You Wouldn't Kick a Kitten.

The Grand National was today and I noticed that the BBC broadcasted it under BBC Sport. That’d be nice and all if it was actually a sport! Horse-racing just isn’t a sport, why do so many people pretend that it is?

All horse-racing exists for is to generate cash by allowing people to bet on which horse they think will win. For this reason horse-racing is here to stay because money is far more important than the welfare of humans never mind animals.

Just because people bet on it does not constitute it as a sport. I’ve already written about this in the past and summed up my argument with this paragraph:

“The fact is, if the government put a blanket ban on betting on all sports, horse-riding would die overnight. Football wouldn’t. Rugby wouldn’t. Nor would any other real sport. Horse-riding exists for one purpose, betting on it. Have you been in a betting shop recently? It’s depressing. All you find is a tatty old man clutching the Racing Post looking desperately at a television as his horse tumbles over and takes a bullet right between the eyes. His life’s become so desolate you feel it’s him that deserves the bullet. Put the poor guy out of his misery.”

Again: NOT A SPORT.

A Game of Two Books.

I’ve noticed recently that a lot of football clubs have had their appeals turned down by the FA. Liverpool’s Alexander Doni had his wrongful dismissal claim turned down yesterday and QPR’s Shaun Derry lost his appeal earlier in the week for his red card against Manchester United where he fouled an offside and diving Ashley Young. If you can’t get let off for that, when can you?

This has made me wonder: why are clubs still bothering with appeals?

Seriously, I can’t actually remember the last time the FA overturned a decision. The ratio must be close to 500/1.

Seventh Heaven? - Mario Kart 7 Review.

Though the 3DS was critically acclaimed upon its birth into the marketplace back in 2011, it had a very slow start with pretty underwhelming sales. This was largely due to the relatively high price tag and the poor catalogue of games that were on offer at launch.

Nintendo rectified this by firstly lowering the price making it more affordable for their customers to actually buy one, and then they boosted the catalogue before Christmas by adding Ocarina of Time, a remake of the N64 classic; Super Mario 3D Land, a brand new Mario Land; and the big one: Mario Kart 7.

Mario Kart has always been a huge staple for Nintendo, appearing on every single console since its genesis on the SNES. In terms of gameplay it’s as simple as you’ll find – Mario characters racing about in go karts, but this simple formula is so unique to Nintendo that many have tried to replicate it, and all have failed. In terms of racing games, this is as good as it gets; you can keep your realistic F1 games – all I want to do is toss a barrage of red shells at the leader and steal first place!

Game Over? Not yet.

Video game retailer, Game Group, finally went into administration in March and the outlook looked pretty gloomy to say the least. A massive 609 shops across Britain and Ireland were sadly closed down with over 2,000 employees made redundant in one fell swoop. Time was ticking down ominously as Game prayed someone out there would stick another pound in and press continue.

And at the very last second someone did! Yes it was OpCapita, the private investment firm that pulled Comet from the mire not so long ago, who threw down a quid and took on the company. I was a little surprised that GameStop didn’t make the purchase as that’s what I thought they would do when they withdrew from the UK market last year; leave, wait for Game to drop into administration, buy them and have instant access to the UK market. But instead it was OpCapita who, like an extra life, swung in and dragged them from the jaws of hell.