Charities

So what is the deal with charities?
At the moment there is a famine going on in Africa. Potentially hundreds of thousands of people are going to die, with a huge chunk of these being children.
If you have read any newspaper or watched the TV recently then this will be pretty obvious.
I will hold my hand up, I give nowhere near as much money to charity as I should. For this current famine, I think I texted £3 and convinced myself that was great. I do give some more on a monthly basis to other charities but when I think about it, it really is nothing. I do go through the usual ways to make myself justify not giving more, for example every outgoing matters, or that I do enough anyway, but really they are just stupid excuses.
Now please, this is not some way of me subtly trying to show of that I give something at all, because trust me I am not proud of it. But the point I do want to raise is actually there is another reason, which isn’t entirely selfish, as to why I don’t donate to every cause I believe in.
Very simply I don’t trust charities.
Now whether this is right or wrong I have no idea. This argument is absolutely not based on any fact or statistics but it is based on what seems to me like a pretty widely held view.
I was walking down Carnaby street like I do most days and for once spotted a t-shirt of one of the charity workers I do believe in. I must say some of the charities, whilst I am sure are important to many people, are quite far down in my pecking order. It was for the RSPCC and their full stop campaign, which I wholeheartedly believe in. I have been meaning to donate to them for ages, and whether I was in a good mood or something I don’t know, but I stopped and pledged £10 a month. When I went back to the office, a really nice guy I work with asked me what I had in my hands, and I told him it was a pack from the RSPCC because I just donated to them.
He looked shocked and gazed at me like I was an idiot and there was something he knew that I didn’t. So I asked him what was on his mind.
He then went in to one about the corruption of charities, how do we know where our money is going etc etc. It seems the more people I talk to, they also share this view.
It does seem that people generally don’t trust charities, and to be honest I can kind of see why.
If we take comic relief for example, the kind of money generated, its amazing. But it does seem year in year out that the steps to making any change are quite small, and that even £70 million doesn’t really do that much. Again, rightly or wrongly, sometimes I do sit there and think where the fuck is all the money going? Why are we back in this situation again?
Whether its charities, or the actual people on the ground who are the problem I am not really sure, but whatever the case, it seems to me that aid does not get where it needs to. Particularly in Africa’s case you hear so much about corruption, that my conclusion now is that if I do donate, the aid is just going to be sold for profit, and the people who need it the most are going to suffer.
This perception has to change. The public need to understand where every penny they are donating goes to, particularly overseas. There needs to be watchdogs in place that tracks aid the whole way and there needs to be 100% reassurance that every single penny is going in to the correct place.
I want to know that if I give £20 quid a month, its going somewhere, because then I will be tempted to give more, and I would think a much larger % of the population would also give more.
There is also another thing I would like to add, asides from donating, what else can we do. To me people who cannot even drink water whilst I swan about trying to figure out whether or not I drink the Malbec or the Montrachet is unacceptable and unfair. Shit like this should not be happening in the world we live in.

whats wrong with British Tennis, and a bit more

ok, so I am watching the Wimbledon Semi final, where Andy Murray is already two sets and a break down, and by the time I have finished this, he will be giving some drab interview about why he lost.

Most of the people who know me, know how I feel about Andy Murray. Its fair to say I am not his biggest fan. Its nothing to do with the fact he is Scottish, and it is certainly nothing to do with how he plays tennis. In fact he is my type of player. He hits the ball flat, deep and except a distinctly average serve for his height, he is pretty much a complete player.
But for me, this Wimbledon, and Andy Murray, is what sums up is the poor state of British Tennis.

At the moment this country is completely under-performing in every department. The 5 targets that Roger Draper has been set by the LTA have been missed by a country mile, whilst spending an absolute shed load of money. Literally millions. I wont go in to the details of this, because we only need to see that Andy Murray was the only Brit past the 3rd round at Wimbledon this year to see just how bad things are.

So the question is why are we so bloody awful at tennis?
To bring it back to my mate Andy, the biggest flaw in his game in my opinion is nothing to with his technique or condition, but its his head that is where the problem lies. I dont mean his stupid adolescent beard and irritating hair. I mean whats in-between his ears.

From my brief experience within the tennis set up in this country when I played for Bucks, I always felt everything was about technique. How to hit a ball, how to move your feet, how to hit a volley, how to serve. But I always felt that actually how to win a tennis match was just simply left to me to figure out.
This was something I always felt when playing county tennis, you were just kind of supposed to get it. You were always supposed to just figure out what was required and know how to structure a tennis match.
Ultimately, to me, it seems for some reason in British tennis we are adverse to actually teaching people how to win. We seem perfectly able to teach technique, and how to work really hard in practice, but thats where it stops. Surely technique and practice are a given?

If you take Nadal, before each game, and when the coin is tossed, to me he looks like a warrior. He looks mean, he looks hungry and he is jumping around like he literally wants to rip his opponents arms off.
I find it amazing how Nadal channels this energy in to his matches. You can see Murray literally self implode, he channels his energy negatively. When things are not going his way, he looks at his stupid mum for support, he throws his racket and shouts at himself. How often do you see Nadal and Federer channel their energy this way. They get their heads down, focus and the warrior prevails. With Murray, the spoilt, needy child prevails.
Surely if we could instil this hunger and desire to win, at any cost, our players would be more successful.

Now dont get me wrong, I am all for playing to enjoy, and I dont want to ever be the kind of father who pushes my kids if they dont want to be pushed. But if someone has talent, if a kid shows a spark and willing, surely the best thing we can do is nurture this talent, but most importantly teach them how to win, and to be mentally strong and how to have a hunger which means winning at any cost.

I am not a psychologist, and for all I know the LTA may be teaching kids to win but to me it seems in Tennis in this country we are not creating fire in our players. With all these facilities, and resources, it seems like we are almost spoiling our players and missing the point.

When it comes to Andy Murray, stop relying on your stupid mum for support, stop looking at her when things dont go your way. Until Andy Murray gets his mum out of his mind, and realises a tennis match is his battle, he will never win a grand slam. He has the ability to, but not the head and not the fire in his belly.