Moral Improvements

Tags

Andy Murray, badminton, Gore Vidal, Jimmy Savile, Language Police, Lynne Truss, Wiggo

Jimmy Savile’s chair and jewellery are going under the hammer today. I bet that his medallion will do well at the moment.  I presume that it isn’t made of chocolate.

There is going to be a full moon tonight.  If Wiggo isn’t victorious  tomorrow, then he could always try howling and be placed in the lycanthropy section, I reflected.  He might only achieve silver if Engelbert enters, but Hump. hasn’t done well in recent competitions.

Mustn’t be frivolous, I thought. The government said that the games would improve us morally.  Yes, there had been a good example of this last night when the badminton match had been fixed and the crowd had shown their moral outrage.

I cannot imagine Andy Murray’s mum exhorting him to hit the ball into the net deliberately. The officials should send her over to South Korea and to China so that she can give these teams a good drubbing by sending in the chamberlains with the drugged possets.

Come to think of it, she could take in Iran on the same trip and could bang their heads together for daring to assert that they are only enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.  You wouldn’t pull the wool over her eyes. Come on! she’d say- or even, Come off it!  Still, interesting to hear the Chinese promoting fair play.

Lynne Truss- she of the Language Police-did some arithmetic on radio 4 to show that she was numerate as well as literate. She felt that four medals already bagged were not in the running to provide us with an estimated eighty five.  Modesty is not to be confused with defeatism, she reminded listeners, as a kind of self-appointed morality coach.

Mind you, she has a point about some young people not being realistic about success.  I have seen it all in schools.  Kids will beat themselves up and their parents will beat teachers up-sometimes literally- if the world does not sufficiently recognise their offspring’s genius.

Gore Vidal, whose death has been reported this very day, said that failure was more important to friendship than success.  John Bell of the Iona Community could probably take that up and run with it for a Thought for the Day.

The Rev. Joel Edwards underscored this concept by eulogising Jimmy Savile for loving his neighbour, in addition to running marathons.  Andy’s mum might not agree:  she is a medal biter.

Gold Standard

Tags

Andy Murray, badminton, David Cameron, General Burnside, gold medal, Gore Vidal, Grayson Perry, installation, London 2012, Olympics, sideburns, stamps, tapestry, Wiggo

Wednesday, 2^nd August.

At last, a golden day for Britain, screamed the headlines.  The favourite words of Gore Vidal: I told you so! must have been uttered by many a coach.

We rowed and we rode.  Bradley admitted that he had been greedy, but no other colour than gold had interested him.  So much for it’s all about taking part!  The papers issued cut out hairy ginger adornments which people stuck to their babies at Hampton Court, unaware of the original General Burnside who had popularised them.  Maybe David Cameron could have sported a pair and might have pretended to be Gladstone, which might have affected party unity.

Brad speaks like Grayson Perry, I observed.  Maybe it had been Grayson in disguise all along and the whole summer had been some kind of cycling installation whose success was going to be woven into a tapestry by weavers in Flanders.  Bradley will, no doubt, have some connections there to aid the spoof, or woof.

The scull girlies were presented with a mock-up stamp which featured their success.  They presumably have to share it.

Well, what can they expect in times of austerity? The badminton baddies were disqualified.  No appeal. No parents’ meetings with all concerned. No re-sits.

Men Behaving Bradley

Tags

Alvin Stardust, boiler, central heating, Potterton, sideburns, Specsavers, St Lucy, Suttonford, Wiggo

Yip, raining again and by the afternoon I was about to put on my central heating.  The only deterrent was that I have an old boiler and am afraid that it will conk out and I will  be forced to purchase one of those condensing ones – the type that do not work if the temperature falls below zero.  I know that the old Potterton is 22% less efficient, but then I am too, so I feel an affinity with it.

My car is due for its MOT and my tooth has recently suffered granola damage.  My varifocals require upgrading. I need hydrotherapy at a distant pool owing to over-enthusiasm on a rowing machine, when, carried away by the pre-Olympic spirit, I shot off the back and landed on my coccyx.  I noticed that the rowing team had also had trouble with the seat on their craft.  That is the only similarity in our sporting prowess.

Thinking of the optician reminds me of an eavesdropping that I detected in Help the Ancient.  Some old girl was regaling another old biddy with her ocular history.  Finally she had run out of steam and concluded:  Well, that’s my eyes in a nutshell. I could not help but visualise a modern hagiographic painting of St Lucy, sightless at Specsavers.

