As the dying embers of 2019 slide gracelessly into the mire of legend, I wonder how much of the preceding twelve months you can instantly, or even after due consideration, recall? What were you doing on the evening of 23rd February for instance? Eating dough balls at a Pizza Express in Woking? Remarkable memory. Can you actually call up any specific date and say what you were doing, outside the obvious ones like Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries? I can remember the exact day my good friend Stu Nichol, Director of Television at the European Tour told me my services were no longer required. I can’t put a date on it though, without looking at a calendar. I don’t know why that occasion sticks in my memory particularly? Was it because he accused me of lying when I told him that his deputy had promised me at least two more years work. Or perhaps it was because he called me stupid for using a colourful description that caused offence to Harry Redneck in Minnesota….or was it Idaho I forget. Perhaps it was because he laid into me about how the BBC aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. As if I am a spokesman for the BBC. Anyway the great thing is that European Tour coverage is looking more and more like the excellent PGA Tour programming in America, that is clearly the blueprint for worldwide coverage. If ever you are struggling with insomnia I can strongly recommend it.

One of the frustrating aspects of ageing is that time goes so much quicker and one’s ability to remember what happened in those speeding days lessens exponentially. That seems like a very good reason to look forward into 2020. I have resolved not to bother with resolutions as they invariably fail after five minutes anyway and raise false expectations. My main hope for the New Year is that Alison (my wife) finds life a bit less stressful at work and my children realise that it is necessary to do some work if you are going to make any progress in this life.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind, just hope it was somebody you didn’t like anyway. May your vision, as well as your recall, be 20/20 as the new decade starts, allowing you to negotiate the many pitfalls and enjoy all those glorious, memorable (hopefully) moments. We are blessed in Eastbourne in having a constantly changing seascape that produces the most dramatic light shows over the white cliffs and beyond. I have a good feeling about the next twelve months. With Boris and the Johnsonettes in charge how can it be anything else?

Christmas Eve and I have only heard The Twelve Days of Christmas twenty seven times. Those gold rings sound ever more appealing.

The two main stories on the front page of The Times today, detail what and where Boris is doing/going for his Christmas hols and what The Queen is going to say in her Christmas speech tomorrow. Call me old fashioned, but it would be so much more enjoyable to sit down and listen to HM delivering her spiel without having been told first what she is going to say. As for the PM, the poor chap has been working his little bits off for weeks and thoroughly deserves a nice holiday, just like the rest of us. If he is lucky enough to be able to afford a week or two in Mustique, good luck to him. Is it REALLY a front page story? The journalism of envy. I want my Prime Minister fit, strong, healthy and refreshed to meet the upcoming challenges full on and fearless. To pretend that his needs are the same as the dustman, the milkman, the postman or even Uncle Tom Cobley is so absurd as to be unrealistic. Which is, of course, exactly what so much of modern society and thinking is.

On that brief note, I am going to take a holiday with the family in the West Country, where it will probably be wet, cold and uninspiring, but hopefully we will have great fun meeting up with friends and family and will all return home for New Year’s Eve with spirits rekindled, bodies rested and minds rejuvenated. Hopefully.

I expect to be back in print on 31st December. Until then, enjoy the Spirit of Christmas…..which in my case is Baileys on ice and possibly some very good vintage port. Cheers.

I went into W H Smith yesterday in search of a gift voucher. “Do you stock Amazon Vouchers” I asked the young lad at the checkout. “Yes, but we’ve sold out under the counter. There should be some in the store.” All this delivered in a somewhat surly and disinterested tone. Upon seeking further guidance, “somewhere in the store” was the helpful reply. No doubt you will have been indulging in extensive retail therapy as the much hyped season approached. No doubt you will have similar tales to tell of indifference, incompetence and downright rudeness. I recognise that these giants of sales may not be massively well re-imbursed. But where are the managers and supervisors to monitor, train and inspire them? Why are we Brits so generally bloody hopeless at “service”, as if it is somehow demeaning? I hate to say it but we could learn a lot from America in that regard.

