AP Mccoy wins sports personality of the year

Interesting one, this. AP McCoy, the great jockey, has just won BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Now, AP, as horseracing fans will know, is one of the taller of his breed. At 5ft 10ins, he is bigger than the average jockey.

It might just be me thinking this, but was the BBC trying to make AP conform more easily to the all-jockeys-are-titches stereotype? I say this because, in this most scripted and rehearsed piece of 'live' TV, they got Freddie Flintoff to present the award, a man against whom most people look small.

AP also made a claim for the short man territory by saying, in his acceptance speech, that there were a lot of sportsmen in the room he looks up to.

We are talking Sunday night before Christmas television here. The BBC knows its audience, who want their prejudices reinforced rather than challenged on such an occasion. Particularly where Sue Barker is involved.

So the logic of it goes thus: a jockey is going to win sports personality, most people think all jockeys are short and don't want to start engaging the brain on a Sunday night, particularly on matters of height - therefore, get a monstrous ex-England fastbowler (complete with nickname drawn from the Flintstones) and no-one has to question whether all jockeys really are small, or not.

Congratulations AP. But let no one think that you stand eye to eye with Frankie Dettori, who comes in at a more prejudice confirming 5ft 5ins.

World's richest club incapable of winning without short man up front

The sports pages of the newspapers - which are just the men's equivalent of Heat or Now magazine - have been full of news of Carlos Tevez.

Manchester City, the world's richest club with stacks of so-called world-class players at their disposal, have been outright panicking because of rumours that Tevez is homesick and is considering moving back to Argentina (or perhaps Real Madrid, which can quite often be the destination of homesick player, whatever their provenance).

They have a right to be worried. Despite having Adebayor, Santa Cruz, Jo and Balotelli to pick up front, it is clear for all the world to see that if Tevez is not in their team, they don't win. Simple as that.

This most expensively assembled of squads just ended a three-match losing streak. It started with the 3-0 pounding against Arsenal, when Tevez went off with an injury. Then he didn't play against Wolves, or Lech Poznan and they were beaten again and they were a game away from a full-blown crisis with Mancini's head on the chopping block.

Tevez returns for today's clash against the Baggies and they suddenly, miraculously, get back to winning ways.

No wonder they are rumoured to be offering him a monster 250k a week contract. Mancini and all Man City fans know very well that if they didn't have their short man up front, they would be a mid-table team, and perhaps even worse than Liverpool. Man Utd might not have truly known the value of their short man, but City certainly do.

It's Maradona's birthday!!!

It's the day that even the most ardent Maradona fans thought would never come. Yes the great man, possibly the greatest living short man, celebrates his fiftieth birthday today.

I, for one, will be raising a glass and perhaps light a cigar in honour of the greatest scourge upon the lumbering large folk of this world since Bonaparte.

I imagine Terry Butcher and Peter Shilton, sitting there glumly, once again feeling agitated at the great humiliation wrought upon them by the Argie genius. Never on a sporting field has the woeful inadequacies of the larger man been exposed than on that fateful quarter-final in World Cup '86.

Maradona showed cunning, audacity, ingenuity, skill, speed and impudence; Butcher and Shilton, on the other hand, had honest endeavour only. So he scored one by outjumping Shilton to punch home, and a second by going past the whole England defence and tapping home.

The second was named goal of the century, but really the two goals are so intertwined that they should always be thought of as part of the same package of humiliation Maradona meted out to the English. This was of course of coming shortly after that horrible Thatcherite war in the Malvinas, so he had an especial reason to pull out his A game.

The thing should act as a lesson to us English not to have wars with nations who tend to be better at football than us - it only focuses their minds and makes things worse.

He then went on to become one of the world's most notorious cokeheads, hanging out with the Tour de France winner, Marco Pantani. Pantani died of his drug abuse, and Lord only knows how Maradona came through, but thankfully he did.

Maradona in his 2010 vintage is still incredibly good value. He was one of the few bright spots of an awfully drab World Cup. He handed out one of the great putdowns to his nemesis, Pele, by telling him to 'go back to the museum.'

He of course was not shown to be as good a manager as a player. But at least his lads looked like they were trying and working for him and each other, and enjoying themselves, none of which could be said of England.

So, all short men, and all those who love great sport should celebrate this great day. The day Maradona notched up a most unlikely half-century.

Taller men more likely to get testicular cancer

poor bastards:
http://bit.ly/bxiZPq

Small man fest on Buzzcocks!

I was sitting in an Indian restaurant on Sunday night, musing upon the fact that so many of the waiter class is short, when on the telly came Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

I was thrilled to say my man Tinie Tempah on the show but astonished to see a chap much smaller than Tinie sitting next to him: comedian by the name of Paul Foot.

Now, call me a part-time short man, but I was unaware of the work of Mr Foot. He seems to have a great combination of retreating head of hair and mullet, which he uses to great benefit. Seeing him, all short and strange looking, I became an instant fan, as did all the pint-size waiters in the Indian down in Tooting.

So, to the pantheon he is added. I shall have to pay lavish attention to the great man in future.

I'm officially pint-sized

I always suspected as much. But it's taken the death of comedy great Norman Wisdom to get the thing confirmed.

I am, in tabloid parlance, pint-sized.

The Sun clarified the matter for me. Wisdom at 5ft 4ins was a 'pint-sized comedian'. I measure up at that height, or perhaps a shade smaller, so I'm within the bracket.

This puts my mind at rest, and also leaves me to fantasise that one day I will be tagged by the redtops, 'Pint-sized Purnell'.

I know little of Norman Wisdom. As the incredibly useful article in the Sun said, his biggest hit was Big in Albania. This was because his were some of the only films allowed past the sensors in communist eastern Europe.

But the song does have a double meaning. I was in amongst the Albanians last year, when I was in Kosovo, and I can confirm that Wisdom was not only Big in Albania, but big in Albania. They are a truly pint-sized people, with most being less big than me.

In the wake of Wisdom's passing, it would be nice to see a cover of Big in Albania made by all the pint-sized popstars out there: namely, Tinie Tempah, Shorty and Aston from JLS. That would truly being a fitting tribute to one of the all time great comedy short men.

Is it possible to write about Jamie Cullum without mentioning his height?

The answer to the question is - in theory, yes, but in practice, no chance whatsoever.

Jamie is the cover starlet of the latest ES magazine, brought to lucky Londoners by the Evening Standard. ES purports to be a quality publication, with a slightly classier feel than the main paper.

