This is phenomenal. Whoever convinced the board “No seriously, this is how you play it” is an all star
— Reuben Rodriguez (@ReubenR80027912) July 26, 2025
I want to know:
-Who was the agency that pitched it?
-Was the board all in or did it take work?
-Did they already have Coldplay Ex-wife Paltrow onboard when they pitched? https://t.co/qjhMt5dkB7
Internet highlights – w/c 20th July 2025
26 07 2025Comments : Leave a Comment »
Categories : The Best of the Internet
The Court Jester – by Mansour Bahrami
24 07 2025Mansour Bahrami has been my favourite tennis player for a long time. After growing up in Iran, and playing tennis with a broomstick handle in an empty swimming pool, he got his chance to play properly, but then just as top flight tennis was becoming an option, there was a revolution in the country. Who knows what he might have achieved if that wasn’t the case.
But as it is, he loves the sport, performing for a crowd, and would intentionally lose games to help make a match go on for longer! He’s most known for his tricks, mucking about, and general sense of fun.
He plays in the invitational doubles at Wimbledon each year (normally available on iPlayer in the second week of the tournament), and I’ve even watched him play at the Royal Albert Hall in 2013 (photo at the bottom where I queued up afterwards to meet him!).
He wrote the book in 2006, so it’s covering the first 50 years of his life, and it’s so interesting. There’s so much sadness and hardship that he’s been through, and yet, what he truly loves to do is entertain, it’s a joy. He’s now 69, and still as full of beans as he’s ever been.
I’ve found a video montage of some of his Wimbledon highlights from a couple of years ago, and listed many of the things I love about him! Please do enjoy
- When he asks the umpire for a “mister”
- When he serves with six balls in his hand
- When he indicates to his opponent where is in and where is out after they miss, or that it needs to go over the net
- When he catches a ball in his pocket
- When he slowly creeps up to the net while waiting for his opponent to serve as if they can’t see him
- When there’s a ball in his hand when the other team is serving, just incase
- When he plays from both sides of the net
- When he lets someone else (ball kid/someone from the crowd) play for him
- When he pauses a point to pose for photos mid match
- When he stands still and has the other players hit to exactly where he is
- When he spins after each hit of the ball
- When he encourages the other team with a “you can do it!”
- When he stands right up at the net waiting for service, and then lifts it as the ball comes
- When he takes the mick out of those who take forever to serve
- How much he clearly loves every minute of it
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Tags: autobiography, book review, book reviews, mansour bahrami, sport, tennis
Categories : Books I've Read
Internet highlights – w/c 13th July 2025
19 07 2025Comments : Leave a Comment »
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The Sunshine Kid – by Harry Baker
15 07 2025The third (and final for now) in my little run of Harry Baker’s poetry – though actually his first chronologically, written while he was still a student, so that made me feel old! I was pre-ordering his next book which comes out next year, and added this on to get free delivery and complete my collection!
From time to time, I thought the feel of this book was a bit different to the others, some of the poems felt a lot longer, which I sometimes struggled to focus the whole way through, but that’s on me. That said, there were still plenty I liked, including “59” (a love poem about prime numbers), “The scientist and the bumblebee” (looking at believing in impossible things, since scientists have apparently proved that bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly) “Monopoly” (to the tune of “That’s what makes you beautiful” by One Direction), and finally “Haiku deathmatch”, which was actually 59 haikus broken into 4 sets throughout the book. I say haikus, I would argue that the 5-7-5 structure was lost pretty quickly, but they were so fun, and punny, that I forgave it!
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Tags: book review, book reviews, harry baker, poetry
Categories : Books I've Read
Four – by Veronica Roth
14 07 2025So while the Divergent books were technically a trilogy, the author wrote a fourth book, giving a bit of backstory to the male lead (called Four), since the first two books of the trilogy were told purely from Tris’ perspective. It’s told as four short stories, and three mini chapters, though the short stories flow fairly well chronologically anyway. That said, I wouldn’t suggest reading this if you haven’t read the trilogy first, as there’s definitely some assumed knowledge! (And don’t think the films will be enough, I watched them recently and the plot seemed to veer right away from the books!)