On the news it was reported that poor old Wiggo had had his lycra gear nicked from a hotel in Surrey.  The trouble is that the Police can never hope to follow the multiple lookalike leads who will be whizzing around, kidding themselves that they are super cool. My neighbour had been knocked to the ground last week by one such fantasist, who did not seem to know the rules of the road.  But how could the police hope to follow that lead? They’ll never catch the culprits, especially as cyclists don’t bother about  speed limits, in general.

The thief has probably nicked his spare Velcro sideburns too.  The population of Surrey could cast tacks on the road before any cyclist to hinder the thief’s getaway , but perhaps the gear makes one invincible.  It would be too obvious to put it on eBay, but maybe it is, even now, being sold from the boot of a car at the back of a pub.

What’s your absolute best price on the whole lot?

A hundred quid and I’ll throw in the sideburns.

Eighty and you know where to stick the facial furniture.  You

can get it free in the papers.

You mean you don’t want to look like Alvin Stardust or

Slade?

Precisely.

Unkindest Cut?

Tags

Alan Bennett, Boris Johnson, Bras, James Naughtie, John Humphries, London 2012, Lord Coe, Olympics, pigeons, Sarah Montague’, Scotland, Scottish Play, Tesco, Wiggo

Listening to the news at 1am, I tried to filter out the depressing latest bulletins from Syria.

I perked up, however, when I caught a snippet about fifteenth century linen bras having been discovered in a Tyrolean castle.  It proved, apparently, that this type of underwear had been in existence a couple of centuries earlier than had been previously thought.  The next item was introduced as a world briefing, without anyone noticing the connection.  You would have thought that John Humphries would have latched onto the pun, but he might have been sparing Sarah Montague’s feelings. Goodness knows why: she never spares anyone.  He usually is quite good at masking James Naughtie, as the latter often commits a terminological inexactitude, as when Lady Steel ( wife of Liberal, David) aka the granny with the jaguar tattoo, was on the programme.  Naughtie commented on the fact that one headline had said the tattoo had been a sudden revelation for her seventieth birthday.  He wondered if they could get a photo of it for their website, if it wasn’t in too delicate a position.

Lady Steel affirmed that she had not had it done precipitously and he then “naughtily” quipped that she wasn’t hiding it under a bushel, was she?

Probably Naughtie is more comfortable with discussing the Edinburgh Tattoo. Mind you, his weather reports from The Festival sound Irish rather than Scots:

Some fog around, which you will know about, if you are in it..

I could have shocked the nation rigid with a revelation about a septuagenarian acquaintance of mine who told me that she had decided to lose her virginity on her three score year and ten birthday.  She had then gone on to have piercing when she was eighty.  That made Lady Steel look positively demure.

John Humphries hurried to the next topic which was according to a rabbi the biggest challenge to Judaism since The Holocaust.  Someone had mooted that circumcision is basically malice aforeskin, as children have no choice in the matter and it is irreversible.  The rabbi said that if it were done, t’were best that it was done quickly. The Scottish play again.

Then it was pointed out that the Queen had had all her boys snipped, but who is to say what the effects have been on them?

I wondered if Judy Murray had taken that line too with Andy and Jamie, but didn’t want to hazard a guess concerning the Switzer.

Saturday brought some sunshine, but a threatening sky and suspicious levels of humidity came with it.  Better get the rest of the blackcurrants in before the wood pigeons pounce, I thought to myself. Pigeons were on the news this morning.  Some fancier had taken his birds to France for a race and eight of them had failed to return to the UK.  He probably suspected that a family linked to La Chasse had already baked them in a pie, or turned them into a terrine, but suddenly he had reports from the Bahamas that they were sunning themselves there. It was too far for them to have winged their way to that location, so they must have hitched a ride on a cruise ship.  Can’t say you could blame them this summer.

The Olympic flame was abseiled in by a Marine to the Tower of London last night, at 20.12pm, enabling Boris to make a quip about how he was reminded of Henry VIII and how it was a marvellous place to bring an old flame.  He then became too excited and over-extended the metaphor by trying to convince everyone that there would be a veritable forest fire/ conflagration or towering inferno of enthusiasm for the Games.

Evan Davis teased Lord Coe about the likelihood of getting past the sponsor spies if you were wearing a Pepsi t-shirt.  We were left with an unconvincing assurance that Nike trainers would probably be all right.  Alan Bennett could have told them that trainers mean that you are probably not fully qualified and are certainly not the type of footwear that Jesus would have worn.  Maybe that would be enough of a social drawback.

Sunday.

Allez, Wiggo!

Wiggo does not like cheating or performance- enhancing drugs; he does like sideburns.  He is 6’3” and only 10 stone 6 lbs.  A belly putter would give him no advantage, even if he was a golfer, since he has a washboard for a stomach.

