Edited for your displeasure.

Certainly, necessity would suggest that in order to get changed, one should at some stage have to be unclothed – this is a given and is quite acceptable. The issue of being unclothed only becomes an issue when, for example:

• Men sit bollocks-naked on the little benchy things (and thus leave scrot-box germs on them)
• Men take off their clothes to have a shower but then dawdle around; nispies swinging in the breeze,
• Men feel the need to put lotion on themselves, everywhere. Yes. Everywhere.
• Men find it necessary to shave, totally naked – in front of the mirror. Why would one need to be totally naked to do that; especially in the company of other men. Besides, just think what would happen if you dropped the razor…
• There are young good looking types bending down to tie their shoe laces and you walk past them with your nispy at eye height.

Step Two: Dress properly
I have seen people at the gym wearing Diesel shoes, Slip slops and most importantly a pair of Adidas Superstar 35th Anniversary shoes (the Berlin edition). Wear running shoes, that’s what god made them for.
When it comes to other clothing, one realises that body-builder types have mutated and abused their bodies to the point of them being unable to fit into normal clothes, but surely those silly oversized tee-shirts with the necks cut out of them are unnecessary? The same goes for those silly kind of pyjama/clown pants they wear.
In terms of women, is it necessary to wear as little as possible? Aren’t you afraid of popping out somewhere? I’ve heard stories of men “falling out” of those stupid running shorts, and while women’s anatomies certainly are more tantalising, surely this is a worry. One can still work out wearing a normal pair of shorts, instead of a pair the size of a glove.

Step Three: Do not touch yourself too much
Not only do muscle-mary types look at themselves in the mirror too much, I have personally witnessed one who was feeling his boob in the mirror. That can’t be good. The same goes for flexing in the mirror – can that not be done in the privacy of the home?

Step Four: If you sweat explosively, please do something about it
Some men manage to not just sweat so that it runs down their bodies, which is indeed a good indication that they are working hard, but some manage to get it to actually fly off their bodies on to the people surrounding them. If this occurs often, one should consider getting a plastic bubble in which to train.

Step Five: Don’t scream
We know you are strong. We know you can do big weights. We know your training partner is secretly in love with you and the tight cycling shorts you wear. It is not necessary to scream every time you lift; one understands the theory that screaming gives you a boost in order to lift heavier weights, but rather aim to scream inwardly, like the inward-screaming monks of Patagonia – they have been practising for hundreds of years. Similarly, do not throw your weights on to the ground after your set so that they make a big booming noise and everyone looks at you. Everyone knows you should take up another hobby, like reading – it’s not necessary to tell everyone.

That's a strong pepper. The other man has kind eyes.

Step Six: If you have strange tics, please try keep them to yourself
There are certain people one sees at the gym regularly and a small percentage of these people are twitchers (no, not bird-watchers, nutters). There is one lady who headbangs as she burns those calories on the stepping machine, and another who appears to shake her head while on the stationary bicycle, sunglasses on all the while.

I suggest therapy.

Step Seven: If you are going to use a spotter, do not get the spotter to do all the work
To give a quick definition of spotting: A spotter is someone who helps you to do the last 2-3 reps in a set of lifts. A spotter allows you to push yourself just past your limit and thus gain in strength. Many younger males of the human persuasion often take spotting to new highs. I have witnessed three people (veins bulging as they worked) helping someone lift an impossibly heavy weight for bench-press. This is silly. And stupid. Who are you fooling? Only your mom.

Step Eight: Parking close to the gym is redundant, you are going there to work out
Many people appear to spend ages circling the gym, looking for good parking. Surely if one is going to the gym to work out – it would help to park further away? Just a thought. Use it. Or use it.

Step Nine: Please bear in mind with the longer bars that as you take weights off one end it will cause the much-maligned see-saw effect.
Back when I was sixteen and still strong (seriously) a friend and I had just got off the bench-press and up sidled some middle-aged women – keen to improve those pecs of theirs. After complaining loudly that someone hadn’t taken the weights off, they began to take them off from only the one side, causing the much-maligned see-saw effect. The much-maligned see-saw effect occurs when the weights are taken off one side of the bar – this causes it to become unbalanced and as it becomes unbalanced – all of the weights on the heavier side slide off on to the floor – causing a huge kerfuffle and generally causing everyone to look at you. Now, as these women weren’t well versed in the much-maligned see-saw effect their actions caused it to happen, unfortunately for them; the lady wearing the ankle brace was standing on the side where all the weights fell off.

