left, and David, right)

'A New Town' distracts from its true intention with a slow organ-laden intro before slipping into a shoulder-jerking funky rhythm. The mood of the line ‘I’m stretched like a nylon wire, panic in my body’, backed by nervous funk guitar, resonates deeply. As is his way, Peter Brewis’ main guitar riff strips the adopted style to its root notes- funk in this case- with the effect sounding like a serious Flight Of The Conchords song, which I genuinely intend as a compliment. Funk remains on the album's agenda, and is stepped up to the next level in the breakdown of Who’ll Pay The Bills? (below)

To invoke a common cliché used for all good albums, Plumb really does take you on a journey

Field Music also like to toy with time signatures, syncopations and accents with reckless abandon, most noticeably in 'Choosing Sides' and 'Is This The Picture?' This is led by both Brewis brothers' precise and expansive drum patterns, with percussion used as a prominent creative feature throughout, adding another layer to be enjoyed upon further visits to the album. Indeed, the synergy between the two brothers- who seamlessly switch between guitar, drums and vocals between tracks- is noticeable, as is the fact that they created the album together without external influence and are the only official band members, employing Andrew Lowther and Kevin Dosdale only as tour members.

To invoke a common cliché used for all good albums, Plumb really does take you on a journey. Its mood shifts with the unpredictable spontaneity of a teenager with borderline personality disorder, enticing you into each loop of its emotional rollercoaster through its pure quality and the love that has clearly been invested in its conception. 'So Long Then', for example, winds through a beautifully uneasy piano section and then unexpectedly jerks into an upbeat refrain before once again drifting into a strange melancholy. If you want a nice easy ride, it’s fair to say this album probably isn’t for you.

The central theme of the album which (eventually) emerges is an idea crystallised in the last track 'I Keep Thinking About A New Thing', which was released as the first single prior to the album’s release- probably for this exact reason. The theme is… well, it’s complicated… as in the theme itself can be described by the mantra ‘It’s Complicated’ (a possible album title alternative). In an interview with Faceculture, David Brewis spoke of the album as relating to questions, and how the answers to these questions cannot- and usually should not- be attempted to be answered through music because they are invariably too complex to be distilled into functional lyrics. Instead, he thinks, music can effectively describe and evoke feelings related to questions, like, for example, the frustration and anger at unemployment levels in North East England.

Field Music’s outright rejection of musical trends and the notion of fashion in general, to me, only enhances their appeal and worthiness for the Mercury prize.

So 'I Keep Thinking About A New Thing' is a song that attempts to explain that answers to questions should not be explained through music because complicated ideas can’t be explained in song format. Right… It’s all rather ‘meta’ and self-consciously paradoxical, and can certainly be accused of pretension  but I for one really quite enjoy this ambitious, uncompromising stance and think both its logical and artistic substance are rarely encountered in contemporary music.  Stand out lyrics include ‘I don’t want to simplify it, eloquence is overrated, a pretty tool to neuter you’.

On the subject of ‘contemporary’, Field Music’s outright rejection of musical trends and the notion of fashion in general, to me, only enhances their appeal and worthiness for the Mercury prize. Both brothers even look 'anti-fashion', more resembling office dwelling middle managers whose wives buy their clothes for them from M&S than aspiring rock stars. Probably most will disagree with me but I feel like there is too much emphasis placed on the ‘contemporary sound’ in the music industry at present. Previous Mercury winners The xx provide a good example: although many people wholeheartedly loved their debut (as well as their latest release), I always felt like something was missing. Ultimately I think that they created a great contemporary ‘sound’ (stripped back, laid back and very cool) without any major songwriting substance. While I would never accuse the likes of Alt-J, Michael Kiwanuka, Jessie Ware and Ben Howard of failing to possess much in the way of depth or talent, I do think that their sound has been more filtered to fit with the idea of ‘contemporary’. Alt-J, for instance, are clearly a fantastic band, but sound a little ‘current’ for their album to age well through the decades.