And so when interviewing a short man such as Jamie Cullum, ES does not want to address the matter of the musician's height directly. At least not at the top of the article. There is no 'pintsize pianist' reference, to remind the reader that while Cullum is talented, he remains troublingly tiny.

So the journalist, in this instance Christopher Silvester (sounds like a white collar criminal, don'tcha think?), is forced to scratch around for a few hundred words before getting to the main thrust of the piece, namely:

How on earth is Jamie Cullum married to Sophie Dahl when she is a model, and much taller than him?

Silvester, being a classy features writer for ES, addresses the issue elegantly, and of course indirectly. He talks of the 'tabloid obsession with Sophie being much taller than [Cullum]' forgetting that the Standard is a tabloid with just that obsession.

Cullum, no doubt through gritted teeth at the sheer crassness and inevitability of it, responds that, 'I've always been shorter than most girls I've gone out with, so I'm very used to it.'

I wish one day Cullum would answer the question, giving the journalists exactly what they want:

"You know what, I was absolutely astonished when Sophie Dahl agreed to marry me. I may have millions of record sales to my name and be a really nice guy, but I can't believe she couldn't see beyond all that to the fact that I am unbelievably short, and reject me out of hand because of my height, and go out with some other guy who was taller. Sophie's a great girl, but why she's married to a midget like me I will never know."

Go on Jamie, give 'em what they want.

Sharing a stage with a six foot four Yorkshireman

Last night, was the first night of four I am doing at the Camden Fringe. Show is called Inside the M25: A User's Guide and is a poetic survey of the city.

It is with a fellow called Gary From Leeds. He is a man who stands about six foot four in his socks which means he is a clear foot taller than. And the interesting thing is, the performing partnership between us is going quite well.

There I am, doing some jolly stuff from my near-ground-level perspective. And there he is, up near the stage lights, all acerbic wit and Yorkshire vowels.

But, forgetting the material we perform, I think it puts people naturally at ease to see two men towards the extreme end of the height scale on stage together. Even if they do not like all of our very deep and meaningful poems, they can at least enjoy the fact that:

a). There's a short man on stage, and;

b). He's up there with a lanky bloke!!!

So there you have it. Richard Purnell and Gary From Leeds: the Crouch and Defoe of the spoken word scene.

10 legendary mexican midget wrestlers

I don't normally look at actual dwarfs/midgets in this blog - but this is a great survey of that noble Mexican tradition - midget wrestling...

http://www.popcrunch.com/10-legendary-mexican-midget-wrestlers/

Above is my personal favourity, Tzuki, who comes in at 3ft 7ins.

Is height difference at the root of the Gallagher brothers' differences?

I have a theory on why Noel and Liam Gallagher hate each other.

Consider the two men. Liam is the swaggering front man, coming in at around 5ft 9ins. Then there is Noel, the chap who wrote all the hits, measuring about two inches less. That puts Noel on the cusp of shortness, with Liam is stuck stranded in mid-size hell.

And there we have the dynamic of the relationship. The short one, with the talent, versus the mid-sized one, doing his best with the ungainly body size he has been handed.

What makes this even worse for Liam is that he has modelled himself on short men - namely, Richard Ashcroft from The Verve and Ian Brown from The Stone Roses. Two men for whom boasting goes hand-in-hand with songwriting genius.

Of course, Liam has tried to write songs. I believe he had a stab at one or two on the later Oasis albums. But a decent tune - a Live Forever, or a Slide Away - will forever elude him. Now, in his late-30s, he is to be found roaming the streets of Primrose Hill, forever angry, forever jealous of his more gifted sibling.

He has set up a new band, Beady Eye, which he boldly claims will be better than Oasis. But I think we can make our judgement now, before any tunes have been heard. Liam will never write a great song, or even one that drunk northerners will bellow at their birds in pubs.

Why? He was - and pity him for this - born too tall.

Short man stands on tip toes for photo shock!!!

Justin Rego, star of hit show The Bachelorette is snapped in this blogger's photo committing one of the gravest sins of shortmandom - he is standing on tiptoes.

I feel personally ashamed seeing Justin standing there, acting like a man of average height, when in fact he is a shorty. Mr Rego, you are not only making a fool of yourself, but short men everywhere. Harrumph, is what I say. And we won't even comment on the very suspect facial hair.

For the full report, go to the blogger herself.

http://tinyurl.com/3yq8myx

Introducing my new favourite rapper...shorty!

The more I look at this short man issue, the more I think that, like homosexuality and race, most of the problems are in the past.

The short man in middle age - Tom Cruise or Nicholas Sarkozy, for instance - spend their time in boosted heels while forcing their women to walk bowlegged in flat shoes.

They have been brought up battling against their shortness. They see it as something to fight against, trying far too hard to prove to men of mediocre height that they are better than them.

Now, in 2010, the younger generation of short man seems to relish their shortness - to parade it for the advantage it is.

Take the grime scene. We have two men at the top of the game whose name is suggestive of diminutive height - Tinchy Stryder and Tinie Tempah.

But now we have a fellow who does away with that coy approach. Yes, I want to introduce my new favourite grime artiste - simply known as Shorty.

Shorty is clearly a man on the up. He has been part of the BBK (Boy Better Know) crew for some time, and this summer is launching his solo career. Kindly, for his taller colleagues, he allows them a run-out on his video. They lollop around behind him, in a manner reminiscent of a group of big friendly giants, just happy to part of Shorty's scene.

Needless to say, Shorty has an excess of gusto, and a fine rhyme style.
Find him here...
http://mrtremix.com/2010/06/28/shorty-bbk-offical-video/

My top 10 short men

Top 10 short men as of June 2010

1. Napoleon
2. Maradona
3. Sisqo
4. Javier Mascherano
5. Andrew Carnegie
6. Dudley Moore
7. Aston from JLS
8. Tinie Tempah (not sure of height, but clearly not a big guy)
9. Jermain Defoe
10. Prince

Those under 5ft 9 dominate World Cup

Needless to say, the players of the World Cup so far have all been the short guys.
Messi has been typically brilliant, Tevez tonked in one from 30 yards on Sunday, and Diego Maradona has been receiving rave reviews because of his touchline antics and abuse of Pele. And my personal favourite, Javier Mascherano, has been biting into tackles like the cynical beast he is.

David Villa has just scored his fourth of the tournament and looks set to pick up the Golden Boot.

Even Jermain Defoe managed to score for England when he got a chance to start a match.

