Sporting comebacks

If it is acceptable for Tiger Woods, Paul Scholes and Thierry Henry to make a sporting comeback then there should be nothing stopping me from taking to the squash court after several year’s break. To be fair, I never actually retired from the sport, work simply intervened in a way that made even the occasional game impossible to schedule.

I managed to play up until my early 40s and had often thought about the possibility of playing again but as time passed I considered that the opportunity had passed me by.  A deep vein thrombosis (DVT) dampened my appetite for a while and several years living and working out of hotels around the UK did little for my waistline. My greatest fear over the years was that my eyesight had deteriorated to the point that I could no longer see the ball. In the intervening years it had become a necessity for me to wear glasses as routine. Previously I had only ever needed them for computer work.

Towards the end of last year my wife and I took a short break at a leisure complex where they happened to be running an open session of squash. Undeterred, I decided to join in and to my horror found that my eyesight had not deteriorated as much as I had feared and I could see the small ball no better or worse than I ever did.

The game has changed significantly since I used to play regularly; the balls are now slower and the shape of the racket has altered. People laugh when I turn up with my old small headed model. As in tennis, technology has provided a more robust and light-weight design with tougher strings and a larger ‘sweet-spot’. I still move around the court like a giant Redwood and waft the racket around like a fly swat though the game still intrigues me and I am pleased to have rediscovered my passion for the sport.

It is one of my regrets that I was never introduced to the game until my late teens. I would like to believe that had I taken up the game sooner then I might have been a better player. The strange thing is that at school I played fives, a game very similar to squash (except there is no racket and you wear padded gloves to hit the ball). Squash was never mentioned during that period and I only learned to play squash when a work colleague invited me to play several years later.

Thinking back, school fives was an enjoyable way of passing an hour and burning off the excess energy that I used to possess.  I can’t recall whether the school had 3, 4 or 5 courts, all I can remember is the constant clacking that would resonate from this austere block tucked away between the science block and the prep school. As sports go fives could definitely have done with a makeover. All the walls were grey, the ceiling was grey (though that may have been the dirt), the ball was grey and the well-worn gloves were grey.  The floor was concrete, there was no heating and there was a wire mesh to the rear of the court to prevent the ball flying out at the top.  On the outside there were a couple of benches from where spectators could observe or jeer as the mood took them. In essence, it had the countenance of the set of Prisoner of Cell Block H, which is what it often became when not in proper use.

My enduring memory of the games I used to play was the necessity to clear the rear of the court of the detritus that usually pock-marked the wall or was littering the floor. One of the unofficial uses of these courts during lunch breaks was as a ‘shooting gallery’, in which boys would stand on court armed with various items of food while volunteers would crouch outside beneath the wire mesh, wander up and down the bench and pop their head up where and when they wanted. Eggs and tomatoes were the weapons of choice, which by coincidence seemed to be the items less favoured by the majority of pupils.  I am not sure what pleasure those who chose to conduct the pelting derived from this activity though I don’t think there was ever a shortage of younger boys willing (or otherwise) prepared to provide the moving target. I can only imagine that a few of them viewed this as a free lunch. Some of the more enterprising would even sell their lunch to the throwers and then try to recoup their investment as targets. It seemed a bizarre game at the time and sounds even less appealing now.  I can only imagine that some of the less adept targets must have been forever branded as incredibly messy eaters by their mothers.  It also seemed that the group of throwers usually consisted of the same group of people which possibly said something about the standard of packed lunch that their parent’s provided them with but more likely was an indication of their propensity for violence.  

Recalling these grim ‘cages’ reminds me that there used to be fire buckets, filled with sand, hanging on the outside walls. Were the school afraid that one of their charges would spontaneously combust mid-game? The science block going up in smoke is always a possibility but I am not sure that 3 buckets of sand would have been of much use should that eventuality arise.

Fives was just one of many sports that pupils were forced to undertake in next to nothing. Charging around the court in only a pair of gym shorts and plimsolls would in this day and age be considered inhumane. There may have been times in the past when it was deemed healthy to take cold showers and exercise in inappropriate garb but these were the 1970’s, we had central heating, hot water and perfectly good shirts and socks (courtesy of the official school tailor). I can only imagine that freezing your knadgers off in just a skimpy pair of shorts aided the teachers in recording the bruises inflicted when an errant fives ball was smacked into the small of your back or a lose plimsoll caught you on the back of the head. Britain had yet to become the litigious minefield that it has since become but the school were very keen to avoid any protest from angry parents suggesting the staff may have been negligent or their offspring maltreated.

