iansie.com: blogadoon: sporty spice

August 27th - September 2nd 2001

Sunday Gay love
Saturday Sporty
Friday Swan bites man
Thursday Booking office
Wednesday Boyzone? Poison!
Tuesday In the post
Monday Lawn Dogs

Sunday 2nd September 2001

Check this out: a gay love-story between a 19 year old student and a 26 year old doctor, set in contemporary Glasgow. And it's all true. Start here and work forward...

Saturday 1st September 2001

I'm not sure I can even begin to explain how absurd it seemed to find myself shopping in Rugby Scene on Carnaby Street yesterday afternoon.

I have fond memories of an interview with the estimable Dr Jonathan Miller several years ago, where he talked about his experience of sport at an English boarding school. He said he played what was known as 'Jewish cricket', meaning that when his team was fielding he would spend the time lying in the long grass, staring at the sky. That was my favourite too.

What one might call Jewish rugby, or Jewish soccer, was much less fun: it actually takes considerable effort to keep a vigilant distance between oneself and the ball, nasty wet muddy thing that it is. And as for hockey, ick.

A team for skivers is something of a contradiction, I suppose, but had there been such a thing, trust me, I would have been Victor Ludorum.

I was a regular at morning surgery, where it was often possible to get 'off games' by talking up some mysterious ailment. (And although I never went so far as the people who maintained open sores on their heels with the aid of a pen-knife, I definitely thought about it.)

I was even known to amend posted lists of proposed teams by whiteing-out my name, or simply removing the list from the noticeboard and claiming I'd assumed the match had been cancelled. And if there was even a hint of some alternative activity proposed, I'd be there like a shot: I spent one entire season lofting dead leaves into wheelbarrows and sloping off for sly cigarettes.Summer in the sixth form was the best though, because then the seniors could choose from a range of more esoteric sporting activities. I chose tennis (because it was well-known that the surface of the new courts became unplayable the moment the sun shone) and sailing (because the merest hint of a wind made the authorities panic at the thought of drowned school-children and, hello?, you can't sail when there is no wind.)

Curiously, I'm pretty certain that the prospect of each afternoon's sporty sessions being topped and tailed by ten minutes in the changing room never even entered my calculations. Perhaps because that meant a lot less at a boarding school, where casual nudity is much less at a premium?

Or perhaps it takes an adult mind-set to be attracted to the sly eroticism of showers and soggy socks. How else to explain that here I was, thirty years later, leafing through racks and racks of brightly-coloured cotton and nylon, trying to find something, anything, in which to look not entirely absurd at Sports and Shorts.

Casual enquiries to Andy amongst others had already steered me to 'Rugby Scene' rather than it's neighbour 'Football Scene' on the basis that rugby shorts are a good few inches shorter than the absurd knee-length shorts that predominate elsewhere. Close inspection of the racks reveals that 'Australian rules'(?) shorts are even shorter - I'm not entirely convinced my thighs are good enough for that, but we'll see...

It was the shirt that was proving a problem. Sometime in my twenties, I used to love wearing a comfy casual rugby shirt with broad horizontal stripes of mellow fawn and olive green. But, my god, they simply don't design shirts like that anymore.

Television, I guess, explains why everything I looked at seemed so damned bright. And sponsorship explains why it's all covered with the names and logos of companies that nobody in their right mind would wish to be associated with. ('Barings Asset Management'? Even with my worst obscene-pun head on, I don't think so.)

I settled, in the end, for a relatively restrained Springboks shirt, in olive green with bright yellow accents; quite tasteful but for the badly-embroidered Springbok itself, but I might be able to justify that with some remark about wearing my hart on my sleeve, er, chest.

And, like, I know at least two South Africans, ok? (The Springboks are South African. Aren't they? Or is that the All Blacks?)

So: Sports and Shorts tonight. I might even dig out my jock. See you there?

Friday 31st August 2001

You might have missed the news that Michael Barrymore went out with friends on a boat on the Norfolk Broads at the weekend and had his hand pecked by a swan.

But not if you are a Daily Mail reader. The story completely filled page three of yesterday's edition, with before, during and after pictures, and reports directly from the scene: "He was holding some bread out to a group of about half a dozen swans. All of a sudden one of them pecked his finger as it took the bread. He pulled his hand away quickly from the water. It looked quite painful."

Film at eleven, as they say.

Thursday 30th August 2001

Dear me, but I've read some damned bad books this summer, the worst probably being Angels and Demons (inexplicably plugged by BooksEtc), a farrago of tosh whose climactic scene involves The Pope spontaneously combusting in St Peter's Square before a worldwide television audience.

Things have got slightly better in the last few weeks, however. Here are three pretty representative extracts from some books I've quite enjoyed this month. None of them are good enough to make it onto my These We have Loved page, but all can be recommended if you're looking for an entertaining easy read...

