The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links Tuesday, October 2

Hi, everyone!

I really love that picture of Harry Kane.

Ramble of the Day

Yesterday, I stumbled across a picture of someone wearing an item of clothing that was both green and purple. It is an unusual combination, and the actual combination of colors was fine. Yet, I couldn’t help but think of the character Barney from the children’s show Barney & Friends, even though the shades of green and purple didn’t match Barney’s.

Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images

I basically learned how to read on Barney & Friends and Sesame Street, so naturally the characters of these shows will be easily remembered forever. However, there is something very specific about that color combination that will never not make me think of Barney, mostly because you hardly ever see purple and green combine in any other form, other than in nature. In my notes, I called it a “color combination I’m sensitive to,” because I can’t help but think of specific things when I see them and find them out of place in other places, but they don’t deeply offend me or anything.

Take, for example, the classic Christmas combination of red and green. Every single store in the Western world is covered in the colors from the beginning of November to the end of the year, forever forcing us to associate the colors with the holiday. You could try and make the argument that spotting the two colors in a different context and in different shades might not make you think of the holiday, but at least to me, that isn’t enough. My older sister paired a light green blanket with one of those rubber bracelets companies hand out to passersby for free in a duller and somewhat lighter shade of red, and I still saw it.

I find that this is somewhat common for things like holidays, though there are only a select number of them that have specific attachments to color. The common usage of orange and black during Halloween is another one that has stuck with me, particularly after many celebrations of the holiday in elementary school. I noticed that I have this intense association with the colors while watching this year’s U.S. Open, as Nike decided to provide its athletes with orange and navy headbands.

Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images

The orange Sloane Stephens is sporting is much closer to the shade of a mango than of a pumpkin, and for the most part, that headband is clearly navy. In fact, pairing this shade of orange with a dark navy is a really good decision, and I commend the person/people that made it. Yet, there were too many instances where I thought the headband was black and not blue, making me think of Halloween when it was still hot outside. It can be a little jarring.

tl;dr: Barney, Sloane Stephens, and specific color combinations.

Links of the Day

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has reopened an investigation into the rape allegation brought forward by Kathryn Mayorga against Cristiano Ronaldo.

Armenian Henrikh Mkhitaryan will not travel to Azerbaijan for Arsenal’s Europa League match against Qarabag because of the nations’ long standing conflict.

Giuseppe Rossi will avoid a doping suspension after failing a test in May.

Victor Anichebe has reported his club Beijing Enterprises for match fixing.

Bayern Munich is researching the relationship between crowd noise and reaction to the action on the pitch.

Today’s longer read: Nick Ames interviews Premier League Global presenter Seema Jaswal on rising through the ranks and doing so as a woman of color for The Guardian