I'm so confused about what's going on with Hugh Laurie, Graham Linehan and Sophie Cunningham

[blubberball]

Are they all in agreement, but arguing any way? I'm so confused

Its a misunderstanding, or was last time I looked. Lineham thought Laurie was saying it was ok for men to play women's sports but he wasn't, and made that clear. From what I know Sophie has stayed well out of it and focused on the game and selling a lot of shoes.

Thank you 🙏

Hugh Laurie made a comment about height statistics in basketball saying that it's so rare to be over 7' tall that (apparently) 17% of Americans between the ages of 20 and 40 who are over 7' tall are in the NBA.

He also said that this effectively made most of the world 'women' because their height disqualifies them from playing in the NBA.

Some people, including Linehan, assumed he was making the old 'some people just have a physical advantage' argument.

However (with some swearing) he confirmed that he supports Cunningham, and sometimes Linehan, and is just really amazed by the basketball heigh statistic.

And it is an amazing statistic: if you’re an American man between 20 and 40 years of age and 7 feet tall or more, there’s a 17% chance you’re already in the NBA.
But it was hard to see what Laurie was saying until he confirmed.

Keep an eye on the Sophie thread it is crazy out there. Latest - The WBNA have had a meeting about what a women is but can't work it out.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5558154-us-womens-sports-star-sophie-cunningham-speaking-up-on-defending-womens-sports?page=1

I know a woman - by sight - who is easily 6ft 10ins tall. Her bf is about the same height as my ex sil and he is 6ft 7ins. They have a baby and I'm guessing he or she will be very tall indeed. But does it sometimes skip a generation?

Women and men are both getting taller in some countries but this does not negate the male physical advantage over all of course

6'10"? Where is that? That's not 'one in a million' height, it's one in many million. I'm not sure that the tallest woman in the UK is 6'10".

The tallest player in the GB women's basketball squad is 6'4", and she's only fairly British.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_women%27s_national_basketball_team

There was a girl in my university cohort who was easily 6ft6 (a boy in my class was 6ft4 and she was significantly taller than him) and she was really beautifully feminine looking too. (She isn't a basketball player AFAIK, she was doing a science degree so presumably is doing a sciencey job now.) I didn't realise it was so rare to be so tall.

The difference in men and women isn't just height - as we all know! There's zero chance anyone could have mistaken her for a man.

I don't think I've ever seen a woman in the flesh in my lifetime who was anywhere near 6' 6". They must be vanishingly rare.

Well tbf I've only met the one girl who was that tall but there were two girls in my class at my girls' school both 6ft2 (one was my drama partner and always got the male role even if I wanted it because we looked too ridiculous the other way around). But I suppose 6ft6 would be much more rare because it's the thin tail of the bell curve.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/tall-stories-with-britains-tallest-woman-jessica-pardoe/id1621078015?i=1000560763642

I have two female friends who are 6’2” and know a woman who is 6’4” (good friend of my colleague) but to be fair the first two worked as models and the third is an Olympic gold medalist (and her brother is in the NBA haha). Not sure I’ve ever met a woman taller than 6’4” though.

The baby is likely to be tall but there is something called regression to the mean which could lead to the child being closer to average height. Having said that I know two families where both parents are well above average height and their children are also very tall.

Ireland , won't say exactly where obviously. But she is not Irish. Eastern Europe I'm guessing. There are a few young women here over 6ft but nobody remotely this tall. You try not to look....but it's difficult...

That's reassuring actually. My ex sil found it hard to get shoes etc . Size 17 iirc.

I hope she’s being monitored by a cardiac unit, the cardiovascular system doesn’t usually support women that tall into their old age. With feet that big, it sounds like some sort of giantism or growth plate issue.

Has Hugh been cancelled?

He's on India Willoughby's list.

🤣 I bet he’s quaking

Didn't he just say that he doesnt think that men shouldn't be in womens sports? He could easily backtrack on that by saying that trans women aren't men so deserve to play in the womens leagues if and when the mob come for him. They seem to mainly target women though so he is safe I guess. NBA legend Charles Barkley recently said the exact same thing as Sophie Cunningham and no one lost their minds over it

Hopefully someone has excluded Marfan Syndrome.

she's only fairly British🙄

There’s a really interesting podcast on the advantage of height in basketball if anyone is interested https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/more-or-less/id267300884?i=1000646619336

I am a tall woman 6’1 and my husband is 6’5. Both my daughters are taller than me, but only by half an inch and an inch respectively although DD2 is still growing.

I was a rarity growing up but there are so many tall young women now but it is still very rare (imo) to be a female over 6’5.

I have one DD who is a casual basketball player and one who is a competitive rower, but the physical advantage of being tall in those sports are no way comparative to males advantages. Both DD train in mixed teams and the difference is glaring.

Yes, in the sense that she doesn't live here & wasn't born here. Very legitimate context to include in a paragraph about how many very tall women there are in the UK.

Bumping past the visitor’s 2010 zombie threads…