The Last Day

A really funny thing has happened. Practically every single British columnist is writing the same column. I read Blake Morrison in The Guardian yesterday morning and I had to check the date. I thought: I’ve read this before.

In fact I had not, but it was the same thing Jonathan Freedland wrote a few days ago, expressing the same sentiments that Simon Hoggart did (only without Hoggart’s excellent jokes), saying the same thing that every single pundit has on television and radio. I think I even wrote a version of it myself, somewhere on this blog. The identical sentiments have been everywhere on Twitter. A vast, joyful consensus has broken out, joined with gusto by everyone except for Charles Moore, Richard Littlejohn and one cross fellow on Newsnight.

Here is how it goes:

Everything was clearly going to be a disaster. Waste of public money, Zil lanes, traffic chaos, corporate greed, idiot copyright rules. Strikes! Strikes! Heathrow queues, lost bus drivers, creaking old London, Boris bumbling; oh the shame.

Bugger off Mitt Romney. Hurrah for Danny Boyle. Danny Boyle is a LEGEND. Everyone loves Danny Boyle. Sheep! Industrial Revolution! Isambard Kingdom Brunel! And did those feet, in ancient time?

Dancing nurses, Mary Poppins, the NHS. We love the NHS. Will any of the rest of the world understand? My God, we really did invent the internet. (We did not, of course, Tim Berners-Lee did that, and gave it away, but by this stage a huge national We had taken hold.) This is us, reflected back at ourselves. Suddenly, we really are all in it together. We turn out to be a nation oddly at ease with ourselves. Who knew?

JAMES BOND!! THE QUEEN!!!!!! James Bond and the Queen!!! Bloody hell.

Small reality check. Slow start. Oh, no, Cav. Never mind. Stiff upper lip. But then: THE ROWERS, THE ROWERS. Suddenly the word Eton can be spoken without shame, as the course at Eton Dorney is packed with delirious crowds.

And then the mighty Wiggo, and the shooting, and more rowers, and the three-day-event, and the cyclists, the cyclists. Hoy-tastic.

Super Saturday! Jessica Ennis, go go go. ANDY MURRAY!!! A nation at last takes the young Scot to its heart. First show-jumping gold for sixty years; first dressage gold ever. The smile of Nicola Adams beams round the world. Mo Farah soars to glory; Tom Daley fulfils his youthful promise.

The sceptics are converted and take it all back. We might be grumbly and used to being a bit crap, but, amazingly, it turns out we are quite good at quite a lot of things. Dear old Blighty gathered her dusty old skirts, kicked up her heels, and put on a show. The BBC was magnificent. The sun even shone. The crowds, THE CROWDS; lifting the athletes over the line. But sporting too, not just blind with jingoism.

Everything will go back to normal on Monday, but for two weeks, we caught a dream of glory.

Copyright: Absolutely Everyone.

Of course, it’s not absolutely everyone. In great British tradition, there are the grumblers, as there should be. Matthew Parris told Radio Four this morning that it’s very difficult to be a wet blanket, but that he would continue to be one. And quite right too. There probably will be a bit of a national hangover; there should be questions about all that money spent and what it shall achieve. There are many people out there who have not at all been entranced, who have no interest in sport, who care not a jot for gold medals. Someone must speak for them.

An awful lot of ghastly jargon-words like legacy and inclusivity have been floating about. Despite the warning spoof of Hugh Bonneville in Twenty Twelve, everyone has been talking about Britain ‘delivering’. (I generally think of delivering as something a man on a moped does with a pizza, but that may be just me.) People are bending over backwards to insist that these games will have inspired the young people, will transform school sports, may change Britons’ very idea of themselves.

Some of this might happen. Hurrah if it does. I wonder though if it’s asking too much of a sporting event. The happy columns are lovely; the idea of national possibility is tempting. There is something wonderfully hopeful and profound and significant in the fact that one of our greatest double Olympians came here as a refugee from Somalia. When Mo Farah was asked if he regretted not running under the Somali colours, he looked amazed. ‘This is my country,’ he said; the union flag is his flag.

But really, I wonder if it comes down to something much more plain. Asking too much significance of a festival of physical prowess can cause it to buckle under its own weight.

I think: what really happened is that for two weeks, an awful lot of people were really, really happy. That’s not nothing. For two weeks, instead of the daily diet of civil war and economic decline and Eurocrash, we saw good news. Smiling people who had worked their arses off won things. Underdogs were clasped to the national bosom. Joyful crowds screamed their heads off. Dark horses, literal and metaphorical, sprung surprises. The national anthem was played in celebration, as athletes whose names were previously unknown stood tall, with a tear in their eye.

