The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Thursday, January 18

Hey, people of the Hoddle!

I ate spaghetti yesterday and I thought it was nice! You know what isn’t nice? Sam Querrey losing in the second round of the Australian Open!

Let me distract myself from tennis with this ramble.

Ramble of the Day

Business Insider asked their readers to tell them what the ugliest building was in each of the U.S.’ 50 states, plus Washington, D.C. Yesterday, they published their findings. Some of these buildings are genuinely ugly. Others, not so much.

Let’s start with the ones that are genuinely not nice to look at. New Haven, Connecticut’s Pirelli Building looks like a horrible gray interpretation of Jenga. It also somewhat looks like it is in the middle of nowhere despite the IKEA sitting right there, which does not add to its appeal.

Kansas, however, probably wins ugliest building of the list. The building, located in Topeka, has that middle of nowhere anti-charm going for it. It also looks unfinished, giving it a look of abandonment and loneliness. No other building on this list makes me sadder than the old warehouse on 101 North Kansas Avenue.

I’ll comment on New York since I’m from New York, and I will agree that Penn Station is definitely ugly. It is actually uglier on the inside than it is on the outside, with small sections of the train station looking like they actually tried to have a design aesthetic and the rest of just a lot of old steel. The appeal of the European train station is nowhere to be found.

Other good shouts include Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky (Who designed that?), Maryland, Massachusetts (Again: Who designed that?), Michigan, Mississippi (terrible color), New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island (interesting idea, awful execution), South Carolina, Vermont, and West Virginia.

There are many that made the list that are relatively inoffensive, which I suppose means there are lots of nice looking buildings in those states. But let’s talk about some of the buildings that are actually nice looking.

The City Hall building in Tempe, Arizona, looks pretty cool. The color could be better, but the architectural attempt is certainly work praising. The Denver International Airport in Colorado is a mean choice for this list; that airport looks rather nice, especially from a bit of distance. The Thompson Center in Chicago, Illinois is also an awesome, modern building, which makes it seem like the readers of Business Insider do not appreciate modern architecture, which is a shame. The selection of the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington confirms my suspicions. It is quite nice to look at in public.

There is one building, though, that is the best and the worst. It is the Longaberger Headquarters in Newark, Ohio. IT IS A BASKET. I REPEAT, IT IS A BASKET. Look at it!

tl;dr: Click on the link in the first paragraph and look at the buildings. I had opinions.

Shall we get to those links?

Links of the Day

Theo Walcott is now an Everton player.

Liverpool have condemned Jon Flanagan after he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend.

SC Braga announced player signings by pretending it happened on Tinder.

Longer read number one: A piece on the career of Ronaldinho.

Longer read number two: On the FA’s cringeworthy choice of Phil Neville as the next women’s national team coach.