Monday, July 14, 2008

20 Pints a Night V. Luther Blissett

Not that I feel very sympathetic to a multimillionaire who can't "adjust" to working in a foreign country without the help of a specialized minder, but this Simon Kuper column on the struggles of relocating footballers contains a couple gems. First, his description of the core of English football culture ("drinking 20 pints of beer in a night") is one for the ages. Second, the lede (that's journalism talk!) reminds me of the days when English anarchists used to attribute many of their polemics and other writings to one Luther Blissett. When asked about this, Blissett sensibly said something on the order of, "Well, it seems they like using my name."

2 comments:

Richard Whittall said...

I actually remember someone saying you should never use a quote in a lede. But then again it's Simon Kuper, so he could just write

"Football is the dumbest sport in the world. Or is it?"

and I'm sure someone would pick it up.

Fredorrarci said...

Even better than the "20 pints of beer" line is "Just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the football business". That's a show-stopper if ever there was one.