I considered taking up cycling for the second time that summer. Then I could eat Tesco’s Rocky Road straight out of the big black plastic tub- the one with the line-drawn glamorous woman wearing a fascinator on the lid.  There was no way that someone that resembled that illustration could possibly be associated with these calorific time bombs.

Four is an even number.  And now that one at the bottom looks so lonely…

Belgian chocolate.  Mmm. Three famous Belgians?- Bradley

Wiggins, sort of; Herge and err..?

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Tour de France

Tags

Ann Widdecombe, Bradley Wiggins, Grayson Perry, Hollande, Jacobins, Kirstie Allsopp, Olympic torch, Olympics, Puritan, Roger Federer, Sarkozy, Tour de France, Wiggo

The Olympic torch had been practically blown out on the South coast today.  I could not understand why all those people, including inmates of old people’s homes had been hurled out in their wheelchairs to wave at people in synthetic, white, untailored suits, who brandished perforated Dunce’s caps, or metallic Cornettos.

I could understand why some drawing pins had been strewn in the path of the Tour de France.  It was just so boring.  I did think that if everything was about positive discrimination, then the collective conquerors could all finish at the same time and have a certificate that said how well they had done to take part.  It had been pretty sporting of Bradley Wiggins to let the others catch up after they’d been stopped in their tracks, or tacks, as the case may be.  But, if everyone slowed down to give others a chance, even those with stabilisers, where would be the glory of a maillot jaune?

The thought of being able to consume 8,000 calories daily and still to look as slim as Wiggo and to have a pert little bum that looked good, even in lycra, made me wonder where the nearest velodrome was.

Yes, the French love their Tour de France, but yesterday I had been reminded of their storming of the Bastille, which put them in a rather poor light.  I debated whether six weeks of rain was preferable to six weeks of Terror. There had been  an opening if ever there had been one for Kirstie Allsopp to have created a nation of tricoteuses, or basket weavers, to contain all those untidy heads.  She could have published a recipe book for brioche since the poor common folk experienced a shortage of pain artisanale. I could just see her on the cover, dressed as a shepherdess and photographed in soft focus in front of Le Petit Trianon.  She could keep Phil in order with her crook.

Sian Williams spoiled my reverie as she couldn’t pronounce Juillet.  However, she is probably Welsh and we find it impossible to pronounce their words, so I suppose I mustforgive her.

Grayson Perry was on the programme and he surprisingly criticised French cuisine.  Their cathedrals he had praised, however. I bet that he would have welcomed a place on Kirstie’s book cover.  He loves the Little Bo Peep look and could have asked for a share of the royalties.

Perhaps if the Jacobins had restricted their protests to scattering a few tacks before tumbril wheels in the modern French spirit, fewer heads would have rolled.  On the other hand, the thought of Sarkozy or Hollande receiving a surprise bath time visit might cheer a few EU refuseniks.  Allons, enfants!

The previous evening there had been a rather silly programme which tried to divide our nation into Cavaliers or Roundheads.  Ann Widdecombe was clearly of the Cromwellian party.  In her Puritan mode she said that she couldn’t understand why her fellow female competitors on Strictly wore so little. (Well, they might have been equally confused as to why she was on the programme at all.)  Weren’t they cold? she’d wondered.  Immodest Ann is not.

However, when it came to the abolition of Christmas by the Parliamentarians, she was- roundly?- on the side of the ringleted Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen.  He loves decoration and probably knows how to pronounce Juillet, even though he is of Welsh extraction somewhere down the line.  As would a scholar such as Ann, I added.  I wouldn’t have fancied Marat’s chances if Widdi had wangled her way up the back stairs with a newly sharpened Sabatier, modestly dressed or not.

I was intrigued as to whether the nation’s favourite  Terpsichorean MP would consider Grayson Perry, as Clare, overdressed.

When the Turner prizewinner does not like one of his pots, he smashes it, but has taken to gathering the little ceramic fragments and places them in reliquaries that he has assembled in workshops in India, so that we can all afford some of his art.  Again, Sian didn’t seem to know what a reliquary was, but Widdi would not have had to phone a friend.  So, gratifyingly, shards are in. Just as well, after what we have spent on that giant example.

And still the stuff comes down!

Some neighbourhoods in Switzerland have joined together to force a farmer to have the Alpine bells removed from his herd of cows.  Maybe the noise was keeping Roger awake.  I thought that they should come to Suttonford, where my neighbours would make the farmer’s bovines seem like Trappist monks.  If Wiggo had been whizzing down a mountain track near Roger’s chalet, -pre-match- he might have had to muffle his clapper if a goat had strayed onto the road.  The reporter was Bethany Bell, which amused me, even if it was an early item and I wasn’t quite awake.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012