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  Readers, fans of popular music from the 1960s may have been thrilled to hear that coverage of the recent US Masters golf tournament would include online footage from Amen Corner. Actually, even better, on closer investigation it appeared that competitors would actually be “playing Amen Corner”. What fun! S&T was looking forward to pulling on a nice polo-necked sweater and enjoying a Tiger Woods rendition of ‘(If Paradise is) Half as Nice’ in between holes. Alas however, a quick surf of online favourite Wikipedia revealed that Amen Corner is actually a term that refers to the 11th, 12th and 13th holes at Augusta National Golf Club, named, not after the South Wales band, but after a jazz recording. (Doh, of course! Makes perfect sense to S&T?!)
However, fear not crazy beatniks, S&T will be speaking to Paul Johnson, vice president of new media at the US PGA TOUR, to see whether Zach Johnson (no relation we think) can be persuaded to sing ‘Bend Me, Shape Me’ at next year’s event, which is surely an anthem for all golf club manufacturers out there? (Paul Johnson kindly features in S&T this month answering the ponderous question – ‘What has technology done for my sport?’, along with his industry colleagues Rick Burton, commissioner of the Australian Basketball League, Kieron Kilbride, general manager of FL Interactive and Andrew Brown, chief operating officer of Racing UK. A jolly good read if we don’t say so ourselves).
Enjoying a punt  Meanwhile, although S&T hadn’t factored on Zach Johnson triumphing in Augusta, S&T is basking in the glow this side of the pond of choosing the Grand National winner at 40-1, in what really is a complete lottery in terms of beating the bookmakers. Using S&T’s tried and tested method (perfected from years of attending greyhound racing) of selecting horses to bet on according to their names having some sort of personal significance, Silver Birch was always going to do it for us, thanks to the tree of the same name that graced our childhood garden. By spooky coincidence, (and we promise to stop looking at Wikipedia after this comment), the Silver Birch is Finland's national tree. “Occasionally one uses leafy, fragrant boughs of Silver Birch to gently beat oneself in a sauna,” says the online knowledge font. “This has a relaxing effect on the muscles.” S&T mentions this fact, not due to the slight S&M connotations of the aforementioned sauna foliage, but due to the spooky coincidence that next month’s Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Finland following monster-rock combo Lordi’s win last year with ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’. The Eurovision Song Contest, as well as being one of S&T’s television highlights of any given year, is the only other occasion that S&T bets on, and, you may not believe, has selected the winner for during each of the last five years. S&T’s gambling methodology for the Eurovision is much more professional than for the Grand National and has been vastly aided by being able to watch online video footage of the competitors in advance. Isn’t the internet great? S&T’s tip this year is that the UK will either come bottom (null points) or make a clean sweep and win it. So, why not have a punt on both scenarios?
The Eurovision Song Contest this year will be the backdrop for the inaugural and lavish end of season awards ceremony for S&T-sponsored Bromley Common Football Club. (Backdrop in the sense that we’ll have it on in the background on the TV while the club chairman presents awards such as 'player of the year', 'golden boot' and 'bar of soap' for filthiest mouth on the field of play.) Bromley’s first season has gone very well after a slow start, and once the team got used to getting up early on Sunday mornings after a night on the ale, actually started winning matches. The team will be pushing for promotion next year thanks to S&T’s renewed sponsorship. Why not wack a few pennies on them as well while you are down the bookies?
Play-offs or not the play-offs?  Gambling was a theme that was touched upon at SportBusiness’ Campus on 18-19 April in London where a new media module (moderated by S&T) featured Paul Barber, executive director of Tottenham Hotspur talking about the club’s relationship with shirt sponsor, online gaming company Mansion. Spurs are of course well known throughout the globe for having liberated the fabulous Exeter City of manager Alex Inglethorpe last year and making him their youth team coach (all is fair in love and the Premiership after all). For S&T readers interested in Exeter City’s fate this season (after all, we would like to think that you have adopted Exeter as your non-league team in the UK, or just your team in the UK), having flirted with the play-offs since relegation to the Nationwide Conference what seems like 40 years ago (but in reality three), it looks like it will come down to the last day of the season again and will probably involve most of our competition rivals having to lose by about 12 goals.
In an act of what can only be described as pure scheduling mayhem, S&T will be on an aeroplane to Beijing during Exeter City’s penultimate match away at Stevenage and just landing again the following week during Exeter’s final match at home versus Southport. Don’t even ask how we managed to book that, but suffice to say, looking at Beijing 2008’s Olympic sites and attending SportAccord will of course be worth the sacrifice (and besides, we couldn’t change our flights as they are non-refundable).
S&T recently reported that Beijing has introduced a ‘Queuing Day’ to teach residents how to stand patiently in line, as training for next year’s Games. The city has now decided to crack down on Chinese-inflected English, known as ‘Chinglish’, where citizens use English incorrectly. Indeed, Beijing authorities have asked the public to help police bad grammar and faulty syntax. Although S&T is of course an ambassador for the correct use of our mother tongue (as scrupulous readers of this column will no doubt be able to testify) and would make apostrophe abuse a crime if give any semblance of power, S&T can’t help but think that any attempt at speaking English by Beijing citizens should be admired rather than criticised. Let’s face it, it’s not as though many of us will be able to reciprocate with Mandarin pleasantries, even those who have collected UK newspaper The Times’ recent Mandarin conversation course. (Or was that just us?)
Oh well, on that note, we’d better get our bags packed again and head off to Heathrow. And in the words of a billboard recently seen in Beijing, please remember that, "Shangri-La is in your mind, but your Buffalo is not." See you at SportAccord!
Rachael Church-Sanders
Editor
Do you enjoy watching the Eurovision Song Contest, or do you think it is completely naff? If you have any comments or feedback on this article or any of the features in S&T, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please e-mail your comments to editor@sportandtechnology.com. Or watch television instead. Or DVDs. Whatever.
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