The Leisure Review: high ground

High Ground edition 18; dateline 4 June 2013

Andy gets a rest; so do we.
Listen vairy carefully, I will say this only once. It’s so relaxing to watch the French Open with the Murraymeister laid up and not competing. You can simply sit back and watch the tennis… It’s no as good, though, to be honest. Even watching the return of Nadal isn’t the same now that he’s permanently snarly and looks like there’s a long-term injury that the biggest economic driver in Mallorca is going to have to acknowledge at some point. I’ll come back to the subject of sport, identity and economics later on. Meanwhile, Scotland’s (and Britain’s of course, and possibly The Ukraine’s) Elena Baltacha sadly went out early in the tournament. Elena has had terrible issues with illness and injury and again I think it’s maybe getting close to time for calling it a day.

Sir Chris gets something in his spokes…
Super Olympian Chris Hoy – or the Knight Rider as we like to think of him – found himself in the middle of a minor constitutional muddle after appearing on Radio 4 (whatever that is). Chris was asked about the Scottish independence referendum debate and what he thought some of the implications might be in the event of a ‘yes’ vote. He avoided being drawn into declaring his own intentions (that is, of course, assuming he is/will be a resident of Scotland come the plebiscite because if he’s still got a Manchester or London postcode he is, of course, ineligible to participate). What he actually said was that should Scotland become independent he thought that Team GB would be weakened and it would be harder initially for Scotland to be competitive on the world stage, as we would have to build up the complete support structure and arrangements required for high-performance support. So his first point was clearly a case of stating the bleedin’ obvious, as the Pythons used to say, and his second, given he used the word ‘initially’, was a fairly level-headed response. Well the political interest factions swung into gear pretty fast for sure. BBC Scotland (I don’t think the UK network guys even noticed it) were right in with: ‘Sir Chris disses independence as bad for Scottish Sport’. So much for the BBC charter’s commitment to impartiality, eh? Later, on BBC Newsnight Scotland, on the bit where they do the paper headlines, they quoted a story that the Cybernats (the collective for SNP forum bloggers) were abusing the Knight Rider. MacSideliner had a wee search for this stuff but came up blank – maybe it was a Twitter thing. I feel some sympathy for Chris to be honest and am getting peeved with the one-sided approach of Big Media on an increasing basis. On a wider constitutional note, the latest No campaign tactic is to say that post-independence, Scottish universities will no longer be able to charge students from England or the EU if they study in Scotland, and that will be another hole in the economic boat. But haud oan a minnit [Trans: ‘Hold on one minute!’ Ed] – I thought an independent Scotland was going to be automatically flung out of the EU and have to wait years while the other member states consider whether to let us back in? So continuing charging tuition fees for students from outside Scotland would be fine then, wouldn’t it?

Morning TV celeb joins Scottish rugby.
MacSidliner isn’t really much of a morning person, so when the radio alarm came on with the story that Fearne Cotton had got the Scotland Rugby head coach position I was flabbergasted but more about her not being able to start until next June, not that she isn’t really qualified – it works for the Neville boys after all. I discovered later that it was actually a Kiwi called Vern Cotter. I’ll believe it when I see it – Kilted Kiwis and all that – but I am looking forward to Holly Willoughby coming in as strength and conditioning coach.

And by the way…
It looks like the Scottish boys in the Lions have got off to a good start. None of them has punched Owen Farrell yet (that was left to a guy called ‘Brits, which raised a quizzical smile when I noticed it on a web sidebar) and none have been sent home injured without playing a second of rugby.

MacSideliner