Track of the Week

lawrenceofarabia@hotmail.co.ar

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Lawrence of Arabia will go down in history as the shortest, most succinct postal address.

Back in the early 20^th century, from Damascus to Medina, the conversation between workers in sorting offices across the Arabian peninsula went something like…

‘I hate this job – the Bedouin always moving around. Don’t they ever leave a forwarding address? There’s no tent number on this envelope mate.’

‘Stick it in that bag, Abdul.’

‘Which one?’

The one marked ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

The Johnny Wilkinson Legacy - 'The Times Crossword'

The Johnny Wilkinson Legacy - 'The Evolution of Man'

The Johnny Wilkinson Legacy - 'The Flight Attendant'

John Doe a No No

If you’re American and your surname is Doe, it’s kind of a jinx to name your son John. How often have we seen in the cop shows, the procedurals, a detective ask down the mortuary, ‘what you got for us, doc?’

‘Got us a John Doe’, replies the mortician pulling out a drawer from an oversized filing cabinet containing a cadaver played by an actor hoping he won’t get typecast.

‘We only want what’s best for our son’, say Mr and Mrs Doe, but surely he can aspire to something better than getting done in and a label on his big toe? There must be some John Doe’s who have died of natural causes, they say. But, Mr and Mrs Doe, when did you last see a John Doe inscription down the local cemetery? (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

A Fat-finding Mission

When it comes to talent identification in sport, fat kids are slipping through the net. Albeit a net with a gappy mesh.

We’re all familiar with the way young footballers are brought on, but are we seeing enough from the Sumo Wrestling Academies, the Darts Academies? – sporting institutions that demand porky excellence. All too often they are failing to pick up raw talent. Darts scouts, where are you? There’s overweight youth out there planting the javelin perilously close to a foot-impaling in the athletics season. The sort of thing that generally gets overlooked. But look closer, scouts, at the consistency of the javelin placements. Notice a missile accuracy over a much shorter range and notice that the thrower is a ‘brandable’ tubby.

‘You’re very good,’ the scout may say, encouragingly. ‘Come out for a pint, son’. Or he could at least offer a half, because, from an early age, it’s also about conditioning. (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)