Mr. William is for the
‘High Jump’?! (Olympic Special.)
Dear and possibly
‘staycationed’/ frazzled Reader,
I can’t be sure of my
demographic. (That sounded very hip and happening, or am I getting flashbacks
to the 60s..again? Contrary to the common view, I was ‘there’ in the 60s and
can remember at least 2% of it! Note to self- get out of this parenthetical
quagmire before the end of the millennium!) Yes, my demographic? Well, the
son-in-law said I needed to appeal to it. So, can you spare me a quid? Ha! No,
he says there’s no point me rabbitting on to the unconverted, so to squeak. So
please feel free to comment below to give me feedback, but not the sort Paul
‘Macca’ McCartney got during and after the Olympics opening ceremony. You see,
he’s quickly catching up on me, age-wise, but instead of being hip like me, he
needs to watch he doesn’t break one, jumping off his piano stool! When they
shouted before the gig, it wasn’t, “Break a leg!” it was, “Watch you don’t
break a leg!” Nah, only kidding. He is an icon, a leg-end in his own lunchtime
and all that. Where would we be without the Beatles? Probably back in the
‘Stones’ age, listening to Mick, another well-preserved fossil? At least we’ve
maintained the ‘Status Quo’. Yes, they’re still ‘rockin’ all over the world’.
That reminds me of what I
wanted to talk to you about. Why didn’t you stop me rambling on? This diary is
fully intergalactic, you know. Yeh, it’s really ‘spaced’ out there! You see,
dear indulgent reader, when I move from my armchair to my desk to scrawl these
timeless words and look at my notes, my eyes almost cross at how complicated
life is for an overactive octogenarian, with some of his faculties not yet
flat-lining. Any hoo, I want to chat about the Olympics. Isn’t Beijing lovely?
No, only kidding. I’m not that far behind. Actually, I reckon Danny Boyle
should get a gold medal for the ‘opening’ ceremony. What a tribute to the UK,
past and present! Only prob will be kids in school getting their timelines
mixed up, as the Beatles came before the First World War in the event. Very
psychedelic! (Unless Sgt. Pepper was in the trenches with the rest of the
‘Lions led by donkeys’?)
Any road, I’m enthused by
it all, like the quirky London mayor, Boris. (Wonder was he able to swing it to
get me those ring side tickets for the ladies’ beach volleyball?) I’ll be lucky
to get a back seat at ‘catching the javelin between your teeth…blind-folded’!
Suppose he can’t break protocol. Mind you, what is the protocol if you break
protocol? So far we have seen ‘Twit’ Romney (Romnians on the starboard bow,
Captain Kirk!) being sniffy about the preparations, before getting back on
message. Then some ‘enthusiastic’ official put up the South Korean flag for the
North Koreans. Whadda mistaka to make-a? Someone should get in the aptly named
‘Standard & Poors’ to downgrade the culprit’s triple A rating? (Well, they
have to downgrade something while the Olympics are stealing their thunder from
Mount Olympus with Promethean flourish?) Let’s not forget, as if we could, the
private ‘security experts’, Group 4S, who brought a new meaning to the term,
underachieving! The Latin motto of the Games should now be ‘Citius, Fortius,
Altius, …Group 4S-ius’, roughly translated, ‘Faster, stronger, higher…Help,
we’re in the doo-doo!’
Things will only get more
interesting at the Games with the strict drug testing. Why do so many athletes
take the ‘wee’ and chance getting caught? (Reminds me. Must get the plumber to
look at my loo. I’ve got ‘wikileaks’. No, the lav, not yours truly! Hope he can
stem the flow from my bog or it’s up the creek without a panhandle?) Also, I
don’t like to see anyone play badly for advantage, like some of the Chinese badminton women. That’s not cricket, in more ways than one! My last constructive
criticism would be the ‘empty seat’ débâcle. No matter what the reason is for
the swathes of vacant areas at events, e.g. blocks of seats reserved for the
Olympic ‘family’ (Whatever that is, when it’s at home!), it doesn’t look good,
especially as tickets could have been sold many times over to the public.
Moreover, what more can they do to ‘deploy’ our reducing, respected, armed
forces? They do their duty in Afghanistan, for instance, then they are
‘drafted’ in as security at the Games, then, in many cases now, they have to file
in to empty seats and watch ‘tumblers’ and the like. (Seems they also didn’t
get their first choice of women’s beach volleyball?)
