April 19, 2004

I am still confused by the timestamps on this site. As I write this it is 8:29 PST but WC's FPP is stamped at 10:07 PST. Also, assuming that was 22 minutes ago (which I guess we'll see when I punt this in), why hasn't he posted the first question yet?

posted by billsaysthis at 10:30 PM on April 19, 2004

I am very proud of my nickname. I will die with my nickname. But enough about me.

posted by worldcup2002 at 01:16 AM on April 20, 2004

Hi. I'm in the UK, so this could take a while (speak slowly and don't use big words - we're all very thick here). Both JJ and John John are nicknames - both came from the university golf team. No one involved in the team was referred to by their real name, unless they were entirely devoid of personality. Or Welsh. Or both. For a short time, my nickname was animal - a literal description, evoked by my somewhat direct approach to dismantling a golf course by brute force - but someone soon remembered the Cannonball Run, and specifically, the fact that Burt Reynolds' character in the movie was called JJ McClure. The rest is beer-addled history. Other than the surname, there is no relevance. I have neither a moustache nor a deranged sidekick with a split personality. John John came about more recently when the wife of one of my former teammates was introduced to me at a wedding. She had heard tell of me as "JJ" but I introduced myself as John. Perhaps disarmed and confused by my lack of a moustache, she amalgamated the two names to the general amusement of all present, and I became John John. It doesn't bother me, but I'm not sure that my wife is too delighted that she's now known as Katie Katie. Regarding the time stamps: as I post, it's just after 09:30 GMT (by my reckoning, that should be 01:30 PST).

posted by JJ at 03:34 AM on April 20, 2004

Oh yeah - I forgot to include the only salient point of my answer to your first question - my real name is John McClure.

posted by JJ at 03:37 AM on April 20, 2004

Stirling University in Scotland... it was sold to me as having the best university golf team in the UK and a nine hole course on campus. I wasn't all that interested as I had a secret plan to turn pro when I left (high) school, but, thankfully, my dad talked some sense into me and I went to Stirling instead. In the short term, it made me a better golfer. In the long term, it got me a degree to fall back on when the golf didn't work out.

posted by JJ at 05:08 AM on April 20, 2004

That link doesn't work. If you're interested, cut and paste: http://www.geocities.com/jj_golf/King.JPG

posted by JJ at 08:33 AM on April 20, 2004

Yeah - and he was lucky enough to meet Rollo McClure last week at Augusta. McClure, an aging accountant from Belfast, Northern Ireland, has been Palmer's idol for many years, despite being fourteen years his junior and having peaked in golfing terms with a semi-final appearance in the South African Amateur in 1973. Palmer recently said of McClure "All this sporting legend business is over-rated - the true heros are the men in grey suits making our accounts balance - men like Rollo - he works a fifty-hour week in the office, but still finds time to thrash it round in 85 on the weekend. If you ask me, that's true sporting greatness."

posted by JJ at 09:46 AM on April 20, 2004

i thoroughly enjoy JJ's blatant sarcasm. It brightens my day.

posted by jerseygirl at 10:18 AM on April 20, 2004

My wife's friends (still new enough to the surname to find humour in it) keep offering us money to name our firstborn "Troy"

posted by JJ at 10:38 AM on April 20, 2004

Well, I'm afraid it's past my home time now and I have to go. Post questions at your leisure and I'll do my best to lie interestingly in response tomorrow.

posted by JJ at 11:03 AM on April 20, 2004

communal aside: I miss Phil Hartman, and I loathe his murdering cokehead of a wife.

posted by garfield at 11:46 AM on April 20, 2004

Q2. What turned you on to golf? Why did you want to go pro? And what degree did you get?

posted by worldcup2002 at 12:08 PM on April 20, 2004

I did wfrazerjr. The etiquette is somewhat hazy on the issue.

