Grunt and scream at Wimbledon
THE LOUD grunts of certain tennis players, especially while serving, can give them a real advantage over opponents, a scientific study says. Canadian and American researchers say tests show that "extraneous sound interfered with participants' performance, making their responses both slower and less accurate".
Especially penetrating is the grunt that ends in a near-scream, as practised by Maria Sharapova. An unofficial "gruntometer" has measured the noise produced by her at 101.2 decibels – almost as loud as a police siren.
The study tested 33 students at the University of British Columbia. Hundreds of video clips were shown of a player hitting a ball to either the left or right. The students had to determine the direction quickly, but on some shots were subjected to noises simulating grunting.
Says report author Scott Sinnett: "The findings were unequivocal. Basically, when the video clips did have a grunt, the participants were not only slower to react but they had lower accuracy levels. So they were basically slower and could actually be wrong-footed.The study raises a number of interesting questions for tennis. If Rafael Nadal is grunting and Roger Federer is not, is that fair?"
It's the female grunt-scream that is truly unnerving though. The mind recoils from imagining what kinds of sound might be produced under different circumstances.
Dateline deferred
I AM saddened to learn of the death of Chris Munnion, one of the greats of the foreign press corps in Africa. Munnion, Africa correspondent of the London Telegraph, covered everything from the Nigerian civil war to Idi Amin then, when he retired, stayed on in South Africa .
His book, Banana Sunday, is a classic, dissecting what actually happened during that turbulent post-independence period and somehow lacing a grim account with piquant humour.
The title comes from an incident involving Peter Younghusband, Africa correspondent of the London Daily Mail and doyen of the foreign press corps. Banana is the name of a small port at the mouth of the Congo River. It had long been Younghusband's ambition to go there over a weekend and write a report datelined "Banana Sunday".
He contrived to do just that. But unfortunately there was a heavy flow of foreign news to the Daily Mail that night and his report was held over for a day. It appeared under the dateline: "Banana Monday".
Wheel turns
MORE on Tony Blair's book, A Journey. Sales at the recent Labour Party conference were less than stratospheric, it seems.
Tory foreign secretary William Hague had some fun with the figures at his own party's conference.
Blair's book sold five copies – and one was stolen – he reported, to laughter from delegates. Peter Mandelson's The Third Man (which focuses on in-fighting in the Labour Party) sold 40 copies.
Top seller? This was The Frock-Coated Communist: the Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, by Tristram Hunt. Sold: 90 copies.
Marxism outstrips Blairism. Yep, the wheel has turned in the Labour Party..
Good girl!
THE DOG-FANCIER pulled into a crowded car park and rolled down the windows to make sure her Labrador pup had fresh air.
She was stretched out on the back seat. Her mistress wanted to impress upon her that she must remain there. She walked to the kerb backward, pointing her finger and saying: "Stay! Do you hear me? Stay!"
Pretty blonde in a nearby car: "Why don't you just put the handbrake on?"
Limerick
CAN ANYONE help Lydia Weight? She sends in the first two lines of a limerick, the rest of which she has forgotten.
A limerick's written with ease
Like a man on a flying trapeze …
But that's as far as she can remember.
It doesn't ring a bell with me and I can't find it in any collection of limericks. I tried Google and – Wow! – they've got some pungent stuff out there. It even took me into Eskimo Nell, the reading of which requires nerves of steel.
| The best I can do, I'm afraid, is offer this guide to the limerick. |
The limerick brings facts anatomical
Into verse that is quite economical;
The best that I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
Tailpiece
"DOCTOR, doctor, I've got water on the knee, water on the elbow and water on the brain."
"It's time you got out of the shower."
Last word
Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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