The album is filled with sonic gems that reveal themselves gradually like small intricate patterns spread throughout a colourful canvas

Peter Brewis having swapped over instruments (not mid-song)

Whether or not Field Music are your musical cup of tea, they can never be accused of allowing their creative vision to be in any way mediated, distorted or channelled towards any particular demographic. In the same interview as above, Peter Brewis responded to the suggestion that in their previous album they had ‘committed commercial suicide’, saying that they would never intentionally sabotage their commercial success, but that they could always ‘get run over by a bus’ as they simply don’t factor in the industry when producing music. This insistence on creative purism is so strong that it palpably shines through in Plumb; the process loss from the brains of David and Peter Brewis to the mp3 I’m listening to right now is so minimal that its purity is a pleasure to witness.

Accessible this album is not, but for someone like me who gains no greater aural pleasure than exploring a richly woven, thoughtful tapestry of a record, Plumb hits the perfect pitch. The album is filled with sonic gems that reveal themselves gradually like small intricate patterns spread throughout a colourful canvas. Sections of the album that have been meticulously planned come to life sequentially through repeated listens, such is the intense thoughtfulness applied to the album. Come the 1st November, I know which Sunderland based alternative prog rock band I want to win.

Top Five: Radical Body Transformations

On Friday Ricky Hatton announced his return to the ring; hardly earth-shattering news considering he has shed three stone over the past year since ballooning after ‘retirement’. His ability to rocket up numerous weight divisions after a bout is the stuff of legend, as is his ability to drop the pies and a few layers of blubber in the process when he fancies a scrap.

In recognition of the oscillating Manc, I’ve compiled a little list of people whose body transformations have dropped jaws across the globe. I’m staying away from the Marie Claire-style makeover approach, and we can also pretty much take Michael Jackson as read…

Christian Bale

In order to play a chronic insomniac in The Machinist in 2004, Bale decided to drop as much weight as he could without dying. His obsessive nature took him way beyond the expectations of director Brad Anderson; he ended up losing five stone and resembling a heroin addict with a pre-existing eating disorder. How did he manage to drop such a substantial amount of weight? What tailor-made, medically monitored method did he use? Always a man to do things on his own terms, Bale used his own sophisticated approach of only eating when he felt ready to collapse and running for hours at a time.

In fact, five months after filming for The Machinist, Bale performed an even bigger full body transplant by gaining seven and a half stone within five months to bulk up for Batman Begins. Coming from a man who said ‘working out is incredibly boring’, he stuck to the task pretty admirably when inflating himself into Bruce Wayne shape. Interestingly, Bale said that while emaciated, he felt ‘calm and serene’ compared to the ‘big mood swings’ he experienced as a beefcake Batman. We can probably imagine which version of Bale on-set lighting engineers prefer.

Jodie Marsh

Life was becoming increasingly hard for Jodie ‘Look at me!!!’ Marsh and by 2006, after being evicted from Big Brother, she even seriously contemplated suicide by driving into a tree. Well, happily she’s now turned her life around, by making a spectacle of herself in a more legitimate way: becoming a bodybuilder. A diet of eggs, eggs and eggs combined with up to four hours a day at the gym and a shit-load of fake tan (applied nearly to the point of causing racial offence) has taken her to the heights of victory at the International Natural Bodybuilding Federation championships in Washington DC. Throughout her physical transformation, one important part of her body has remained the same: her heart. Just joking. Her breasts. Her breasts have remained the same.

Carrot Top

Achieving some success in the late 80s and 90s as a rake-like flame-haired comedian using a suitcase full of props for his ‘unique’ brand of humour, Scott ‘Carrot Top’ Thompson soon disappeared from the edges of fame into anonymity. He tried his hand at acting in a series of straight-to-DVD-bargain-bin films, but for some reason it never quite worked out for him. So he decided to work out for him. Totally not using steroids, Mr Top gradually built his way up from an eccentric- but human- looking nerd to an obscene image of vascularity.

Not content with only one form of physical reconstruction, his face has also gone through a disturbing metamorphosis. He has raised eyebrows in more way than one, as his default facial expression has now been set to ‘surprised’ by the wonders of Botox. Regardless of what anyone may think of him, he’s certainly managed to harness his natural uniqueness to unsurpassed proportions; he’s hardly likely to merge into the background in a police line-up.

