Never Mind The Politics
by Sally Redfern
2007-01-18
Today's blog is from my little Sis. Judy Redfern, plenty of comments please as I'm hoping to recruit her as an extra blogger on the Boggart team.
Never mind the politics, what a week it has been in sport.
While Ruth Kelly stoically resisted pressure to indulge in public self-flagellation over her decision to send her son to private school, it appears ritual self abuse is catching on in the world of sport.
How else do we explain the weird goings on at, for example, the BDO World Darts Championship?
Here we saw Nixon, by no means the underdog but a contender (although he does not look much like Marlon Brando*) playing abysmally and reaching the interval trailing 6 - 0.
On his return to the oche, perhaps limping slightly, he proceeded to recoup his lost ground in a superb resurgence surely only matched by Liverpool's comeback to clinch the Champions League a few years ago.
The next day we learned that Nixon had in fact stabbed himself in the leg with his darts during the break. No medical aid was sought so we must conclude that the wound was deliberately self inflicted as an aid to concentration for the task ahead. Which brings to mind Dan Brown's albino monk.
Is this an isolated incident? you might well ask.
We fear not, and furthermore if you are thinking the Boggart Blog team indulge in a form of self flagellation by watching darts on TV, let me say this incident was only learned of from a newspaper column.
Whilst watching the Australian Open, live and in person, your intrepid reporter observed Marat Safin, a 6' 4" built-like-a-brick-shithouse Russian who was struggling against he shorter, lighter (much more attractive) German Benjamin Becker. After some self directed verbal and racquet directed physical abuse failed to achieve the desired effect on his game, Safin then began to beat his own bollocks with his racquet.
If this had happened at change of ends between games one could have been persuaded he was re-enacting certain scenes from Casino Royal. Bollocking oneself with a tennis racquet while walking across court between points however must raise certain questions about a player's mental stability. Unless of course he is a member of a religious cult that practices self-bollocking as one of its austerities.
So how far has self torture spread among participants in other sports. Can we believe that when Olympic Yachtsman Ben Ainsley hangs his arse over the side of the dinghy it is solely about balance. Anyone who has hit water at speed will know how hard it can feel. So is Benny-boy into spanking and lacking a partner? Perhaps he should contact suzeemoon who will be able to direct him to potential partners.
Do the Chelsea team wax their entire bodies solely for aerodynamic reasons or is the pain part of the motivation. These questions have to be asked.
Could England's dismal performance in the recent ashes cricket series in Australia have been so much different if, on the second day of the first test, Freddy Flintoff and the boys had pinioned Ashley Giles (or better still, Shane Warne) in the manner of Leonardo's Virtuvian man and hammered the stumps through his hands and feet? (this type of ritual sacrifice ends in the victim going off to another country and never being seen near his home again)
Sport and suffering seem inextricably linked (especially if you are a Newcastle United supporter) so what is going on? And should we be encouraging young people to get involved?
* little in joke for movie buffs there.