She was quite angry.

*Insert farting noise here*

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Step Ten: Be wary of leg press machines
Having 350kg pushing your legs down so that your knees are under your chin and you are stuck like a little man-pretzel inside some gym equipment is not that fun, and quite embarrassing.

Yours flexingly,
(oooh it feels so hard and big)
Pole Wit

Blame the economy.

It's nice how they've got the kids involved

The opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics is a mere month away, and weather, the wrong kind, has arrived in the host city, and it was anything but wintry.

Olympic planners found themselves scurrying to adapt to torrents of rain and near-record mild temperatures that hit not only Vancouver, but far up Cypress Mountain, the North Shore peak overlooking the city where snowboarding and freestyle skiing events will be staged.

The slopes of Cypress were so wet and balmy that all ski activity on the heavily used mountain was cancelled for the next two days at least, and VANOC called a halt to its extensive snowmaking operation there.

"The Winter Olympics have always intrigued me" - Nick Krige

Organizers are sufficiently alarmed by the spate of warm, moist air that they may decide to close off Cypress to the public as early as tomorrow, 2 and a half weeks earlier than planned.

“We need freezing temperatures to get our snowmaking machines going, and right now, we’ve got a Pineapple Express(not the movie) going through,” said Tim Gayda, VANOC vice-president of sport.

Mr. Gayda said the extra time may be necessary to bring down enough snow from higher elevations to ensure the venues are in good shape for the Olympics.

Easily my favourite "event" at the Winter Olympics

“Right now, that’s our biggest challenge. Mother Nature is always unpredictable, and you have to plan for every scenario. It’s just the nature of the beast.”

Previous test events on Cypress also ran into weather problems. Mogul runs were delayed for hours by heavy fog that obscured the start line from judges at the bottom of the course. And a parallel giant slalom event was cancelled outright because of poor snow conditions.
Snow-making machines have been operating since November to groom and build up the Olympic courses at Cypress. Huge mounds of natural snow have also been stockpiled nearby to be used, if needed, during the Games.

Mr. Gayda said there is enough snow – both artificial and natural – to stage all events, even in a downpour similar to the current deluge. “It might be unpleasant, but that’s the way it is in the outdoor sports business.”

Goodbye

Trying some new names out, as putting a “Lunch Time Sports Round Up” every day is quite boring, and it probably won’t look that good on the site. Unless I post other sport stories in between, but that sounds like way to much like hard work.

Today we have something on Herschelle Gibbs, a Tiger health update, a surprising fact about cricket and the usual transfer rumours from Europes soccer elite.

Gibbs to Quit

The big news today, for fans of South African fans at least, is that apparently Herschelle Gibbs is considering retirement from international cricket.

This comes as quite a shock, as A.) I thought he has retired already, when was the last time he played for South Africa, and B.) Why couldn’t it have been Mark Boucher? WHY?!?!?

Apparently someone close to Gibbs told Sports24, ““It has nothing to do with the fact that he has been omitted for the umpteenth time.”

Cheers everyone, off to have a bong, a beer and place a bet.

This is laughable for many reasons, the biggest of which is that the closest person to Gibbs is probably his drug dealer, so how reliable a source is that?

The next part of the quote, “While there are still a few options to consider, he feels that he has had enough after such a long career” is just plain ridiculous, because according other reports even IF he does retire from internationals, he will still be available for the Indian Premier League, the highest paid form of cricket in the world. Seems as if he really is considering those other options then…

Communal, open air toilets, definitely a reason to retire

The quote concludes, “The reality is that he should already have retired last year as he wanted to finish his career on a high in order to safeguard his legacy.” Which only serves to prove that Sport24 were talking to Gibbs’ drug dealer, or at the very least a drug taker, as even though I’m sure Gibbs was high at some stage last year, quitting then wouldn’t have ended his career on one.