Diego Maradona

A man who needs no introduction, Maradona’s natural inclination towards the finer things in life- cocaine, booze, hog roasts and the like- took him to nearly 20 stone at the age of 44 (a feat inevitably awaiting Ryan Giggs). In 2005, Colombian doctors performed a gastric bypass on the footballing legend-turned-giant-football, who practically halved overnight. By the looks of his bare ankles and forearms as he flapped around the dugout at the 2010 World Cup, Maradona celebrated his surgery by buying a new suit, and never bought a larger one as he gradually re-inflated. He’s levelled out a little over the past couple of years, and is now back in Argentina at his spiritual home, hanging out the terraces at Boca Juniors, after being sacked by Dubai club Al Wasl FC for predictably showing no interest or ability in actually doing his job.

Lana Wachowski

In compiling a ‘top 5’ list of people, it’s rare you can include four men and two women. Larry Wachowski, as she was known up to ten years ago, was always known as one of the two Wachowski brothers, who directed the Matrix films and V For Vendetta. Lana went her whole life feeling like she was trapped in the wrong body suit, and after years of trepidation about her family’s reaction, decided to take the giant leap and announce herself as a woman to her parents in 2002. Wachowski recently told the New Yorker magazine that her mother’s perplexed response was ‘But I was there when you were born’.  Her family have all been resolutely supportive though, and Lana said because of this, ‘everything else has been a piece of cake’.

As is her right, she likes to keep details of her anatomy and any surgery she has undertaken very sketchy. After divorcing her first wife in 2003 for a blonde dominatrix called Ilsa Stix (as you do), Lana has since married her second wife in 2009. Larry must therefore have endured the presumably confusing experience of being a lesbian trapped in a man’s body; something that will always bring the amazing Mr Garrison from South Park to mind.

The Oparalympics Debate

The Paralympics are now in full swing: wheelchairs are smashing into each other like demolition derby, double leg amputee swimmers are obliterating my personal best times and Claire Balding has resumed her position right up in everyone’s grill. There is, though, more on-going debate surrounding the nature of the Games, particularly its exact purpose and identity, in comparison to the Olympics once it had gotten underway. Indeed, part of the discussion revolves around whether there’s any value in comparing the two events. Either way, the debate seems entirely healthy to me, as it’s an indication that, like a neurotic teenager (or ‘teenager’) the relatively new event is still growing and trying to figure out what it’s supposed to be. In One Tree Hill terms, the Paralympics is currently leaning against a palm tree, broodily gazing into the hazy sunset. Should it ask the Olympics out to the prom or go proudly its own way and arrive stag in its uncle’s motorbike?Clearly, the Paralympics are bigger and better than ever before. It’s likely to be the first to fully sell out; it’s being broadcast to over a hundred countries, and involves athletes representing a record 164 nations (eighteen more than in Beijing). There do remain some slight flaws in the competition though. Firstly, for an event that centres on promoting equality and displaying the potential of human achievement if given the opportunity, it’s a shame that poorer countries are so underrepresented. Cambodia, for instance, has one of the world’s highest ratios of amputees due to landmine explosions, but has only one wildcard entry for London. In Beijing, 51 per cent of competing athletes came from only nine countries. Although this stat has improved in London, with 40 per cent representing from the big nine, there’s still a long way to go.

Cambodian athletes constrained by their equipment

...in the paraphrased words of all reasonable humans across the world, Atos really should go f*ck themselves

Another problem that faces the Paralympics is the scheduling. The Olympics catches the summer break nicely (in all northern hemisphere countries that is), meaning that other than cricket (which, let’s be honest, we weren’t going to watch anyway), there’s little to contend with for sporting attention. The Paralympics currently takes place just after most major domestic football leagues- including the world’s most watched, the English Premier League- have resumed. In this country at least it means all us football fans have our heads stuck firmly in our brand new fantasy league teams (with one eye on the real-life team we actually support), with little time to spare for our loved ones, let alone other sporting events.

Furthermore, in the paraphrased words of all reasonable humans across the world, Atos really should go fuck themselves. As in, literally, there would be an overall net gain of well-being if each Atos member of staff were to spend their working hours genuinely attempting to have intercourse with themselves rather than metaphorically fucking the UK’s sizeable disabled population. How a company using biased interviews designed at forcing people off their benefits could ever even be considered as official partners of the Paralympics is beyond me. You may have read it all before but it’s worth reading again, such is the horror of it: around 70 per cent of people who appeal after being deemed fit to work by an Atos medical professional are successful in their appeal. Equally guilty of hypocrisy the moment he opens his mouth to promote anything resembling improvement in the lives of people with disabilities is David Cameron, who along with Ian Duncan Smith and George Osborne set the targets for Atos to work to. The latter’s reception at the Olympic Park on Monday provided a good spontaneous opinion poll for around 80,000 people at least. 

