Wimbledon 2011 diary: comedian Tony Hawks called in to put an end to tennis failure jokes

Tennis For Free already has an enthusiastic supporter in Andy Murray’s mother, Judy, who recently attended a session in Merton and tweeted: “Absolutely brilliant. 3 tarmac courts, nets held together with plastic bags, grass growing up tramlines, couldn’t see lines (need paint). Over 100 people there from 3 to 70. Real community thing.”

Murray finished up by saying, “We need more of this” and suggested that the LTA and Tennis Foundation should be backing the project.

Hawks is more than just an armchair follower of tennis; he is an accredited coach and an expert player who aims to spend every Saturday morning guiding players at his Tennis For Free events.

He is also the author of the book Playing The Moldovans at Tennis, in which he bet his friend, fellow comedian Arthur Smith, that he could track down every member of the Moldovan football team and beat them on the tennis court.

The book is due to be released as a film next year and Hawks will also have to fit in his presentation to the LTA around a national stand-up tour, which begins in Lincoln this year.

Supreme talent meets the cream of the crop

The All-England Club sent out a block invitation to England’s Ashes-winning cricketers for Tuesday’s play. Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen and Alastair Cook could all be seen in the Royal Box, and Strauss found himself two seats away from singer Diana Ross. “Nobody tried to explain the rules of cricket to her,” said Gemma Broad, the team analyst. “She only had eyes for Serena Williams.”

As for Strauss, this was his first visit to Wimbledon since his student days, when he sold strawberries in the food court. “We were the lowest of the low,” he said of his temporary job. “I just had a few days, when they didn’t have enough senior staff to hand out the strawberries and cream.”

Milestone memories

A neat statistical quirk has produced a windfall for the Wimbledon shop, which has stamped all its latest memorabilia with the legend ‘125 years’.

The merchandise is marching out of the shop so fast that supply could well dry up by the end of the first week.

“People really like the ‘I was there’ element when they buy souvenirs,” said retail director Jean Cooke. Perhaps they should be consulting Messrs Isner and Mahut about a T-shirt reading “I saw the endless match”

Simona Halep gets it off her chest

You won’t find many athletes, male or female, fessing up to cosmetic surgery. But one who will is Simona Halep, the 19-year-old Romanian who breezed through her first-round match on Tuesday. Halep – who won the French Open junior tournament in 2008 – had breast reduction surgery on her 34DD chest the following year. “It’s the weight that troubles me,” she explained.

“My ability to react quickly, my breasts make me uncomfortable when I play. I don’t like them in everyday life either; I would have gone for surgery even if I hadn’t been a sportswoman.”

As Anna Kournikova’s sports bra campaign put it, “Only the ball should bounce.”

View the original article here

Video - Shannon Tweed Jokes With Photographers Whilst Out With Her Sister In Beverly Hills

Artist Index

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Obama Impersonator On ‘Offensive’ Jokes: ‘I Think That Obama’s Got A Great Sense Of Humor’

The now well-know impersonator of President Obama, Reggie Brown, appeared on MSNBC to discuss being yanked from the stage over the weekend at a Republican conference when his jokes started targeting Republicans. Brown wasn’t too upset that he didn’t get to finish his routine, since he said his jokes aim to entertain all audiences, no matter their politics, and especially since he still collected his paycheck regardless.

Brown confirmed that during a sound check he ran through his material and no one seemed to have a problem during the rehearsal. Yet apparently with a live audience of Republicans, organizers realized his jokes were hitting too close to home.

And responding to criticism that some of Brown’s jokes were offensive and borderline racist, Brown said he didn’t cross the line and didn’t know how anyone could call it racist. Especially since he believes Obama has “a great sense of humor,” Brown plans on making many more appearances in future. Although it seems likely Republicans will be one group not demanding an encore performance.

Watch the clip from MSNBC below:

Follow us on Twitter.

Sign up for Mediaite's daily newsletter.

View the original article here

Feds crack down on campus flirting and sex jokes

When I was growing up it was widely believed that colleges and universities were the part of our society with the widest scope for free expression and free speech. In the conformist America of the 1950s, the thinking ran, few people dared to say anything that went beyond a broad consensus. But on campus anyone could say anything he liked.