Then there are those who give their all, but can be equally irritating. I don’t know about you, but I like to be able to go into a shop and peruse, without an assistant sidling up and watching me, desperate to say something but held back by my refusal to make eye contact. It’s what they love to do in Asia. You have to be tracked wherever you go. If they persist, that’s me, I’m out of the door. It’s wonderful to be greeted (and I’m obviously talking about smallish, specialist shops here, not supermarkets) with a cheery “hello” and “shout if you want help” and then left to survey the merchandise. I went into a jewellers recently with which I am quite familiar, but was greeted by a late middle-aged woman I didn’t know who was out to sell me something. I knew exactly what I wanted and why, but still wanted to spend a few minutes examining it closely and convincing myself it was worth the money. She very nearly lost the sale with her constant and irritating prattle. The one phrase it seems they all latch onto is “it’s been a very popular item this winter”. If I am buying food or wine, it’s probably quite reassuring to know its “popular”. If I am buying a gift for someone that I hope will be unique at best, most unusual at worst, the last thing I want to hear is that “it’s been very popular”! Do these people never stop and think? Does nobody up the chain train and supervise them? Apparently not.

On our London trip last week, we dined out at a middle-of-the-road US style chain restaurant where you wouldn’t necessarily expect anything special and it wasn’t. The food was average and expensive. But we were served by a brilliant young East European woman who never took a note, never asked us to repeat an order, brought everything we asked for, exactly as we asked for it and served it to the right people. What a skill! It was very impressive and she most certainly deserved the generous tip we left, despite feeling ripped off by the poor value for money. Not everyone has that kind of memory, but as my hotelier brother in law showed me forty years ago, even using paper and pencil, it’s very easy to do and unfailingly impresses. I can never understand why in most places the waitress shows up with hands full, barking out; “medium steak?”, “salmon and chips?”, “who’s having the scampi?”. Seemingly you have to go to super-smart, expensive restaurants before the staff are taught the simple but effective tricks of the trade.

You would think in these days of Amazon and internet shopping that physical shopkeepers  would go out of their way to provide a rewarding experience in their store. I fear we Brits are so inured to rubbish service that we accept it far too readily. It is time to stand up and be counted folks. Demand high standards or boycott the outlet. Methinks they might get the message quite quickly…….or go out of business.

Here come The Sales. Happy Christmas shopping.

I have a friend who is, then isn’t, who is there, then not, there, gone. I wasn’t sure if it was me or my “friend”. Then yesterday I went to see Last Christmas and found the answer. I cannot enlighten you further without revealing the plot. If it is an attempt to supersede Love Actually, it fails, but an element of the story is relevant to friendships and my particular quandary. Perhaps. It came to mind because I have just seen one of the stupidest things imaginable. In darkness, a thirty something male was riding a bike, without any lights, the wrong way down a main thoroughfare in Eastbourne, looking at his phone and texting. Any friends he might have can expect to attend his funeral very shortly. All this might make sense to you if you go to Last Christmas. This, however, is not a recommendation and I take no responsibility for your enjoyment therefore, or not.