Meanwhile, lumbering oafs like Emile Heskey, Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres have consistently failed to make an impact. Why? The long season? Or the fact that they are overrated and always fail to achieve at the highest level?

It particularly pleases me to see Ronaldo failing. He remains an easy target, but any man who blames his opponent for being small as the reason why he got elbowed in the teeth (see blogs past) is surely a man who needs his comeuppance at the hands of Villa and Iniesta.

Such a shame to see him wasting his time playing football when he could be doing something useful like apple picking, or reaching up to high shelves in libraries.

David Villa scores wonder goal, then gets patronised by ITV commentary team

David Villa (5ft 9ins) tonight scored the goal of the World Cup so far, slaloming past two Honduras defenders before belting the ball into the top corner.

But for ITV commentator Peter Drury this was a perfect opportunity to patronise the short man (as a footballer, Villa at 5ft 9ins is small).

Drury, the cretin, said, 'He [Villa] had to beat two defenders, both of whom were twice his size, and he made them both look very small.'

So despite David Villa being perhaps the most prolific striker in the world today, Drury could not envisage him taking on, and beating, two defenders, even if they were from a low-ranked country such as Honduras.

Perhaps Drury should put the matter to Villa at the next Spain press conference.

Drury: So, David, you scored a great goal. Were you surprised you managed to take on two such big defenders, considering how small you are?

Villa: No.

Drury: But surely you must have been? I mean, you are tiny, and they are giants! It was incredible!

Villa: (rolling his eyes). Next question.

Is former ballet dancing short man Rahm Emanuel quitting the White House?

In the general free-for-all that is the pillorying of BP's Tony Hayward, it is no surprise to see Barack Obama's short man attack dog, Rahm Emanuel (5ft 5ins approx), sticking the boot in.

After Hayward had the audacity to go on his two-fingers-up boating trip around the Isle of Wight at the weekend Rahm Emanuel led the charge on the biggest white collar pantomime villain since Fred 'Fred the Shed' Goodwin.

'It was a big mistake,' Emanuel was quoted as saying in the Times. 'That's clearly a PR mistake, but he's made a number of those mistakes...to quote Tony Hayward, he has got his life back. I think we can conclude that Tony Hayward is not going to have a second career in PR consulting.'

How White House staff must have laughed heartily at that quip. How clever of little Rahm. Pat on the head from Barack. A stroke under the chin from Joe Biden.

This is a clear case of the short man showing something of a lack of class, to the discredit of all of us under 5ft 7ins. The willingness to point out a man's mistakes when they are there for the world to see. The necessity to shout that bit louder than anyone else. To get the first, the last, and any other laughs to be had.

Rahm, we can conclude, is not one of those iridescent short men we love so much - such as Prince or Aston from JLS. No, he is the kind of gnarled-up short man who wakes up every morning desperate to prove wrong those who doubt him and mock him. And as a former ballet dancer short man with a name like a 70s porn starlet battling it out in Washington, that's a lot of mockery to get him fired up.

Now there are reports, scurrilous probably, of him quitting the White House because of differences with Obama.

Fairly unlikely one would have to say, because could Obama really bring someone in as rampantly unpopular to do his dirty work? One as slavishly devoted to the cause? Or one who would do such a good job in the White House Christmas production of Swan Lake?

Being short causes heart disease, say mid-heigh scientists

It seems that the kicking of the small person community knows no bounds.
Even scientists are getting in on the act. A group of said boffins, from Finland, have spent years of no doubt state-sponsored labour working out that being small raises your risk of heart disease.

That might be true or not. But one has to be slightly suspicious of research that sets out to find out if small people are more sickly than someone of more mediocre height.

You can imagine the conversation when the review was being set up.
Finn scientist A: Those short people, terrible aren't they?
Finn scientist B: Yes, I'd hate for my children to be short.
A: We must raise awareness of this sickly section of the population.
B: Yes, we must. Then people of normal height can learn to avoid getting into relationships with them.

Absolutely pointless tosh.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10256868.stm

Derek J enters the pantheon of greats

Just saw Chris Rock's new film, Good Hair, at the Brixton Ritzy. It's all about black women's hair and how they spend loads of time and money getting themselves looking good.

He visits a hair big hair jamboree, the conclusion to which is a Hair Battle, with five stylists putting together shows featuring their finest haircuts. The sort of thing Louis Theroux spends his time attending.

The king stylist was my new favourite short man: a cross-dressing hairdresser called Derek J (pictured above) who is like the Little Richard of hair. His shameless posing in his high-heeled knee-length boots and jewel-encrusted cane was one of the most brilliant things captured on film in a long while.

Rock showed up at the Ritzy to do a Q&A but unfortunately the questions focussed on the contentious Weave V Locks debate, rather than the star of the show, Derek J.

Argentina for the World Cup: The short man's choice

For the short man, there are only really three choices on who to back at the upcoming World Cup.
In height terms, it's really a toss-up between Argentina, North Korea and Spain.

Consulting my Panini World Cup 2010 sticker album which happily gives all the players' heights, Spain have a bunch of good short players, including David Silva, Iniesta and Xavi.

North Korea have the shortest squad overall. It is a moot point whether the North Koreans are short per se or if it is their Communist diet that is restricting their growth. Still, I for one will be looking out for Mun In-Guk, their striker who measure 5ft 6ins.

But the short man with a rational bone in his body must back the Argie.

There are many, many reasons for this. They have three great small (under 5ft 9ins) players: Mascherano, Tevez and Messi.

I love Mascherano, despite him playing for Liverpoo. He is entirely cynical in the tackle, gets booked virtually every game and enjoys suggesting a player dived when he has just placed six studs in their knee. He is the archetypal Dirty Argie and I suspect he has a visceral hatred of lanky footballers. If I was a professional footballer I would be Mascherano.

Tevez is your typical try-too-hard short man. He never knows when to stop, which is why he scores so many goals in the last ten minutes of games.

And then there is Messi: the best player in the world at the moment who has scored four hat-tricks in this calendar year, including four goals against Arsenal.

But the main reason to back them is their manager: Diego Armando Maradona. A man who gives your Carling drinking divvy doughnut England fan nightmares due to the Hand of God goal in 1986. That he mentally and physically destroyed Terry Butcher and Peter Shilton was bad enough. But the fact he effectively said God was Argentinian is something your England fan can't handle.

Apparently his tactics are to have a back four who never cross the half-way line, Mascherano snapping into the tackle and then passing it to Messi to do something genius.

Here's to 1986 all over again.