Today we live in an America with enormous cultural variety in which very few things are considered universally verboten. But on campus it's different. There saying something considerably milder than some of the double entrendres you heard in cable news coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal can get you into big trouble.

These reflections are inspired by a seemingly innocuous 19-page letter on April 4 from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights to colleges and universities. The letter was given prominence by Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has done yeoman work opposing restrictive speech codes issued by colleges and universities.

OCR's letter carries great weight since there are few things a university president fears more than an OCR investigation, which can lead to loss of federal funds -- which amount to billions of dollars in some cases.

The OCR letter includes a requirement that universities adopt a "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof for deciding cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault. In other words, in every case of alleged sexual harassment or sexual assault, a disciplinary board must decide on the basis of more likely than not.

That's far short of the requirement in criminal law that charges must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. And these disciplinary proceedings sometimes involve charges that could also be criminal, as in cases of alleged rape.

But more often they involve alleged offenses defined in vague terms and depending often on subjective factors. Lukianoff notes that campus definitions of sexual harassment include "humor and jokes about sex in general that make someone feel uncomfortable" (University of California at Berkeley), "unwelcome sexual flirtations and inappropriate put-downs of individual persons or classes of people" (Iowa State University) or "elevator eyes" (Murray State University in Kentucky).

All of which means that just about any student can be hauled before a disciplinary committee. Jokes about sex will almost always make someone uncomfortable, after all, and usually you can't be sure if flirting will be welcome except after the fact. And how do you define "elevator eyes"?

Given the prevailing attitudes among faculty and university administrators, it's not hard to guess who will be the target of most such proceedings. You only have to remember how rapidly and readily top administrators and dozens of faculty members were ready to castigate as guilty of rape the Duke lacrosse players who, as North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper concluded, were absolutely innocent.

What the seemingly misnamed Office of Civil Rights is doing here is demanding the setting up of kangaroo courts and the dispensing of what I would call marsupial justice against students who are disfavored by campus denizens because of their gender or race or political attitude. "Alice in Wonderland's" Red Queen would approve.

As Lukianoff points out, OCR had other options. The Supreme Court in a 1999 case defined sexual harassment as conduct "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims' educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution's resources and opportunities." In other words, more than a couple of tasteless jokes or a moment of elevator eyes.

Lukianoff and FIRE have an admirable record of defending students' and faculty members' free speech regardless of their point of view, but anyone familiar with their work knows that the most frequent targets of campus disciplinary groups are male, conservative, religious or some combination thereof.

I wonder whether there is some connection between this and the dwindling percentage of men who enroll in and graduate from college. Are we allowing -- and encouraging -- our university administrators to create an atmosphere so unwelcoming and hostile to males that we are missing out on the contributions they could make with a college or graduate degree?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has shown an admirable openness to argument and intellectual debate. Perhaps someone will ask him whether he wants his department to be encouraging kangaroo courts and marsupial justice on campuses across the country.

Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.

View the original article here

Djokovic, Wozniacki crack jokes as Wimbledon nears

 

His 43-match winning streak broken but his well-known sense of humor still intact, Novak Djokovic was ready for some tough questions on the eve of Wimbledon.

"You had this losing streak of one, so what are you going to do to change that?" the second-ranked Serb was asked Saturday, as he prepares to play for the first time since losing to Roger Federer in the French Open semifinals.

The inquisitor? None other than Caroline Wozniacki, the top-ranked woman, who sneaked her way back into the All England Club's main interview room shortly after sitting through her own news conference.

"Well, you know what? I will try to look up to some women players who have been so consistent with their wins. For example, like, Caroline Wozniacki," Djokovic said, smiling all the way through his answer. "I don't know if you've heard about her. She's been winning so much. She's become a role model for all of us ATP players.

"So I'm going to try to look (at) some of her matches and try to break this losing streak of one," he added. "Try to get on the right path."

Djokovic's perfect season and six-month winning streak ended in Paris. His "losing streak" is now about two weeks long, because he decided to pull out of the grass-court tournament at Queen's Club.

He'll get his first chance to snap the skid when he faces Jeremy Chardy of France in the first round at Wimbledon, where play begins Monday.

