Thanks to Ruth.
I will humbly suggest a few things, Rafa, you said it. You did not play your match. Hit down the line more instead of cross court with the forehand most of the time especially against double handed backhands. Not down the middle, down the line. Stand closer to return serve and if you do that the returns will not drop short to allow the likes of Soderling take advantage. Improve the direction of serve and second serve. Pace is not enough. I say all this, meaning there is lots of room for improvement and yet you are 23 with 6 slams, 15 masters shields and world number one. It shows that you have many more successful years ahead and will win many more slams and French opens. Forget the crowd everywhere even those of us that love you. Play your game. Those who love you always will and those who don’t will come around and even if they do not, it doesn’t matter. You are Rafael Nadal and thats darn good enough. Happy Birthday.
Eve
As one of Britain’s leading sportsmen, Rafael Nadal is always in need of amateur coaching from internet messageboards. We can only hope he takes your advice. Meanwhile, I’ve personally written to the Dictionary and asked them to commission a portrait of you, in oils, haloed in the light of your own intellect. You are clutching a silver tennis racquet in your upper right hand, a solid gold tennis ball in your upper left, and typing out a bounty of indespensible sporting advice with the other two. They will use it, in a double-page colour plate, as their definition of ‘humbly’.
51 Responses to “Online Instructor”
The world would be a much better place if leading figures in all fields heeded the advice of lonely, ignorant, petty-minded twatbaskets writing illiterate, slightly scary and self-obsessed crap on teh interwebnets that they clearly think others could give a living shit about.
Although I can’t help noticing I’ve just sort of done exactly that. Arse. At least I can spell and punctuate and I’m not wearing a tinfoil hat.
For the moment.
Nadal’s Spanish. Either that or he’s immigrunted very recently.
Don’t knock this approach kids, it really works. I shouted at my tele for Ronaldo to “fuck off out of it” when he got Rooney sent off in the Euro World thing and sure enough, soon after, he signed up for Spanish O Club. Must have been down to me, I’m expecting my cut of the fee in the post.
Honest guv’nor
Why are you disrespecting this helpful writer who just wants to offer advice, and rather good advice at that? Oh hang on, that’s so Last Thread. Plippy plops.
But the portrait idea is Damned Good and I don’t mind who knows I think so. I for one do not. If I’m right.
We have only your word for that.
I want to know what millie thinks.
Bad sandwich idea: Anything in Boots’ Meal Deal range.
@ Dolly’s evil nemesis.
I give my blessing to this one (my blessing clearly matters on this site…). Pile in.
I reckon Nadal would be unbeatable if he stopped getting tired and injured, had a serve like Roddick and a drop shot like Federer. Every shot he plays should be a winner, not just getting it back. It may be that I am a moron, but my tinfoil hat is missing….
Goldstein,
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks a lot.
Bad sandwich idea: Anything with Rocket lettuce in it (makes me short of breath)
@Dolly’s – now I’m worried you want to spy on me. Should’ve worn the hat after all.
Bad sandwich idea: any fucking sport whatsoever. With houmous. Bleeuch.
Is this post an example of that female masturbation thing people keep talking about? I wouldn’t want to be borrowing a tennis bat off of Eve.
Mellifluous: You’ll be sharing your cut of the cronaldo fee with quite a lot of us. It’ll probably work out at about 3p each.
Obwich: gravy and peach slices
But isn’t every sportsblog and forum full of this kind of breathless drivel masquerading as prose? Everyone always knows better than the manager or the coach or the player or the trainer or the guy that invented the sport or Jesus.
Who hasn’t spent an enjoyable couple of hours screaming at sportsmen on the telly in the belief that we can influence them from the comfort of the pub or the living room despite the fact that they possess skills, training and abilities that we could only dream of?
If it’s this kind of twatbasketry that we’re looking to mock then why leave all the bile for Ruth. There are hundreds of similar asshats who are paid to spout this kind of mindless drivel across every conceivable media outlet. The case for the prosecution gives you Football Focus. That said, my personal favourites for utter asshattery in this field have to be Stephen Jones, John Inverdale and Nicky Campbell.
And if you’re looking for sports related drivel of the utmost pinacle of tinfoilhatted greenpenscrawling nutcasedness then you only have to look in the direction of Google and type in Rugby League Fans Forum.
Bad Sandwich Idea: Tampons and jam on Lurpak spread Warburtons Extra Thick White*.
(*the only known bread based tribute to the average BNP voter).
Come on, Tim!
Oh, err, hang on…
Me. And Charlie Brooker, obviously.
@ Digger
Are you secretly ‘er’? You’re defending Eve for one thing, but more to the point: what do the last two letters of your name spell?
Coincidence? I think not…
Actually, now I think about it, the fifth and sixth letters of my mother’s first name spell ‘er’ too! And (this is actually true!)so do last two letters of her surname!!* My God, it’s worse than I thought!!!
Digger is my mother!
Argh!
You’ll notice I’ve said nothing about Eve’s post. That’s because (a) she actually sounds quite sweet, bless her little knitting patterns, and (b) she could be absolutely right for all I know. You could write everything I know about sport on the full stop at the end of this sentence
I humbly suggest to the England cricket that they should play well and not badly. Well, yes. Badly, no. Understand? Good.
Pass the tinfoil here when you’re done, thanks.
It has to be said, that other experts could obviously benefit from internet talk-board coaching.
Imagine how much better the Iraq War would be going, if only Bush and Blair has been given words of wisdom from the messageboards. I’m sure they would have seen the error of their ways if only anybody had ever bothered to offer an opinion.
