The unique comedy stylings of thelondonpaper sports writer James Gill

Yeah, I’m massively disappointed there isn’t a larger photo of him on the internet as well, as I was going to head off to BlockPosters.com, blow the picture up to two metres by four, and decorate my living room wall with it. A damn shame.

IchLugeBullets, as you may be aware by now, is mainly about music with the occasional dip into TV, film and politics. There’s a reason for this: it’s very, very easy to be flippant, zingy and witty about those topics. Or, to put it another way, it’s a lot easier to make comedy out of those things than anything else, and comedy on a level high enough to ensure that this site gets enough hits a day for me to be proud of, even if 95% of those people are searching for either “rapeporn” or whether or not Gilbert O’Sullivan is gay.

Sports, and especially football, don’t work for this though. If you’re American, substitute American football for football, if you’re Indian cricket, it all works the same. Anyone can be funny about your country’s #1 sport. You turn up at the office on a Monday, and you unleash the wisecracks you’ve been storing up all weekend. Both the BBC and the Guardian, who are technically, you know, news reporting organisations, have actually dedicated entire pages to gags about the current plight of Tottenham Hotspur this week, all of which were sent in by readers. Anyone can be funny about sport. Which makes it a lot harder to make “comedy” about sport.

Run down the contenders: Alistair McGowan doing his “what might Kevin Keegan sound like at the chip shop” routine; Mike Basset: England Manager; Baddiel and Skinner, who have aged kinda badly but it was always good to see them mock an alcoholic and his aspie mate; and, my personal favourite thelondonpaper (gotta love that branding) hack James Gill.

James has not let the fact that he looks like something from an Aphex Twin video hold him back in his career. Or the fact that he has no sense of humour hold him back from writing a weekly “humour” column. Let’s have a quick skimdown of some of his 10/10 punchlines:

• Increasingly smug Hull boss Phil Brown said this week: “People were talking about bubbles bursting but my simple answer to a bubble bursting is to blow another bubble.” Yes, and when you’ve finished talking horse sh*t, the answer is to start talking more horse sh*t.
• Ricky Hatton goes on a lads’ holiday with Oasis next month. Topics of discussion will include boxing, music, and whose career is more on the wane.
• Adlington has been through her fair share of hardship. When she first jumped into a pool and floated, the townsfolk wanted to put her on trial and burn her.

The final gag is about that town well-known for bumpkin-ness backwards thinking, umm, Mansfield. I mean, google the guy, actually finish reading the free paper that’s thrust into your hand on a Friday rather than giving up the will to live somewhere circa the “us bankers sure are some wild and crazy characters” column, turn up to his house and demand he apologise to the public as a whole a la that scene in Caro Diario.This shit isn’t funny enough to classify as “jokes” and isn’t insightful enough to as interesting. I mean, credit on maintaining a career despite having the same forehead-to-chin ratio as Rihanna but, come on, end it here please.

I’m pretty sure the subs at the paper would like his slightly-funnier-than-Bells’-Palsy ass to fuck off as well, being as one article was entitled “James Gill takes a satirical look at the Olympics”. Still, at least he’s more enjoyable to read than Chantelle Fiddy.