The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, January 17

Hello, all!

That picture makes it look like that man is a new signing or something. He obviously isn’t, but it’s a little bit funny — or upsetting, depending on who you ask.

Ramble of the Day

Marcelo Bielsa is a gift to English football, and his arrival in England is a gift to us all. Sure, he came with an attractive style of play and a certain type of charm with his upside-down-bucket-as-a-chair thing, but Bielsa is far more special than this somewhat ordinary description. There’s a sort of chaotic unpredictability that comes with Bielsa, and though it sometimes ends in disaster, it is the most entertaining show for the football spectator. That’s essentially what yesterday’s press conference, in which he took accusations of spying and decided to embarrass Frank Lampard, proved. While Bielsa added to his own reputation, he also gave quite the spotlight to the PowerPoint presentation.

I didn’t realize I liked PowerPoint presentations because of Bielsa, for what it’s worth. I did, though, remember that I had once thought of it as a ramble topic and then forgot to write it down, but clearly Bielsa is good for more than just entertainment. I don’t need to dwell on Bielsa’s hour-long analytical breakdown of Derby County for the world to see, but it’s obviously a solid way to put your methods out there for the room, and possibly the world, to see.

PowerPoints are more than just perfect platforms for publicly feuding and also presenting a company update at a board meeting. They can actually be used for sharing interesting information, if you want. Maybe you want to do a PowerPoint presentation about women who buy wedding dresses before they even get engaged, for example. (I did this once for a public speaking class in high school.)

The thing about PowerPoints is that, by nature, they’re really good for taking a bunch of information, separating it into small and processable chunks, and smoothly working through a big topic. Of course, this is when done well (I’ll never forget how many teachers gave us pointers about what bad PowerPoints looked like). A good PowerPoint presentation can be a bit like a good episode of a television show — each scene has just enough, all of the scenes put together paint the picture perfectly and is relatively easily understandable, and it’s aesthetically pleasing. The best part about the aesthetic argument? Your aesthetic is whatever you want it to be.

The thing is, PowerPoint presentations are hardly ever allowed to have fun. Bielsa had fun with it, but even though I believe this, even I haven’t had fun with a PowerPoint presentation in ages. It’s a blank canvas with endless possibilities in a way Twitter threads, Instagram stories, and sometimes even articles aren’t. (This is not to say anything bad about the article, which is also a great blank canvas that, thankfully, many people have taken advantage of.) Maybe it’s time for the PowerPoint to have its moment.

tl;dr: Let the PowerPoint shine.

Links of the Day

Chelsea have launched a campaign to raise awareness about the Holocaust as the club continues working to root out anti-semitism amongst supporters.

Transfer roundup: Manchester City have signed 21-year-old Ko Itakura and loaned him to Groningen for the rest of the season

Today’s longer read: Joe Urquhart live-blogged Marcelo Bielsa’s impromptu press conference for the Yorkshire Evening Post