Daily Archives: December 15, 2009

Sons (and Daughters) of the Desert

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Morning Has Broken, Like my Right Ankle. Pic: Andy Preston

Those of you who have seen and loved (and I am assuming that’s all of you) Ice Cold in Alex, the epic, almost perfect 1958 British war movie, will remember the scene half way through where John Mills (as a brave British Alcoholic), Anthony Quayle (as a dirty nazi spy) Harry Andrews (salt of the earth sergeant) and Sylvia Syms (a stunning example of British womanhood) have to winch an ambulance up a hundred foot sand dune to escape from Gerry.

The scene takes ages, full of sweat, pain, close-up shots of vexed faces and bulging biceps, and then Sylvia buggers it all up by letting go of the crank handle, allowing the truck to roll all the way back down the hill. Silly cow. So they have to start all over again.

On the other hand, you may be more familiar with The Hill, Sidney Lumet’s classic 1965 flick about a British Military prison in North Africa during World War II. In the movie, Harry Andrews (he was in all of ‘em) shouts a lot at Sean Connery and Roy Kinnear and has them running, climbing and crawling up and down a dirty great mound of sand (‘The Hill’ of the title) as part of their punishment. It’s grueling stuff. Sean won’t let the buggers get the better of him, but poor old Roy’s only got little legs. Hot n sweaty stuff again. If you’ve not seen it go get it out (or illegally download it, as I hear you young kids are prone to do nowadays). It’s great stuff.

I only mention this because this time about a week ago, I was merrily drinking my own bodyweight in duty free booze when someone had a brilliant idea:
We were sat in a camp in the Omani desert, having arrived far too late to sit on top of a dune and watch the ‘spectacular sunset’, as it says in all the guide books. “We’ll sod that, then” piped up someone, who may or may not have been me, “Let’s get up, sparrows, and climb up top and watch the sunRISE!”. Hurrah said a few of the gathered pissheads, and we set about drinking ourselves into an oblivion that only British tourists go to when they are in a “dry” country.

The party finished (I am told) when the booze ran out. By a later count it would seem we’d averaged about a litre of something each (I’m sure someone else must have had my share). Anyway, apparently I nodded off because I was woken by the incumbent who announced we were off up the dune. It was about five in the morning. I’d been on it for around ten hours, followed by seventeen minutes sleep. I rose and wobbled off into the darkness. Like Saladin, T.E.Lawrence and Michael Palin before us, I and a few close, pissed friends strode out, with only the moonlight to guide us. Saladin, I’m guessing, was teetotal, Lawrence had the help of the Bedouins, Palin a BBC lighting and camera crew. I’d enlisted the help of a bottle of Tanqueray gin and a couple of Nurofen. My fellow trekkers had done similar but also had this fat pissed old bloke to look after. And not a Harry Andrews in sight.

The dark, intimidating dune loomed ominously in front of us. It was huge, A hundred feet, maybe 150. (I say this NOW, but I honestly have very little memory of any of this, most of it is first and second-hand testimony from people who were considerably less pissed than I was). I can remember the first twenty yards-or-so not being too bad. Perhaps I wasn’t so drunk after all? Perhaps all that pre-tour training had finally paid off? No, hang on: I was very pissed and I hadn’t done any training. I was just numb and stubborn.

The Incumbent and I stop for a breather

The next section was another story. Softer sand, steeper climb, I was beginning to sober up rapidly. Several of those above me made the unmistakable sounds of fit people having fun. They laughed, they gasped, they talked about stuff OTHER than how much pain they were in. I made no such polite chitchat. I was pleading with my legs to keep pumping, and for the Incumbent to give me a piggyback. She politely refused and suggested we stop to catch our breath. Too late for me. I’d left my breath back at camp during a recital of Status Quo’s finest at the party earlier that night. However, we dug in half way to the summit to rest.