Martin had lost count of the number of minor celebrities he had rubbed shoulders with over the past few months - the DJ who once shared a squat with Boy George; the club promoter with the the public-school education who careered around in head to foot Vivienne Westwood, feeding coke to anyone willing to tell him how wonderful he was; the porn star who spent two months a year on the film sets of LA where he punished eager young pups with his famously large appendage, and the rest of his time working the arty circles of London where he presented a more sensitive front by reciting his poetry; the camp comedian who seldom smiled and could usually be found slumped in a corner at whichever club happened to be fashionable or wherever there was a steady supply of ketamine.

It was all a far cry from the life Martin used to know - so much so that, some Monday mornings, he could hardly wait to get into work and tell the girls in the design department all about his latest adventure.

- Shameless by Paul Burston

The representative of the Brontë Federation was reading the words as they appeared on the yellowed manuscript in front of him. Aside from a few minor changes, the book was travelling the same course it always did; it had been word perfect for the past two hours. Jane was being proposed to by St John Rivers, who wanted her to go to with him to India as his wife, and she was about to make up her mind...

Then, the miraculous happened. The Brontë Federation expert, a small, usually unexcitable man named Plink, was suddenly ignited by shock.

'Wait a minute: this is new! This didn't happen!'

- The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

"Hold on to your hat," my father said, "because here's that guitar you've always wanted."

Surely he had me confused with someone else. Although I'd regularly petitioned for a brand-name vacuum cleaner, I'd never said anything about wanting a guitar. Nothing about it appealed to me, not even on an aesthetic level. I had my room arranged just so, and the instrument did not fit into my nautical theme. An anchor, yes. A guitar, no. He wanted me to jam, so I jammed it into my closet...

- Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Wednesday 29th August 2001

The Onion: "So I started copying Doonesbury, and you know the rest."

Well most of it, yah - but nobody told me about Steve Dallas running off to Las Vegas to get married...

To Mark Slackmeyer?!

Jonno lives in New Orleans. Yes? Jonno likes Marmite. Eh? And blow-jobs at Highbury Fields. Hmm. Jonno spent some time in London. Ah.

A list of clichés as long as your arm.

Anti-monarchist but pro-nicotine, giving a princess a stop-smoking course for a wedding present definitely files under lesé majesté in my book; off with his head!

I close eyes and wish, thinking of thinking of Uncle Hedgehog this Sunday, as I spotted Nick dancing in Minkered Corner.

How good is Lawn Dogs?

Good enough that, when you drop it into conversation with the dreamy twenty-something you're cruising in an empty street at midnight, he hauls his delightfully posey South American ass off the market trolley he's leaning on and actually starts walking around - that's how good.

(Mind you, he hadn't spotted that the heroine could just as easily have been a hero, so I don't think ours will be a long-term relationship.)

Pre-emptive self-shaming, a serial: judging by the fact that the pop-quiz's team name last night was "Darren and Jonathan, no chance" I would surmise that David also got there late. But not as late as I. And still in plenty of time to giggle madly when I misheard an answer and wrote down Boyzone instead of Poison, damn it.

Tuesday 28th August 2001

The end of August and the return to the real world is marked by an avalanche of post.

Mermaniac writes I'm reorganizing my links list, this time astrologically instead of alphabetically. I dug around your site looking for an about page or maybe an amazon wish list that might give me a clue, but I came up empty. As I replied, I'm the sign that answers that question by arching an eyebrow and asking What star sign do you think I am?

One of the places I considered going on Friday night was XXL. Waiting for me when I got home: I was just checking out your website would like to ask if you could put a link to XXL on there. The website is www.fatsandsmalls.com

An academic writes: We have just begun a three year project on uses of new media and its links to senses of place and community... I was wondering whether you might be willing to meet up sometime to discuss your site and blogging more generally? (I think we all got that post, no?)

Guy writes to remind me to remind you that he's still looking for someone convivial yet responsible to share his rather posh house in Shepherds Bush for �500 quid a month. Bargain. (More details on request.)

Charlie writes to warm my cockles by lavishly lauding Blogadoon, and includes a compliment way too inflammatory to mention here.

Some crap-spammer writes THE SUBJECT OF SEX IS SENSITIVE Vi*creme is a Patented, Safe, Clear, and Natural Topical creme, restoring the fullness of love through the wonders of complete sexual satisfaction. Vi*creme rubbed on the cliteris INTENSIFIES orgasm; wile INDUCING orgasm for women with difficulty. (Women with difficulty should write to me enclosing a sae: I could do with the stamps.)

And then, through the letterbox, a holiday postcard Saw this and thought of you:

wish you were here?

Monday 27th August 2001

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern was busy yesterday, despite the unexpected rain; even better though was the movie on BBC2 that I staggered home in time to see: Lawn Dogs.

If you haven't seen this movie then find someone who taped it and beg, borrow or steal the opportunity to enjoy the only movie that I've enjoyed without reservation for ages.

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