The Professional Birthday Present

December 15, 2008

According to the Sunday Times, a new trend has been heralded by the knock on the door of a New York investor by Richard Kiplagat, a world-class distance runner from Kenya. Kiplagat turned up at businessman Michael Chambers’ Manhattan home to accompany him for his morning jog. This was Chambers’ 40th birthday present, one arranged by his wife, and the Wall Street denizen was thrilled: “It’s like running next to a cheetah,” he purred. “What a birthday present.”

Does a new age of professional sportsmen doubling as birthday entertainers loom?  Perhaps, but we hear that the professional sector has been doing some lateral thinking of its own. Research has revealed that a great many sportsmen secretly wish they were lawyers, or accountants, or writers, or financiers, or even – yes – PRs. Here are six birthday wishes for sport’s finest.

1. For Chris Hoy, it’s Andrew Motion.

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The new BBC Sports Personality of the Year and triple Olympic Gold Medal winner is apparently a keen amateur poet. Imagine his joy as Andrew Motion knocks on his door at his next birthday, saying “Come on Chris, it’s time to rhyme.” Hoy’s girlfriend being a lawyer, this is one birthday present whose contractual nexus will be faultless.

2. For Lewis Hamilton, it’s Lord Judge.

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Hamilton may be swift round a racetrack but the rules of Formula 1 are desperately complex. At 23, the slick marketing man’s dream has already been embroiled in a controversy or two, prompting him to take up the study of the law in his spare time. Who could be better to assist him with this than Lord Judge, the current Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and owner of the best lawyer’s name in history? Judge is rumoured to be booked for Hamilton’s next birthday on 7th January.

3. For Goldenballs, it’s Lakshmi Mittal.

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A slightly left-field one, this, as David Beckham’s wife Victoria hires the world’s fourth richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, to appear at her husband’s 34th birthday on 2nd May. Football commentators immediately realise that she would like him to play for a truly glamorous club like QPR – of which Mittal is one of the co-owners – rather than the likes of AC Milan. Mittal is not sure about becoming a birthday party entertainer but does think that Becks could do a useful job for QPR.

4.  For Paula Radcliffe, it’s Max Clifford.

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Long distance runners can be lonely. But they can also use all that time to think. In Radcliffe’s case, pounding mile after mile has created a fascination with the PR industry. How does it work? What does it do? Who are its main players? Where do they live? Are they normal, like you and I? These and other questions will be answered by her gift-wrapped surprise in two days’ time – none other than Max Clifford himself.

5. For Graeme Souness, it’s Ant and Dec.

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The former Liverpool captain and football pundit is known for his steely eyes and thousand yard stare but recently confessed that he would quite like to be cool, chilled and happy.  Or, at least, perceived as such. Accordingly, not one but two birthday presents are coming his way in the cheeky form of I’m A Celebrity presenters Ant and Dec. (When asked about this, Souness was unavailable for comment.)

6. For Usain Bolt, it’s Gordon Brown.

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Bolt has told friends that he fears his lightning-fast speed might be ill-suited to the impending Age of Austerity. He has asked for something to slow him down, something to take the edge off a little, something to make him a man more ordinary. The British Prime Minister was asked to answer this imprecation some 17 years ago, but believes that he needs to assess everything in the fullness of time, with due gravitas, before he gives an answer. Bolt remains optimistic that his longed-for present will materialise. “He is a walking longueur,” he said, astonishing observers with the speed with which he learned to speak French (3.6 seconds).

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown was busy slowly saving the world. “I will decide whether to be a birthday present for Usain Bolt in the fullness of time,” he said, in record time (23 hours, 35 minutes and four seconds).

 

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Good work by Rusbridger

February 10, 2012
scissors

The headline says it all: ‘Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger takes pay cut‘.

Dan Sabbagh’s piece says a bit more: said editor ‘emailed staff at the newspaper to say that his salary in the upcoming 2012-13 financial year will be £395,010, compared with £438,900 in the current financial year’.

Some voices say: ‘How worthy.’

Others opine: ‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’

But we say: good work by Mr Rusbridger. For the sake of the media’s survival, we hope that others in senior positions in the industry will follow suit.

Image of toolkit allegedly deployed by Alan Rusbridger courtesy of Flickr user LollyKnit.

From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.