The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, December 6

Hello, all!

I was in the middle of watching I’m a Celebrity...and then it just stopped working. It is several hours later, and I have decided it’s time to give up. You lucky Hoddlers, you get another break!

While I have you - The above scarf is the greatest scarf.

Ramble of the Day

Several weeks ago, my sisters and I were talking about Armie Hammer, the actor. My younger sister and I had been talking and laughing for days about how his full first name plus last name is Armand Hammer, which is essentially Arm & Hammer, the manufacturer of household products. My older sister then said, “Doesn’t his family own Arm & Hammer?”

We laughed. I said that it was probably an internet joke, and all three of us believed it for a minute. “I thought I remembered reading an article about it,” my older sister said in a sort of end to the conversation, but it was not over. My younger sister then decided to bring Google into this, perhaps to find the internet joke. Imagine how shocked we were when we found out that there was truth to this suspicion.

As identified in an annoyingly formatted BuzzFeed article, Hammer’s great-grandfather, also named Armand Hammer, did indeed own Arm & Hammer. I’ll give you the highlights, since: one, it’s an annoyingly formatted article, and; two, you might not want to click on it because who needs that many links anyway? It’s all on Wikipedia anyway, but the bare bones are:

• Armand Hammer the senior was not named after the company, and the company was not named after him.
• He had become obsessed with owning it because everyone brought up the shared name.
• He eventually worked his way onto the Board of Directors after buying enough stock in Arm & Hammer’s parent company.

For the details, click the article or Wikipedia, but this is a very fascinating story. A man made his life’s mission acquiring a company that had the same name as him, and eventually succeeded. One could say it’s a great story of perseverance and determination. Another could call it a classic story of a person with maybe too much money so he created a strange obsession.

Let’s go with the second.

tl;dr: Armie Hammer and Arm & Hammer is a coincidence, but also isn’t.

Links of the Day

Mike Ashley is reportedly looking to sell Newcastle United, having four bids over £300 million to consider.

Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani has called for an investigation into the claims of sexual misconduct by members of the nation’s football federation.

Today’s longer read: Paul Wilson writes what is essentially a Son Heung-min appreciation article for The Guardian