Julian Lloyd Webber assuages his lack of talent with short man sniping

I noticed in the Standard that Julian Lloyd Webber maintains his own sense of self-worth by insulting his more talented and successful brother on matters of height.

Julian, who is quite good at cello, is in the shadow of his older - and smaller - brother Andrew, who is the most successful songwriter this country has ever produced.

Here's what the cretinous Julian has to say:

"I'm poorer and not so famous as Andrew, this is true. But I'm about a foot taller than the man. It means I could easily take him out in a fight if I needed to, and we all know that, as men, this is all that counts...it's good to know I have the upper hand."

Poor old Julian. He might have had the pleasure of doing the 'sticking your hand on the little boy's forehead to stopping them making a swing for you' when he was younger, but he fundamentally minunderstands, and underestimates, the short man if he thinks height gives him the necessary advantage in a fight.

It might help in the boxing ring, but in reality, not really.

Here's why:

1. The short man is far more volatile and aggressive than his mediocre-sized male equivalent. We just are. We're angry. Think Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. We've all got a bit of that smash-you-over-the-head-with-a-telephone devil in us. And we never know when to stop.

2. If we think we might lose a fight, we would simply deploy some double-hard psycho to sort it out for us. I spent my school years carefully aligning myself with boys who liked to fight given the slightest excuse, and therefore rarely worried about the consequences of insulting someone.

There's a magnificent moment in the Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll which exemplifies this point. Dury, who was half-paralysed by childhood polio, insults a bouncer. The bouncer attempts to attack him, only for the rest of Dury's band to pile in and give him a pasting.

So, while it is unlikely that the assorted cast of Cats and Phantom have quite got the fighting spirit of Ian Dury's men, I'm sure they'd be more than enough to swat Julian.

Short man Kebede storms to London marathon win

Pleased to report that one of my bethren, Kebede Tsegay (5ft 2ins) of Ethiopia, has just stormed to win. And the ever-lovely BBC commentators were quick to mock the man. Knuckle-headed six footer, Steve Cram, using his razor-sharp wit and expert analysis, noted that Kebede was wearing a very large watch and was surprised that such a small man could wear something of that size. His fellow commentator suggested it might be the difference between a personal best and not.

This is within seconds of Kebede wrapping the win up, and before second place had finished. This is surely a most outrageous case of what you might call large man syndrome from Cram who can't bear to see the short man win and has nothing decent to say apart from cretinous comments.

This result also leaves me to wonder whether the short man is at a natural advantage in distance running events. Kebede is very short, as is Haile Gebrsellasie, the current marathon world record holder. Perhaps there is something in the height weight distribution which does put those of us lucky enough to be under 5ft 7ins at a natural advantage.

Still doesn't mean I'm going to be taking up running any time soon - weak knees is my excuse, and the knowledge I could be an amazing distance runner if I want to demonstrate the fact.

Perfect weekend for Jermain Defoe

A perfect weekend for one of the sporting darlings of this blog. Yes, Jermain Defoe (5ft 6.5ins) got two major write-ups in this week's News of the World. He bagged the front page of the sport section with his goal for Spurs against Chelsea to raise the prospect of a top-four finish for his team.

And the predatory Defoe also made it into the news pages for a 'brazen sex act' in a car just 100 yards - that's just 100 YARDS (gasp!) - from children playing in a leafy Hertfordshire village.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/786122/England-ace-Jermain-Defoe-caught-playing-foul-with-red-head-in-car.html

I think we've confirmed beyond all doubt that the genius short man has a predisposition excessive sexual encounters. But what with Defoe's red-hot form this season, allied to his almost constant presence in the celeb columns, I believe that for Defoe, the two things go hand-in-hand. Without the prowling for sexual partners, you would not have the goalscoring prowess.

What concerns me is that during the World Cup Fabio Capello might be too strict on our star man, and not allow him the attention from women he deserves, possibly hampering our striker's chances of doing his best for his country. I'm sure Fabio would allow Jermain special dispensation to roam the streets of South Africa late at night looking for women if he realised how important it was to this short man to have his manliness reaffirmed by random women before big games. I imagine Fabio, in his wisdom, has this all in hand, but it would be nice to know that he has Jermain's wellbeing is being fully considered as we approach the World Cup.

Mos Def at the Shepherds Bush Empire

Yes, it was rap night at the Shepherds Bush Empire last night with Mos Def playing (pretty good, but not great).

Anyone under six foot will know the peril that is the Empire. The combination of flat auditorium and high stage - and the recent trend of basketball players going to gigs - means that if you're not above average height you haven't got a sniff of seeing the action on stage.

I went to see Devendra Banhart there last year and spent half the gig moving through thickets of tall men before resigning myself to staring at the back of some monster in front of me for the gig's duration.

For Mos Def we got in there early, firstly in the hope of a decent support act (bunch of chaps trying and failing to be the Stereo MCs) and also to secure one of the very few vantage points to the edge of the bar. Getting there at 7.45 one of these spots was already taken with - wait for it - a couple, both of whom were over six feet. To add insult to injury, another giant in a baseball cap actually pushed past to get a vantage.

It is moments like these when the small man thinks to himself - bugger trying and failing to watch people perform, I'm going to get up there and myself. (ref: Ian Brown, Richard Ashcroft, Aston JLS, etc., etc.)

Short man Stalin makes the papers!

I was startled to see Joseph Stalin (5ft 4ins) making an appearance in today's News of the World.

Entitled Curse of Stalin, the story attempts to pin the deaths of the Polish political elite on the famously short dictator. Everyone knows Stalin racked up an horrendously large death toll in his time, including many Poles, but to say he is still up to his usual tricks is going some.

The politicians were killed in a plane crash on their way to a memorial for officers killed in an atrocity ordered by Stalin. And so, in some quasi-Dan Brown fantasy cooked up by hack Philip Whiteside, the piece tacitly suggests that the only possible culprit for this tragic event is Stalin himself.

In the fetid imagination of the Screws hack that he must see a godlike Stalin reaching beyond his grave, grabbing the plane out of the sky and saying to the Poles: "There! That's what you get for rejecting Communism! Your democratic ideals make me sick!"

And promptly slamming the plane down to earth.

Hmmm. Or perhaps the plane was just caught in some fog. It's hard to tell which is more likely.

World cup build-up begins with jingoistic attack on short man Maradona

Qualification is over, the summer is drawing near. And so the build-up to the World Cup can begin in earnest.