Others, though, argue that a merge (with the Olympic) would create a greater sense of equality and integration for the Paralympics

 Now that I’ve stepped off my high horse (it’s so cold and scary down here), I can return to the primary question at hand. Should the Paralympics remain a distinct event, or merge with the Olympics?

At the moment the Paralympics lie in a slightly awkward middle ground between total independence and complete integration with the Olympics, meaning it unfortunately runs the risk of maintaining secondary status. Pretty much like Scotland, opinion is divided about the issue of independence. A BBC World Service survey in March found that out of 10,000 people asked across nineteen countries, 43 per cent wanted the Paralympics to remain separate and 47 per cent wanted the two -lympics to merge. Out of the remaining 10 per cent, 6 per cent felt the issue was too complex to decide and 4 per cent couldn’t give a shit and wanted those twenty minutes back. (These statistics are 90 per cent accurate).

There are some who feel that the best way to promote and showcase the physical heights people with disabilities can achieve is to keep the Paralympics separate, creating more of an identity for the Games and providing worldwide focus. This school of thought also holds that were there to be a merge, it would actually turn into more of an acquisition, as the Paralympics would play second fiddle to the Olympics. Others, though, argue that a merge would create a greater sense of equality and integration for the Paralympics. International Paralympic Committee President Sir Phillip Craven (who’s opening ceremony speech was far less sleep-inducing than Jacques Rogge’s effort a month ago) acknowledges that it may be on the cards in future Games, although no sooner than 2024.

...we were treated to watching John Snow and Krishna Guru-Murthy over-politicise everything - referring to famine at least twenty times 

There is, though, also the practical issue that in order to accommodate all of the classifications- T43 (and other Terminator models), S8, C3PO and the like- the ‘Oparalympics’ would have to last up to a month. Imagine having to ‘work’ from home for a whole month?! Awful. One option would be to down-scale the number of Paralympic events, but that would seem to undermine the whole inclusive purpose of the competition.

Channel 4 have their best man on the case

So what about keeping the two Games distinct? Having opening and closing ceremonies for both, for instance, clearly distinguishes the events from each other, providing a platform to build anticipation and then celebrate to the sound of tone-deaf burnt out ex-rock and pop stars. Aptly, at London 2012 for the first time, UK television rights went out to tender for the Paralympics, which Channel 4 won (before remembering that it didn’t have any sports presenters other than eccentric horse riding pundit John McCririck , who would be guaranteed to make a string of highly offensive comments), creating further separation between the two Games. Rather than watching BBC’s Gary Lineker pun-tificate his way through proceedings, we were treated to watching John Snow and Krishna Guru-Murthy over-politicise everything - referring to famine at least twenty times - and give guests the unexpected grilling of a lifetime during the opening ceremony.

I’m going to reserve opinion and allow myself the luxury of just sitting back and enjoying the show

For me, further developing the Paralympics as an independent, worldwide sporting spectacle in its own right is the way to go for the moment. Given the scheduling issues previously mentioned though, my partially informed and inevitably flawed suggestion is that the Paralympics and Olympics should simply be swapped around. Doing so would make a clear statement about how seriously the Paralympics are taken, allowing it to gain much needed exposure during the summer break, while also giving the host city a chance to prepare for the even larger Olympics crowds.

For the remaining duration of the Games though, I’m going to reserve opinion and allow myself the luxury of just sitting back and enjoying the show… while tweeting snarky comments about Channel 4’s coverage obviously- I need some outlet.

The 80’s Eternal Flame shines once again

Think of the 1980’s and if you’re anything like me, you’ll think of yuppies in box suits speaking into bricks, cocaine-fuelled laser dance floors, shoulder pads, massive hoop earrings, perms and the popular emergence of synth music. Think of the Noughties and the Teens/Tens/Tweens, and you’ll think of technological advancement, cynicism, skinny jeans, difficulty in finding suitable names for the current decade and easy access to a proliferated music market.

