No Boat Race. Oh how we yearn for sport's joyous sporting pleasures.
You do know what today was meant to be. Amid all the misery and heartache of recent months you may have known that it was still there at the back of your mind but could never be sure of the time and the date. You knew that it was at roughly this time of the year but couldn't recall the date in April. You knew that it was one of sport's most eye catching and compelling of events but it had gone and therein lies the crux of the problem. Sport is in cold storage, frozen out, left to kick its heels and in the case of what would have been today's spectacle, looking at its oars in complete frustration.
The annual Boat Race, one of Britain's most endearing and lovely of sporting races, had to be postponed or cancelled which ever way you look at it. The students and hard working undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge university were due to be flexing their arms, shoulders, and feet in readiness for that yearly slog up the River Thames before finally rounding the bend of the river to Putney.
It could be described as one of the oddest sights of the whole sporting year and yet year after year, two of Britain's most famous universities, plonk themselves into a boat, easing their way slowly into their rightful position before hunching their bodies and then embarking on four miles of some of the most gruelling rowing ever seen. But then fate intervened because it does that from time to time and here we are late on a balmy spring day in Britain and dear old Father Thames is beginning to look forward to next year because this year it won't be graced with the Boat Race. It really doesn't seem possible.
You suspect that the handsome and sparkling stretch of water that threads and winds its way through the heart of London and beyond had not been informed that the two boats that it could normally be relied on to give it its customary splash of colour and vibrancy, had just gone missing. In retrospect this is not a disaster since sport doesn't really need to bother with such trivialities in a climate where the health of the world figures rather more prominently than a rowing race between two academic powerhouses.
But it would have been nice to observe the rich cultural heritage of Britain's past, thrill to its sense of ceremonial pomp and pageantry while all the time cheering for either white or blue. There they go the next generation of barristers, lawyers, scientists and professors, heaving and pulling, gritting their teeth, pulling all manner of imaginable faces and stretching every sinew in the hope of a momentous victory.
Over the years of course both universities have shared domination of the race in equal measures, monopolising the race for years on end before one year either Oxford or Cambridge just take it in turns to win it. TV cameras have always given the clearest perspective and then invariably given us an aerial viewpoint, hovering above the Thames as the race snakes its way attractively down the river, both sets of rowers reduced to tiny figures desperately thrashing their way through the water, the foam of the water trailing behind them faithfully.
This year though the agonised grimaces on faces will not be on show, that collective esprit de corps that normally exists between both universities will have to go back in the rowing shed and they will instead have to be content with perhaps virtual reality games on their I-Pads. Those red faces of health and fitness, glowing with athleticism and tons of guts, will, you can only guess, be turning their attention back to their legal books, cramming for exams that may also have to be postponed and then wracking their heads in some heart rending search for something constructive to do.
Of course we should have been celebrating either Cambridge or Oxford leaping out of their boats with unashamed delight but that'll never happen. My late and wonderful dad, fiercely anti sport, would always pin his colours to the Cambridge mast and to this day it remains a mystery but how I'll always love him for that reason alone. Still there's always next year for the Boat Race. Land ahoy and splice the mainbrace me hearties!
Saturday, 11 April 2020
Thursday, 9 April 2020
What else is left to say?
What else is left to say.
This is not the way we thought 2020 would pan out. Thousands of words have poured from your keyboard but we are still none the wiser. We are speechless, dumbfounded, mortified, devastated, totally astonished, crestfallen over and over again, convinced that somebody will just nudge us in the ribs and just tell us that it can't continue like this, that this should have been over by now and yet how misjudged were we understandably so.
Last night Jewish families all across Britain and all over the world were reduced to the very topical Zoom party, the very latest in modern technology and what can only be described as a glorified webcam facility where for those who have now been prevented from engaging in verbal interaction, could only communicate with each other via cyberspace. It was an interesting evening if only because this was our first Pesach (Passover) where none of us could sit next to each other at a table and talk to each other in close proximity.
For the first time in the history of Pesach the families of the world had to content with virtual reality seder services where parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, brothers in law and sister in laws, cousins, uncles and aunts would now find themselves in solitary confinement, speaking across the ether and cut off from all contact with their loved ones. At the moment the whole of the world feels so grief stricken that it may seem as though we may never feel like our old selves again. But we will of that you can be sure.
The whole momentum of our daily lives has been punctured and deflated, cut off in its prime, lifestyles and everyday functions completely jolted and switched off by infinitely more important priorities. But last night we had to look at our families in four boxes of high tech internet wizardry. Of course it was good to see familiar faces and, in fact, a positive joy but it simply felt unreal and cosmetic, artificial and contrived. We could hear and see each other but real human relationships had been denied. It was almost as if we were being forced to look at each other through a series of mirrors, kaleidoscopic images if you like. It was, sadly, not the same.
And yet the service was conducted in exemplary style and we were all allowed to indulge in just a couple of innocent hours of fun, family jollity and a multitude of laughs. The prayers, songs and blessings were immaculately observed, wine drunk, Elijah summoned, Miriam summoned, matzos gleefully devoured, soup sipped contentedly and lamb accompanied by potatoes and vegetables. Oh it felt so good and how good it was.
In a sense of course the very concepts of detachment, self isolation, apartness, remoteness may ironically have brought us much closer than we might have thought. Besides, we still have our immediate family to keep us company and we can still read, watch the TV and express our innermost feelings via a computer. The world has not ended and that has to be emphasised repeatedly. Of course solitude and the act of solitariness can be distressingly upsetting but perhaps we'll learn to live our lives in a way that somehow demands improvisation and adaptability.
Still, the fact remains that there are so many jigsaw puzzles you can complete even if there are 5,000 pieces to find. There are of course so many crosswords to mentally occupy our minds, so many pullovers to knit, music to listen to over and over again, miles to run in parks, tables or chairs to repair, decorating, painting and gardening to get round to doing. We are naturally creatures of habit but when that habit begins to run its course we are then left with something else to do which we hadn't quite thought of.
And therein lies in the problem. If we do go out anywhere we are made to feel extremely guilty and if we don't go out we feel as though the world has escaped from us. We are now in a state of captivity, struggling to find things to do on another stunningly warm spring day. But you've got to get out because eventually not only will our souls feel imprisoned but also our minds. We are not being held to hostage as such because that would imply that somebody is holding us to ransom. We are though bound by circumstances that have to be tolerated because this is indeed real life and not some cheap Hollywood movie although nobody would dare think of some sick and tasteless cinematic glorification of this dreadful disease. We love the Americans and besides this is global and we're all in this together.
There is now a very real sense of resignation, a genuine acceptance of the status quo, an almost quiet seclusion from the outside world which can be comforting but ever so slightly unnerving. Of course we can console ourselves with the knowledge that our family will always be there for us, our loving and supportive network, our confidants to talk to at all times. But then a yearning for the familiar and the traditional kicks in, fuelled by the necessity to just to carry out the ordinary tasks that we might have taken for granted.
The ghost town mentality though is still with us, the oasis is still in need of some kind of water and sustenance, refreshment and re- invigoration. But maybe this is the time to take stock of ourselves as human beings, to tweak things, make new re-adjustments, homegrown innovations. Maybe we should all just slow down, take life not quite so seriously as we are sometimes wont to do. Perhaps just perhaps life had become too far hectic, frantic and frenetic, a pressure cooker that needed to let off some steam, fraught with both tension and anxiety, weighed down by intensity and seriousness.