In my idiotically soppy way, I kept thinking of all those mothers and fathers who must have been so proud. The British medallists, many of whom were very young indeed, were not only really good at what they do, but also unbelievably polite and gracious. I lost count of the times they gave all the credit away – to their coaches, their team, their families, even to the Lottery who paid for them. ‘May I just thank?’ they kept saying. How very well brought up they are, I thought, with my great-aunt hat on.

The joy has not been unconfined; it has not spread to every corner of these islands. But I’m not sure I remember a moment when so much sheer pleasure was given to so many by so few.

It’s nearly the end now. The dear Olympics; I shall miss you when you are gone. I did not expect to get quite so excited, or see so much drama and excellence, or to feel so proud of people I had never even heard of before.

As I write this, the marathon is going on. The streets of London are absolutely packed with a roaring, whistling, whooping sea of spectators. Flags are being waved; all nationalities are being clapped and cheered. The sun is shining. The volunteers, who have been one of the great successes of these games, endlessly smiling and helpful, are lining the route. The noise of jubilee is so mighty that the men calling the race have to raise their voices to be heard.

The BBC commentator has perhaps the best last word. He says, with a smile in his voice: ‘The number one, running its personal best every day, is the great British public.’

 

Today’s pictures:

Red’s view:

Red the Mare:

Pigeon:

The hill:

PS. In all this list of achievement, there are too many names I have not space to mention. If you are anything like me, you may be affronted that your personal favourites were not mentioned. No Brownlee brothers? No Rebecca Addington? No Grainger or King or Ainslie or Campbell or McKeever? And what about the brilliant soldiers, who stepped into the breach when G4S failed, and have been uniformly fabulous? Or the techies and sound people, the camera operators and grips, the builders and architects? There there were so many people involved in these games who deserve credit that one tiny blog cannot contain them all. They need an entire book.

A very super Saturday

The Olympics are such funny things. This evening, eleven members of my family gathered in The Sister’s house. The Younger Brother and I cooked lamb with garlic and rosemary, potatoes with olive oil and sage, leeks, spinach, and special green sauce. The supper was specially timed to coincide with Mo Farah in the running and Tom Daley in the diving. The Brother and I got in quite a panic, working out the fractions.

We do, amazingly, have an Olympian in our family (by marriage, but still counts; counts like anything) and we spoke with due awe and respect of his gold medal. The Older Brother is an athlete, over the long distances. But really, we are not what you could call sporty. Despite this, we watched that 5,000 metres as if we understood every tactical decision, every acceleration, every dancing step. We ran each stride with the glorious Mo Farah, twitching, flinching, hiding our faces as all the other runners came at him.

Miraculously, he shrugged them off. He was like one of those brilliant thoroughbreds who just find a little extra, when it really counts. I cannot tell you the whooping and shrieking that went on, as everyone in our house, from eighty to nineteen, went batshit nuts in the head.

Then the diving started. It was unbearably tense. Luckily, someone remembered that there was the relay race, with the mighty Jamaican team; we turned over for Usain Bolt’s last hurrah. Suddenly, we all became Jamaican. (This, according to the pundits, has been a feature of these games. Britons have been overheard saying: ‘I’m feeling a little bit Australian today.’ Or: ‘Yesterday, I was slightly Dutch.’) When Blake ran his beautiful lap and Bolt took up the baton and roared down the straight, we went almost more nuts than when our home boy soared to victory. Presence of greatness, I suppose.

Back to the diving. Young Tom Daley had started off a little shaky, in the qualifying heats, but suddenly he was bringing his A game. All at once, we became diving experts. ‘No rip entry,’ said my sister, shaking her head. ‘Helicopter feet,’ mourned the Stepfather. ‘Too much splash,’ said my mother.

The Younger Niece stared seriously at the television. ‘I love him,’ she declared. ‘I am going to marry him.’

Tom Daley, at the age of eighteen, not so very long after he lost his father to fatal illness, won the bronze medal, and we made so much noise that I’m surprised the police did not arrive. The future Mrs Daley was beside herself.

In some ways, of course, it is all absurd, but if a games can have this effect on an ordinary family, on an ordinary Saturday night, it seems to me that there really is something magical in the air. Normality will return, of course it will; perspective will come back. But I don’t expect many of us shall forget this still Scottish night, when we screamed and dreamed and hoped and shouted and laughed our silly old heads off.

 

Late now, so just a couple of pictures:

My own Olympians:

The Hill:

Of crazy projects and gold medals

Slight state of collapse. Stayed up all night working on secret project. It has suddenly grabbed me and will not let go. I found myself wide awake at five in the morning, having written four thousand words.

I sent it to The Playwright. This is all his fault. It was his idea in the first place. I asked him to tell me at once if the whole thing was a load of buggery bollocks, because I had drunk so much coffee I could not tell. I did not want to send it to my agent if it was too shaming.

The reply came back before breakfast. ‘Send it,’ he wrote.

