It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that this Summer (should it arrive) is going to be a little different to the norm. It’s not every year that either a Monarch reaches a Diamond Jubilee, or a country stages the Olympic Games, but in 2012 little old Blighty is going to experience both!
Assuming no last minute teething problems with ticket allocation my good lady and I will be attending a couple of events at the 2012 Olympic Games (I knew those compromising photographs of Seb Coe would come in handy one day!) However, even owning the said photographs, I have only managed to secure tickets for hockey and table tennis – decidedly the “shallow end” when it comes to Olympic glamour! But at least it’s not Greco-Roman Wrestling, Cloud-Watching, Marbles or one of the dozens of made up sports that seem to infest the event these days.
My only knowledge of hockey is remembering the name Sean Kerly from a quarter of a century ago, and my familiarity of table tennis starts and ends with Boris Johnson re-christening the sport as “Wiff-Waff!” in his usual, bumblingly embarrassing way.
No tickets for the likes of me in the new athletics stadium itself of course. I’m sure all the 100metre final tickets have safely found their way to the various deserving individuals and national associations who may or may not use tanks on their city streets to keep the peace. Just how many crazed despots can we fit into the Olympic stadium I wonder? I guess we’ll find out in August!
We’ve had the preamble of course, of the Olympic flame being manhandled through our rain-drenched streets, for the “once in a lifetime” opportunity to see a local worthy being bullied by grey-clad minders as they hold aloft a huge golden horn, spluttering flames.
Or, as in my case, a “twice in a lifetime” opportunity as, once the procession had cleared Kettering the missus and I cycled to nearby, far more picturesque Geddington to see it arrive again. Sad? Mmm... Perhaps...
Whilst I am hopeful that my forthcoming Olympic adventure will prove to be enjoyably memorable, my record with previous Summer events suggests I should show a degree of caution.
Over the years I have attended a number of Summer events with my better half, and invariably the day has turned around and bitten me on the rear end. For example, back in 1999 we attended a day’s cricket between England and New Zealand at Old Trafford. Don’t worry, it didn’t rain, but we all rather wished it had. The England team were going through one of their, “Let’s see if we can be the worst team in the World” phases, and were being given a bit of a pasting by the Kiwis. And remember, this was back when New Zealand were poncy, international whipping boys, before “The Lord of the Rings” came out and all things NZ suddenly seemed threatening and/or glamorous!
The day we were at the Test Match became infamous for featuring the longest duck in Test Match history! Peter Such, charitably known as a barely moderate Essex spin bowler managed to graft, with his barely used bat, the longest, dullest zero in the two hundred odd years of Test Cricket. Seventy two numbing minutes of tedium. He faced 51 deliveries without managing to trouble the scorers. He couldn’t even accidentally edge one away through the gulley for a single like any other tail-end batsman in the world could have done! I believe his efforts that day are still a record – perhaps you want to look it up?
As Such’s innings ground on and on I was seriously losing the will to live. My good lady wasn’t as bothered, as Such’s batting partner was the snake-hipped star of Strictly Come Dancing, Mark Ramprakash, and she managed to salvage something from the day from enjoying the solidly muscled movements of his taut buttocks through her binoculars.
A few years later and we attended a day’s athletic events at the Commonwealth games hosted in the same city. It was a pretty tedious morning session where, as far as I could make out, the events being staged were the egg and spoon and the three-legged race. As our session finished we filed out of the stadium and into the most incredible cloudburst I have ever experienced. We all know that Manchester enjoys a reputation for being “a little damp”, but I swear you could practically drown just by standing upright on the city streets that day. It was a thunderously stormy day. The sky was so dark and rainy, that on our squelchy drive home street lights were coming on at two o’clock in the afternoon.
A few years later still, we attended another highlight of the British summer season and spent a day at Wimbledon. We ran through the usual clichés of strawberries, Pimms and watching a Brit meekly succumb at the Semi final stage. In this case the Brit was Andy Murray and for a short time we watched his semi final defeat at the hands of Andy Roddick from the last tiny edge of a corner of “Henman Hill”. A hill that, according to my Missus, will always remain “Henman Hill” rather than “Murray Mound”, or anything similar....
Once Murray had lost the first set everyone knew that it wasn’t going to be his day. Roddick had an “Eye of the Tiger” vibe going on, and it was clear early on that Murray was going to be on the receiving end. After the first set we morosely abandoned our tiny perch on the edge of the hill and went to watch a ladies doubles game on Court 1. In a horribly one-sided semi-final the Williams sisters wiped the floor with supposed No.1 seeds Cara Black and Leizel Huber. Honestly, any of us watching would have given the Williams’s more of a game than this pair did. Even Peter Such might have done better, but maybe not.....
With regard to the Jubilee I have far fonder memories. For the Silver Jubilee celebrations all the kids in our area were thrown a party and we played lots of party games, and I seem to recall winning all of them! This may have something to do with the fact that at 11 year of age I must have been at least 4 years older than the next oldest child at the event. It wasn’t my fault! I was just bigger and stronger than everyone else! And I liked winning stuff. So there!
The Golden Jubilee kind of passed me by. My only memory is seeing Brian May on top of Buckingham Palace, looking for all the world like a guitar wielding member of “Fathers 4 Justice” as he clung grimly to the building with his toes whilst thrashing our power chords with his fingers.
But at least it was dry for Her majesty’s 50th, unlike the recent Diamond Jubilee, which, in an effort to add a positive spin might have been said to be better for ducks than it was for Prince Phillip, or the tatters of Paul McCartney’s musical credibility.