Christopher Sullivan's Crazy Talk Express

So I'm doing the time-shift shuffle through TiVo-land last night as I zoom through my own personal highlight reel of the Israel-Russia European Championship qualifier (subtitled "The Abramovich Cup"), when what to my wondering ears should appear but another verbal nugget from FSC's Christopher Sullivan. Sulli's linguistic genius sparkles and fades with an ephemeral grace that leaves you wondering if it's just word choice, the strange clipped demi-accent, or if perhaps the man might be an alien in disguise sent to confuse and confound the residents of this dirty blue and green ball.

As I said, I was in rapid-viewing mode, so I only barely caught this one, but a replay was showing an Israeli striker (Ben Sahar?) creating a little space and firing a shot right into the Russian keeper's arms about midway through the first half. Now, a lesser man might have described this as a "decent attempt", or perhaps gone with the banal "shot on goal". If said man had a whiff of the Eurosnob or Anglophile about him, he might possibly refer to a "failure to finish". But Sulli? No, he has far too much of the extraterrestrial about him. Sullivan pulls out "that's not a bad conclusion."

Not a bad "conclusion"?

Wow, only Sullivan could pull this one off, wedged as it was amongst the slings and arrows of outrageous Bretos. It's like he's got his own English-to-English Babel Fish translation engine in his brain that churns out words and phrases that might be logically and mechanically correct, but somehow fail the application test that determines if they passed the lips of native speakers of the language and not pod people. Sure, the shot was the technical conclusion of an attacking move by the Israeli team, but who but Sullivan would drop this bon mot?

So I thank you, Christopher Sullivan. Thank you for refusing to be bound by the conventions of natural language and daring the slippery slope of the new and wonderful. Even if you're the only one speaking your particular off-worlder dialect, at least it is your own and at least it does make sense, even if such sense occurs in only the most obtuse ways. Are you listening Christian Miles? Botched British expressions and sheer volume of words do not a genius make.