For the England fan this takes on a very familiar form. First, forget all previous World Cups apart from the one we won in 1966. Second, casually play down the claims of better teams such as Germany and Brazil.

But most of all, begin the jingoistic hatred of the Argie, in particular their 5ft 5ins manager, Diego Armando Maradona.

The English hate Maradona for very good reason. He is the greatest player of all time. He is an Argie – our desperate foe in the Falklands War. He hates the English. And, to make matters worse, he is short.

Maradona did the England football fan the great service of crystallising their hatred of him and his nation in a single moment; namely, the Hand of God goal in the 1986 World Cup. Maradona was at the peak of his powers. He had already ripped to shreds the English defence – the ape-like Terry Butcher included – to score one of the greatest goals of all time.

But Diego knew that to truly inflame the English he needed to not just beat them through wondrous skill. He needed to cheat as well. Thus, when he rose for a header against Peter Shilton he decided to reach up and knock the ball into the net with his hand.

The sheer impudence of it was magnificent. Shilton is about a foot taller than him and, as a goalie, could use his hands. So how on earth could Maradona win the ball, legally?

He couldn’t. But in that World Cup, when Maradona convinced the world he could do anything, the referee succumbed to believe that this ‘pint size’ player could also leap higher than a six-foot goalie.

Maradona is now in charge of the Argentina football team. And while he has shown himself to have little tactical nous, unfortunately for the English, he doesn’t really need any. All he has to do is pick Lionel Messi, tell the rest of his players to give him the ball, and the pesky Argies will have a much better chance of winning the World Cup than England.

Which leaves the England football fan in the position of having no option but to take recourse in the old sport of mocking Maradona. And last week, Diego gave the perfect opportunity, by getting bitten on the face by his dog, while trying to kiss her.

This made front page news for the Sun, with its oh so witty headline, Hand of Dog. This prompted a decent flurry of comments on the newspaper’s website with one chappie saying succinctly, ‘it is God’s punishment for him cheating on England.’

Well said. Always best to get the abuse in first before the Argies, led by their titchy maestro, start plotting our demise in the most dastardly manner.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2914190/Snoggy-with-doggy-leaves-Diego-groggy.html

Aston from JLS - more than just a short man who does a backflip

I switched on my telly yesterday and to my delight there was Aston from JLS doing his thing - namely, that cheeky backflip.

This was a re-run of a live performance from last year but the delerious cries from the audience did leave me to consider if JLS would even be a going concern without Aston. I asked the question rhetorically because it is plain for any lover of Britain's Biggest Boyband Since East 17 that Aston is carrying the rest of the group into the limelight.

For the uninformed, Aston is the short one in the group and therefore of interest to this blog. He shares vocal duties with the rest of the band but in every other way keeps the group going.

As we have noted, most successful short men are incorrigible flirts, and Aston is no exception. In the great days of the London Lite and thelondonpaper (how I miss that Germanic word compound) day after day, there he was, out on the town doing his bit to keep JLS in the public's gaze.

Now, in these days of austerity, without the daily celeb fix from the London frees, we have to wait for Heat to come out each week to find out what Aston has been up to. And in the latest edition the intrepid Heat reporters have 'uncovered' that Aston is dating one of the Saturdays (it matters not which) therein linking JLS to the Britain's Best Girl Group Since Girls Aloud.

No doubt this liaison was thrashed out in summit between agents, in a modern version of a royal marriage, but casting aside any cynicism, you have to admire Aston's willingness to do whatever it takes to keep JLS on top.

So, my message to the other members of JLS is this. If you think Aston is simply the little one who does the backflip you are severely underestimating him. Out of the four chaps in the group, only Aston has what it takes for a successful solo career. Make him feel wanted - you need Aston more than he needs you

Humphrey Davy is archetypal short man

It appears I can't read a book without a serious short man issue coming up. Okay, most of the books I read are about Napoleon, but aside from that, these issues do arise with unseemly regularity.

I've just finished reading The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, an elegantly written survey of British scientific achievements in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. One of the central characters in the books is Humphrey Davy. He was the inventor of the miners' safety lamp, which has its place in the Making the Modern World gallery at the Science Museum and is regarded by the curators there as one of the most important inventions of all time.

Apart from the safety lamp, I knew little about Davy. It turns out that he was 5ft 5ins and in many ways the archetypal brilliant short man.

Holmes, in what must be one of the most perceptive descriptions of a short man ever written, describes the great chemist thus:

"Davy was small, volatile and bursting with energy and talk...he was impulsive, charming and arrogant. Though physically small, he had huge intellectual ambitons. He was a solitary man who was also an incorrigible flirt."

I'm sure every man under 5ft 7ins can identify with that. Davy was a man who was eager to please, eager to prove himself socially - whilst being isolated from it - and eager to gain paramountcy in his profession. He was brilliant and wanted the world to know it. I'm sure that while London 'society' minded that he was a bit boastful, provincial (from Cornwall) and small, the many thousands of miners across the world whose lives he made safer wouldn't have minded one bit.

My only quibble in this masterly description is the sentence, 'Though physically small, he had huge intellectual ambitions.' This betrays the fact that Holmes lacks true insight into the make-up of the short man. He implies that being short puts a natural cap on one's ambitions.

I would say quite the opposite. The short man - assumed to be of inferior stock to the plodding man of middle height - is naturally inclined towards ambitions, particularly of an intellectual nature. I would immodestly suggest to Richard Holmes that he would have been better off saying,

"Davy was small, and therefore had huge intellectual ambitions."

That would be more accurate. Goes to show that the short man makes history; the middling man writes it.

More on Humphrey Davy soon.

Mark Owen: the latest in a long line of promiscuous short men

I've been musing about Mark Owen's recent travails. The headline in the Sun when he admitted to 10 affairs was interesting. Of course, there is nothing unusual in a pop star having affairs - it's par for the course. But to own up after having 10 affairs, that is something quite different.

Yes, the ordinary pop star might have one or a few affairs before the tabloids get onto it. But there was something very redolent of the try too hard short man in that Mark Owen - the cute one from Take That - turned it into a bit of a boast.

It was almost as if he was saying: "No-one has ever taken me seriously. Gary wrote the songs, Robbie had the successful solo career. There was nothing for me left to do except
prove my masculinity through attracting starstruck girls."

The more I think about it, this rampant promiscuity is something of a hallmark of short men. You've only got to look at Jermain Defoe's incredible ability to bed every aspiring WAG out there to see that the small, successful man simply can't say 'no' to women.