I enjoyed the stories that were set before the trilogy starts, but once it got to those that overlap, I just felt like I was reading something I’d already read, I didn’t feel like his perspective added a tonne to it. If you’ve read the trilogy it’s worth a quick read through, but I wouldn’t rave about it.
One line though that I thought was worth sharing: “Dead people can be our heroes because they can’t disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.”
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Tags: book review, book reviews, divergent, dystopia, fiction, veronica roth, ya, young adult
Categories : Books I've Read
Internet highlights – w/c 6th July 2025
12 07 2025Comments : Leave a Comment »
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Unashamed – by Harry Baker
7 07 2025Less than a month after reading his third book, I’ve now read his second (also, his first is on order and fourth is on pre-order!). I was privileged to see Harry perform live last week, and so got this book then! The poems take on another dimension when performed, but it’s still great to be able to have copies of them to be able to pick up and read any time.
This time the maths and German themes felt even more prominent, as well as chat about marathons and his mum. There’s a poem that runs through the book with a stanza between each other poem, taking you through the maths of a marathon!
Again, it’s crazy hard to narrow it down to a few favourites, but I loved “Falafellöffel” (translation: falafel spoon), “Knees” (how great his are), “Toilet Seat” (the joy of a new one), “An A-Z of Time and Space” (what it says on the tin) and “Christmas Through the Ages” (a look back on the first 24 Christmasses of his life)! Even his chat between the poems, introducing them was really fun and warm too, and gave you a good feel for what he’s probably like.
This book also introduced me to the concept of a Dougie Day (and the excellent young man who inspired it), but I was devastated to find I’d missed mine!
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Tags: book review, book reviews, harry baker, poetry
Categories : Books I've Read
Internet highlights – f/c 22nd June 2025
5 07 2025Comments : Leave a Comment »
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We Solve Murders – by Richard Osman
5 07 2025I really enjoy the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman, so when he wrote a book that wasn’t in that series, I was interested to see if it was as good – and I do think it was!
So the basic premise is that Amy is a close protection officer, currently looking after a world famous author Rosie on her private island, and Amy’s father-in-law Steve is a retired cop, living in the New Forest. But then various people who are trying to get other people killed get involved, there are influencers, money smugglers, all sorts of things.
And I think this is the only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars (I would have given it 4.5 if that was an option on goodreads) – there are a lot of fringe/secondary characters, and I don’t know if it was that they weren’t given enough intro to bed them into my brain, or if there were just one or two too many of them, but I did have to keep trying to remember who some of them were during the first half, and one of them even later on I was still struggling to place. But I don’t want to be too negative, that really was the only negative for me.
I think Richard Osman’s greatest strength is his characters, and their little eccentricities which really endear them to you. I particularly loved Steve and Rosie this time around, I related to Steve a lot in his desire to potter about somewhere he knows – and Rosie was just so extreme and extravagant in so many ways! The contrast between them was a lot of fun.
What was also enjoyable for me were the bits set in the New Forest, I grew up just outside the national park, and so it was fun to hear references to different places I knew!
As I often do, here are some of my favourite one liners
- “Jeff looks over at Tony, ‘No offence.’
‘I never take offence,’ says Tony. ‘Saved me a lot of time over the years.'” - “Trouble [the cat] never stopped to ask [what flavour his dinner was]; he just loved food that he hadn’t had to catch or scavenge for himself.”
- “What unfortunate timing. If she’d known she was going to die this morning, she would have ordered the pancakes.”
- “‘And how did she score on your psychopath test?’
‘Ninety-six, same as me. That’s why she’s Head of HR'”
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Tags: book review, book reviews, cosy crime, fiction, richard osman, whodunnit
Categories : Books I've Read
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