Barmy Britain (2 page)
Authors: Jack Crossley
Seen in an Edinburgh bar:
EAT HERE & YOU’LL NEVER LIVE TO REGRET IT
Spotted by Mr R. Howard, of Manchester.
Daily Mail
Pauline Moore of Woodbridge, Suffolk, reports a birthday card bearing the message: ‘May this be your best birthday ever’. It was for a one-year-old.
Sunday Telegraph
Seen on a fence in the Lake District near Crummock Water and photographed by Peter Pedley:
TEK CARE LAMBS ONT ROAD
Seen on a farm gate at Cockerham, near Lancaster, by Malcolm Nightingale, of Preston, Lancashire:
OWER SHEEP AVE NO ROAD SENSE
Daily Mail
Sporting joy sweeps through England after victories in three major sports – football, rugby, and… conkers…
A box containing a pair of Puma trainers carries this vital information: ‘Average Contents: Two’.
Daily Mail
Brighton and Hove Albion are blessed with a diminutive mid-fielder, Dean Cox – inspiring some fans to chant: ‘We’ve got tiny Cox’. Others prefer: ‘We’ve got five-foot Cox’.
Guardian
The
Guardian
followed this up, recalling how Bristol City had a manager called Alan Dicks, who had to endure the howl: ‘Dicks out!’
Guardian
The weekend of 20–21 October 2007 kicked off with British hopes of world championships on two fronts. But Formula One boy racer Lewis Hamilton lost his chance of becoming world champion and the England rugby team were runners up in the World Cup. As
The Times
reported: ‘Many will see this as a disastrous weekend for British sport, but it is nothing of the sort… Look at it this way: It’s not that England lost, it’s that they nearly won.’
The Times
Fiery fast bowler Freddie Trueman saw a batsman flick one of his balls towards fielder Raman Subba Row. But the balled slipped through the fielder’s hands and then through his legs. Subba Row apologised and said: ‘I should have kept my legs shut.’
‘Aye, lad,’ said Fred, ‘and so should your mother.’
Independent
England cricketer Freddie Flintoff was reported ‘to have disgraced himself by getting drunk and absconding on a pedalo’. Jan Moir in the
Daily
Telegraph
commented: ‘Perhaps this is just another symptom of the strange transformation that comes over many Englishmen when travelling abroad. Freddie was only reverting to national stereotype, so let us not judge him too harshly.’
Daily Telegraph
In his book, More Than a Game, cricket loving former Prime Minister John Major writes of a match between Kent and Essex played at Tilbury Fort.
A Kent player shot and killed a member of the opposing team, a spectator was bayoneted and a soldier shot dead.
Mercifully, it was in 1776.
Sun
Great sporting joy swept throughout England in October 2007 with victories in three major sports – football, rugby and… conkers. ‘What a triple triumph!’ crowed the Sun – ‘normally we’d only expect to win at conkers.’
Sun
At a time when all the other news columns were moaning about how fat everybody is, the Guardian magazine pointed out that some of history’s most significant figures have been fat.
Its list includes Henry VIII, Buddha, Father Christmas, Orson Welles, Oliver Hardy and Luciano Pavarotti, and it has this to say of W. G. Grace (a fine all-round cricketer in every sense): ‘It’s fair to assume that were he playing now, instead of our totally useless current crop, England would still be in the World Cup.’
Guardian G2
Cardiff University gathered together the ecological impact of the 73,000 who attended the Manchester v Millwall FA Cup Final at the city’s Millennium Stadium in 2004.
- 37,624 sausage rolls, pies and pasties
- 26,965 sandwiches
- 17,998 hot dogs
- 12,780 burgers
- 11,502 packets of crisps
- 23,909 portions of chips
- 303,001 pints of lager
- 66,584 pints of beer
- 38,906 pints of cider
- 12,452 bottles of wine
- 90,481 shots
- 63,141 alcopops
The binge left its mark on Cardiff city centre:
- 37 tonnes of glass
- 8 tonnes of paper
- 11 tonnes of uneaten food
None was recycled.