I’m fairly sure it wasn’t more than 12 months ago when Gibbs had to enter rehab for alcoholism, adding to him getting busted for Marijuana earlier in his career AND being implicated in the infamous Variegate match fixing candle. Some legacy.

Tiger Watch

Even though Nike, Gillette, Golf Digest and Net jets have stuck with Tiger, probably the most important one (in terms of maintaining relationships with 47 girlfriends and a wife) Gatorade has their sponsorship of him and discontinued Gatorade Tiger drinks.

No more electrolytes for Tiger.

This is very disturbing news for Tiger as he will have to look elsewhere for energy and electrolytes to maintain his infidelity. At the end of the day a cheater can’t change it’s spots and leopards never prosper.

In slightly more disturbing news (I laughed), it has emerged that Tiger seldom, if ever, used a condom with his binties and his wife is now experiencing an HIV plus other STD scare. Do the Hivvie!

Not sure if I'd cheat on this. Now possibly with HIV

Woods has been slammed by US health “experts”.

Infidelity expert (would like to find out how to become one of these) Ruth Houston claimed Woods is not a sex addict but just “enjoys playing around with the other women”. I wonder what “expertise” he had to study to come to this earth shattering conclusion.

BUT she has decided to stick with him, so hopefully that will be the end of that. Chances…

Cricket outperforms rugby and soccer

A headline that really caught my eye was that cricket has achieved a higher annual growth rate than both rugby and soccer in South Africa.

Soccer I can understand, it is played predominantly by black people, and all black people play soccer, so there isn’t much room for growth.

But rugby, seriously? Unless the stats take into account how many people have to stop playing rugby after injury, I’m not entirely sure how that is possible.

On the other hand, it may help to explain why attendances at cricket games have been so abysmal recently. Let me elaborate.

Cricket takes a bloody long time, the shortest form of the game that they can think of takes three hours and the longest takes five days, with various forms of the game falling in between those two. So now, as the highest growing sport in the country, more and more people are getting stuck out on cricket fields for vast amounts of time, and no one can make it to the ground to watch the professionals. Rugby attendances are safe because they only play cricket in the summer.

Rumors

The big transfer rumour floating around the English Premier League today is that Liverpool are interested in signing a Tottenham Hotspur striker.

For all the Liverpool fans out there who are struggling to come to terms with the poor year you have been having, this may push you over the edge.

Liverpool want to sign Tottenham fourth, in case you can’t read 4th, choice striker Roman Pavlyuchenko. The Russian has amassed a grand total playing time of about 37 and a half second this year, and Liverpool want him to replace Torres.

Soon to be in red for club and country. Maybe.

The financial trouble at Liverpool has been well documented, but the rumour rags have got around this by saying Rafa Benitez will offer Ryan Babel in exchange for the Russian. But with Spurs looking to try and recoup as much of the £17 Million they spent on Pavlyuchenko, Rafa may need to offer Babel plus cash.

At 22 Babel has really high resale value, so if Spurs want cash plus Babel it might be a deal breaker.

As a Spurs fan I hope the deal breaks, as far as Babel is concerned, my humble opinion, Do Not Want.

Also Blackburn join a long list of clubs who want Ruud van Nistelroy, and Chelsea have made a bid for Luis Suarez of Ajax, who is very highly rated around Europe.

Rooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood

Sevens

The South African leg of the IRB Sevens kicks off in George Tomorrow afternoon, so if you are in the area pop down, sevens really has become a sport on its own and is fantastic to watch. It is the newest Olympic Sport after all.

Soon to be in a George near you

South Africa are the defending champions at George and will hopefully manage a better performance than they did last week in Dubai.

Go to google, type in sevens and check out the first picture that comes up, I laughed.

Cheers

It’s about time some regular features starting appearing on this website, so starting today the Lunch Time Sports Round Up will hopefully become a daily feature. This is of course subject to how much time I have at work, and whether or not my boss is behind me, but I will do my best to keep you updated on the goings on of the sporting world all in one place.

Today’s episode includes a fat old English soccer player being linked to a move to Manchester United, the Champions League Results from last night, more news on Tiger Woods (but only because you can’t go anywhere on the internet without seeing him these days) and some other random crap I found. Enjoy!

