Rainbow Sporting Heroes

Gareth Thomas Likes Perking the PansiesAs 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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Sisters are Doing it for Themselves

Norwich Pride

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).

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Thank You, Mitt Romney

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.

Absolutely Fabulous

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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Let the Games Begin

Let the Games Begin

Let the Games Begin

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:

The Voice Hits Pontin’s

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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Pontin’s Happy Campers

Windy City

Devil Gate Drive

We made our great escape from Stalag 17 and dashed to Morrison’s Supermarket to stock up on cheap plonk, check prices and observe the local Suffolk wildlife in its natural habitat. The place was packed. It may have been a Sunday but Brits have long since abandoned praying for paying on the Sabbath. Despite many protestations to the contrary, we found prices more than comparable with Turkey, particularly meat, staples and non-food essentials. While Liam stalked the aisles for bargains, I went in search of a decent newspaper. Morrison’s sold neither the Guardian nor the Independent so I made do with the murky Murdoch’s Times. The queue was fronted by a Suzi Quatro looky-likey, all feather cut, tight ribbed vest and rock-chick tattoos. Suzi was in a heated debate with the check-out assistant, something about a pot plant. I didn’t intrude. I didn’t fancy a volley of expletives from the girl from Devil Gate Drive. We fled back to our bunker to get drunk.

Hit it Suzi…

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Next: The Voice Hits Pontins

Pontin’s Happy Campers

The final leg of our budget trip was four nights at Pontin’s, Pakefield  – seventy quid each, half board. Both Liam and I are well-acquainted with the holiday camp experience from our proletarian childhoods and, more recently, from my mother’s 80th birthday bash at Butlin’s. Whereas Butlin’s has raised its game to compete with the costas, Pontin’s has remained faithful to its Hi-Di-Hi roots. There have been some concessions to the modern era – our bunker in Pirouette Park came with hot water and electricity – but the rest of the offer was distinctly old hat. Accommodation came in terraced rows of jerry-built chalets reminiscent of a prisoner of war camp or a sleazy middle America motel. We felt like fugitives on the run from the Feds. Higgledy-piggledy pebble-dashed facilities were battered and tattered. Canteen times were fixed and uncompromising. Food was hearty rather than wholesome with a strong whiff of time-honoured old school dinners. There was a floppy salad bar and a sign warning the punters that “these trays may contain traces of food.” Or was that nuts? We avoided the healthy option and headed straight for the stodge slopped up onto mini plates by fiercesome-looking dinner ladies. On day two, I was unceremoniously ram-raided by a blue rinse armed with a killer Zimmer trying to get to the jelly before anyone else. In the interests of personal safety, we didn’t dare go for seconds. Oh, happy days.

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Windy City

The minor inconvenience of existing tenants meant that we had to wait a while for our medieval Weaver’s cottage in Norwich. To avoid continual sofa-hopping, we decided on a budget tour of east East Anglia. Our first stop was Lowestoft, England’s most easterly town. We were greeted by blustery squalls blowing in from the North Sea and a large ugly concrete water tower (can someone tell me what they’re for?). Lowestoft itself is a neat but empty little place. The population seemed to have died off from terminal boredom. The only person we noticed strolling along the prom was a bottle-blond Norfolk broad, subtly bedecked in hoop ear-rings, stars-and-stripes lycra leggings and a bubble jacket. We booked a cheap night in a Winelodge. The solitary person on duty was a thin, tattooed boy with retreating hair. He acted as concierge, waiter and barman. It was just as well there was nobody to serve. Our room was a designer postage stamp overlooking the bins. Making a cuppa was a delicate operation: the mini-kettle was so close to the mini-flat screen TV, I thought the steam might blow it up. The only excitement was a power cut at 7am. I had to dump and douche in the dark. The first person on duty fed the meter and lo, let there be light.

We took a drive through Great Yarmouth, a sad and rusty little place with a magnificent beach but its greatness firmly behind it. Despite being Liam’s playground of choice as a slip of a lad, we decided against stopping for a windy trip down memory lane. Apparently, Yarmouth is one of the most deprived areas of East Anglia. The great and good of the county have decided that granting a licence for a super casino will provide the answer to a fed-up seaside resort on its knees. Las Vegas-on-Sea? The entire concept reminded me of Edmonton Green Shopping Centre near Liam’s folks, a tired little enclave where the betting shop is next to the pawnbrokers.

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Pontin’s Happy Campers

London Turks

While looking for a new gaff to lay our hats we boxed and coxed with trunks in tow. Some of our time was spent with Liam’s folks in Edmonton, North London. The area has a strange familiarity, and not for the obvious reasons. As a world city, London is used to migration and transience. London is what it is because of it. Centuries of settlement and resettlement have reinvented and re-invigorated the city in an endless cycle of renewal. This constant shift in the cultural cityscape is not without its challenges but it is always enriching.

Forty years ago Edmonton was host to a thriving Irish community. Catholicism, the craic and the tricolour dominated the local scene. Forty years on, next generation Irish have moved up and out leaving a rump of the old who are slowly dying off. Nature abhors a vacuum; as the Irish up sticks to greener pastures, Turks fill the spaces in between. Of course, Turkish people are no strangers to London. The colonial connection to Cyprus established Turkish and Greek communities, now decades old. The partition of Aphrodite’s troubled isle following the 1974 Turkish invasion helped to bolster numbers on both sides of the Cypriot divide. Ironically, both communities live cheek-by-jowl in a way that is no longer possible on Cyprus itself. They don’t exactly mix but neither do they growl at each other from opposite sides of a thin blue line. When I lived in Walthamstow, my local convenience store was run by Turks and my greying hair was clipped by the Greek barber next door. I wisely avoided the Cypriot question while Stavros wielded a cut-throat razor.

Back in Edmonton, the ethnic influx is of a different kind. Recent immigrants tend to hail from Turkey itself rather than Cyprus. This has introduced a more traditional feel to the area. Grubby old pubs that were dying on their feet have been turned into colourful restaurants and locked-up shops have been given a new lease of life as tea houses. There’s even a branch of Doğtaş – a well-known (and horribly gaudy) Turkish home furnishings chain – in the local shopping centre. It’s all brought a new vibrancy to the vicinity. Unfortunately, as well as a fresh new Anatolian look, the Turks have also imported their truly terrible driving habits. Lollipop ladies leap for their lives.