At the risk of boring myself, let alone my long-suffering reader(s), I shall return to our Capital Adventures. On Day Two of our stay in London, we had a major battle to persuade Daughter, in particular, that the Churchill War Rooms would be an interesting morning prelude to Goldilocks and the Three Bears in the afternoon. After both children had dragged their feet we made it with less time to spend there than would have been ideal, but nonetheless it did prove to be a fascinating glimpse into the deprivations and dramas of wartime London. Fascinating for three quarters of the party anyway. Twelve year old girls, it seems, need something to be “happening”. Things certainly happened at The London Palladium. With Julian Clary and Paul O’Grady starring you can imagine it was a trifle camp when they held centre stage. Clary was the Circus Ringmaster and O’Grady  the “bad” owner of a rival circus. Constant references to The Ring and other such hilarious smuttiness did get somewhat tedious. I am really struggling to fathom why it is ok for grown men to make a lot of seedy homosexual references to a large audience of whom probably fifty per cent were children and why in an afternoon play on BBC Radio 4 it is acceptable for an actress to say “shit, shit shit” (as I heard yesterday) and yet if a sportsman swears in a live match on tv, we, as broadcasters, are obliged to apologise, lest it may have caused someone offence? I, along with many of my fellow commentators, nowadays struggle even more to know what we can and can’t say without causing somebody offence, somewhere. My recent American boss accused me of being “stupid” for saying “that a golfer just needed to caress a very quick downhill putt, like a sixteen year old in the back row of the cinema, on his first date”.  I had to write letters of apology and it is probably the catalyst for why I am no longer working for The European Tour. All those who take offence at such things should go and visit The Tower of London and The Churchill War Rooms. Where on earth are we heading?!

Anyway, the Production, was genuinely spectacular. A distinctly thin story line allowed any number of varied and extremely talented acts to thrill and entertain, whilst still providing most of the traditional Panto tropes. It’s definitely worth a visit.

This was supposed to be published yesterday (Saturday) but a combination of internet failure, family demands and parties precluded completion. As I am now suffering from a monster hangover following a large gathering of drunks last night, the muse has somewhat deserted me. On which unsatisfactory note I shall leave you to contemplate the vanity of human wishes and whether your daughter’s lengthy Christmas wish list should be taken seriously or just confined to the bin?

As a postscript, why is it permissible for gay men to make a steady stream of lewd references to their sexual predilections when it would be considered outrageous for a heterosexual man to make similar comments about women? Consider David Walliams and his leering at beautiful, semi-naked men on Britain’s Got Talent. If Simon Cowell behaved in the same way towards gorgeous, scantily-attired women there would be universal opprobrium.

 

 

 

Tales of the Tower, Part 2. It was intriguing for me to revisit The Tower of London for the first time since doing Public Duties (Guard duty) there in 1977, as a member of The Queen’s Colour Squadron of the Royal Air Force. My boss then was Squadron Leader David Hawkins, a tall, elegant, extremely driven man, who went on to be an Air Vice Marshal, Commandant General of The RAF Regiment, Yeoman Usher of The Black Rod, Gentleman Usher to The Queen and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Greater London. It was obvious even then that he was going to be someone special. I was his Adjutant and spent most of my life trying to keep up. He had also been my boss on my first Squadron a few years earlier. As a very green young subaltern I had the temerity to suggest at an Officers’ briefing, on the first night of a deployment exercise, that morale amongst the men was not great. His suggestion that perhaps I hadn’t got a bloody clue what I was talking about was one of the best “put-downs” I’ve ever experienced (and I have experienced a few). You could have roasted chestnuts on my face I was so embarrassed. Nonetheless, we became great friends and he was one of those men who inspired huge respect as well as love. He ended up marrying a Harley Street dentist and retiring to a delightful spot in her native Denmark. You could say he pulled a dentist, while she pulled teeth. I was greatly saddened to hear that he had died in January. I would love to have said goodbye properly.

