Monday 10 February 2014

a finnish sort of dead earl, and michael sam

1. In the 1980s, Matt Nykenen won the ski-jumping. Here are some excerpts from his Wikipedia page, which are very funny, and quite sad.

Nykänen met millionaire sausage heiress Mervi Tapola in 1999, and they were married from 2001 to 2003. They were divorced in 2003, and remarried in 2004.

In the summer of 2009 Tapola (then Tapola-Nykänen) petitioned for divorce a 14th time, but cancelled it

On Christmas Day 2009 Nykänen allegedly injured his wife with a knife and tried to throttle her with a bathrobe belt. He was charged for attempted manslaughter

On 24 August 2004, Matti Nykänen was arrested on suspicion of attempted manslaughter of a family friend after losing a finger pulling competition

When Nykänen's ski jumping career was drawing to a close, a group of businessmen proposed to make him a singer. His first album Yllätysten yö was released in 1992 and sold over 25,000 copies … The next album Samurai (1993) was not as successful.

At the end of the 1990s, due to serious financial problems, Nykänen worked as a stripper in a Järvenpää restaurant

In November 2009 Nykänen began to present his own cooking web series Mattihan se sopan keitti

He's also says a lot of half-intentionally funny things: 'And if one thing is for sure, it is quite sure,' 'What is not done cannot be undone,' and, 'I am a marriage adviser these days. If things are going well, then call me. I can fuck it up In seven seconds.'

(Mostly I file colourful people under 'dead earls', in case you are new here. It's just so I can find them quickly.)

2. If you read The Kilburn Social Club, you can probably guess I was pretty excited by the news that Michael Sam, a top college American footballer who will be drafted into the NFL this Spring, has told the press he's gay. He'll be the first active gay athlete in one of the main American team sports.

My favourite bit of the story, and the most important, is that he came out to his teammates before last season and there were a few bumpy bits of ride but it was fine. General Managers are harrumphing, as are some players, but at some point they, like the gay marriage deniers, have to see that demography isn't going to help them on this one. A team of young black athletes was more accepting than a load of old white Christians. (I bet the young black athletes were also Christian, by the way.)


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