| Slow sports | | Print | |
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Are you as irritated as I am by that phrase: Unless you’ve been living under a rock? Well, we who prefer to live under rocks, or at least metaphorical rocks, think that is a pleasant place to be. You can do a lot worse than resist the hysterical voice of the media. And why is it that the people on TV and radio are so anxious? Is it too much caffeine? You can hear that painful urgency in their tight voices. It suggests to me that news anchors have only a few stress-filled years before keeling over from a heart attack. They get so worked up about the slightest thing. And what good does it do? Why don’t they slow down? It didn’t used to be that way. News was disseminated in measured tones. On July 28, 1945, a B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State building. The radio news was calm and factual. And after that report it was back to the music. Where has that sense of calm gone to? Nowhere do commentators get more worked up than with sports. And this is not just an American phenomenon; even the phlegmatic British can make much out of the banal. I admit I haven’t read the book: How to keep talking fast when there is nothing to say. And what the French can say about a group of fellows out for a bike ride is amazing in its vacuity. I bring up the subject of sport because I have heard that the Olympic Games are being held about now. That piece of intelligence has seeped beneath the rock under which I live. Spectator sports are horrifyingly obsessed with speed. I’ll be the first to admit, I am not an expert on sports. Some say I’m sports retarded. I make blunders when I try to bluff my way out of a sports conversation. At this very moment, in a not so remote corner of the galaxy, a lab-coated researcher with an fMRI machine is discovering which part of the brain is allocated to spectator sports. That part of my brain has undoubtedly atrophied. My grandfather was to blame. My grandfather lived with us when I was growing up in England. He was a sports fanatic. In his younger years he had been an athlete; a champion cricketer in India. It didn’t matter what sort of sport, rugby, horse racing, tiddlywinks, he would quite happily sit in his armchair puffing away on his cigarettes and watching Grandstand all Saturday afternoon on our black-and-white TV. As a young boy, I found this athletic voyeurism dull. Of course, this is a personal opinion, and you, dear reader, may be passionate about watching sports: chacun à son gout. You may have the dendrites to prove it. And people really do get hot under the collar about spectator sports. I suppose it is about tribalism. Football (soccer) hooliganism is as popular as ever in the UK. Why has it never caught on in America? Does it cost too much to travel? Are trains easier to wreck than airplanes? Is it lack of education? Doubtless universities will be expanding their offerings to degrees in yobbery. Somewhere savvy entrepreneurs are even now drafting course material on: taunting in unison, insult hurling, excess drinking, and advanced demolition for the shy. Yet hooliganism bridges that gap between a passive spectator and the actively engaged sportsman. If you are going to watch a sport, then watch something you can completely ignore. After all, minimal effort is a guiding principle for a slow lifestyle. Cricket is civilized if not incomprehensible; at least it is to me. And I was taught cricket in school. The game was explained by masters in black caps and bat-like gowns. Come to think of it, much of what I was taught in school was incomprehensible. I never learned useful lessons like understanding the complex female mind, how to handle money, how to relax; how to thwart your enemies, and the gentle art of negotiation. Every thirteen-year old boy needs these skills. Schools teach the wrong things. No, from the age of eight I was indoctrinated with, and baffled by cricket. On Monday and Friday afternoons we had to dress up in baker-white uniforms and actually play the ghastly game. Watching cricket is much safer than playing it. And what language! I still don’t know my silly-mid on from my slips. I do see the benefit of dozing in a deck chair by the side of the cricket field. And cricket does stop for tea and the occasional rain shower. The good thing about so-called ‘watching’ cricket is it proceeds at a glacial pace. It’s quiet, allows for ample napping, goes down with tea and scones or a glass of wine, and no one cares if you pay attention. You can get some exercise by joining in with occasional half-hearted clapping. But enthusiasm is to be shunned. Why expend effort being enthusiastic? Only cricket commentators have a superb grasp of the irrelevant. Thy have that calm and measured tone from yesteryear. They talk about the state of the field, the weather, passing traffic on a nearby road. Listening to cricket on the radio is calming. Who cares about winning and losing, cricket is a slow game. But cricket never caught on in the over-enthusiastic United States. I fare no better with American sports. I had to go through an interrogation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service when years ago I first moved to New York. Thank goodness they didn’t question me about American sports. Perhaps interrogation is too strong a word. However, the Immigration and Naturalization Service did ask me questions to see if I would fit in. Apparently, I do. However, I am not sure what the World Series is, but I do know that United States is the best at it in the whole world. That is something to be proud of. My immigration interview was with a woman who had a strong Russian accent. I could hardly grasp what she was saying. Eventually I made out what the question was: Which country did the United States win independence from? I thought this rather rubbing it in, but I did get the question right. If she had asked me how many home runs in a touch down, whose end is tight, or what crops are grown in left field, I would have failed. I also had to prove I could write a whole sentence in English. This too I accomplished— with panache I thought. She mulled over my offering for a while and decided it would pass muster. As I was leaving, I thought of saying—in a friendly way— Do svidaniya! But goodbye is one of only three words I know in Russian and it probably wasn’t the place to use it. Discretion is the better part of valor. It’s hard to tear myself away from sitting in the bathtub or staring out the window to catch up on the latest goings on, but I understand the Olympic Games is going on right now. What I want to know is how many slow events there are? I’ve participated in a number of slow bicycle races and done well. It’s easy to participate in fast sports, but it takes patience and skill to compete in slow games, like slow motor racing, or slow pole vaulting. But I am hoping the United States does well in the slow sack race. I think the French should be good for the slow egg-and-spoon race. Italy will do well in the slow pancake tossing race. All that pizza tossing gives them an edge. I want Scotland to take home the gold for the slow three-legged race. The kilt has its advantages. I’m fuzzy on the details. Is this the Slow Olympic Games or the fast one? I’d better turn my attention to putting more hot water in the tub. |