Tuesday, June 24, 2008

There's a breathless hush in the Close tonight

I am not a sporting person. You need to know that about me. Only twice in my schooldays did I do something worthy of note, not that it made any difference to my reputation as a clumsy uncoordinated dysfunctional clodhopper. The first was when I won the "Junior Discus" at the annual School Sports Day, an achievement easily explained by the fact that I had longer arms than anyone in my year. Also, I was aiming at the geography teacher, Dag Tomlinson, the man whose name defines the word "arsehole" in the OED.
The second was when they asked me to bowl at cricket, and I took three wickets in three balls. This is equally easily explained by the fact that I had such a gawky all-over-the-place spastic run-up and delivery that the batsmen fell about laughing while the ball dribbled unobstructed up to the stumps three times in a row and knocked the bails off.
I knew at that moment that I had a career in cricket, but the masters in charge disagreed. They told me to fuck off and never come back, which is how I first got into serial self-abuse.
Listen, Charlie, you shoulda looked out for me, you shoulda bin there for me, I coulda bin a contender.

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