Judas to become a Devil

Without a doubt the rumour of the day is that Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United, is interested in signing Sol Campbell in January.

Sol is available on a free transfer after walking out on his contract with Notts County after just one game.

Both The Sun and The Daily Mirror claim that Sir is after the 35 year old English centre back.

There is no real indicator of fit he is, or indeed if he is even still any good at defending as he hasn’t played competitive football since leaving Notts.

He has been linked with every club under the sun, from Newcastle, to Arsenal, he has been training with them post-Notts, to Tottenham, who never have more than one fit centre back, and now to Manchester United.

The unfortunate thing though is that this is almost certainly a false rumour. A knee-jerk reaction to Manchester United starting their Champions league game last night with Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher in the centre of defence.

Campbell’s reputation in the footballing world isn’t what could be described “angelic”. He is known amongst Spurs fans as “Judas” after walking out on the club to move to their biggest rivals, Arsenal. He also has a bit of a reputation for letting his contracts lapse, which means the club he moves to doesn’t have to pay a fee for him, so he can get higher wages. He also walked out on a five year contract with Notts after one game.

So he will probably fit in at United, who in the past have had the likes of Roy Keane, walked out on Celtic as a player and Sunderland as a manager, and Eric Cantona who fly kicked a fan.

Cantona: Campbell's rolemodel at United

But my opinion, as with much of the footballing world’s I’m sure, runs along with the gossip columnists at Football365.com, that put the story under the headline “The Please Let This Be True Gossip”.

Champions League Part 1

Staying with football the first half of the last round of group matches in the Champions League was played last night. This means we now know the first bunch of teams to have qualified for the next round are, and more importantly the ones that didn’t.

Bayern Munich saw Juventus relegated to the Europa League by beating them 4-1, a victory inspired by a penalty converted by the Munich goalkeeper, Hans-Jorg Butt, I’m not kidding. About the goal or his name. FC Bordeaux qualified top of group A, with Bayern Munich, which goes along nicely with their top position in the French league, but no-one cares about them, their French.

Hans-Jorg saving a penaly Butt last night he scored one

Manchester United qualified from group B easily, after beating Wolfsburg 3-1. CSKA Moscow will be joining Manchester from this group, but only if they can explain why two of their players failed drugs tests, presumably, “They just wanted to get high” won’t be explanation enough.

Hat-trick Hero

AC Milan and Real Madrid qualified from group C, beating out FC Zurich, and Marseille. Boring, predictable.

Group D was even worse in that it was decided before last nights games were played. A 3-0 win for Porto over Athletico Madrid wasn’t good enough to overtake Chelsea, who could only manage a home draw against APOEL Arzsdn, or something.

Athletico Madrid’s performances have been so consistently poor this season that they finished last in their group, below APEFL Afdsg, or something, and won’t even make the Europa League.

The list of huge clubs to have failed to qualify so far: Juventus, Athletico Madrid and of course Liverpool.

“God Bless Tiger Woods”

The words of Yahoo! chief executive, Carol Bartz.

He comments further, “This week we got a huge uplift: Front Page, News, Sports, Gossip. He just filtered through the whole place. It is better than Michael Jackson dying; it is kind of hard to put an ad next to a funeral.”

Nike: Just Stop It

So basically his two favourite things in the world are people dying and divorce. Nice guy.

Tiger has of course been in the news since he crashed his car on November 27 and has since had what have to be the worst few weeks of his life, involving a possible split with his wife, her moving out and his infidelity.

The infamous crash

And to compound it all, Woods’ mother-in-law was in hospital yesterday, but has been released and everything seems to be okay. With the mother-in-law at least.

On the plus side, maybe, the ultimate playboy, Hugh Hefner has come out in support of Tiger. How Ellen, Tiger’s wife, will view this is another issue entirely.

A Little with Bat and Ball

England feel South Africa are theirs for the taking in the upcoming Test series between the two countries, despite the fact that they are currently struggling in their warm up game against the South African Invitational XI.

Will England be to good for them?

The ICC are considering scraping the home and away rule for future test series, to open up the calendar a bit. This will allow National cricket councils to arrange more tests for series with “icon” status and give them more room to decide who and when they play.

