2 (10) Here we go again.

WATCHING.

The Commonwealth Games. 
As I have written before somewhere, in my youth I was a very keen follower of athletics: I particularly admired the prowess of long distance runners A.F. H. Newton and Paavo Nurmi; the quiet determination of amateur middle distance runner Sydney Wooderson, (holder of what was then the world record for the mile, 4 mins, 6.4 seconds); the definitive sporting Englishman Lord Burghley (a fine hurdler and much respected athletics administrator) and the magnificent American athlete Jessie Owens (who rubbed Nazi noses in the excrement four times at the 1936 Summer Olympics).

For myself, as I have also written before somewhere, nothing earth shattering. At around sixteen years of age I was captain of the Royal Signals junior cross country team (based at Catterick Camp, Yorkshire) and we were top of the North Eastern Counties (junior) league; that's about as far as it went. I did love it, though. So it is with regret that I find myself saying: “Thank Christ the Commonwealth Games is over!” Why? 
Because, as I know I have written before, only a very small handful of people regularly go to athletics events nowadays. (The last time I turned out was to watch Sydney Wooderson at Pitt Street, Portsmouth, circa 1944, when he won the mile in about 4mins 10/20 secs and finished not even breathing heavily.

There was also a very good high jumper whose name eludes me and Sgt. Brown of the Portsmouth Police won the three miles walk in world record time.) I think the extreme following for the last Olympic Games - and this latest lot in Glasgow - has been down to high-powered nonstop publicity and the ever increasing onlooker desire to feel close to an event (births, deaths, weddings, funerals, accidents, games), any event. So we were treated to an overkill of runnin', jumpin', throwin', swimmin', divin', fightin' and sweaty chattin' on the Beeb for an entire fortnight. It quickly became tiresome and the rubbish reality shows, together with the soaps, must have made hay while the sun was shining in Scotland. None of this was the fault of the Games participants. All the athletes who took part, whatever their discipline, win or lose, did a splendid job. Scotland, too. Very little wrong, ever, with the way Scotland does things. But it will all be forgotten later this month when football starts again. Nobody, except the winners, remembers who won what or by how much when an athletics meeting is over. Try naming all the competitors in the last 100 metres dash you watched. If you can, you need to get out less. 

The Middle East. 

What do you say about the wicked goings on out there? Any force that will kill women and children without compunction is evil; any faction that will use women and children as a human shield is vile: and any nation that allows the immoral bastards among its citizenry to sell arms to either or both of them - is a model of democratic excellence and sound business sense: well, that's what they tell me, the immoral bastards. 

56 Up. 

This lovely reality tele series (where cameras return at seven yearly intervals to check on the progress of participants first filmed when they were seven years old) belies all my worst opinions about the genre. My Leader and I have watched it from the outset and it has always been worth the seven years wait. This year was no exception and showed all the protagonists to have become respectable middle-aged people. Sadly, following the update on Lynn Johnson, it was reported that she died in May 2013 after a short illness. A nice family woman, she was a librarian up until local councillors started giving top council officers vast salary deals, themselves ludicrously high expense packages and many worthwhile people (librarians and their like) redundancy. Sad world sometimes, isn't it? 

THE DETECTIVES. 

Not much change. 

Most of the programmes are repeats (e.g. Midsomer before the producers were browbeaten into employing a regular quota of ethnic minority actors) so there is no shortage of Frost, Morse and Poirot. I can still sit through two hour long episodes of Foyle's War and Montalbano, but generally ignore the rest; saw them all when they were new. Word is that Lewis (Kevin Whately) and Montalbano (Luca Zingaretti) are to return soon:

so, too, Midsomer (which I assume will be carefully tailored to evade the PC scrutineers longing to be offended). Ah well. Honi soit qui mal y pense. 

All the best to you and yours.