Plimsolls must have been one of the most stupid creations ever. Essentially a canvas slipper they offered no support or protection to the foot and would often fly off at the slightest exertion. If there was anything good to be said in their favour it was that they were cheap, which is probably just as well given the speed with which children’s feet grow. Having worn them half a dozen times the elastic would have broken and what little tread there was on the sole of the shoe would have disappeared, yet we were expected to wear these ridiculous shoes for everything except rugby. I don’t think I ever completed a cross-country run because I could never get up the muddy hill in my treadless plimsolls.

Much as I enjoy all ball sports I must admit that at school I longed for the cricket season. Apart from playing in a very good school side it did have certain advantages, namely being able to wear 2 sweaters if it was cold, pleasant surroundings in good weather, being provided with tea during matches against other schools and colluding with homework when not required to bat or field. There were still occasions when as a team we were forced to shelter under a variety of trees during thunder storms  (clearly our teachers knew (or cared) little of the inherent powers of lightning). The chief concern at the onset of heavy rain was to safeguard the precious school cricket kit. This seemed to be a fairly futile gesture that had more to do with the fearsome temper of the school groundsman and less to do with the security or well-being of the kit. You did not have to be the smartest kid on the block to appreciate that if someone was desperate enough to steal a well-used kid’s size 5 cricket bat and pair of mis-matched pads during a thunder storm then it was probably inadvisable to try and stop them.

I very much doubt that I will be making a comeback at any other sport though judging by the performances of some of national teams I am prepared to make my services available should the need arise and am keeping my boots at the ready.

Cameron sinks to new depths

When I read the headline ‘Cameron sinks to new depths’ recently, in my mind I had already consigned our beloved leader, David, to a lead box and plunged him into the deep blue sea. I very much doubt that I was the only person to have these thoughts. In fact the headline was a reference to the exploits of film producer, James, not cringe inducer, David. Still, I did get the surname, the box and the sea elements right so essentially my take on the story was more factually correct than many tabloid stories.

James Cameron’s quest to travel to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a purpose built 12 ton submersible is the type exploit usually associated with Jules Verne. The Mariana Trench is the deepest point on the planet at just under 7 miles below sea level. The outside pressure at that depth is so great it caused the glass foam craft, named Deepsea Challenger, to shrink by 3 inches during its 2 hours and 36 minutes descent to the bottom. He was the first person to reach these depths in over 50 years and the first person to achieve the feat solo. The article also mentioned that Richard Branson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and actress, Jessica Alba, were also planning competing missions.

I have very mixed feelings about this story. I applaud the guy for achieving one of his boyhood ambitions and the concept of glorious isolation in a tranquil environment has a certain other worldly appeal to me, beyond that I am definitely into merky waters. The account of his findings at that depth sound pretty similar to those that I encountered recently at the bottom of my fish pond. If I had invested all that time, money and effort to travel 7 miles underwater then I would have felt cheated not to have found Atlantis at the minimum. 

Ultimately I find the story rather depressing. At a time when Joe Average is facing financial pressure from every direction stories of the mega-wealthy spending their fortune on whimsical ventures or cosy dinners with ‘Captain Cringe’ leave a very bad taste in the mouth.

It has been a strange month news wise, the media trying to offset stories of famine, global conflict and the recession against the manufactured hysteria of the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics.

You do not need to have been to Eton to realise that creating 50,000, 100,000 or even 250,000 part time jobs in a variety of low paid fast-food outlets, coffee retailers and supermarkets will never produce sustainable growth in the economy. It will undoubtedly be comforting to those visiting London for the first time that they will be able to find so many outlets for McDonalds, Starbucks, KFC and the rest.

Obviously The Chancellor has lost more than his marbles in targeting the elderly in the budget. He may have considered pensioners to be more stoic about life’s pitfalls but he has overlooked the one certainty in politics, the silver voter is the most likely person to turn out on the day of an election.

The English Tourist Board are fearing the presence of the Olympics in Britain will scare off visitors who would otherwise have visited the country’sother attractions this Summer. With petrol prices increasing at an alarming rate, unrest among the unions and the vagaries of the UK transport system gridlock London in July remains a possibility.

By then East London could look like the Sahara if the weather continues in its present vein. Then, this being the UK, the heavens could just as easily open mid-July and the Olympic Park could take on the more familiar countenance of a Glastonbury Mudfest.