The Rest

Craig Bellamy and Vladimir Weiss of Manchester City have swine flu. I wonder if they caught it from each other.

Sick as a pig

The New Zealand rugby coach is pleased with their year end tour, even though a leading journalist in New Zealand still claims that the Springboks should be considered number one,  although the rankings disagree.

Australia have named an unchanged side for the third test, despite struggling to a draw earlier this week.

Italy Coach Nick Mallet believes that despite victories by France and Ireland over the Springboks and All Blacks in the recent tours the Southern Hemisphere are still the top dogs in rugby.

Like some Americans: Still believes in the South

Sports commentators are infallible. They are at the top of the journalistic profession and are the envy of their peers and… ah never mind, we all know the vast majority of them are total crap and only got their jobs because they are ex-pros, or people who have taken a dose of Verb-Lax and have never been treated with a Mouth-Tipation.

But sometimes, the “experts” who destroy our eardrums come through with something that makes listening to their drivel all worth while. This is a list of my favorite 20.

20. “He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn’t like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.” – Basketball analyst.

19. “With his lovely soft hands he just tossed it off. – Cricketer Neil Fairbrother hit a single during a Durham v Lancashire match, inspiring Bobby Simpson to observe.

Tossing one off

18. “Tony has a quick look between his legs and likes what he sees.” – ‘Winning Post’s’ Stewart Machin commentating on jockey Tony McCoy’s formidable lead.

17. “If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.” – Softball announcer.

16. “Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It’s rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres.” – A classic. Jerry Coleman, Padres broadcast announcer, trying to tell radio listeners about a play.

15. “What does it feel like being rammed up the backside by Barrichello?” – James Allen interviewing Ralf Schumacher at a Grand Prix.

14. “Sure there have been injuries,and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.” – Boxing Analyst.

13. “Ah, isn’t that nice.. The wife of the Cambridge President is kissing the Cox of the Oxford crew.” – Harry Carpenter at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race 1977.

12. “Ballesteros felt much better after a 69 yesterday.” – Steve Ryder covering the US Masters

11. “Ralph, I would like to be able to tell the folks what happened on that play, but the Florida cheerleaders were shaking their fuzzy things right in front of us.” – Famous University of Kentucky commentator, Cawood Ledford on the interference of pom poms.

Hmmm, cheerleaders, fluffy things...

10. “Stephen Hendry jumps on Steve Davis’s misses every chance he gets.” – Mike Hallett discussing missed snooker shots on Sky Sports. (For those of you not down with the British lingo, dudes refer to their gals as their ‘missus’, jokes are always so much less funny when you have to explain them)

9. “Julian Dicks is everywhere. It’s like they’ve got eleven Dicks on the field.” – Metro Radio football match commentary.

8. “They usually have four or five dreams a night about coming from different positions.” – Willie Carson was telling Claire Balding how jockeys prepare for a big race when he said.

7. “This is really a lovely horse. I once rode her mother.” – Ted Walsh – Horse Racing Commentator.

6. “Colin had a hard on in practice earlier, and I bet he wishes he had a hard on now.” – Eurosports’ Jack Burnicle on superbike racer Colin Edwardes’s choice of tire.

5. “Spencer’s running across field calling out, ‘come inside me, come inside me.’” – Sky TV’s rugby man, the ubiquitous Murray Mexted.

"Come inside me! Come inside me!"

4. “Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny, other weeks he prefers to do it by himself.” – Ken Brown commentating on golfer Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson lining-up shots at the Scottish Open.

3. “One of the reasons Arnie is playing so well is that, before each tee-shot, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them – Oh my God, what have I just said?” – US Open Commentator on the success of Arnold Palmer. (This one lost points on the list because the commentator realised he made a mistake, party pooper)

2. “I don’t like this new law, because your first instinct when you see a man on the ground is to go down on him” – One more infamous quote from Mexted

1. “This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.” – 2004 Summer Olympics

Weightlifting, gross. No offense, unless you really want to take some

The more sports-conscious of you will have noticed that there are no quotes from the great Murray Walker, that is not an oversight on my part, if I had included his at least 17 of the 20 probably would have been his. There are websites dedicated to just quotes of his, so I decided to give some of the other commentators a chance to air their gems.

Murray Walker - The legend himself