DA SMITHY CODE... decoding the sport soundbyte

Bok coach Peter de Villiers on why he is such a together guy

It’s not “almost” too easy having a go at Peter de Villiers… it is too easy. Of course, that’s never stopped me before.

Pete had this to say ahead of the Boks’ Tri-Nations opener against the All Blacks on Saturday (you have to get the high-pitched, winey accent right)…

What he actually said…
“I am a strong individual, a strong character, and I don’t care what people think or say about me, because it is what I think about me that counts, and I love myself a lot.”


What he actually means:
“I tried really hard to explain myself to people, but they kept pointing at me and laughing. Especially Bakkies Botha. I tell you there are only so many times you can sit at a press conference explaining your very detailed analysis of this great game of rugby… and then watch people slap their thighs laughing. As I said, especially Bakkies Botha.

It can bring a man down. All the therapy seems to helping a lot though.”

Steve's Crap Car Of The Day

PONTIAC AZTEK 2001 - 2005
This makes the list solely on its looks. I don’t care if it handles better than Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren, this is probably the ugliest car ever made. In fact it’s a contender for the ugliest object ever made.

It’s horrific. It looks like one car is emerging from within the bowels of another. It’s the Alien of cars. It’s a horror movie with four wheels and an internal combustion engine. Not even the Devil would drive it (he’s a Toyota Prius guy, obviously). It was the stuff of nightmares and scared the beJesus out of a generation of US kids: “Mommm! I can’t sleep, there’s a Pontiac Aztek under my bed!”

Interestingly – or maybe weirdly – the original Detroit Motorshow concept Aztek didn’t look all that bad. Still crap obviously, but not as catastrophically crap as the production version turned out to be. Detroit beancounters destroyed any slim chance of success the concept might’ve had by insisting it be built on an existing minivan platform, making the production Aztek taller and narrower than its progenitor. And that was enough to tip it from the very edge of quirky into the very centre of eyeball-hemorrhaging ugly.

Some revisionist-history nutters have suggested that the reason for the Aztek’s demise was that it was ahead its time… that the world wasn’t quite ready for a mid-size urban SUV cross-over. Oh they were ready. They just weren’t ready for the Aztek. There were audible gasps when it first appeared in Pontiac’s showrooms. We’re talking the type of gasps followed by screams and the slap-slapping of running feet…not applause.

With epically misguided hopes of selling 50 000 to 70 000 units a year, by the time Pontiac humanely put the Aztek out of its misery, less than 30 000 in total had been sold in 5 years.

Come to think of it, the car was doomed from the get go. What kind of karma do you expect a car to have being named after a bunch of people plundered, butchered, and diseased out of existence by a posse of hirsute Spaniards in tights and breastplates? There was freaky voodoo going on with this car, I’m telling you.

Steve's Crap Car Of The Day

GENERAL MOTORS EV1.... 1996-1999


Conspiracy theories abound as to the demise of the world’s first mass-produced electric car. There was even a doccie about it called “Who Killed The Electric Car” I think it even made the movie circuit here.

Why? Because In 2002 General Motors terminated the leasing program and huffily took all their cars back.

And why did they do that? Because, say the conspiracists, General Motors knows who butters its bread. In this instance the holders of the blunt knife were the petroleum giants and, say the Conspiracists R Us, it was they who pressured GM into whipping the cars off the road.

Umm… ja… actually… no.

The real reason was that the car was totally crap.

And GM knew it too. Why else would they only lease the 800 or so cars they made to chosen citizens in California and not have the bollocks to actually sell them?

There were, in fact, several levels to its crapness.

1. It looked like a car wearing a balaclava.

2. It was first released with lead-acid batteries. Which basically gave it the carbon footprint the size of a small town when you consider what it takes to mine the battery’s contents… and then dispose of it when the car was scrapped

3. The second gen. nickel-metal hydride batteries were greener… but they took 8 hours to charge. And they only provided a marginally improved mileage…

4. ... which was the car’s biggest problem. With the gen 1 battery you could probably get 90km out it. Gen 2 would give you 120km. Woohoo.

Basically then you had a car with enough amps in the tank to get you to the shops and back… Plus it kinda looked like its pants were falling down.

The EV1's final Stamp Of Crapness came when GM reclaimed all their EV1s. As if to obliterate all traces of this useless automobile, they crushed most of them save for a couple donated to museums (with their drive-trains disabled).

The whole exercise cost GM $1-billion. One. Billion. Dollars. Seriously.

DA SMITHY CODE... decoding the sport soundbyte

Spanish coach Vicente Del Bosque on misfiring striker Fernando Torres

“Fernando has not been helped by the team not clicking at times, but we’re very happy with his work.”


What he actually means:
“Si, Fernando has been crap – he does play for Liverpool after all – but I have to justify his continued selection based solely on the chance he could re-reproduce a moment of that European Cup-winning magic. Who cares if, at the moment, it looks as though he couldn't score with just Robert Green to beat, at least it looks like he’s running around the field a lot.