Perhaps the best story of the month was the discovery that the regular eating of chocolate may help people keep slim. Coming only a day after several chocolate manufacturers announced that they were intending to reduce the calories in some of the leading brands this would seem to be a double winner. As a chocoholic I would dearly love to believe this story though I doubt that my increasing waistline would lend much credence to the theory.     

The lunatics may not have yet taken over the asylum but they certainly have a firm foothold in several wings as well as the Administration Block.

Who wants to be British?

My ongoing battle with British Telecom following a mistake on their part that has seen not only my ex-directory residential phone number but also my address assigned to a corporation has prompted me to think about the company in a new light. Not only has considerable time and patience been needed to persuade their various departments  to rectify the error but I have needed to fend off a number of prospective customers for the corporation who are probably as bemused as I am as to how this situation should have come about. To compound the error BT have also sold my phone number to any number of companies prompting a deluge of calls from various businesses keen for me to take out advertising space in their respective phone directories.

There was a time that the word 'British' attached to a company name was a symbol of excellence. These days the word is synonymous with poor service, delay, waste, expense, mistakes and shoddiness. Just look at the companies in question:

*  British Telecom

*  British Gas

*  British Airways

*  British Aerospace

*  British Petroleum

*  British Rail

*  British Steel

*  British SKY Broadcasting

*  British American Tobacco

*  British Nuclear Fuels

*  British Leyland

As a British taxpayer, and a British citizen, dealing with any of these companies makes me feel decidedly uneasy. What makes me feel even more depressed is the fact that few, if any, of the above can claim to be British owned.

The Leaning Tower of Westminster

The deteriorating state of the Houses of Parliament is causing increasing unease to its present occupants. Of particular concern is the Neo-gothic tower that houses Big Ben has suffered cracks and crumbling for decades which has caused it to tilt in the direction of the more recently built MP's offices across the road in Portcullis House. Originally completed in 1858 to the design of architects Charles Barry and  Augustus Pugin the tower has suffered subsidence due to the amount of building work that has taken place in that area.  A recent survey estimates that the top of the tower is now one and a half feet off perpendicular, enough to be visible by the naked eye. It has also been calculated that it would take a further 4000 years, if left unchecked, before it reached the same angle as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. How very typical for politicians to get their knickers in a twist over something that may not happen for the next 4000 years when they have no idea how to get to grips with the present day troubles.

The fact that it is leaning at all does however coincide with my own mental images of the Palace of Westminster. Since school days I have viewed our seat of government with a high degree of irreverence.  I think it must have been the Monty Python influence that inspired me to view  the workings of parliament being driven by a crusty, old street entertainer churning out a tune on an ornate, Victorian hurdy-gurdy musical box. While he cranks the  wheel the tower rises and falls as the automatons of that period used to do and the bongs of Big Ben would drown out the metallic noise emanating from inside the palace.

I realise now just how fanciful my ideas were since I have subsequently seen the tower in my dreams suffering a serious case of 'Brewer's droop', buffeted around in the wind like a ladies nightie hung out to dry on a blustery day.

I am far too old to take politics or politicians seriously. As long as they continue to wave their papers, jeer at each other and  behave like a group of yobs from the Lower 6^th  form, I shall hold on to the images that the very mention of the Houses of Parliament conjures up in my mind, that of a flaccid phallus wafting in the breeze, cocking a snoop at the rest of the world.

Hoorah for the recession?

Amidst all the doom and gloom regarding the global turmoil following the banking fiasco there is at least one good piece of news, Little Chef are to close 67 of its 161 outlets in this country. Whilst the potential loss of 500 employees is not a statistic that anyone should welcome (the spectre of unemployment is not something I would wish on anyone) the thought of this dinosaur of diners coming face to face with the grim reality of the 21^st century has a certain appeal.

It is a shame that it has taken a financial crisis to bring the company to its senses. The Little Chef has been around since the late 1950s and has been the bane of most seasoned road warriors for the majority of that time. It is not by chance that it earned the moniker 'The Little Thief', with its reputation for poor quality food, slow service and over-pricing. I have never understood just why the amenities at motorway service stations should be so expensive but it seems to be an unwritten rule that if you shop at any of the concessions on any motorway you will undoubtedly be paying through the nose. Little Chef have known this all along and exploited the fact that the public have very little choice in what is available at these outlets.