It was steep, and damp, but the sand was cool and soft. I could have stayed there forever, or until after I stopped hurting- whichever came sooner. The incumbent took off her flip-flops which she’d nearly lost several times on the way up, I thought about writing a will. But for reasons beyond me we were soon on our feet/knees and heading slowly for the top. Our friends had already disappeared from view, and were presumably readying themselves for the great spectacle to come. I didn’t want to miss it, having come so far. So gasping, coughing and swearing at myself (well, it saved anyone else doing it) I gradually emerged over the brow of the hill to see such a wondrous sight: my mates sitting on top of ANOTHER dune 40 yards away. After a brief pause for a word with my sponsor, we made our way over to the other peak and collapsed. Some took photos, some looked for their flip-flops, some merely closed their eyes and wept at the pain and the heat that their quadriceps and lungs were emitting.

And there we sat, like that bunch of old gits in Close Encounters, waiting for something to come over the hill. We didn’t have to wait long. Five or six minutes later a beautiful, perfect yellow sun came up over the horizon and shed it’s pale golden hue on all around. It gave us a warm glow to know we, out of all others left down below, had made the effort to come up top and witness this sight. It gave me a warm feeling in my heart, though that could have been from the gin and a dodgy prawn earlier.

Like Hillary and Tenzing, just a little more dignified. Pic: Andy Preston

But we’d done it, without the aid of 4×4, guide or even Harry Andrews. We stood there and gawped for minutes.

Then we went back down the hill for brekkie.

Days later by a hotel swimming pool I suddenly sat bolt upright and remembered what a prat I’d been to attempt such a thing in such a state. I could have killed myself and been left up there on the desolate peak, like a discarded flop-flop. Such was my distress that I had to order another gin. “Better make it a large one, I’ve got to play cricket tomorrow.”

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Winter Rules Apply

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What a great couple of weeks to be a dentist. Firstly the Incumbent Mrs Woods decides to launch Tiger’s Iphone at her hubby’s choppers and Tiger gets a hole in one. It went straight down the middle, as Bing used to sing. The toothless Tiger will presumably be on Medicare and is, as we speak, sitting in a smelly waiting room along with six miserable kids and their scoulding mothers, , patiently waiting for the injection to kick in. I guess he’ll be pouring over copies of Punch and Readers Digest while listening to ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton on the dentist’s radio. Well, that’s what used to happen if I visited my dentist (called, I kid you not, Mr Nash!). Friends will know it didn’t happen that often.

Not to be outdone by this precision assault on the molars, a man described as having ‘mental problems’ hurls a small metal paperweight in the shape of Milan Cathedral in the general direction Snr Berlusconi, breaking two of Il Duce’s incisors. Must have been a bit of a blow to Silvio, as he’d only just finish paying for them. He now has the choice of affording a new set of pearly-whites, or a ten minute knee-trembler with that naughty from Naples.

It’s a pity Berlo’s assailant appears to be a nutter, cos my opinion of the Italian people would have sky-rocketed had it turned out that the Cathedral Chucker was none other than, say, the head of the Civil Service, or Cardinal Fang or a manager at the local Benetton. You really want him to be completely sane and an upstanding member of society cos when loonies start throwing shit around the powers at be dismiss it as nothing more than the act of a lone fruitcake, though this is hardly Oswald and Dealey Plaza, is it? I would imagine when he gets released from the straight jacket he’ll never have to by a limoncello again.

No such Bonkeroonyness about Mrs T. One quick scan of her dear Eldrick’s text messages and it became obvious to her that the old man had gone off course and was currently shooting 11 over-par (on the inward nine anway). Tiger was clearly better with hands than his Gillette chum Thierry was, and had been using them, along with other parts of his body, to great effect.

So Elin did what any woman scorned would have done in the circumstances-, and given the apparent absence of testicle-cutters and a twelve-bore: After the mobile-in-the-gob incident, she asked her caddy for a seven iron and went looking for a couple of balls to thwack about. Tiger drives out-of-bounds and ends up in the long grass. Ian Woosnam was once punished for having too many clubs in the bag. Tiger has been done for having too many bags in a club.

What was he thinking of? At least Silvios many hookers and tarts had the appeal of being 40 years younger than he. But Tigers mob?? Have you seen them?? Soiled old tabbies, many looking like Steve Williams in a frock… Wait a minute !!!!!.

