You'll no doubt now be aware that Team GB's perfromance (when did we get that Americanised name all of a sudden?) at this years Olympics is the best in a century. Pretty impressive but it looks like, in terms of historical context, we may have plateaued. While we're knocking on the door of 20 gold medals in Beijing with a few days to go, 1908 saw Great Britain collect a whopping 56 golds. By the end of those games, our entire team must have been blinged up like Snoop Dog in a particularly auspicious mood.
However, there's no reason to think that we couldn't match this staggering success next time- becuase the 1908 Olympics, like those of 2012 will be, took place in London. And, looking back at the old records, it appears the hosts took more than a few liberties with the events that were included in order to tip the balance in Blighty's favour. For instance, that old village fete favourite the tug of war made an appearance, as did rugby union though, intriguingly, the USA took the title and remain current Olympic champions in the sport- remember that for the pub quiz. The shooting events involved killing live deer like a typical country gent andt, best of all, we also included two ancient racket sports; one actually called 'rackets' and the other called 'real tennis', both of which were about as old as Henry VIII and had been for their entire histories played almost exclusively on these isles. We claimed gold, silver and bronze in both events which is hardly surpising as no-one from any other countries even bothered entering.
Clearly, the organisers of 1908 could show Seb Coe and friends how to go about throwing together an Olympics in four years time where Britannia can truly rule the waves. And the pool, the track, the velodrome and, just for the hell of it, the real tennis court (surely it's due a revival- there's still somewhere to play it at Hampton Court apparently). All we need to do is come up with a few events where the odds are stacked in favour of the British, though if we just start making queueing and binge drinking into Olympic sports the rest of the world might twig that we're up to something. Therefore, being a considerate chap, I've put together a few ways in which some existing sports could be tweaked to help out Team GB a little bit:
Swimming: All competitors have to start each race with a pint of Stella in a plastic glass which they must carry with them. While the race will still be timed, penalties will be incurred for the amount of beverage spilt (let's say- one second per 5ml) with the best overall time deciding the standings. Anyone who's seen a British man relaxing with a pint in a pool in a foreign hotel notice some teenage French girls playing volleyball in the deep end will surely have marvelled at his ability to front crawl over to them with his plastic glass between his teeth and not lose a single drop. Surely it's about time this discipline was given the opportunity to take to a bigger stage.
Athletics: For all running races, a newly constructed Primark will be placed at the finish line. When the starting gun goes, the store will open and begin advertising a sale. All British women will instantly be able to charge down the track at Mach 3 just to be first through the doors, though we may need to change the rules so that barging, punching and some stabbing is allowed.
Gymnastics: All falls and bad landings to be accomapnied by hilarious soundtrack of 'BOING!' noises and such like, in order to make everything more audience friendly. British competitors to be drawn entirely from winners of the Pride of Britain award- thereby creating invincible combination of slapstick and heart wrenching sob-stories with the winner of the event not to be decided by professional gymnastics judges but by a phone vote on Saturday night ITV hosted by Joe Pasquale and Fern Britten (note to organsiers- make sure Pasquale handles the funny noises and Britten does the sob-stories or it could all go a bit tits up)
Cycling: British team to just turn up as this is something we can actually give the whole world a good twatting in. That said, deciding that the event should be contested entirely by 16 year old chavs on BMX bikes designed for 9 year olds couldn't hurt.
Boxing: Venue switched to just outside the Adelphi Public House on Blackburn Boulevard. Glassing allowed.
Additional Note: All sports to be accompanied by a looping soundtrack of 'Run' by Snow Patrol and McFly songs played a three times normal speed.
There you go- just a few simple changes and suddenly we're cleaning up every gold medal in sight. However, there is one more thing we need to take care of- we need to stop the athletes shagging. At the Sydney and Athens Olympics, organisers supplied over 30,000 condoms to the visiting competitors and ran out by about a week into proceedings, whereas in Beijing not even a third of the total supply of sheaths has been used and we've nearly hit the fortnight mark. The only reason I can find to explain what happened is that in 2000 and 2004, all the Brits were busy banging their brains out rather than dealing with the sporting matters at hand. They were acting like typical Brits abroad really and I dare say that at those games the phrase 'silver medal' referred to a messy sexual aftermath rather than coming second (though it could have meant both if you think about it). This needs to be prevented from happening in London four years from now
The only way to achieve this spell of celebacy for Team GB would be, as far as I can tell, to get Sir David Beckham (as he probably will be by 2012) to tell the entire nation not to have sex for the total duration of the games. We'll all dutifully bow our heads at his Royal Right-Footedeness and go about our days with our fluids slowly building to dangerous levels. Then, when its all over and Britain has won 40,000 gold medals, we can all celebrate with a great big national shag.
On Saturday night ITV. Hosted by Joe Pasquale (for the funny noises) and Fern Britten (for the sob stories). Accompanied by a looping soundtrack of 'Run' by Snow Patrol and McFly songs played a three times normal speed.
COME ON BRITAIN!
Thursday, 21 August 2008
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
What an Olympics it's been for these isles, eh? Expectations were good to begin with but the performances have been outstanding- full of fire, fight, grit, determination, innovation, improvisation and excellence in equal measure. And the athletes have been good as well.
Various British competitors who were utterly unknown a fortnight ago have done great things to shake off the perenially irritating 'plucky' prefix to the word 'Brit' but, while all American athletes seem to be whoopin', hollerin' winning machines and all Australian entrants are lank-haired, smug and about as likable as ebola soup-, the Brtish victors have refreshingly been a veritable schmorgasboard (or, to keep this whole piece British themed, a 'buffet') of personalities and demeanours. At one end of the scale there's been Rebecca Adlington, the only person to be described as 'bubbly' without being a tosser and who may be a double Olympic swimming gold medallist but recently claimed to be scared of the sea because she "doesn't do fish". At the opposite end there's Rebecca Romero who quit rowing because it was too soft and switched to cycling- all the while going about her business with the sort of steely-eyed determination that either marks out a great sportsman or a gifted serial killer. She looks like she even goes to the shops for a pint of milk with all the relentless drive of T-1000.
But while these sporting folk have been going about their business and giving some pride back to our sporting nation (admit it, even if you think they're just competing in a bunch of obscure sports a glance at an Olympics medal table that has us ahead of Australia is enough to turn anyone into Richard Littlejohn) the real stars of the show for me have been the BBC and their army of presenters and commentators.