Anyway, back to The Tower. I quite impressed myself with how well I remembered the place. I suppose it had been a very special time. As the (bachelor) Officer of the Guard for 48 hours there were tremendous killings to be made. For some reason, wandering around the Tower in full ceremonial dress and sword seemed to attract all manner of attractive young ladies. Of course one was actually checking that the sentries were fulfilling their duties in accordance with military and regimental custom and tradition. Ahem. The best part though was when the public had gone, the outer gates were all secured and an eerie silence descended on the Old Fortress. Walking around all the little-seen nooks and crannies at three in the morning was a very special experience and not a trifle spooky, as one recalled all the acts of extreme cruelty and barbarism that had taken place there. As our Beefeater had so graphically explained, it was on this very spot beneath our feet on Tower Green, beside The White Tower, where a crude scaffold had been built, with an execution block surrounded by straw, in preparation for Her Majesty Queen Anne Boleyn to say her last prayer. The straw was there to hide the special sword that had come all the way from France, at her request. Apparently beheading by sword is generally less painful than by axe. As nobody lived to tell the tale, I am not clear how she knew that? The good news is that the executioner’s aim was good and with one mighty heave of the Parisian steel her head was most satisfactorily detached. (It sometimes took up to eight swings of the axe before full separation was achieved, so I guess that could hurt a bit). Please just imagine yourself into the scene. This is the Queen of England, whose only crime was that she had failed to provide her husband with a son and heir. Surrounded by a small crowd of courtiers and nobles, her bloody head was now bouncing around in the dirt, before the masked sword-wielder could grab it by her hair and hold it up for all to see. Legend has it that her eyes still blinked and lips continued in prayer for a full twenty seconds after the decapitation. I guess it is an interesting way of resolving marital disputes. With a little imagination, it wasn’t hard to “see” and “hear” such gruesome happenings on my nocturnal strolls past the Bloody Tower.

My times on duty there were enhanced because I knew the Governor of The Tower quite well. He lived in The Queen’s House on Tower Green. He was a former Scots Guardsman, Major General Digby Raeburn, who I’d met at the Inter-Service Skiing Championships. His wife, Addy, liked to be known as the Witch in The Tower. She was a remarkable healer who had helped to reposition my dislocated right shoulder, an injury sustained while crashing through the Downhill finish at 70 mph, a few weeks before I was due to be wielding my sword at The Tower. She had previously been a tremendous comfort to the police constable who was badly maimed when the IRA bombed The White Tower, in another of their heroic acts, in July 1974. I guess it’s no wonder there is so much more security everywhere now.

With State schools still entertaining their pupils, it was a great time to visit. We almost had the place to ourselves and were able to linger at length in The Jewel House, admiring all The Queen’s different hats with their fancy gems; a few bob’s worth in there. Amongst the glittering regalia was The Imperial State Crown which we then watched on TV three days later (i.e.yesterday) being carried in and out of The House of Lords’ on a cushion, rather than perched nobly on Her Majesty’s immaculately coiffured hair, as it was a State Opening Lite with the Queen in mufti; quite smart mufti admittedly, but definitely not the full rig. She was accompanied by her eldest son, who really must wonder when it is going to be his turn. She read out Boris’s plans quite beautifully, but I could have sworn that at one point Prince Charles was falling asleep. Imagine doing that beside Henry VIII. You would have been on the wrong side of Traitor’s Gate before you could say “keep yer ‘air on”.

Still only on Day 1 of London visit. TBC.

 

 

I must sincerely apologise to my legion of faithful followers for my inability to entertain two indolent teenagers and a grumpy wife, whilst taking in the many and varied sights of London and write a blog at the same time. Julian in London, laptop in Eastbourne didn’t help either. After three testing days I am back on the Sunshine Coast, watching the rain come down, whilst re-familiarising myself with the Mac Book Pro.

