Stuff that funky gibbon

Researchers in Japan have learned that Lar gibbons (or white-handed gibbons as they are also known) use the same vocal techniques as human soprano singers when tested in an environment rich with helium. Scientists claim that the gibbons are able to control the frequencies of their vocal tracts in the same way as a humans do.

And here was stupid, tone-deaf little me thinking that it was in fact the other way round. I have long considered the high pitched warblings of some of our best known soprano singers bear remarkable similarity to the random agitated screechings of certain endangered primates. 

I am unsure as to why anyone would wish to expose these angelic looking creatures to helium but would assume that the resulting ‘tunes’ were more satisfactory than had the experiments been carried out on humans.

Can we expect one day to see a gibbon taking to the stage at Glyndebourne? How long will it be before Sir Tom Jones releases a record backed by a choir of gibbons?

As I write, I have visions of Simon Cowell drifting across the Indonesian peninsula in a helium filled balloon, recorder in one hand and contract in the other. One bag of hot air inside another.

Olympian dreams

So after 7 years of planning it is finally here, the Olympics have started in London. My own preparation started at the end of last month when my wife and I moved our training camp to Fuentaventura for a fortnight where we worked on our starting position and posture through extensive inactivity in the prone position on the beach. Over the weeks we were able to increase our stamina and saw significant gains in our endurance and concentration levels.

I had chosen the weeks specifically so we could benefit from a close approximation of the environment we would be confronted with once the games got under way. To this end our trip coincided with both the European football tournament and Wimbledon. My reasoning was that the England team would be back in the UK long before we were scheduled to return and that there would be no English player left in either of the singles tournaments. My suppositions were largely correct – the England team once again failed to make any impact in a major tournament though Andy Murray did manage to carry the lone beacon of hope all the way to the final.

With emotions being stretched to the limit almost nightly during our stay on the island our daily workout on the beach was not only important to our Olympic preparation but also allowed us time to reflect on the previous night's frustrations and recover in time for the next disappointment. Breakfast was an important part of out training regime since we were able to watch re-runs of the previous days football while tucking into our wheatibangs, yoghurt and strong coffee. We did not have the luxury of Sky TV in our room though it made little difference whether we watched the commentary in Spanish or German, the majority of the games were tediously boring. It was difficult to be sure what the commentators were getting so excited about, though judging by the TV camera work I am guessing it was because the cameraman had picked out a pretty face in the crowd.

Is it me or are TV producers increasingly looking to make an event more 'inclusive' by showing 'characters' from the crowd. To me it is dumbing down. If I wish to watch a sporting event it is because I am interested in that sport. I don't need to see loads of images of leering spectators with painted faces or banners being waved proclaiming undying love to their nearest and dearest being beamed into my living room. You don't see extras pulling faces in the background during TV dramas why should it be an acceptable part of sports coverage?

For the first time in a very long while the expectations of the England football team were relatively low, and even then most of the players struggled to reach even that standard. My greatest concern about the Olympics is that certain individual competitors have been lauded to the point that you would believe they simply have to turn up in order to collect their medal. As any enthusiast will tell you sport is not like that, the element of surprise is forever present, nothing can ever be taken for granted, unless you happen to be a member of the Pakistan cricket team. There will be moments of brilliance, reputations will be made or dashed, that is what makes the Olympics so exciting and why my wife and I have put our bodies through such a rigorous training as elite couch athletes in order to watch as many of the events as we can from the comfort of the armchair.

The last bastion of civilisation has crumbled

It is official, the British can no longer claim to be good at anything since it has now been recognised that we are bad at queuing. Of all the factors that can be considered to have made Britain great it is perhaps fitting that this most quintessential facet of our behaviour should be the last to fall. There will be those who will wonder what all the fuss is about but for the majority of the population who still observe this polite culture the news will come as a bitter blow. Short of being told that you are not the love God you believe you are, your baby has a face like a leaking beach ball or your driving ability is sadly deficient there can be fewer admonishments that can strike such a sensitive nerve.

This country has a proud heritage of queuing for anything and everything, at any hour and in any conditions. We queue at the checkout, we queue in traffic, we queue for transport, we wait in line for service, we queue to get in to places, we queue to get out. For the sake of saving a few quid we will queue in freezing temperatures or even sleep on the street if necessary. There are even those who have embraced it as an art form.

I am seriously of a mind to have 'Queue here' engraved on my headstone. There are bound to be those that will pass by and stop. It will be nice to have the occasional visitor though don't expect me to be the greatest of company.

Unless you live alone you will be aware of the morning queue for the bathroom, what a way to start the day! Least favourite of my experiences is the queue at the doctors. The last place I want to be when I am ill is in an austere waiting room surrounded by sick people. The receptionist has the demeanour of a prison warder and the only available seat

is usually between the guy with the halitosis and a hyperactive child with vomit stains down the front of their jumper.