Diego Forlan stole my wife… aka... Oh Christ, I’m 40

Saturday was my mate Paul’s 40th. Poor bastard. His face mirrored the conflict clearly tug-of-warring inside his head. “Christ, I’m turning 40… It’s OK, it’s not that old. You’re a man on top of your game…. Christ I’m turning 40…It’s OK, it’s not that old…etc”

I know this because I had the same look on my face when I turned 40. Look at the photies and it’s as clears as day. Actually most days it’s still on my face. Anyway, besides the fact that were both now in our 40s, Paul and I have few other things in common.

One, we’re both keen mountain bikers (except he’s really good), we both have an affinity for alt.country/new folk music (I remain for ever grateful for the introduction to Midlake and Fleet Foxes), and our spouses are both artists. In fact they share a studio.

So there we all were at Speedway Café celebrating Paul’s birthday. Even though I’m a sports writer by trade, I only had half an eye on the soccer (it was the Ghana-Uruguay quarterfinal). Mostly I was talking to my mates, many of whom I don’t see as often as I should.

When Diego Forlan scored his great free kick, us guys were like “wow, impressive goal… you know I still haven’t heard the new Wilco album, pass the peanuts.” Suddenly though, my attention was caught by the conversation behind me. It was a knot of woman – the wives and partners of us men folk. And they were talking animatedly about the football. And one of them was my wife.

Cue textbook double take.

In a more subtle kind of way, I leaned in closer. Was the FIFA World Cup’s influence so great that the majesty of football had finally become a topic of interest to these women? And remember, these women weren’t just any women. These women are the stylish, arty, highly intelligent types. The types who us blokes still can’t believe find us dufuses (dufi?) attractive. These are the same women who usually don’t give sport the time of day, and only allow us to watch so much of it as an act of benevolent indulgence.

And what were they talking about?

*Woman 1: “Another great goal by Diego.”
**Woman 2: “Yes, isn't he so talented... and so strangely attractive.”
***Woman 3: “Hmm yes. Strangely attractive.”

Suddenly I’m not enjoying the football so much any more. Nor feeling any better about being 40.


*, ** & *** In the interests of self preservation, not even North Korean noodle torture would make me divulge actual names.

Steve's Crap Car Of The Day

FERRARI 400 1976-1979

Proof that even Ferrari have made some clunkers... and further proof of the existence of that mysterious group, “The Mirror Image School of Design”. Another car that looks pretty much the same from the front as it does from the back.

For some weird reason someone at Ferrari stood up at the annual board members' picnic and, while nibbling on a toasted bruschetta (the ones drizzled in olive oil and rubbed with roasted garlic), bravely suggested they build an expensive two-door coupe that handles like coal barge and accelerates only marginally faster. Oh... and it should be designed by Luigi over there who’s been studying origami.

And for some even weirder reason they all said “Si!”. Those bruschettas were really delicious.

You’d think a 4.8-litre V12 would make a car fairly quick. You’d think. But muffled by a truly terrible auto gearbox and suspension geometry a 50s Cadillac would’ve been proud of, the 400 was painfully slow given its pedigree. "Slow and nice looking" most people can live with. "Slow and one degree removed from a Nissan Skyline"… erm. Nope.

The Art Of The Sports Psyche

Know this… whatever sports stars and their coaches/managers say at press conferences, it is never what they mean. What may seem like an honest assessment of the game or a little hint of their strategy always has another agenda.

Let me give a couple of recent examples….

Schweinsteiger on Veron
German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger singles out Juan Sebastian Veron for praise ahead of the big game tomorrow: “He has played very strongly here, I have been impressed.”

Bollocks. If the Germans were genuinely impressed with Veron, they would never say so. Schweinsteiger is really doing two things here: one, he’s slipping the Argies a little misinformation trying to get them to think they’ll be focusing their attention on Veron. They won’t. It’ll be Messi that they’ll mark into the middle of next week. And two, he’s psyching out Veron. Nothing like your opponent telling you how well you’re playing to put you off your game.

“Schweinsteiger” by the way, does not mean pig shagger as we all thought, but pig inspector. Which, arguably, is the same thing.

Gyan on soaking up pressure
Ghanaian sriker Asamoah Gyan had this to say before their quarterfinal against Uruguay tonight: “We know how to soak up pressure. I believe in my friends, the Black Stars.”

Ja, whatever. If your team couldn’t soak up pressure they wouldn’t be at the world cup. Neither is this a signal of Ghana’s intention to sit back and bravely grit their way through the Uruguayan onslaught. No team would give away it’s tactics that easily.

What Ghana are going to do is kick the living crap out of the Uruguayans in an attempt to intimidate and out muscle them. It’s their only chance to disrupt Uruguay’s well-oiled machine. Gyan’s comment is part of a pre-game strategy to make it look like their robust tactics would be a result of their “gritty and brave defence” rather than the more pro-active “kick ‘em until they cry” tactic it’s more likely to be.