posted by squealy at 01:52 PM on April 20, 2004

due to his UK working hours i'd say that he isn't hitting the ball because he isn't even on the course. his round is over and he's gone home. he should be along shortly.

posted by gspm at 01:26 AM on April 21, 2004

*waggle* *regrip* *waggle*

posted by JJ at 02:35 AM on April 21, 2004

I'll double it if the firstborn happens to be a girl. I think, if it's a girl, I could slip the name in on a technicality - I could push for "Tory" and then "accidentally" spell it wrong when it came to registering the birth.

posted by JJ at 02:38 AM on April 21, 2004

To turn, for a moment, to the interviewer: Golf is in the family. Rumour has it that when first I met my dad, mere hours after being born (me, not him), he put a pen in my hand to see how my grip was going to be. Apparently I had a bit of a strong left hand even then. To be fair though, I was never pushed - encouraged, certainly, but never pushed. In terms of a defining moment, I think I realised I loved the game the first time anyone gave me a prize for playing it. I won a Golden Ram golf ball in 1978 (the days when they still came wrapped in black cellophane covers) for being the youngest player in the field at that year's parent-and-child competition at my dad's club. I was three and a half. Why did I want to go pro? I like to travel, I like to play golf and I like money - it seemed like the obvious thing to do. The bit of advice that made me take the plunge before a lot of people around me thought I was ready came from David Higgins. I sat in a group of maybe ten Irish players (some pro, some amateur) around a table in a hotel in Perpignan in the South of France. We'd all just missed the cut in the second stage of pre-qualifying for the European Tour. Everyone was pissed off, and everyone was making plans. Some of the pros were going to call it a day, others were talking about whether they would go to South America, or South Africa, or Japan, or Australia. Everyone was thinking about money. One of the amateurs said he was going to just go home and train through the winter and play another season of amateur golf in Ireland and then come back to pre-Q as an amateur again the following year. David Higgins was the obvious man to turn to for a view on that decision - Higgins had won a couple of big Irish amateur events in 1994, and had looked like a certainty to make the '95 Walker Cup team. However, he took the strange decision to turn pro instead. In 1998 (as we sat round the table) he hadn't made much of an impact so far. With the benefit of hindsight, his decision looked wrong. He smiled a bit and said "The only way to become a good pro is to play professional golf - you can win all the amateur tournaments you like, but they count for nothing when you come out here." That struck me as a good bit of advice, and I more or less decided then that instead of going home, I'd go to South Africa and try to get a tour card down there. In retrospect, I'm not sure I'd agree with him entirely now - I think winning is something you need to learn how to do, and also something you need to practice. I reckon that's why players who suddenly get above themselves and say things like "I'm only focusing on the majors this year" tend to struggle (Tiger at the moment, Faldo in the mid-nineties) - you can forget how to close out a lead. Anyway - I'd dreamt of being a pro from a very young age, but I used that bit of advice like a mantra to push myself forward and actually do it. As for my degree - I have a BA in Economics - which, ironically, has been utterly no use to me in my current career as an economist. I also have a diploma in being concise.

posted by JJ at 03:21 AM on April 21, 2004

Damn, how many econodorks do we have on this site? It seems like about two dozen (with a standard deviation of 4.32)

posted by Ufez Jones at 09:04 AM on April 21, 2004

im a dork of many things, but economy is not one of them.

posted by jerseygirl at 09:27 AM on April 21, 2004

Mine's about as useful to me as an inflatable dartboard.

posted by JJ at 09:57 AM on April 21, 2004

i know so many people (save for lawyers, doctors, engineers) who don't use the degree they went to school for. i wanted to be a reporter. or a movie director. sigh.

posted by jerseygirl at 10:12 AM on April 21, 2004

I have a BA in Economics. It helped me understand my unemployment better. It went a long way towards explaining it too.

posted by 86 at 10:34 AM on April 21, 2004

I thought there were more... you can add squealy and wc2k2 to the list.