As a twenty-seven year-old, my direct experience of 80’s music mainly involved the Thundercats theme song, and hence my reflection upon the decade relies mainly on caricatured images garnered through music and films. In my mind, people spent the entire decade driving around in seemingly mis-matched partnerships, only to discover that they really weren’t so different after all thanks to a story arc involving snappy banter and exploding vehicles, all to the sound of synth pop and power ballads. Admittedly, in reality this may only partially account for the decade, particularly given that one thing shared by the 80’s and the Noughties was a global recession, but cherry picking from the past wearing rose-tinted glasses is the prerogative of the partially informed current-day writer, so I’m going ahead regardless.

Like any decade, the 80’s saw a transition in popular music as new sounds like electro, techno, house, synth pop, New Wave, New Romantics, glam metal, soft rock and hip-hop allowed artists to remain shoe-horned into arbitrarily distinct musical categories forevermore. It was the technological advance in synthesisers, though, that really changed the game. Quirky visionaries like Kraftwerk and Brian Eno had already shown the potential of electronic music, but it was only when MIDI came online in 1983 that it all became easier, with less need to engage in time-consuming practices like mechanically innovating sound effects and learning the piano properly.

               

Ambience: Never has a single note done so much

One thing synth music boasted like never before was an ability to create ambience, with all the possibilities afforded by multi-layered tracks and easily manipulating sounds. Whether used for pure ‘soundscape’ (the pretentious name for five minutes of swishing sounds) or as accompaniment in pop tracks (e.g. Prince’s Little Red Corvette, below), ‘ambience’ finally became a term used for emotionally evocative music rather than just the type of mood lighting at a cocktail party.

The 90’s took something of a break from ambience, as anything remotely resembling the previous decade was hidden in the closet above all the totally-not-ridiculous baggy 90’s clothing. Gradually, though, as is always the case, aspects of the decade’s style re-emerged in popular culture. This started to take effect most prominently in the past few years in mainstream pop, as singers and acts like La Roux, Ellie Goulding, Bat For Lashes and The Naked and the Famous (below) infused their tracks with 80’s-style synth, leading the boom in shoulder padded jacket sales in charity shops. The trend had already been established in electro music, with a host of French and German producers like Digitalism and Moderat in particular filling dance floors with atmospheric 80’s-inspired dance tracks.

              
 One area where creating a mood through synth music is particularly appropriate is in films, and it’s noticeable that 80’s-style soundtracks are making something of a come-back. A good example is the Ryan Gosling blood-fest Drive, where he silently but strongly pouted his way through an hour and a half of newly crafted very-definitely-80’s electro music (below). It reminded me of 1982’s Blade Runner, where an equally strong but silent, pouty Harrison Ford patrolled the streets to the sound of Vangelis’ genius soundtrack (below). 

Girls (and boys) just want to have fun: Shoulder-pumping beats

I can only imagine what it must have been like to be driving my Corvette, white jacket sleeves rolled up to my elbows, hearing the pulsating beat of New Order’s Blue Monday (see below) kick in for the first time. Presumably my aviators would have fallen off; such would have been the jerkiness of my involuntary shoulder movement.

Along with power ballads, the synth pop genre perhaps most simply defines the sound of the 80’s for those of us who became acquainted with the era primarily reverb-laden 80’s snare sound, and even ‘alternative’ bands like

The Cure used the effect to good, ahem, effect (although Robert Smith would probably kill me- or at least sulk under a tree about it- if he were to hear me calling his music ‘pop’).

               
Accordingly, the past decade has seen the re-introduction of the shoulder pumping beat in its own contemporary style, though the meat of the sound remains decidedly 80’s. Vitalic, the French electro producer, is a good example of the modern adaptation of the 80’s electronic drum sound (below), and the same can be said of acts like LCD Soundsystem and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Even the more dirgy current genres of electronic music like Dub Step have extracted aspects of the 80’s production quality to add feeling, as in Skream’s remix of La Roux’s In For the Kill (below). Luckily, living in the era we do, listening to current stuff opens the door wide open to its 80’s musical heritage, leaving people like me to excitedly explore the rabbit-hole of online musical discovery.

