Tuesday 12 June 2012

LE FOOT: BLOGS


For those who haven't already seen it, there's a fantastic new Euro 2012 blog called Straight Off the Beach featuring contributions from a number of pacey word-wingers.

My fave post so far is Joe Kennedy's look at the tendency of modern punditry to "read between the lines before actually reading the lines themselves". Coverage of the modern game does seem to have reached a point of absurdist over-analysis, with stats, tactical imaging, etc. I mean Masri's goal last night was just a pretty fucking good shot wasn't it? As such I found the the sight of Gareth Southgate getting his fibre-optic visualisation in a twist about the poor defending pretty risible. Seems like another symptom of bogus technocratic rationalism, capitalist realism, whatever.

Oh and don't forget that South Africa 2010 veteran Minus the Shooting is also producing some pretty snazzy stuff!

Monday 4 June 2012

(BANK?) HOLIDAY READING: EAGLETON, HOLLINGHURST, DELLER

I'm editing the Oxonian Review right now, and wanted to give y'all heads up that we've just published a particularly competent issue, of which the highlights are as follows:
Enjoy!