On the Button

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More great words of wisdom from Giles Smith, The Times. December 15, 2009

Jenson Button undone as victory and viewers desert him

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards at the Sheffield Arena
Giles Smith: sport on television

Poor old Jenson Button. There he was, on his final lap, seemingly coasting towards the chequered flag that would signal the first BBC Sports Personality of the Year victory of his racing career, only for a startled-looking Ryan Giggs to appear in his wing mirror, pull out of the slipstream and somehow scream across the line ahead of him.

So close to glory, then, for the Formula One world champion — and yet so far. And we all know how it plays, personality-wise: nobody remembers who came second.

Here’s the good news, though: almost no one was watching. Only 4.7 million tuned in for the BBC’s sports review, down from 10 million in 2008, the audience laid waste by the final agonies of The X Factor, which peaked at a near Morecambe & Wise-esque 19.1 million viewers.

Surely the old philosophical conundrum about the tree falling in the forest applies here. If a racing driver finishes second in the Sports Personality of the Year contest, but almost nobody in the country witnessed it because they were watching ITV, can it truly be said to have happened?

It did happen, though, I swear. It only felt like it didn’t. Giggs, remember, made only 15 first-team starts for Manchester United last season and, accordingly, he must have gone to the Sheffield Arena on Sunday night fully expecting to be a sub. At the most he must have imagined he would get on for a brief cameo in the final quarter of an hour if things weren’t quite going to plan. Yet, incredibly, he found himself the first name down on the teamsheet.

Talk about a schoolboy dream. Never has a decent run in the Carling yielded quite so much.

The temptation is to put it down to Manchester United fans, weighting the voting. But for that to happen, surely, the show would have had to kick off at lunchtime, to catch the market in Asia. In the event, when the phone lines closed, it was merely 5.45am in Tokyo — too early, surely, for a Pacific Rim-effect to take hold.

Or maybe everyone thought it was meant to be a lifetime achievement award. But no, again, because that went to Seve Ballesteros, in a moving ceremony conducted via satellite. And how nice it was, in the closing days of 2009, to go to the home of a professional golfer and find a scene of comfortably upholstered bliss, with nobody menacing anybody else with a seven-iron.

Rueful times for the BBC’s sporting flagship, though — and with more to come, given that The X Factor clearly has no intention of shifting its tanks from the lawn any time soon. At present rates of attrition, it won’t be many years before everyone who wants to see the Sports Personality of the Year elected can go along to the Sheffield Arena and witness it in person. And not long after that, they’ll be holding the ceremony round at Sue Barker’s place, over a couple of bottles of white and a plate of mini chicken kievs.

The show has a choice: give up, or fight back. We say, fight back. Make some changes, and then go to war. Let’s get the old stunts going again, for starters. Who will ever forget the sight of Desmond Lynam clamping his finger in the faulty Aintree starting gate, or that terrible indoor penalty shoot-out they held one year? This year’s show was the lightest on extraneous gimmickry for ages — just a bit of gymnastics from Beth Tweddle on a mat, and nothing else. In all honesty, we prefer it that way, but there’s a light-entertainment battle being waged here, and if that means getting Phillips Idowu to jump over a Transit van pulled by Kauto Star, then so be it.

Another thing: let’s go to more people’s houses. The section chez Ballesteros was easily the best portion of this year’s show. More sitting rooms, please. Let’s see the year’s big sporting performers put in a few final hard yards where it counts — among the scatter cushions.

Better still, let’s go to people’s houses and make them play Twister.

Moreover, if the consequence of turning the contest over to the public, in the form of a phone vote, is anomalies like Giggs’s victory — or Zara Phillips’s in 2006 — then the BBC should abandon that way of doing things and simply go back to rigging it, the way it always used to (we tended to assume).

Above all, the show needs to take pride in its own, hard-won stature — to hold firm against the barbarian hoards from the other side, and remember what it is, and what it has come to mean. OK, so nobody remembers who came second. But, some years on The X Factor, nobody remembers who came first, either. A victory on the Sports Personality of the Year show, on the other hand, is for ever. While the show survives, that is. And survive it must.