(I should explain what an act of friendship that is. It’s very difficult reading pages for someone to whom you are close; there are elephant traps everywhere. Also, The Playwright, as his name suggests, has things of his own to be writing. To read and respond so quickly is something not that many people would do. It is an act of true generosity and elegance.)

Anyway, I sent it.

The reply was also swift. Automated reply: agent out of the office until 13^th August. I had no idea how I was going to deal with the tension until then. Luckily, the Younger Niece has just received a diploma in bartending, so if the worst comes to the worst, I can get her to feed me white ladies.

Then, just before lunch, the agent emailed. She was on holiday in Italy, but she had read my twenty pages. ‘Write it,’ she wrote. ‘Already thinking of editors.’

I CANNOT TELL YOU WHAT THIS MEANS.

Sorry about the capitals. I got into hysterical cap mode whilst watching the dressage and it seems that this is a day for intemperance and hyperbole. The thing is, the last book was such a struggle. We never struck off on the right leg, and have been slightly out of kilter ever since. It will still need a battling third draft. But this secret project is pouring out of me like starlight. I never pull all-nighters except on the day before deadline. I had only sat down to noodle about for my own pleasure.

When a book grabs you by the neck, you can only submit. What you cannot tell is whether anyone else will be as entranced by it as you are yourself. That is why the agent’s email felt so sweet. I jumped and shouted and punched the air. The Pigeon looked most quizzical and slightly shocked.

So now I have a lovely new project which is real, not secret, and it feels as if something wonderful has shifted and I do not need to sit at my desk with my shoulders about my ears, desperately doing pitches which never quite hit the right note.

As a treat, I let myself watch the finals of the dressage in the afternoon. That was when the mad capital letter tweeting started. A resolute band of horse-lovers on my timeline was as nervy and excited as I. The levels of skill and beauty were off the scale. I may describe it on another day, when I can focus my eyes. But the glorious thing was that despite massive scores posted by the Dutch and Germans, Charlotte Dujardin, the British rider, won gold, with her lovely horse Valegro.

They performed a test of beauty and humour and a little sprinkling of patriotism even; it held a flash of eccentricity, a whiff of irony. It was, in other words, a very British test, except for the part where it was perfect, which is not a virtue these islands are known for. They were immaculate, and when they won, there was not a dry eye in the house. Certainly not in this house. It was really, really lovely.

Up to my own mare now. I may explain to her the mysteries of the reverse pirouette. Or, I may not. (Ha, ha, ha, she will say to Myfanwy the Pony, after I have gone; do you know what the old girl was banging on about tonight?)

 

Pictures of evening walk with The Younger Brother:

Pigeon, doing extended trot in honour of the dressage:

Red the Mare, showing off her flying change:

Hill:

In which I teeter right up to the brink of sentimentality; or, the Olympic horses make me cry

The day ran away with me like a brumby. Family, horses, work, Olympic show-jumping final, and suddenly it is after tea-time and I still have eighty-seven things to do. The problem is that I am rather in bits after watching the medal presentations. I had great hopes for the British team, especially the lovely young Scot, Scott Brash. But despite the most gallant efforts of horses and riders, there was a vital fence down, and they were out of the hunt. That is all it takes at this level: the merest brush of a hoof on a piece of wood.

In the end, though, it all worked out rather well. Britain got the team gold yesterday; it would be bad manners in a host to win every damn thing. Other riders were suddenly in with a chance, and the one who rose to glory, with a foot-perfect double clear, was Steve Guerdat of Switzerland. (That’s revenge for Andy Murray annihilating Roger Federer, wrote one of my tweeters.)

There were two particularly touching things about his joy. The first thing was that, as he rode his lap of honour to the roars of the crowd, he kept pointing down at his bonny horse, the immaculate Nino des Buissonnets. Cheer for him, he seemed to be saying; he’s the one who did it. (Tom Queally always does this when he comes in on Frankel, making sure full credit is given to the equine superstar, although everyone in racing is now so in love with Frankel that the gesture is hardly necessary.)

Then, the cameras followed the smiling Swiss out of the arena. He is a hardened professional of thirty. He has worked and strived and won many competitions at the highest level. But when he slid to the ground, he hurled his arms around his horse’s neck in a wild hug, with as much abandon and gratitude and love as if he were a six-year-old boy. The horse ducked his head, as if in acknowledgement, and the rider hugged him again, holding on for dear life. And that was when I lost all my composure and wondered if I should be able to write this at all.

Horses do just make me cry. I wept like a baby at Ascot, in front of a bunch of happy Australians, when Frankel stormed home in the Queen Anne. I sobbed like a child when Kauto Star won his fifth King George. I still remember the tears coming out at right angles when Desert Orchid fought through the ground and the weather to win his Gold Cup, all those years ago. I sometimes get a little teary when Red is leaning her head on my chest and going to sleep, as I rub her neck and murmur nonsense in her ear, just because of the beauty and the sweetness and the incomprehensible connection across the species divide.