posted by Ufez Jones at 11:00 AM on April 21, 2004

I had to take several economics classes to get my MBA and they have been about as useful as JJ's and 86's degrees. Of course my undergraduate degree in journalism, now that's a whole 'nother story.

posted by billsaysthis at 11:14 AM on April 21, 2004

I don't have an Economics degree. But I do work with statistics. I feel for you Clamster (but not literally).

posted by squealy at 11:41 AM on April 21, 2004

What an Econ degree does for you in 50 words or less: It annoys the piss out of you when your co-workers talk about their "invetment" "plans", playing the lottery, etc.

posted by yerfatma at 11:57 AM on April 21, 2004

I took stats once. I didn't like all the 'deviant' and 'mean' talk.

posted by garfield at 02:02 PM on April 21, 2004

Been annoyed a lot lately, eh, wc?

posted by Ufez Jones at 02:11 PM on April 21, 2004

But econ majors get to play with Slutskys. A complete derailing aside, but still: my friend and I can both pull off decent to good Russian accents, which led to hours of hilarity one drunken night when the word "slot" came up in some context on TV. And then one night I was walking in Vegas (tipsy again) when I saw a sign advertising a "slot pull".

posted by yerfatma at 04:05 PM on April 21, 2004

Cool - I'm not the only SpFi-er in Oxford...

posted by salmacis at 09:44 AM on April 22, 2004

Good gravy, the peanut gallery have taken over the interview! The crowd have taken control! *koff*

posted by worldcup2002 at 10:05 AM on April 22, 2004

Quite, salmacis, but do you have an economics degree?

posted by JJ at 10:13 AM on April 22, 2004

we have that yips thing in archery too. 'cept we call it target panic.

posted by goddam at 10:24 AM on April 22, 2004

rcade: I think darts and snooker have their own version of the "yips". Whether they are sports is for another locker room poll to decide.

posted by salmacis at 11:58 AM on April 22, 2004

ah, I think Jesus wore sandals.

posted by garfield at 03:56 PM on April 22, 2004

I think this interview is going longer because: 1. JJ's answers are longer and richer in detail. 2. JJ has a very readable writing style, with just enough silliness thrown in to incite the crowd to join in. 3. The peanut gallery is unusually frisky. (Maybe JJ just brings it out in people.)

posted by worldcup2002 at 04:36 PM on April 22, 2004

3. The peanut gallery is unusually frisky. (Maybe JJ just brings it out in people.) or they were shocked into silence by jbou... or what you said.

posted by jerseygirl at 05:45 PM on April 22, 2004

maybe we can do guest interviewers or something, so you can get some obviously well needed snoozing. i'll help out again. it was fun.

posted by jerseygirl at 06:39 PM on April 22, 2004

jersey and Ufez: You are more than welcome to do interviews. And j-girl, if you post a picture, you can take over the interviews completely. HAH!

posted by worldcup2002 at 12:30 AM on April 23, 2004

Coincidentally, I am scheduled to have my annual review meeting today – I have spent the last week filling out endless forms asking me questions like “What knowledge or skills have been most useful for your job?” It’s a hard question to answer. I’m good at picking things up quickly (even if I then forget them completely once I’ve set them down again), and that helps. I’m good at spotting typos, and I’m not reticent about editing my boss when he asks me to “scan through” something he’s tried to write. But enough about work – I don’t love my job that much, but neither am I keen to do a Dooce. As for interest rates: I just bought a house last summer, so no, interest rates aren’t too low; they’re irritatingly high. I’d give you a broader perspective, but frankly, the world of consultancy is much like the world of academia – we read what others write, then we mangle it into something else and stick our name on it, then someone else reads what we wrote and writes something new based on what we said – and it all goes round and round, and very little of it is based on anything other than opinion and guesswork. I’ve noticed a startling trend for economic prophesy to self-fulfil. I see this as an enormous opportunity to do good, and my forecasts always err on the side of optimism in the hope that the forecasts themselves might push things in a positive direction. The downside to this strategy is the fundamental truism about forecasting anything – always err on the pessimistic side - if you predict it will rain and it doesn’t, no one tends to mind; but if you say it will be sunny and a storm arrives, everyone blames you for the weather. It all boils down to mitigating factors most of the time. Things like 9/11 keep us in business – consultants the world over could blame the inaccuracy of any forecast made prior to 9/11 on the events of that day and their repercussions (although, the opposite is not true – i.e. any forecast made prior to 9/11 that subsequently held true is not lambasted). My ambitions in other directions centre on writing. I did nanowrimo a couple of years ago, and I’ve written pieces for the odd competition here and there. Essentially, I am being paid to write at the moment, I’d just rather be writing about something I’m passionate about than something I don’t really care about one way or the other. My ambitions are sufficiently vague that I can explain them no further than that. At the moment I’m trying to find my feet a bit. Writing a novel was fun, but it takes too long. I think I might be better at writing shorter pieces as I can lose interest in what I’m writing quite easily – although, perhaps this five hundred-word answer to a thirty word question might testify to the contrary. Generally, when I read something I have written in the past, I cringe, but the stuff that makes me cringe less is stuff I wrote when I was pissed off about something - so perhaps my ideal job would be as some kind of columnist, writing acerbic rants about anything and everything that annoys me.

posted by JJ at 04:18 AM on April 23, 2004

JJ: I have been thinking about pulling a nanowrimo myself....how did you enjoy the process and is your work online anywhere?

posted by smithers at 08:18 AM on April 23, 2004

This is brilliant, JJ. Your writing ability shines through, regardless of topic. Work, interest rates, writing. Q6. Have you thought of writing children's books? Maybe angry children's books?

posted by worldcup2002 at 10:18 AM on April 23, 2004

I was thinking shorter stories, but written angrily for children. Something like a mini-Lemony Snicket.

posted by worldcup2002 at 10:37 AM on April 23, 2004

I get the feeling we're gonna be waiting a long time for the answer to Q7.

posted by squealy at 12:08 PM on April 23, 2004

...

posted by jerseygirl at 08:52 AM on April 25, 2004

OK - here's a couple of ideas - the profile pages should have room for a picture and be laid out like the player profile pages used on TV for all kinds of sports - they should have categories for height, weight, the year you "turned SpoFi" etc. Also, there should be a reviews section for reviewing games people attend in person.

posted by JJ at 03:07 AM on April 26, 2004

also, there should be a reviews section for reviewing games people attend in person. that would be fantastic.

posted by jerseygirl at 01:14 PM on April 26, 2004

Aside from golf, that is. Ahem.

posted by worldcup2002 at 01:16 PM on April 26, 2004

Ufez, it's all you.

posted by jerseygirl at 01:31 PM on April 26, 2004

Hey, don't get too excited, you two. I may just finish up myself. However, given that JJ still has not answered, I think Ufez will have to be ... ... the Closer. Also, bear in mind that we may be knocked off the main page very soon. (I made it worse by my Yahoo EPL fantasy league post today.)

posted by worldcup2002 at 03:50 PM on April 26, 2004

I support Liverpool. My Dad is nearly sixty and supports Arsenal. My brother is nearly twenty and supports Man Utd. I am nearly thirty and support Liverpool. I think it would be fair to call any one of us glory hunters. I think we all just picked the team that was doing best when first we got interested in football - plus, I think I liked the Liverpool fans at school better than any of the fans of other teams. I love sport in general - I'm glued to the Snooker World Championship at the moment; I enjoyed the Grand Prix on Sunday; I love watching cricket (on TV, but even better live); I'm a big rugby fan (Support Wasps in England, Ulster in Europe, and Ireland in Internationals); I like Wimbledon, but I'm not that keen on watching tennis in general; I love the golfing majors and the Ryder Cup, but regular tour play bores me for the most part; I don't watch a great deal of football anymore (I don't have Sky TV), but I do enjoy the odd game I catch on terrestrial. I got dragged along to see Watford play Crystal Palace at Vicarage Road this season - that wasn't pretty; I love the summer Olympics, but regualr athletics, or even World Championships etc. bore me; I love the winter Olympics too, but again, find the ski season quite dull to track; cycling is dull, but the Tour de France is magical; I don't follow the horses, but I went to Ascot last year, and that was fun; a night at the dogs is a laugh; the darts world championships are cool, but I'm still not convinced that's a sport; I quite like heavyweight title fights, but otherwise, I've not been into any of the lower divisions since McGuigan retired. In short - I can pretty much get into anything, as long as there's lots at stake and lots of raw human emotion, frailty and strength on show. I love watching people crumble under pressure, almost as much as I love watching people overcome it. In terms of playing - I play a bit of table tennis and badminton in the winter, and a bit of golf in the summer. I also played tennis last night for the first time in a while - might get into that again this summer as I enjoyed it a lot. I'm doing a bit of running at the moment, but only as a partner to help my wife get in shape for a charity run she's doing later in the summer; as a general rule, it bores me to death. No wonder this interview is taking forever - I'm here at weird times, and I can't be brief.

posted by JJ at 02:37 AM on April 27, 2004

There's only one thing worse than being a Liverpool supporter these days, and that's having a dad who follows the Arsenal. 26th May 1989 remains one of the most traumatic sport-watching experiences of my life. I watched the final game of the league season with my dad (Arnold Palmer) on TV in Northern Ireland. Arsenal needed to win by two goals to deny Liverpool the double. It was so dramatic, Nick Hornby wrote a book about it, which was then turned into a film. The trauma for me lay not so much in the sport, but in my dad's reaction to the sport. He's a very mild mannered man as a rule, but, when Michael Thomas scored in injury time to make it 2-0 to Arsenal, he leapt from the sofa like he'd been shot and ran around the room shouting "YES!" at the top of his voice. He ran right up to me as I became ever more foetal in my seat and let out a primal scream in my face as he shook his fists. Amusingly, I think my brother (another mild mannered man) probably behaved in a similar way ten years later (to the day) when Teddy Sheringham scored a last gasp goal of his own to secure the European Cup for Man Utd in Barcelona, completing their much vaunted treble. I don't recall having many moments like that as a Liverpool fan - although the '86 FA Cup Final was probably what sealed the deal in terms of my lifelong support. Take that Gary Lineker.

posted by JJ at 04:38 AM on April 27, 2004

Ufez, I'm damned if I'm googling for "topless darts" whilst at work, but yes there was. It was on a cable/satellite channel called LiveTV I think.

posted by squealy at 09:34 AM on April 27, 2004

LiveTV (host of topless darts) went bust ages ago though I think it's trying to be revived, and was owned by everyone's favourite tabloid - "The Sun". It was also famous for the news bunny (a man in rabbit costume that read the news), and also featured such TV firsts as dwarves bouncing on trampolines and a female City tipster who shed her clothes as she read out share prices. Andy Fordham topless? Ewwwwwwwww.

posted by BigCalm at 10:59 AM on April 27, 2004

haha WaterChestnut.

posted by jerseygirl at 11:32 AM on April 27, 2004

not sure how old this story is but it looks like they're changing it from soccer to baseball (arsenal to bosox) with gwyneth paltrow in the lead.

posted by goddam at 11:56 AM on April 27, 2004

"The Oscar winner will play the long suffering girlfriend of a man who shows more devotion to the Boston Red Sox than her." As the ex of Affleck, I presume it's say Paltrow's art is imitating life.

posted by jerseygirl at 11:59 AM on April 27, 2004

Live TV is back apparently. Just for the record, it was originally owned by the group that owns the Daily Mirror rather than The Sun. Unlikely as that may seem.

