The Meaning of LiFIFA - Creating a New Football Vocabulary

In 1983, the incomparable Douglas Adams (in conjunction with John Lloyd - no, not the tennis player) produced a small book called 'The Meaning of Liff'
The Meaning of Liff on Amazon
As an homage to the great man and his fantastic idea, I have created below a list of new footballing terms that will, I'm sure, soon come into standard usage to describe all those things within The Beautiful Game that currently do not have a noun or verb specifically assigned to them.

Warning - contains strong language and images that are liable to offend (or at least bring back painful memories!)

RIJKARRD (vb.)
To spit at your opponent.

Example of usage - 'Ooh, look at that, he's done a Rijkaard right on the back of his head!'


KEANE (vb.)
To shout in the face of the referee when you disagree with his decision. Most effective when performed about four inches from the referee's face.

Example of usage - 'The full back is really Keaning the ref over his decision to award that free kick.'


KLINSMANN (n.)
A spectacular and unnecessary series of spins, flips and cartwheels, usually performed in the opponent's penalty area following contact equivalent to being side-swiped by a fly. Can be accompanied by a cry of agony that suggests a duodenal ulcer has just ruptured.

Example of usage - 'The centre-forward's done a Klinsmann in an attempt to win a penalty. What a knob!'


RONALDO (n.)
The wink of a smug bastard when you get an opponent sent off.

Example of usage - 'Is that a Ronaldo I see being performed - let's hope someone lamps him later!'


TWAT (n.)
Someone who performs Ronaldo against one of your team's players.


BECKHAM (n.)
A petulant kick aimed at an opponent which gets you sent off. A Beckham is best performed when your team is playing well and looking like being victorious in a World Cup last-16 match. It is most effective when the player receiving the Beckham makes an absolute meal of the slightest of touches and there's a preening, self-important tit of a Danish referee to brandish the red card!

Example of usage - 'Oh no, he's done a Beckham!'


RIVALDO (n.)
A type of pain felt in your face when a football (or anything else for that matter) hits you on a completely unrelated part of the body…like your thigh.

Example of usage - 'Looks like he's suffering from Rivaldo.'


ZIDANE (vb.)
To needlessly headbutt any Italian.

Example of usage - 'Ooh my, the centre-half's just Zidaned the opposition captain - nasty!'


MARADONA (n.)
The basic term for a cheating bastard.

Example of usage - 'He's been a right Maradona today!'


Please feel free to suggest others!

A Bittersweet Rating

It's a strange mix of emotions, receiving your first 'dis-satisfied' Goodreads rating.
In this case it was a 2 stars out of 5 for 'The Book That THEY…Part 1'.
My first emotion, I have to admit, was one of outrage. I immediately reached for that long list of people's names that I keep secreted away for the day I have enough money to hire a hitman. Hell hath no fury, I told myself, like an author scorned.
But then, once I'd got over the initial shock, I found myself thinking a little more rationally (helped by a good cup of tea and a couple of slices of toast). Rather than bemoaning what has happened, I found myself recognising (with surprising maturity) that receiving a less than glowing review, whilst undoubtedly disappointing, was not only an inevitability but was also something I should, in reality, be pleased about.
But how so?
Well, let's consider the perspective of inevitability. The moment anyone decides to share something they've created with the wider world (especially when said creation is something 'arty'), there must eventually come a point when someone takes a look at it and decides, for any of dozens of different reasons, that it simply fails to float their particular boat. It's not anyone's fault, it just is. That's the whole point of 'art' - different people like (and dislike) different things for all sorts of different reasons. With a book, dislike can sometimes stem from the reader preferring a different writing style (more or less description), or simply failing to connect with a character or engage with a storyline. Perhaps the reader is a sci-fi fan, but prefers the hard sci-fi of Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov and Greg Bear, rather than the soft, comedic approach of Douglas Adams. Who knows?
The fact is that people can read the same thing and have a completely different opinion about it. That's life.
Which brings us to the point of why I should be, somewhat perversely, pleased.
Well, it's really quite simple. In order for someone to have decided that what I've written is not to their liking, they have at least to have read it. That, to my mind, is much better than the alternative - that they haven't read it at all.
So, whilst there is a little tinge of disappointment that I now have a 'dis-satisfied' Goodreads reader (who shall be known as Reader X to protect their identity), that disappointment is tempered by the knowledge that at least Reader X not only took the time to read 'They Book That THEY…Part 1', but that they also took the time to post a rating of it.
So, far from placing Reader X onto my hitman target list, I'd instead like to say a little thank you to them for at least showing an interest.

Now I'm going to go and find a cat to kick!

Happy Towel Day

Yes, my friends, it is Towel Day, when all fans of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the incomparable Douglas Adams show their appreciation of the sadly-missed genius by carrying a towel with them.
I've got mine (it's a rather colourful one with a dolphin on it - somewhat apt, I'm sure you'll agree).

And if you are wondering why a towel, this extract from the great book may help:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

—Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy