I’ve never been good at sports. I’m simply not a competitive person and I can’t bring myself to give a damn who wins and who loses. My first race was when I was five or six and I had not a clue what was going on. I expect I was in a daydream as usual when they explained – or perhaps they just didn’t explain but simply assumed that everyone knew what a race was – anyway, I found myself being lined up with other girls in front of a stave of white lines with a tape at the end. I had no idea what the lines were for or why we should go towards the tape – and on some level, I still don’t: I went into a dream again and awoke to find everyone else had run off into the distance. I arrived minutes later, having belatedly got the gist, and missed out on the prizes which all the other competitors got. I can still see those blue and red balls…
That set the tone for the rest of my life, really: when I got to secondary school I was never chosen for the netball team and was relegated to practising shooting goals with a couple of other rejects. That was fine with me as we could just spend the time chatting, throwing up an earnest ball whenever the teacher was looking in our direction. Hockey, however, was a nightmare: I had only the haziest idea of the rules and when another player thundered towards me yelling ‘whassamadayadrive!’ as they often did, my reaction was to try to stop them and say, ‘Sorry. What was that again? I didn’t quite catch it’ – but by that time the mob would have thundered past me and the opposing team would have scored again.
I couldn’t see the point of either sport: netball is stupidly restricted, in my view, having to stop when you’re holding the ball – and I never quite got over my low-level amusement at the art of ‘dribbling’ in hockey. The only sport I really enjoyed was tennis, which we played for about five minutes every summer.
Ironically, considering that Holly takes after me in this respect, she has started work at Leicester Rugby ground. She did eight hours in the bar-restaurant yesterday and came home with sore feet though she said the people were very nice. So that’s good. I couldn’t help thinking, though, that if the school had been in Kettering, they’d all be going to Leicester Kettering ground..
And finally… I see they’re cracking down on benefit cheats. Quite right too – and as for the banking cheats… well, they’re going to have a jolly good chat with them. In a friendly sort of way, obviously – I mean, we wouldn’t want to alienate them, would we?
Kirk out
PS And damn me if I haven’t gone and left out the whole point of the title, which was the name of a Channel 4 film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtravTrQnbM
I remember it largely because my mother objected to it and went into Channel 4’s ‘Right to Reply’ video box to register her views. It was broadcast later that week – I have never cringed quite so much before or since.
Sarada Gray 