Leaving aside the above, I
think the Games are magnificent, the coverage is amazing, the athletes are
inspirational and the Olympic spirit is alive and ‘jumping’..very high! What
about Michael Phelps? An amazing achievement, well earned! I also wish Team GB,
Ireland and everyone involved all success! One other high achiever has shone
brightly recently and that is the genial genius, Daniel Barenboim and his
astounding West/Eastern Divan Orchestra. Look at their story on your interwebby
thing! I think their performances of the 9 Beethoven Symphonies at the BBC
Proms were spine-tinglingly great. As I was saying to the lead violinist just
before she struck up (Her instrument, not my mush!), my Aunt Gerty was only the
daughter of a penniless fiddler, but many a good tune was played on her! Take a
bow? (From the sublime to the ridiculous?) Did Beethoven, like myself, first
notice his deafness when he couldn’t hear his ‘soaps’ on telly and had to use
subtitles? Maybe he invented Opera then…essentially a visual medium with
‘subtitles’? Only kidding. Don’t want any opera buffs chasing me with rolled up
programmes and lorgnettes!
Before I go off to see Lord
Coe about me entering the ‘high jump’ in the next Games, (Well, you see,
everyone’s always saying to me, “Oh, Mister Peeps, you’re really for the ‘high
jump’ now!”), I just want to bring you up to date on my non- ‘Olympic’ family.
Come to think of it, I could enter my son-in-law in ‘hammer head-butting’ event
in 2016. His head’s thick enough! My daughter reckons some of my garments are
worn-out. Doesn’t she realise they’re just not fully worn-in? She ironed my
shirts and now wants the bunch of hangers back. Is there no such thing as a
free ‘bunch’? Clearly not, as ladies that used to lunch are now ladies that
‘teas’! Due to austerity, they now have to settle for a slurp of Earl Grey and
a sticky bun! We’re all in it together, eh? Well, tell that to the citizens of
Aleppo, Syria or, more locally, the truly disabled being put through the
‘Condemns’ mangle!
How am I in myself, you
say? Yes, no? Make up your minds! Well, in some ways I could sit in for the
Dalai Lama, suitably cross-legged in my white doti. (Does he ever get a hol or
is it like Her Madge, QE2, always on duty?) Otherwise, I have a lot of hassles
to get my teeth into. Firstly, my dentist, a Doctor Hugh Jars, (Not in the
Béyoncé sense!), has got it in for my choppers. A ‘plaque’ on all his houses!
(Hope that wasn’t impenetrably obscure?) Secondly, I’ve had a few falls. I
think gravity gets stronger as you age. I’m getting up and getting up a
petition! ‘Higher pensions, lower gravity!’ Also the hazard warning light went
off in my car and I couldn’t remember how to switch it off. Had to do an
emergency drive in the wake of an ambulance to the garage. Very hazardous!
Handbook? I tried reading that, but I had to keep braking to avoid the
ambulance! Son-in-law wasn’t sympathetic as per. Just kept chasing me for
documents for my house sale and an ‘itinerary’ of the contents. He said not to
‘tamper’ with the legal forms, but when I saw the red ink stating I should not
amend anything, but just sign, I saw red and started ‘tampering’. Son-in-law
seemed to be in a red mist. Just wait till you’re all 88! Yes, at the minute I
have piles of files. It’s a pain in the ass!
By the way, did I tell you
my eyebrows have grown so bushy they’ve drooped due to my old foe, gravity?
Son-in-law has offered to take the garden shears to them, but I’ve put him off
by cracking on that the National Truss has ‘protected’ them for posterior as an
area of ecological value. Ha! Ya gotta larf! Hope so, anyway. As I said when I
got my latest bargain book in the ‘pound’ shop. I’d heard rumours of a naughty
tome doing the rounds, so when I saw one called ’50 Shades of Green’, I had to
have it. Well, what a let down, literally. It was about Irish grass—the sward,
not the other stuff. Tell you what; I know why the grass is greener here. It
has been a diet of rain, with rain sauce, served with a side of widdle,
together with a large, green, well-drizzled salad! Moreover, the economy is so
bad that someone has coined the quip that if you’ve no money, it doesn’t matter
where you don’t spend it!
Finally, on a lighter note,
is an agricultural chap with dodgy crops in need of ‘farmer’ceuticals? Also, my
vicar visited the ‘Eden Project’ in England. Is he trying to get back to
basics? Furthermore, NASA say ‘space’ smells of ‘seared steak’. Could their PR guys not now add a veggie option?
Any road, I’m ok. My window cleaner says he wants to emulate me. In fairness,
what he actually said was, “Mr. William, you’re like just like Superman, if he
was 88!” (Does that mean I can wear my undercrackers on the outside? Do long
johns count as a superhero costume?) Clearly he looks up to me, especially as
I’m on the 2nd floor. He admires my social grace and charm. Maybe he
wants to rise up a few ‘rungs of the ladder’? Well, he’s only human. I’ll let
you in on a little secret. My aftershave was discontinued in 1948 and I’ve been
stockpiling it ever since. Yep, I bathe in it nightly, like a modern Cleopatra,
although it stings round the asp! Don’t tell anyone or they’ll want to be ‘on
the scent’! Whoops, that’s the phone! It’s probably Seb & Co about my 2016 entry.
Gotta fly!
Yours, going for gold, yet
always for the high jump,