My great favourite, Sisqo, is of course another case in point. Not only did he write one of the great pervy pop tunes of all time, Thong Song, he also got tangled up in a paternity suit with a Swiss woman whom he 'met' on tour.

And checking back through my collection of Napoleon biographies shows beyond doubt that old Bonaparte himself believed in spreading his love around. So, my hastily drawn but I feel nevertheless solid conclusion - great short men are invariably promiscuous. Mark Owen, in your hour of need, take solace from the fact that you follow in the footpath of short men the world over, from Napoleon to Jermain Defoe.

Napoleon is a hero to all short men

I am very much enjoying reading about Napoleon Bonaparte. One of my French friends once remarked that I 'could be Corsican' which I took as a huge compliment. But until starting this blog I had never looked too closely at the man.

The great man. Probably the greatest short man of all time - and therefore probably the greatest man of all time. Yes, I am a convinced Bonapartist.

He displayed all of the qualities which short men should possess: brilliance, daring, volatility allied with loveability, promiscuity, and more than anything was always trying to prove himself. He had the lot.

I particularly enjoyed his furious slapping-down of Talleyrand, his double-dealing minister, as reported in Andrew Roberts' brilliant book, Napoleon and Wellington.

Napoleon: "Why, I could break you like a glass! I have the power to do so. But I scorn you too much for that. Why didn't I have you hanged in public on the gates of the Carousel? But there is still time for that. You are just common shit in silk stockings!"

I love it all. I love the threat, the scorn, the further threat, and then out-and-out abuse. And I need hardly add that Talleyrand was, of course, a tall man.

Splendid, splendid, splendid.

Craig Bellamy wades put the John Terry scandal to rest. But what does Shearer think?

It was with huge relief that after weeks of stories about the Wayne Bridge / John Terry ‘scandal’, a short man has stepped in to provide some sense on the matter.

Yes, it has taken some time before the world’s media thought to ask what Craig Bellamy’s take was on the situation. And, in a live interview on Sky after Man City had demolished Chelsea, it took him 10 seconds to effectively put the whole matter to rest.

Craig said: “I know what JT’s like and nothing surprises me about it, so I’m not going to comment on that guy. I think everyone in football knows what the guy’s like.”

And that’s that. No more hokum. Terry is a scumbag and you either accept it or you don’t. Thank you, Mr Bellamy, thank you.

Bellamy is one of those naturally divisive short men. (Playing in England, it probably also helps that he is Welsh.) Whatever he does he either inspires hate or admiration, usually the former.

I cannot help but have the greatest of admiration for the man. As a small man (in football terms, that is – he’s 5ft 9in) he’s had a career of playing second fiddle to a big man. He makes them look good and they don’t thank him for it.

That was exactly the case when Bellamy played with Alan Shearer at Newcastle. Here was the deal: Bellamy skins two defenders, hares into the box, draws the keeper, and lays the ball off to Shearer, who taps in. Shearer then takes all the plaudits as Bellamy seethes. Shearer could never understand why Bellamy would not acknowledge their feudal relationship as landowner and serf.

For anyone who has heard Shearer’s mixture of inane platitudes and bumptious arrogance as a TV pundit, we can only applaud any man who gets under his skin. Famously, Sam Allardyce tried to sign Bellamy back to Newcastle, a decision met with shock and derision by the then-retired Shearer. So angry was the ‘son of a sheet-metal worker from Gosforth’ that he used his Geordie legend status to effectively halt the signing and, moreover, put the hex on Allardyce’s entire reign at Newcastle. Ultimately, the upshot of this was that Newcastle were relegated while Allardyce’s current team, Blackburn, are comfortably mid-table in the Premier League. That’s what can happen when a short man fucks with your head.

We can only hope that Shearer is at home now, seething at Bellamy’s attack on the reputation of another former England captain. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that he and JT might be sharing a text conversation about Bellamy, using the adjective ‘short’ as a casual pejorative.

Craig Bellamy: you are a modern-day hero.

Amis is a try-too-hard short man

I suppose it was obvious. The pomposity. The pretentious, attention-seeking use of language. The hate he inspires.

But until this week, I had never realised that Martin Amis was a shorty. He conceded, in a rare moment of straightforward candour this week, that he is 5ft 6 and a half inches. Which by my reckoning makes him just on the very periphery of short. He’s on the cusp of mediocre height, but not quite. For me, this explains why he has all the anger of the short man, with none of the self-deprecating humour. He is all fight and no charm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/01/martin-amis-interview-pregnant-widow

Looking at it with clear eyes, now I have the salient fact to hand, it must be said that his being short is plastered all across Amis’s writing. Would anyone but a short man compose a first novel based around trying to pull a woman?

A bigger man would simply have got on with pulling the woman and gone home and written a heroic fantasy or a war fiction (the late, great heroic fantasy writer, David Gemmell, was a six-footer).

I did like The Rachel Papers – the cockiness of the central character trying to woo Rachel, his over-preparedness, his try-too-hard nature – because I identified with it.

I have not bothered reading any of his work since Money, but I am sure they are not as good as he thinks, nor as bad as his detractors would have us believe. Amis’s Yellow Dog book inspired one of the most legendary literary insults in recent years.

From Tibor Fischer: “The Yellow Dog isn’t bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It’s not-knowing-where-to-look bad…It’s like your favourite unclue being caught in a school playground, masturbating.”

Ouch.

He is a man, who through 'coining' words like 'apocollapse', 'horrorism' and 'edificide' while talking about 9/11 and Islam drew a column in the Guardian from Chris Morris, who suggests he is the new Abu Hamza.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/25/bookscomment.religion

Now, while the role of this blog, if it has one, is to trumpet the achievements of the short man, and to strike back against unfair criticism, I can’t help but think that Amis falls into the ranks of short man as pantomime villain. In this category lies Nicholas Sarkozy, Australia cricket captain Ricky Ponting and, for the Englishman, Diego Maradona.

I’m not going to back Amis just because he is short. The bloke has honed his obnoxiousness too far for that. All I want to say is this: Amis would be an entirely different writer if he had as little as half an inch more height - or, better still, not a writer at all. That’s how finely balanced these things are. On this one, I'm very happy to sharpen my knives with everyone else. He deserves no mercy.

Page 3 targets short men

I may be becoming increasingly sensitive to anti-short man jibes after starting this blog. But, it seems i cannot even relax while looking at page 3 in the Sun without becoming distracted by the height issue.

In a recent edition I turned to page 3. There was Poppy, 18, from Somerset, poolside, looking very fetching while wearing not very much at all.