Of course there are the everyday bills that have to be paid, children to be nurtured and brought up, domestic duties that had to be attended to. But hold on when was the last time we thought we just wanted to stand back from the mad maelstrom, the ruinous intrusion of forces that just overwhelmed us when all we just want to do is sit down, think again and then look at our lives with much more objectivity rather than take sides and then be drawn into unnecessary arguments.
In years to come psychologists and anthropologists may come to view 2020 with the same kind of fascination as any other. But this time the year 2020 has challenged us to the utmost extreme, setting down new parameters and boundaries and quite possibly creating pyschological templates that would never have been thought of in any other year. There has been no rationale for the coronavirus because we weren't ready for this. So the uniqueness and bizarreness has hit us between the eyes and some of us can barely compute or register recent events.
Now of course we have become much more community minded, even more charitable than ever before and the human condition is beginning to show a much more favourable side to its personality. We now think nothing of doing the shopping for our elderly neighbours, caring wonderfully for the infirm or sick and then going beyond the call of duty.
The truth though of course is that there are immensely daunting obstacles in front of us that may take an age to overcome. There are different stages and phases in our lives that we never thought would make their presence felt. Still we are told to stay at home which now begins to smack of an imminent nuclear warfare but then we look at the masks outside our local chemists and supermarkets and then rub our eyes once again. Never mind folks Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister is out of intensive care and of course that has to be good news.
This is not the way we thought 2020 would pan out. Thousands of words have poured from your keyboard but we are still none the wiser. We are speechless, dumbfounded, mortified, devastated, totally astonished, crestfallen over and over again, convinced that somebody will just nudge us in the ribs and just tell us that it can't continue like this, that this should have been over by now and yet how misjudged were we understandably so.
Last night Jewish families all across Britain and all over the world were reduced to the very topical Zoom party, the very latest in modern technology and what can only be described as a glorified webcam facility where for those who have now been prevented from engaging in verbal interaction, could only communicate with each other via cyberspace. It was an interesting evening if only because this was our first Pesach (Passover) where none of us could sit next to each other at a table and talk to each other in close proximity.
For the first time in the history of Pesach the families of the world had to content with virtual reality seder services where parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, brothers in law and sister in laws, cousins, uncles and aunts would now find themselves in solitary confinement, speaking across the ether and cut off from all contact with their loved ones. At the moment the whole of the world feels so grief stricken that it may seem as though we may never feel like our old selves again. But we will of that you can be sure.
The whole momentum of our daily lives has been punctured and deflated, cut off in its prime, lifestyles and everyday functions completely jolted and switched off by infinitely more important priorities. But last night we had to look at our families in four boxes of high tech internet wizardry. Of course it was good to see familiar faces and, in fact, a positive joy but it simply felt unreal and cosmetic, artificial and contrived. We could hear and see each other but real human relationships had been denied. It was almost as if we were being forced to look at each other through a series of mirrors, kaleidoscopic images if you like. It was, sadly, not the same.
And yet the service was conducted in exemplary style and we were all allowed to indulge in just a couple of innocent hours of fun, family jollity and a multitude of laughs. The prayers, songs and blessings were immaculately observed, wine drunk, Elijah summoned, Miriam summoned, matzos gleefully devoured, soup sipped contentedly and lamb accompanied by potatoes and vegetables. Oh it felt so good and how good it was.
In a sense of course the very concepts of detachment, self isolation, apartness, remoteness may ironically have brought us much closer than we might have thought. Besides, we still have our immediate family to keep us company and we can still read, watch the TV and express our innermost feelings via a computer. The world has not ended and that has to be emphasised repeatedly. Of course solitude and the act of solitariness can be distressingly upsetting but perhaps we'll learn to live our lives in a way that somehow demands improvisation and adaptability.
Still, the fact remains that there are so many jigsaw puzzles you can complete even if there are 5,000 pieces to find. There are of course so many crosswords to mentally occupy our minds, so many pullovers to knit, music to listen to over and over again, miles to run in parks, tables or chairs to repair, decorating, painting and gardening to get round to doing. We are naturally creatures of habit but when that habit begins to run its course we are then left with something else to do which we hadn't quite thought of.
And therein lies in the problem. If we do go out anywhere we are made to feel extremely guilty and if we don't go out we feel as though the world has escaped from us. We are now in a state of captivity, struggling to find things to do on another stunningly warm spring day. But you've got to get out because eventually not only will our souls feel imprisoned but also our minds. We are not being held to hostage as such because that would imply that somebody is holding us to ransom. We are though bound by circumstances that have to be tolerated because this is indeed real life and not some cheap Hollywood movie although nobody would dare think of some sick and tasteless cinematic glorification of this dreadful disease. We love the Americans and besides this is global and we're all in this together.
There is now a very real sense of resignation, a genuine acceptance of the status quo, an almost quiet seclusion from the outside world which can be comforting but ever so slightly unnerving. Of course we can console ourselves with the knowledge that our family will always be there for us, our loving and supportive network, our confidants to talk to at all times. But then a yearning for the familiar and the traditional kicks in, fuelled by the necessity to just to carry out the ordinary tasks that we might have taken for granted.
The ghost town mentality though is still with us, the oasis is still in need of some kind of water and sustenance, refreshment and re- invigoration. But maybe this is the time to take stock of ourselves as human beings, to tweak things, make new re-adjustments, homegrown innovations. Maybe we should all just slow down, take life not quite so seriously as we are sometimes wont to do. Perhaps just perhaps life had become too far hectic, frantic and frenetic, a pressure cooker that needed to let off some steam, fraught with both tension and anxiety, weighed down by intensity and seriousness.
Of course there are the everyday bills that have to be paid, children to be nurtured and brought up, domestic duties that had to be attended to. But hold on when was the last time we thought we just wanted to stand back from the mad maelstrom, the ruinous intrusion of forces that just overwhelmed us when all we just want to do is sit down, think again and then look at our lives with much more objectivity rather than take sides and then be drawn into unnecessary arguments.
In years to come psychologists and anthropologists may come to view 2020 with the same kind of fascination as any other. But this time the year 2020 has challenged us to the utmost extreme, setting down new parameters and boundaries and quite possibly creating pyschological templates that would never have been thought of in any other year. There has been no rationale for the coronavirus because we weren't ready for this. So the uniqueness and bizarreness has hit us between the eyes and some of us can barely compute or register recent events.
Now of course we have become much more community minded, even more charitable than ever before and the human condition is beginning to show a much more favourable side to its personality. We now think nothing of doing the shopping for our elderly neighbours, caring wonderfully for the infirm or sick and then going beyond the call of duty.
The truth though of course is that there are immensely daunting obstacles in front of us that may take an age to overcome. There are different stages and phases in our lives that we never thought would make their presence felt. Still we are told to stay at home which now begins to smack of an imminent nuclear warfare but then we look at the masks outside our local chemists and supermarkets and then rub our eyes once again. Never mind folks Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister is out of intensive care and of course that has to be good news.
Tuesday, 7 April 2020
No more cricket for a while.
No more cricket for a while.
There was a time when a man, and most certainly now, a woman's thoughts would usually be turning to cricket. Cricket is that lovely summertime sport of sedateness, leisureliness, beauty, grace, village green games of picturesque artistry, schoolchildren during their summer holidays constantly scampering around the boundary, always restless and tireless but somehow emotionally connected.
Out there on England's lush playing fields most of those energetic youngsters used to sit by the boundary with scorecards in their hands, meticulously noting wickets taken and the healthy harvest of runs that the batsmen had collected with their strong, supple arms and shoulders. But here we are at the beginning of April and not only has the football season been suspended indefinitely owing to the coronavirus disease, but cricket has now been locked away in an empty pavilion and we may never find out when somebody will give them permission to play again.
For many of us cricket is the game for middle aged and elderly gentlemen and women, a game designed for mathematical and intellectual minds, reserved clearly for all classes, backgrounds, religions, thoughtful temperaments, knowing eyes, patience and concentration of the highest order. It is a game for the appreciative aficionado and the milkman, postman, baker, taxi driver, lorry driver, engineer and train driver. Cricket cuts across all class barriers, detests prejudice and loves a run chase.
But for the time being cricket is no longer considered to be even a remote possibility because there are some things that quite naturally take complete precedence to sport. Football still obsesses with playing games behind closed doors and that continuous narrative of players wages and players wage cuts. Cricket, not nearly as flush with money, just wants to get on with the business of playing its summertime rhapsodies against its traditional backdrop of churches, cathedrals, gas holders and that onion shaped media centre at Lords.
And so it is that the likes of Lords, Trent Bridge, Old Trafford, Headingley, Sophia Gardens, the Oval and a thousand other rural, urban and suburban playing fields tucked away in the middle of nowhere but quite certainly somewhere will have to go without its white flannelled cricketers. It will have to just pine for upright umpires with thick sweaters wrapped almost ritually around their waists. It will just have to miss those lively gatherings of birds at deep backward square leg, pecking and possibly squabbling away, fluttering briefly away and then watching the giants of the game heaving their imposing sixes onto a hotel balcony or into some distant shopping mall.
We shall miss them all. Summer is just synonymous with cricket. For some summer just won't be the same without cricket. It'll seem like England without its saintly vicars shaking the hands of devout parishioners, vicars riding their favourite bicycles, warm beer in an inviting pub on the corner of a vicar's rectory, an England stripped bare of its Sunday decorum, its peace and tranquillity, its shimmering streams on idyllic days but then life is always idyllic.
But then we'll wake up on a June morning when the sweet voiced crows have finished their breakfast and the men of England and the women of England won't know what to do because cricket has been abandoned, postponed and, perish the thought, cancelled. They'll be staring at their pads, varnishing their bats, endlessly practising their forward defensive prod or the much more adventurous reverse sweep.
There are those who are probably looking at their Wisden, the cricketers handbook of all handbooks and wondering if there's any point to it at all. What's the point of comparing Leicestershire's run rate, the number of Surrey's County Championship victories, reading about the timeless greats such as Denis and Leslie Compton, Len Hutton, Patsy Hendren, Bill and John Edrich, Denis Amiss, Sir Geoff Boycott, the remarkable Ian Botham, the clever Basil D'Oliveira, the schemers, the endless run makers, the blistering bowlers running in endlessly, shirts flapping and billowing on blustery summer afternoons?
For now we will just have to content ourselves with the memory of TV broadcasters, the poets of the game including John Arlott and Neville Cardus who painted landscapes and portraits with their sweetly mellifluous words. For those who listened to the magical Test Match special we will always cherish the inimitable Brian Johnson with his fruity dialogue, mischief making and a million chocolate cakes from their discerning listeners. A summer without cricket. It just doesn't seem possible.
There was a time when a man, and most certainly now, a woman's thoughts would usually be turning to cricket. Cricket is that lovely summertime sport of sedateness, leisureliness, beauty, grace, village green games of picturesque artistry, schoolchildren during their summer holidays constantly scampering around the boundary, always restless and tireless but somehow emotionally connected.
Out there on England's lush playing fields most of those energetic youngsters used to sit by the boundary with scorecards in their hands, meticulously noting wickets taken and the healthy harvest of runs that the batsmen had collected with their strong, supple arms and shoulders. But here we are at the beginning of April and not only has the football season been suspended indefinitely owing to the coronavirus disease, but cricket has now been locked away in an empty pavilion and we may never find out when somebody will give them permission to play again.
For many of us cricket is the game for middle aged and elderly gentlemen and women, a game designed for mathematical and intellectual minds, reserved clearly for all classes, backgrounds, religions, thoughtful temperaments, knowing eyes, patience and concentration of the highest order. It is a game for the appreciative aficionado and the milkman, postman, baker, taxi driver, lorry driver, engineer and train driver. Cricket cuts across all class barriers, detests prejudice and loves a run chase.
But for the time being cricket is no longer considered to be even a remote possibility because there are some things that quite naturally take complete precedence to sport. Football still obsesses with playing games behind closed doors and that continuous narrative of players wages and players wage cuts. Cricket, not nearly as flush with money, just wants to get on with the business of playing its summertime rhapsodies against its traditional backdrop of churches, cathedrals, gas holders and that onion shaped media centre at Lords.
And so it is that the likes of Lords, Trent Bridge, Old Trafford, Headingley, Sophia Gardens, the Oval and a thousand other rural, urban and suburban playing fields tucked away in the middle of nowhere but quite certainly somewhere will have to go without its white flannelled cricketers. It will have to just pine for upright umpires with thick sweaters wrapped almost ritually around their waists. It will just have to miss those lively gatherings of birds at deep backward square leg, pecking and possibly squabbling away, fluttering briefly away and then watching the giants of the game heaving their imposing sixes onto a hotel balcony or into some distant shopping mall.
We shall miss them all. Summer is just synonymous with cricket. For some summer just won't be the same without cricket. It'll seem like England without its saintly vicars shaking the hands of devout parishioners, vicars riding their favourite bicycles, warm beer in an inviting pub on the corner of a vicar's rectory, an England stripped bare of its Sunday decorum, its peace and tranquillity, its shimmering streams on idyllic days but then life is always idyllic.
But then we'll wake up on a June morning when the sweet voiced crows have finished their breakfast and the men of England and the women of England won't know what to do because cricket has been abandoned, postponed and, perish the thought, cancelled. They'll be staring at their pads, varnishing their bats, endlessly practising their forward defensive prod or the much more adventurous reverse sweep.
There are those who are probably looking at their Wisden, the cricketers handbook of all handbooks and wondering if there's any point to it at all. What's the point of comparing Leicestershire's run rate, the number of Surrey's County Championship victories, reading about the timeless greats such as Denis and Leslie Compton, Len Hutton, Patsy Hendren, Bill and John Edrich, Denis Amiss, Sir Geoff Boycott, the remarkable Ian Botham, the clever Basil D'Oliveira, the schemers, the endless run makers, the blistering bowlers running in endlessly, shirts flapping and billowing on blustery summer afternoons?
For now we will just have to content ourselves with the memory of TV broadcasters, the poets of the game including John Arlott and Neville Cardus who painted landscapes and portraits with their sweetly mellifluous words. For those who listened to the magical Test Match special we will always cherish the inimitable Brian Johnson with his fruity dialogue, mischief making and a million chocolate cakes from their discerning listeners. A summer without cricket. It just doesn't seem possible.
Sunday, 5 April 2020
Sunday - let's just keep cool.
Sunday- let's just keep cool.
There was a time when Sunday meant rest, reflection, rumination, worship, prayer, taking the dogs for a walk, sauntering around your local park, feeding the ducks and swans, running, walking, cycling, sharing lively banter, exchanging all manner of civilities, cracking jokes, gathering yourself for the week's toil and endeavour, composing yourself for another week at school and then swotting furiously for those end of term exams because everything was make or break and life defining.
But all of that has gone by the wayside. The normalities are no longer considered as normal, the formalities have been delayed for who knows how long and the festivities are definitely out of the question. So where does that leave all of us? Maybe we're all caught in the middle of a no man's land, stilled and frustrated, shackled by circumstances that are none of our making. We can't function properly because the law of the land has now dictated as such and all of those mind broadening and physically stimulating activities we would usually think nothing of, have suddenly been brought up short and just ceased forthwith.
Our noble Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who could be easily mistaken for his fictitious grandfather and comedian Tony, is now seriously suggesting that all parks and recreation grounds should be padlocked up firmly and no one should ever be allowed to go anywhere near this deeply invigorating green space where the act of healthy exercise has always been permitted for every day apart from perhaps Christmas Day.
But ladies and gentlemen you have to be informed here and now that because Britain has committed the most heinous of violations and offences, the nation has to suffer the consequences. Yesterday's burst of glorious sunshine was the perfect incentive for all of us to stride out confidently into all of our lush greenery, floral beauty and those pretty parks with their yearly profusion of daisies, tulips and the first buds of luxuriant roses.
Guess what though? Mr Hancock, in his infinite foolhardiness, has decided to put his foot down and is poised to impose the ultimate sanction on the human race. If you don't obey the Government stance on the coronavirus then you may be prosecuted, arrested, hung, drawn or quartered, taken to the gallows, beaten senseless to a pulp and then warned that if we see you anywhere in the midst of a sunbathing area in your local park you'll be swiftly taken down to the police station and warned quite sternly. Never ever do that again sonny Jim or Jean if you're a woman because you may have to get used to prison food.
We are now living in absurd times, surrealism has now made its way into pop culture and one day we will almost certainly wake up and find that this was the April Fools Joke we thought we'd been the victim of a couple of days ago. But no, it's happening. Has everybody though gone stark raving bonkers though? Have we taken leave of our senses? Around us all is utter pandemonium, pettiness, hyper sensitivity and emotional chaos. Or so it would seem but with perfectly good reason.
Of course well over 4,000 lives have been tragically lost and you can only imagine the atmosphere within those closely knit families who have lost a loved one. Our compassion is naturally a given. Of course those non essential shops are now shut, some of us may have to wait for ages for another haircut, we're stocking up on milk on a much more frequent basis and the supermarkets are beginning to resemble an episode from some deeply shocking episode from the 1970s science fiction TV show Blakes Seven.
Wherever you go now you're suddenly confronted by long lines of shoppers quite literally standing on a painted footstep yards away from each other. There is a weird sense of estrangement from each other, a creepy air of solemnity, a morose mourning for no particular reason and that overwhelming hollowness that only becomes apparent when all of the commuters have left the pubs and theatres of the West End of London.
You cast your eyes around the whole of the West End in London and convince yourself that everything has just been airbrushed out of the photographs, that some very imaginative picture editor of a trendy magazine has deliberately removed any sign of human movement. But this is very much real life, authenticity in all of its harsh reality, a real life horror show that has come to life. There is no time frame and the speculation changes according to which media outlet you happen to be following.
Football and the Premier League is still deluding itself, kidding itself that sometime in the middle of May or the middle of June the football season may go ahead as if nothing had ever happened. It does seem though that the FA, in some ludicrous fantasy world, has forgotten what's happened to the game thus far.
Football, it has to be said, has lost all perspective and its moral compass seemed to desert the game when the Premier League season was initially stopped at the beginning of March. What on earth is going through the collective minds of the FA? How to reconcile the thoughts and intentions of a sporting organisation whose only concern at the moment is naturally the welfare of its players and their families while singularly insisting that the nine remaining matches of the season have to be completed?
This is the point we have now reached. There is a school of thought which believes that those remaining games have to be played behind closed doors. What a preposterous notion, the brainchild of some bone headed idiot who has no idea of the importance that football fans attach to their game and just wants to experience that unique feeling of either disappointment or heartache, joy or jubilation in either relegation or promotion issues. It is part of their rich tapestry of their life and there has to be a logical conclusion, a signature, a clear line drawn under the whole of the season. Oh what utter nonsense.
Now we have discovered that the players themselves have now been attacked for selfishness, greed and sheer ignorance. The ongoing taxes on players wages either paid or unpaid, the deferral of those wages because no player has kicked a football in anger since the start of March and all of those ethical dilemmas that have been wildly thrown up into the air leaving the game hanging its head in shame.
In mitigation of course there was that wonderful act of generosity and altruism that touched our hearts when Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson donated millions of pounds to the NHS. In contrast we have now been told that members of staff at clubs including those working in catering have now been overlooked in that mad stampede towards the land of greater riches paid out to already wealthy and pampered footballers.
But then we look back to the broken hearted, the weeping families, the thousands who have died and you begin to question the sanity of football and its narrow minded bigwigs. When do they propose to re start the football season again? The middle of June, early July or maybe it should overlap with the beginning of the new Premier League season? Would the pre-season be foreshortened and maybe, rather like dray horses, footballers should be expected to play every weekend almost constantly until the end of the year. The latest wheeze is that TV broadcasters could show all of those remaining games live as if that would prove to be the sugar coating to satisfy all football fans. Is this is some very unfunny joke?
The fact is that every sporting event has now been postponed, every cultural event postponed and quite literally everything has been cancelled until further notice. How much clearer does that have to be? There can be no other explanation. Of course we enjoy football and quite possibly wallow in its unpredictability and capriciousness, the realms of the unexpected where nothing is quite what it seems.
The bottom line is though that yesterday's Grand National was reduced to a virtual charade, a computer generated spectacle off every scale. The London Marathon, that great family event that keeps delivering to the London streets every April, is off, and, more importantly perhaps, the Olympic Games, that four yearly sporting extravaganza where the athletes of the world come together and unite behind the four rings. There's no cricket until perhaps May, the Wimbledon tennis gathering is just a summer, strawberries and cream dream and everything is off limits, not even up for coherent discussion. These are truly historic times and it's time to hold on for a while, remain patient. We can all be victorious.
There was a time when Sunday meant rest, reflection, rumination, worship, prayer, taking the dogs for a walk, sauntering around your local park, feeding the ducks and swans, running, walking, cycling, sharing lively banter, exchanging all manner of civilities, cracking jokes, gathering yourself for the week's toil and endeavour, composing yourself for another week at school and then swotting furiously for those end of term exams because everything was make or break and life defining.
But all of that has gone by the wayside. The normalities are no longer considered as normal, the formalities have been delayed for who knows how long and the festivities are definitely out of the question. So where does that leave all of us? Maybe we're all caught in the middle of a no man's land, stilled and frustrated, shackled by circumstances that are none of our making. We can't function properly because the law of the land has now dictated as such and all of those mind broadening and physically stimulating activities we would usually think nothing of, have suddenly been brought up short and just ceased forthwith.
Our noble Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who could be easily mistaken for his fictitious grandfather and comedian Tony, is now seriously suggesting that all parks and recreation grounds should be padlocked up firmly and no one should ever be allowed to go anywhere near this deeply invigorating green space where the act of healthy exercise has always been permitted for every day apart from perhaps Christmas Day.
But ladies and gentlemen you have to be informed here and now that because Britain has committed the most heinous of violations and offences, the nation has to suffer the consequences. Yesterday's burst of glorious sunshine was the perfect incentive for all of us to stride out confidently into all of our lush greenery, floral beauty and those pretty parks with their yearly profusion of daisies, tulips and the first buds of luxuriant roses.
Guess what though? Mr Hancock, in his infinite foolhardiness, has decided to put his foot down and is poised to impose the ultimate sanction on the human race. If you don't obey the Government stance on the coronavirus then you may be prosecuted, arrested, hung, drawn or quartered, taken to the gallows, beaten senseless to a pulp and then warned that if we see you anywhere in the midst of a sunbathing area in your local park you'll be swiftly taken down to the police station and warned quite sternly. Never ever do that again sonny Jim or Jean if you're a woman because you may have to get used to prison food.
We are now living in absurd times, surrealism has now made its way into pop culture and one day we will almost certainly wake up and find that this was the April Fools Joke we thought we'd been the victim of a couple of days ago. But no, it's happening. Has everybody though gone stark raving bonkers though? Have we taken leave of our senses? Around us all is utter pandemonium, pettiness, hyper sensitivity and emotional chaos. Or so it would seem but with perfectly good reason.
Of course well over 4,000 lives have been tragically lost and you can only imagine the atmosphere within those closely knit families who have lost a loved one. Our compassion is naturally a given. Of course those non essential shops are now shut, some of us may have to wait for ages for another haircut, we're stocking up on milk on a much more frequent basis and the supermarkets are beginning to resemble an episode from some deeply shocking episode from the 1970s science fiction TV show Blakes Seven.
Wherever you go now you're suddenly confronted by long lines of shoppers quite literally standing on a painted footstep yards away from each other. There is a weird sense of estrangement from each other, a creepy air of solemnity, a morose mourning for no particular reason and that overwhelming hollowness that only becomes apparent when all of the commuters have left the pubs and theatres of the West End of London.
You cast your eyes around the whole of the West End in London and convince yourself that everything has just been airbrushed out of the photographs, that some very imaginative picture editor of a trendy magazine has deliberately removed any sign of human movement. But this is very much real life, authenticity in all of its harsh reality, a real life horror show that has come to life. There is no time frame and the speculation changes according to which media outlet you happen to be following.
Football and the Premier League is still deluding itself, kidding itself that sometime in the middle of May or the middle of June the football season may go ahead as if nothing had ever happened. It does seem though that the FA, in some ludicrous fantasy world, has forgotten what's happened to the game thus far.
Football, it has to be said, has lost all perspective and its moral compass seemed to desert the game when the Premier League season was initially stopped at the beginning of March. What on earth is going through the collective minds of the FA? How to reconcile the thoughts and intentions of a sporting organisation whose only concern at the moment is naturally the welfare of its players and their families while singularly insisting that the nine remaining matches of the season have to be completed?
This is the point we have now reached. There is a school of thought which believes that those remaining games have to be played behind closed doors. What a preposterous notion, the brainchild of some bone headed idiot who has no idea of the importance that football fans attach to their game and just wants to experience that unique feeling of either disappointment or heartache, joy or jubilation in either relegation or promotion issues. It is part of their rich tapestry of their life and there has to be a logical conclusion, a signature, a clear line drawn under the whole of the season. Oh what utter nonsense.
Now we have discovered that the players themselves have now been attacked for selfishness, greed and sheer ignorance. The ongoing taxes on players wages either paid or unpaid, the deferral of those wages because no player has kicked a football in anger since the start of March and all of those ethical dilemmas that have been wildly thrown up into the air leaving the game hanging its head in shame.
In mitigation of course there was that wonderful act of generosity and altruism that touched our hearts when Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson donated millions of pounds to the NHS. In contrast we have now been told that members of staff at clubs including those working in catering have now been overlooked in that mad stampede towards the land of greater riches paid out to already wealthy and pampered footballers.
But then we look back to the broken hearted, the weeping families, the thousands who have died and you begin to question the sanity of football and its narrow minded bigwigs. When do they propose to re start the football season again? The middle of June, early July or maybe it should overlap with the beginning of the new Premier League season? Would the pre-season be foreshortened and maybe, rather like dray horses, footballers should be expected to play every weekend almost constantly until the end of the year. The latest wheeze is that TV broadcasters could show all of those remaining games live as if that would prove to be the sugar coating to satisfy all football fans. Is this is some very unfunny joke?
The fact is that every sporting event has now been postponed, every cultural event postponed and quite literally everything has been cancelled until further notice. How much clearer does that have to be? There can be no other explanation. Of course we enjoy football and quite possibly wallow in its unpredictability and capriciousness, the realms of the unexpected where nothing is quite what it seems.
The bottom line is though that yesterday's Grand National was reduced to a virtual charade, a computer generated spectacle off every scale. The London Marathon, that great family event that keeps delivering to the London streets every April, is off, and, more importantly perhaps, the Olympic Games, that four yearly sporting extravaganza where the athletes of the world come together and unite behind the four rings. There's no cricket until perhaps May, the Wimbledon tennis gathering is just a summer, strawberries and cream dream and everything is off limits, not even up for coherent discussion. These are truly historic times and it's time to hold on for a while, remain patient. We can all be victorious.
Friday, 3 April 2020
Bill Withers dies.
Bill Withers
Just over 35 years ago a friend of mine and yours truly were privileged to be in the audience for a concert hosted by the legendary American soul artist Bill Withers. Today Bill Withers died at the age of 81 and it was with a heavy heart that a personal reminiscence is passed on to those who may or may not have been one of his fans.
It was during the mid 1980s that we both settled down to watch Withers at the Walthamstow Assembly Rooms behind the town hall which probably sounds distinctly unglamorous in retrospect. But it was an evening of soothing soul anthems, reflective songs from Withers childhood in the deep South of America, the pleasure that his music provided us with and an easy going charm offensive that he achieved with a minimum of fuss.
The lasting memory of that Withers five star performance from yesteryear was the simple setting: there was the comfortable stool in the middle of the stage and then Withers himself guitar slung casually around his neck. For the best part of just over two hours the man from Slab Fork, West Virginia rolled out his back catalogue to a devoted following who were simply mesmerised by a man who'd embraced music from an early age and never lost touch with his roots.
In an interview with Bob Harris on the Old Grey Whistle Test 47 years ago Withers spoke about his formative influences, his motivations for making music and his natural affinity with both soul and funk music. With the fashionable afro hair of the age, guitar in hand and all of the necessary gospel material by his side if his childhood had suddenly revisited him, Withers went through the golden repertoire as if it were somehow instilled into him from the cot.
The songs still resonate through the ages because they'll always be permanently lodged inside your mind. Eyes shut and totally absorbed in the moment, Withers gave us 'Grandma's Hands', a blissfully affectionate homage to Withers grandmother, a sweet lullaby, a rhapsody of love to all grandmas who thought nothing of lavishing you with kindness, tenderness and care. 'Grandma's Hands' must have reminded Withers of those gentle, innocent family gatherings where grandma would ply you with sweetcorn, honey roast chicken and hundreds of Coca Cola bottles.
But the songs which literally raised Withers to the highest pinnacle were the ones that most of us think as synonymous with the soul and smooth as silk singer for many a generation. They were Bill Withers, a personification of the man's rich and prolific songbook. 'Ain't No Sunshine' was a sad lament for the early loves and relationships which never seemed the same once the partner had left them. Withers was a born romantic, a man who would have clutched a rose between his lips and poured the first glass of red wine with his wife as and when the occasion was right. Withers adored his wife for many decades and whenever they weren't together that sunshine had literally gone. It was song that Withers must have sung to his wife every day of their marriage.
Then there was 'Lean on Me', another song of re-assurance and reliability, those intimate moments when a man turns to a woman or vice versa and declares that they'll always be there at all times. Withers had now used life as a metaphor for who he really is. Whenever things do go wrong, you know that Withers will be sincere, trustworthy and loyal to the core. You can always pour your heart and bare your soul to him because he's an excellent pair of ears.
Now there was the masterpiece that singled him out as one of the world's most outstanding lyricists. On his superb album 'Menagerie', Withers composed one of those songs that are instantly identifiable and never forgotten. 'Lovely Day' was an exquisite song that drove us irresistibly to the dance floor or disco. It was the song that allowed Withers voice to quite literally soar, hold onto that note in the middle for what seemed ages and a song that illustrated perfectly his gratitude to the perfection of the day and his love of being in love.
In 'Just the Two of Us' Withers once again enjoys the concept of just sharing his affection with his wife and describing the intimacy of that special moment. How could anything emulate or surpass that indefinable moment when the couple hold hands along a sandy beach, staring out at the unforgettable sunset and then looking deeply into each other's eyes longingly?
Bill Withers may have left us but the musical legacy will endure for many a year to come. Some of us will still have a soft spot for that glorious night at Walthamstow Assembly Rooms when social media was just some far off ambition and all you needed was a stool and guitar. We shall miss Bill Withers. Quite definitely.
Just over 35 years ago a friend of mine and yours truly were privileged to be in the audience for a concert hosted by the legendary American soul artist Bill Withers. Today Bill Withers died at the age of 81 and it was with a heavy heart that a personal reminiscence is passed on to those who may or may not have been one of his fans.
It was during the mid 1980s that we both settled down to watch Withers at the Walthamstow Assembly Rooms behind the town hall which probably sounds distinctly unglamorous in retrospect. But it was an evening of soothing soul anthems, reflective songs from Withers childhood in the deep South of America, the pleasure that his music provided us with and an easy going charm offensive that he achieved with a minimum of fuss.
The lasting memory of that Withers five star performance from yesteryear was the simple setting: there was the comfortable stool in the middle of the stage and then Withers himself guitar slung casually around his neck. For the best part of just over two hours the man from Slab Fork, West Virginia rolled out his back catalogue to a devoted following who were simply mesmerised by a man who'd embraced music from an early age and never lost touch with his roots.
In an interview with Bob Harris on the Old Grey Whistle Test 47 years ago Withers spoke about his formative influences, his motivations for making music and his natural affinity with both soul and funk music. With the fashionable afro hair of the age, guitar in hand and all of the necessary gospel material by his side if his childhood had suddenly revisited him, Withers went through the golden repertoire as if it were somehow instilled into him from the cot.
The songs still resonate through the ages because they'll always be permanently lodged inside your mind. Eyes shut and totally absorbed in the moment, Withers gave us 'Grandma's Hands', a blissfully affectionate homage to Withers grandmother, a sweet lullaby, a rhapsody of love to all grandmas who thought nothing of lavishing you with kindness, tenderness and care. 'Grandma's Hands' must have reminded Withers of those gentle, innocent family gatherings where grandma would ply you with sweetcorn, honey roast chicken and hundreds of Coca Cola bottles.
But the songs which literally raised Withers to the highest pinnacle were the ones that most of us think as synonymous with the soul and smooth as silk singer for many a generation. They were Bill Withers, a personification of the man's rich and prolific songbook. 'Ain't No Sunshine' was a sad lament for the early loves and relationships which never seemed the same once the partner had left them. Withers was a born romantic, a man who would have clutched a rose between his lips and poured the first glass of red wine with his wife as and when the occasion was right. Withers adored his wife for many decades and whenever they weren't together that sunshine had literally gone. It was song that Withers must have sung to his wife every day of their marriage.
Then there was 'Lean on Me', another song of re-assurance and reliability, those intimate moments when a man turns to a woman or vice versa and declares that they'll always be there at all times. Withers had now used life as a metaphor for who he really is. Whenever things do go wrong, you know that Withers will be sincere, trustworthy and loyal to the core. You can always pour your heart and bare your soul to him because he's an excellent pair of ears.
Now there was the masterpiece that singled him out as one of the world's most outstanding lyricists. On his superb album 'Menagerie', Withers composed one of those songs that are instantly identifiable and never forgotten. 'Lovely Day' was an exquisite song that drove us irresistibly to the dance floor or disco. It was the song that allowed Withers voice to quite literally soar, hold onto that note in the middle for what seemed ages and a song that illustrated perfectly his gratitude to the perfection of the day and his love of being in love.
In 'Just the Two of Us' Withers once again enjoys the concept of just sharing his affection with his wife and describing the intimacy of that special moment. How could anything emulate or surpass that indefinable moment when the couple hold hands along a sandy beach, staring out at the unforgettable sunset and then looking deeply into each other's eyes longingly?
Bill Withers may have left us but the musical legacy will endure for many a year to come. Some of us will still have a soft spot for that glorious night at Walthamstow Assembly Rooms when social media was just some far off ambition and all you needed was a stool and guitar. We shall miss Bill Withers. Quite definitely.
Keep smiling everybody.
Keep smiling everybody.
It could be that we'll be here for some time. Hopefully it'll go sooner rather than later but at the moment there's no telling. So here we are and if we haven't got used to it now would be as good a time as any. Of course we're fretting, of course we're dwelling and of course we're just totally nonplussed. If only we could return to doing the simple things in life but then perspective sets in and fate begins to hover over us rather like some low flying hot air balloon. It just hangs in the sky moving neither forward or backwards, sideways or any way at all.
Sadly and frustratingly everything has quite been literally either postponed or cancelled. In fact this may be the time to declare the whole of 2020 as null and void. It had all the makings of a good, strong New Year, the moon was in the right position, the stars at the right angles to each other, the omens both encouraging and deeply optimistic. It was the start of a new decade, the beginning of a new project and perhaps the start of something brand new.
But now everything has disastrously toppled over like a set of dominoes, crashing onto the table and everything looks very bleak and dire at the moment. We're at the beginning of April and the worldwide disease that is coronavirus is eating away at both the cultural and spiritual fabric of our lives. Or is it? Come on folks we have to keep strong and look on the infinitely brighter side. But nobody could possibly have known that something could be quite as impactful or hard hitting as this. And yet our everyday living seems to have been inexorably changed whether for better or worse. Life is on hold at the moment and for some of us this is both distinctly unusual and strange.
Still folks all is not lost. Next week marks the beginning of Pesach or Passover for the Jewish population and shortly it'll be Easter for the Christian community. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a cause for mass preparations, extensive spring cleaning, matzo crunching and much merriment. But this is now turning into a unique year since everything around us is now shutting up or closing down. There are to be no festivals or family gatherings, no children chomping through vast supplies of chocolate eggs and all of those plans have been left to fall into rack and ruin.
Put simply spring has been more or less cancelled, summer kicked into touch and everything we were looking forward to has been temporarily mothballed because of one terrible and now fatal disease. It is undoubtedly a worldwide catastrophe and never for a moment did we ever think that something like this would ever happen in our lifetime. You keep hoping that somebody will shake you from your sleep, insist that it was indeed some wretched nightmare and once you'd had a shower then all of the nastiness would be washed away in a matter of seconds.
Now though the world will have to be a content with a blizzard of worst case scenarios, barely believable conspiracy theories and nothing but death, illness, thousands of people on the critical list in hospitals and a plague like society. We keep looking at the rest of the world and then we look at ourselves because we keep wondering how long it'll be before the lockdown of lockdowns can find a key, releasing us from the shackles of confinement, limitation, hardship, privation and what feels like complete disconnection from our loved ones and friends.
At the moment we are repeatedly told not to give up, throw in the towel or just disintegrate into some appalling state of inertia and lethargy. We've got to keep living our lives in the way we've always lived them without feeling hemmed in by events beyond our control. Out there in the big world thousands of people are dying although it has never been anybody's intention to state the obvious. But a naked terror has grabbed hold of our mindsets and physical well being that we just couldn't have foreseen two months ago.
In East London a new hospital has just opened up to accommodate the thousands of those who may have just been struck down with coronavirus, beds have quickly been put into place and there is almost a military air about the place. There is very much a First World War aura about the Nightingale hospital and your heart sinks deeper and deeper. You half expect Florence Nightingale to quietly go about her duties with lantern in hand. This is history being made over and over again. But this is quite definitely happening and this is no ghastly hallucination.
This morning Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed Britain with yet darker prognostications about the immediate future, of not going out at all under any circumstances, of sitting tight and doing nothing that could endanger the rest of human society. Shirt buttons open and shirt quite possibly dripping with a sweat filled temperature, Johnson looked as though he just wanted to go straight back to bed with honey and lemon, a lengthy nap and the knowledge that nobody would disturb him for the next three months.
Britain and the world has been traumatised and destabilised, hampered and hindered, broken and speechless, bruised and battered, drained and devastated by the kind of events that could leave the rest of this year in tatters. There can be nothing to look forward to watching on the TV although Netflix could come to our emotional rescue, repeats rehashed ad infinitum and all we're left with are another bombardment of 1950s, 1960s and 1970s sitcoms and plays we may have thought had been completely wiped by all of the TV channels.
And yet it may be at times like this when we do indulge in nostalgia, revelling gleefully in historic moments of our lives, the resourceful things we used to do but never ever thought we'd do again. Some of us remember the 1970s powercuts when the lights went out upon return from our school labours and the whole family would have to stagger around the house desperately searching for an old transistor radio or another set of candles to guide us around a darkened hallway or kitchen.
It could rightly be asserted that these were indeed austerity times, those severe or straitened periods of our adolescence when thank goodness our parents had a gas oven because otherwise we'd have had to survive on takeaways or just bread and water. It hardly bears thinking about but for what seemed a lifetime the miners and the electricians had created havoc with our family. But even then we summoned the requisite amount of fighting spirit, that indomitable will and that unbreakable spirit.
With every passing hour and day the coronavirus is here and present rather like the proverbial bad penny. At some point the survival rates will increase, the infection quelled and quite possibly by the end of this month - or even earlier - we'll be given the green light to enjoy ourselves, to party for as long as we like, to laugh and smile with family and friends before collapsing on the sofa with a huge grin on our faces. Lockdown though still sounds like some grisly and gruesome expression coined by somebody who was very depressed about this disease and couldn't think of anything more suitable.
Still let's just make it up on the hoof, improvising endlessly, cracking naff jokes to one and all on the street or the park and then making light of the dark. We must not be downhearted, dispirited and forlorn. We have to keep clapping, keep applauding our wonderfully commendable NHS, remaining both brave and benevolent, thankful and moved because this is the one moment in our lives when the human spirit must prevail. Keep going everybody.
It could be that we'll be here for some time. Hopefully it'll go sooner rather than later but at the moment there's no telling. So here we are and if we haven't got used to it now would be as good a time as any. Of course we're fretting, of course we're dwelling and of course we're just totally nonplussed. If only we could return to doing the simple things in life but then perspective sets in and fate begins to hover over us rather like some low flying hot air balloon. It just hangs in the sky moving neither forward or backwards, sideways or any way at all.
Sadly and frustratingly everything has quite been literally either postponed or cancelled. In fact this may be the time to declare the whole of 2020 as null and void. It had all the makings of a good, strong New Year, the moon was in the right position, the stars at the right angles to each other, the omens both encouraging and deeply optimistic. It was the start of a new decade, the beginning of a new project and perhaps the start of something brand new.
But now everything has disastrously toppled over like a set of dominoes, crashing onto the table and everything looks very bleak and dire at the moment. We're at the beginning of April and the worldwide disease that is coronavirus is eating away at both the cultural and spiritual fabric of our lives. Or is it? Come on folks we have to keep strong and look on the infinitely brighter side. But nobody could possibly have known that something could be quite as impactful or hard hitting as this. And yet our everyday living seems to have been inexorably changed whether for better or worse. Life is on hold at the moment and for some of us this is both distinctly unusual and strange.
Still folks all is not lost. Next week marks the beginning of Pesach or Passover for the Jewish population and shortly it'll be Easter for the Christian community. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a cause for mass preparations, extensive spring cleaning, matzo crunching and much merriment. But this is now turning into a unique year since everything around us is now shutting up or closing down. There are to be no festivals or family gatherings, no children chomping through vast supplies of chocolate eggs and all of those plans have been left to fall into rack and ruin.
Put simply spring has been more or less cancelled, summer kicked into touch and everything we were looking forward to has been temporarily mothballed because of one terrible and now fatal disease. It is undoubtedly a worldwide catastrophe and never for a moment did we ever think that something like this would ever happen in our lifetime. You keep hoping that somebody will shake you from your sleep, insist that it was indeed some wretched nightmare and once you'd had a shower then all of the nastiness would be washed away in a matter of seconds.
Now though the world will have to be a content with a blizzard of worst case scenarios, barely believable conspiracy theories and nothing but death, illness, thousands of people on the critical list in hospitals and a plague like society. We keep looking at the rest of the world and then we look at ourselves because we keep wondering how long it'll be before the lockdown of lockdowns can find a key, releasing us from the shackles of confinement, limitation, hardship, privation and what feels like complete disconnection from our loved ones and friends.
At the moment we are repeatedly told not to give up, throw in the towel or just disintegrate into some appalling state of inertia and lethargy. We've got to keep living our lives in the way we've always lived them without feeling hemmed in by events beyond our control. Out there in the big world thousands of people are dying although it has never been anybody's intention to state the obvious. But a naked terror has grabbed hold of our mindsets and physical well being that we just couldn't have foreseen two months ago.
In East London a new hospital has just opened up to accommodate the thousands of those who may have just been struck down with coronavirus, beds have quickly been put into place and there is almost a military air about the place. There is very much a First World War aura about the Nightingale hospital and your heart sinks deeper and deeper. You half expect Florence Nightingale to quietly go about her duties with lantern in hand. This is history being made over and over again. But this is quite definitely happening and this is no ghastly hallucination.
This morning Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed Britain with yet darker prognostications about the immediate future, of not going out at all under any circumstances, of sitting tight and doing nothing that could endanger the rest of human society. Shirt buttons open and shirt quite possibly dripping with a sweat filled temperature, Johnson looked as though he just wanted to go straight back to bed with honey and lemon, a lengthy nap and the knowledge that nobody would disturb him for the next three months.
