The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Thursday, April 12

Hi, people!

It’s time to go back to my childhood.

Ramble of the Day

My mom was telling me yesterday about how she did not know what a bikini was when she was a kid growing up in India. She thought it was some type of lotion, or maybe some makeup, or a very thin bodysuit that made you paler. It is a pretty funny story, isn’t it? What if I told you that I had a funnier story about bikinis when I was a child?

When I was in kindergarten, my class had a sort of event where a parent or guardian joined each child so the teachers could show off their talents to fellow adults. One of the exercises saw the teachers pointing at drawings and asking each student to say what the drawing was of.

I was there, sitting next to my dad, when it was my turn. The picture was of two tipis standing next to each other. (Note: I do not remember if the drawings were accurate or not, but I feel like the tipis didn’t look right.) I struggled for a few seconds, and after some reasoning with myself, I settled on an answer. With all of the confidence in the world, five-year-old excitedly said, “A bikini!”

I knew bikinis didn’t really look like tipis, but I didn’t really know what tipis were. I just thought it was a strange looking bikini top.

My teacher then somewhat awkwardly corrected me, and I do not remember anyone bursting out into laughter. This could have been the adults stifling their laughter or me having blocked it out. (This was not like the time the fourth grade teachers asked us what the capitol of Nassau County is, a question that has no answer, and laughed at me when I said New York City.)

I also do not remember feeling any humiliation after getting the answer wrong; it’s a good thing that I did not know shame at age five. It means that I am either not traumatized at all or so traumatized that I blocked out the memory of it and rewrote it so that I was a confident child.

tl;dr: Bikinis: What are they? A deep dive by five-year-old me (and my mom at age eight).

Links of the Day

Gianluigi Buffon is not happy with Michael Oliver.

Sunderland have discreetly taken steps to ensure that Newcastle fans won’t show up at the Stadium of Light and celebrate their relegation.

Roma president James Pallotta has been fined by the city of Rome after performing a backward somersault into a fountain to celebrate his side’s victory over Barcelona.

Arturo Vidal was watching Real Madrid-Juventus while sitting in the stands as his Bayern Munich took on Sevilla.

Former Dallas Burn (now FC Dallas) player Richard Farrer was sworn in on Tuesday as the newest federal judge in San Antonio, Texas.

Today’s longer read: Ben Fisher interviews Stevenage coach Dino Maamria on being born in a tent and naming a goat after Gary Lineker for The Guardian