London was all that I remembered; big, busy and bankrupting. Since the halcyon days when I lived and worked there many things have changed, but probably the most depressing is how everywhere around Westminster is now littered with bollards, steel blocks, security fencing, armed police and prying cameras. Taking a stroll around Parliament Square late one evening, I could feel a thousand eyes boring into the back of my neck. Behind the entry gates to the Palace of Westminster, a cohort of constables appeared to chatter inconsequentially, whilst being clearly poised to pounce should anything vaguely untoward occur. Trying to appear like any other innocent tourist I politely asked what time proceedings would start the following day, as I had thought a visit to the Strangers’ Gallery might be of interest to my son, at least. PC “Extra Large” replied “2.30”, with a degree of suspicion. Further probing merely increased his suspicion, to the point where I thought it wise to move on. No doubt the Face Recognition cameras were already pinging my ugly features back to SIS HQ for a quick character check. With no previous terrorist record I was permitted to wander on my way. Stopping at the end of the House of Lords’, I found a most obliging Constable in a booth who was happy to chat. I learned that the very comprehensive scaffolding above our heads was there, not so much to allow skilled craftsmen to climb to their workplace, but more to prevent the not infrequent cascades of falling masonry from turning our brains to mush. I also learned that while parts of the Palace are now encased in enough scaffolding pipes to re-plumb Buckingham Palace, our honourable MPs and noble Lords will soldier on amidst the grime, dust, leaks and rats until 2026, at which point they will debunk to either Richmond House or the Queen Elizabeth Conference centre (or both), both of which will have been re-fitted to accommodate a lot of chatter, name-calling and brilliant oratory; although the last might be in limited supply. The whole operation is expected to last for an unbelievable thirty years and cost a very believable undisclosed sum running into many billions of pounds. The Mother of Parliaments has got a dangerously serious dose of arthritis and a few other nasty diseases besides. One just has to hope that while the operation to heal her is taking place she doesn’t fall foul to a super-bug and end up in intensive care, or worse. It’s an intriguing thought to ponder who will be PM when the MPs move back in? The only certainty is that it won’t be Teflon Jeremy, who does finally appear to have discovered the meaning of “unstuck”.

My late night stroll concluded a day spent patrolling the battlements of The Tower and learning some of the intriguing tales that have unfolded within its thick and ancient walls. The visit started with a highly entertaining briefing from a Yeoman Warder, formerly a Royal Marine Sergeant Major and now a Beefeater. Surprisingly, considering all the historical minutiae that he uncovered, no one really knows why they are called Beefeaters. He managed to slag off Americans, Scots and people from Essex without offending anyone. With a clever use of irony, his comments would have gone straight over the heads of the Americans, the Scots are too permanently angry to notice anyway and the Essexonians were too busy looking in their compacts to check their lipstick hadn’t smudged. On that offensively racist note I shall retire into my boots and fire through the lace holes.

The story of The Tower……to be continued.

Every now and then a bad news story becomes a good one and I am delighted to report that the collie I told you about in No.71 has been found alive and well, with only relatively minor damage to its mouth, roaming on the Sussex Downs behind Eastbourne. One can only surmise as to the events that led to her ending up there and finally being reunited with her ecstatic owners. Imagine their relief!

I apologise to non-golfers for straying onto the fairways once again, but there has just been a major competition in Australia that has grabbed my attention for the past three days. It is called the President’s Cup and features a US Team, led this time by Tiger Woods and an International Team, captained by Ernie Els, that is made up of the twelve best players from the Rest of The World, excluding Europe. It is a Ryder Cup style contest and it was the thirteenth playing of the biennial competition. It has been dominated by America, although the Internationals ran them pretty close this time. I won’t go into all the details of the Competition, it was more the status of golf that concerns me. I said “straying onto the FAIRWAYS”. An appropriate term. Golf has always prided itself on being an honourable, self-policing game, where players are expected to play by the rules and those that do not are generally very quickly found out and tainted for life. I suppose almost inevitably, with the dramatic increase in prize money over the last twenty years, some players will be tempted to bend and/or break the rules in the hope that they will go undetected and line their pockets with abundant filthy lucre. Plenty do, as I have witnessed with my own eyes over three decades of walking the fairways as a commentator. However, we have reached a pretty pass when players blatantly cheat in front of the tv cameras, it is there for all to see and officialdom wibbles and wriggles and fails to take the decisive, zero-tolerance action that the situation demands. Two players on the US Team, Patrick Reed and Matt Kuchar have blatantly and wilfully broken the rules this year and yet they are still plying their trade on the PGA Tour, able to earn more money than most of us can ever dream of. It shames the game, the Tour officials involved and the players. The gall they possess to continue, as if nothing has happened, with the lamest of explanations, makes my blood boil. The really soul-destroying aspect is that a number of less well known, “inconsequential” players have been banned for anything from a few months to years, for no more heinous acts than we have witnessed this year. The powers that be need to take a long hard look in the mirror this Christmas and hopefully it won’t be a benevolent, white bearded old man they see staring back.