Guardian
Some changes needed to be made when The Dangerous Book for Boys was rewritten for the American market. Conkers don’t get a mention, but there’s something called ‘stickball’. You won’t find the laws of cricket, but there is the equally incomprehensible Navajo Code Talkers’ Dictionary. A section listing the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland has been replaced with The Most Valuable Players in Baseball.
The Times
In England we would call Former Prime Minister the Rt. Hon Sir John Major, KG, something of a cricket anorak. He unashamedly admits that if he knew he was going to die tonight he would still want to know the close-of-play scores. He says: ‘Cricket helped to bind the British Empire together.’
Clem Attlee used to get updates of county scores during Cabinet meetings.
The Times
In May 2007 it was reported that Filton Golf Club, near Bristol, had finally ended its 88-year war with Germany and Austria.
In 1919 they thought they would teach them a lesson for starting World War I and banned them from using their course. Now members have decided to let bygones be bygones and rescinded the ban.
Independent on Sunday
The £400,000 London Olympics logo provoked howls of protest and Guardian diarist Jon Henley reported: ‘If one more reader emails to tell us that the internet is buzzing with reports that it looks like Lisa Simpson performing an unmentionable act on Bill Clinton, we will scream.’
Guardian
Another critic said: ‘To me it represents two drunks trying to help each other up off the ground. Very British, indeed.’
Daily Telegraph
The Rev John Fairweather-Tall of Plymouth, Devon, wrote: ‘I saw the logo on your front page. Ought this not to have been on the back page, along with the other puzzles?’
Daily Telegraph
Wars raged and world leaders gathered at the G8 Summit, but British newspapers know what their readers want to know about: ‘Changing climate puts World Conker Championship Title in Danger’ was a Page One headline in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, 11 June 2007.
Daily Telegraph
Manchester United extended the car park at its training ground to accommodate players’oversized limos.
Independent on Sunday
Eddie the Eagle finished last in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and was hailed as ‘a very British kind of hero’. The
Independent on Sunday
produced some rules on just what it takes to win the affection of the British public and included:
- At all costs don’t win. The longer ‘Tiger’ Tim Henman went without reaching a Wimbledon final the more we took him to our hearts.
- Acquire underdog status. A classic case is cricketer Monty Panesar – wildly enthusiastic and only vaguely athletic. Every wicket Monty takes becomes its own joyful ‘would you believe it’ story.
Independent on Sunday
‘Plant was rooted to the spot.’
Football match report in the
Littlehampton Gazette.
British newspapers and magazines do their best to maintain the myth that cricket is a gentleman’s game. The magazine
Chap
gives this advice for ‘keeping the gentleman’s game on a decent wicket: ‘When batting one should aim mainly to retain one’s dignity, particularly at the moment when your wicket is lost. The number of runs you score should be finely balanced so that you do not demoralise the opposition.’
Chap
magazine
Foreign visitors to the sacred Lords cricket ground in London can buy an explanation of the game which says:
‘You have two sides. One out in the field and one in. Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out. When they are all out the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When both sides have been in and out – including the not outs – that’s the end of the game. Howzat!’
From a tea-towel bought at Lords
Leeds manager Eddie Gray: ‘It was always an uphill task for us and after they scored it was downhill all the way. It left us with a mountain to climb.’
Sun
A golf ball that stuck in the mouth of a lioness at Knowsley safari park has changed the rules of the game. The game’s governing body now says that any golfer who hits a ball into the mouth of a lioness should be allowed to drop another ball on the nearest spot that is not dangerous.
Sunday Times
BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme became a national institution after uttering the most famous words in British sport. As England scored a last-minute fourth goal in their 1966 World Cup triumph over Germany, he announced: ‘They think it’s all over, it is now.’ The
Sun
seized the opportunity of recalling other famous sporting quotes:
- ‘Football isn’t a matter of life and death – it’s much more important than that.’ Bill Shankly, manager of Liverpool.
- ‘Winning doesn’t really matter as long as you win.’ Soccer star Vinnie Jones.
- ‘For the benefit of those watching in black and white, Tottenham Hotspurs are playing in yellow.’ TV commentator John Motson.
