Why Rocket Scientists Are Bad At Sports

We live in a world where top sportsmen are constantly watched by the media. Every word they speak is reported. And we've learnt from experience not to expect those words to be clever. After all, it wasn't long ago that David Pleat explained that "A game is not won until it is lost". And Stuart Pearce took his joint out of his mouth long enough to tell the world that he could "see the carrot at the end of the tunnel". Must have been a genetically engineered giant carrot. Or a really small tunnel.

So I guess I should not have been surprised by Ivica Osim. He coaches the Japanese football team but is himself Bosnian. And yesterday he recited an old Bosnian proverb: "It is pointless looking for unborn rabbits in the forest".

I think this is inspiring. I think we should all create proverbs to make our lives richer. For instance tomorrow if my boss asks me whether I have prepared stuff for an upcoming management meeting, perhaps I will say to him "Even the space monkey never eats a Martian banana". Or perhaps I'll have the wisdom to just nod. After all, as the ancient Sudanese saying goes, "A camel in the hand is worth two in the bush, but you'll never be able to hold it anyway so all three camels are worthless in the end."

You can really go a long way with this proverb thing. Whole movies have been made that were entirely proverbs. Think of The Empire Strikes Back. It's basically two hours of Yoda reciting obscure Jedi proverbs with awkward syntax, alternating with Luke Skywalker whining about how he's really bored and can he go rescue his friends from Darth Vader now please? Inevitably, lose his arm to Vader, Luke does, for searching in the forest for unborn rabbits is he.

Alternatively, you could string together a bunch of proverbs and write a book of haiku. Let's see...

The forest listens
Rabbits roam; but not yet seen
Unborn and unfound

That sounds almost on the verge of being profound. Methinks there is a zen master in the making here. Or as they say in Japan: "The cow that barks must really be a dog, but only if it also chases cars."