Alas, we’ll never know the world we could have had. (sob)
Geoffrey, the vision of you wearing a tinfoil hat, as lightened up my otherwise shite day. Please wear it on the telly.
@ My Foot Hurts
That’s it. I will not countenance such insolence! Off to bed now, with no tea. You’re grounded for the weekend and shall have no pocket money for to spend on sweetmeats, waterbombs and pocket fluff; or whatever you young people waste their money on nowadays. You just wait till your father gets home!!
To be honest I’m a hypocrite – playing to the groundlings. I know as much about sport as your average garden snail. And care for it about as much too.
It’s just that I found Eve’s earnestness a little touching – like a HYS version of Susan Boyle. Granted she’s showing off a bit – but I know bugger all about tennis and it seems like a grade above the usual hormonal rantings of the menopausal “come on Tim!” brigade.
There are much more deserving targets for our frothing maws to savage. Like smug jug-eared Linekar and oleaginous smarm-pot Inverdale. Charmless assclowns the pair of them.
How has Garth Crooks escaped from the pundit bashing unscathed? If ever there was an odious turd in need of a good thrashing it’s him so let’s not waste time on Eve.
Just realised I haven’t done a sandwich yet, erm, baby lotion and jack daniels??
Baby lotion and Jack Daniels sounds like a recipe for a good night in – with company OR alone…
@Daley Mayle – I think our friend Mellifluous meant baby lotion and Jack Russell.
TENNIS RACKET YOU FACEBERK!
And me. Please add me to the list.
It’s a tennis hammer isn’t it?
My sandwich thing.
Baby Lotion and a Jack Russell STILL sounds like a good night in to me.
And add me to the sport-hating list too.
NO YOU EARCLUNGE, EVEN I KNOW THA… Oh, you’re joking aren’t you? Bollocks.
I hope you’re not gonna do what I think you’re gonna do. That is just wrong. Still, if all you do is cover it in oil and and laugh at it, thats fine.
That’s your opinion. The RSPCA case against me was dropped last time – I won’t be making the same amateur mistakes this time.
Oily dog fucking = still 100% more interesting and worthwhile than watching tennis.
woof woof woof WOOF!!!
slurp slurp slurp SLURP!!!
frot frot frot FROT (eh?) !!!
pant pant pant PANT!!!
Clunk.
Sigh.
Oops sorry about my dog. Can I give you a hand cleaning that off?
Bad sandwich idea: dog sperm and marmite.
“OFF OF” YOU GRAMMER NAZI!
It’s like a nightmare vision of Eats, Shoots and Leaves world here sometimes.
Erm, shouldn’t it be ‘… borrow a tennis bat FROM Eve?’, anyway? Just saying.
I prefer an oily alsation, myself. More of a challenge.
Or an Alsatian, BOLLOCKS! That’ll *learn* me to type crap so late at night.
Iraq (and all the other forrins)would have been nuked within 20 seconds of war being declared if they had listened to HYS (and hopefully the French too,just to be on the safe side)
Correct, one point!
Good, you realise the error of your crapspouting ways, its what seperates us and THEM…..
@ John Freeman – so I can’t point out the punctuation and spelling errors in your last sentence? Buggeration.
Wo’t erorz.? Translation:
I’ve gone
Should be ‘it’s’ and ‘separate’. Innit.
Oh sorry. I’m posting from my phone, it doesn’t like it’s, but I did write seperate right, unless my phone gave me the American version, besides, “it what seperate us and THEM…” doesn’t work grammatically.
Oh and Crushinator, you just lost the game.
Separate is spelt with an a, not an e, and it’s the same for the US and here, durr.
PS What game? Get a life!
Ho hum. Sometimes this site really brings out the grumpy dialectologist in me. If I want quasi-moral interpretation of linguistic diversity I’ll read the collected works of Norman Tebbit ta very much.
Eve is quite sweet for a tennis fan. At least she doesn’t seem to live in a particularly awful world of her own. And her punctuation seems pretty extensive by the standards of stream-of-consciousness.
I shall admit to liking cricket now so that I get all my unpopular opinions out of the way at once.
CRICKET? CRICKET? NORMAN TEBBIT? WHAT ARE YOU? WHAT? ARE YOU A FENCE? NO, YOU’RE SOFT! YOU FUCKSQUID! GET OUT!!!
I read Eve’s words in the grumpy barking tone of a coach, and it seemed to fit well. Except that the ‘happy birthday’ at the end seemed weirdly begrudging.
Bahahahahaha! This is special for you, Daley Mayle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-JfIduytVs
What if you like tennis and cricket, but don’t like oily dogs? What then?
Yeah, but who doesn’t like oily dogs?
I will humbly suggest a few things, Rafa. Never slam your balls in a car door. It’s a really bad idea. Never drink bleach. Also, try and refrain from beating little old ladies to death. Use that bat thingy to hit the little fuzzy ball over the net and keep it inside the white lines on the other side. It’s a good idea to try to make sure the guy at the other side of the net can’t hit it back to you – so don’t hit it straight at him. And remember that getting caught having sex with animals is a sure fire way to prematurely end your tennis playing career. Those who love you might not always stick around and those who don’t love you will come around if you give them enough money; even if they don’t, there’s always somebody cheaper. If you love someone then set them free. If they love you they will come back: if they don’t come back then hunt them down and kill them. You are Rafael Nadal, try and remember that. If you can’t then I find that writing it in marker pen inside your clothing helps. Better still, write it on the back of your hands: that’s what I do. Happy Bar Mitzvah.
[blockquote]And remember that getting caught having sex with animals is a sure fire way to prematurely end your tennis playing career.[/blockquote]
What? Those oily dogs never did Tim Henman’s career any harm…