To win his first Wimbledon title — and third Grand Slam trophy overall — Djokovic might have to beat six-time champion Federer in the semifinals.

For Federer, that's just fine.

"I know I can beat Novak on any surface. I've done that in the past," said Federer, who had lost to Djokovic in the U.S. Open and Australian Open semifinals before beating him in the same round at Roland Garros.

"Just because he's on a great winning streak doesn't mean he's unbeatable. That was my mindset going into the match in Paris," Federer added. "Here at Wimbledon, anyway, I'm even more confident. I think I'm a better player than in Paris, so I expect myself to do really well here, even better maybe."

Federer and top-ranked Rafael Nadal have combined to win the last eight titles at the All England Club. And with one more for Federer, he would tie Pete Sampras' record of seven Wimbledon titles.

Djokovic would like to get No. 1 at the All England Club, where he twice has reached the semifinals — but never the final.

Two days before the first point is played, he and Wozniacki already were having some fun.

A few minutes after she finished answering questions from the media and left the main interview room, Wozniacki slipped back through a door at the back of the mini-theater and took a seat as Djokovic was busy speaking to reporters.

As one journalist began to ask something, Djokovic interrupted, having noticed the new face in the crowd.

"Sorry, I have a question there," the Serb said, motioning toward Wozniacki. "Where are you from?"

The Dane said she worked for the "Monaco newspaper on Avenue Princess Grace," where the two live near each other.

"So who is your favorite women's tennis player?" Wozniacki asked.

"Well, we'll have to keep that a secret," Djokovic answered, but later relented, saying his favorite player is his neighbor. "From time to time, we have coffee there on the beach and just relax and have lunch, have a jog."

Said Wozniacki: "I'm sure she must be a really, really nice girl."

Replied Djokovic: "She is a really, really nice girl. She's a great entertainer. No. 1. You never heard about her?"

Who Wants To See A Golf Cart Hit A Tree? [Video]

golf

Barry Petchesky — According to a commenter on Shane Bacon's blog, this is from the Ladies European Tour. Can we still make woman driver jokes if it was a male course official? How about European driver jokes? [Dogs Chasing Cars]

View the original article here

Weinergate Intensifies; 'The Jokes Write Themselves'

This oft-repeated waffling answer has tongues wagging about the origin of the lewd, waist down shot of the Congressman sent to a Washington State undergrad via Twitter accounts.

The politician and the pretty student follow each other. She's one of a growing number of followers, upwards of 50,000 at last count. The picture surfaced early Saturday morning and was quickly taken down. Since then, the fiery New York Democrat has been working overtime on spin control.

"When your name is Weiner, that happens a lot," quipped the New York Congressman.

The weiner jokes are escalating on all sides, with Rep. Weiner getting off a few Wednesday, as well. The Daily News reported that Weiner met the press, saying, "I'm sorry I was a little stiff yesterday," referring to a testy exchange with a CNN reporter.

"Maybe it will turn out that this is the point of al Qaeda's sword," he reportedly said. "The jokes kind of write themselves."

He worked the cable networks today saying his account was hacked, it was a prank, he'd been punked and that people sometimes "zing you back". He now, after days of saying essentially, "I'm not saying anything," flatly denies sending the photo to his 21 year old Twitter follower.

"I did not. She says she never got it and says she doesn't know me and I certainly don't know her," he finally stated in interview after interview five days after the picture surfaced.

Long-time friend Jon Stewart, who had a Hamptons share house with Weiner 25 years ago, came to the Congressman's defense, sort of, on his cable tv show. He addressed the issue that Weiner is saying the photo may have been manipulated.

"No way! Now way in real life! As I remembered, this cat had a lot more Anthony and a lot less Weiner," he zinged to the audience's delight.

Weiner's ambitions, and sense of humor, remain intact: first he wants to win re-election, next up, the NYC Mayor's office.

Weiner said, "It's the only job better than the one I have now. And just imagine how many Weiner jokes will be in play when you become mayor!"

Weiner has not filed a police report or contacted the FBI about the alleged hacking. He has however hired a law firm that specializes in internet hacking, and promises that the investigation is continuing.

View the original article here