Another place I dread is post offices, or day care centres for the elderly as they have now become. Normally the heating system is blasting out hot air in these establishments, even in Summer. When you have the temerity to question why it is on the standard response is a snarled 'it's broken' (the same response you get when you enquire about the photo booth, the copier, the cash machine or the service counter buzzer). I try to avoid pension collection day when I am busy though would recommend it to those who enjoy people watching. Viewed as a game of Russian roulette it can be quite revealing. Try to guess who will be the first person to leave the queue. Usually they will have realised that they have forgotten an important document, have calculated that they won't have enough time to complete the task during their lunch hour, or simply lost the will to live. The really unfortunate ones are those who have spent so long in the queue that when they get to the front of the queue they have forgotten what it is they came in for. 

 

There must have been a scientist or mathematician somewhere who has worked out a formula to locate the most irate person in any queue. I am neither but would imagine that the equation would be based on the length of the queue, the amount of time spent waiting, the person's age and the urgency of the task which would allow you to identify the individual most on edge and, taking it to the next level, allow you to calculate the optimal time before the average person 'blew a gasket'.

Queuing is just part of our way of life, no one likes them or goes out of their way to participate in them, they just happen and normally we just stand their, grim-faced, waiting our turn.

Strangely, the phenomenon of queuing is not universally appreciated, in many countries the concept of queuing is totally alien and viewed with disdain. Clearly the endeavours of our missionary forebears to acquaint our colonial cousins with this element of our culture fell on deaf ears. Ironic then, that it should be the UK Border Agency who highlighted the fact that the British were so bad at queueing. Apparently, for years we have had the wrong types of queue. According to their statistics we have been queuing in the wrong places at the wrong times, which is why they haven't enough staff to process the number of people entering or leaving this country. It should be pointed out that there are several sets of statisticians who can't even agree on how to measure a queue. Average waiting times for processing applications at some of the UK airports vary from 30 minutes to 3.5 hours depending to which organisation you believe. On that premise I am guessing that it will be a long time before anyone gets round to working out where and when they would like a queue to be formed.

On the subject of statistics, it has been calculated that the average person in the UK spends 19 days a year standing in queues for one thing or another. If you add on the amount of time spent stuck in traffic queues or waiting for transport to arrive this rises to 27 days, and if you include the amount of time spent on 'hold', or listening to Vivaldi down the telephone then this takes the total to 35 days. Over a month of each year is spent queueing. Its enough to make you 'blow a gasket', only I don't want to wait around for someone to turn up and fix it.

Hope springs eternal

I am not a great sports fan though there have been a couple of sports stories in the news recently that have touched me more deeply than I would have expected. In March Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch with a heart attack during the FA Cup quarter-final match between Bolton and Tottenham. It took 78 minutes for the 24 year-old's heart to start beating again unaided. His recovery has been spectacular and last month he was able to make an emotional return to watch the re-scheduled match where he received a rapturous reception from an appreciative crowd.

This year's London Marathon was marred by the tragic death of Clair Squires, a 30 year-old runner from Leicestershire, who collapsed 1 mile from the finish line of the 26 mile race. A keen charity fundraiser who had only recently completed a climb on Mount Kilimanjaro she had set herself the target of raising £500 for the Samaritans charity through completing the race. Her untimely death struck a nerve with the public around the world who have since donated over £1 million towards the charity via her website.

Such tragedies are not supposed to happen to people in the prime of their life and you can only marvel at the way that people have responded to these 2 incidents. The fact that the response has been global is testament to the power of TV, the internet and the interest that these sporting events engender. I am particularly please that the Samaritans will benefit from the donations. The organisation may not have the high profile of the major health charities though their work is every bit as important and their staff just as dedicated.

The question that has crossed my mind is just why these 2 individuals should have captured the imagination is such a way. There have been other runners who have died during previous London Marathons and there have been others who have collapsed during football matches. Only last month Piermario Morosini, a 25 year-old Italian who had represented his country at under-21 level, collapsed and died during a Serie B match at Pescara. With due respect to those who have suffered none have prompted such a universal outpouring of grief and support.

The only reason that I can attribute to the Fabrice Muamba and Clair Squires stories is the predicament we now find ourselves in globally. With world finances in a mess, large parts of the world affected by armed conflict, political unrest, drought and famine and a great many of us facing financial hardship and uncertainty in the workplace it is perhaps understandable that we should reach out for any piece of good news. Maybe we need stories like these to bring a bit of balance to a crazy world, to focus our minds on what is really important. For all of us life is short, it is up to us to make the most of it in the time that we are on this planet, to take the opportunities presented to us and enjoy them as best we can, even when there are so many obstacles placed in our path.

I would like to think that the majority of people are intrinsically good-natured. With so much doom and despondency around just now it is reassuring that so many people have been so moved by these stories that they have been prompted to re-act positively.

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.