posted by squealy at 12:09 PM on April 27, 2004

(a reminder to anyone that arrived here by digging through the lockerrom archives - though this thread is now off the lockerroom front page it appears in the main page sidebar for quick access) Changing Fever Pitch from Arsenal to the Red Sox isn't too bad except for the FP narrative including high as well as lows. Since the Red Sox have not really won anything (or at least not the world series) in a bajillion years I guess the narrative will have to clip out or alter the 'joys of victory' parts. The main part - devotion to the team - can still be intact so no problems overall.

posted by gspm at 01:16 AM on April 28, 2004

I don't have a favourite food. I like variety and quality, and lots on my plate. I consume everything. Seriously, I can't stop eating. I have hollow legs. I don't have a favourite drink. I drink the Guinness if it's good (and sometimes even if it's not). I'm growing more partial to a warm, flat, English beer, but, when you've just come in off the golf course on a hot day, not much beats a cold, fizzy, yellow lager. I like wine of all colours. I'm fond of the very occasional whiskey (or whisky), prone to the odd dabble in a glass of port, have been known to sink an infrequent gin, and I'm not entirely averse to a glass of Pimms at a summer BBQ. But I'm not an alcoholic or anything. I don't have a favourite author. I like to read Po Bronson, recently read my first Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse 5) and hope to read more. I own lots of "classics", bought by my teenage self, acting under the illusion that putting them on the shelf would make me well-read. Occasionally I wade through one, and generally I enjoy them. Crime and Punishment was a stormer, and Jude the Obscure remains a book I could read again and again. I love the way Sallinger writes, but I'm not sure that I love his books. I love Philip Larkin's poetry - it's hard to beat well-executed vitriol. I don't read golf magazines or John Grisham novels - both are derivative bullshit for which the expression "If you've seen one, you've seen them all" could have been invented. I don't have a favourite film. I like darkness and I like comedy, and I especially like a mixture of the two. I like good sitcoms, and I loathe bad ones. I don't have a favourite band. I like all sorts of music, from the Pixies to Puccini, Radiohead to Rachmaninov. I play my guitar, but generally just fiddle about with things I made up myself - it's harder to get those wrong. I've seen Nirvana, Radiohead and U2 live - all three were sensational, but U2 in Belfast probably edges it *arf arf* To sum up my tastes - I don't have favourites - I love passion, talent, hard work and genuine feeling to be evident in what I consume. I believe that variety is indeed the spice of life, but not variety for variety's sake. Conversely, I loathe money-grabbing, cheap, corner-cutting carelessness. And John Grisham. Did I mention that? (I can't stand him because I once read one of his books and caught myself quite liking it several times - for that, I cannot forgive him). I cast my eyes over MeFi every so often, and I wallow in the loveliness that is the jamjar (and occasionally corrupt it with my own idiocy). Other than that, I spend more time than I'd like to on trade statistics websites, and I Google at least a thousand things a week. As for the golden question of who should be next; allow me to answer that question with a question of my own... has anyone interviewed WingCommander Twenty Oh Two yet? If not, someone should. It'd be like Billy Connolly interviewing Parky.

posted by JJ at 05:25 AM on April 28, 2004

The 9-Day Interview.......wow.....thanks JJ and our panel of hosts. Very interesting reading....

posted by smithers at 08:00 AM on April 28, 2004

No, no, thank you all for your support and kind wor....*dragged off* Sorry it took so long - I'll blame time zones rather than verbosity... but I doubt even I will fall for that wholeheartedly.

posted by JJ at 08:04 AM on April 28, 2004

someone should do garfield. however, that someone should a.) not be married or "attached" in any way for at least 60 days, b.) be physically attractive, c.) have no hang-ups when it comes to food, d.) dig funky choons, and e.) know how to work it, work it. JJ, Cheers! For a wonderfully insightful and entertaining interview.

posted by garfield at 03:16 PM on April 28, 2004