What has Poppy got to say about current affairs.

Namely, this:

Poppy is 5ft 5in and has a big concern after learning that PC Rob Port is believed to be Britain's smallest cop at just 5ft. She said: "I was always taught that you should look up to bobbies."

Now, while I shall not stop reading the Sun, nor looking at page 3, it is with a slight nervous anxiety that I do so. Poppy, 18, from Somerset, how could you!?

Cristiano: short man to blame for my sending-off

We know that Cristiano Ronaldo is offensive to most human beings. Never has a fabulously gifted footballer attracted more hatred from the football-loving fraternity.

I was definitely in the camp of those people who breathed a sigh of relief when Ronaldo finally departed these shores for Madrid where his ego could be given freer reign. No man has ever been booed by more fans more consistently (with all due respect to Ashley Cole in his efforts to inspire bile and loathing).

But it seems even after securing his much-vaunted ‘dream’ move to Real Madrid, Ronaldo can’t stop inspiring hate. He had already been sent off once this season, and against Malaga at the weekend he picked up his second red card for a vicious sideswipe on Patrick Mtiliga.

His defence of his actions are always singular in their outrageousness. And when asked for his reaction to breaking another player’s nose it is best to give it up to the man himself.

Cristiano said: 'I've seen worse things in other games. I didn't mean to injure the lad. It was bad luck to hit him on the nose because he's only 1.70m and if he had been taller I would have struck his chest.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1245834/I-didnt-mean-Real-Madrid-star-Cristiano-Ronaldo-sent-breaking-Patrick-Mtiligas-nose.html#ixzz0dnRn65hN

So, if this blog has its heroes (see previous post), Cristiano has now joined the ranks of the anti-short man villain. From London to Madrid: “BOO!!”

Sisqo evicted from Celeb BB house

I have had a few days to recover my natural bouyant temperant after learning of the sad news that Sisqo had been evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house. Now the dust has settled it is time to see what can we learn about this great short man.

One thing is for certain. The tall men in the house: Vinnie Jones, Alex Reid, and Jonas, felt threatened by Sisqo. It was clear that the hard nut footballer, the dimwitted cagefighter and the very bland DJ saw in Sisqo a man with whom they could not compete on level terms.

In the eviction hearing last Friday, Vinnie came straight in the diary room sat down and said: “Sisqo.” He clearly didn’t even see the need to explain himself. Sisqo out. And who can blame him? Since the infamous nutgrab on Gazza back in the early ‘90s, Vinnie has always had a problem with creativity, and seeks to quash it whenever it comes within his grasp.

Alex was equally direct. “Sisqo is a threat.” He saw the man behind the classic hits Thong Song and Unleash the Dragon as a man who could take the Celeb BB title. No doubt Sisqo was a threat to his idea of masculinity: namely, to fight in cages for a job and crossdress in his spare time.

Jonas, whose music I have no knowledge of but who seems to be nice-but-dim, also wanted Sisqo out. Jonas is above six foot, and I have no doubt hanging round with a short R&B legend like Sisqo did his head in after a few days.

Out in the real world, having a cursory glance at popular opinion on youtube and other centres of the most up-to-date thinking, Sisqo has widely been acknowledged as a legend, a lover (particularly in Switzerland). Of course he has divided opinion: the short man always will.

No doubt he will now need to go into some sort of detoxification after three weeks in the company of Vinnie Jones, but after that process is complete I hope he reassumes his position at the top table of R&B music. Peace, Sisqo!

The wit and wisdom of Will Greenwood

Nice to see former England rugby player Will Greenwood showing his lighthearted side in the Guardian yesterday. He talks about the japes fellow international Austin Healey used to play on him – such as hiding poor Will’s lucky socks while on tour.

And as an explanation of why Austin – who at 5ft 8ins is not technically short, but is when compared with those monstrous beasts that roam the rugby field – would do such things, Will explains it quite simply: Austin Healey has short man syndrome.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jan/22/small-talk-will-greenwood

What a striking putdown, Will! To explain that Austin Healey is channeling his natural rage at being small by playing practical jokes on bigger men. In essence, Will is saying: ‘I wouldn’t normally put up with this kind of thing, but Austin is short. He can’t help it, poor chap.’

I’ll be honest here. I loathe English rugby players. I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck in a room with Will Carling and Jeremy Guscott. Will Carling's chin is on its own the most smug thing I have ever seen.

Growing up in Essex, I had no concept of rugby players. I didn’t play rugby and I didn’t know anyone who did. It was only at university that I came across the concept of the ‘rugby lad.’ The sight of three rugby lads urinating off a second floor balcony at my student halls while shouting obscenities told me everything I needed to know about this peculiar breed of Englishman.

So, in that context, saying that a shortish man has short man syndrome really does count as razor-sharp wit indeed. So jolly good show, Mr Greenwood.

Jamie Cullum in marriage shocker!!!

In the modern day, few celeb relationships have drawn the anti-small man ire among the journalistic community more than that of Jamie Cullum and Sophie Dahl.

Let’s check the facts. Cullum is the most successful jazz pianist ever to come out of Britain. Okay, so he doesn't quite have the artistic credibility of someone like back-in-the-day hero George Shearing. But the bloke knows his jazz, loves it, and is very, very popular.

Sophie Dahl is a successful model and, more recently, cookery writer and granddaughter of Roald Dahl. As successful, intelligent British celebrities of a similar vintage, they would appear to be a happy lovematch.

Not to the media. Their relationship is deemed strange and peculiar and a valid target for sneering and mirth. Why? Well, because Cullum is shorter than Dahl. Incredible! I mean, who would credit it?

Therefore, Cullum is pointedly condemned as “pintsized” while Dahl is hailed “statuesque” by the Daily Mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242166/Naked-truth-feuding-Calendar-Girls.html

The Telegraph explicitly points out that the couple’s height difference has been the subject of much joking in the press.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/6967447/Sophie-Dahl-and-Jamie-Cullum-marry.html

Cullum, showing a clear lack of decency and respect for the media, said: “It’s hard to see it as a problem when we are very happy.”

And, worse, the couple decided to have a small scale wedding without letting Hello or OK in to take pictures. Some people will never learn.

Short men more likely to get lung disease

News today on the BBC that short people are more likely to get lung disease. A large study pulls out a stat that, on average, those with the nasty-sounding Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease are 1.12cms shorter on average than the general population.