I admit that I was so caught up in all the sport it took me a while before I started paying attention to the people talking all over it. But then I stayed up into the wee small hours of Sunday morning to watch the women's marathon and, while Paula Radcliffe was proving that it's actually pretty tricky to win a 26 mile running race on one leg, I found myself absorbed in Steve Cram and Brendan Foster's equally gutsy performance in the commentary booth.
This, essentially, was the problem they found themselves with. In a marathon not a lot happens for long periods and soon the anecodtes about the athletes various histories and chances dry up. Luckily, these events tend to take place in major cities and so the announcers can instead deal with the dearth in action by acting as tour guide- dispensing little nuggets of information and history regarding wherever the athletes tend to be pounding through at that particular time. Just watch the London marathon one year and you'll end up knowing more about our capital than the average cabbie.
But the Olympic marathon this year provided more than a few problems in this respect as the route twice took lengthy passages through Tianaenmen Square. There you go, you've figured out what the problem was haven't you? If you haven't, here's my approximation of what would have happened had Foster and Cram fallen off the commentary tightrope upon which they found themselves.
Steve Cram: "Paula Radcliffe, not looking too bad but we all know she's had her injury problems this year and, of course we all remember what happend in Athens four years ago".
Brendan Foster: "Indeed we do Steve and let's hope we don't see that again this time".
(Pause)
Cram: "Good news for the athletes that the expected smog hasn't appeared this morning, that's great for these competitors."
Foster: "It really is Steve, and it's not as humid as I think we were expecting it to be either so that's also encouraging for this race"
Cram: "They're still not setting a fast pace though, Brendan, it's very cagey so far so I think the athletes are still playing it safe- no-one looks willing to attack as we near the 10 kilometre mark, the runners now heading into Tianenmen square.
Foster: "And of course this is one of the most famous landmarks in Beijing, an absolutely huge space surrounded by a number of very famous buildings- there's the Mao Zedong's mausoleum as well as the imposing Great Hall of the People and the Monument to the People's Heroes in the centre which was completed in 1958".
(Pause)
Cram: "And of course it's here where all those students got shot isn't it?"
Now I defy anyone to have found themselves in the same position as Cram and Foster and not have uttered something similar to that last line. I know I would. I'd also have mentioned how much of the athletes clothing had been made in Chinese sweatshops by children. And how when the Chinese invented football they centuries ago they used servant's heads as the ball. In fact, with the slow pace of the race I'd have had well over two and a half hours of broadcast time to fill so by the time the leader was entering the stadium at the end of the race I'd probably had got on to talking about getting salmonella from a dodgy Chinese chippy in Edinburgh a few years ago.
Becuase when we talk about other nations the bad stuff comes first- check out what I said about the Americans and the Aussies earlier on. But when there's an Olympics on, with it's creed of friendly, unifying competition, that's not really good form and it is within this constraint that the BBC have excelled so much these last couple of weeks. They've had to talk about how well organised the Beijing games have been without implying, as I think we all suspect, that all the helpful and efficient staff and volunteers are all facing lifetime imprisonment if they so much as fail to rake the sand properly on the beach volleyball court. You could tell they were jumpy because Usian Bolt's staggering run in the 100m final was never compared to the only other performance in the event that could match it for notability- Jesse Owens in 1936- for fear of drawing comparisons between two black men runing extrememly fast in front of oppressive regimes. Instead, they constantly compared it to Ben Johnson's mad-eyed and wholly drug-assisted dash in 1988 thereby draping suspicion-by-association all over proceedings, much better to cast a feint slur on the athlete than the nice hosts. It's a good job there's no great Tibetan sprinters or they'd really have been buggered for something to say.
The Beeb have decided to get round this problem, and the issues of having approximately a billion sports to cover, by getting in ex-competitors to act as commentators so they'll only bang on about the sports in question rather than dallying in context. Now obviously this sort of thing happens in football all the time but there's little opportunity for ex-rowers/cyclists/runners/swimmers etc to be given a mic and told to explain what's going on so their performances have been breathtaking in their unpredictability but overall notable for their competence and ability to educate an audience that's more than likely up very late at night and utterly baffled by whatever event is on the screen.
Things got a bit desperate today though when, on a quiet day for British medals, the BBC decided to take one of their ex-sporting commentators out of the safety of the booth and unleash them on the Chinese nation in person. This took the form of a swimmer by the name of Steve Parry taking a cutout of gold medal hogging swimmer Michael Phelps into Tinaenmen Square for reasons escaping anyone's understanding. He was soon mobbed by a sizable bunch and immediately came to the conclusion that they'd all decided that he was Phelps and he'd taken the bizarre decision to walk around the middle of Beijing with a cardboard cutout of himself. And change his face so he doesn't look anything like Michael Phelps. And speak in a Scouse accent. This extraordinary leap of logic is, in hindsight, probably preferable to admitting to yourself that you're losing the battle for attention to a big piece of cardboard.
Parry decided after that to try to explain to the assembled crowd that he wasn't Phelps by using the tried and trusted British method of speaking in English but louder and more slowly. Unfortunately this meant that he was now speaking to the crowd in a language they seemes to not understand, apart from two words 'Michael Phelps'. Therefore, to the Chinese locals he now seemed like a man who'd decided to walk around with a cardboard cutout of the most famous sportsman currently on the planet then wait till he's surrounded by a crowd and then say tell them who it was before repeatedly saying the name, increasingly becoming louder and slower. If he'd tried that at the Edinburgh Fringe this month, he's have probably won the Perrier Award. In the end, this bizarre cultural exchange ended in a stalemate as Parry decided he'd never convince the Chinese he wasn't Michael Phelps and the Chinese decided to ignore the crazy white man and just take their photos of the cut-out instead.
Still, at least he didn't ask one of the crowd if where he was stood was where all those students were shot.
Various British competitors who were utterly unknown a fortnight ago have done great things to shake off the perenially irritating 'plucky' prefix to the word 'Brit' but, while all American athletes seem to be whoopin', hollerin' winning machines and all Australian entrants are lank-haired, smug and about as likable as ebola soup-, the Brtish victors have refreshingly been a veritable schmorgasboard (or, to keep this whole piece British themed, a 'buffet') of personalities and demeanours. At one end of the scale there's been Rebecca Adlington, the only person to be described as 'bubbly' without being a tosser and who may be a double Olympic swimming gold medallist but recently claimed to be scared of the sea because she "doesn't do fish". At the opposite end there's Rebecca Romero who quit rowing because it was too soft and switched to cycling- all the while going about her business with the sort of steely-eyed determination that either marks out a great sportsman or a gifted serial killer. She looks like she even goes to the shops for a pint of milk with all the relentless drive of T-1000.