     

Total Eclipse of the Power Ballad

So, as I celebrate the re-appearance of certain elements of 80’s music, it’s with a heavy Chicago-style heart that I also mourn the death of the power ballad. With the discovery of irony in the early 2000’s, the innocence that allowed the inception of the fist-clenching gut wrenchers produced by the likes of Bon Jovi and Bonny Tyler has been killed, perhaps forever. Even the cock-rockers of the day who spent most of the decade singing about sexually assaulting women produced some absolute power ballad classics, like Aerosmith’s Cryin’ and Kiss’ I Still Love You.

               
Nowadays the closest thing we have is douche-bag soft rock espoused by sensitive souls like John Mayer, James Blunt and James Morrison, who unfortunately as teenagers never had their guitars ripped away from them as they hogged attention at house parties. The indications are, at least, that these guys will soon join Bryan Adams and Celine Dion in the halls of commercial naffness.

                
In the spirit of reminiscence of the 80’s (without having been there), I’ll leave you with the ultimate 80’s sign-off, reminding us not to forget about the power of the music from a decade where, devoid of self-consciousness, epic melodies and moody synthesisers were valued above all else.

 

The Four Year Plan: 'Become an Olympian'. What do you mean it's harder than it looks?

A conversation with a friend the other evening left me with a lingering thought, not of the romantic kind but rather the kind that offers an intriguing challenge. The motion was this: within four years, someone like he or I could become an Olympian if we really set ourselves to the challenge. Now, I'm quite a sporty guy, but having never played any sport to anything resembling an elite level, I was highly dubious. It is possible, he thought, and perhaps he was right? As well as being sporty though, I'm also kind of lazy. If there was an Olympic sport for laziness etc etc... 

We discussed the kind of Olympic sports that might better suit someone looking for an easy ride as possible to becoming an international standard athlete, from a standing start at the age of twenty-seven...

Running: I fancy myself as a half-decent runner. I've recently been doing some pretty intensive training for a 10K run... on the days when I've felt like it, cos, you know, I'm not a machine. Oh, and obviously sometimes it rains, and I'm not a huge fan of getting wet. Also, I've noticed I get very thirsty when running, and don't like carrying a bottle of water with me because it's too heavy, obviously. Aside from these imposed constraints, which I presume beset all aspiring Olympic distance runners, I think it's doable. Mo Farah barely looked out of breath as he won the 5,000m so it really can't be that difficult. 
OK, so perhaps you've noticed I'm playing the part of the deluded fantasist, and in truth my barely-serious three weeks of training- which has extended to buying a pedometer and eating slightly fewer biscuits late at night- has reminded me in no uncertain terms that running 5k in basically half the time achieved by the average club runner would involve a constant gruelling pain that would require genuine masochism to endure/enjoy. While I do like the feel of a slight scratch, I'm not quite at the clamp and battery level necessary. I'll leave it then, and move on to another idea.

Shooting or Archery: My friend and I reasoned that perhaps a more sedentary sport would provide a more realistic opportunity to become proficient enough to take on the world's best. Also, the world record hold in Archery is held by a legally blind South Korean (not to suggest that he would otherwise be illegally blind), who's technique involves aiming at the centre of a blurry yellow blob. However, having never fired live ammunition or shot an arrow that I hadn't fashioned from loose twigs as a child, developing the muscle memory and concentration seems like very hard work. Plus, if the book and film We need to talk about Kevin taught me anything, it's not to hang around with archers. 

Boxing: Super-massive-heavyweight London 2012 winner Joshua Anthony is living proof that four years is all it takes. The story goes that four years ago he joined his local boxing gym in Finchley to make new friends after moving to the area, and ended up killing them all with a single punch... or something similar. I actually started boxing last year, and really enjoyed it. The technique involved suits my physical attributes quite well and it's certainly satisfying releasing all your rage on a defenceless purpose-built inanimate object (but enough about my friend Rich- zinger!) So boxing really seemed for me. That was, until some bastard punched me in the head while sparring, which really hurt. Obviously I tried to press charges but for some reason the police were totally uninterested. Let's move on...


Coxing: As I sought the next sport to consider, repeating 'boxing' over in my head soon revealed a surprise package: I could sit still, shouting at people substantially larger than me and win a medal if my directions proved accurate. And that's the beauty of it; the directions are really easy. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much 'Keep going straight', 'Yep, keep going', 'That's it, keep going forward, you're doing well' all the way to the finish line. There may be some small print extra details that involve in-depth knowledge of rowing technique or whatever, but I'm sure I'd pick it up... Unfortunately though, I've just remembered I'm 6'1" so my legs would be sticking out the sides dragging along the water like a basketball player on a BMX. Oh well...