I don’t know why they make me cry so much. I think it is because they have a purity to them. Humans are complex and contradictory and complicated. (Although I admit they make me weep too, but not in quite the same way.) Horses are gloriously simple. If you treat them right, they will do anything for you. They will even try for people who don’t treat them right at all. They will run their hearts out, and jump insane obstacles, and learn new things, and put up with vast amounts of human nonsense.

I was thinking this morning, as I worked with Red, how the wrong words get applied to horses. I’ve written of this before. People say, oh he’s a bit nappy, or rather spooky, or very naughty. I’ve said these things myself. But the more I work in this new partnership, the more I realise that, with a very few exceptions, the horse is almost always doing its best. Naughtiness or nappiness are more usually confusion, because the human is asking a contradictory question, or fear, or an ancient sense memory of pain or ill-treatment or moments of peril. (Horses, like elephants, do not forget.)

I love them because they are so willing, and so honest, and they try so hard. And for some idiot reason, that brings tears to my eyes.

 

Today’s pictures:

Myfanwy the Pony:

Red the Mare:

Here is someone else who tries hard. In contrast to yesterday’s melancholy display, today she is happy because I THREW THE BALL:

The hill:

Of horses, gold medals and secret projects

It turns out I have a secret project. I love a secret project. Most of these go nowhere, but merely occupy my midnight hours. This one, however, may have legs. It was suggested to me by The Playwright, and since he is the wisest man I know, I usually do exactly what he says. (I always know he is serious when he starts a telephone call with a firm, yet faintly quizzical, ‘Now...’)

Anyway, this morning I just sat down and wrote 1695 words of the secret project, on top of my other work. So I feel rather surprised and industrious.

I watched the dressage in the afternoon as a treat. Everyone rode beautifully and the horses did the impossible things that dressage horses do, and madly, Britain won. Blighty has never won a dressage medal in its life. Roumania and Mexico have more dressage medals than we do, and one does not necessarily think of them as the home of the English style of riding. But suddenly everything shone with perfection and not a hoof was in the wrong place and everyone practically fainted with astonishment and pleasure.

Every time I turn on the wireless now, I hear an excited reporter saying: ‘Britain’s won another gold medal.’ I literally heard that exact sentence on the way up to the mares to do evening stables, and on the way home again. What is rather sweet is that it is not said in any triumphalist way. Britain is used to being a bit crap, her glory days behind her. She watches, like a tired and indulgent old aunt, as the boisterous teenagers, America and China, take over the world. They expect, I suspect, to be world-beaters. It always astonishes me when I hear American politicians or commentators state with certainty that theirs is the greatest nation on earth. I am slightly envious of such self-belief. If asked, most Britons might mutter that their country is ‘all right, I suppose’. It’s the same mindset that replies ‘Not too bad,’ when asked how one is.

So the sports reporters sound not like mighty titans, certain of British glory, but like little boys, absolutely giddy and astounded that these things are happening to battered old us. Even the BBC newsreaders who are on strict instructions from the grave of Lord Reith never to get excited about anything (impartiality at all times) cannot keep an antic delight out of their voices.

I love it. I love that people are getting excited about sports they never heard of until two weeks ago. My mother follows everything, and now is quite knowledgeable about archery and judo. Who knew that Britons were brilliant at the dressage and the pommel horse? Someone on Twitter got very cross when I dared to suggest that the national mood was light, pointing out, quite correctly that there isn’t really any such thing as national mood. But there perhaps are moments of national spirit, when the imagination of the public is caught, and something in the dusty zeitgeist shifts, and I think this might be one of those times.

The mare, catching a whiff of Olympic fever in the air, decided to perform her very own dressage test out in her field. It was sort of polo dressage: tight turns, sudden flat gallop, floating extended trot, stop on a sixpence. She loves doing this when the mood is in her, and it makes me double up with laughter. What always astonishes me is that when the bronco is out of her, she immediately reverts to her dozy donkey state. She turns to me, lowers her head in a little bow, and offers her forehead for scratching. The lower lip wibbles and the eyelashes flutter, and the wild thing becomes a dope, who only wishes for love. It’s very touching. At moments like that, my heart bursts in my chest, and I run out of words for love.

 

Today’s pictures:

Here goes Red the mare, with all her high ancestry thrilling in her:

And then, when she has calmed down and had a nice brush, she looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth:

Myfanwy the Pony, who did excellent work this morning:

This is the face the Pigeon makes when I make her pose for photographs instead of throwing her ball:

Isn’t it pitiful? I think she may be developing into a bit of a drama queen in her old age:

Hill: