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.