- ‘Don’t tell those just coming in the result of this fantastic match – but let’s have another look at Italy’s winning goal.’ TV commentator David Coleman.
Sun
‘Authorities are reluctant to ban bungee jumping in case they drive it underground.’
Radio 4, reported in a letter to the
Guardian
Henry Longhurst used to say that golf needed only three rules: the player who won the last hole tees off first. The player furthest from the flag putts first. The player who wins stands the first round of drinks.
Letter to
The Times
.
‘Wimbledon has changed from being a genteel sports fortnight for the suburban middle classes to a coarse gladiatorial contest for the vulgar masses… but the tennis is better than ever. Buy earplugs.’ Philip Howard in
The Times.
Philip recalled Wimbledon’s original official announcements, which included: ‘Please do not applaud a double fault.’
The Times
A rugby scrum is ‘essentially a boxing match for 16 people without the Queensbury rules. It is home to punching, gouging and testicle twisting. Not pretty.’
Guardian
A Leicester angler uses jelly babies as bait and says that cod like black ones and bass like green ones.
The Times
Falcon Rovers striker Gary Davenport, aged 27, of West Sussex, was banned from the penalty box after heading 14 own goals.
Sun
Somebody may well have said something similar before, but Hugh Muir quotes George Best as saying: ‘I spent 90% of my money on women, drink and fast cars. The rest I wasted.’
Guardian Diary
Women now make up to a fifth of all fans attending Premiership football matches – and they enjoy abusing the ref as much as men. They seem to enjoy the singing and the tribalism – and swearing is just as prevalent as it has always been.
Independent on Sunday
Not many Olympic gold medals get pinned onto British chests, but the
Sun
attempted to cheer up its readers by reminding them that ‘We’re the world champs at wacky sports including gurning (pulling ugly faces), toe wrestling, lawn mower racing, arm wrestling, elephant polo, tug of war, kite-flying, welly-tossing, cheese rolling, black pudding throwing, ferret racing and tiddlywinks.’
Sun
The English rugby team’s defeat did not appear to dampen their spirits for their trip home. Their British Airways flight took off with 76 extra bottles of champagne and an increase of 60% in the usual beer allocation.
The Times
On BBC TV a doyen of the snooker table, approaching his 70th birthday, was said to be ‘too old to get his leg over and prefers to use his left hand.’ And Alex Higgins was said to be ‘suddenly, 7-0 down’.
The girlfriend of soccer star Jermain Defoe got a job at the Foreign Office – advising wannabe WAGs how to behave on overseas trips. 22-year-old Charlotte Meares’ advice to Wives and Girlfriends includes:
- Get insured in case you fall off a bar table.
- How to cope with broken finger nails or when your extensions turn green in the pool.
- How to cope with cops after wild partying.
- Always check that your hotel has a beauty parlour.
- How to stay looking your best if you are not taking a personal stylist with you.
Sun
Sporting Brits may often fail to shine at international contests, but that’s not so when it comes to eccentric events such as the World Bog Snorkelling Championships.
Joanne Pitchforth, a 35 year-old teacher from Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, beat an international field of 120 competitors and set a new world record at Llanwrtyd Wells, Mid-Wales. She emerged filthy but triumphant after taking 1 minute 35.18 seconds to complete the two 60-yard lengths of peat bog – beating the previous record of 1 minute 35.46 seconds.
28-seconds is a long time when you are up to your neck in a black bog…
The Times
It must rank as one of the weirdest global spectator sports, with more than 1.5million people logging on to watch a 44lb handmade Cheddar cheese from Shepton Mallet slowly maturing. The Somerset-based cheese, named Wedginald, is the star of www.cheddarvisiontv.com. Along with a huge picture of the prized cheese, the website’s only other noticeable feature is a chronicle of how long it has been maturing: in days, hours, minutes and seconds.
The Times
Amidst all the fever of the 2007 Rugby World Cup semi finals in October the
Daily Telegraph
had a whole page headlined 30 R
EASONS
W
HY
W
E
H
ATE THE
F
RENCH
. High up on the list: