Whenever I threw a hissy fit about the direction my foster home was taking, whether from a political or religious perspective (or a toxic mix of the two), something invariably popped up to calm my troubled soul, reduce my blood pressure and bring a smile to my face. This was such a time:
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Our tatty chattels finally made it across the high seas, landing safely at the port of Felixstowe in Suffolk. Her Maj’s Revenue and Customs eyed the consignment with cynical suspicion and decided to x-ray the boxes for contraband Turkish delight. This public service was provided at our expense, incurring a charge of £100. Isn’t this a bit like being frisked by the fuzz and paying for the privilege? The boys in blue found nothing untoward and the family silver was released. That was that, or so we naively thought.
We received word from the carriers that our precious cargo would be delivered by a 19 metre road train (their words) and if they couldn’t park within 15 metres of our new gaff we could kiss our goods goodbye (my words). When I pointed out that the medieval streets of old Norwich are characteristically narrow and that a 60 foot mega truck was a tad excessive for our modest six square metre load, they recanted and decided that a van of standard girth would suffice.
D Day arrived. The van pulled up outside and two large gentlemen swung into action, huffing and puffing as they piled the boxes into neat rows inside our new living room. The entire sweaty exercise was completed in under 30 minutes. As we unpacked each box, it was obvious that spooky hands had been fondling our family jewels. A shattered lamp emerged from one battered box. Glass fragments from the same lamp magically appeared in a different box. 
Hey presto. The backs of photo frames had been removed and replaced with the clips left open (the same photo frames suffered the same fate when they delivered to Turkey four years previously). Most distressingly, the base of one of our tall super-sleek speakers had been hack-sawed off and the broken thread lay discarded at the bottom of the box. Just as well we smuggled out the rechargeable marital aids in our hand luggage. Clearly, this bump and grind was much more than a bit of rough handling by a hairy docker. Who would have thought?
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The day after we moved into our ancient gaff, a nice man called Richard from Virgin Media (not the Richard, obviously) installed our all singing, all dancing multimedia techno-wizardry – 30 megabyte fibre-optic broadband, telephone line and high definition TV. The whole compendium was half price for six months and came with free installation, free equipment and free weekend calls. We now have more channels of crap than you can shake a stick at. Currently, I’m being forced to watch wall-to-wall Olympics (Liam’s current obsession). We’ve never had HD TV before. I can see every wrinkle, every blemish, every spot and every blackhead on the faces of the famous – except for Gary Lineker (who surely must have had a nick and lift). No wonder an old bundle of ageing TV presenters decided to hang up their auto-cues and throw in the flannel: there are some things even the thickest slap can’t hide. Now we have free weekend calls, they’ll be no more Sunday Skype calls to mother. Just as well. I could never get the bloody thing to work properly from Turkey anyway and the compulsory weekly check-in was always a painful exercise, invariably ending in complete frustration.
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Conversation on BBC Look East a few minutes ago:
Commentator: “What does it take to be a great cox?”
Expert: “Size really matters.”
Amen to that.
As Olympic fever goes into hyperdrive, I was thinking about homophobia in sport, particularly the beautiful game. Even though the likes of David Beckham are in touch with their feminine side and Eric Cantona is prone to writing a poetic line or two, there are no fairies in top flight football, apparently. Why is this, I wonder? Even rugby, the butchest of sports, has the wonderful Gareth Thomas quietly waving his rainbow flag. There was Justin Fashanu a few years back, of course, but his revelation led to excommunication by the soccer establishment, misery and his eventual suicide. It was a shameful episode.
Despite a campaign by UEFA to stamp out homophobia (as well as racism), the footie fraternity still thinks of itself as the last bastion of traditional machismo, both in Blighty and across this soccer-obsessed world. Nowadays, these obscenely overpaid dandies are preened, pressed and waxed to within an inch of their lives. They also drive too fast, drink too much, brawl in public, chase empty-headed bottle blonds with assisted tits and visit prostitutes old enough to be their mothers. Well, not all of them do, but you get my drift.
Imagine, therefore, a startled Gallic nation that witnessed Olivier Giroud grab teammate Mathieu Debuchy’s face and land a big French smacker* full on the lips. Debuchy did not squirm or resist. This heat of the moment intimate encounter occurred just after Giroud scored for France in an international friendly with Germany a few months ago. Shocking, but then, that’s the French for you.
This French kissing malarky seems to be infectious. A similar incident in Mexico caused outrage among the big wigs and hacks. Femexfut (The Mexican Football Association) El Presidente, Alfonso Sabater said:
‘A gay kiss is not a good example for children and vulnerable people. We must censor this behaviour.’
Get the madam!
*2014 Update: There used to be a YouTube video of the French kissers which has since been removed. I wonder why?
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Sadly, we missed Norwich Pride. As novice Norwichians, we hang our heads in shame. The event was held the day after the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The greatest show on Earth or the best show in Town? What’s a boy to do? We chose the former. Sorry. Had we not been nursing a hangover of Olympic proportions, we might have made it to march and mince with the rainbow people. Next year we’ll be there. Promise.
I hear the affair was a great success. Here are some pictures (courtesy of Steve Adams and the Norwich Evening News).
We leapt off the train from Norwich at Stratford (the main gateway to the Olympic Games). It was busy but not uncomfortably so. There was no sign of the much anticipated transport gridlock that has dominated the news for months. We jumped on a bus to the penthouse pad overlooking the stadium and took our seats for the biggest show in town. As I had hoped, it was a mesmerising salute to British polish, quirkiness, individuality and diversity – funny, moving, creative, self-deprecating, inclusive, mildly subversive with tongue jammed firmly in cheek. The eccentric cultural cabaret was infused with subtle (and not so subtle) political messages to the great, the good and the incompetent both at home and away. It mattered little to me that much of the humour might have been lost on the globally bemused. It was worth all the money just to get the first lesbian kiss ever broadcast on Saudi TV. After much reticence, all but a few diehard cynics now seem to have risen to the occasion and finally taken the Games to their hearts. There’s a real buzz in the air, a buzz you can feel, taste and see. I think we have Mitt Romney to thank for this. His ungracious remarks about London’s readiness to stage the Games have galvanised opinion. No one likes a bad-mannered, bad-mouthing guest in their house, do they?
I give you one of the many highlights from the show – HM becomes a Bond girl. I hope our German friends weren’t too miffed by the Dambuster’s theme. Naturally, Her Maj was as inscrutable as ever.
It doesn’t usually do to go back, to try and relive a moment. Invariably, it leads to bitter disappointment and anti-depressants. Sometimes though, there’s some old magic left in a tired old formula. Such was the Absolutely Fabulous Olympic Special shown tonight on Auntie Beeb. I loved every witty word, every caustic comment, every grotesque caricature and the sound of every sacred cow being slaughtered. Watching deliciously unreconstructed, post-menopausal Patsy light her fag from the Olympic flame was worthy of a sackful of gold medals. Perhaps I am being carried away by Olympic fever but Ab Fab was absolutely fabulous.
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Roll up, roll up. Love it or loathe it, the Olympic circus has come to town. Uniquely, London is the only city to have hosted the over-bloated jamboree three times – 1908, 1948 and now 2012. Ironically, given the current double dip recession, it was the 1948 beano that was called the ‘Austerity Games’ as it was held barely three years after the end of the Second World War; a grim time when Blighty was bankrupt, on rations and in the red to our generous Yankee cousins. Remarkably, the debt was only finally settled in 2006.
At the 11th hour, it hardly matters whether the 2012 Olympiad will be a monumental waste of taxpayer’s cash that will put London in hock for decades or a monumental celebration of civic renaissance that will leave an enduring legacy. I know the site of the Olympic park well. Before the transformation it was a polluted post-industrial shit hole. I think it was worth winning the Games just to see the smug smile being wiped off former President Chirac’s arrogant face when London pipped Paris into second place. Did you manage to get tickets? Me neither. We have a plan B. We’ll be watching the opening ceremony from a balcony overlooking the stadium. It pays to have a dear old friend with a posh penthouse in the right part of town. Last time, the Middle Kingdom presented an epic spectacle of precision and uniform behaviour from a cast of thousands. This time, I’m hoping for something a little less regimented with a little more panache, diversity and individuality. A few gongs in the bag would be nice too.
To commemorate the start of the Games I give you the British diving team being sexy:
Back at base camp, we donned our glad rags and pirouetted down to the Stardust Cabaret Bar (think swirly carpets and swirly ceilings) to watch the permanently smiling bluecoats strut their amateur stuff. We were greeted by pissed-up pensioners and sprightly sprogs. As far as we could tell, we were the only wooly-woofters in wonderland (apart from a light fairy dusting from one or two of the bluecoats, obviously). We’d arrived at the tail end of a line dancing hour and sat back to marvel at a small company of wrinklies giving their pacemakers a welcome workout. The dosey doe harmonies were supplied by one woman and her magnificent organ. I ordered a couple of drinks from a barmaid called Richard. She’d mislaid her badge, apparently. Taking a table next to a couple of senior citizens, we nodded a polite (if slightly nervous) hello. We needn’t have bothered. Mr Senior had already nodded off into his half-pint of ‘mild’. Mrs Senior made no attempt to check for a pulse so we guessed he hadn’t yet expired. “That’ll be us in twenty years,” whispered. Liam. “You’re kidding,” I replied. “That’s us now.”
The headline act was local lass Toni Warne, a finalist from the BBC show The Voice. Liam could hardly contain his excitement. As he shivered in anticipation, the dressing room door inexplicably blew open to reveal a startled MC sucking on an illicit fag. Once recomposed, the camp compere minced out onto the floor to introduce the star turn. “Please give it up for Toni Ward.” Ms Warne didn’t let his faux pas get her down and belted out a string of old standards and modern classics from Doris Day and Barbra Streisand to Adele and Jessie J, all bang in tune. Mrs Senior turned down her hearing aid I suspect she and the rest of the audience would have preferred a spot of Vera Lynn. Liam thought Ms Warne had a great voice for musical theatre. I felt rather sorry for her. I thought aspiring stars gigged at Pontin’s before making it big, not after.
Despite the so-so weather and jaded Seventies social club ambience, we rather enjoyed our windswept blast from the past. Thank you, Pontin’s. You perked up these weary travelling pansies and provided a quiet place to rest and write.
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Perking the Pansies 