But while these sporting folk have been going about their business and giving some pride back to our sporting nation (admit it, even if you think they're just competing in a bunch of obscure sports a glance at an Olympics medal table that has us ahead of Australia is enough to turn anyone into Richard Littlejohn) the real stars of the show for me have been the BBC and their army of presenters and commentators.
I admit that I was so caught up in all the sport it took me a while before I started paying attention to the people talking all over it. But then I stayed up into the wee small hours of Sunday morning to watch the women's marathon and, while Paula Radcliffe was proving that it's actually pretty tricky to win a 26 mile running race on one leg, I found myself absorbed in Steve Cram and Brendan Foster's equally gutsy performance in the commentary booth.
This, essentially, was the problem they found themselves with. In a marathon not a lot happens for long periods and soon the anecodtes about the athletes various histories and chances dry up. Luckily, these events tend to take place in major cities and so the announcers can instead deal with the dearth in action by acting as tour guide- dispensing little nuggets of information and history regarding wherever the athletes tend to be pounding through at that particular time. Just watch the London marathon one year and you'll end up knowing more about our capital than the average cabbie.
But the Olympic marathon this year provided more than a few problems in this respect as the route twice took lengthy passages through Tianaenmen Square. There you go, you've figured out what the problem was haven't you? If you haven't, here's my approximation of what would have happened had Foster and Cram fallen off the commentary tightrope upon which they found themselves.
Steve Cram: "Paula Radcliffe, not looking too bad but we all know she's had her injury problems this year and, of course we all remember what happend in Athens four years ago".
Brendan Foster: "Indeed we do Steve and let's hope we don't see that again this time".
(Pause)
Cram: "Good news for the athletes that the expected smog hasn't appeared this morning, that's great for these competitors."
Foster: "It really is Steve, and it's not as humid as I think we were expecting it to be either so that's also encouraging for this race"
Cram: "They're still not setting a fast pace though, Brendan, it's very cagey so far so I think the athletes are still playing it safe- no-one looks willing to attack as we near the 10 kilometre mark, the runners now heading into Tianenmen square.
Foster: "And of course this is one of the most famous landmarks in Beijing, an absolutely huge space surrounded by a number of very famous buildings- there's the Mao Zedong's mausoleum as well as the imposing Great Hall of the People and the Monument to the People's Heroes in the centre which was completed in 1958".
(Pause)
Cram: "And of course it's here where all those students got shot isn't it?"
Now I defy anyone to have found themselves in the same position as Cram and Foster and not have uttered something similar to that last line. I know I would. I'd also have mentioned how much of the athletes clothing had been made in Chinese sweatshops by children. And how when the Chinese invented football they centuries ago they used servant's heads as the ball. In fact, with the slow pace of the race I'd have had well over two and a half hours of broadcast time to fill so by the time the leader was entering the stadium at the end of the race I'd probably had got on to talking about getting salmonella from a dodgy Chinese chippy in Edinburgh a few years ago.
Becuase when we talk about other nations the bad stuff comes first- check out what I said about the Americans and the Aussies earlier on. But when there's an Olympics on, with it's creed of friendly, unifying competition, that's not really good form and it is within this constraint that the BBC have excelled so much these last couple of weeks. They've had to talk about how well organised the Beijing games have been without implying, as I think we all suspect, that all the helpful and efficient staff and volunteers are all facing lifetime imprisonment if they so much as fail to rake the sand properly on the beach volleyball court. You could tell they were jumpy because Usian Bolt's staggering run in the 100m final was never compared to the only other performance in the event that could match it for notability- Jesse Owens in 1936- for fear of drawing comparisons between two black men runing extrememly fast in front of oppressive regimes. Instead, they constantly compared it to Ben Johnson's mad-eyed and wholly drug-assisted dash in 1988 thereby draping suspicion-by-association all over proceedings, much better to cast a feint slur on the athlete than the nice hosts. It's a good job there's no great Tibetan sprinters or they'd really have been buggered for something to say.
The Beeb have decided to get round this problem, and the issues of having approximately a billion sports to cover, by getting in ex-competitors to act as commentators so they'll only bang on about the sports in question rather than dallying in context. Now obviously this sort of thing happens in football all the time but there's little opportunity for ex-rowers/cyclists/runners/swimmers etc to be given a mic and told to explain what's going on so their performances have been breathtaking in their unpredictability but overall notable for their competence and ability to educate an audience that's more than likely up very late at night and utterly baffled by whatever event is on the screen.
Things got a bit desperate today though when, on a quiet day for British medals, the BBC decided to take one of their ex-sporting commentators out of the safety of the booth and unleash them on the Chinese nation in person. This took the form of a swimmer by the name of Steve Parry taking a cutout of gold medal hogging swimmer Michael Phelps into Tinaenmen Square for reasons escaping anyone's understanding. He was soon mobbed by a sizable bunch and immediately came to the conclusion that they'd all decided that he was Phelps and he'd taken the bizarre decision to walk around the middle of Beijing with a cardboard cutout of himself. And change his face so he doesn't look anything like Michael Phelps. And speak in a Scouse accent. This extraordinary leap of logic is, in hindsight, probably preferable to admitting to yourself that you're losing the battle for attention to a big piece of cardboard.
Parry decided after that to try to explain to the assembled crowd that he wasn't Phelps by using the tried and trusted British method of speaking in English but louder and more slowly. Unfortunately this meant that he was now speaking to the crowd in a language they seemes to not understand, apart from two words 'Michael Phelps'. Therefore, to the Chinese locals he now seemed like a man who'd decided to walk around with a cardboard cutout of the most famous sportsman currently on the planet then wait till he's surrounded by a crowd and then say tell them who it was before repeatedly saying the name, increasingly becoming louder and slower. If he'd tried that at the Edinburgh Fringe this month, he's have probably won the Perrier Award. In the end, this bizarre cultural exchange ended in a stalemate as Parry decided he'd never convince the Chinese he wasn't Michael Phelps and the Chinese decided to ignore the crazy white man and just take their photos of the cut-out instead.
Still, at least he didn't ask one of the crowd if where he was stood was where all those students were shot.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
I've prattled on about the differences between the sexes on here plenty of times before but tonight I'm all about the ladies. The fairer sex they may be, Mother Earth godessesses and all that nonsense, but it's recently become clear to me that the best thing to put two X chromosones to use at is sport.