I seem to be hitting an uncharacteristically serious note this evening, for which I apologise. It does happen occasionally. The Tutt family are in the middle of preparing for a few days in the Capital. There’s a trip to the London Palladium to see Goldilocks, about which I am quite excited. Not because I yearn after Panto’s, but because I’ve never been to the Palladium before and I feel that is a gap in my life experience. In a previous existence, I used to carry out Pubic Duties guarding the Tower of London, hence a visit there is a must, so that I can bore the children with the many fascinating tales of my experiences on Tower Hill. Actually they really are quite interesting, but probably not to my teenagers! No doubt Winter Wonderland will be on the agenda, whilst I am determined to try whispering sweet nothings to my wife in The Gallery at St Paul’s. We will be staying in the old County Hall, once seat of London’s Government and now a Premier Inn. (An interesting juxtaposition). I will try to imagine myself as a Councillor under Mayor Boris and see what unanticipated roads that might take me down. It is close to the London Eye, so I suspect we might get inveigled into a Greater London survey on the big wheel. I would rather jump through burning hoops into an ice bath but my will may not prevail……

Friends of mine are enjoying beautiful conditions in the Alps……no envy here.

 

I think I am suffering from PMSD. (Post Mauritius Stress Disorder) Hence my failure to burst into print for four days. It has also been a hectic last week of School term so I have been pulled in all directions. OK, pathetic excuses out of the way. Friday 13th is looking like a seriously unlucky day for Jeremy Corbyn and the British Labour Party. I have just read a quote from Alan Johnson, the former Labour Home Secretary, a very solid citizen and respected member of “Old Labour”. Allow me to share it with you, because you do not often hear politicians speak quite so frankly:

“The Corbynistas will make an argument that victory is a bourgeois concept and the only goal for true socialists is glorious bloody defeat and now we just had another one of them….but it’s Corbyn. We knew that in Parliament. We knew he was incapable of leading. WE KNEW HE WAS WORSE THAN USELESS”. Blimey. It seems the electorate might have got it right. The next few months and years are going to be fascinating. Who is the real Boris Johnson. We are about to find out.

I learnt yesterday, whilst walking Callie (The Whippet) along Eastbourne promenade into a thirty mph wind and driving rain, that November in Sussex was the wettest since 1910. That is wet and it continues to deluge almost daily. Would someone please tell Him (or Her) upstairs that we do not need anymore please? I wonder if they were complaining about climate change in 1910? Probably not. From a personal point of view, as I am now on the home run, I suspect that whatever Greta Thunberg and her supporters achieve will not make a blind bit of difference to me. I fear there is only one solution. Emigrate to South Africa or somewhere equally hot, dry and beautiful. Is it too late to become a Park Ranger? That is what I wanted to do aged sixteen and after my recent visit to the Kruger National Park it would be a wonderful way to prepare for my trip to the Pearly Gates. (If that is not being too presumptuous!)

I hate to conclude on a serious and sad note, but something happened two nights ago that bears telling. A group of friends were out walking with their Collie. The dog ventured onto a road and was hit by a car. Contrary to legal and moral requirements the driver sped off. The Collie was hurt but no one knows how badly. It disappeared and despite desperate searches could not be found. When I went to vote yesterday morning there were posters up all around pleading for information. On my afternoon walk a distressed young woman was running along the Prom searching every nook and cranny, calling out the dog’s name and asking every passing stranger if they had seen it. The poor creature must be holed up somewhere, hurt, possibly dying, maybe already dead. I tell this very sad story only to highlight the heinous crime of ‘hit and run’.

