Let’s talk about snails, Cézanne and Sharapova nipple shots
The beauty – and essence – of sport is that it is absolutely useless.
You could say art is useless too. Take Paul Cézanne. He painted the same mountain for about all his bloody life. Painting after painting of that same spot, in different seasons and at different times of the day. That’s a lot of oil and canvas spent on something that will outlast all these efforts and that is there for everyone to see anyway…
… but at least people in various parts of the world can now go to museums and say ‘Look, a picture of a mountain!’, so you can’t truly say that the whole project was of no use at all.
In sports, you can. Millions of people will watch (live and on television) how two people hit a series of balls at each other. At the end of all this pointless activity one of these men or women will lift a trophy (while both receive a generous amount of money) and that’s it.
There’s nothing to show for all this ‘sound and fury’ afterwards – apart from a few billions of hits on the internet, if one of the female protagonists almost showed a nipple while waiting to receive a serve but then, you’d see more flesh on any beach, so that’s hardly ‘legacy’ material.
No, sport is, most probably, the most useless invention mankind ever dreamed up – and perhaps that’s what makes it such a glorious thing…
… and why the following bit of news made me unreasonably happy:
“Sidney the snail stormed to victory at the World Snail Racing Championship in Norfolk. He beat off stiff competition over the 13-inch course to win a silver tankard stuffed with lettuce. The event at Congham near King’s Lynn has been running for nearly 40 years, and although there are a number of imitations it’s the only recognised World Championship.”
(Ah yes, what did we do before the Internet…?)
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