Life is Life.

La la la la la.

As you no doubt may have heard from the one person you know who obsesses over soccer [and heartfelt apologies go out to those for whom that person is me], Diego Maradona was hospitalized recently for ill health, though he is apparently recovering nicely.

"It wasn't an imbalance in his blood circulation or with his heart, but was a product of an incoherent regimen of excessive eating, drinking and smoking," his doctor, Alfredo Cahe, told reporters in the doorway of the Guemes clinic in Buenos Aires.

What, you may ask, constitutes an "incoherent regimen of excessive eating, drinking, and smoking?" Or a better question: what constitutes a coherent regimen of excessive eating, drinking, and smoking. [Insert bad comparative celebrity joke...now.]

Apparently this: "He is smoking three or four Habanos (Cuban cigars) a day. For him, who didn't smoke, it's too much," Maradona's doctor said [emphasis added].

M had supposedly decamped to Switzerland to chill back in a no-doubt sleekly-designed, though still rather heartless (sort of like the Swiss themselves) teak sweat-lodge, or some other form of intense weight-loss clinic to drop some of the pounds he'd gained back after the gastric bypass surgery that had helped him slim down a few years ago. Perhaps the Swiss treated him as the Germans did at last year's World Cup.

Ether way, he seems stable, and suitably feisty again. Some more updates from his Doctor:

"He woke up at 0230 and he insulted me, he didn't want to be there. They sedated him again and he fell asleep," Dr Cahe told a local radio station.

Perhaps we should all want the kind of relationship Diego has with a Doctor like Dr. Cahe, as perhaps HST had with an Attorney like, erm, "Dr." Gonzo.

And just as you suspected, this post is nowt but a poorly disguised excuse to post some admittedly pretty awesome YouTube clips of Numero 10, the first of which, for some reason is scored, rather appropriately, to an instrumental of that Mos Def, Pharaohe Monch & Nate Dogg tune "Oh No" off the last Lyricist Lounge album. This cut came more or less at the apex of Nate Dogg's glorious (?), ubiquitous hook-dropping stage, the veritable Akon of his era. Anyway, Maradona:


The thing to take from these clips (incl. the one up top) is how much fun it is to watch footballers warm up. The tricks and routines seen here are often more impressive than the ones actually employed during the game. Former England striker Gary Lineker thinks so, especially after watching one particular Manchester United winger recently. More on that later, perhaps.