The chances of my finishing this in one sitting are extremely remote as it is now 1.30 pm and I arrived at Gatwick Airport this morning at 5.15 after a largely sleepless twelve hour flight from Mauritius, courtesy of “The World’s Favourite Airline”, as it used to tag itself, although that has become such a source of derision they have wisely shelved that particular slogan. “The World’s Most Expensive Low Cost Airline” might be more appropriate.

After weeks of thought, I failed miserably to make any sort of statement during my last ever broadcast for European Tour Propaganda, sorry Productions (ETP), on Sunday. In the end, I just left with silence as the final round went into a play-off and there was a danger I might miss my flight.

I was right……it’s now Tuesday. I’ve met a few people recently who have suffered from septicaemia, a potentially fatal and very nasty condition. I have just fallen victim to Septicseeya, which is equally terminal, in a business sense and for which there is no known cure. (An understanding of cockney rhyming slang will help here). For nearly thirty years I have been commentating on The European Tour. This is a Tour made up of all the individual European countries. The clue is in the title really. Whilst we may have a common currency and a common market, we are not yet a United States of Europe. Thankfully. The member states all maintain their wonderful variety of culture, diet, and customs. You won’t find sauerkraut on sale in Le Maison du Jacques,  Smorgersbord for brekky in Berlin or ghoulash being doled out in Madrid. Many other nationalities also come and play on the European Tour, from Aussies to South Africans and Asians to South Americans. For this reason our commentary is taken by numerous countries all around the world and we have always tried to bear that in mind and cater for all cultures. However, what we all know is that America and Americans do everything bigger and better than us, so it should come as no surprise that when highly paid executives from across the pond are brought in to show us how to run things, they will want to re-create the operation in their own, McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts,  image. There is no question that the best golfers in the world play mostly on the PGA Tour in America, where there are up to five networks who share out the televising spoils between them. The game is taken incredibly seriously, just as the players and commentators take themselves incredibly seriously. It is about as witty and entertaining  as a Pinter play transcribed into Russian. So it is that European Tour Propaganda is now more concerned with mentioning all the sponsors names fifteen times an hour, telling the World how absolutely fab and wonderful everything and everybody is and avoiding any inconvenient truths.

For folk of my generation and many more besides, Peter Allis has been the doyen of golf commentators for decades. He is still broadcasting at eighty eight; an astonishing career. People in Britain love Peter because he’s brought the joy of golf to the masses, who are not necessarily dedicated followers of the game. He combines great insight with a unique wit and a rare human touch. Typically, commentators work to their Producers and Directors. But the BBC men in charge of Peter often waited for him to finish a story before moving on to another picture. Sir Nick’s tap in for par could wait. (That’s Faldo for anyone who has had their head in a lavatory bowl for the last thirty years. My apologies for the harsh sarcasm, it’s what happens when the Stasi move in). Peter has an extraordinary ability to see things on the screen that most people miss. His powers of observation, combined with an ability to paint witty pictures with words and to head down a path that even he doesn’t know whither it leads, really are unique. Two ducks and a gaggle of ducklings are a green light for Peter to wax lyrical. At the World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth years ago I couldn’t speak for a full five minutes after he started talking about jam; it was just hysterical. Recognising his genius, ABC recruited him to commentate in America, which Peter was very happy to do because broadcasters over there get paid ludicrous sums of money, especially men of Peter’s calibre. But they rarely allowed him to do the thing he did best; entertain. A blindfolded monkey can say “Tiger Woods on the 6th Tee with a driver”, but for the most part that was as much as he was given time for. It is these same men and their tutees who are now waving their magic wands over ETP.

We lesser mortals can only stand back and admire their work. The new breed are “changing  the face of commentary…..”

