Well, um, I wouldn't say no...Part DEUX!!!

Listening to: 'Dangerous Animals' by Arctic Monkeys [Humbug]

Ha! And you thought I was done with my list of weird celeb crushes. Hell no. Let's pay another visit to the somewhat disturbed mind of your favourite evil babushka.

The 'Special' One

Liking the pensive look, José!

Yes I know he talks nonsense and I know he's old but...oh I dunno. What I do know is that he looks damn good in a suit. And I'm seeing shades of Jude Law. Maybe that's it.










Coach of the year

From manager to coach. Except this one's not really a coach. In fact, he's not even real. But the actor who plays him? Definitely real. There's something about James Corden that's just so...cuddly.

I'm not usually into 'cuddly' guys, but I see James Corden and I just go 'awwwwww'. Though not when watching the BBC Sports Personality of the Year sketch he did for Sport Relief. Then I was properly ROFLing. You need to check it out. It features a lot of my more conventional crushes - Jenson Button, David Beckham, Freddie Flintoff, *ahem* Gary Lineker and Tom Daley...

But yeah, a cuddly man who's hilarious...who can resist?

If you believe, you can achieve...innit?

Next up is one of James Corden's buddies. No, not his comedy partner Matt Horne, but the collaborator on his #1 hit single, Shout. Yup that's right, Mr Dizzee Rascal himself. I wasn't a 'fan' as such initially, though I thought Old Skool, Flex and Fix Up, Look Sharp were pretty cool. And then Obama became president. And Paxman decided to interview the 'coolest' black person he could find in Britain. And since then, I've been chanting "Dizzee for Prime Minister!" with the rest of them.

I don't really find him that good looking, but he exudes this fun-loving positive energy that just makes me feel good when I see him. And in case it wasn't obvious before, I am a sucker for boyish charm.

I'm Pro, I'm no intermediate!

And now, one of Dizzee's contemporaries. I'm really really not into tattoos, let alone tattoos on a person's neck...but I seem to be able to ignore them in this case. Again, he's not that good looking. And again, I have no idea why I fancy him, but I do. I'm currently loving this remake he and Lily Allen have done of Beats Internationals' Dub Be Good To Me. Lily Allen's a bit trashy, but she looks pretty with make up on, and I love her short hair in this video! And the scenes of them together...maybe it's the perfect height difference or the lighting or something, but I'm sensing some serious chemistry.

Random thought: he probably has the best dentist in the world. I mean check out this video...maaajor dental work alert!. I probably wouldn't have fancied him had I see him like this first. Good song though. Perfect reworking of Brahms' Hungarian Dance #5, and nice use of the meter from Forgot About Dre.

Alright, Treacle?

Ah...the love of my life, Scott Mills. Scott presents the drive time show on Radio 1, and to be honest, if it wasn't for Radio 1, I probably wouldn't have got so attached to any of these celebrities in the first place. But I digress. Scott's voice and his on-air personality are simply adorable (as is his face), and I find myself using his catchphrases in everyday life. I am obsessed. Which would be fine, except for the fact that crushing on a gay guy is a bit of a waste of time, no? *sigh*

So there we have it. Five more bizarre celebrity crushes. Will there be more? Only time will tell.

Reminiscing

Listening to: Radio 1

I just finished watching an almost clinical (well, save a few unnecessary unforced errors and 2nd serves) Wimbledon Final performance by Rafael Nadal. Rafa is my absolute favourite and I'm thrilled that it was so easy for him, but I had kinda hoped that Tomas Berdych (who is actually quite cute, btw) would rise to the occasion. He did against Federer and Djokovic, but not today. He's got potential though, and as with most of the players on the tour, he just needs to work more on his mental game.

While I was screaming words of encouragement at the monitor, my mind went back to a time when I wasn't into tennis. Yes folks, believe it or not, there was a time when I couldn't stand the stuff. Or cricket, for that matter. Oh how things have changed.

I used to be really into my Premier League football. I was a steady Spurs supporter (two words: 'Gary Lineker'). Tennis, in my opinion (if you can count the opinion of a 9 yr-old, that is), took far too long. Realistically though, there was a deeper reason. My father worked long hours, and I cherished the time he was at home...but with Wimbledon on TV, he might as well have been at work. I still remember that famous '92 Wimbledon final between Agassi and Ivanisevic. I was in the middle of a very tough 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and I wanted Thaththi's help. But nooooo, he and Ammi were screaming words of encouragement at the TV (sound familiar?). Hmph. I can't remember why I went and sat next to them, but I did. And I followed the ball, and the cheers. And the scoreboard. Before long, I had grasped the basics of the game. And you know what? It wasn't that bad. In fact, it was actually quite enjoyable. Maybe I would learn to like this tennis malarkey after all.

Or maybe not. We moved back to SL in '93, and had no contact with tennis for a while (except through the papers). But then somehow, we managed to catch the 1996 US Open. I saw Pete Sampras play, and I was hooked. For a while at least...I briefly lost interest when Sampras retired, and it took the first of the Federer/Nadal encounters to reel me back in. Their rivalry, combined with the excellent BBC tennis coverage, has turned me into an addict.

