The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Wednesday, February 26

Hi, all!

Have you ever seen a ball end up in a pitchside kitchen? If not, you’ve got the chance to correct that.

Ramble of the Day

Let’s play a game. I’m going to list a few nail polish names, and I’ll give you the option of guessing the color they’re attempting to describe.

1. In the time zone
2. Notifications on
3. Scoot scoot
4. In a flash sale
5. Throw it on
6. Don’t hate, curate
7. Now or never
8. Express to impress
9. Misfit right in
10. Binge-worthy

Take your time with them. Really try to figure out what the namers were doing. When you’re ready, check your work.

1. Pastel pink
2. Wine red
3. Dark plum purple
4. Burnt orange
5. Soft lilac purple
6. Golden yellow
7. Black
8. Mint green
9. Shimmering bronze
10. Soft gray

I’ll take a guess and say you didn’t see those name and color matches coming, and in that case, I’d like to thank Essie’s Expressie quick dry line for your introduction to the world of nail polish names.

To anyone familiar with nail polish, this is a well-known world, but not one that has a lot of literature about it. It’s a weird space the nail polish industry has created for itself, but one that is understandable. Essie has 46 different pinks on its website, and it’s probably the case for the many other nail polish brands — for reference, Target has 26 different brands’ worth of nail polish to buy, including the children arts supply company Crayola. At that point, you’ve got to be creative when naming your nail polish colors.

What does that eventually mean? Most of the time, it means what Essie did with the Expressie colors — describing a mood that the color is supposed to represent. That doesn’t always mean they make sense, of course — I can get why a strong mint green is about expression, and impressing thorough such expression. What a dark plum purple has to do with the words “scoot scoot” is something I can’t figure out, though it isn’t really the point.

It’s not just that you’re buying nail polish based on the color and the quality of the product, meaning the name itself doesn’t matter at all in your decision making. Of the nail polishes I own or have selected at a nail salon, I couldn’t tell you their names, and I couldn’t tell you if their names were ridiculous or not.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I have no idea why they do it, and I think I’d like to know despite it taking up so little of my time.

tl;dr: Nail polishes are weirdly named, but I suppose they have to because there are a lot of nail polish bottles out there.

Links of the Day

Former Charlton player Lucy Kerr died aged 20 after a battle with cancer.

Former Uruguay FA president Wilmar Valdez was given a year ban from the sport by FIFA for ethical breaches.

Manchester United supporters say they had “genuine fear for their safety” regarding policing when they traveled to Brugge for last week’s Europa League tie.

Today’s longer read: Grant Wahl interviewed former U.S. international Jermaine Jones on the end of his career, post-retirement plans, and his fairly public divorce for Sports Illustrated