Now, before I crack on, I'd like to point out that this isn't just a piece of Olympic bandwagon-jumping as the British women have got off to a flyer while their male compatriots are lucky to have ammassed a total of no medals whatsoever. I've not suddenly decided to eulogise some women just because they've now got medals hanging around their necks- although their successes are relevant to what I'm saying here. Because on Sunday two things happened in British sports- the football season started up again and two British ladies by the names of Becky Adlington and Joanne Jackson came first and third respectively in one of the most joyously mental sporting events I've ever had the pleasure of staying up till 4am to watch. Oh, and I fell in love a bit as well. Those last two are related.
First, to the football. Manchester United and Portsmouth squared off in the traditional season-opening Community Shield on Sunday afternoon- though you'd be forgiving for thinking football was way down the agenda of things for the two clubs to get up to for a couple of hours on a nice, plush pitch in North London. If you read the papers about proceedings it's quite possible to come to the conclusion that both sides turned up, shouted at a man wearing black, argued with each other, possibly stamped on one another a little bit, then went and met some journalists to tell them that the man in black was a tossclown, that they had good reason to spend good energy arguing with the other team and that they actually had/n't stamped all over each other after all. Overall, twenty-two men took to the biggest stage in their sport to so something thousands would do for free but for which they receive millions of pounds a year and gave the impression that they hadn't enjoyed a single fucking second of the whole thing. Something similar will be repeated up and down the country over the next ten months of 'The Greatest League In The World' as bad losers, bad winners and bad no-score-drawers go about their business. They will only be united by three things- one) nothing will be their fault, two) they won't seem to have much fun at all and three) they'll all be men.
Contrast this with the early hours of Monday morning and a swimming pool in Beijing. In it, the women's 400 metre freestyle final was led for 399 metres by Katie Hoff, an American. Tragically for this young lady, the only metre she didn't lead was the last one- that was the entire period of the race in which a teenager from Mansfield was on even terms and then, in the dying inches, a fingernail in front. If you ever get the chance, and if you haven't already, watch the video of Adlington just as she's finished the race. She turns to the giant scoreboard and there's a second, maybe not even half a second, where her face changes- first confusion, then disbelief then sheer, naked happiness. Then she realises her best mate came third and the whole proces starts again. In a few tenths of a second she gets through more emotion than David Tennant is currently managing in three hours of playing Hamlet. If the Russians and Georgians could only get a chance to watch those few frames of footage they'd realise that the world really isn't worth fighting over and they'd all just hug and kiss and decide to get along. I dare say a few members of the opposing sides would gay up and toast this new era of Adlington-inspired peace in their own most private juices.
Anyway, it was one of the most amazing pieces of sport I'd ever witnessed and was easily the greatest swimming race I'd ever seen. And it maintained that lofty position for, ooooh, about 4 minutes. Then the men's 4x100m relay happened in which the USA, from what seemed like a mile behind in the closing stages, overhauled the French squad in a finish that made the gap between Adlington and Hoff seem like a yawning chasm. 0.03 seconds, to be exact. For an illustration, try blinking and the time it takes you to do it will be about 4 times longer than that time. But whereas Adlington and Jackson had celebrated their medals with smiles, hugs and the potential emotional outpouring to create bum-jousting Russian soldiers, the victorious American men stood on the side of the pool and yelled. Long and hard, fists clenched and eyes bulging (I think their eyes were bulging, some of them still had goggles on) they yelled, screamed and shouted at no-one in particular and everyone in attendance. They celebrated for themselves, they congratulated each other but they never, never once, smiled. If there is such a thing as angry joy, this was it in action because there seemed to be very little happiness in evidence. They looked like something horrible had happened and they'd survived- like a spot of ethnic cleansing or a plane crash. If I'd have been stuck in the trenches of World War One and heard about the Armistice, I'd have reacted like they did. If I'd have won a swimming race, I like to think I'd have been chuffed instead.
And if the men of the sporting world make dreadful winners, they're infinitely worse at the character-building (i.e. shit-eating) discipline of losing. Let's go back to that women's race and Katie Hoff who, and there's no need to whitewash this, shagged it up good and proper. She had the ultimate goal in her sporting existence within her grasp and someone else snatched it away. Forever. I could say it was a kick in the teeth, but at least if you do get kicked in the teeth you can get some dentures. Hoff will never be able to trick anyone into thinking she's anything other than the girl who lead for 99.75% of an Olympic final and didn't win. And she knew exactly whose fault it was- hers. She congratualted the Brits, took full responsibility for her failure and left with grace and humility, even though her post-medal-ceremony lap of honour was often spent alone as photogrpahers clammered for the photo of the two British medals.
Hours later, in the exact same pool, a man by the name of Blake Aldridge had, like Hoff, failed to achieve what he was capable of and, rather than accept what had happened, instead pinned the blame fully and squarely on the shoulders of his partner. Who happens to be a 14 year old boy. The event in question was the Men's 10 metre Synchronised Diving final- a discipline which espouses unity, teamwork and harmony. Until, it seems, you get it wrong at which point it's suddenly every man (it's never woman, is it?) for himself. In the event itself, Aldridge and his young partner Tom Daley had been doing well until the tension got to one or both of them on the final dive which went marginally, which at this level is the same as saying 'horribly', wrong and they plummeted down the rankings into last place. The subsequent interviews saw Aldrdige explain that he'd dived well himself, performed well, not been affected by the moment, not tensed up etc, etc, etc. In other words, he was saying it's a team game and his team had fucked up. It wasn't his fault. His partner had committed the sin of being over-awed by the world's biggest sporting event at an age when most members of the same gender were still sat in their bedrooms listening to apalling music and furiously masturbating like a chimp in a safari park. How dare he? Aldridge proved that men in sports can do anything as aprt of a team apart from the toughest thing of all- lose.
And that's exactly the sort of attitude that caused me on Sunday, for the first time ever, to actually realise that the football season had started and become thoroughly depressed. From now till next May the back pages will be dominated by man after man explaining how- despite what the scoreline or anyone with eyes might suggest- they'd been robbed, cheated and swindled by other men who had the sheer gumption to be better than them at something. How they're 'slaves' because they signed a contract to be paid £100,000 a week for kicking a ball about but have now decided they want to kick a ball about somewhere else instead. How they've slowed an incident down to micro-second frames from a million different angles and realised after painstaking analysis that the man who saw it at full speed on one occasion from one viewpoint got it hopelessly, horribly, irredeemably wrong and should be hung, drawn and quartered as a result. How they played well and "deserved to win" despite failing to score in an hour and a half and being stopped from doing so by a goalkeeper who had the temerity to do what he gets paid for.
They will, basically, be complete and utter twats and I can't help but think that it's purely a product of their gender. But please, whatever you do, don't tar me with the same brush as them. I'm not like Premiership footballers, manic American swimmers or bitter British divers. We may be members of the same sex but I couldn't help it. It couldn't possibly be my fault.
Because I'm a man.
Now, before I crack on, I'd like to point out that this isn't just a piece of Olympic bandwagon-jumping as the British women have got off to a flyer while their male compatriots are lucky to have ammassed a total of no medals whatsoever. I've not suddenly decided to eulogise some women just because they've now got medals hanging around their necks- although their successes are relevant to what I'm saying here. Because on Sunday two things happened in British sports- the football season started up again and two British ladies by the names of Becky Adlington and Joanne Jackson came first and third respectively in one of the most joyously mental sporting events I've ever had the pleasure of staying up till 4am to watch. Oh, and I fell in love a bit as well. Those last two are related.
First, to the football. Manchester United and Portsmouth squared off in the traditional season-opening Community Shield on Sunday afternoon- though you'd be forgiving for thinking football was way down the agenda of things for the two clubs to get up to for a couple of hours on a nice, plush pitch in North London. If you read the papers about proceedings it's quite possible to come to the conclusion that both sides turned up, shouted at a man wearing black, argued with each other, possibly stamped on one another a little bit, then went and met some journalists to tell them that the man in black was a tossclown, that they had good reason to spend good energy arguing with the other team and that they actually had/n't stamped all over each other after all. Overall, twenty-two men took to the biggest stage in their sport to so something thousands would do for free but for which they receive millions of pounds a year and gave the impression that they hadn't enjoyed a single fucking second of the whole thing. Something similar will be repeated up and down the country over the next ten months of 'The Greatest League In The World' as bad losers, bad winners and bad no-score-drawers go about their business. They will only be united by three things- one) nothing will be their fault, two) they won't seem to have much fun at all and three) they'll all be men.
Contrast this with the early hours of Monday morning and a swimming pool in Beijing. In it, the women's 400 metre freestyle final was led for 399 metres by Katie Hoff, an American. Tragically for this young lady, the only metre she didn't lead was the last one- that was the entire period of the race in which a teenager from Mansfield was on even terms and then, in the dying inches, a fingernail in front. If you ever get the chance, and if you haven't already, watch the video of Adlington just as she's finished the race. She turns to the giant scoreboard and there's a second, maybe not even half a second, where her face changes- first confusion, then disbelief then sheer, naked happiness. Then she realises her best mate came third and the whole proces starts again. In a few tenths of a second she gets through more emotion than David Tennant is currently managing in three hours of playing Hamlet. If the Russians and Georgians could only get a chance to watch those few frames of footage they'd realise that the world really isn't worth fighting over and they'd all just hug and kiss and decide to get along. I dare say a few members of the opposing sides would gay up and toast this new era of Adlington-inspired peace in their own most private juices.
Anyway, it was one of the most amazing pieces of sport I'd ever witnessed and was easily the greatest swimming race I'd ever seen. And it maintained that lofty position for, ooooh, about 4 minutes. Then the men's 4x100m relay happened in which the USA, from what seemed like a mile behind in the closing stages, overhauled the French squad in a finish that made the gap between Adlington and Hoff seem like a yawning chasm. 0.03 seconds, to be exact. For an illustration, try blinking and the time it takes you to do it will be about 4 times longer than that time. But whereas Adlington and Jackson had celebrated their medals with smiles, hugs and the potential emotional outpouring to create bum-jousting Russian soldiers, the victorious American men stood on the side of the pool and yelled. Long and hard, fists clenched and eyes bulging (I think their eyes were bulging, some of them still had goggles on) they yelled, screamed and shouted at no-one in particular and everyone in attendance. They celebrated for themselves, they congratulated each other but they never, never once, smiled. If there is such a thing as angry joy, this was it in action because there seemed to be very little happiness in evidence. They looked like something horrible had happened and they'd survived- like a spot of ethnic cleansing or a plane crash. If I'd have been stuck in the trenches of World War One and heard about the Armistice, I'd have reacted like they did. If I'd have won a swimming race, I like to think I'd have been chuffed instead.
And if the men of the sporting world make dreadful winners, they're infinitely worse at the character-building (i.e. shit-eating) discipline of losing. Let's go back to that women's race and Katie Hoff who, and there's no need to whitewash this, shagged it up good and proper. She had the ultimate goal in her sporting existence within her grasp and someone else snatched it away. Forever. I could say it was a kick in the teeth, but at least if you do get kicked in the teeth you can get some dentures. Hoff will never be able to trick anyone into thinking she's anything other than the girl who lead for 99.75% of an Olympic final and didn't win. And she knew exactly whose fault it was- hers. She congratualted the Brits, took full responsibility for her failure and left with grace and humility, even though her post-medal-ceremony lap of honour was often spent alone as photogrpahers clammered for the photo of the two British medals.
Hours later, in the exact same pool, a man by the name of Blake Aldridge had, like Hoff, failed to achieve what he was capable of and, rather than accept what had happened, instead pinned the blame fully and squarely on the shoulders of his partner. Who happens to be a 14 year old boy. The event in question was the Men's 10 metre Synchronised Diving final- a discipline which espouses unity, teamwork and harmony. Until, it seems, you get it wrong at which point it's suddenly every man (it's never woman, is it?) for himself. In the event itself, Aldridge and his young partner Tom Daley had been doing well until the tension got to one or both of them on the final dive which went marginally, which at this level is the same as saying 'horribly', wrong and they plummeted down the rankings into last place. The subsequent interviews saw Aldrdige explain that he'd dived well himself, performed well, not been affected by the moment, not tensed up etc, etc, etc. In other words, he was saying it's a team game and his team had fucked up. It wasn't his fault. His partner had committed the sin of being over-awed by the world's biggest sporting event at an age when most members of the same gender were still sat in their bedrooms listening to apalling music and furiously masturbating like a chimp in a safari park. How dare he? Aldridge proved that men in sports can do anything as aprt of a team apart from the toughest thing of all- lose.
