The magnificent seven

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A worthy ball juggling challenge next time you’re messing around with a football.

Published 18 Sep 2013

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Of all my sketches, I have a soft spot for this one. We had some lovely family friends who were massively into birding. As a schoolboy, I was more interested in birds than most, but one day, my Dad and I went to stay with them. They talked us through trips they'd been around the world to spot rare and remarkable birds. They had an amazing telescope trained on the birds at the feeder in their garden. They had wonderful binoculars we used on a bird walk, which showed me birds clearer and closer than I'd ever seen. They knew what birds to look out for and had tape recordings of specific bird calls that brought the birds to nearby bushes. It was impossible to be around them and not start to love birds. As I've gotten older, I've realised pretty much everything and everyone is like that. Premier League football is boring if you don't pay close attention to it, but if you follow every detail, it can be engrossing. I didn't think much of textiles, but after spending an afternoon weaving in Laos, I loved it. Pretty much everything has the thing they're deeply interested in. The physicist Richard Feynman said: "Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough." And here's another similar sentiment from the writer Henry Miller: "The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." It reminds me that just because I don't see something as interesting now doesn't mean that it's not or that people who are into it are somehow weird. Everyone's a geek about something. And that's wonderful. I revised this sketch in March 2025 for the podcast episode. Here's the original And here's the updated and expanded version.…Of all my sketches, I have a soft spot for this one. We had some lovely family friends who were massively into birding. As a schoolboy, I was more interested in birds than most, but one day, my Dad and I went to stay with them. They talked us through trips they'd been around the world to spot rare and remarkable birds. They had an amazing telescope trained on the birds at the feeder in their garden. They had wonderful binoculars we used on a bird walk, which showed me birds clearer and closer than I'd ever seen. They knew what birds to look out for and had tape recordings of specific bird calls that brought the birds to nearby bushes. It was impossible to be around them and not start to love birds. As I've gotten older, I've realised pretty much everything and everyone is like that. Premier League football is boring if you don't pay close attention to it, but if you follow every detail, it can be engrossing. I didn't think much of textiles, but after spending an afternoon weaving in Laos, I loved it. Pretty much everything has the thing they're deeply interested in. The physicist Richard Feynman said: "Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough." And here's another similar sentiment from the writer Henry Miller: "The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." It reminds me that just because I don't see something as interesting now doesn't mean that it's not or that people who are into it are somehow weird. Everyone's a geek about something. And that's wonderful. I revised this sketch in March 2025 for the podcast episode. Here's the original And here's the updated and expanded version.

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