From Kasia Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History, on women's boxing in 18th century England:

Although boxing matches were frequently advertised as 'trials of manhood', women as well as men could often be found fighting at the booths and bear-garden. In August 1723, The London Journal noted that 'scarce a week passes but we have a Boxing-Match at the Bear-Garden between women'. It would not have been unusual, while browsing the newspaper, to come upon a challenge and reply such as this (from 1722):

CHALLENGE
I, Elizabeth Wilkinson of Clerkenwell, having had some words with Hannah Hyfield, and requiring satisfaction, do invite her to meet me upon the stage, and box me for three guineas, each woman holding half a crown in each hand, and the first woman that drops the money to lose the battle.

ANSWER
I, Hannah Hyfield, of Newgate-market, hearing of the resoluteness of Elizabeth Wilkinson, will not fail, God willing, to give her more blows than words - desiring home blows, and from her no favour; she may expect a good thumping!

"I will not fail, God willing, to give her more blows than words". My God it's like modern day England but with more awesome and less Daily Mail.

And another anecdote, about a fight between a man and a woman. Who happens to be holding a baby.

Pierre Jean Grosley was particularly outraged to see a fight between a man and a woman in Holborn: 'I was witnes to five or six bouts of the combat; which surprised me the more, as the woman had, upon her left arm, an infant a year or two old, which was so far from crying out, as is natural for children to do even in circumstances of less danger, that it did not so much as seem to knit its brow, but appeared to attend to a lesson of what it was one day to practice itself.'

England.

Within a year of Thierry Henry moving to the States, both Steve Nash and Tony Parker are getting divorced.

Coincidence?

I THINK NOT.

There is suffering in Daniele De Rossi's heart. And his eyes!

It is delicious.

• Look at poor Daniele De Rossi. Why is the world against him and his increasingly sensational and genre-redefining beard? Look at him - staring into the middle distance in a manner that could be described credibly as 'anguished'; ignoring Andrea (how?!) and Marco (what?! Even I can no longer ignore Marco Boriello, who was more or less ignorable until he signed a piece of paper with the words 'AS Roma' on it, and now he's like burning. And not "like burning when you pee". You know); he has his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up and his shirttails half untucked before some of the others have even gotten around to unbuttoning their suit jackets. Daniele De Rossi is mired in mental anguish, and Madame De Rossi is off in France probably feeling the same way. [[ETA: I started writing this before France beat Romania -- yes it takes me that long to write things most of the time, and yet they still come out sounding like gibberish -- so maybe Madame De Rossi is in a nominally positive sort of mood. But he is still far away/so close.]]
  
  Like I said on Twitter (naturally I only mention I'm on Twitter one thousand tweets later), I am fascinated by his increasingly thick veneer of "ascendant ruler of a beleaguered modern kingdom struggling under the deadening weight of his people's disappointment," even though half of that disappointment is probably a figment of my imagination.
  
  [Okay maybe he wasn't that bummed. But I bet he is now.]
  
  
  
• Is LeBron James some sort of horrifying mirror!Zlatan who is American and also completely humourless, incapable of delivering egotistical one-liners with the acceptable balance of wit and grave faux-sincerity, significantly less curious about the world around him and also, possibly, a towering column of douche?
  
  Because sometimes I hear the words that come out of his mouth and secretly suspect this is a bit like what Zlatan-haters hear when he speaks.
  
  Except Zlatan-haters are wrong.
  
  
• It would be so much easier to follow through on my resolution to never read a profile of Nick Denton again if people stopped publishing profiles of Nick Denton. I'm disappointed I even had to say that out loud, David Remnick. I thought you knew my mind?? [While we're on the subject of old/new media, I did not know Elizabeth Spiers was on Tumblr, and incidentally I did not know I would care whether Elizabeth Spiers was on Tumblr or not.] But what's with the profiles though? And what's with the vague New York/New Yorker symmetry these days?
  
  And I feel the New Yorker's use of the umlaut is gratuitous and excessive and also really very annoying actually.
  
  But it's okay because:
  

  The Nobel thus not only crowns a career but provides the basis for a fine future Javier Bardem/Antonio Banderas movie. (“The only thing they cared for more than Latin American epic fiction was . . . the honor of a woman.”)

