The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Friday, April 20

Hi, people!

I wanted a cookie, but I had to settle for a piece of chocolate. Sad, isn’t it?

Ramble of the Day

There’s this challenge going around the internet that my fellow Cartilage Free Captain writers introduced me to in which people have to pick the four films that define them. This is very hard and almost ten hours later, I have not been able to think of four films. I’m stuck at one and a half, possibly two (math done by partly counting two movies and fully counting one). I’m not planning on answering the prompt in this ramble, but I will tell you about one my favorite movies growing up.

When I was five, I came home every day to watch the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, directed by Nancy Meyers and starring Lindsay Lohan. I’ve watched it again as an adult, and it is still as delightful and charming as it was when I was five. It is Meyers at her best, and possibly Lohan at her best, too, while Natasha Richardson, Dennis Quaid, and Ronnie Stevens put in brilliant performances of their own. From top to bottom, it is a very well done film, with a plot that feels like a classic even though swapping identities with your long-lost twin and pulling off an international plan to reunite your divorced parents is anything but traditional.

It was the film that taught me what being allergic meant. This is mostly because I told my mom that I was allergic to strawberries after I heard twins Hallie and Annie say they were also allergic to strawberries, leading my mom to correct me because not liking strawberries is not the same thing as having an allergy.

However, me being me, I do have a bit of an issue. The entire concept of the film rests on this incredibly strange custody agreement between Richardson’s Liz and Quaid’s Nick have. Each parent gets to keep a child, choosing to never see the former spouse and other child ever again. I consulted my older sister, as she practices family law, about this agreement.

“A judge won’t approve that,” she said in an exclusive interview. “I mean, a judge in New York won’t approve that. I don’t know what kind of [redacted] laws they’ve got in California.”

I suppose they’re creating a world in which convoluted custody arrangements can exist, but I remain unconvinced.

Anyway, it’s an enjoyable film once you forget that all important fact.

tl;dr: I had to consult my lawyer sister about a weird thing in my favorite movie as a child.

Links of the Day

Michael Carrick said he struggled with depression when he was on England duty.

FIFA said it found no evidence of racism after England U-17 player Rhian Wilkinson overheard a Spanish player racially abuse teammate Morgan Gibbs-White at last fall’s U-17 World Cup.

The Turkish Cup semifinal between Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş was abandoned after Beşiktaş coach Şenol Güneş was hit in the head by an object thrown by opposing fans.

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has inked a deal with Netflix to create a six-part series called The English Game that explores modern English football.

Today’s longer read: Sam Pilger tells the story of the rise of Dele Alli for Bleacher Report