And that's exactly the sort of attitude that caused me on Sunday, for the first time ever, to actually realise that the football season had started and become thoroughly depressed. From now till next May the back pages will be dominated by man after man explaining how- despite what the scoreline or anyone with eyes might suggest- they'd been robbed, cheated and swindled by other men who had the sheer gumption to be better than them at something. How they're 'slaves' because they signed a contract to be paid £100,000 a week for kicking a ball about but have now decided they want to kick a ball about somewhere else instead. How they've slowed an incident down to micro-second frames from a million different angles and realised after painstaking analysis that the man who saw it at full speed on one occasion from one viewpoint got it hopelessly, horribly, irredeemably wrong and should be hung, drawn and quartered as a result. How they played well and "deserved to win" despite failing to score in an hour and a half and being stopped from doing so by a goalkeeper who had the temerity to do what he gets paid for.
They will, basically, be complete and utter twats and I can't help but think that it's purely a product of their gender. But please, whatever you do, don't tar me with the same brush as them. I'm not like Premiership footballers, manic American swimmers or bitter British divers. We may be members of the same sex but I couldn't help it. It couldn't possibly be my fault.
Because I'm a man.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Fuck Tibet. There, I said it. In all honesty, I don't know anywhere near enough about the ins and outs of Tibetan/Chinese relationships stretching back hundreds of years to comment intelligently on the issue (I pride myself on such restraint in this age of ill-informed, knee-jerk, flock-following, reactionary, black-hats-and-white-hats stances and opinions) but what I do know if that if there's one country you don't want to piss off, and one time you don't want to do it- it's China and it's right now. Which makes the recent protest by some people who unfurled a huge flag in Beijing saying 'Free Tibet' utterly stupid on two counts- not only have they riled the local Government they also, as my friend Shaggy pointed out, tried to make a point to China by writing their sign in English when Madarin may well have been a bit more useful.
On Friday, the Olympic Games will start in Beijing with an utterly baffling all-singing, all-dancing, lights show of an opening ceremony at precisely 8pm local time on the date 08/08/08. Handily for China, 8 is seen as a lucky number in that part of the world (though you knew that already, you've seen the HSBC advert) which is all well and good as everyone involved is hoping that the whole shebang and the subsequent 3 weeks of sports goes off smoothly in front of the prying eyes of a curious planet.
As ever the Olympics promises to be, despite what FIFA might claim about the perpetually disappointing World Cup, the Greatest Show on Earth. Entire lifetimes of training and preperation will come to nothing or everything dependent on a tenth of a second; people will do some things better than anyone has ever done those things in the whole history of human achievement; some competitors will just turn up, do their best, be noticed by hardly anyone and go home again. Also, and it's really worth putting a bet on this if you ask me, an American swimmer by the name of Michael Phelps may well earn more gold medals than the whole of Great Britain.
Understandably, the Chinese authorities are a little tetchy at the moment about everything going to plan and, lest we forget, this is a regime somewhat unused to being challenged and not renowned for meeting it's opponents halfway. This, of course, hasn't stopped thousands of people all over the world deciding that the Olympics in Beijing is a good time to highlight a few issues that they have with the world's most populous nation. Mostly this has revolved around the Chinese occupation of Tibet which has meant the little nation suddenly becomeing one of the most (in)famous on Earth rather than just the place where Christian Bale went to in order to become Batman.
Now, as I said before, I don't know enough about Tibet and China's past to really make my mind up (I know what people who want China out of Tibet say about it, but frankly they're the sort of people who are always biased against superpowers so for all I know Tibetans could be a right bunch of bastards whose national dish is Care Bears on toast) but I've really begun to hate the protestors who've doggedly tried to make a nuisance of themselves towards the Chinese at every turn over recent months. This isn't an easy stance for me to take as it makes me feel utterly ashamed for even thinking it- after all these are people who stand up for something they believe in and stand to make little personal gain other than the satisfaction of knowing they've tried to help the plight of a little nation on the other side of the planet. In this day and age, anyone who believes stuanchly in anything other than who their favourite X-Factor contestant is should be roundly applauded, and I genuinely want to be the person clapping them loudest of all.
But I can't, not in this case. Because one of their number did something utterly aggregious, immoral and repellant. Whatever anyone might think of China and Tibet, nothing can excuse what this person, this wretch, this utter, utter shit did. because one of the protestors attacked Konnie Huq. She was carrying the Olympic torch through London on it's worldwide relay from Greece to China when, as I'm sure you saw, a protestor tried to grab it from her hand to disrupt proceedings and instantly cause China to withdraw all froces from Tibetan soil immediately. Either that or he was desperate to light a fag. (Incidentally, the furore surrounding the torch relay has led the London Olympic committee to decree that there will be no relay in 2012- probably terrified that the torch will be constantly attacked by agreived Northern Rock customers).
I'm all for making a point in the name of world peace and unity but there really is no need to make it by assaulting the delightful Ms. Huq. Especially as she has the potential to bring an end to all conflict throughout the world, much like Wyld Stallyns did at the end of 'Bill and Ted's Bogus Jounrey'. She is eminently fanciable in a way that all men and lesbians can appreciate irrespetive of her skin colour or ethnic origin, a potentially vital tool in destroying the spread of always-male-dominated far-right doctrine. Women, meanwhile, who are becoming alienated and frustrated by airbrushed icons of female perfection dominating the world can take solace in the fact that here is an undeniably beautiful woman who actually, on closer reflection, has weird eyes and a mouth that could charitably be described as 'wonky'. A strike against Konnie Huq is a strike in the face of the forces of peace and togetherness.
Manhandling ethnic sexboats aside, many protestors against China's place in Tibet have denounced the Olympics for deciding to host their quad-annual shindig in the country and pleaded with competitors not to attend in order to make a point about the situation. This idea is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and I've heard a Keith Richards solo album. How dare anyone suggest that sport should be an arbiter of world affairs? Can people who happens to be blessed with the God given ability to run, jump, throw, swim, cycle or such better than almost anyone else and then put in the punishing hours to hone their talent to perfection be asked to give up their dreams in order to make a point that, and this is just my opinion, could be better debated and settled by the people who we all fucking well elected to do it?
Why don't we just leave them to get on with the business of sport, with it's refreshing mix of acute drama and utter lack of consequence, and leave the politicians of the world to face the protests about how the planet is run? Though, to be fair, if they were actually any good (or, indeed, interested) in creating hope and unity across the globe, maybe the Olympics wouldn't get dragged down and sullied by a situtation of their making in the first place. It looks like there might only be one thing left for us to do.
The campaign 'Konnie Huq for World President' starts here.
On Friday, the Olympic Games will start in Beijing with an utterly baffling all-singing, all-dancing, lights show of an opening ceremony at precisely 8pm local time on the date 08/08/08. Handily for China, 8 is seen as a lucky number in that part of the world (though you knew that already, you've seen the HSBC advert) which is all well and good as everyone involved is hoping that the whole shebang and the subsequent 3 weeks of sports goes off smoothly in front of the prying eyes of a curious planet.
As ever the Olympics promises to be, despite what FIFA might claim about the perpetually disappointing World Cup, the Greatest Show on Earth. Entire lifetimes of training and preperation will come to nothing or everything dependent on a tenth of a second; people will do some things better than anyone has ever done those things in the whole history of human achievement; some competitors will just turn up, do their best, be noticed by hardly anyone and go home again. Also, and it's really worth putting a bet on this if you ask me, an American swimmer by the name of Michael Phelps may well earn more gold medals than the whole of Great Britain.
Understandably, the Chinese authorities are a little tetchy at the moment about everything going to plan and, lest we forget, this is a regime somewhat unused to being challenged and not renowned for meeting it's opponents halfway. This, of course, hasn't stopped thousands of people all over the world deciding that the Olympics in Beijing is a good time to highlight a few issues that they have with the world's most populous nation. Mostly this has revolved around the Chinese occupation of Tibet which has meant the little nation suddenly becomeing one of the most (in)famous on Earth rather than just the place where Christian Bale went to in order to become Batman.
Now, as I said before, I don't know enough about Tibet and China's past to really make my mind up (I know what people who want China out of Tibet say about it, but frankly they're the sort of people who are always biased against superpowers so for all I know Tibetans could be a right bunch of bastards whose national dish is Care Bears on toast) but I've really begun to hate the protestors who've doggedly tried to make a nuisance of themselves towards the Chinese at every turn over recent months. This isn't an easy stance for me to take as it makes me feel utterly ashamed for even thinking it- after all these are people who stand up for something they believe in and stand to make little personal gain other than the satisfaction of knowing they've tried to help the plight of a little nation on the other side of the planet. In this day and age, anyone who believes stuanchly in anything other than who their favourite X-Factor contestant is should be roundly applauded, and I genuinely want to be the person clapping them loudest of all.
But I can't, not in this case. Because one of their number did something utterly aggregious, immoral and repellant. Whatever anyone might think of China and Tibet, nothing can excuse what this person, this wretch, this utter, utter shit did. because one of the protestors attacked Konnie Huq. She was carrying the Olympic torch through London on it's worldwide relay from Greece to China when, as I'm sure you saw, a protestor tried to grab it from her hand to disrupt proceedings and instantly cause China to withdraw all froces from Tibetan soil immediately. Either that or he was desperate to light a fag. (Incidentally, the furore surrounding the torch relay has led the London Olympic committee to decree that there will be no relay in 2012- probably terrified that the torch will be constantly attacked by agreived Northern Rock customers).
I'm all for making a point in the name of world peace and unity but there really is no need to make it by assaulting the delightful Ms. Huq. Especially as she has the potential to bring an end to all conflict throughout the world, much like Wyld Stallyns did at the end of 'Bill and Ted's Bogus Jounrey'. She is eminently fanciable in a way that all men and lesbians can appreciate irrespetive of her skin colour or ethnic origin, a potentially vital tool in destroying the spread of always-male-dominated far-right doctrine. Women, meanwhile, who are becoming alienated and frustrated by airbrushed icons of female perfection dominating the world can take solace in the fact that here is an undeniably beautiful woman who actually, on closer reflection, has weird eyes and a mouth that could charitably be described as 'wonky'. A strike against Konnie Huq is a strike in the face of the forces of peace and togetherness.
Manhandling ethnic sexboats aside, many protestors against China's place in Tibet have denounced the Olympics for deciding to host their quad-annual shindig in the country and pleaded with competitors not to attend in order to make a point about the situation. This idea is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and I've heard a Keith Richards solo album. How dare anyone suggest that sport should be an arbiter of world affairs? Can people who happens to be blessed with the God given ability to run, jump, throw, swim, cycle or such better than almost anyone else and then put in the punishing hours to hone their talent to perfection be asked to give up their dreams in order to make a point that, and this is just my opinion, could be better debated and settled by the people who we all fucking well elected to do it?
Why don't we just leave them to get on with the business of sport, with it's refreshing mix of acute drama and utter lack of consequence, and leave the politicians of the world to face the protests about how the planet is run? Though, to be fair, if they were actually any good (or, indeed, interested) in creating hope and unity across the globe, maybe the Olympics wouldn't get dragged down and sullied by a situtation of their making in the first place. It looks like there might only be one thing left for us to do.
The campaign 'Konnie Huq for World President' starts here.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
You blew it. All of you. You did. And you. And you. You as well. Not to mention you. Especially you. I gave you a chance and you shagged it up with all the grace of a ski-jumping cow. I hope you're happy.
It seems that practically ever interaction I've had with another human being over the past few weeks has been a shamefully tragi-comic episode of bum-witted incompetence and weapons grade ignorance. My faith in humanity as nature's last word, which was always shaky at best, has now been utterly wiped from the face of the Earth. I now hold you all in the same regard that a whale has for krill.
For example, I've had a front row seat for my girlfriend's recent battle to get her insurance company to pay-out for her car that got written off in a crash on the M6. In this situation, as I'm sure most of you know, the insurers- who you have to dilligently pay money to every month becuase a) you want to guarantee that you always have a mode of transport and b) it's the law- decide on the value of the car, give you the money for it, then you go and buy yourself a nice new motor. It's a bit like the Cosa Nostra, only enshrined in an Act of Parliament and with nicer letterheads.
Well to cut a long story short, the last two months has seen Amy's insurers not only get the value of the car spectacularly wrong when making their first three offers- which is kind of par for the course as they have an engrained policy of trying to rip you off- but they also managed to accidentally steal her car from the accident recovery firm before losing all the contents of said vehicle apart from an ice scraper in the shape of a penguin, and then in a magnificent coup-de-grace of maverick idiocy they failed to successfully send a single letter to our flat in five attempts but instead removed the stereo from the car and posted that to Amy instead. At the end of the bemused phone call Amy made in order to ask why she was now in receipt of the car stereo but no official paperwork she was asked if she was interested in any of the company's personal finance deals- as if the credit crunch would be aided by having loans doled by the sort of people who can't tell the difference between pieces of paper and a CD player. This made us mad.
