Don't get me wrong. I love synchronized swimming. Or Dancing Under Adverse Weather Conditions as it's called in our house. It has to be the funniest of all the Olympic events. And the participants all seem to have mastered that comedic strategy so perfectly exemplified by Margaret Dumont, the fat lady in all the Marx Brothers movies. Sometimes it's funnier when you play it straight.
I love all the comedy events.
I mean, I love Dressage.
That's the one where they get horses to do all those cute tricks that only dogs normally do. Like walking backwards, rolling over, sit up and beg. Like that.
I also love that fact that there is a sport so expensive to take part in that it's dominated by oil sheiks and the British Royal Family.
And the endurance walking is, of course, hilarious. Who thought that up?
'OK. They have to go as fast as they can. Obviously. But here's the thing. If they accidentally break into a run. They're disqualified.' Genius.
And the rowing. It relies on the one visual gag but, for me anyway, it never gets old. Usually in sports, the littlest guys run inconceivably long distances and the biggest guys lift unfeasibly heavy weights. And never the twain shall meet. But with rowing they came up with a sport where you need eight giants and a midget. Eight guys with big strong backs and thighs to do the rowing and one little guy with a megaphone to keep the beat and get them pointed in the right direction. I mean if they want to minimize the weight why don't they just use one of the girl gymnasts on her day off. Or go the whole hog and hire a dwarf.
The funniest bit is when the winning team line up to get their medals. They don't know what to do with the little guy. Put him at the front? At the back? Or they can try to lose him in the middle somewhere. I think one of the big guys should just tuck him under his arm.
But to get back to the synchronized swimming. They reason I brought it up is, how did it get to be an Olympic Sport? I mean it's not like they needed another swimming event. We all know that if somebody comes back from the Games with a double fistful of medals, they didn't do it without shaving their body hair and getting wet.
I suppose it's a fusion sport. Swimming, dancing and gymnastics. But that's no excuse. I can imagine a very entertaining beach-volleyball/wrestling mash-up. I only have to figure out the rules and I'm good to go. But I'd have to get sponsorship and funding and set up a league and... oh, never mind.
Synchronized swimming has a history though, back when it was known as water ballet. Maybe that's the thing. Is the reason Archery is in but Darts is out simply an issue of tradition?
I mean Archery has an ancient tradition in Britain. In some parts of the world the rudest hand signal is the raising of the single middle finger in the time-honored digitus impudicus, in others the thumb holds down the middle two fingers and flaunts the pinky and index finger as the horns of devil or cuckold, in some cultures a ring is made of the curled thumb and index fingers to mimic the distended arsehole of one who submits to sodomitical intercourse. Make of that what you will. Only Britain uses the manual insult where the index and middle fingers are raised in a backhanded spread V-sign. The story is that prior to the Battle of Agincourt of 1415 the French had threatened that captured archers would have their bow fingers amputated. After the English victory their archers are said to have waved their intact fingers to taunt the defeated French. The gesture remained.
In the early seventeenth century James the First issued a proclamation which would become known as the Declaration of Sports. In it he condemns 'Puritans and other precise persons' for interfering with the free practice of 'lawful sports' on a Sunday afternoon after church services. I'm not altogether sure what he means there by 'precise persons' but I suspect they are still around. They sound like the kind of people who police spelling and grammar on the YouTube comment feature. In any case, one of the few 'lawful sports' to be singled out by name is, of course, archery. Towns and villages had places set aside for the practice of this martial sport. This area was known as the butts. Yeah, try googling that to find out about archery.
It would be nice to be able to say that these ancient practices are conserved in place names like Newington Butts in south London. But a butt is also the name of any left over, off-cut bit of a field so often that was preserved in the name. There's no evidence that there was ever any archery at Newington Butts so if your tour guide tells you any different they're full of shit. In fact, if your tour guide takes you so far into South London that you can't see the river then your travel insurance is probably no longer valid.
Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. Archery gets in because of its long and illustrious tradition but Darts doesn't. Even though Darts is just indoor archery. They both require a high level of hand/eye coordination and use of the muscles of arm and shoulder. I mean what does Archery have that Darts doesn't? Even the arithmetic is harder. You have to be able to count backwards and multiply by two and three. Not that I'm suggesting that arithmetic is a sport. But if getting a horse to roll over and show it's belly is, why the fuck not?
During the 2012 Olympics the archery competitions will take place in Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood. That's just north west of Regent's Park. Seriously posh London. Average house price two million quid. What?
'Now your mother she's an heiress, owns a block in St John's Wood. And your father'd be there with her. If he only could. But don't play with me 'cos you're playing with fire.'
Anyway, if you want to see a game of darts you're going to have to go to the pub.
But would you even see one there? I can't remember the last time I saw a dart board in a pub. Certainly not in any of the civilized areas of London. No financially competent gastro-pub is going to sacrifice the space of three paying tables to make room for the oche. Pub dart boards, I'm afraid, have already gone the way of the village butts.
Now we're truly ancient, can we be in the Olympics, please?
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