Like I said earlier, tennis isn't the only sport that I learnt to love. Considering that I thought tennis took too long, you can imagine why I didn't like cricket! Again, the Ashes would steal my father from me, and it irritated me that he would rather sit and watch some weird moustached man (Graham Gooch) instead of playing Scrabble with me. Double hmph.

Fast forward to January 1996. I was in hospital after my surgery, and utterly bored in my room. As luck would have it, the TV in the room would only show one channel. The same channel that was showing Sri Lanka's infamous tour of Australia. I had two choices: try and follow the cricket, or die of boredom. And so I followed. I listened to the commentary, and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I filled in the gaps by quizzing my father during visiting hours. And then I was discharged, just in time for the World Cup. The rest, as they say, is history.

So yeah, what started out as a way to have some quality time with my father, or to relieve my boredom, resulted in a lifelong love affair. And now I couldn't care less about the Premiership. Funny how things work out, no?

It's all about the bird shit

Listening to: 'Self Machine' by I Blame Coco [The Constant]

So I was in London last weekend, and Shorty suggested that we try for Wimbledon tickets. For what I believe was the first time, Wimbledon was releasing a small number of show court tickets online every night, so we thought we'd give it a shot. Unsurprisingly, we missed out. We weren't willing to queue up at 4am, so we decided to drop by in the afternoon and have a snoop around, in case there were any return tickets. If there was nothing available, at least we could wander over to Wimbledon Common and lounge around in the sunshine.

We got to Wimbledon station just after 3pm, and decided to walk to the grounds. Along the way, we saw 2 Ferraris and at least 4 Bentleys! And OMG the houses! They were enormous! We were on proper 'rich people' road. No litter, no chavs, no nothing. Oh except for some incontinent birds, that is. We were happily walking down the road when suddenly one of my friends said "ha ha PR you just got shat on" and then almost collapsed in a heap of laughter :-|. Thankfully Shorty was far more sympathetic, and one wet wipe later, she had removed all traces of the poop from my head. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is what best friends are for - to wipe shit off your head.

So anyway, we carried on towards the All-England Club, chatting about how birds shitting on one's head was supposed to be lucky or something. Well, turns out...it was! After walking for what felt like an eternity (actually only about an hour), we got to the starting point for the queue to get ground passes. The extremely helpful stewards told us that the wait would be about an hour, so we figured we might as well try our luck. We got our queue cards (I was the 12,745th person to join the queue that day) and hung about until the gates opened. When they did, we moved pretty swiftly - past the surprisingly clean 'toilet trailer' (the flush worked and everything!), through the airport-like security and on to the turnstiles. I think Shorty and I each gave a little squeal when we got our tickets...Wimbledon, baby! w00t! Dare I say I love having bird shit on my head? Hmm.

Since ground passes only provide access to courts 5-19, we missed Rafa, Andy Murray, Soderling and Sharapova. And the Williams sisters' doubles match. We did, however, manage to get up close and personal with a lot of other doubles matches. In fact we had pretty awesome seats for the first set of Sania Mirza/Caroline Wozniacki v Daniela Hantuchová/Cara Black. Mrs Malik and C-Woz played pretty well, but it was obvious that they were no match for Cara Black. The woman was amazing. Hantuchová just had to stand there and look pretty! Which she does anyway, to be fair.

[L-R] Caroline Wozniacki and Daniela Hantuchová: check out the different serving stances!
(click on image for corresponding fluidr page)

But back to 'my' experience of Wimbledon. We had a wander around the grounds - near the show courts (where we saw Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara), up onto Henman Hill/Murray Mound, and of course the now legendary Court 18. It's been a pretty special Wimbledon this year, hasn't it? Federer pushed for 5 sets by a random Colombian, Rafa pushed to 5 sets by a random Dutchman, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut mistaking tennis for test cricket...and that was just Week 1! Week 2 has brought its own surprises - Henin and Roddick out in the 4th round, Clijsters, Venus and Federer out in the QFs - and in almost all cases, the upsets have been caused by total nobodies. Unlike previous years where unseeded players would tremble at the sight of a big name, this year there seems to be this confidence, this belief that winning is an option. It's fascinating to see.

That said, some have crumbled. Like Tsvetana Pironkova against Vera Zvonareva, and Petra Kvitová against the mighty Serena Williams. And it's not just the inexperienced that freeze when playing 'the greats'. I think that's what happened yesterday with Andy Murray. He had definitely brought his A game, but so had Rafa...and anything less than a gutsy A+ is not enough to beat Señor Nadal on a good day. But what struck me as peculiar was Rafa's post-match interview. When being asked about Murray, Rafa praised his opponent and said he deserves to win a Grand Slam...the interviewer pounced on this and asked "so you think he can win a Grand Slam?". It's like he was seeking reassurance from the world #1. Why? We don't need reassurance from anyone that Andy can win a Grand Slam. We know he can...if only he believes it himself! It's an affliction of British sport - this lack of self belief. The influx of South Africans seems to have brought about that confidence in the cricket team, and they're doing well. But in almost every other sport - be it tennis, football or rugby, it's a big problem. All the talent in the world is insufficient if we're not convinced that we're good enough.

So yes, Andy Murray has to wait another year to aim for that coveted Wimbledon Final spot. And even if he does manage to work on that self belief, he'll need a lot of luck with the draw. Maybe some bird shit would do?