  You can't just throw ideas like this into the public domain. You can't.
  
  
• To my absolute non-surprise, I am now somehow reading a profile of Arianna Huffington. Written by Elizabeth Spiers. God.

I hate my job so much this week there is actual physical anguish/insomnia involved.

"I said to my little brother: do you want to see a jail? So I went in."

Europe -- I salute you. Your restraint is commendable. Nay, admirable. I am baffled, enthralled, confused, grateful, and not a little bit upset that Mario Balotelli somehow continues to live a life which isn't constantly filmed by a twenty-person camera crew and broadcast live into my brain all the time.

Anyway, I'm sure this reverse jailbreak was a result of a lively intellectual debate on the state of Italy's prison system. I hear it sucks.

WHY AM I ONLY SEEING THIS VIDEO NOW; OH GOD DIDIER; OH KAKULITA; JOSE BOSINGWA IS MADE OF GLITTER MAGIC; I EVEN LOVE ANELKA WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

Carry on.

Here are two things that are sort of obvious about Salomon Kalou and John Obi Mikel:
(a) They are undercover hipsters.
(b) They're totally into each other. I know, I know, but seriously could they actually be sitting any closer without someone having to get on someone else's lap? I think not. And do they ever stop talking about each other? I say thee, the answer is nay. Are they constantly teasing each other? Dude:

'I went to South Africa and after two or three days the knee started hurting. There was nothing I could do; I just had to come back. It was really frustrating.

'Although I did have someone calling me on the phone,' added Mikel, as he turned to look at a giggling Kalou, 'and they were telling me how fantastic it was!'A story then unfolded of how Kalou had text[ed] Mikel after Nigeria's first two loses in the competition, commenting on their lack of wins, but our number 12 went on to explain how he got his own back following Ivory Coasts 3-0 defeat to Brazil.

Mikel would have to defend himself a few more times before the evening was over, but not until after he was forced into singing his initiation song in front of the whole crowd, much to Kalou and Ivanovic's amusement.

Half of this article could be summarized as Mikel saying "and then this one time he made fun of me and it was kind of mean but it's okay because I know he loves me. ...later on we're going to go back to my place and make out." The last bit is obviously open to multiple interpretations.

The Pretentious Hipster AU is kind of inevitable, right? Apartment shopping in Williamsburg? Trust-Fund-Baby Kalou living in an overcrowded triplex in Montreal, working part time at the Canadian Centre for Architecture for authenticity's sake? Each trying to out-obscure the other when they choose the locker room music? (Drogba having long since banned Vampire Weekend for twelve eternities).

[Giggling Kalou! Shout-out to Senhor Unibrinho and his Old Person Cardigan! Dat Ass, we need to talk about Those Jeans. Green tinted? Really. Baaaaby Drogba! Has a really big head and dresses like an anthropologist.]



omg.

I hope Hatem and Joey Barton scratch each others eyes out.

Group F - Chelsea, Marseille, Spartak Moskva, Žilina

Whatever, universe. I can take it.

stamfordthelion The Chelsea squad has arrived in Amsterdam and cycling straight up to greet former Milan team mate Carlo Ancelotti is Marco van Basten.

CHELSEA. VAN BASTEN. A BIKE.

A BIKE.

I wonder if it is fixed gear. What colour is it? DID HE BUILD IT HIMSELF?

[He is Marco van Basten, of course he can build his own bicycle who do you pple think he is?]

I have spent a fairly substantial part of the day imagining that Roman Abramovich broke his [thoroughly unnecessary] vow of silence but [and this is a big, utterly ridiculous 'but'] for unknown and unknowable reasons would only communicate using the words of Imelda Marcos.

Yes. Well.

Ergo, in response to persistent rumours involving Fernando Torres and something in the neighbourhood of 40 - 52 million GBP, he would say "I get so tired listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars there, it's so petty," before heaving a grand sigh and ordering a Swarovski-encrusted periscope for his new submarine. And of his supposed insistence on 'stylish' football: "I hate ugliness. You know I'm allergic to ugliness," while gazing despairingly at Yossi Benayoun and wondering if it isn't too late to give Michael Ballack a call. And so forth.


...in my defense, it is surprisingly effective. As you can see.