Britain and the world has been traumatised and destabilised, hampered and hindered, broken and speechless, bruised and battered, drained and devastated by the kind of events that could leave the rest of this year in tatters. There can be nothing to look forward to watching on the TV although Netflix could come to our emotional rescue, repeats rehashed ad infinitum and all we're left with are another bombardment of 1950s, 1960s and 1970s sitcoms and plays we may have thought had been completely wiped by all of the TV channels.
And yet it may be at times like this when we do indulge in nostalgia, revelling gleefully in historic moments of our lives, the resourceful things we used to do but never ever thought we'd do again. Some of us remember the 1970s powercuts when the lights went out upon return from our school labours and the whole family would have to stagger around the house desperately searching for an old transistor radio or another set of candles to guide us around a darkened hallway or kitchen.
It could rightly be asserted that these were indeed austerity times, those severe or straitened periods of our adolescence when thank goodness our parents had a gas oven because otherwise we'd have had to survive on takeaways or just bread and water. It hardly bears thinking about but for what seemed a lifetime the miners and the electricians had created havoc with our family. But even then we summoned the requisite amount of fighting spirit, that indomitable will and that unbreakable spirit.
With every passing hour and day the coronavirus is here and present rather like the proverbial bad penny. At some point the survival rates will increase, the infection quelled and quite possibly by the end of this month - or even earlier - we'll be given the green light to enjoy ourselves, to party for as long as we like, to laugh and smile with family and friends before collapsing on the sofa with a huge grin on our faces. Lockdown though still sounds like some grisly and gruesome expression coined by somebody who was very depressed about this disease and couldn't think of anything more suitable.
Still let's just make it up on the hoof, improvising endlessly, cracking naff jokes to one and all on the street or the park and then making light of the dark. We must not be downhearted, dispirited and forlorn. We have to keep clapping, keep applauding our wonderfully commendable NHS, remaining both brave and benevolent, thankful and moved because this is the one moment in our lives when the human spirit must prevail. Keep going everybody.
Wednesday, 1 April 2020
Sporting retro poetry
Sporting retro poetry.
To quote an old TV programme. Now for something entirely different.
Here are the lyrical musings of a poet who didn't quite know it. You could call it sporting poetry but none rhyme as such but do occasionally. Still, while most of the world is agonising and worrying about coronavirus here are several pieces of my very descriptive prose written many years ago. So here we go everybody.
Cricket - what a game!
A gentle prod to square leg
Over church bells and village tent
A glass of wine perhaps for a while
Cricket's dulcet melody
A lofted six over hedge and yew
Umpire gives a knowing sigh
Batsmen rest on this
One and only
Begonia scented day
Third man glances wistfully
Over steeple and hill
We cheered the four
Where jackdaws soar
And lunched till stately tea
The hook over long on
This rural English scene
Of gallant deeds and upstanding folk
As rain stopped play on that morose pavilion
Amid lasting centuries
Through all the days
Football - Dreams from another age
You remember the days of
Baggy shorts that flapped in the wind
Cigarette card heroes
With boots of iron
Brylcreemed hair so soft and silky
Stood to attention as Matthews scored
We surged and swayed in mighty crowds
When Bovril and manners were half a crown
Thunderous roar, we cheered our goal
Lofthouse and Finney in their royal cloak
From joyous streets and smoky pubs
We lit our Woodbines and shuffled home.
This was the game that stole our hearts
When dreams and fantasies held the FA Cup
We rattled from terraces from way up high
And squeezed our scarves with a rapturous hug
I saw Best in his pomp, when London swung
Dancing to a tune
A heavenly pirouette
I wiped a tear when Bobby Moore died
The masterful maestro who always smiled
I'll never forget those Saturdays of yesteryear
When grand-dad and I,
Waved a rosette and heaved a sigh
Moist eyed but happy
We raised a glass to family and friends
To flying wingers, peas and pie
I saw footballing perfection last night.
Did you see Real last night?
Like a landscape in June
That flowered on the hill
When the river flowed and the angels played their harps
Sun set kissed the perfect Bernabeu
They glided and waltzed over
This handsome turf
With the air of a rumba
Their arrogance called
The peerless Zidane with the brush of a Cezanne,
Sprayed with garish colours over United's wall
When Figo bent the ball over Barthez's head
Sculptors as one, gasped with delight
But this was the night when Madrid came alive
When Raul found his kingdom
And Ronaldo thrived
Poets and novelists may squabble and debate
I saw Real consummate
If this was the portrait of all that was great
Then Carlos sat with noble intent,
Real will win the European Cup,
Like the matadors of old,
Taking their bow with timeless grace
And the disdainful nonchalance of those who always knew.
Stay safe and keep well everybody.
To quote an old TV programme. Now for something entirely different.
Here are the lyrical musings of a poet who didn't quite know it. You could call it sporting poetry but none rhyme as such but do occasionally. Still, while most of the world is agonising and worrying about coronavirus here are several pieces of my very descriptive prose written many years ago. So here we go everybody.
Cricket - what a game!
A gentle prod to square leg
Over church bells and village tent
A glass of wine perhaps for a while
Cricket's dulcet melody
A lofted six over hedge and yew
Umpire gives a knowing sigh
Batsmen rest on this
One and only
Begonia scented day
Third man glances wistfully
Over steeple and hill
We cheered the four
Where jackdaws soar
And lunched till stately tea
The hook over long on
This rural English scene
Of gallant deeds and upstanding folk
As rain stopped play on that morose pavilion
Amid lasting centuries
Through all the days
Football - Dreams from another age
You remember the days of
Baggy shorts that flapped in the wind
Cigarette card heroes
With boots of iron
Brylcreemed hair so soft and silky
Stood to attention as Matthews scored
We surged and swayed in mighty crowds
When Bovril and manners were half a crown
Thunderous roar, we cheered our goal
Lofthouse and Finney in their royal cloak
From joyous streets and smoky pubs
We lit our Woodbines and shuffled home.
This was the game that stole our hearts
When dreams and fantasies held the FA Cup
We rattled from terraces from way up high
And squeezed our scarves with a rapturous hug
I saw Best in his pomp, when London swung
Dancing to a tune
A heavenly pirouette
I wiped a tear when Bobby Moore died
The masterful maestro who always smiled
I'll never forget those Saturdays of yesteryear
When grand-dad and I,
Waved a rosette and heaved a sigh
Moist eyed but happy
We raised a glass to family and friends
To flying wingers, peas and pie
I saw footballing perfection last night.
Did you see Real last night?
Like a landscape in June
That flowered on the hill
When the river flowed and the angels played their harps
Sun set kissed the perfect Bernabeu
They glided and waltzed over
This handsome turf
With the air of a rumba
Their arrogance called
The peerless Zidane with the brush of a Cezanne,
Sprayed with garish colours over United's wall
When Figo bent the ball over Barthez's head
Sculptors as one, gasped with delight
But this was the night when Madrid came alive
When Raul found his kingdom
And Ronaldo thrived
Poets and novelists may squabble and debate
I saw Real consummate
If this was the portrait of all that was great
Then Carlos sat with noble intent,
Real will win the European Cup,
Like the matadors of old,
Taking their bow with timeless grace
And the disdainful nonchalance of those who always knew.
Stay safe and keep well everybody.
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