The insurance company in question is AA Insurance and I can state that you should avoid them like a plague chutney. They are staffed exclusively by cock-wits. I can confidently say that because, on past form, if they try to sue me, the whole process will stretch out for aeons and eventually all I'll end up with is no legal documentation whatsoever and a new radio for my Saxo in the post.
While all this was taking place, I was busy relaising that Blackburn College have failed to pay me for any of the work I did for them since my PGCE course finished and have in fact failed to keep any record of my existence within the institution. Luckily, they have professionally responded to my requests to know what is going on by blaming each other. calling me a fantasist and a liar and then studiously ignoring my e-mails and phone calls. While the fuckwit who caused this mess is probably on their summer holidays somewhere, luxuriating on golden sands with paddling pool sized cocktails while chatting up Amazonian locals of Olympian sexual prowess, I as the innocent party am out cash and accruing bank charges left right and centre. This makes me mad.
The fucker in question works for Blackburn College's Payroll Department, which is populated entirely by chuff-flaps of the highest order. I can confidently say that because, if they try to sue me, the worst that'll happen is that they'll forget entirely to send the writ out in the post, then tell me I never said these things in the first place and then claim I don't even exist.
To get away from all this trouble with colleges and insurers, Amy's parents kindly took the two of us to York for a weekend- whereupon we discovered a beautiful city over-run with tourists getting completely lost (hint: there's TWO rivers running through the city), bar staff who couldn't remember orders greater than 2 drinks, a night porter who didn't tkae breakfast orders off the fill-in-your-own hanging door-signs because he was asleep and 17 year-old 'actors' who deliver their performances as various gruesome characters from York's history with all the jaded, listless emotional intensity of two Koala bears having a can't-be-fucking-arsed contest. This made me mad.
I came to the conclusion that every last person in the city of York is an incompetent yokel of no confirmed ability. I can confidently say that because, if they try to sue me, they'll probably lose their way to their solicitors, only be able to remember two of things I accused the people of their city had done, then fall asleep in the meeting before finding themselves completely un-arsed to turn up to court.
Amy's parents gave us a lift home from York to their house where I'd parked my car at the start of the weekend. I was seething for the enitre journey- my eyes burning with pure white hatred for the sheer shitness of my fellow man (and woman). The people I'd encountered over the previous couple of months had skewed my outlook so much I genuinely believed that every single person on the planet apart from me was a diamond-strength fuck-clump for whom getting out of bed without serious injury was an achievement on par with building the Pyramids. You're all idiots, I thought.
Then I realised I'd lost my car keys.
It seems that practically ever interaction I've had with another human being over the past few weeks has been a shamefully tragi-comic episode of bum-witted incompetence and weapons grade ignorance. My faith in humanity as nature's last word, which was always shaky at best, has now been utterly wiped from the face of the Earth. I now hold you all in the same regard that a whale has for krill.
For example, I've had a front row seat for my girlfriend's recent battle to get her insurance company to pay-out for her car that got written off in a crash on the M6. In this situation, as I'm sure most of you know, the insurers- who you have to dilligently pay money to every month becuase a) you want to guarantee that you always have a mode of transport and b) it's the law- decide on the value of the car, give you the money for it, then you go and buy yourself a nice new motor. It's a bit like the Cosa Nostra, only enshrined in an Act of Parliament and with nicer letterheads.
Well to cut a long story short, the last two months has seen Amy's insurers not only get the value of the car spectacularly wrong when making their first three offers- which is kind of par for the course as they have an engrained policy of trying to rip you off- but they also managed to accidentally steal her car from the accident recovery firm before losing all the contents of said vehicle apart from an ice scraper in the shape of a penguin, and then in a magnificent coup-de-grace of maverick idiocy they failed to successfully send a single letter to our flat in five attempts but instead removed the stereo from the car and posted that to Amy instead. At the end of the bemused phone call Amy made in order to ask why she was now in receipt of the car stereo but no official paperwork she was asked if she was interested in any of the company's personal finance deals- as if the credit crunch would be aided by having loans doled by the sort of people who can't tell the difference between pieces of paper and a CD player. This made us mad.
The insurance company in question is AA Insurance and I can state that you should avoid them like a plague chutney. They are staffed exclusively by cock-wits. I can confidently say that because, on past form, if they try to sue me, the whole process will stretch out for aeons and eventually all I'll end up with is no legal documentation whatsoever and a new radio for my Saxo in the post.
While all this was taking place, I was busy relaising that Blackburn College have failed to pay me for any of the work I did for them since my PGCE course finished and have in fact failed to keep any record of my existence within the institution. Luckily, they have professionally responded to my requests to know what is going on by blaming each other. calling me a fantasist and a liar and then studiously ignoring my e-mails and phone calls. While the fuckwit who caused this mess is probably on their summer holidays somewhere, luxuriating on golden sands with paddling pool sized cocktails while chatting up Amazonian locals of Olympian sexual prowess, I as the innocent party am out cash and accruing bank charges left right and centre. This makes me mad.
The fucker in question works for Blackburn College's Payroll Department, which is populated entirely by chuff-flaps of the highest order. I can confidently say that because, if they try to sue me, the worst that'll happen is that they'll forget entirely to send the writ out in the post, then tell me I never said these things in the first place and then claim I don't even exist.
To get away from all this trouble with colleges and insurers, Amy's parents kindly took the two of us to York for a weekend- whereupon we discovered a beautiful city over-run with tourists getting completely lost (hint: there's TWO rivers running through the city), bar staff who couldn't remember orders greater than 2 drinks, a night porter who didn't tkae breakfast orders off the fill-in-your-own hanging door-signs because he was asleep and 17 year-old 'actors' who deliver their performances as various gruesome characters from York's history with all the jaded, listless emotional intensity of two Koala bears having a can't-be-fucking-arsed contest. This made me mad.
I came to the conclusion that every last person in the city of York is an incompetent yokel of no confirmed ability. I can confidently say that because, if they try to sue me, they'll probably lose their way to their solicitors, only be able to remember two of things I accused the people of their city had done, then fall asleep in the meeting before finding themselves completely un-arsed to turn up to court.
Amy's parents gave us a lift home from York to their house where I'd parked my car at the start of the weekend. I was seething for the enitre journey- my eyes burning with pure white hatred for the sheer shitness of my fellow man (and woman). The people I'd encountered over the previous couple of months had skewed my outlook so much I genuinely believed that every single person on the planet apart from me was a diamond-strength fuck-clump for whom getting out of bed without serious injury was an achievement on par with building the Pyramids. You're all idiots, I thought.
Then I realised I'd lost my car keys.
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