My friend’s son is currently rooting round the base of the great ruck of human knowledge as questing, purposeful and generally terrier-like as Matt Dawson. No sooner has one question been recycled than in he goes again, burrowing for second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-phase explanation.
On Sunday we all went for a walk. ”Are you looking forward to the Winter Olympics?” my friend’s son asked me.
”Yes,” I said. Which is true. I am very excited about the Turin Games, which start this weekend. Admittedly, to my untutored eye the men’s downhill has never quite recovered from the retirement of the splendidly named Italian, Herbert Plank, yet despite that I love the Winter Olympics. This, in part at least, stems from the fact that when I was a child the quadrennial polo-neck and cow-bell-shaking festival usually coincided with one of those illnesses that involve lying on the sofa watching TV while being brought warm drinks and ice cream at regular intervals by a kindly female family member. (A lifestyle, incidentally, that I fully intend to adopt on a permanent basis just as soon as I finish teaching my daughter to make hot buttered rum and shut the door of the freezer properly.)
”Which do you like best, the Winter Olympics or the Summer Olympics?” the boy asked. There are a number of good reasons to love the Winter Olympics, but I knew I must choose my answer carefully, or risk being sucked into a maelstrom of clarifications, the answering of which, since we were at that point marching up a steep hill, would likely have resulted in me collapsing with oxygen deprivation.
There is, for example, the luge. The luge is one of my all-time favourite sports.
This is partly because it attracts devil-may-care eccentrics such as Harvey Hook of the United States Virgin Islands (at 52 the oldest competitor in Olympic history), but mainly because lugeing is the only sport that sounds like the sort of thing that might carry a mandatory custodial sentence on the Isle of Man.
Then there is the lack of any national expectation. Frankly, it is a huge relief to be able to watch as the brakeman fails to alight on the back of the four-man bob and makes futile pursuit down the track flailing his arms like a drunk commuter chasing the last train home, without having to ask what the pictures tell us about Life In Blair’s Britain.
I didn’t say any of these things to my friend’s son, however. What I said to him was: ”I like the Winter Games best because it comes out higher in the 007 test.
”This supreme examination of the validity of any sporting endeavour is simple to apply. You just think of the sport and ask: ‘Would James Bond do it?’ Would James Bond do ski jumping? Undoubtedly. Would James Bond do triple jumping? I don’t think so. The giant slalom — yes. The shot put — no way. Bobsleigh — definitely. Bicycling — highly unlikely. And then there is the winter biathlon — skiing and shooting — which is not only an event 007 would enjoy, but also a plot summary of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
”Yes,” my friend’s son said after a five-second pause, ”but would James Bond do ice dancing?”
”Probably not,” my friend answered, ”though there are clearly several ice dancers he would do. And on that note, I think we should say no more questions about the Winter Olympics, and enjoy this splendid view in peace and quiet.”
And his son said: ”Why?” — Â