Sports — It’s a man’s world

THERE are certain characteristics that distinguish men from women. First: Men have penises. Second: They have the remote control. It is an inalienable law of the household that the male must have the little black box of buttons determining which channel is on. And since men can no longer hunt with spears (well, not in Arima, anyway but maybe in certain parts of San Fernando) the remote control is the nearest we get to pretending we are “in charge.”

The box means power, because the most influential people in the world can be banished to oblivion by a twitch of the thumb. The Honourable Prime Minister Patrick Manning might be peering out of your television, announcing he is preparing to invade Venezuela, but if he fails to amuse you... zap... Jack Warner is brandishing a football and speaking of a Trinidad and Tobago sweep of Caribbean football ...zap. You look for a station without Manning and Warner, and you can’t find any, these guys have bought up all the airtime for at least one hour. Surely there is money both in politics and football, or maybe just say one word, money in FIFA.

Your wife/girlfriend, never the sporting type, wants to watch the Lifetime Channel, and you are awaiting something else. What to do? Let her wait a little more until she gets fed up and leaves. Obviously, this can cause tension in the living room. Horse personnel who practise law are on television speaking on saving the industry ...zap, and then zap, zap zap, for each of their tall tales, lies and innuendos. Aargh, Aargh, horse’s rear... zap... The weather? Aargh..zap.  That louse from parliament, another horse’s rear end.. zap. Nicconnor Alexander comes on the screen, he is about to run the 100 metres  final... zap, off you go because he does not stand a chance despite all the hype by some sections of the over-zealous media. Men tend to have the attention span of a mayfly that overslept during its one day on earth, a fact that dictates our behaviour in front of the box. A quick flick through the satellite channels can turn your television into a strobe light, prompting bouts of epilepsy among those who haven’t been warned you have worse habits than the nuns at “St Filthy’s Convent.”

Suddenly there is the Football Federation asking for money, and zap, because you are fed up of the lies, they always had the money coming in the first place. Meryvn Dillon is on; he has called a press conference over his retirement plans, wait.... maybe it will be good, but then why bother....zap. But then something happens. The football comes on (not cricket these days anyway); suddenly a hush descends on the room; the remote is carefully laid to one side and replaced by a bottle of beer. No one is allowed to stand near or in front of the television. Conversation is banned and replaced by spasmodic shouts and grunts aimed at the screen. If it is a special occasion, like the World Cup, then the curtains are drawn as a mark of respect and offerings, such as salted peanuts, are brought in. Shh. The match is on. There was a time in Trinidad and Tobago when live football was as rare as an eclipse but cable has changed all of that. Today, it forms the wallpaper of our lives, appearing so often you almost take umbrage when there is no match on. And whatever it is, you want to keep an eye on it. Even some of the semi-professional matches captured attention for all of ten minutes, until most realise that it is impostors and not footballers on the fields at Tacarigua and elsewhere.

You just have to watch the faces of wives and girlfriends to know how great it is to be a man, and be able to understand what is really a man sport all the way through, given all the scoring that goes on. Of course that is not to deny the fact that all sport on TV is worth watching, because there is a lot of rubbish on the air that it is better to avoid. Sometimes, even there is wrestling, once a major sport (for want of a better word) in Trinidad and Tobago, which attracted scores of women who were interested in viewing men in tights, men with all their chest exposed and just men. Now however most of these wrestling fans have to be content with watching the scenes play out like a soap opera on the USA Network. It is not surprising that recent statistics published by a source I cannot (and really am not interested) in remembering have stated categorically, that women make up 48 percent of the viewing audience to wrestling in the United States.

In Trinidad and Tobago whether the numbers will be so high is debatable, but if we continue down the line of sporting mediocrity, then soon women will dominate the remote control with wrestling as the sporting compromise. It seems that the likes of Brian Lara, Dwight Yorke, Russell Latapy, Stephen Ames, Darren Ganga and Shaka Hislop have lost their appeal to the viewing public, and winning and winning with style has a lot to do with that. That is why Ato Boldon, Darryl Browne, George Bovell 111, Kerston Manswell, Cleopatra Borel and Candice Scott remain Trinidad and Tobago’s few bright sparks at the moment. For the best in Web site management and change management check cornelis-associates.com