An Anaesthetist preps the athlete

Skeleton: I then remembered that there's a whole other season of Olympics, and that Amy Williams, a Brit from my home town of Bath no less, had won gold hurtling herself head-first down a bob sleigh track, or 'icey death tunnel'. While it seems slightly terrifying, presumably they tranquillise you before throwing you on your way. It would just be like sliding down a water park flume, except that the water has all frozen and there's every chance you'll die if you fall off your skeleton, or 'face-first suicide tray'. Next. 

Volleyball: Ultimately, I decided that my greatest chance of going to Rio in 2016 as an Olympic athlete would be as a volleyball player. Beach volleyball would be my preference, but it appears there is little opportunity for social loafing (i.e. not having to do much) as there's only two of you per team. From what I remember from Top Gun, training for beach volleyball also includes intensive fighter jet training involving a compelling yet highly homo-erotic competition with Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer. I wouldn't last a week. 
Having watched an indoor volleyball game at Earls Court, while I in no way doubt the high level of skill possessed by the players, some of them seem basically just to hop up and down at the net, alternating between smashing the ball at the opposition's face and blocking said smashes. I'm a goalkeeper by trade (not literally- I lose money playing football) so getting in the way of the ball is my forte, as is punching the ball at the apex of its flight. Sign me up!.. What do you mean it's not that easy?

Premier League football, I love you, I hate you, I love you

With the Premier League returning to action tomorrow, I can't figure out whether my lack of usual excitement is borne from the embers of a heady summer affair with the Olympics, a growing disaffection towards the game's bad attitude, or paranoid belief that the league I have loved for so long is sleeping with John Terry.

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling more ambivalent about the new season than usual, but once it's up and running it will no doubt occupy the hollow space in my brain reserved for inane football information as always.

With this is mind, here are some predicted headlines for us all to look forward to:

QPR send Joey Barton to Marseille on loan to be mentored by a more experienced group of self-entitled, pretentious footballers. He reads a paragraph about the French Revolution and writes a book in nonsensical French about the nature of revolution using Google Translate. 

 Mike Ashley finally renames his team Sports Direct FC, brands all squad members' faces, mansions and children with the logo and uses his 10 per cent share of Rangers to convert Ibrox into a distribution centre. Star striker Papiss Cisse is accidentally sold to Grimsby Town after a poorly trained shop assistant mistakenly marks the player '70% off'. The team also receive a free oversized mug (or 'Mike Ashley') but as it doesn't fit through the letter box they have to pick the striker up from the nearest collection office. 

Wilshere pre-leg-re-snap

Arsene Wenger announces that Jack Wilshere will return for Arsenal in October, followed by December, followed by February, followed by 'this academic year', before admitting that the injury is maybe a little worse than originally anticipated two years ago. 

Owen Hargreaves posts a Youtube video in an attempt to prove he's in better shape than new City recruit Jack Rodwell. Highlights include Hargreaves introducing a short-lived wobbly handstand with 'I bet Jack Rodwell can't do this!'

Alan Shearer literally runs out of things to say on Match of the Day, but escapes embarrassment as Lee Dixon struggles to finish a sentence he started an hour previously.

Tenuous link: a cat named Thor 

After growing jealous at the attention gained by the new Brazilian star striker Hulk, the other Chelsea forwards change their names, resulting in a strike force of Hulk, Thor, Captain America and Daredevil. Thor formerly known as Torres takes it too far by wearing a cape in training.

Gary Neville causes outrage after vocally climaxing in his trousers during a United goal resulting from sublime combination play from Rooney and Van Persie.

AVB and Daniel Levy dedicate all their energy to successfully retaining Luka Modric despite his outspoken wish to leave for Real Madrid. AVB then rests Modric for every meaningful game to assert his authority, while also revealing a new 'Blue Steel'-esque pose for the season.

Bale lies wounded as Adams remonstrates
 against his booking out of shot

Charlie Adams stabs Gareth Bale, only receiving a booking.

Inactivity from top flight management causes Harry Redknapp's face to finally fall off.