Allowing for the odd extra illegal immigrant or two, the population of the United Kingdom is about 66 million. Multiply that by 5 and you get approximately 330 million, which, applying the same rules and allowing for the odd Trump Wall jumper and burrower is the population of the United States. I learned from a lady in the know the other day that there are roughly 1,300 McDonalds outlets on the Eastern side of the pond. Multiply that by 5 and you get 6,500, which is approximately 25,500 less than the number of McDonalds on the west side of the Atlantic. In other words, each McDonalds in America caters for 10,312.5 people, while Britons have to put up with 50,769.2 persons attending each of Ronald’s establishments in Brexitland. Either we Brits eat a lot less burgers or we spend a much more time queuing than Americans? I think we are entitled to an answer. Personally, now that my body is a temple and good nutrition the essential order of the day, I will be delaying no one in their attempts to poison themselves.

The lady in question is Richard Bland’s new girlfriend. Well she may not be that new but it’s the first time I have met her. Unlike her European Tour professional partner, she claims to know nothing about golf, but she is an expert in marketing for McDonalds. Her annual budget is £120 million, which represents about 4% of the company’s profits. Those sound like quite impressive numbers to me. I mention all this with no great end in mind, merely because I thought it was quite interesting. I could be wrong.

Luckily there was not a burger in sight when we were entertained to a slap up feast last night by our hosts at Heritage Resort Le Telfair. Actually banquet is probably a better word as the delicious seafood, shellfish and meats of every distinction just kept on coming. It all proved too much for my friend and colleague Alan Michell who later returned large quantities to sender claiming a nasty dose of food poisoning, when we all know it was the result of sheer gluttony. I concede that is a trifle unfair as I don’t believe anyone ate as much as I did. It was a most enjoyable evening and great thanks must go to our extremely generous hosts here.

Having been soundly thrashed on a late night snooker table by John ‘Hustler’ Morgan, I took to the skies over Mauritius this morning in an Ultralite seaplane, courtesy of Afrasia Bank, the tournament sponsors. Ludwig the long-suffering pilot kindly allowed me to take control once we were airborne and I managed to avoid putting us into a stall or a spin that might have ripped the delicate wings off. The pre-flight briefing had incorporated the comforting knowledge that should a wing become detached, one merely had to remove this red pin, pull the lever hard and a parachute would deploy, thereby returning the extremely light craft safely back to earth. Apparently this is now standard on all Ultralites and Microlites. As a former paratrooper I was greatly comforted by this knowledge. As a former helicopter pilot I took even greater solace as helicopters and parachutes tend not to go together. The views from above were spectacular and I would have taken lots of photos had Ludwig not said that his last two passengers dropped there phones/cameras out of the window. Plonkers. Anyway, I had my hands too full flying the sensitive craft and enjoying the scenery.

I maintained excellent control until about two hundred feet asl, at which point Ludwig wisely reclaimed command of his vessel. (I am not sure if a seaplane is correctly called a vessel or an aircraft?). We executed a safe and trouble free landing in amongst the unpredictable kite surfers.

The day then passed uneventfully until the evening, when I was late for a team dinner because, while writing this, I failed to notice that my free-standing, cast iron, Victorian bath was overflowing and creating a fairly serious flood in my beautiful bathroom. When I finally made it to dinner everyone else was seated and waiting to order. This is a situation that I find myself in not infrequently. Our Producer, David Mould, with whom I have been friends  for a very long time, then said some nice things about me because I am leaving. Well truthfully, I have been sacked and this is my last tournament ever. My colleagues then did their best to embarrass me with an array of compliments, apart from Dale Hayes, who reaffirmed his position as an alien from Plankton 2  and then tried to soften his words by pretending we were friends.

I have to be up early to go swimming with dolphins so will end the day here. I am assured it will be great fun.

I have just realised this is Blog No 69 and I have avoided any reference to resuscitation, whether it be mouth to mouth or otherwise. Well I had until that point.