My relationship with Tiger Woods - uncovered

I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my chest when I heard that Tiger Woods was taking an ‘indefinite break from professional golf’ last night.

Until then I had found the story compelling. The perfect role model and the world’s most dominant sportsman was uncovered as a womanising cheat chased out of his own home by his wife brandishing a golf club. The best fiction writers in the world couldn’t come up with stories that good.

But yesterday when I heard the news of his break, I felt like I had been part of a joke that had gone too far. The real victim (apart from his wife and children of course) is golf and all of the young people that play it.

Our relationship begins

From the age of 13 to 17 I played golf religiously. Over the summer holidays I would spend five days a week at the golf course and travel the country playing in tournaments. I started in 1997, the year Tiger won his first major by 10 shots, and for a while it was something I tried to keep under my hat.

Golf and the people who played it weren’t cool. Being a talented golfer gave me no street cred at school. It was all about etiquette, dress code and bank managers. But as I played more as a teenager, Tiger Woods won more as a professional and the whole feeling and image of the game went through a revolution.

Golf became raw, dynamic and exciting when Tiger played and everyone I played with wanted to be Tiger Woods, including myself. Golf would look extremely different now and be played at a lower standard if it wasn’t for the emergence of Tiger. Even his name was cool!



As soon as this commercial came out, people on golf courses all over the world practiced this as they waited on the tee.

The tide turns against Tiger

But people have become frustrated with Tiger in recent years, especially the media, for keeping himself so private and not using his platform to take a greater stance against issues like racial inequality. But for me, just by playing golf with so much flair, aggression and skill Tiger Woods was making the best contribution to the world he possibly could.

So the whole thing leaves me questioning, if there wasn’t such a media frenzy around him, would he have taken this decision? Now I feel he has been hounded into a corner by the showbiz press with extremely sad consequences.

My hope is that this is a public relations strategy that makes people like me feel sorry for him as opposed to disgusted at his behaviour and he will be back on the golf course within the next few months. If Tiger is away for any longer and doesn’t manage to recapture what has made him so unique for the last 12 years then golf will have lost its biggest asset.

Golf will have lost this:

Nothing better to do...

Procrastination is a weird thing when you think it, which you tend to do when you procrastinate. I spend most of my life running around, taking on more than I can handle and generally fitting a lot in. In these times of busyness I continually try to find more to do and generally succeed.

But when a time comes where there isn’t much structured work to be done I fall into this endless spiral of doing absolutely nothing with my time. I know I have my dissertation to do, I know I have some freelance work to do, but nothing, I mean NOTHING will motivate me to get on with it. You can see how people get into that benefit claimant culture - I think I would be a sucker for that!

Logically this just doesn’t make sense. Why can’t I be disciplined and spread my work out evenly over the year? This isn't a rhetorical question, I actually want an answer.

It takes me back to the days of ‘study leave’ at school. Whose idea was that, because it wasn’t a good one? “I know how we will get them to work for their exams – we’ll send them home for a month.” That’s no way to get me working. That's the way to get me on the golf course, in the park or on the internet looking at things I definately shouldn't. If I was made to go into school every day in the lead up to my exams I’m sure I would have far more A’s next to my name as opposed to all of those ugly C’s.

Never has a truer word been said than: ‘Procrastination is like masturbation - it may feel good at first but ultimately you’re just screwing yourself.’

What a waste of time this was. What I need to do is stop screwing my self.

Fruit and veg challenge - a change of strategy

So less than a week down and I have already failed once. It in fact took two days. You see what I have come to realise is that my strategy is all wrong. Because I don’t have breakfast I don’t get any fruit and veg into me early doors.

What this has led to is fruit binging late at night. Realising I need to get a couple more pieces down me before the day is out I load up on fruit after dinner.

Originally I thought this would be fine. But lying in bed at 1am the other day, my stomach started churning and making some very suspect noises and the consequences….well you can guess the consequences.

Anyway the point is this - I need a more balanced approach to my fruit and veg strategy and this evolves around having breakfast.

This means a complete change in my ethos is needed. I am a man who often wakes, thinks about having breakfast but then thinks better of it and presses snooze instead. This is not the way forward. For me to suceed I need to change this whole approach and get my arse out of bed. As I am soon coming to learn, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

July's challenge - getting healthy

The Brown Book is back and this is the challenge:

Everyday in the month of July I, Andrew Benjamin Webster, will eat five pieces of fruit and veg. This is a very scientific experiment.

If I succeed I expect to feel infinitely better by the end of the month and if I don’t the conclusion will be that vegetables are over-rated.

Now I have had discussions about this over the last few months and there is some debate as to what constitutes ‘one piece of fruit and veg’. To avoid controversy therefore I I feel it is best to set out a few rules.

1. Beans count

2. Tinned spaghetti doesn’t

3. Potatoes do not count

4. Contrary to what I have said in the past tomato soup does not count as four pieces of fruit and veg. But where it says on the soup tin that it counts as one, it will count.

5. Smoothies count as two as per the instructions on the back of innocent smoothies. But more than one smoothie a day is cheating.

6. Things where salad is just window dressing do not count. i.e. burgers and kebabs.

7. A glass of orange juice does count, but tropical doesn’t (What is that anyway?)

8. My decision as judge is final.

9. I am allowed to not reach five on four separate occasions and still pass.


These are the rules....let the games begin.

One day...one day

I’m coming to the end of my days in Sheffield and after completely crippling myself financially my mind has turned to a time when I can sit down, look around and say: “Bloody hell Andrew, you have made it my son.”

And what will that fateful day look like? Well here is an indication...

1) I will have a white Mac book and I will regularly take it to a posh coffee shop, open it up and sit in front of it pretending I am doing something very important whilst drinking a latte.

2) I will stop having haircuts and instead have my hair styled.

3) I will have a gym membership. I will never use the gym, but I won’t bother cancelling the membership because at the end of the day what is £30 a month?

4) I will stop saying ‘a pint of your cheapest lager please barman’.

5) In the winter I will go skiing. I’m not talking about skiing in Bulgaria or on some cheap eastern European mountain. No I am going to a pretentious resort in France or Canada.

6) I will have a big plant, one that requires watering and adds ‘atmosphere’ and ‘vibe’ to my house. I might put it next to my rug (not wicker, as they bring back dark images).

7) I will have a digital radio. Did you know they have a little screen telling you what the song and artist is that is playing? Technology is amazing these days - that's much better than my manual thing with the tuning wheel that if you move quarter of a millimetre you get Grfrsakfdjgkjgldskgdlfksdljgdsslj.

8) I will download music LEGALLY.

9) I will have a subscription for the economist and buy a quality newspaper full price.

10) When I go shopping I will pick things off the shelf regardless of if they are on special offer. I
will also buy extravagances such as cherries and Ribena without a second thought.

11) I will take taxis back from a) the station and b) nightclubs and bars

12) I will own a framed vintage photograph or piece of art.

13) I will pay for the free bus.

14) I will be the person that suggests we split the bill equally between the table and eat and drink accordingly.

15) In my cutlery drawer I will have a peeler, a masher and an ice-cream scoop.

As you can see I am a man full of ambition.

Inspired by two friends who have made it - Aled Owens and Stevie Cameron, and one that never will – Harry Clapham.

I’m not as bad as them...am I?

My day got off to a fantastic start. I walked out of my front door and lying there on the floor in the pouring rain was a FIVER! Bonus.

But as I handed my sodden £5 note over to the bus driver for an extortionately priced single ticket, guilt started to enter my mind. I began to think of all of the politicians that have taken advantage of the parliamentary expense system. I mean, am I really as bad as them?

I obeyed the rules - that is clear. Universally speaking, the rules state: ‘finder’s keepers, loser’s weepers!’

But thinking about that proposition in more detail, do I really think it is morally right that the losers have to weep and lose the property they have accidently mislaid? I am famous for leaving bags and coats in the most stupid of places, and thankfully people haven’t implemented the rules as rigorously as I did when I picked up the soaking FIVER.

Or maybe the politicians (and myself), in obeying the rules, did nothing wrong and should have a clear conscience. Let me think this through;

1) The majority of MPs are in parliament for the right reasons – I strongly believe this but often feel naive for it, especially when people are peppering me with conspiracy theories.

I met Lemit Opik a few weeks ago. He stood in front of us with energy and dynamism and told us how he had got into politics to make a difference. It was mesmerising. I believed him and was with him all the way. I still am. Surely these people wouldn’t take advantage of the system or the public on purpose. There must be another explanation.

2) The rule book – Oh yes those dastardly rules. At first I thought this must be the reason. It’s easy to get into the habit of something that isn’t the best way forward.

Take smoking for instance. It’s clearly a bad idea. But once you get into the habit of it, the negative consequences of the action leave your mind.

Maybe recycling is a better example. We all know we need to save the world, but I would be lying if I said all of my paper found its way to the recycle bin.

Maybe expenses are similar? You get into the habit of claiming for all you can, and you don’t even think about the ethical principles that underpin an expenses system. In my short life I have come across many people who slightly fiddle their expenses. Is this really so bad?

3) The magnitude – Well to consider that question let’s look at some examples of slight fiddling in comparison to the official guidelines:

Three principles taken from the members of Parliament Code of Conduct are:

- Claims must only be made for expenditure that it was necessary for a Member to incur to ensure that he or she could properly perform his or her parliamentary duties.

- Members must ensure that claims do not give rise to, or give the appearance of giving rise to, an improper personal financial benefit to themselves or anyone else.

- The requirement of ensuring value for money is central in claiming for accommodation, goods or services – Members should avoid purchases which could be seen as extravagant or luxurious.

Claim examples: a trouser press, cat food, expenses for numerous houses, interior designers, hanging baskets, the cleaning of a moat, swimming pool maintenance, mortgages that don’t exist etc etc.

This is where the argument falls down, even for me – an establishment loving layman. The magnitude is catastrophic. This isn’t the odd claim. Every time one of the above went through it should have been screaming out to the MP “THIS IS A MISTAKE! THIS IS WRONG!”

Going back to the smoking analogy, it should have been like smoking a cigarette that puts you in so much pain it feels like it is killing you there and then!

I am disappointed in my ‘in it for the right reasons’ MPs. I still believe that they are in it for the right reasons, but this whole episode has been shameful and I am struggling to see the way back to a form of normalacy (slightly sceptical of people in power). I wonder how much money has been wasted on unjustified expenses over the past decades. It makes me feel a bit queezy.

Has anyone lost a fiver?

The secret of a good journalist, by a taxi driver

At an apt moment today, the Deputy Editor of the newspaper I am working for passed on to me the three secrets of being a good journalist as shared with her by a London cabbie in the late 70's.

1) There is no excuse for not getting a story (because there is always someone to talk to).

2) There are two sides to every story.

3) Never discard a phone number.

She said this at the very moment I was starting a new note book, which I saw as a sign so wrote them down on the first page. Wisdom.