No doubt the mediocre-sized population will sieze on this news as evidence that short people are inherently weak, diseased, heading to an early grave, our lack of height symbolic of an underlying ill health.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8446552.stm

From my point of view, maybe this means there are small people out there who could have gained that mediocre status of being average-sized, but because of smoking too many fags instead of eating broccoli, ended up being small. So perhaps there are two groups of small people, the genuinely small, and those who just didn’t eat enough veg to get up to their predestined height.

I can say for myself, I am genuinely small. I haven’t got this way by missing meals or being generally sickly. I eat a solid three meals a day, plus snacks, and am full of health. And yet I am my 5ft 4ins. I would contend that whether you are genuinely small, or small because of ill health, too many fags, or sheer lack of will to grow, it’s all good.

I look forward to the mid-sized majority regarding my brethren (Sisqo, Aston from JLS, and everyone else) explicitly as a troubling minority, misunderstood and avowedly different.

Short man Sisqo enters the Celebrity Big Brother house

Scanning the list of names served up for the annual reality hell of celebrity Big Brother, I was absolutely delighted to note that Sisqo had entered the fray.

I am a massive fan of Sisqo. His hit, Unleash the Dragon, was a marvellous mix of swing beats, soul vocals and swagger. The follow-up, Thong Song, rightly became an international best seller. The chorus, concluding with the line, “that thong, th-thong, thong-thong,” remains a popular refrain a decade after it hit the charts.

It was the sort of line I would expect from that other R&B great, R Kelly. But, on reflection, that level of insight is impossible for a man of R Kelly’s height, standing as he does somewhere over six feet.

Thong Song was clearly the work of a short man, what with his eye level being that much nearer to thong level. A quick survey of the net puts Sisqo’s height at anywhere between 5’ 2” and 5’ 5”. As the upper figure is the singer’s own estimate, it can be safely discounted.

The video for the Thong Song is a wonderful thing. How splendid it is to see our man in the back of a drop top, regulation honeys at his side, and Sisqo’s feet swinging high above the car’s floor. Peerless.

Of course, a man of this size and talent is undoubtedly going to find himself at the centre of attention in the Big Brother household, even with men of the calibre of Another Level’s Dane Bowers in his midst. And so it has proved.

Sisqo has made friends with the youngest and most beautiful woman in the house, Ronnie Wood’s ex, the Russian cocktail waitress Ekaterina. The sniping from the press at a small man trying to make his way in the world has started early.

The Daily Mirror's 3am girls, never ones to pass up a cheap insult, have tagged the R&B superstar, ‘short man syndrome Sisqo.’

Now, why might that be? Is this because he is rich and successful…and short? Is it because he is making a play for the lovely Ekaterina? Or is it mindless bigotry of the type not allowed in print against people of different race or sexuality?

The man behind the Thong Song surely deserves better. We will be watching.

http://www.3am.co.uk/alex-reid-breaks-jordans-rules-on-celebrity-big-brother/20566/

Calling all short men

I suppose by doing this blog I’m trying to work out what it means to be small.

So I’ve started gathering evidence of the short man experience. Google news alerts for the key subject matter: Sarkozy, Ricky Ponting, Jamie Cullum, Aston Merrygold from JLS.

I’m putting my bait out there to see what pops up. The first alert I received under “short men” was an article in the Los Angeles Times about malice in South Korean society. A Seoul college student, appearing on a popular TV show, stood up and said that “short men are losers.” Uncalled for, unjust, and unpleasant. But an internet campaign of led by short Koreans forced the student to withdraw from Facebook, apologising profusely as she went. Good stuff.

A fellow called Mohammed posted a plaintive open question on Yahoo: “Why did God make me short?”

Firstly, I’m staggered that someone should throw such a personal question out over the internet to see what random responses come back.

Typically, I suppose, he gets a mix of anti-islamic nutjobs, anti-short man jibes, anti-religious nutjobs. There is some support from women saying, don’t worry, at least you aren’t disabled or have AIDS. (I agree, being short is less bad than having AIDS.)

And then there are a couple of small chaps, putting an arm round the shoulder of Mohammed. Another guy who is really struggling with being small. He concludes that he wouldn’t wish being small on his worst enemy.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100102011607AACJ0ub

This is some heavy stuff, and I’m only just scratching the surface of this short man thing. The average-sized world really lays it on thick for the smaller chap. I’m here to get the small man to push his chest out, thinking of all the greats out there: Woody Allen, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino. And of course the R&B superstar, Sisqo, making his entry into the Celebrity Big Brother house…

I am a short man

I am a short man. About 5 ft 4 inches in my socks.

How small is that? Bigger than Prince, about the same height as Stalin. A touch shorter than Maradona and Tom Cruise.

The specifics don’t matter. I’m short. Below the 5ft 7inch mark: that line which marks the small from the respectably middle-sized.

I was the second shortest in my year at school. Then Ian Rutter put on a growth spurt at the age of 16, leaving me shortest.

At least it cleared things up. Got it out in the open. There was no false pride in not being smallest. I was short, titchy, pintsize. Little Rich. It’s my defining feature.

I’m little and you know the score. Mouthy. Feisty. Something to prove. Trying too hard. Don’t know when to stop. You have the final word, I’ll have the final final word. It’s the way it is.

I’m competitive, fiercely competitive. I used to play football and loved nothing better than felling a six footer with a sliding challenge. Did I leave my leg in? What do you think?

Now I ride my bike, walk up hills. That’s when my body type comes into its own. Light. Low to the ground. Nimble. I walked up Ben Nevis recently and stopped to chat with a big man who was struggling up the mountain. And then I kicked on with a winning combination of masochism and sadism. Bye-ee.

I’m funny too. If you’re small you have to be. It’s part of the game. Get the joke in first. Self-deprecate, just like Louis Armstrong laughing off his blackness to please the white folks. If you are a minority, and you want to get along, you’ve got to have a joke. You’ve got to make the majority feel comfortable.

What does this make me? Do I have small man syndrome? Do I have Napoleon Complex? I say: these are the tags of mediocre men sized between 5ft 8 and 6ft 2ins. (The really tall have their own problems.) These terms are lazy pejoratives hurled at small men. I refute them absolutely.

But it’s true that small men are either figures of fun (Dudley Moore, Ronnie Corbett, Nicholas Sarkozy) or figures of hate (Ricky Ponting, Tom Cruise, Nicholas Sarkozy).

I want to explore in this blog the condition of shortness. Why do average-height people consider us so amusing / objectionable? And why do we try so hard to win their affection and gain attention?