My experience of their establishments has only confirmed my misgivings about their service. The facilities do not appear to have changed since the companies inception, the staff are slow and surly, the amenities dated, the food portions are small, unattractive, undercooked and the prices exorbitant. Originally modelled on the roadside cafes found in 50s America very little would appear to have changed despite the company undergoing several changes of ownership throughout its history.

Where competitors have moved with the time and taken chances Little Chef has sat back and taken the money. It is some years since I ate in one of their restaurants. I visited one on the M1 with 3 other work colleagues and we each ordered a 3 course meal together with drinks. It was mid-evening and the outlet was not particularly busy. Despite the inevitable mix up with the food orders and our attempts to wait for each other 3 of us had managed to eat our entire meal and finished our second cup of coffee before the 4^th member of our group had even been served with his main course. He was only eating a mixed grill so I can't see why his meal should have taken so much longer to prepare than that of any of the rest of us. We did try to be polite and wait for his dish to arrive but as time ticked by our meals got colder and colder, to the point that we decided that we could wait no longer.

The company may have expanded their services through other ventures to challenge the competition from the fast food chains and other coffee outlets but the premise remains the same, they have yet to come to terms with what 'leaving the customer wanting more' means. Most of their rivals understand that this means providing a service and product that will entice the customer to return. Sadly, they have taken the alternative view as an excuse to short-change their customers which is why they now find themselves in the circumstances they are in.

Before the Little Chef is consigned to the growing list of big brand failures it should be pointed out that the company has had its ups and downs over recent years yet has somehow managed to pull through, so I would not write it off just yet.

There are many other big names who have already fallen victim to the recession, and there are plenty of others who are under sustained pressure from the same people who put them in the situation in the first place (namely the banks). Very few of us have not been affected by the fallout from the banking disaster but if there is any good to come from the difficulties that we are currently experiencing it is the prospect that a great deal of the chaff will fall by the wayside. We are all having to think and work smarter, cut back on some of our excesses and with luck we will emerge from this recession leaner, fitter and in a better position than we were before.

Granny greetings

At last I can announce to the world that I have entered the hallowed domain of 'Grannydom', my daughter, Evangelina, having given birth last week to a healthy baby girl, weighing 7lbs and 4oz. I am not sure which makes me feel older becoming a granny or seeing the baby's weight written in imperial measures. I'm still not sure how her partner managed to drag himself away from his playstation long enough to procreate, but somehow he managed it and for that I suppose I should be grateful. Being 'people of the moment' they have chosen to christen their baby 'Bonjela' on grounds that Evangelina was suffering from a painful gum boil throughout the birth (if that was the only pain she felt during labour then she should consider herself extremely fortunate). It was as well that the baby did not come 2 weeks sooner otherwise my granddaughter could have ended up going through life as 'Boots own label haemorrhoid cream'. Sadly they have elected to give her the father's surname; it would have been nice to see the Weale-Bareaux surname perpetuated but there are a lot worse things than going through life as Bonjela Biskett. My only hope is that her peers are a bit kinder than her father's, since he's still known as 'Doggy' to his friends.

I can't say that I have ever given a great deal of thought to becoming a grandparent. I always supposed it was just one of those things you ticked off the 'to do' list when it came along. I can't see me being one of these doting grannies, we aren't exactly close as a family these days. Today's Evangelina talks a vernacular that may be tribal but is certainly not from any region of this planet that I have encountered. As for Darren, to give the proud Dad his proper title, he simply grunts a selection of tones, which might indicate that he is winning an online battle of Warcraft, he is going to the pub or that he is hungry. I suppose Evangelina could view this minimalist form of communication as good training for the months ahead.

I don't think I was ever truly 'in touch' with my daughter. No sooner had I given birth to her than I started making preparations to ship her off to boarding school, or at least that is how I recollect the first few years of our life together. I don't regret having a child, it was just that I wasn't 'ready' for it, but then if we all put off things until we were 'ready' then nothing would ever get done. She grew up to be a very single minded and head-strong girl which is probably why I find it so difficult to understand what she sees in a gormless twit like Darren.

I'm not sure what help or advice I will be able to offer them, I think each generation has their own way of raising a child so I shall try not to interfere, at least that is my argument, and I am sticking to it. I can't see me spending my days endlessly knitting assorted garments in a vain battle to keep up with the growth of my granddaughter. I think I shall opt for a backseat role, let them bring up their child as they see fit, offer my occasional services as a babysitter, push Bonjela in her pram around the local park, tell her loads of tall stories and wait for the day to come when she may reciprocate the favours.